Guild Wars 2

[Zetor]

I'm not worried about pvp in GW2 at all. The only thing "missing" (other than maybe CTF or team deathmatch, but honestly conquest is better than either of those IMO) is world pvp, aka. get ganked by someone 40 levels above you while questing. I'll be sure to shed a single tear for the loss of that 'feature'. :P

(and yeah, I always played on pvp servers in MMOs... until SWTOR, anyway)

[caladein]

What is technically an instance and what players think of when speaking of them are different things.  Technically, any game with multiple servers is instanced, too.

Yes, but 500/3 is still a small enough number that it should present all the characteristics of an instance on the interface and social coordination sides to the average player.  Unless the servers themselves are microscopic.

[Draegan]

Uh, 1500 people on a huge map is not very constricting.

[tazelbain]

I love how pvp discussion always devolves to what's "meaningful".

[Nebu]

I love how pvp discussion always devolves to what's "meaningful".

It's a worthwhile discussion even if people tend to disagree.  Some like an attached gear grind, some prefer an ability grind, others enjoy objectives.  It's interesting to see what motivates gamers, particularly when those gamers are as experienced and articulate as the people on f13.

[Azuredream]

I can't stand ranks/levels where it's just a single bar going steadily up that unlocks new things. When you get past the first few it starts to feel like an awful grind when it shouldn't, simply because it takes 300 matches/2000 kills/whatever just to get to the next unlocking. I don't like WoW's huge disparity in stats on gear rewards of different caliber, but I like just earning points and then spending them on whatever you want to upgrade. Proper carrot spacing is important.

[caladein]

Uh, 1500 people on a huge map is not very constricting.

What does 1500 refer to?  The statements I'm seeing for WvW map size is 300-500 for each map, not per side per map.

More importantly, my point wasn't about constricting or meaningful, it was about the statement "the thing they're calling WvWvW is not instanced".

And it is, technically.  And unless the servers are really small (because that's the important variable when it comes to the next bit), there will be more than one going at a time and you'll probably need to wait in line to get into your friend's/guild's instance at some point.  So it will "act like an instance" to the average player.

[ashrik]

In that regard, they have indicated that there will not be more than one of each of the 4 mist maps for the PVP

[Draegan]

Uh, 1500 people on a huge map is not very constricting.

What does 1500 refer to?  The statements I'm seeing for WvW map size is 300-500 for each map, not per side per map.

More importantly, my point wasn't about constricting or meaningful, it was about the statement "the thing they're calling WvWvW is not instanced".

And it is, technically.  And unless the servers are really small (because that's the important variable when it comes to the next bit), there will be more than one going at a time and you'll probably need to wait in line to get into your friend's/guild's instance at some point.  So it will "act like an instance" to the average player.

Right, I did dumb math.  500 people is still a lot for a single map.

[Shatter]

I love how pvp discussion always devolves to what's "meaningful".

Why beating down a door for 5 minutes silly goose

[Bungee]

I love how pvp discussion always devolves to what's "meaningful".

Why beating down a door for 5 minutes silly goose

Realism?

[Fordel]

The door time is actually very important. If you don't throttle the rate at which an attacker can claim an objective, the defender has no way to mount a defense.


-edit-


The DOOR itself is also very important, it provides a focus point for both sides, a barrier of separation and a means for the defenders to hold of superior numbers, if temporarily.

[Redgiant]

So their 'RvR' is called WvWvW, but its very much instanced, just bigger ones which last longer than usual. They still:
- have a specific lifetime, then they end
- have an entrance gate (i.e. you can be denied access depending)
- have no real persistence effects on the overal world, other than internal persistence for 2 weeks
- are essentially encapsulated as "the world", since you cannot do strategy between the other 2 week instances going on
- have no travel strategy or sneak/feint/etc tactics (except within the provided instance, but not across the real world of players)
- have no factions or different cultures or races to demarc who fights who and realm motivation for why - are they going to 'red stripe' opposing players?

Seems to me this is still not what DAoC and Planetside did years ago better. I was hoping for more of a real simulation for scale and tactics, where any second could be an attack or counter across the globe, with Call to Arms-style faction/realm excitement, not more standing in a lobby picking some box to be put into (again). At least it's a 2 week box, which is better I guess.

Their PvE was already great for what it was. But PvP for me is all about realistically pushing the same buttons and strategic warfare that you would really ponder over. No major game today seems to do that now.

Planetside 2 seems to have the 3 sides which are all different, and open-world preserved at least, regardless of what else they change from the original PS.

[Fordel]

2 weeks is plenty of persistence. It also helps mitigate the issue of say, being 'Mid Igraine'.

Midgard on Igraine WISHES they held onto their own relics for 2 weeks.

[tazelbain]

Hard for me not to go the way of sinji on this.

First, instanced isn't a dirty word to me. I am glad that GW's RvR is instanced.

DAoC/PS didn't seem persistent to me, they felt static. The boundaries and rules of the playing field were well defined like any football game and just as arbitrary.  I felt no urgency to participate in RvR since you could never lose anything of value.  It was like a football game that never ended, players came and went, never keeping score.  Pointless, and in the case of DAoC ran like dogshit for any significant sized battle.  In GW2, you still can't lose anything of value, they will be keeping score.  You are going to be matched against servers of similar strength. There is going a best server in the world!  These instances will be big improvement because the hopeless usually sets in for the under-powered teams can be mitigated and the boredom for over-powered teams can be avoided by the reshuffling.  These factors I believe are going to promote competition between players and investment in outcomes greater anything except EvE in its glory days.

I am hoping Bat Country settles on a back-water server so that our participation can have the most impact.

[eldaec]

It sounds different enough from other stuff to be worth trying, so I don't really mind that it isn't daoc.

Copying things already demonstrated to be worse at large scale pvp than daoc is where it gets irritating.

Oh hi WAR.

[UnsGub]

Resets are good.  It is what make profession sports work and get them a champion every season.

[eldaec]

We should have a thread where we talk about how exclusive team sport style pvp is not necessarily a good thing in a MMOG endgame.

[Draegan]

We should have a thread where we talk about how exclusive team sport style pvp is not necessarily a good thing in a MMOG endgame.

Not sure what this means.

[Goumindong]

We should have a thread where we talk about how exclusive team sport style pvp is not necessarily a good thing in a MMOG endgame.

Not sure what this means.

Ideas that work in esports (E.G. league of Legends) do not necessarily work in MMOG's.

[Fordel]

It's a good thing RvR is inclusive then?

[pxib]

It is almost impossible to overestimate the number of ideas that do not work in MMOGs. They last too long.

Although unlockable levels, talents, and gear have easily made the transition from worlds to games, things don't flow the other way. The difficulty is in the "world" part. It has to be up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and players consume content orders of magnitude faster than it can be created... and the experience of being part of a thriving, evolving world lasts almost precisely as long as the content holds out. After that you're just repeat-grinding some cockblock or another hoping that you'll get the next rare piece of shiny.

An eSports PvP ending is no worse a surrender to the inevitable than, say, Firelands dailies.

[UnsGub]

We should have a thread where we talk about how exclusive team sport style pvp is not necessarily a good thing in a MMOG endgame.

Team sports and PvP both require a start, middle, and end to be meaningful for me.

Nobody has yet to fully embrace the "season" concept from sports into a PvP MMO yet.

A two week cycle is a starting point.

[eldaec]

Resets will be fine. The important thing about rvr is letting everyone play.

I only really mentioned that sport pvp doesn't make a good end game, because that is where you see fixed team sizes, forcing players to exclude newer members of the community. And because we had several hundred page threads about it while waiting for WAR.

[Draegan]

We should have a thread where we talk about how exclusive team sport style pvp is not necessarily a good thing in a MMOG endgame.

Team sports and PvP both require a start, middle, and end to be meaningful for me.

Nobody has yet to fully embrace the "season" concept from sports into a PvP MMO yet.

A two week cycle is a starting point.

This is pretty much it.  Open world PVP is a pain in the ass because it's just there.  You need the perfect storm of enough players to just happen to be there to make it work perfectly.  This is why places like Outlaw's Den and Ilum in TOR failed horribly.  They are incredibly entertaining ideas and if everyone was playing with the same intent, then they would be fun.  But the implementation was terrible.  Especially when there is no number balancing.

Open world pvp will only work when you put enough people in a single area doing different things.  Rift almost got it right (PVE oriented PVP dailies, rifts, invasions, events etc), but the two faction balance thing is awful most of the time.  It would of worked better with a third faction or zero factions.

GW2 looks like they are taking the FPS route with their non-WvW PVP. 

[Nebu]

I always saw the gear tiers as 'seasons' in WoW sport pvp.  Perhaps I've just oversimplified things for myself.

[Draegan]

I always saw the gear tiers as 'seasons' in WoW sport pvp.  Perhaps I've just oversimplified things for myself.

You can look at it that way, and they do refer to them as seasons.  The only shitty thing is, is that it's a pain in the ass to get "current".  Every season starts with some people with a leg up.

Hopefully GW2 is all about points and wins and the gear stays static.

[UnsGub]

because that is where you see fixed team sizes, forcing players to exclude newer members of the community.

Technology will always impose a limit on team sizes.

Sports handles new members to a community with various tier systems.  They range from watching the game, to basic participation of sometype (organizing, sponsoring, playing, coaching, officials, etc.), and up the ladder of compedition leading to the best in world (World Championship, Olympics, Tour de France, etc.).

This has occurred somewhat in World of Tanks Clan Wars as different areas of map provided different rewards.  Starting clan fight to get on the map, then the low rewards and experienced clans fight to maintain position of the high rewards.

[eldaec]

Not if community size applies one first - see daoc.

The point is nobody turns up to a portal keep in daoc and got turned away.

[kildorn]

Not if community size applies one first - see daoc.

The point is nobody turns up to a portal keep in daoc and got turned away.

You should ask our local Mids about that. Because it was hilariously stupid.

"Hey guys, there's like 90 dudes out there." "GET OFF MY JOCK YOU'RE ZERGING OMG STOP FOLLOWING US"

Our mids had some special people. Albs had them as well, but they were a far smaller slice of the population total, so if you saw 8 of them somewhere you just figured they lagged and got lost. :P

[Redgiant]

The reset issue is present in any game. Open-world games might have a 2 week reset at midnight server time where relics just poof back to their home keeps. Instances just end, I guess - same thing.

The bigger issue for engagement in any PvP model is: what does it mean to 'win', what are you trying to get done, and what sort of player interaction and communication are you after?

This is where games really diverge, esp. when comparing older games like DAoC to anything today.

DAoC:
- win: taking and defending relics, and keep taking/holding in general. DF PvE control, RP ability growth were also effects of doing all this, but it is the tactical and strategic fighting that was the draw. everything in real-time and on the field. everything you did in RvR was related to and fed back into the RvR environ. whole world is a giant instance that does not end, only artificlally reset to fix severe imbalance. attack plans are the norm (scouting, timing, allocation, overall game plan)
- players: knowing your realmmates (not just your guild only), who the best players are form experience with them, including everyone in the effort (even lower levels who want to help), alliance communicatons to bring out more people when needed, realm pride motivation to come help when called upon. enemies are different race, culture, can't talk to them, recognize good enemy players by ongoing on-field reputation.

Modern:
- win: taking or doing something, then its over. get points for it, usually used for better gear shopping outside the instance. small specific repititious instances and patterns. very much unlike realtime ongoing fighting simulation.
- players: might know premade or guildies, usually don't know others in your group(s). don't know enemy players usually. no outside communication, motivation in instance necessary, no alliances or high-level strategic coordination (scouting, feints, coordinsted attacks, flanking, etc) due to instance size, duration or instance population not knowing each other. cross-server queues and insta-travel almost guarantee no one talks to each other much, or cares that they don't

Btw, even DAoC's resets would not have been necessary to articially introduce, had they evolved RvR with more formal inter-realm alliances, and more 'spreading too thin' incremental penalties for an overly-dominant realm. If, say, Mids and Albs could formally ally once Hibs had 5 relics and the game treated them as same-side for AE dmg and enabled 'interpreters' so they could communicate directly while allied, it would have made it much easier to self-enforce so that no one realm ever stayed totally dominant for too long. You could also have limited the total door upgrade levels and NPC guard spawn levels/numbers to emulate supply-lines being stretched too thin. The world self-balancing with these compensations is the best way.

I'm still boggled that no one except Planetside(2) has a MMO with 3 sides, or did I miss one.

As for GW2, maybe in a 2 week long micro-world instance, some of the old DAoC-style aspects may matter more than usual in short instances.

[Lantyssa]

... and 30 points!

[Zetor]

Welcome to the club. 

I briefly considered going for 35 or getting this title (the only GW1 title that transfers to GW2 if you max it) after I got there, figuring it wouldn't be too bad to just get 5 more points or max a few titles, right?!
Then I tried to estimate the potential grind time involved in maxing titles... oh my god it's full of stars 

[Sky]

Math in mmo is bad. Especially when calculating time investments needed. I love TOR, but they definitely put in the stupid time sinks at the end. The funny thing is I've heard several times how easy it is.

[Lantyssa]

Welcome to the club. 

I had been sitting at 27 points for ages.  I just decided to bind my minis and sell the black dye I had been hoarding to buy a suit of Asura armor to get my full display of five.

Now that my ranger will be able to collect all the pets, I can relax.