LETS PWN SOME NOOBS

So with this past BWE I put a big concentration on the WvW since I didn't get the chance to do so in the first BWE. First, I'd like to get a few things out of the way...and this is my personal opinion, mind you...

-"GUILD WARS 2 IS FARKING AMAZING. BEST MMO I'VE EVER PLAYED HANDS DOWN!!!!!!! JESUS AND CHUCK NORRIS ROGRAMMED THIS SHIZ!"

Now with that said I think we can safely move on without the looming threat of those pesky opinions...

THE NITTY GRITTY

So when I first stepped out into the real world I was completely lost...had no clue which way was up and signed up for a bunch of credit cards I didn't need. Oh...wait...I thought i was writing my autobiography; my mistake. When I stepped out into the WvW map I was still completely lost. I had no clue where to go, so I just went. Walked forward in hopes of being surprised, and boy was I ever. Absolute Madness: the only words that can truely describe the GW2 PvP experience. Madness with a touch of medieval warfare. Trebuchets firing left right and center, arrows raining from god knows where, people unwittingly jumping off of high cliffs trying to escape imminent danger. If you are bat-shit-crazy you might survive out here.

But combing past the madness and blood thirst you'll find the WvW to be quite the enjoyable experience teeming with potential for strategic maneuvers, life saving flanks, and cloak and dagger deals behind closed doors. The WvW is literally a big sandbox with "go forth and kill thy enemy" written on the cover.

IF I HAD THAT GREATSWORD OF SUPERIOR ASS KICKING I'D...

Okay, I know we've all said something similar to this at some point. Or atleast said "if i were a few levels higher I would've won." Well fret not my little cheeto gobbling grimlin, Guild Wars 2 is here to save the day....kinda. So in the WvW setting everyone is more or less on the same playing field. What's left are the few stats that are given to each player to individualize them, their choice of weapon, and that much sought after and highly debated 'player skill'. Everyone is on an equal footing to start and its all based on you. No more crutching your super longbow of greater ball breaking +10, or spamming you '5' key so your ultimate ability pwns them for 9000 hp. Guild Wars 2's combat doesn't really allow for that infact the damage you do to a single player can almost be underwhelming. The game promotes group play, so fighting one on one with a guardian and winning just doesn't seem feasible. In fact I can remember chasing a guardian for about 15 minutes trying to kill it. He/she eventually met up with a thief and I was duely face stomped. But what I do want to point out is that I held my own against 2 classes that you think would be able to take me down 2 against 1 with little effort. In any other MMO this would have been an easy face rolling, but I survived a good 5 minutes before finally being put down. So this tells me that with a fair amount of skill one could possibly take on multiple targets and atleast take someone else with you. Or survive long enough to get away atleast...

THEN WE'LL FIGHT IN THE SHADE!

Trebuchets, flaming boulders, arrows, balistae, and flying mammoths all rained from the heavens. All of this did nothing but complement the meteors, minions, and god knows what else players were throwing at each other. The sheer amount of artillery filling the air would make the initial wave on the Normandy beach on D-day look like a segment of Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood. It was quite entertaining, however, to watch 20 people chase down the enemy; up until they reach the walls of some keep where they were all slaughtered by trebuchets sitting on top of houses.

WAIT, WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?

So one of the most noteable features, atleast in my opinion, of the WvW is this: No one you fight will have a name.

Seriously...

If you're running around and find an enemy they will likely be named "Sorrow's Furnace Defender", or "Iles of Janthir Defender". To me this cuts down on some of the PvP griefing that can occur in most MMO's. Now you won't have someone hunting your arse because you killed their lowbie. I think it'll go more like this:

John: "Some guy just killed my lowbie..."

Sarah: "What!?!? Where? What was his name?"

John: "Uh...I dont know."

Sarah: "How? How do you not know"

John: "I think it was Sorrows Furnace Defender"

Sarah and John venture out together and run into a big mob of enemies...

Sarah: "Hey, John...They're all named Sorrows Furnace Defender..."

John: "Oh.."

Sarah: "And how did they kill your lowbie if we're all level 80........"

Sarah turns around to see juns heels kicking up dust, his hair flailing wildly in the wind and short shouts of terror cracking through the air as he curls his tail between his legs...

Sucks to be Sarah, me thinks.

YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS

So every now and then I'd see somebody stop moving for a second....and then a balistae would show up next to them. I questioned the laws of the universe for a brief moment and wondered how things could be created from thin air...and then I remembered that this is Guild Wars 2 and everyone has magic powers, leap with super human strength, and sprint for hours on end without stopping for breath or water. Ah, logic.

But seriously, Its pretty awesome that you are able to construct trebuchets, and balistae (and other sinister devices) just about anywhere. I can, ofcourse, see this becoming an issue. In fact I saw the theoretical issue in practice. We were attempting to defend a keep that was near the enemies main keep. And by near I mean right next door within spitting range. We would have been alright had it not been for the trebuchets they had built behind the walls we didn't have the force to access. To make matters worse, they were constructed on top of houses giving them a bit of additional range. I can see, if this goes unchecked, players placing artillery in ironious, or otherwise inaccessible places and gaining an advantage because of it. Granted, the artillery is there to provide an advantage, but it can also be destroyed...If a player can't access it to destroy it, well then you now have a permanent advantage and can, infact, compound on that advantage. This could possibly create one-sided battles where the fight should be even, but  the enemy put something somewhere inaccessible to others and now have a permanent advantage that can't be stopped. Some might argue "well isn't that the point"...well yes, but think of this. Let's say you have a massive force of....300 people and you decide you want to siege this one keep. The enemy, oh clever wall glitching super saiyans, decided to place all of their artillery on a rock thats at the left side of the keep thats extremely tall and you have to do a bit of rock climbing to get to it. Let's also say that there are about 50 of these wall glitching saiyans monkey people. In theory your force of 300 should crush them in one swift move. Artillery could move the battle in their favor, but only by a small degree. Your sheer numbers just outdoes whatever tricker they might come up with. But because of this really high rock and your inability to access and remove the one thing threatening your forces you are whiped out as you stand beating on the keep walls. Why? Because Vegeta built catapults on something he shouldn't have.

I think a similar thing was seen in Aion, where players could place their kisks in the mountains that shouldn't even be accessible. They would glitch and glide their way up past collision barriers and place kisks so they could essentially stay forever in enemy territory and grief 'round the clock.

I only see it as a problem if left unchecked. However, I could just be making an over-estimation...

SERVER CHAMPS FOR 6 YEARS RUNNING! EAT IT!

So I noticed one thing...The server I was on, Isles of Janthir, was DOMINATING in WvW...I mean seriously. If you opened up the WvW window...you saw like 75% was red(us). Now that's cool that we were winning...but what about 6 months down the road...when we're still winning and the other two servers are completely demoralized. So they stop coming out to PvP and the WvW maps are left empty. I saw this in practice in, yea I pick on this game alot, Aion. Asmodians would capture all of the forts...and then they would hold them for like 3 months. The Elyos would become demoralized and unmotivated to even attempt a siege. Though they may have the numbers, they'd rather not try and fail. So then it becomes a stalemate. The Asmodians get bored, stop PvP'ing, people quit, everyone carebears, blah blah blah...I'm sure we've heard this cycle from the whining majority a thousand times. But sadly its kind of true. If PvP isn't fresh and exciting and gets dominated by one side constantly it gets boring for both sides.

Luckily GW2 does it a bit different. Instead of facing the same servers all the time it changes every so often. One week you may be facing Sorrows Furnace and Augury Rock...and the next youre facing some other guys you forgot existed. It keeps things fresh and new. Also if you were being dominated by Augury rock, well now they're gone and its your time to shine. And I'm sure that under your breath you're hoping they got paired up with some "godmodez" server that just steamrolls them into the pavement.

/END WALLOFTEXT

So I guess after all that I can just say the WvW was an awesome experience. It's hard to sum up exactly what I experienced in any number of words. I think to do that I'd need some string, a pair of plyers, that midget hooker from 5th street, and a lot of double-sided tape...

...and band-aids. Safety first kids!

Guild Wars 2 is one to keep your eye on....as if you aren't already refreshing the GW2 homepage every 5 minutes...and be on the look out for whatever goodies are around the corner.

~Cheers

Nice review thanks, can't wait to play.

You spend all that time on a wall of text that is pretty good, and yet you didn't do your research OP.

In live, there will be realm rankings, and your realm will be faced against the realms around your skill level.  So your realm may dominate in the BWEs, but once the game has gone live for several weeks, you won't see that problem.   

Excellent write up. I had a few concerns in WvW about some NPC defenders that somehow managed to become invulnerable which made it impossible to take a keep, but im sure it was just a bug that will be worked out.

By The Way, the WvW matches will last 2 weeks and then restart. Anet have a server matching system so that winning servers  will be matched up with other winning servers and people that come on in the middle of the night to ninja all the keeps while everyone is sleeping will be matched up with other servers that do the same. After a few months or so it should all balance out so that the matches are even and no one is getting steamrollered, meaning the point about "champs for 6 years" and opponnts getting demoralised causing a stalemate is moot. 

Bit over the top fanism but ok your in your rights to be ntowseeastik fan.

Game is great and i can wait to play it again but there is still alot to be done before release.

A fun article, nice work. About the siege machines placed in 'special unreachable spots' - that's completely useless,  waste of gold, once placed you can't move them again, and the big army you wanted to cleverly ambush - can simply move away :) In GW2 you are not forced to attack a keep in 1 spot, you can attack from many sides and take the walls down.

Yea, didn't get a chance to do all the little things in WvW...was my initial impression. And the catapults on houses thing...I just saw that and said "hmmm"...So i thought I'd mention it.

Originally posted by Finit

You spend all that time on a wall of text that is pretty good, and yet you didn't do your research OP.

In live, there will be realm rankings, and your realm will be faced against the realms around your skill level.  So your realm may dominate in the BWEs, but once the game has gone live for several weeks, you won't see that problem.   

That's exactly what he said, read it again.

Great post! Sounds like good fun, can't wait.

And thanks all for the positive comments. I try to deliver fun walls of verbage.

Good review, I agree. I just want someone to find an issue in WvWvW now so areanet can quickly fix that issue whatever it may be.

Originally posted by Jonoku

Good review, I agree. I just want someone to find an issue in WvWvW now so areanet can quickly fix that issue whatever it may be.

Yup, the thing is...there really aren't that many issues to point out. The original issues mentioned from BWE1 were mostly addressed from what I saw.

Though the 'issue' of zerging is still there, that's not something A-net can fix. Zerging is an error that exists between keyboard and chair. And in any mass pvp situation there will be zerging. As far as that whole 'aoe-no mans land' thing people talked about...i didn't see that as much this time. Sure there were tons of aoes being laid down, but if you're afraid of running in and potentially dying what else are you really oging to do; except, ofcourse, laying down metric butt tons of aoe's and hoping something dies.

From what I saw it seemed like the more aoe's concentrated in one spot the less damage they did collectively. Just my observation.

Can you tell me which rewards I get from PvP? I know there are lot of bonus for crafting/gold/exp if my server is winning. But does my player get some thing?