Curse

Loviatar · Jul 02, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pitdragon

So what you are saying is basically "SCREW THE CASUAL PLAYERS THEY DON'T MATTER"?

PEACE PLEASE

the casual player is the most important player and it is those who are playing the game and having fun instead of complaining

example is Stumpys pve brother who has discovered template casual pvp and is having a great time playing to unlock things for pve

CASUAL ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT NOT THE LEAST

i never meant that other impression to come through at all

i hope this makes it clear where i stand on casual players

arredondo · Jul 02, 2005, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Pure, skillful competition is influenced only by the choices and abilities of the competitiors involved, not the system requiring hoop jumping to access the stuff you need to win. That is what I describe and compare here... nothing else. With everything named, there is no influence by the rule committee as to what gear you not allowed to start with if your opponents are allowed to use it.

Just because GW PvP is different from 99.9999999999% of the thousands of serious competitive activities out there is not a good excuse. Full UAR/UAS please. And get rid of the 24 Attribute Refund requirement in towns.

Red Locust · Jul 02, 2005, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Yeah well you're not gonna get full UAS/UAR with this game. Guild Wars is an RPG, and like every other RPG, has some form of character progression. If you want an FPS, go get CS or UT2004 or something. I'd recommend Battlefield 2, but even that requires playing online to unlock the better weapons. But you don't hear anyone complaining. Go figure. Perhaps if you spent all this time playing the game instead of arguing, you'd actually unlock something.

Siren · Jul 02, 2005, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Pure, skillful competition is influenced only by the choices and abilities of the competitiors involved, not the system requiring hoop jumping to access the stuff you need to win. That is what I describe and compare here... nothing else. With everything named, there is no influence by the rule committee as to what gear you not allowed to start with if your opponents are allowed to use it.

But how is that uber-specific criteria reliable? It can be applied to virtually anything and everything. It's specific to the extreme extent of becoming a generalized point of view. By that standard, nearly everything can be criticized. Is that indicative of everything being crap, or is that indicative of the evaluation criteria being crap?

Quote:

Just because GW PvP is different from 99.9999999999% of the thousands of serious competitive activities out there is not a good excuse. Full UAR/UAS please. And get rid of the 24 Attribute Refund requirement in towns.

But the thing is, you can't disregard that difference like that, because it's an incredibly important distinction to understand--it's too important to ignore. And I think your reply here speaks volumes about your particular mindset: you just don't want to acknowledge (or hear) anything that threatens your point of view.

JasonJLore · Jul 02, 2005, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Quote:

If I know that my opponent is going to come with an all Air Ele/Monk team, I should be at fault for not stocking up on anti-elemental armor or the Mantra of Lightning stance for my Mesmer (or any other gear for a strat that I decide will work). It should not be determined by the rules of the system that we all participate in, which keeps me from accessing this gear because I haven't jumped through enough hoops for the "league". Everyone should start with all options, and may the best team win from there. That's the only time that 100% pure skill takes over, when the "league" doesn't influence the match before it starts.
If your pit crew is made up of 2nd grade Catholic school girls who can't even remove a tire, that is YOUR fault. The league doesn't make you start weak and drive 10,000 laps to improve your crew. Guild Wars does this. The tiers you describe are part of real-world competition in all other activities when made a bit clearer:

Uh, hmm, he's right guys. I've changed my position on the subject. With the advent of these two "simplified" statements I must admit that ANet has not done their homework in this area. In trying to be both an RPG and a PvP they have sacrificed fairness for overall satisfaction. However, I will say that in order for them to be competitive in the gaming market it was/is necessary. Rightly or wrongly they had to make this choice. Please disregard my comment about Peyton Manning. I've always liked Tom Brady better anyway.

arredondo · Jul 02, 2005, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Not just my point of view. Any of the thousands of other activities played for hundreds of years could have your point of view in supporting this, but they don't. There's a reason for that... the requirement of forced hours and activity to have access to gear has NOTHING to do with promoting skillful play between opponents.

Whether I can beat you or not in competition should not be influenced (slightly or greatly) by anything in the rules that allows the use of gear for one side, but not the other until they get through some mandated activity requirements.

We can disagree if Arena.net's system is a good one or not as individuals, but I'd rather choose to let competition history and common sense back up my position.

arredondo · Jul 02, 2005, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by JasonJLore

Uh, hmm, he's right guys. I've changed my position on the subject. With the advent of these two "simplified" statements I must admit that ANet has not done their homework in this area. In trying to be both an RPG and a PvP they have sacrificed fairness for overall satisfaction. However, I will say that in order for them to be competitive in the gaming market it was/is necessary. Rightly or wrongly they had to make this choice. Please disregard my comment about Peyton Manning. I've always liked Tom Brady better anyway.

You are a wise man, and the wonderful world of logic warmly welcomes you.

Siran Dunmorgan · Jul 02, 2005, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

As well thought out as that post was, I'm amazed at how far it misses the mark. Your summary of my stated (and repeated ) position is incorrect.

Okay... I think we're getting somewhere.

Let me try to isolate our disagreement:

For the sake of the discussion, I postulate a prospective Guild Wars player: let us call her 'Alice'. For purposes of this discussion, a '+' after a letter denotes an action that may be taken more than once:

Alice sits down at her computer and installs Guild Wars.

Having done so, she double-clicks the "Guild Wars" icon that appears on her desktop to start the game. (A)

After some time, has her first taste of PvP at the Academy (C), and experiences the Searing. She runs The Great Northern Wall (D). Tooling around Ascalon City, she finds her way to the Arena, and enters her first Arena battle (E+).

Liking the taste of PvP, she generates a PvP character, and tries the Competition Arenas (F+) and Tombs battles (G+). Her performance in Tombs gets her noticed, and she joins a pretty decent Guild (H).

Alice and her Guild engage in a number of rated Guild-vs.-Guild matches (I+), and eventually reach the top of the ladder. Throughout all of this, she has exited the client (J+) and entered it again several times (K+). Note that the game itself—running as it does on ArenaNet's servers—continues to run, regardless of whether Alice's client is connected to it.

Now, my question is this: at what points is Alice playing Guild Wars? And at what points should she have access to the same in-game skills, equipment, and upgrades as everyone else in the game?

My understanding of your position is that players should have access to the full panoply of in-game skills and equipment at all times (F), (G), and (I).

My position is that they are all equal at all times (A), and everything from that point forward for any given account represents a single persistent instance of play, regardless of the number of occurrences of (F), (G), (I) and (K).

Let me know if my understanding of your position is incorrect; and don't feel shy about asking for clarification on mine. If you think you have a sufficient understanding of my position, also don't feel shy about explaining why I'm wrong.

—Siran Dunmorgan

JasonJLore · Jul 02, 2005, 01:58 AM // 01:58

With all due respect Siran you're turning the discussion into an academic debate with a heavy influx of theoretical posturing. The argument is simple enough. ANet has advertised - heavily I might add - that GW is a "competitive" MMO. Which means that PvP takes precedent over all else.
If you and your team are in a strict PvP environment, ALL things should be equal, and the team who is more skillful and more resourceful should have the advangtage. Not because of better armor, or weapons, or runes but because they are just plain better. arredondo is correct in his assessment. No professional team is discouraged, or held back in any way from using the best equipment and training facilities available. Now it's true that one owner may have more money to spend on a team than another but that is the way it is in life. There will always be the haves and the have-nots. But the league of teams involved always makes sure that as far as equipement and training go, ALL ARE EQUAL or at least have the opportunity to be equal.

Siran Dunmorgan · Jul 02, 2005, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by JasonJLore

With all due respect Siran you're turning the discussion into an academic debate with a heavy influx of theoretical posturing. The argument is simple enough. ANet has advertised - heavily I might add - that GW is a "competitive" MMO. Which means that PvP takes precedent over all else.
If you and your team are in a strict PvP environment, ALL things should be equal, and the team who is more skillful and more resourceful should have the advangtage. Not because of better armor, or weapons, or runes but because they are just plain better. arredondo is correct in his assessment. No professional team is discouraged, or held back in any way from using the best equipment and training facilities available. Now it's true that one owner may have more money to spend on a team than another but that is the way it is in life. There will always be the haves and the have-nots. But the league of teams involved always makes sure that as far as equipement and training go, ALL ARE EQUAL.

As far as turning it into a theoretical debate, quite the opposite—at this point, I'm trying to bring the discussion back to the specifics of Guild Wars, rather than indulge in hit-or-miss comparisons with various sports.

And I agree that PvP does take precedence: that was certainly the focus of pre-release testing, to the woe of ArenaNet. But, while it takes precedence, the narrow context of individual battles is not the whole of the game. Even if it were, I would argue that the effect of any individual battle should carry over to further battles—perhaps the principal differentiator between sport and war.

Quite honestly, I'd like for it to go further than that, to the point where it's possible to lose access to an upgrade or skill once you've got it—but I know that's not a fight I'm going to win here.

—Siran Dunmorgan

P.S. This isn't about me being right and you being wrong, or vice-versa. I happen to think that we have an irreconcilable difference of opinion about what the game should be—but discussions like this serve to get all of us thinking about why we believe what we believe.

Oh—and I'd like to add that I'm not part of the 'PvE faction' either: I'd still be happy if the game were PvP only. What I'm actually advocating is that the game 'Guild Wars' reflect wars, rather than sports.

CaptainGuru · Jul 02, 2005, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siran Dunmorgan

But we would all do well to try to understand that we—and in this I include the developers of Guild Wars as well—are faced with a living game, subject to the same 'growth pains' of any living thing, and, like a living thing, we cannot be wholly certain into what it will grow.

—Siran Dunmorgan

You actually work for ANet?

Vorlin · Jul 02, 2005, 03:28 AM // 03:28

You know, at this point I'd be interested in getting some cold hard data about the effect of equipment in PvP between top of the line guilds. Now, I'm not talking about 'one guild has a newbie setup, the other maxxed out', what I'm interested is just how often a 'pretty good' setup wins vs. a 'maxxed out' setup, among, say, the top 20 guilds. I'm also curious as to what percentage of players in the top 20 guilds are using maxxed-out or nearly-maxxed-out sets.

Without significant amounts of hard data (i.e. -not- anecdotal data) it's really hard to know if this is really as much of an issue as some people believe. Maybe it is even -more- of an issue. It would probably take an implementor to answer this for sure, someone who could scan the database and track wins/loses vs. level_of_gear for the top 20 (or even top 40 if you want a bigger sample) guilds.

It's important for the imps at GW to know this information, because if it does turn out that massive farming is needed to be competitive in, say, the top 20 rankings, then they'd probably want to change -something-, as that's definitely not what they want based on their game description. Then again, it might very well turn out that this is merely the misperception of a few players ("I lost, and it must be my gear, because I know in my heart that I'm ultra-leet!!!"), in which case the imps would be quite justified in ignoring it.

Siran Dunmorgan · Jul 02, 2005, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siran Dunmorgan

But we would all do well to try to understand that we—and in this I include the developers of Guild Wars as well—are faced with a living game, subject to the same 'growth pains' of any living thing, and, like a living thing, we cannot be wholly certain into what it will grow.

You actually work for ANet?

No, alas!

Which is why I explicitly included the developers 'as well' in that statement: so that it was clear that I was not limiting my point to the player community.

I don't believe that the developers have any more clear an understanding of what Guild Wars will become than the players do. They happen to have a finer level of control over it on a week-to-week basis, but they appear willing to implement broad swaths of it in a more or less organic fashion in response to player interests.

As a result, I don't believe any of us really know what Guild Wars will look like in, say, two years time.

—Siran Dunmorgan

Edit: I should amend that "no" slightly: I do have a contractual agreement with ArenaNet beyond that of the Guild Wars EULA in that I'm an alpha tester. But the alpha tester agreement is very explicit in that I am not in any sense an employee or member of the ArenaNet staff.

Jul 02, 2005, 05:20 AM // 05:20

hmm...this topic reminds me of old school TGH and Gurus a while back. Good stuff

BE|Dac · Jul 02, 2005, 06:54 AM // 06:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Everything he said

amen

.

BE|Dac · Jul 02, 2005, 06:56 AM // 06:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siran Dunmorgan

Okay... I think we're getting somewhere.

Let me try to isolate our disagreement:

For the sake of the discussion, I postulate a prospective Guild Wars player: let us call her 'Alice'. For purposes of this discussion, a '+' after a letter denotes an action that may be taken more than once:

Alice sits down at her computer and installs Guild Wars.

Having done so, she double-clicks the "Guild Wars" icon that appears on her desktop to start the game. (A)

After some time, has her first taste of PvP at the Academy (C), and experiences the Searing. She runs The Great Northern Wall (D). Tooling around Ascalon City, she finds her way to the Arena, and enters her first Arena battle (E+).

Liking the taste of PvP, she generates a PvP character, and tries the Competition Arenas (F+) and Tombs battles (G+). Her performance in Tombs gets her noticed, and she joins a pretty decent Guild (H).

Alice and her Guild engage in a number of rated Guild-vs.-Guild matches (I+), and eventually reach the top of the ladder. Throughout all of this, she has exited the client (J+) and entered it again several times (K+). Note that the game itself—running as it does on ArenaNet's servers—continues to run, regardless of whether Alice's client is connected to it.

Now, my question is this: at what points is Alice playing Guild Wars? And at what points should she have access to the same in-game skills, equipment, and upgrades as everyone else in the game?

My understanding of your position is that players should have access to the full panoply of in-game skills and equipment at all times (F), (G), and (I).

My position is that they are all equal at all times (A), and everything from that point forward for any given account represents a single persistent instance of play, regardless of the number of occurrences of (F), (G), (I) and (K).

Let me know if my understanding of your position is incorrect; and don't feel shy about asking for clarification on mine. If you think you have a sufficient understanding of my position, also don't feel shy about explaining why I'm wrong.

—Siran Dunmorgan

Take a H, for Hand, and stick it up your A, for arse, and pull your H+, Head out and speak english.

BE|Dac · Jul 02, 2005, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Siran Dunmorgan

As I understand it, Arredondo is pointing out two things:

First, that he is not comfortable with—or, possibly, does not understand— the concept of explicit n-tier metagaming.

Second, that he believes that ArenaNet has in some sense abandoned its stated principles by implementing a game in which time spent is more important—more of a determining factor, if you will—than skill.

I'm going to try to analyze that a bit more, so that we can be certain that we know whereof we speak:

From the perspective of the character involved in a PvP match, there are three games: the present game in the sense of PvP battle. The first-tier metagame, representing the acquisition of the skills and equipment by means of which the battle is carried out, and the second-tier metagame, containing the environment in which the player functions, i.e. the real world.

As far as I can determine, Arredondo does not believe that what I refer to as the second-tier metagame is part of the game at all, because it lies outside the scope of the defined rules of the game.

For example, I believe that he would claim that the engineering differences between Formula One race cars are irrelevant to his argument because the rules of conduct of a Grand Prix race do not address matters of engineering, i.e., a driver is not required to perform a certain action or number of actions in order to have better wheels added to his car.

That this does in fact hold true for the engineering team responsible for building and maintaining the car is irrelevant, Arredondo would argue, because it is not a factor involved in the conduct of the race itself, or in the rules of the Formula One commission.

By defining the first-tier metagame—with respect to PvP battle—to take place in the virtual world rather than the real world, ArenaNet has placed the first-tier metagame in scope of 'the rules', just as if the F1 racing commission were to begin mandating distinctions between engineering teams. That the commission might only be recognizing distinctions that already exist is, again, irrelevant; the question is whether or not they were in scope of the explicit rules.

He has consistently shrugged off the assertion that, essentially, all games involve preparatory grind with the counterassertion that they do not explicitly codify this fact in their rules.

Well, I agree: they don't.

Welcome to the new world, where functions that once were a part of the real world have moved into the virtual. Expect to see more of this, as the scope of online environments continues to expand and interpenetrate the real world.

Now, with respect to his second point, the question of whether ArenaNet has been deceitful in asserting that 'skill > time spent', I don't actually believe there is any doubt: a PUG of unskilled players with who have been playing the game continuously since release will still fall before a team of n0 or Fianna armed only with 'template' characters.

The issue that Arredondo actually means to address is that, given a series of matches between two top guilds—I select n0 and the Fianna for this example—who are otherwise of equivalent skill, the team with the better equipment will prove victorious somewhat more often than the team with less, where completely even levels of skill and equipment would tend to produce a 1:1 win:loss ratio.

For myself, I would assert that skill is still the determining factor—but I'm willing to work with Arredondo's assumptions.

However, I refer again to the metagame: I believe that ArenaNet's assertion that 'skill > time spent' is inclusive of the first-tier metagame, as well as of PvP battle.

Arredondo and those like him are not willing to accept the first-tier meta-game as part of the game, and so believe that a means of removing the first-tier metagame entirely, i.e., an 'unlock all' button, is the correct solution to the game's woes, and believe that by implementing an explicit first-tier meta-game—as opposed to leaving the meta-game entirely in the real world, as is the case with most competitive games—ArenaNet has done a disservice to adherents of Guild Wars competitive play.

For myself, I would rather that Guild Wars included even higher order meta-games, such as a more fully realized campaign system whereby it were possible to actually wage war—as opposed to a series of stylized skirmishes—between Guilds within the explicit rules of the game.

—Siran Dunmorgan

P.S. Incidentally, I don't believe that Arredondo is an idiot, nor well-described by any of perjoratives that have been applied to him in this thread. Indeed, I would suggest that he has been remarkably patient with his detractors.

holy shit dude

Seriously, wtf do you want the characters to have sex and have babies, then have a DNA system whereby the genetic traits of the character are determined to better match how breeding interferes with the effectiveness of a character in combat.

okay..

there are games, we want them to be fun... that is the bottom line.

Siren · Jul 02, 2005, 08:27 AM // 08:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by arredondo

Not just my point of view. Any of the thousands of other activities played for hundreds of years could have your point of view in supporting this, but they don't. There's a reason for that... the requirement of forced hours and activity to have access to gear has NOTHING to do with promoting skillful play between opponents.

Whether I can beat you or not in competition should not be influenced (slightly or greatly) by anything in the rules that allows the use of gear for one side, but not the other until they get through some mandated activity requirements.

We can disagree if Arena.net's system is a good one or not as individuals, but I'd rather choose to let competition history and common sense back up my position.

Again, you're dodging the issue here and missing the point.

"Competition history" (a term so vague that it has no meaning here) means absolutely nothing. You're taking issue with a quality (objective usage of the word) of role-playing games that has been in effect pretty much since the conception of the genre. In almost every PvP-focused RPG in existence, you have the need for character development and "gear" acquisition. That's why they're called role-playing games (although I dislike that term from a theatrical standpoint). Because you're playing a role...building a character from the ground-up.

If you look at recent games, you see this. I've not played Evercrack, but I have played SWG, and that game (pre-CU) was a notorious offender for the "need" for uber-gear to PvP. If you weren't built up insanely high and well-armored, forget about taking on someone with only a few skills higher than you.

But really, that's how it should be. If you don't have a particular piece of armor, or a particular weapon, or a particular skill, you should expect to get demolished if worse comes to worst. Is this a bad thing? Not really, no. It's just how things work.

In FPS, same idea applies. An autoshotty in CS is going to largely be more effective than a pump-action, and the AWP is considerably more effective than the Scout. Unless one is wily in combat, one will probably lose.

In UT, same idea. There's a slim chance you'll survive when you take a rocket launcher in the face when you spawn.

And it's just the way things work. A higher damage weapon is going to do more damage than a lower damage weapon.

But is that doing nothing to promote skillful play between opponents? I'd say not necessarily. Going up against a fully maxxed or even partially maxxed team is going to be rough, but it just requires you to attempt to outthink your opponent. Yes, you may very well get smacked around like a red-headed stepchild, but here you're talking about going up against powergrinders, basically...people who have devoted large portions of their lives to doing nothing but farming for gear.

So how is losing to them meaningful enough to warrant your reaction? I'm not saying you did lose to fully decked out teams or anything, but I'd like your perspective on that. So somebody loses to a bunch of powergrinder-fueled players. Big deal. It doesn't mean the game is broken. It just means that powergrinders skew the game.

And ultimately, it comes down to what RPGs are: stat builders. From the early text-based games, through Final Fantasy, through MMORPGs, to Guild Wars...that stat building has always been there in some form or another. That's why I think it's downright silly to get this pissed over it in Guild Wars.

That's why I think it's downright silly to bring in real-life sports events to help you criticize a design approach of RPGs, because while real-life sports have a certain type of "stat building," that's something much different than clicking a mouse again and again. Athletes build physical muscle tone. They endure strength training so they can jump higher, run longer and faster, etc.

Philosophically, one could draw a parallel in that regard, but when examined more closely, that parallel ultimately falls apart, because gamers are not subjecting their bodies to that kind of training, nor are their characters' "training" remotely close to what athletes do, because of the illusion of gaming.

Lane · Jul 02, 2005, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by JasonJLore

If you and your team are in a strict PvP environment, ALL things should be equal, and the team who is more skillful and more resourceful should have the advangtage.

I really don't see where you are coming from when you say that all things must be equal for the game to be fair. You've focused on sports alot... do you think all that equipment they use is free? If you really think about it, there's no way in hell those athletes and the sports group in general would be playing if each of them didn't spend alot of time and money to get there. Athletes aren't just given anything they want... they earned that, and so did the team they work for. The coach wasn't some guy who just decided to be a football coach one day so they gave him the job... he built up experience, spent lots of time, and used plenty of resources to get there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JasonJLore

No professional team is discouraged, or held back in any way from using the best equipment and training facilities available.

100% incorrect. That stuff is not free (which is the only way it would really be equal).

Quote:

Originally Posted by JasonJLore

Now it's true that one owner may have more money to spend on a team than another but that is the way it is in life. There will always be the haves and the have-nots. But the league of teams involved always makes sure that as far as equipement and training go, ALL ARE EQUAL or at least have the opportunity to be equal.

How in the world is that not the case in this game?! Everyone has the opportunity to get whatever they want, and now you can do that very thing while only playing the game in one particular way if you want to do it that way.

EDIT: You are wrong about the league making sure that training is the same for everyone... you are going too far in trying to make athletic sports match up to your made-up scenario. I have never heard of a sporting league having rules on how much training a team must do (or when or how they must do it) in order to compete

Tuna · Jul 02, 2005, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Let me put a different view on this topic. I am missing eight (mostly useless) superior runes, a handfull of weapon upgrades, and about 20% of the skills. It would be fair to say that I have more junk unlocked than pretty much everyone. To everyone saying that you don't need to unlock everything etc. you don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you can win, but I can win more. Far more. I have roughly 80% of everything unlocked and because of that have more flexibility than many of you will ever have. The access to options lets me use my skill to its full potential.

Even though I already grinded almost everything out of this game I still vouch for UAX. Why? Because it gets old seeing a bunch of people using the same old things in tombs etc. that quite frankly suck. As much as I like desimating noobs it gets kind of old. I'd rather have even or roughly even competition than continuely bulldozing wa/mo premades. Vote YES for quick unlocks/UAX.

A word on analogies:
I think most of you are inccorectly using them in relation to GW. Unlocking junk in Guild Wars is in now way synonymous with skill. You can't compare practicing a sport to unlocking skills. You can, however, compare practicing a sport to practicing GW PvP. Most sports don't have anything that can be compared to the unlocking process except for prehaps funds, but that gets kind of sticky as you could compare that to the $50 price tag on GW. The bottom line is the guild who grinds the most in PvE will win the most in PvP. However, that is not to say that they cannot be beaten. The new patch does not solve this problem as I hypothisize that it is quicker to achieve UAS by doing PvE. Runes and weapon ugrades will be much faster but I would agrue that skills are more important.