Guild-hall and Arena.Net on PvP

Here is the happenings over at another forum. I would prefer not to directly link as im sure gwguru wants people to read these forums.

But it pertains to GW and has a dev post so I thought I would post it here, sorry to any admins if I messed up somehow.

((((((From post))))))))


My name is Dac the Hork, Former Alpha Tester, Former Leader of Blood Eagle, I have over 2700 fame on my account.

This is an open Rebuttal of Arena.Net, the company. First I will go into detail of what drove me to make this post so hopefully it is understood at a much better level. I am a gamer, while it is not my life, if there is a great game that comes out I can be entirely consumed for long periods of time. I find a great fun in playing online games especially with an opponent or working together. I seek fun primarily in games, I have been through competitive games, fun games, hugely popular games, and dedicated 100s of hours to games 3 people played.

This post is in response to how Arena.Net has treated PvP in Guildwars. I will use the above post by Alex Weekes a Dev at arena.net along with quotes form www.guildwars.com The official Guildwars site. Into how Arena.Net misled gamers, used shoddy marketing models, and crafty PR to trick me and many other gamers into advertising and helping there game.

He mentions TGH is a small forum dedicated to PvP, pre release TGH had the widest user base in all Guildwars fansites. Yes the site he calls small and dedicated to guildwars was one of the largest most active Guildwars Forums besides maybe vnboards. The PVP minority as he calls it is actually the PVP community, all the issues we present, are spoken through guilds and reflect the entire PVP scene. What he does not realize is that PVP players in general do not post on forums or whine. In fact, My old guild Blood Eagle had over 50 members and of that 45 at least complained about the grind.

This "vocal minority" represents a huge population of gamers. Now why would PVP players be mad at what they bought? Well we wouldn't be so mad if Arena.net did not lie to us. Now calling Arena.Net lyers might seem a stretch to some, unless I showed proof.

Here is the proof taken directly from www.guildwars.com

"Built for Competition

If you like Player-versus-Player competition, Guild Wars was made for you. The game is designed to reward player skill and teamwork, not time spent playing, so you won't need to spend hundreds of hours leveling up your character to compete. New heroes can be deleted and created at any time, allowing you to create specialized characters or to have fun experimenting with profession combinations, skills, and attributes until you create the hero that suits you best. Guild Wars takes the best elements of today's massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates some of the more tedious aspects of those games.

..and yet does not require players to spend hundreds of hours slogging through the preparation just to get to the fun bits....

Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game). Guild Wars was designed from the ground up to create the best possible competitive role-playing experience. Success in Guild Wars is always the result of player skill, not time spent playing or the size of one's guild. "

This sounds like a good game for a pvper right? Well yes it does, unfortunately Arena.Net lies and continues to lie on their site. With this false advertising of a game it isn't hard to sell copies to hardcore players.

"it is clear that amongst the top few % of GW's competitive guilds there is an apparent need for (near-)fully unlocked accounts."

I guess there is a "need" for players to have an even playing field with access to every counter? Are you sure about this? In a competitive game as you speak based on skill, there is a need for a fair playing field? But only the best players deserve this?????????????????? So the ****ty players will be stuck with ****ty gear? Im sure this PVP game is going to take off.

"I think actions speak louder than words, and it's clear from our actions since release that we *are* listening to player concerns and we *are* taking carefully considered steps towards solutions."

well from such a respectful company that lies to gamers, now we will read this next quote. Yes I am sure you are listening, and I am sure from the response we get from Alex, that we will never recieve a quality PVP environment.

Anyway I have to say from the beginning of the game 2 years ago, Arena.Net has utterly lost all credibility to all serious and even casual gamers. They are not a good company and used false advertising to sell games at the expense of gamers. They did not uphold their promises which speaks volumes about them.

Anyway some people still have "hope" for Arena.Net fixing pvp. From the above post by alex it is clear they consider us a small minority and will never fix the game.

So to end the rebuttal a nice down to earth Dac The hork ending.

((((((Snip)))))))

From

*former*
Alpha Tester
Die Hard Fan
Leader of Blood Eagle

((((Snipped the flame. ~Narcism))))

Anyway here are the links to threads that started it although please respond and stay on these forums

PvP is dead thread that started it.

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23837

rebuttal to post by a.net

http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23908

While I will not support any side, I simply find it interested. Your take?

ANet could have created the perfect game for all, flawless to the Nth degree, and people would still bitch about something.

So far, I'm happy with it and looking forwards to the upcoming added content.

Large forum != majority of playerbase. In fact, in every game I've ever played where there was a forum prescence, the forum posters have always been vocal, and always been the minority. And those who fancy themselves the hardest of the hardcore are inevitably the most prolific of the posters, and thus of the whiners.

And that post was a senseless whine. I especially love where he says that they should move all the content devs to move to fixing PvP...good one. There are a variety of decent suggestions to help GW. A mindless, poorly written rant isn't helping anything. And the claim that the devs have made no updates to the game is also laughable. While they may not have been the updates the mighty elite PvP gods wanted, they were updates never the less.

Also, the part I find hilarious is the inflated sense of self worth from this class of player. You see it in just about every PvP oriented game, and its always amusing.

To the OP...

While I agree with the points of your thread, this game is not primary PvP, nor is it PvE...

I'm kind of tired of people thinking otherwise.

Ahem, Starcraft?

Go on Battle.net forums and try to find a overpowered thread by a top player. Oh snap, there isn't any. How is it a near-decade old game has better replayability and gameplay and balance then all these darn games nowadays?

To be fair, UAS is stupid when you look at it from a whole. Faction is fine, it's rather how you earn it and how fast a casual player can earn it that makes it plain stupid. GvG outfactions everything by a large chunk once your in the guild for 2 weeks, and your suppose to cater to everyone. Tombs is a joke as a whole, so besides fixing the whole damn thing, let's exclude it in faction. Arena's are fine, but the bonuses are crap, and aren't worth it. If it could stackable bonus where it keeps going up, it'll be worth something. Don't use some excuse because arena is arena, if a teams good enough to earn ten thousand faction by having a 100 win streak in this setting beating team arena teams, you better damn well bet they deserve it. Hell, factions not even that important to most people now that GvG.

The real lie and false advertisement came from the hype in interviews, and how in reality, the game engine couldn't support all the things they said they could. The game engine blows, it's a 3D version of Diablo 2. You can't even jump, and while jumping is pointless, it signifies that your character is bumpmapped and basically on a roller coaster map engine system. All those pathing problems and such you can blame on the sad engine. I mean the engines great for the $$ and stability purpose, but it severely cut down the options you can do.

I don't see any false advertising. I've been doing PvP with a stock Paladin PvP template and it works great. I actually made to the HoH with a PUG with it. I'm tired of all the whining. The introduction of faction is proof that they are listening. I don't care if suggestions are made, but there is a fine line between suggestion and whining and this post is planted firmly in the whine section.

The Pvp whiners are the vocal majority. All you have to do is compare how many complainers there are to how many people are playing PvP at any given time. And I bet, that even at 3 am, the number of AMERICAN not european or korean just american PvPers out numbers those complaining about PvP.

If your unsatisfied with the PvP you should have realized that you wouldn't like it as an Alpha Tester. That alone makes me wonder about your credibility. You knew before anyone what was in store and went along with it anyway. I did 2 BWE's and knew what the PvP would be like, INCLUDING UNLOCKING.

Just yesterday I replied to a post on how I thought the maturity of the of the GW community was stabalizing to the level it was when we were playing the BWE's, I guess I was wrong.

Works great? Made it to HoH? News flash, some guy MADE it to HoH back then with 4 henchmen alone. Does that mean his build PWNZ? Stock Paladin Template? You can believe all you want, I'm not some conversionist, but try playing something that isn't beatable by Alesia and Stephen. No wait, I take it back, the henchmen are after all better then a significant amount of players.


Europeans are scarce enough as it is buddy, if they started complaining, the whole europe server districts would be empty. Korea? Wait where did the original War Machine and where did Kor go again? =(


Some of us aren't alpha testers. And secondly, some of us thought it would umm, improve? And not ummm, keep sucking lower and lower? You've got to have low standards if you thought crap like Natures Renewel wouldn't be addressed in a month. Warcraft 3 patches faster then this.

Just now, I was going to make a post about how BlackAce finally got the job done and newbies started to keep quiet, but hey, thanks for letting the guy keep his job.

EDIT: Hey look, I found a shining example, someone made a new thread about something I wanted like, in BETA. Something that doesn't ruin ANYTHING, and all the excuses from A.net so far are beyond bullshit. Something as simple as this:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=32505

See that? It's toggle on capes. Wow, purely for that "neat" bonus. What was their rebuttle? Something about sense of loyalty if I remember, that Guild Leaders wouldn't want you not to show you your true allegience? Grow up morons, the Guild Leader will decide if they want to be asshats or not, but for those who play PVE and for those who like collecting your stupid 15k and fissure armour, people want to have the maximum "best look" ok? It's been said by me since beta, and you can't even spend 15 minutes to put something like this in. And people dare say "stop whining" or "Anet is so listening to us". I fail to see how they can make a legitimate rebuttle vs something as simple about this change which can only make the game more playable no matter how small the change is.

i get a link to a 24 page thread and i am not going to play sift through the haystack looking forr your idea

besided i have asked for cape toggle myself for a long time and will not buy a cape until it is available

if never i can live without it

Lov, it's not that whether or not we can live without it or not, it's the fact that a 15 minute change was not done even though it was mentioned by people like you and me even back during beta and all they did was give a half ass excuse which probably took longer to make then go change it.

There is no such thing as a '15 minute' change to a released piece of software. I know you think its a 15 minute change, but that has no bearing on how long it actually would take.

Also, Starcraft took at least a year post release to become balanced, so using it as an example for Guild Wars is just asking to be laughed at, since by that time line we still have a lot of time left before we need to worry.

And would you care to elaborate on your jumping comments? Since there is a jump emote, I'd venture to guess jumping wasn't added for gameplay reasons, and not due to some limititation of the engine. The engine is far more more than a D2 clone, but then again if I got a dime for every unfounded assertion on an internet forum I'd be giving Bill Gates a run for his money.

I think the major problem here is a basic difference in philosophy. Hardcore PvPers (and forgive my generality) tend to be "instant gratification" types. They want to play NOW, win NOW, kill right the &*$@ NOW. They don't want to wait even 5 seconds to become full-blown killing machines. Anything that deters from that objective therefore becomes "pointless" and "grind". Does this make them poor players, or whiners? Not at all. That's just simply their desire and expectation.

PvE players on the other hand are just the opposite. They see gratification in long term goals... getting all the mission bonuses, capping that last elite skill, whatever it happens to be. They get giddy everytime that "<item> Unlocked" box pops up on their screen. Exploring the game world is a pleasure for them, not a chore.

To a degree, ANet dug their own grave by promising exceptional PvE and PvP content. It is very difficult (and from the rants it looks impossible) to please both of these groups. What satisfies one tends to upset the other. Some PvEers thought the Faction system would devalue PvE play for example. I think however that we have to take ANet at their word that they are trying. The problem is that they set a goal that is probably never attainable.

I have to say these topics are getting pointless. It's so obvious that Arenanet lied to us from the beta, and does not intend to show their development plan to the public for discussion. Arenanet either does not want or have the financial backing to commit to an actual competitive community. They dug themselves a pvp fan base in the beta, cashed in on their support, and then when the game is released they found themselves wanting to sell even more copies of this game for traditional mmo/role playing players. Oh the original hardcore pvp fans can wait; they are addicted, and they will buy this game for sure. We must push the game further to attract more mmo players! To meet that goal, we need to push for new maps, new quests, and more armor and weapon models!

Money first, suggestions later. When the game just came out, a lot of things were still unbalanced/unfixed. Forget about the guild-cape suggestion. What about the problem of people going link-dead in mid-mission? This is still a major annoyance for both PvE and PvP play, like it was when I played in October last year. I've heard some rumor about how it was being looked at by the devs, and now the world rejoices when we have a mage henchie replacement at the hall of heros who drops firestorm 2 seconds after the target enemy is dead.

How much of the devs' attention is actually going into competitive play? We will probably never know. Gaile can say something on a FF, and the devs can decide to ditch that idea the next week! I'm guessing the whole suggestion of "let's find a fix for dropped players to reconnect to the instance" now sits in the buttom of some dev's waste basket as well, along with the idea of "casual game play, requires skills not time...".

It's been more than 3 months since the game was released, and the only official pvp contest we saw was the "beat the dev" event. That was more like a publicity stunt for E3/game release than a real tournament. There was a patch to enchance the pvp gameplay via factions. Oh Arenanet, you big tease! I want a good build to win and earn factions, while I need factions to get a good build! Hey but I can farm factions instead of killing against articifial unintelligent mobs, I guess I will shut up now!

Whatever happened to 3rd party observer mode in PvP? Don't tell me. It was an rhetoric question. I'll go back to farm factions now. I'm soon to unlock all the skills, and upgrade components anyway. Yes, I believed in false advertisement. Yes, I believe Arenanet lied to me, but I still play GW like a sucker. I'll play because it doesn't cost me 15 bucks a month, and I'll play untill all my friends quit playing. I laughed when some real life friend messaged me the other day saying how he just purchased guildwars, and how soon he would be able to play alongside with me. I know that he will rush through the story for the next few weeks to get his skills for pvp. If he refuse give up mid-way, I know that he will have to rush through the story at least two more time to complete unlocking skills for versatile pvp character creation. Life is a bitch, so is Guildwars PvP. I know he would never get to enjoy the story, but hey, it is only fair.

Er. You've answered your own question. When they've put ten more years of work into Guild Wars, come back and we'll compare the games.

I'm not trying to knock Starcraft. But that's like comparing the weightlifting champion of the world to Superman and saying, "Pfah! Superman throws trains! This guy can barely lift a car!"

Like Sammiel said, there's no 15 minute change. Even if it miraculously was 15 minutes of a programmers time (it's more), you have left out all of the decision makers who decide what to implement (this includes a lot of scheduling), as well as QA testing the feature to make sure it doesn't destroy the world (which is more or less how some forum posters will react even if it works perfectly).

Mentioning something "during beta" doesn't make it important or easy. It's still a large investment of time.

Its more like 300+ hours until you can get everything you want, without a guild giving you stacks of unided runes, and unided weapons.

I truly hope you were intentionally taking my comment out of context. I know the amount of time needed to unlock everything is substantial. I was not attempting to make light of that.

My point was that most (not all) PvP players view ANYTHING that stands between them and full capability to be an unacceptable obstacle. Reducing the obstacle is not sufficient. The only thing that will satisfy them is to remove it entirely. Hence the OP's assertion, yet again, that UAS must be made available. And that's why there will always be an incompatibility between that wants and desires of the PvP community and those that primarily play PvE.

Yes, a proper balance between PvE and PvP is something this game really needs. PvE, at least for me, is quite repetitive.

Now, when you are new to the game and pick your first character, it is likely that you won't know what your preferred style will be. That's why you'll most likely have to do the game again if you want to be competitive in PvP. And while I would really like to fool around with new and fresh builds, I think I'd rather die than again follow Rurik around, plant all these vines and babysit Jalis

Yeah, so I basically repeated everything that has been already said. Go me

You would think the OP has played some other MMORPGS besides Guild Wars. Several of his statements indicate otherwise.
Top Guilds have been driving content since UO; the straw that breaks the camels back is whether the game designers cave to the "pressure" from this top 1% of the population - yielding an unplayable game by the other 99%...EQ anyone?
Or stick to their guns, at the possible expense of losing these creme de elites to another more "acceptable" game..
Guild Wars has no monthly fees....so to the uber guilds:
Piss off.

Whatever is said, its true. Hundreds of hours playing not eh?

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=40106

and how many of them have uas? and equipment.
I myself have spent 300 hours so far, which pales in comparison to those guys but is still a fair amount, and im about half way on skills, about a fifth on equipment max.
So is that not a lie? Thats not bitching, in what is known as the 'world' people say what their gonna do then they do it (in a fair world before anyone says anything smart). This simply hasnt happened.
I love gw, the concept, playing, yada yada yada. im simply saying what has happened.

The top guilds....... mostly beta players whove been involved in the game for the last 2 years. Thats quite a long time, and they are dam knowlegable so its a loss to the strat communities like these forums, but there are 1000's of players around, and when i do /age, it says the games been out for 2 months>? or three. Thats no time at all.

Promises -----> unfulfilled promises = dissapointment.

Ill keep playing more than likely, but i do hope they fix it.

on a side note, uas isnt hard (still takes a while, im still going after starting whats written below....a week ago). Im talking about the principle up there^^

three characters, r/e, wa/mo, me/n. all good combos. get to beacons perch, it isnt hard, then run to droks. You can run to yaks nowadays as well. Then you have a lot of skills unlocked plus some elites. Then stroll through the game with elites and good armour. To those who are 'zealous', i say, you have a point, but get on with it

wow, I mean wow......wow!
What a sad attempt at trying to discourage the very small amount of players of the entire GW community that posts on these boards.

You say lies? I say you just lost your touch, and don't have the skills to compete anymore.
The pvp templates are more than enough, and considering that the only builds wanted for pvp are these templates, I'd say you get a jump start by skipping the entire pve part, although you miss out on alot of fun, and a chance to not be like every one else.

This thread is complete stupidity, and if you think that A-net has lied or misguided you in anyway, then you should leave, we would be better off without you. Go play Warcraft 3 if you think it's so much better, or WoW so you can go camp a boss for 3 hours while I get another 4 levels on my char, and 10plat and 1000faction from arena's!!!

Pff, I don't need your kind, and neither does Guild Wars!

Most of the pvp templates are very sub-par character builds and do not work very well with each other in many instances.

Commenting on the intellegence of the thread when compared against your opinion of the templates being "more than enough" looks more like an uninformed flame than a rational arguement.

To be quite literal, when compared to the time when UAS existed versus now, they don't have the "skills" anymore.