I can see a lot of people here don't really know much about esports.... Let me add some clarity to your ignorance.

1.  WoW was an esport starting in early TBC, it was picked up by MLG, ESL/IEM, and WSVG.  It also had a short stint in CGS. 

It remained an esport for YEARS with viewer counts decimating every other games online viewer counts.  (Only eventually dwarfed by LoL after the big streaming boom)

2.  Arenanet hosted 100k tournament, not 1million dollar tournament.  For their gw1 stuff.  You can not argue about blizzard hosting their own tournaments and funding them, when anet to this date has done it as well, at a much less frequent rate, with smaller prize pools. 

3.  LoL is an absolutely humongous esport right now, it is riding a bubble that probably won't pop for another year or two. 

4.  SC2 is past it's prime as an esport, viewer counts have actually dwindled and sc2 was actually never a gigantic hit in korea. 

5.  WoW pvp right now is easy access to all, anyone can get the best pvp gear regardless of how proficient they are at the game. 

GW2 will not be the big esport of 2013, even if ESL picks it up, that doesn't mean it has it made.  WoW lasted many years in multiple leagues, if GW2 can do the same, with relatively similar viewer counts... then we can talk about gw2 being a legitimate esport.  But I already know if GW2 gets casted the viewer counts won't be very high, and look forward to the excuses people will make at that point. 

GW2, if it does become an esport, will have a small but loyal following.  Everyone wants to pretend their game is the best in the world, but the bottom line is, if a game doesn't have a huge competitive scene, the players can not get to a very high skill level.  You need tons of people pushing the limits and giving you constant high-grade practice. 

It's still baffling to me how distorted people see gw2 relative to the esport landscape...  It literally has zero chance of becoming even 1/10th as popular as the biggest esport (LoL).

Originally posted by Warjin

Originally posted by fivoroth

Originally posted by Warjin

Why is this post even still going?

Because not everyone is as biased as you :D

Gw2's pvp blows WoW pvp out the water by like a mile, WoW's pvp is and has been a joke, you can not have good pvp in a mmo when the pvp is balanced around rock, paper, Gw2 balances around class vs class meaning all classes can do well vs another making team balance better, WoW's is all about who has the most CC and healers, WoW is a pve game, pvp in WoW is a after thought anyone who say different is a joke.

GW2's pvp is a joke too. It's a spamfest with no resource management or any kind of management for that matter. GW2 is also a PvE game with sPvP as an afterthought. There are few people playing sPvP in gw2 compared to pve and wvwvw and the content patches are mostly pve focused.

To put in in another way, a 3k rated WoW player would get stomped in Gw2's pvp by a average Gw2  player.

To put it in yet another way, a top GW2 player will get stomped in WoW's arenas by average players. Do you know how silly this sentence sounds? You can't "transfer" skill from one game to another like this. 

Also Gw2's BG layouts are balanced unlike WoW,

Because they are all the same. All maps are super small, claustrophobic and have the same objectives.

also no faction has the upper edge in Gw2 because all sides can play all races, WoW is Horde favored overall and human favored due to every man for himself,

What? Horde favoured? This is very server specific. When I was playing In my battlegroup Alliance destroyed the Horde. I never actually played Human. But then again that might have to do that my class could only be a night elf :D Anyways don't think humans were that OP or anything. Race was never a big factor in WoW.

WoW got kick out of MLG because of how much it's a joke to any real competives pvper, Gw2 on the otherhand can with ease become a vaild esport no problem, just needs a few tweaks.

WoW was in MLG? I didn't know that but that is IMPRESSIVE! I doubt GW2 will ever become an esport let alone be part of MLG. I don't consider WoW an esport either.  I mean how do you even see GW2 being an esport when you have games like League of Legends and Starcraft 2. I don't know how GW2 compares to LoL but I know that the game is a child's play compared to Starcraft 2. GW2 takes almost 0 skill to navigate and control is easy. In SC2 everything requires a lot of skill. That's what an esport is all about. So no, GW2 and WoW aren't and won't become esports in my opinion.

You can not, I repeat "CAN NOT" have competive pvp when crowd control last more then a few seconds and only a 2 min CC break, lol, Gw2 on the ontherhand gives all classes fast CC breaks and also low CC timers, this gives players time to react, making CC spam meaningless in Gw2, WoW it's all about who has the fastest ping time to get off there CC first and who has the most healing lol.

Yeaaah right. GW2 is a spamfest all right. Long cooldowns are there for a reason. So that you can actually manage them. In GW2 you just pop them as soon as they are off cooldown. I personally think that neither game takes a lot of skill to play.

 

 

WoW was im MLG when arena first started back around season 1-2, only lasted a season because it was not balanced.

Also I played WoW from 2004-2011 gained rating of 2800 and 2200 before the arena rating change back in (season 1-2), I can tall you from exp WoW has nothing on Gw2's ,with Gw2's PvP once you understand how spvp works, conditions, boons, CC ect it's game over for WoW's PvP, anyone that knows anything about Bg style pvp will know Gw2 is flat out better in terms of  real balance.

Also many so called WoW arena players tryed Gw2 when it first came out and many failed and went back to WoW, most of your fav youtube high ranked heros could not hack it, in turn Gw2's sPvP became a place were the top skilled pvpers from many games flocked due to how they balanced the game, it's almost like a FPS/RTS in terms of balance, also Anet will not let a class stay overpowered for long, DD-ele just got  nerfed, blizzard keeps overpowered classes in play for years, hell we still see frost mages and resto healing OP after 6 years, Blizzards pvp is an after thought, WoW is all about PvE and  they do it well, better then Gw2 but as PvP Gw2 does it wayyyyyyy better then WoW's mess of a game they call PvP.

As for Alli having the edge from this I can tell you havnt played WoW for more then a few years maybe 3, because anyone who has played WoW for as long as I have knows Horde had and still has the edge in PvP due to racials overall, Alli has everyman that's it, horde has far more that will effect team play as a whole when combined and in turn effects win/lose ratios, also everyman is 3 years old before that Alli had jack shit lol, Horde has been the favored faction and has effected PvP balance for many years, do your WoW history homework and you will know this to be true.

1.  WoW was an esport covered by mlg/esl/wsvg/cgs from season 1 til at least season 8.  (And blizzard still runs their own regionals and world championships up through season 13)

2.  No one in season 1 or 2 was even remotely close to 2800... this is another blatant lie by you.  Rank 1s were 2300-2500...

3.  The fact that you have blatantly lied about your WoW experience, and WoW's run as an esport... obviously speaks to the fact that you don't actually know anything about competitive WoW arena.... So all of your comparisons and claims are bogus.  Show me which WoW pros went to gw2 and played it competitively, and failed?  Every top wow pro streams now, their videos are archived, so go ahead and get me footage of them playing GW2 and failing. 

4.  As someone who legitimately got to 2800 (in season 6, you know, when people were actually hitting such ratings) and someone who dominated SPvP in gw2, I can tell you right now, GW2 has a much lower skill cap.  You won't accept that, because you are worse than amy's bakery on kitchen nightmares... but that's just the reality of it. 

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I wanna know what you are smoking to make such bold-faced lies about your wow experience... do a little research before lying. 

Also, why would anyone compare spvp to bgs, compare spvp to arenas. 

There was a time when there were no hubs... so moving away from hubs is not revolutionary... WoW really went hardcore on quest hubs, and then slowly refined the design of it so people had a smoother more fluid leveling experience through zones.... but before that many mmos had little to no questing... it was about going out into the world and killing stuff to level. 

GW2 doesn't even goad you to explore to the extent of the old mmos, instead of a hub telling you where to go you just run around like a gopher to marks on the map. 

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by caetftl

 

It's in the dna... men feel good when gaining favor with a female they are fond of.  And yea, guys are idiots when they let a girl milk them in video games just because they are girls, but that isn't the issue here, the issue is girls getting special treatment, then complaining when abusing that creates a negative connotation in some people's eyes.

I've been playing MMOs and online games in general since the 90s, and I can tell you i've never met a female that could compete at the upper echelons in skill.  Does that sound bad?  Sure... but it is a fact... based on my personal experience.  Every female that has had great success in competitive aspects of MMORPGs, have always done so by latching on to some guy and getting favoritism. 

One such case is a female named Hafu, which became pretty well known in WoW arena esports, she was sleeping with a much older guy that was carrying her in tournaments.  Now Hafu plays LoL, gets carried by guys and gets tons of stream viewers just for being a girl in make-up. 

She is not the only female that milks guys in this fashion... we've all seen the LoL female support players who get carried by pros, we've all seen the night elf priestesses in vanilla that get t2 priest chest before the best priests in the guild, simply because they are in an e-relationship with a night elf male warrior guild leader. 

The ball is really in the female's court... want to be respected as a gamer?  Be proficient at them, don't take any shortcuts or favors, earn it all on your own.  Show me the passion to master a game, not just sit there saying *mwah* and getting carried.  I've been waiting over a decade to be proven wrong, I want to be proven wrong, because i love women, but i won't call a duck a goose. 

Oh yea.. and another thing you can do is stop ranting about sexism, because guys give each other a hard time too... if you truly want to be treated equally... you get the same roughhousing. 

 

Yeah, but you are assuming that all women do this.

I'm sure there are women who latch on to guys for support and do so by batting their eyelashes. So sure, I agree that if they want to be respected in game "for the abilities that the game requires" they need to step it up.

But since I don't know "every woman who plays games" I can't realistically (or with a straight face) say that they all do this as you indicate.

I bet dollars to donuts that the truth is that you just noticed women doing this in games and because these particular women distinguish themselvse in this fashion they stand out.

In some ways it's a difficutl thing to asses. Some of your post sounds so 1950's bakward thinking. But the truth is that there are women who use their wiles to get ahead. And there are women who have no problem being miss suzy home maker and letting their man bring home the bacon.

But there are women who are tired of being lumped in with these women and who do try to distinguish themselves on their own merit.

Lastly, maybe there aren't as many awesome women gamers because those who are worth their salt in anything they do, ply their abilities, time and effort in other activities that they think are more worthwhile?

I would be very interested in seeing some women stand up and say "well, these are our accomplishments".

My sense is that the women who act in a manner as  you suggest would be finding the fast track even if they were men. That it's not about them being women but about them being the type of people who use others to get ahead and since they are women they just use the tools at hand. That in fact, the men who use others to get ahead do so by using other methods.

 

 

If they are tired of being lumped in, they have the power to go break the mold.  Until then they are just whining and :gasp: expecting special consideration without doing anything to merit it.

Go be a female gamer that doesn't ever talk about her sex.  Go outperform most of the male gamers and show you are a legitimately skilled gamer.  Then once you've acquired some good gaming accolades, tell your story. 

This reminds me of Dave Chappelle on Inside the Actor's studio.  Where he talks about how people are born with priveleges they may not even realize they have... female gamers are like this often, do they get a little extra benefit of the doubt on everything?  Yea... maybe they got that guild invite cause they were a girl, maybe joeblow helped tank their 5man to help them gear up, because they were a girl.  Most of them are naive or delusional and just tell themselves, "oh we are just being friendly that's how normal people act".  But we both know guys go outta their way to help the ladies, much moreso than they do for guy pals on average. 

It isn't backwards thinking, it is actually progressive to understand that all things are not exactly equal and that being liberal for the sake of being liberal does nothing.  Better to be objective and accept the facts for what they are, no matter how pretty or ugly they may be.  Show me top progression guilds with a female that is their top dpser, best tank, or best healer.  Show me a female LoL player that got to 2400 elo on her own without having to play support to some high elo male that carried her.  I want to see women prove they are badass gamers, they just have yet to do so, and the ones that have come close to those high accolades, all paint a bad picture because those are generally the ones that whored themselves out extra well to get carried that far. 

Originally posted by bliss14

Originally posted by Betaguy

Originally posted by caetftl
[mod edit]

 

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[mod edit]

It reflects more on the idiots giving people "free loot" than the girls getting it.  Do the guys expect a happy ending or something that night?

 

It's in the dna... men feel good when gaining favor with a female they are fond of.  And yea, guys are idiots when they let a girl milk them in video games just because they are girls, but that isn't the issue here, the issue is girls getting special treatment, then complaining when abusing that creates a negative connotation in some people's eyes.

I've been playing MMOs and online games in general since the 90s, and I can tell you i've never met a female that could compete at the upper echelons in skill.  Does that sound bad?  Sure... but it is a fact... based on my personal experience.  Every female that has had great success in competitive aspects of MMORPGs, have always done so by latching on to some guy and getting favoritism. 

One such case is a female named Hafu, which became pretty well known in WoW arena esports, she was sleeping with a much older guy that was carrying her in tournaments.  Now Hafu plays LoL, gets carried by guys and gets tons of stream viewers just for being a girl in make-up. 

She is not the only female that milks guys in this fashion... we've all seen the LoL female support players who get carried by pros, we've all seen the night elf priestesses in vanilla that get t2 priest chest before the best priests in the guild, simply because they are in an e-relationship with a night elf male warrior guild leader. 

The ball is really in the female's court... want to be respected as a gamer?  Be proficient at them, don't take any shortcuts or favors, earn it all on your own.  Show me the passion to master a game, not just sit there saying *mwah* and getting carried.  I've been waiting over a decade to be proven wrong, I want to be proven wrong, because i love women, but i won't call a duck a goose. 

People that blame Jay Wilson completely for how d3 turned out, really don't know how actiblizz currently works.  You see you have execs that are only about the profit... and you have designers that are trying to make the games, but they have to follow certain protocols... Jay tried to do the best he could in a game that was understaffed and hyped beyond belief... He did not have 100% creative control over everything in the game, he had the ugly job of taking the flak for the game's downfalls, while having to cater to businessmen making games for money, as opposed to gamers making games while knowing what other gamers want. 

You know how you can tell the real Jay Wilson understands how to make a good game?  Because he loves permadeath pvp in hardcore... nuff said. 

Basically all the skilled gaming veterans think gw2 was too easy and boring..

The newbs loved the game, and the super-newbs needed their hands held even more than the game already holds one's hand. 

Originally posted by FlawSGI

Originally posted by caetftl

Xfire mattered when it painted a pro-gw2 picture, now that it paints a bad one it is no longer allowed.

Not true. Xfire data is a tool and many scoff at the notion of using it no matter what picture it paints. I can agree it is useful for something, just not determining populations or painting pictures as you say. I can't recall any pro Xfire discussions anyways because the only time the tool is brought up is when someone wants to show that there is a decline in Xfire population.

 

GW2 is basically a perfect example of why the quality of games has gone down hill... because the consumers of present are much more casual and easy to lead around.

We once again disagree. The quality of MMO's has been pretty bad for years. While I am looking for a deeper and more meaningful MMO experience, there hasn't been one produced. I don't lay that at the feet of Anet because IMO they have produced a great gaming experience. I also don't claim that because something is casual friendly that it lacks in quality, that is a matter of taste and the two should not be confused.

 

It is a b2p game, and anet already got people to buy 2million + copies based on hype, sure they could have made a good game that retained most of its players and had them investing in the cash shop here and there, but that would have taken longer to develope and woulda had higher production costs, what they did was release a quick fix moneymaker that was the casual and easy themepark that all the people who don't want to think while playing a game would love. 

 I didn't buy on hype, I bought on information and choice but I get your dig. Most of this portion of your rant is filled with animosity so I won't get into it other than to say you have your opinion but I think you are speaking out of your ass. I agree it's b2p though so cudos for getting that right. If all they cared about was the initial box sales then there would not be many patches and holiday events and such to keep a playerbase around. 

If you want better mmos, you have to become better consumers... that includes not convincing yourself a game will be godly no matter how many flaws it has, as many of you have done.

I'd say some have done but not many seeing as how many of us who supprt Anet can see the glaring flaws of the game. The only thing is some peoples ideas of flaws are not universal. The game is not perfect but it delivers on what they said and what I expected. It's the people that have the unrealistic expectations who wound up being let down. 

Regarding OP. You aren't going to get a straight answer because nobody knows for sure since there has been no release of the actual server population levels that I know of. All we can tell you is what we experience and I can say that anytime I log in there are people doing stuff. Now that the holidays are over maybe the ques and overflow servers will become a non issue. I know I get thrown into overflows and that doesn't happen unless people are in the game. Some may have come back just to try the holiday content and will leave again, I don't know. Then again maybe the game got a flock of new players with their advertisement on the Hobbit movie paired with christmas. Either way, I see people and I do stuff with them when I level so if that is your biggest concern then that's all I got. Now needing those people to play the game is another discussion all together. Hope this helps.

What you think are glaring flaws, as opposed to what someone objective thinks are glaring flaws are night and day.  Just look how skewed your perspective is on the points you "disagree" with... all of a sudden the fanbois always hated xfire, which is a joke, because most of you praised it, when gw2 was showing good numbers... 

Your behavior, your capacity for processing reality, are all indications that what I say is true... until people become smarter consumers, we will have inferior products shoved down our throat.  Now you can say gw2 was godly, and sold lots of copies (not really that many relative to most big games) but the reality of it is no other big mmorpg release turned off the hardcore and skilled players quicker than gw2... it got boring after 3 days for most of the competent players, not even swtor honeymoon phase was that short. 

It gets tired when people defend gw2, and they were the same people that weren't actually good at all the other games, yet the people that were good talk about how boring and skilless it is.  That should tell you the type of people gw2 caters to.  If you think you should be a credible source on how good of an mmorpg gw2 was, show people you were actually good enough at the other ones to have a deep understanding of what makes a good game.  Cause if you were one of those people that could only endure wow for 20 levels, you couldn't have endured any good mmo to max, which is when the meat of mmorpgs begin.  In GW2 there is no meat, at any point, the game is always shallow and flimsy. 

Xfire mattered when it painted a pro-gw2 picture, now that it paints a bad one it is no longer allowed.

GW2 is basically a perfect example of why the quality of games has gone down hill... because the consumers of present are much more casual and easy to lead around.

It is a b2p game, and anet already got people to buy 2million + copies based on hype, sure they could have made a good game that retained most of its players and had them investing in the cash shop here and there, but that would have taken longer to develope and woulda had higher production costs, what they did was release a quick fix moneymaker that was the casual and easy themepark that all the people who don't want to think while playing a game would love. 

If you want better mmos, you have to become better consumers... that includes not convincing yourself a game will be godly no matter how many flaws it has, as many of you have done.

Originally posted by stratasaurus

My issue is not that it got high acclaim but just how big of a joke some of the reviews from offical sites have put out.  I don't have a problem with people saying its a great game, don't have a problem with people saying that it is the best game out that is your opinion.  But when a official review from a site where people review MMO's for their living(or at least spend a large chunk of their time doing it) I expect a more truthful review then the biggest issue I have is having to wait in a queue for WvW.  I don't care how great you say the game is there are issues bigger then waiting in a Queue.

In fact there will never ever be a game so great that its largest downfall is queue size, every game has issues with it none are perfect and I do not agree with painting a picture that the game is perfect expect too many people want to play it.  That's crap.

Journalistic integrity doesn't seem to matter in this day and age... hell you got forbes basically whoring itself as a giant LoL and GW2 advertisement. 

By today's standards gw2 is an mmorpg.. it just doesn't really focus on the mmo part very well.

An MMORPG originally meant a lot of people (a massive amount) playing in a persistent world together, doing roleplaying game type stuff.  Is gw2's world persistent?  Yes and no... there are overflows and stuff which is basically just the districting design.  You can't really choose to enter the persistent world, if it throws you into the overflow, you can't force it to let you into the normal persistent world whenever you wish.  But yet it does let a lot of people into a zone together, so it is massive, it's just hard to call the world persistent because it is based on districting. 

Does it deserve the critical acclaim?  Not at all..

It didn't reinvent the wheel, everything people think it did differently, is just the same old in slightly different packaging to make them think it is something completely different. 

Obviously everyone will have different opinions, but my rule of thumb is to always ask the most proficient people about a subject, not the mediocre people. 

So if you ask the people that played gw2 the most proficiently (did the most with their characters, were more combat effective , etc) what they thought of the game... they would all tell you it was too easy and offered no challenge to keep them playing.  If you ask people that aren't that proficient, they are going to think it is challenging and a solid game.  But again, people who are the best at something and know the ins and outs and how to navigate a game well, probably have the most credibility as far as insights into the quality of something. 

Every big mmorpg has various teams... and anet has promised things before, and fell short big time. 

If their team released a patch that gave everyone a month of content tomorrow, than the total game would still only have 1 month and 3 days worth of content. 

People are too biased... when a game that by all indications has hemorrhaged players, sells 2mill copies in a few weeks, its an amazing feat, (this game is supposedly a 9 in innovation btw LOL)

But when WoW sells 2.7mill copies in a week on its 4th expansion it's a sign of death? 

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by caetftl
MoP sold 2.7million copies excluding china in a week.

Do they sell boxes in China?  Don't they just get pay by the hour and not have to buy the game itself?

 

The 2.7 million sales in one week is not so hot compared to 3.3 million CATA sold in a day.  The 2.7 million apparently includes Brazil, South Korea and Japan.  Did GW2 sell in those countries?

Not everyone who plays WOW in china uses a lancenter pay by the hour service... people play from home as well...

Just gotta take breaks til you desire to play again... GW2 may not have enough content to be a primary mmo, but it's ok to fart around in for 30 minutes every week.

Even the biggest mmos get boring to people... hell pandaria only sold 2.7million copies in its first week... and many say it is the best expansion to date... many people are just bored of wow, though 10 million mark has been re-achieved, but that number will go down in a few months after the panda content has been mostly played through. 

Botting has been rampant in recent MMOs, I remember Aion's NA launch and the chat was simply unusable because of gold selling ads...

One thing I think blizzard has done decent with, considering the size of their game... is relentlessly trying to stop the botters and gold-selling sites... there are waves here and there where things get out of hand (spelling out sites in corpses in big cities) but blizzard never gives up, and they keep their technical analysts hard at work. 

Anet shoulda learned from all the other recent mmo launches and put in countermeasures... to be crippled by something you knew was going to happen is just sloppy preparation. 

They probably turned some profit... but just turning profit isn't always enough, it is how much profit you turn.  If you invest 1million dollars and make 1 dollar profit in 20 years, it obviously wasn't a good investment. 

GW2 has sold well so far, similar to swtor, as you would expect from big name mmos with big hype in this day and age, (wow blew the genre wide open so much more people are playing mmorpgs these days), but did they sell as well as they'd hoped, we don't know cause we don't work at ncsoft... (get over it, ncsoft is the parent company that completely owns gw2 and could do whatever they want with it.), will it retain enough players to generate good money from the cash shop?  We don't know yet... but the game doesn't have enough depth to keep a large amount of people dumping money into micro-transactions... hell even LoL has a more efficient game design for that, and LoL is a moba, and gw2 is an mmorpg, mmorpgs are meant to have depth... at least they used to be, before the degradation of mainstream culture into the facebook twitter era of mindlessness. 

I will say this... if you will argue that gw2 is not a flop because of sales and b2p model... than on that criteria diablo3 is probably the best game ever made.  Shattered sales records, blizz rakes in tons of money from rmah transactions.... etc etc

But diablo3 is the ultimate proof that even a game with little substance and a horrendous retention rate and plethora of issues, can sell the best.  Doesn't mean it was a good game...

Originally posted by eAzydaman

Originally posted by caetftl

Originally posted by eAzydaman

Originally posted by caetftl

Originally posted by eAzydaman

Originally posted by caetftl

Originally posted by eAzydaman

Originally posted by caetftl

Originally posted by eAzydaman

Originally posted by Yakamomoto

Originally posted by Fendel84M
Finally an mmo for those of us who don't wanna just get to the "end game" real quick. Reminds me of the old days when building was just as important.

nice excuse for having no endgame at all. Well played

What kind of endgame do you want? Some of us are content with WvWvW and sPVP ya know. Raiding and gear treadmilling is useless and a waste of time IMO.

What about the dress-up barbie treadmill? 

 

GW2 lacks an endgame because it gives you nothing that demands a high level of skill, to consistently work towards.  The sPvP is shallow, because the number of skills are shallow, and the conquest mode is boring. 

WvWvW is shallow, because in the end it doesn't really matter, and having a zerg will always matter the most.

PvE is shallow because of combat rezzing, low number of skills, no roles.  They didn't implement the abilities and movement in a way that makes you think you are mixing in up and are heavily engaged in a fight, they didn't design fights with a lot of creativity.  It becomes another rotation spamming game, but with less spells on the rotation. 

Cool that's your opinion, i'll respect that. But if you think the combat is shallow and just another rotation spam your simply wrong. To be really good at this game you have to know every class skill in the game and every animation etc. So if I stick to my rotation and don't play reactionary I will loose fights. For example, if a warrior bull charges me I quickly have to either dodge or use an interrupt skill. In normal hotkey MMO's you just stand infront of eachother and spam skills.

And WvWvW is not just a zerg lol, few people can do alot, take out smaller zergs, take camps etc etc.  Like this for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2teQTIs64

The combo system makes combat even more advanced.

Lastly name one AAA MMO that has more depth to combat and the same quality of gameplay as GW2. And don't say TERA because even though the combat system is pretty good the rest of the game is a joke.

PvE is a rotation spam, PvP is just shallow because there are so few skills... compared to wow, where each opponent you fought had at least 20-40 useful pvp skills that had to be used at the right time to give them small advantages or big ones.

WvW is a zerg, you can not accomplish the most important objectives in wvw without a zerg. 

 

I think almost every big budget mmo to date, has more depth in combat than gw2.  As for quality of gameplay, that is obviously subjective, and we know which side of the fence you fall on for that, but regardless of what you believe, there are MANY others that seem to be sharing the sentiment that the game has little substance and got boring fast. 

 

In the business world when you want to grow, you figure out how to attract and create new loyal customers, you don't worry about retaining the ones that think you can do no wrong. 

Unfortunately there are only a few decent looking MMOs coming up within the next couple of years, and the success rate of mmos is not high for all these hyped up games...

I've been told by friends at blizzard that Titan is Team Fortress meets WoW... who knows exactly how that will work. 

That's ALL your opinion. Hotkey based MMO's is just slamming your face on the keyboard. When I played WOW I could chat with friends and drink coffea and eat food while playing, the game is so damn easy it's not even fun. You can't dodge, can't do combos you just stand there looking silly and trade punches. Doesn't matter how many skills you have on your hotbar, far from everyone of them are useful. And how hard is it to push through a set rotation of skills. You don't even have to move.

Sure you could make combat even more skill based but GW2 is a really good start. AoC had a pretty nice system too before they made the combos easymode. Active shielding is really nice too.

Alot of WOW's success is due to how easy it is and the short learning curve. Why do you think alot of people play that game with their wife's and kids?

Don't worry if you were in a top progression guild or on a top rated arena team, you couldn't do that while playing WoW.

 

Also WoW had combos, but they were called "playing efficiently", just because something is labeled a combo and something isn't labeled a combo doesn't mean the dynamic isn't the same. 

 

As for the dodge... it's just another button to mash, it's no different than mashing a short cooldown mitigation spell that is called something else. 

 

Look past the fluff...

If that's really your opinion about the combat you must be one of the worst sPVP tourny players in the game. Dodge can be used in so many ways. Those who spam dodge are going to suck. The timing of a dodge is really narrow is some cases, it's twitch based.

There's a reason why WOW failed as an e-sport lmfao.

Oh, WoW doesn't have mitigation spells that you use at specific times?  Oh wait it does, and it has so many more spells to factor in at all times.

 

Also WoW didn't "fail" as an esport, it shattered all viewer counts, the only reason it stopped being picked up by the LAN tournament leagues, is because blizzard just never really cared about PvP balance.  Keep in mind, this was also all when streaming wasn't nearly as solidified as it is now... but I doubt we will ever see GW2 consistently showing up at MLG and IEM events for years. 

Dodge is much more than that, dodge:ing behind rocks or down ledges to distrupt LOS and as a tool to escape fights when outnumbered. Every skill for every class has different animations so you have to know excatly what people are about to throw at you and react with either dodge or a counterskill. Downed state adds another layer of complexity, as a thief I have to really check for the animation when players try to interrupt my stomps and blind them.

When I come into a fight I instantly check out what classes are in the area and what combo field to use that matches my teammates combo finishers. Throw poison fields and blinding fields on stomp attempts.

I could talk about this all day, there is such complexity in tourny play it's ridicoulus.

GW2 is really exciting to watch, it's fast paced and alot happening. If any MMO could go e-sport GW2 has the biggest potential when spectator mode is implemented. It will be hard though when games like Starcraft 2 is hard to beat when it comes to a spectator standpoint.

If you think GW2's combat is such easymode I love to duel sometime on an empty sPVP server lmfao. You would prob die without even being able to react or have any clue whatsoever what skills were used.

I hear ppl complain about imbalance HB warriors and thiefs spamming PW or HS. Unfortunatly that's just a case of L2P, I've tried those builds and they suck when your up against good players. Works in random PUB stomps only.

If GW2 is so exciting to watch why do all the spvp streamers get such terrible viewer counts on streaming sites like twitch and own3d? 

WoW didn't have LoS too?