As you are well aware of, while fighting in WvW you wont be able to see the name of the character opposing you (you can in structured pvp, at least it shows in the videos). Youll be able to see "green invader" , "red invader" or whatever. The rationale for this is that it captures more the feeling of a mass battle in which you fight  a horde of faceless enemy soldiers, as opposed to the more ritualized, duelistic nature of structured pvp, in which individual reputation plays a large part. Server turnover and the fact that you wont face the same enemies again in a possibly months is another argument  used to justify this. No problem for me. Fighting an enemy with no name does add a certain  warlike feeling to the whole situation, but i suspect there maybe another reason of a more technical nature.

If you remove names, you remove the necessity to correctly depict your enemy. If we are going to have 500 people dishing it out in the same instance, one of the limiting factors could be the amount of data your internet connection can handle (this is just especulation on  my part).  Perhaps the blonde piggytailed female norn thief with red armor you are fighting is a norn and a thief,.....and male , dressed in green and with an enormous beard. Perhaps your internet is only transmiting ...norn... thief...armed with bow and your pc is randomly generating the rest. It could save for a lot of data transmission and perhaps make those battle possibles without too much lag and it could explain the necessity of not allowing you to identify the player.

Please bear with me, this is just speculation and i have no technical savvy, so this could well be a load of BS, but i find the idea intriguing. It it were true, i wouldnt mind it too much if it made the whole thing work more smoothly.

Yeah, I get why they said you can't see names but I still would rather see them.  I want to know the punk that just jacked me so I can hunt him down in retaliation!

We dont need to see the names. Because....

-Once less thing to cause lag.

-What would you do with knowing the enemys name, excpet try to flame him on some forums somewhere. Immature.

-One less thing to distract you.

Finally, I would be able to sit in the bushes and wait for my prey! Great

Originally posted by mazut

Finally, I would be able to sit in the bushes and wait for my prey! Great

 Oh no .. you'll still probably have Red Invader Over your head like a big "I'm over here, come kill me" sign lol

Originally posted by Billr00

Originally posted by mazut

Finally, I would be able to sit in the bushes and wait for my prey! Great

 Oh no .. you'll still probably have Red Invader Over your head like a big "I'm over here, come kill me" sign lol

Thought there wont be any signs, that sux :/

I prefer not seeing the names... it actually adds to the lore of being in the Mists against these... things... that look like us but aren't us.

Yikes, doubled myself.

Originally posted by Billr00

Originally posted by mazut

Finally, I would be able to sit in the bushes and wait for my prey! Great

 Oh no .. you'll still probably have Red Invader Over your head like a big "I'm over here, come kill me" sign lol

Actually Mazut can do just that with the Ranger. Just hit "Camoflage" and you'll be stealthed, indefinitely, until you move.

As for the "<colour> Invader" nameplates, I doubt it has anything to do with lag. Heck, they allow you to see everyone (in the immediate vicinity) on the map, so I doubt showing someone's name would mean a thing. Apaprt from the "faceless enemy" reason, I think the other reason ArenaNet did this was to prevent people from opposing servers, meeting up and finding someway to exploit the system. No idea how it can be exploited though. Can't really kill trade, because then you'll have to keep repairing armour.

I think it is there to prevent flaming and ganking specific players. Some people don't pvp, because they don't like the frontal aspect of pvp in general.

can you mark targets with icons over their heads?

I know why they decided to do this, from a developer's point of view it makes alot of sense, specially since names can be duplicated in other servers...

With that said, WvWvW will be mostly a community built part of the game and being a DAOC / Warhammer player i can tell you that a major part of this kind of gameplay is to learn to despise some oponents and respect others.

I sincerely hope they allow names to be displayed.

You know, I really didn't like the no name thing at first but then they gave  reasons on the reddit AMA and I have to agree at least about accessibility.But also they brought up the point I hadn't figured of  an unifying  US vs Them scenario and then  the facelessness of the enemy sort of made sense because you know the names of your comrades but not the enemy and that is good for server comraderie I think.  It would be better even, if they included the server name, if,of course,  the servers have unique names.

Originally posted by Phaedric

You know, I really didn't like the no name thing at first but then they gave  reasons on the reddit AMA and I have to agree at least about accessibility.But also they brought up the point I hadn't figured of  an unifying  US vs Them scenario and then  the facelessness of the enemy sort of made sense because you know the names of your comrades but not the enemy and that is good for server comraderie I think.  It would be better even, if they included the server name, if,of course,  the servers have unique names.

I was just about to say this.

If a player is there to prove his epeen is bigger, then they are almost worthless as a team player and they will probably have no server pride.

Community serves the end-game, and since PvP in GW2 is not about progression, we need a strong server community to keep going.

I'm not a fan of the nameless policy at all. I would very much like to see the name of who i am fighting: see who just totally outplayed me, get the aha-moment "oh i fought that person in an epic battle yesterday, I need to stay on top of my game", and just generally recognizing enemy players by name while out on the battlefield, etc.

At least they should make it an option to toggle it on/off - preferably keybindable so one can toggle it during massive battles.

I like it for the fact that someone could not switch over to the opposing factions server and harrass someone. Wether they be a bad player or a good player or a just down right rude one.

PvP is going to be personal and ranked and leader boards and stats and teams and legends...

on the eSport instanced PvP side.

The WvW is actually the "casual" PvP side of GW2, and the nameless enemies fit very well into that scheme.

You don't know who you are fighting, dehumanizing the enemy and thusly (because it is still just a game) making it more approachable.

Most of us are so used to multiplayer and PvP where you can see the other person's name and they can see yours... pretty easy to think that it will be a lot less personal and more casual without names doesn't it?

I think the floating names are a huge immersion killer anyways. They were needed in older MMOs because the graphics werent good enough for you to recognize your friends anyways.

I don´t really like the invader thing either, I would prefer no name at all on the enemies and a red, green or blue cloak to show which side they are on. 

Originally posted by komobo

I'm not a fan of the nameless policy at all. I would very much like to see the name of who i am fighting: see who just totally outplayed me, get the aha-moment "oh i fought that person in an epic battle yesterday, I need to stay on top of my game", and just generally recognizing enemy players by name while out on the battlefield, etc.

 

At least they should make it an option to toggle it on/off - preferably keybindable so one can toggle it during massive battles.

No thanks. What you're suggesting will likely create some bad blood amongst the playerbase, with gankers harrassing specific targets. The fact that you can see the Guild's [tags] is good enough. That way maybe even some "Guild Wars" will come about.

I really don't like this. I'd like to know the names of my enemies. It creates personal rivalries and better sense of persistence.

As for people saying "you don't need to know your enemies names because you'd abuse them" that's just silly and completely false as anyone who played WAR or DAoC can testify. In fact usually you'd have better relations with your enemies, because hey they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, than with your incompetent cowardly allies.

In the WAR server forums I was in there was nothing but mutual respect and friendly bantering between the factions. In fact, it was not uncommon to congratulate your enemies when you lost for providing you with great play.

Remember, this is  basically RvR, not FFA PvP like Darkfall or even WoW PvP servers. I'm not sure people who are supporting this ever played WAR or DAoC. It's a completely different ballgame, I tell you.