Curse

Mouse at Large · Dec 08, 2011, 12:57 PM // 12:57

I enjoyed the XTH while it existed and was mildly disappointed when it closed. It kept me interested in the state of GvG from month to month without ever enticing me to play.

IMO it was a harmless, occasionally rewarding but completely inessential part of the game.

esthetic · Dec 08, 2011, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Well just look at it this way, if you are in a GvG tourney and you have a million viewers interested in the outcome, for one reason or the other, you will be motivated more than having just your guildmates and friend watch.

Back in the day of Xth, the top players and guilds in the GvG matches were like rock stars, now I doubt the casual player can name the top guilds or even the players.

You can argue that the GvG participants say it does not matter to them, but they are all human with egos.

Daesu · Dec 08, 2011, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Not at all.

Past state generated little extra interest in pvp but huge amounts of currency.

If you make rewards more competitive and dependent on good knowledge of state of pvp, you raise intereste in pvp and decrease amount of currency generated because fewer people will vote successfully (as it will be more diffcult), but they will need to be more interested to reap benefits.

Getting people interested in PvP is not only about making them play. You need audience to organize big ass events. You need enough people watching to make it attractive for big brands to be sponsors. You need someone to donate money/equipment to make it trully motivating for esport type people participate. And it all depends on masses watching the spectacle. We need less of "Updated the 2011 Automated Tournament Series Trophy in the Great Temple of Balthazar." in update notes and more of "1k was sent to each member of winning team, courtesy of razer, alienware and nvidia"

Making people play PvP should not be THE goal at moment. Making people watch it should be.

Yeah yeah you need this and that. It is very easy to say everyone should be encouraged to try PvP or do this and that. But you avoided saying how you are going to get everyone to do that. Are you going to get the player base to be interested in PvP through your wordy advice? Right.

Most people already know that top end PvP tournaments can net them real money. But people are still not attracted to it because they don't expect themselves to be in the top guild, at least not easily or readily. You have to reward them for trying or at least taking interest in PvP.

Whether you like the XTH or not, at least people have an idea of who the top guilds are or even some of the top PvPers. If they ever gain interest in PvP, they know who to talk to. Nowadays, I don't even know who the top guilds are, much less the top PvPers.

*lemming* · Dec 08, 2011, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

You can argue that the GvG participants say it does not matter to them, but they are all human with egos.

When most of the "fans" had no vested interest in understanding anything about the game they were watching beyond the results, was it supposed to matter to me?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Yeah yeah you need this and that. It is very easy to say everyone should be encouraged to try PvP or do this and that. But you avoided saying how you are going to get everyone to do that. Are you going to get the player base to be interested in PvP through your wordy advice? Right.

We know one thing for sure - the XTH was useless for encouraging people to try PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Whether you like the XTH or not, at least people have an idea of who the top guilds are or even some of the top PvPers. If they ever gain interest in PvP, they know who to talk to. Nowadays, I don't even know who the top guilds are, much less the top PvPers.

I don't need a carrot to stay abreast of developments in the NBA or the NFL, despite not playing basketball or football, not even on a recreational level. I imagine you can figure out why.

Mireles · Dec 08, 2011, 08:58 PM // 20:58

hmm i was going to make some more points but i think lemming pretty much covered it....which is scary because i don't think we ever agree.

People play and do things because they enjoy them.... not for carrots...

Handing out z-keys for predictions is not going to make people play and enjoy pvp.... hell handing out z-keys and rewards for playing pvp didn't even get people to play.....

If you want to revive PvP... We need ideas that make formats more appealing to peoples enjoyment and more casual friendly... Not gimmicks to manipulate people into interest in pvp.

XTH does not reward interest in PvP becasue it does not require it, you can make predictions without even knowing the guilds or hitting the observe button... and you don't need XTH to find the top pvp guild or watch them play...

anyone saying "oh yeah XTH got me real interested in pvp but i never played it i just enjoyed watching" is really saying "i miss free z-keys and i bought alot of accounts for it so i am going to pretend it got people interested in pvp so they will bring it back, even thou i openly stated i don't care about pvp because im not interested without the free carrots".. so logic states if you stopped enjoying it after the free carrots were gone... u weren't enjoying/interested in pvp you were enjoying/interested in the carrots.

Rewards are an addition to enjoyment... not its replacement.

Martin Firestorm · Dec 08, 2011, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

I don't need a carrot to stay abreast of developments in the NBA or the NFL, despite not playing basketball or football, not even on a recreational level. I imagine you can figure out why.

You're comparing some pretty good spectator sports with a pretty so so spectator experience. XTH was ok, but so is no XTH.

esthetic · Dec 08, 2011, 09:51 PM // 21:51

I think we are discussing a moot point, bringing back XTH now will not revive GvG its a dead horse.

But discussing this issue, for the sake of argument, to say that XTH had no effect on GvG particiapation or interest is just ignorant. The fact is if you participate in XTH you ARE interested, not necessarily which GvG guild won but whether your prediction was correct. This IS interest at a minimum. In actuality, interest went farther as you found spectators discussing on forums and in OB mode tatics being used in the tourney, who would beat who, ect... I remember people discussing whether Rebel Rising was going to participate or not in a particular monthly... This is interest.

More interest from others will spur the actual participants to play or do well... Human nature, people like attention and to show off. And you have to agree that participating in the MaTs back when XTH was around was more exciting.

What dont you get about this?

Now to say that XTH although increased interest in RMT, was bad because it had a side effect of making it unfair between people with multiple accounts and solo accounts, has merit. It is a trade off. I have always thought, that as a financial matter, making incentives for people to buy additional accounts was a good thing, more revenue for ANet, more resources for a better game experience.

Its those people with one account bellyacheing that every month they get only 5-15 keys when others are getting multiples for each other account they had was the issue.

*lemming* · Dec 08, 2011, 10:26 PM // 22:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

More interest from others will spur the actual participants to play or do well... Human nature, people like attention and to show off. And you have to agree that participating in the MaTs back when XTH was around was more exciting.

Firsthand experience allows me to tell you that it really didn't make much of a difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

But discussing this issue, for the sake of argument, to say that XTH had no effect on GvG particiapation or interest is just ignorant. The fact is if you participate in XTH you ARE interested, not necessarily which GvG guild won but whether your prediction was correct. This IS interest at a minimum. In actuality, interest went farther as you found spectators discussing on forums and in OB mode tatics being used in the tourney, who would beat who, ect... I remember people discussing whether Rebel Rising was going to participate or not in a particular monthly... This is interest.

Superficial interest of a transitory nature that had minimal impact on GvG activity, yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

I have always thought, that as a financial matter, making incentives for people to buy additional accounts was a good thing, more revenue for ANet, more resources for a better game experience.

We obviously don't have any sales figures for the period when the XTH was open. However, I'm confident in saying that the XTH greatly increased the number of black market transfers of accounts - why would you pay $30 for a new account for $5 a month when you can pay $5 for one?

**cosyfiep** · Dec 08, 2011, 11:29 PM // 23:29

do I miss the xth??? well I do miss the few extra gold items I got from the keys (still working on that id-ing title)....

as for the pvp part--I learned the names of a few of the guilds out there (I am part of a tiny guild and we do nothing)....since its demise--I have not kept up on any of it.

Saint Scarlet · Dec 09, 2011, 02:30 AM // 02:30

If people really do miss it so much then they wouldn't mind having it come back but have no rewards tied to it so it's just for fun, anyone who doesn't agree with that was just after the freebies.
Or the second option which is to have it as a proper betting house. For example you get 10k to place bets on which guild you think will finish 1st 2nd or 3rd with odds calculated by the number of wins that particular guild has had, pretty much like horse racing in a way. This would then at least make people think as they can end up losing money on a regular basis not just reaping the rewards for participating.

I personally loved the XTH and studying form and i will not say that winning free z-keys was not a motivation, it was primary to the actual form following.

Yol · Dec 09, 2011, 10:53 AM // 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saint Scarlet

Or the second option which is to have it as a proper betting house. For example you get 10k to place bets on which guild you think will finish 1st 2nd or 3rd with odds calculated by the number of wins that particular guild has had, pretty much like horse racing in a way. This would then at least make people think as they can end up losing money on a regular basis not just reaping the rewards for participating.

I personally loved the XTH and studying form and i will not say that winning free z-keys was not a motivation, it was primary to the actual form following.

ANet would fall foul of the gambling laws in quite a few countries if they added this. They would have to reward losing to get around it, such as giving unlucky points for unsuccessful gambles, similar to the mechanism for 9-rings and Rings of fortune.

zwei2stein · Dec 09, 2011, 11:46 AM // 11:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Yeah yeah you need this and that. It is very easy to say everyone should be encouraged to try PvP or do this and that. But you avoided saying how you are going to get everyone to do that. Are you going to get the player base to be interested in PvP through your wordy advice? Right.

Most people already know that top end PvP tournaments can net them real money. But people are still not attracted to it because they don't expect themselves to be in the top guild, at least not easily or readily. You have to reward them for trying or at least taking interest in PvP.

Whether you like the XTH or not, at least people have an idea of who the top guilds are or even some of the top PvPers. If they ever gain interest in PvP, they know who to talk to. Nowadays, I don't even know who the top guilds are, much less the top PvPers.

I am not saying people should be encouraged to try pvp. That is stupid, people had years and years to try and to give up.

I am saying that people should be encouraged to pay attention to pvp. Like you were.

Shayne Hawke · Dec 09, 2011, 04:16 PM // 16:16

There was nothing good about the XTH. It can't come back as it left us, and I'm not talking about its technical limitations when I say that.

Martin Alvito · Dec 09, 2011, 08:57 PM // 20:57

The game is a better place without hyperinflation and legalized RMT.

The XTH can and should stay dead.

MithranArkanere · Dec 09, 2011, 10:57 PM // 22:57

It was nice having some free points, but people were exploiting it, so there's absolutely no need to bring it back.

Shakkara · Dec 14, 2011, 05:26 PM // 17:26

I racked up almost enough keys on my account to get myself to R3 zaishen on one of them.

Which is the only PVP title I will ever have.

I miss the free stuff. It didn't get me involved in PVP but it did get me to log in every once in a while. Now I haven't touched my GW accounts for weeks, maybe even months.

Gabs88 · Feb 14, 2012, 07:06 PM // 19:06

It's weird but I havent seen the real reason Xunlai Tournament House was closed down anywhere in this thread. Basically, ArenaNet realized there was huge problems about the code in the tournament. And they realized that they would either have to completely rebuild the entire system completely. Which would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Or they could spend that money developing GW2.

In the end, it was probably an easy choice. I would love to see this come back in GW2 though, whats the harm in free zkeys anyhow? They kept the price down to reasonable levels, and even if people "Quit" GW. They would still come back once a month to make their tournament predictions and earn some points for when they came back. This made sure they were connected to the game

Vilaptca · Feb 14, 2012, 07:21 PM // 19:21

I really only miss the free items.

Šiljo · Feb 14, 2012, 07:31 PM // 19:31

+1

Thats all theres is to say, add guilds to the prediction,and wait for the free keys.

gg

Skyy High · Feb 14, 2012, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

The game is a better place without hyperinflation and legalized RMT.

The XTH can and should stay dead.

This. It doesn't help that the darn thing didn't even work properly all the time.

However, the idea of choosing to bet on tournaments is intriguing, if it can be done without abuse (heh). There just needs to be some risk attached.