Curse

JR · Apr 04, 2008, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

That's what you think. I can safely say 99% of the GW community think you're wrong. Granted, they're the casual clueless player, but I'd still say given the proportions of people who dislike skill balance vs people who do, ignoring the minority and giving the majority's opinion isn't necessarily wrong for that type of job.

Think about it this way.

If Guild Wars was a primarily PvP game with a smaller PvE community, would it be a waste of time for CR to report issues with PvE mobs because they don't effect the majority? No, of course not.

It seems my use of large chunk was a little ambiguous, maybe I should have gone with non-trivial segment instead.

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Originally Posted by holymasamune

Maybe when there was a larger proportion of "intelligent" players around, Gaile should've conveyed some of those ideas, but frankly as it stands for the past year (while you haven't been playing the game) the population that cares about skill balance is too insignificant.

My post was in the context of Gaile never having taken the job, and someone competent being offered the role instead.

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Originally Posted by holymasamune

If you were one of the leaders involved in world issues, and every country in the world besides Andorra suggests one thing, would you seriously consider Andorra's viewpoint, even if they provide a good argument? If you answer yes, good luck keeping that leadership position, since you'll be ousted or ridiculed by pretty much the entire world.

My point was also working under the rather weighty assumption that better PvP CR would have led to a larger PvP community. I mean we are talking pretty big deals here; PvP features sooner, better/faster balance updates, possibly even earlier third party tournaments. You would be surprised how much weight a good community manager can swing, their job after all is retaining players.

DreamWind · Apr 04, 2008, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

That's what you think. I can safely say 99% of the GW community think you're wrong.

Has there ever been a stat release/study on the number of PvE vs PvP players? Yes I know there are far more PvE players, but all I ever hear are random stats thrown around for purpose of argument. We never get any real numbers. I would like some kind of official Anet stats (since they seem to be in a stat releasing mood recently).

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

If you were one of the leaders involved in world issues, and every country in the world besides Andorra suggests one thing, would you seriously consider Andorra's viewpoint, even if they provide a good argument? If you answer yes, good luck keeping that leadership position, since you'll be ousted or ridiculed by pretty much the entire world.

That is a good point. I think this is a different situation though.

PvP would have a much larger community if it were given more support. I don't even think thats a major assumption. I basically consider it largely probable. Also, PvP is half of the game. It would be like Andorra taking up half the Earth. Even though the population is less, half of the Earth is still being ignored.

Its even worse in this case, because the game was advertised to many, sold, and built from the ground up as a competitive game. To have no support for it is a beyond a mistake. Its a disaster.

C2K · Apr 04, 2008, 10:37 AM // 10:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

My point was also working under the rather weighty assumption that better PvP CR would have led to a larger PvP community. I mean we are talking pretty big deals here; PvP features sooner, better/faster balance updates, possibly even earlier third party tournaments. You would be surprised how much weight a good community manager can swing, their job after all is retaining players.

Perhaps you are right, but then Guild Wars would have followed a different path and molded into a different game. As much I like Guild Wars PvP and I wish it had garnered more support over the past 3 years, you can't be blind to the fact that the money making aspect of the game is the PvE-side.

The only reason to buy multiple accounts and buy multiple character slots is because of the PvE side of the game. You can argue smurfing guilds would buy more product, but its still a weaker profit compared to the money that is gained from PvE.

Why do you think Anet is transitioning to GW2, where as the PvP in GW1 can still be molded back into its former glory with some effort? Its because Anet realized the money is in the PvE and GW1 PvE is rather poor with the Chapter model they were using. Thats why I am very skeptical of GW2, because I enjoy GW pvp(regardless of the tweaks and fixes they should add to the game) and I fear it will take more than a few steps in the wrong direction come GW2.

Fril Estelin · Apr 04, 2008, 10:37 AM // 10:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Has there ever been a stat release/study on the number of PvE vs PvP players?

...

Also, PvP is half of the game.

How can you say that there's no stat on the PvE/PvP ratio of players (you even suggest it's more than 50% for PvE and I agree) and then claim half the game to PvP? Are there as many PvP maps as there are PvE areas and monsters? Are 50% of Anet devs working on PvP implementation?

DutchSmurf · Apr 04, 2008, 10:37 AM // 10:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Has there ever been a stat release/study on the number of PvE vs PvP players? Yes I know there are far more PvE players, but all I ever hear are random stats thrown around for purpose of argument. We never get any real numbers. I would like some kind of official Anet stats (since they seem to be in a stat releasing mood recently).

Those stats are based on an estimate number of people seriously playing PvP compared to an estimate of the total number of players. As in, lets assume there are 1000 serious PvP guilds and they have an average of 20 people in them. Makes a total of 20.000 players. GW has about 1.500.000 "players" (as in, different accounts, not active players). So do your own math from there. To make us feel better we often assume 5% (75.000), but that is probably too high. Unless you add less serious types too.

And even with better CR, it would still be Izzy balancing the skills. And even with good PvP CR from the start, GW would still have been dominated by the PvE mass. It is impossible to say tho, since we can't tell what could have been.

DreamWind · Apr 04, 2008, 11:00 AM // 11:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

How can you say that there's no stat on the PvE/PvP ratio of players (you even suggest it's more than 50% for PvE and I agree) and then claim half the game to PvP? Are there as many PvP maps as there are PvE areas and monsters? Are 50% of Anet devs working on PvP implementation?

You got PvE and PvP. Regardless of whether or not there is more PvE content, there is still only 2 game types.

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Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

Those stats are based on an estimate number of people seriously playing PvP compared to an estimate of the total number of players. As in, lets assume there are 1000 serious PvP guilds and they have an average of 20 people in them. Makes a total of 20.000 players. GW has about 1.500.000 "players" (as in, different accounts, not active players). So do your own math from there. To make us feel better we often assume 5% (75.000), but that is probably too high. Unless you add less serious types too.

Yes, but these are all estimates. I want some actual numbers sometimes is all I'm saying. I want the numbers of how many "solely play PvE" and "solely play PvP", and how many "play both". I think we will find that a majority will say play both.

That stat (if it ever were released) would lead to the bigger point, that PvP needs more support because more people play it than we think. PvP is NOT restricted to the hardcore PvP only players. This is a mindset that Guild Wars and Anet pounded into us...the PvE vs PvP mindset. Anet essentially molded two seperate communities of players with the way they ran the game. This was not a community created phenomenon. Anet did not manage this game correctly at all. The two were supposed to BUILD off of each other, not destroy each other. Look at any other successful game with both.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

And even with better CR, it would still be Izzy balancing the skills. And even with good PvP CR from the start, GW would still have been dominated by the PvE mass. It is impossible to say tho, since we can't tell what could have been.

Yea true. It would have made a lot of players a lot happier though. The community would have grown. Not having a CR for PvP and having a CR for PvE was just another way Anet created some hostility in its community. Not to mention it gave the appearance of not caring, which made many people quit.

JR · Apr 04, 2008, 11:31 AM // 11:31

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Originally Posted by C2K

Perhaps you are right, but then Guild Wars would have followed a different path and molded into a different game. As much I like Guild Wars PvP and I wish it had garnered more support over the past 3 years, you can't be blind to the fact that the money making aspect of the game is the PvE-side.

First of all (and I am guilty of this myself) it is inaccurate to treat this as such a black and white issue. You can catagorize it a little more accurately like this:

- PvE players
- People who do both to varying degrees.
- PvP players

Arguably then you push another chunk of players into the 'people who would benefit from better PvP CR' group.

Quote:

Originally Posted by C2K

Why do you think Anet is transitioning to GW2, where as the PvP in GW1 can still be molded back into its former glory with some effort? Its because Anet realized the money is in the PvE and GW1 PvE is rather poor with the Chapter model they were using. Thats why I am very skeptical of GW2, because I enjoy GW pvp(regardless of the tweaks and fixes they should add to the game) and I fear it will take more than a few steps in the wrong direction come GW2.

I think that's a bit of a weak assumption. They are also putting considerable thought into producing better PvP in GW2, including learning from a lot of past mistakes such as skill unlocking.

I'm not trying to argue that PvE wont always be the main breadwinner for ArenaNet, but it's wrong to discount their focus on it purely on that basis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DutchSmurf

And even with better CR, it would still be Izzy balancing the skills. And even with good PvP CR from the start, GW would still have been dominated by the PvE mass. It is impossible to say tho, since we can't tell what could have been.

Quoting a chunk of another post I made on a different GW forum:

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As for the debate about Izzy, you can also pin some of his failures on the lacking nature of community relations up untill now.

The lengths he has had to go through to get feedback from players about balance and the direction of the game has been ridiculous. He has essentially both had to do his job and also function as something of a PvP CR at once, to compensate for the inadequacy of Gaile and Andrew.

Gathering useful feedback about the state of the game is entirely a community managers job. They are usually the people best suited to get the most out of a community in terms of valuable input. It is also their job to put the pressure on developers when the right decisions aren't being made.

I would have no desire to see Izzy replaced for Guild Wars 2. He has gone way above and beyond his job description for the good of the game. Working in combination with a decent community department I have little doubt that he will do a fantastic job in future.

Div · Apr 04, 2008, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

My post was in the context of Gaile never having taken the job, and someone competent being offered the role instead.

Sure that'd be a whole new story, but we're talking about different issues here. I'm trying to explain the current condition; you're trying to relive the GW experience 3 years ago to try and improve it.

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My point was also working under the rather weighty assumption that better PvP CR would have led to a larger PvP community. I mean we are talking pretty big deals here; PvP features sooner, better/faster balance updates, possibly even earlier third party tournaments. You would be surprised how much weight a good community manager can swing, their job after all is retaining players.

Agreed again with the larger PvP community. But in terms of total numbers of retaining and attracting new players, I will still maintain that being geared towards PvE is a better marketing strategy. As a rough reference, there are more players playing WoW than CoF4+CS:S+CS combined. Most of those FPS players can be seen as AB/RA players, but even then the population that likes to PvE is still much larger. Being a predominantly team oriented PvP game that wants to grow requires a large core of dedicated individuals with an even larger pool of players that want to learn to become better and be part of that team. It's simply not going to happen. So from an economic point of view, I agree with Anet and Gaile's attention to PvE. Focusing on PvP is simply not worth their time invested/number of players attained.

l Teh Mighty Warrior l · Apr 04, 2008, 11:33 PM // 23:33

5 Million copies sold, 8 people in 1000 guilds is only 8000, there was some good post I'm not going to take the time to repeat or search for, but less than 1% of the community is pvp.

llsektorll · Apr 04, 2008, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by l Teh Mighty Warrior l

5 Million copies sold, 8 people in 1000 guilds is only 8000, there was some good post I'm not going to take the time to repeat or search for, but less than 1% of the community is pvp.

and yet gaile gray could not care less about the pvpers

Riotgear · Apr 05, 2008, 09:40 AM // 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

As a rough reference, there are more players playing WoW than CoF4+CS:S+CS combined.

There are other things to consider than raw player count. Like the fact that Blizzard has sunk more money into WoW than the entire Matrix trilogy's budget.

CS/CS:S is hardly what I'd call a failure as well, which ties into the next point: PvP does not require as much investment as PvE to create content. The players essentially are the content, and all you really need to do is give them a playground to go kill each other in. You don't have to debug AI, build huge amounts of maps, write cutscenes, record voiceovers, blah blah blah. All you really need to do is not break it, and control the player bleed for as long as possible.

Div · Apr 06, 2008, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Sweeeeeeeeeeet. Some PvEr came in here and posted dumb shit so I got to delete that AND every post related to it! So yeah, get the PvE crap back to Riverside. If you want your posts back to cry in Riverside, let me know and I can recover it.

On my way to Nazi Forum Moderator (12)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

There are other things to consider than raw player count. Like the fact that Blizzard has sunk more money into WoW than the entire Matrix trilogy's budget.

Yeah, I agree, hence the "rough estimate." I guess the point I was trying to get across is that PvE will inevitably attract much more people than PvP in general. And when you try to factor in competitive PvP, that population gets even smaller.

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CS/CS:S is hardly what I'd call a failure as well

They're not. They were used as examples of the greatest PvP games matched up with the greatest PvE game.

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which ties into the next point: PvP does not require as much investment as PvE to create content. The players essentially are the content, and all you really need to do is give them a playground to go kill each other in. You don't have to debug AI, build huge amounts of maps, write cutscenes, record voiceovers, blah blah blah. All you really need to do is not break it, and control the player bleed for as long as possible.

It's really hard to get a pure PvP game going without any other content (look at Fury), especially when it's a new game that came out of a smaller company. A lot of the PvPers got GW because it has pretty good PvE content as well, but just enjoyed the PvP side more.

Riotgear · Apr 06, 2008, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gun Pierson

We pve'rs give a shit cause we also shelled out cash and we adjusted to those 'weekly' skill balances for three years now.

I meant who gives a shit about how much PvP players have "contributed." Have PvE players contributed to my PvP experience? No. I never asked them to either.

The combined skill balance problems go both ways, PvE players are concerned with their "investment" staying viable while PvP players want to see stuff shitcanned if it becomes a problem. However, I find it hard to have sympathy for PvE players hurt by skill balances when the PvE component of this game is so ridiculously easy, and even less so when PvE-only skills have been shoveled into the mix, creating alternatives immune to PvP-oriented balancing.

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Do you teach people how to play?

I don't recall anyone coaching me in any other video game. I played, I got better. This isn't something that is the responsibility of the players, the ability to learn at a low level of experience is called "learning curve" and that is a responsibility of the designers of the game, not the players.

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Not much skill involved in GW PvP compared to real E-sports to be honest.

I'd be very interested to know what you measure skill requirement with. Popularity, from the looks of it. Does Starcraft require more skill than Total Annihilation to play, or is Starcraft simply a much more popular game?

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Pro gamers are the ambassadors of a game. They inspire the masses. In this game the masses play PvE.

This is like saying basketball players are the ambassadors of sports, and in sports, the masses are more interested in baseball. Notice the problem here? How about the fact that basketball players are there to inspire people interested in BASKETBALL, not people interested in "sports." The size of the PvE playerbase has absolutely no bearing on the size of the target audience for PvP competition.

WoW has been trying to push into e-sport territory and it's extremely PvE-oriented. I'd argue that its PvP is also an imbalanced poorly-designed mess. Guess why it's succeeding? Yep, POPULARITY.

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So golf sux and teamsports don't according to you, that's personal taste.

Guild Wars is a team game.

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but because when the game is over there's no real fairness and nobility in many players' behaviour

Exactly what kind of "fairness and nobility" do you expect? Please don't tell me you expect them to do things that reduce their chances of winning.

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Starcraft just happens to be the most balanced game in history btw

I'd really like to know what leads you to these conclusions.

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it's just that PvP became a really small part of the comunity and making posts like this won't help to turn the tide but I'm sure you have all the wisdom and skillz to think about that gap you talk about.

Nothing will "turn the tide" except maybe a price drop and advertising blitz, which still won't fix the ridiculous learning curve. Online games feed on their own popularity, when the popularity dwindles, the game rapidly declines in popularity as people lose interest because "no one's playing it."

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Exactly like this thread: what is it? A huge, big whining/QQing thread for PVPers!

It's pretty easy to write off complaints as "QQing" when you don't agree with them. Maybe you should try showing why the complaints aren't justifiable instead.

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GW PvP doesn't have that, it's I think too slow in terms of action and too difficult to follow with all the skills as a common spectator.

And MTG has a huge following because....? If you want to follow something as a spectator, you need a basic level of familiarity with it. Saying Guild Wars has too many skills flying around is like saying football has too many rules or Starcraft has too many unit types.

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

It's really hard to get a pure PvP game going without any other content (look at Fury), especially when it's a new game that came out of a smaller company. A lot of the PvPers got GW because it has pretty good PvE content as well, but just enjoyed the PvP side more.

I really have to disagree with this. I already mentioned that having good competitive play requires a fraction of the content, which would make it even more attractive to "smaller companies." Most popular online shooters have a trivial if even present single-player campaign.

It certainly is attractive to have a game with both components, but it's also a major risk. The game becomes more difficult to maintain as you have more content to worry about updates affecting, for example.

Gun Pierson · Apr 06, 2008, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Guild Wars is a team game.

I'd really like to know what leads you to these conclusions.

Nothing will "turn the tide" except maybe a price drop and advertising blitz, which still won't fix the ridiculous learning curve. Online games feed on their own popularity, when the popularity dwindles, the game rapidly declines in popularity as people lose interest because "no one's playing it."

And MTG has a huge following because....? If you want to follow something as a spectator, you need a basic level of familiarity with it. Saying Guild Wars has too many skills flying around is like saying football has too many rules or Starcraft has too many unit types.

GW is a teamgame, but it's also a solo playable game and the majority is not pugging in PvE. At the same time PvP lost ground.

MTG was a succes because it was a breakthrough in the card gaming business with an excellent business plan and a solid game people were fascinated with once you got into it. And I know cause I played Type1 and 2 tourneys in Belgium. Still have my collection, btw anyone interested in a complete unlimited edition set (mint) and a full Arabian Night set (mint), you can pm me. I ran a local MTG card club in my spare time and new people were welcome and we learned them stuff from the inquest and the value of cards, deckbuilds etc. This was happening all over the world sorta speak. We had several tourneys and trade meetings a year like in other countries. It was almost like a virus, you played it once and bam, I saw many people get addicted including myself.

So initiating people helps to make a comunity grow imo. The more people that play and become good, the more the skill rises. In MTG, moxes were rubbish, until more people started to play and one discouvered the power.

What I meant about hard to follow a pvp match is: 16 people are playing with 8 skills in their bars. The normal human eye can't see all actions in the heat of the battle, so you can't see the counters etc., you miss out on the fun unless you replay. In MTG for example you see everything as it happens in phases.
To explain it with your example, it would be like a soccer game played with 10 balls at once, you'll miss out on some actions. A FPS is different in that way, it builds up an athmosphere and is easier to follow.

Michael Jordan was an ambasador of basketball. Here in Belgium we have Justin Henine, number 1 tennis playster and in the past nobody here cared about female tennis but since she hit the spotlight she's our national pride lol. Just saying. Pros inspire people but GW PvP doesn't have the setup to create real ambasadors and I wonder why? Maybe because people are playing PvE. Why do they play PvE? In soccer another teamsport, everybody knows the stars, like Ronaldino, Beckham etc.

I thought it was common knowledge in the gameworld that Starcraft is the most balanced RTS game up to date. Always heard that.

valence · Apr 06, 2008, 05:13 AM // 05:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gun Pierson

Pros inspire people but GW PvP doesn't have the setup to create real ambasadors and I wonder why? Maybe because people are playing PvE. Why do they play PvE? In soccer another teamsport, everybody knows the stars, like Ronaldino, Beckham etc.

Pro's inspire masses. True.

GW masses doesn't know there are pro's.
GW masses don't know there is an observer mode.
GW masses don't know there are monthly tournies.

All this can be solved by easy added supporting features. For example, xunlai house (the website) why not ingame? During a mAT, notify at the login screen it is actually happening.

I've already said this in an HA thread, epic talk about ha dieing. People leave the game, those players needs to get replaced. In GW the learning curve is so high the amount of pvp'ers leaving doesn't get replaced by new players. There is enough potential pvp'ers in the community, waiting to get through.

To take your example in MTG. GW misses FNM. MTG has an huge learning curve as well, but does a lot of comnunity work to get people through that. Without understanding of MTG, you won't undertand crap about any mtg match or why a player made a certain play.

Riotgear · Apr 06, 2008, 06:03 AM // 06:03

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Originally Posted by Gun Pierson

MTG was a succes because it was a breakthrough in the card gaming business

My point is that the criteria you're applying to Guild Wars' failure (i.e. lack of action, too much complexity) clearly have not hindered certain highly successful franchises.

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So initiating people helps to make a comunity grow imo. The more people that play and become good, the more the skill rises.

Initiating = point them to the countless resources out there with information on where to start. It does not mean "helping them get better." I'm not getting better at TF2 by having someone hold my hand, I'm getting better by playing it and learning from my experiences.

Tutorials, ladders, and game design decisions are the primary factors in how difficult that learning experience is, and it's the job of the game designers.

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The normal human eye can't see all actions in the heat of the battle

And what do you see on a Starcraft replay? A small sampling of what's actually going on. In physical sports, why do you think the instant replay was developed?

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Michael Jordan was an ambasador of basketball. Here in Belgium we have Justin Henine, number 1 tennis playster and in the past nobody here cared about female tennis but since she hit the spotlight she's our national pride lol. Just saying. Pros inspire people but GW PvP doesn't have the setup to create real ambasadors and I wonder why? Maybe because people are playing PvE. Why do they play PvE? In soccer another teamsport, everybody knows the stars, like Ronaldino, Beckham etc.

My point is that you're saying Guild Wars' high-level play has failed to inspire people because the majority plays PvE, when the PvP events were never really aimed towards PvE-only players in the first place. It was aimed towards players interested in the PvP component of the game.

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I thought it was common knowledge in the gameworld that Starcraft is the most balanced RTS game up to date.

I highly doubt anyone making that statement has played nearly enough RTS games to present it as fact. I doubt even more that "most balanced" correlates with "most fun" or "most challenging" or "has the largest number of viable strategies."

DreamWind · Apr 06, 2008, 08:02 AM // 08:02

I know this thread is getting a little off topic (it was orginally about Gaile Gray), but I think some of the points raised are interesting.

When talking about competitive games and comparisons to Guild Wars, do you wonder why Starcraft and Magic come up regularly? Well, those are 2 very successful competitive games, and to put Guild Wars even in the same breath as those means some people think Guild Wars could have been right along side them.

That is why there are so many people passionate about this issue, because we know what Guild Wars could have been, and we know what it will never be now. This whole Gaile Gray thing just raises that point, because she essentially represents what happened to this game...no support for PvP...all support for PvE.

Now let's look at Blizzard, the most successful gaming company today. They are releasing this game called Starcraft2 soon. How are they advertising it? They are advertising the PvE! The movies, units, story, campaigns, all the other stuff you can do. But we all know that once this game comes out, the PvP is going to define whether it succeeds in the long run. Nobody looks at Starcraft anymore as a PvE game. Just because the PvE helped it sell 10 million copies, we now know that the PvP is what made it legendary. That is what I think could have happened with Guild Wars....

Fril Estelin · Apr 06, 2008, 08:36 AM // 08:36

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Originally Posted by Riotgear

Initiating = point them to the countless resources out there with information on where to start. It does not mean "helping them get better." I'm not getting better at TF2 by having someone hold my hand, I'm getting better by playing it and learning from my experiences.

Your arguments are on the border of the ridicule. You're point is basically "I did it that way, so everyone shall do it the same way". It's a bit like if a teacher were to tell his students: go read the books and don't come back before you've finished them. Your mention of "someone holding one's hand" is disingenuous (and I now understand why my 3 posts got deleted very fast while yam's one were not) because that's not what most people who would like to get into PvP want. They want help in the initial learning curve (more like a cliff) and pointing at the PvX or the observer mode is not enough for everyone as Gun Pierson explained. I could point you at resources in computer science and you would not understand a word, you would feel lost and then quickly loose the will to go further. It is very easy to loose someone, on purpose or simply because of carelessness, but it's much more difficult to teach them. You don't want to do it? Fine, no one's asking YOU to do it, but just don't say that no one should.

I guess what some people want is "piece of mind", i.e. leave me alone with teaching you and educate yourself while I play my game the way I want (i.e. without you bothering me with such mention of PvP having a learning curve). Other players want to play competitive and retain the fun aspect, which is not necessarily related to their ego (winning for the process of getting to the win and not the destination of being the winner). As I said and I'll repeat again and again, it looks like PvPers play PvP all the time, even after the game is finished (of course, this is a generalisation, sorry for the PvPers that do make the effort to teach laymen). The over-competitive ambiance that it creates is neither healthy in the long term, nor fun.

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My point is that you're saying Guild Wars' high-level play has failed to inspire people because the majority plays PvE, when the PvP events were never really aimed towards PvE-only players in the first place. It was aimed towards players interested in the PvP component of the game.

As someone very rightfully said in a different thread, this is not black and white. There are many people who want to play both sides of the game, and when coming from the PvE, doing PvP is a very disturbing experience. While in PvE people would help you, answer your questions and be nice, in PvP it's more like "do like everyone else and teach yourself" (not everyone is like this, of course). I'm guessing here, but because PvP is a game of ego (who's going to win), there's not much room for collaboration outside of the team.

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Originally Posted by DreamWind

That is why there are so many people passionate about this issue, because we know what Guild Wars could have been, and we know what it will never be now. This whole Gaile Gray thing just raises that point, because she essentially represents what happened to this game...no support for PvP...all support for PvE.

To be fair with the PvP community and you players who care about the same game that we care about, you may perfectly be right. I even remember personally saying this a long while ago on GWG. But is this a reason for bashing her when she leaves her CR job? Is this how PvPers want to communicate? Frustration may explain why people react like this, but this is no reason to behave irresponsibly. Creating an ill to point at another one is a big mistake. Create a GWG petition for more PvP support from Anet, organise your voice and I'll support it passionately (even if I know I won't do PvP seriously until a while, and it'll be too late because close to GW2). GW1 is a dual-game, which got separated because of Anet lack of support AND the players' behavior (never forget the second one, both go hand in hand).

Riotgear · Apr 06, 2008, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Oops, missed this:

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Originally Posted by holymasamune

I guess the point I was trying to get across is that PvE will inevitably attract much more people than PvP in general. And when you try to factor in competitive PvP, that population gets even smaller.

Success is essentially determined by the results gained for the amount of resources invested. One thing you see a lot of for example is people saying a game is a failure because its playerbase is a small fraction of WoW's. Well, yeah, but if their costs are a small fraction of WoW's, it can still be a resounding success. That's why MMOs are able to function with massively varied playerbase sizes.

As I kind of mentioned, PvE requires a LOT more development and content creation than PvP does, so PvP is still plenty viable with a smaller playerbase. Competitive PvP does not really require that much more support to function than any other form of PvP does, especially when core features like having a ladder benefits the entire spectrum of players.

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Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Your arguments are on the border of the ridicule. You're point is basically "I did it that way, so everyone shall do it the same way". It's a bit like if a teacher were to tell his students: go read the books and don't come back before you've finished them.

Acting as a sort of "guide" for someone, which is what "teaching" seems to imply, is far beyond the call of duty in pretty much every game I can think of. I really don't know anyone who got good that way. Practically everyone gets better via tips, Q&A, guides, and tons of experience.

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I could point you at resources in computer science and you would not understand a word, you would feel lost and then quickly loose the will to go further.

In education, that's handled by having courses and degree programs that progress steadily until a desired level of understanding is reached. Once you leave school, you have to continue that progression frequently without an instructor. In games, you progress via learning in-game and via the progression avenues the game provides you with. Again, this is a responsibility of the game design, not the players.

(Oh, and I've been programming for 15 years, I buy computer science books to study for my own purposes, you couldn't have possibly picked a worse example :P)

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As I said and I'll repeat again and again, it looks like PvPers play PvP all the time, even after the game is finished.

Not sure what you mean by this. Go spec any PvP match and you'll see tons of people stacked with high-end PvE gear.

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The over-competitive ambiance that it creates is neither healthy in the long term, nor fun.

Over-competitive? In any game, there are people that do whatever it takes to win. Calling it unhealthy is absurd. What's unhealthy for it is the steep learning curve.

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There are many people who want to play both sides of the game, and when coming from the PvE, doing PvP is a very disturbing experience.

This does not change the unimportance of the size of the playerbase that only plays PvE, which was the point of the statement.

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While in PvE people would help you, answer your questions and be nice, in PvP it's more like "do like everyone else and teach yourself" (not everyone is like this).

There's a difference between giving tips and pointing people to resources and mentoring them. Knowledge will get you a kickstart, but experience is what tempers people into good players, and you don't need people walking you through the motions for that when stuff like obs mode and guides exist.

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GW1 is a dual-game, which got separated because of Anet lack of support AND the players' behavior (never forget the second one, both go hand in hand).

I fail to see how it's any more or less "separated" now than it was at day one. Unless you're referring to the growing barrier to entry, which is hardly something you can blame on player behavior.

Fril Estelin · Apr 06, 2008, 12:15 PM // 12:15

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Originally Posted by Riotgear

Acting as a sort of "guide" for someone, which is what "teaching" seems to imply, is far beyond the call of duty in pretty much every game I can think of. I really don't know anyone who got good that way. Practically everyone gets better via tips, Q&A, guides, and tons of experience.

No one said it was your duty, you shouldn't "guide" people if you're not willing to. But it's interesting to see how PvPers are reluctant to do that, at the opposite of PvErs. If you don't know how to do it, it's no reason to say no one shouldn't do it or it's no "duty". It's a game and has to be fun, if it's not fun for you to help people, don't do it, but don't blame people for saying they'd like some help.

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In education, that's handled by having courses and degree programs that progress steadily until a desired level of understanding is reached. Once you leave school, you have to continue that progression frequently without an instructor. In games, you progress via learning in-game and via the progression avenues the game provides you with. Again, this is a responsibility of the game design, not the players.

You know as much as I do that what would be a learning curve in different topic/game is a learning cliff in GW, partly due to Anet bad support/tutorial, I agree. But you can't simply leave the responsibility of the community out by saying "it's not our duty", the state of the game is what we make it. It's exactly like our society and humanity, you may not feel responsible for poverty, global warming or unfair global economy, but we are, despite the general unwillingness to acknowledge it.

To go back to teaching, a teacher understand the passing of knowledge requires pedagogy and adapting to people's behavior and way or learning. Of course, there are levels of teaching, where you go from knowledge to understanding, but I think the GW community is more and more failing on the first level (despite the wikis) and the second level seems more and more inaccessible. Of course, people don't care because they see what they want to see, i.e. their own belly button.

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(Oh, and I've been programming for 15 years, I buy computer science books to study for my own purposes, you couldn't have possibly picked a worse example :P)

Arrogance FTL, I don't see how 15 years of programming can teach you all there is to know in computing. As I said, it's very easy to loose someone, if I were to talk formal methods or cryptography (I'm sure we can find a topic you'd have difficulty to grasp) you could start to get the feeling that some people have in GW.

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Not sure what you mean by this. Go spec any PvP match and you'll see tons of people stacked with high-end PvE gear.

Here is what I meant: during the PvP game, PvPers are aggressive in their behavior because they're all aiming at the same goal and it's going very fast, both on the screen and on the vent. It puts naturaly players in a state of stress and can sometimes lead to anger, nervosity. As you know, some people cope more easily with that than others. But when the PvP match is finished, this state of mind of fighting against opponents seems to still exist in many PvPers, they're very aggressive and seeing comments as attacks, they try to defend themselves, while failing to imagine that the other person is not here to "win" because he knows discussions are not black&white.

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Over-competitive? In any game, there are people that do whatever it takes to win. Calling it unhealthy is absurd. What's unhealthy for it is the steep learning curve.

You focused on "over-competitive" but the important word here was "ambiance". Over-competitive during a match can have its uses I guess, but not between matches. A lot of people feel pushed away from PvP because they're aggressed outside of the match, in-game or on fansites. PvPers don't care and say "that's not my problem" (or even muc nastier as yam exemplified but you didn't find his message aggressive, did you?). This is the ambiance I'm talking about.

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There's a difference between giving tips and pointing people to resources and mentoring them. Knowledge will get you a kickstart, but experience is what tempers people into good players, and you don't need people walking you through the motions for that when stuff like obs mode and guides exist.

What I read in your reply is someone who wants to do as little as possible and is afraid that they'll have to spend "useless" time with newbies (I sometimes wonder if being a PvEr will not label me with a "noob" category in the eyes of PvPers, simply because of prejudices). Experience is essential, but it starts long before your first GvG or HA game, with your experience of players. I don't believe one second that someone who would like to get into PvP would like more than a bit of guidance at the beginning, I think anyone who quickly want to become autonomous, though asking for advice from time to time. Obs mode by itself is not usefull if you don't know where to look and the fast pace of skill updates does not help.

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I fail to see how it's any more or less "separated" now than it was at day one. Unless you're referring to the growing barrier to entry, which is hardly something you can blame on player behavior.

I disagree as I said before, it's partly due to Anet and partly due to the community. PvE is very enjoyable because the community built a great environment and ambiance, while PvP has been left to bare information with some nasty comments. Sorry for the generalisation as I don't want to disrespect these PvPers that spend countless time sharing their knowledge and know-how.