Originally posted by Nightshade55

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by k-damage

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

 

     First I would like to point out that GW2 is unlike other games in the field in that its developers, Anet, have been actively pushing their games to be E-sports. GW1 was an extremely close success in that but Anet kind of bit off more then they could chew back then. Class combo's created an impossible task of balancing all posibilities. So this game was actually specifically designed for E-sports. It has been common knowledge that Anet has been creating GW2 to be an E-sport for quite some time. Obviously that's not ALL it is. It is far, far more. The skill based combat, visual cues, map styles, etc. were all created for ease of use in E-sports though.

     I'm not sure where you got the player crafting and player housing in the middle of a LoL match idea. As I stated GW1 got pretty close to being fully considered a highly successful E-sport. It stung itself though with some of its design decisions. There are a lot of people already considering GW2 as serious business, sponsors and teams alike. To me, it is very well suited to being an E-sport. I actually think GW2 is more fun to watch and is more suited for mass appeal in matches than SC2 or LoL. As stated earlier the game has no down time. There is no build up that the teams must go through before the action begins. The matches are fast and exciting.

     Ultimately I'm not sure where else we can go with this particular debate either. My team as well as team liquid, reddit, team legacy, and many, many others are already gaining sponsors (or in the process of) and are going to take the scene as far as they can. The prize money is quite nice if nothing else, after all. Also as aforementioned people would play kirby pinball competitively for 250k annually.

     So you will know if this game is suited as an E-sport fairly soon. We will be pushing it as far as it can go.

GW2 may be unlike other mmos in the way it is pushing to be an e-sport, yet it no doubt suffers from the fact that it is trying to be both and mmorpg and an e-sport

Unless I am mistaken 100% of the game is not focused purely on e-sport battles. 100% of the code and the technological (server) infrastructure is not focused on e-sport gaming. Are the classes and every combat skill built purely around how they work in small team combat, or have larger battles and PVE also been taken into account? I fail to see how a game that is trying to include an e-sport remit within a larger frame work is as good as a game built and designed from the ground up purely for esport and nothing else.

GW may well have been "close to an e-sport" and yet that is due to the fact that it also wasn't all that "close" to an mmorpg in the traditional sense.

It is great that some serious gamers are looking to e-sport it up in GW2, but for me I think that aspect will appeal more to the casual crowd of instanced battle gamers. People who can jump into a battle on occassion and not bother about rankings and the like. I'd like to add that the use of the term "casual" here is not to be disparaging. What GW2 may well provide is the best quality instanced combat we have seen in an mmorpg, but I can't see it being anywhere near the level seen in dedicated e-sport games. 

I'd be happy to be wrong, no doubt we'll see in the long run.

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Originally posted by Redemp

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Originally posted by Requiamer

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Originally posted by Redemp

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Originally posted by Requiamer

 
The only problem for rpg e-sport is that fps/rts have a lot of people that want to promote/enhance real life warfare skills and rpg isn't a good choice for them, fps and rts are, this is probably the only reason why fps/rts already have his own e-sport structure and rpg don't.
Because the "real world warfare" got blown up by the "gaming" source of success, millions are playing those games because they are just fun to play and watch. You don't need the army support anymore to make it happen, gamers and popularity alone are enough now to make it happen, it probably wasn't the case few years ago.

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Please explain...

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There is not much to explain if you followed the e-sport and rts/fps development. What are you not understanding exactly? 

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 You're insinuating that the success of E-Sports was driven by the promotion or enchancement of REAL Combat and Strategists?
 That's what I'm not understanding, is there a study on this , credible backing dating back to the origins of E-Sports, anything that could link E-Sports and Real Combat? The two seem only to marry in day dreams and Ender's Game  but fall short in reality.

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I'm not insinuating it, i don't need to really, anyone that followed a bit fps/rts know that a lot of the interest for those genre come from people who's job was to enhance their military skills. And both the fps/rts software development (army influenced games, and games influenced simulators back and forth), and the overall e-sport infrastructure and interest was definitely pushed by those guys (as players, but probably as sponsor too, and as i said coders as well). Now i'm not saying the army payed and sponsored all the e-sport scene, that's not what i'm saying, but the interest they gave for those genres sure helped in their overall development. I don't need any kind of study or whatever, but they are probably existing.

Honestly how can you not be aware of this if you have any interest into those aspect (e-sport + fps/rts), ever heard of "American army" just to point a glaring example, do you know what real time strategy even mean, and where it come from? But i'm sure if you google army, fps, rts, simulators and few other of those key words, you'll find enough to read.

My point is that e-sport today don't need the support fps/rts gained, e-sport can stand by its own now, even if they are only "games" without any real life interest but gaming. Moba success is the proof of it, so why not rpg? that was my point.

And sorry for my bad english, its not my native language.

Originally posted by Requiamer

 

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Originally posted by Redemp

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Originally posted by Requiamer

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Originally posted by Redemp

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Originally posted by Requiamer

 
The only problem for rpg e-sport is that fps/rts have a lot of people that want to promote/enhance real life warfare skills and rpg isn't a good choice for them, fps and rts are, this is probably the only reason why fps/rts already have his own e-sport structure and rpg don't.
Because the "real world warfare" got blown up by the "gaming" source of success, millions are playing those games because they are just fun to play and watch. You don't need the army support anymore to make it happen, gamers and popularity alone are enough now to make it happen, it probably wasn't the case few years ago.

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Please explain...

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There is not much to explain if you followed the e-sport and rts/fps development. What are you not understanding exactly? 

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 You're insinuating that the success of E-Sports was driven by the promotion or enchancement of REAL Combat and Strategists?
 That's what I'm not understanding, is there a study on this , credible backing dating back to the origins of E-Sports, anything that could link E-Sports and Real Combat? The two seem only to marry in day dreams and Ender's Game  but fall short in reality.

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I'm not insinuating it, i don't need to really, anyone that followed a bit fps/rts know that a lot of the interest for those genre come from people who's job was to enhance their military skills. And both the fps/rts software development (army influenced games, and games influenced simulators back and forth), and the overall e-sport infrastructure and interest was definitely pushed by those guys (as players, but probably as sponsor too, and as i said coders as well). Now i'm not saying the army payed and sponsored all the e-sport scene, that's not what i'm saying, but the interest they gave for those genres sure helped in their overall development. I don't need any kind of study or whatever, but they are probably existing.

Honestly how can you not be aware of this if you have any interest into those aspect (e-sport + fps/rts), ever heard of "American army" just to point a glaring example, do you know what real time strategy even mean, and where it come from? But i'm sure if you google army, fps, rts, simulators and few other of those key words, you'll find enough to read.

My point is that e-sport today don't need the support fps/rts gained, e-sport can stand by its own now, even if they are only "games" without any real life interest but gaming. Moba success is the proof of it, so why not rpg? that was my point.

And sorry for my bad english, its not my native language.

 Your english is pretty good actually, you write better than most people who are raised in it. ( Sad but true )

 I really think theres an imagined link between E-Sports and Real Combat , I've never seen anything to demonstrate this. AA wasn't an effort to assist the E-Sport scene , it was an effort to recruit gamers to join the Army ;  it had nothing to do with fostering an E-Sport genre. I likewise know of NO RTS's which could even possibly have a real world application , you would learn far more from playing Chess than you ever would a RTS. I've done random searchs just to be sure my memmory is serving me in the discussion , I could find no credible link between E-Sports and Real Combat and Strategists. There are some really informative articles out there with Timelines on the evolution of E-sports,  not one of them cites anything having to do with Real Combat  or Warfare strategy.

 Like I said ... its one of those thoughts that sounds reall good in a day dream, perhaps even in yours and my own head when thinking on what we've learned in Fps's and Rts's ... but in reality it doesn't translate into a Combat enviroment. I have several veteran mates who literally laugh at the notion that their Rts and fps competition days did anything for them once their boots hit the ground.

 In short ... I  contest that Real Combat or Strategy had anything what-so-ever to do with the origins of E-sports , and conclude that even if America's Army had never been delivered ( and it probably shouldn't have as it was a huge waste of money with little real return ) the E-Sport evolution would have been fine.

Edit * Just in case there is any further discussion in AA  --- "  America's Army is the first well-known overt use of computer gaming for political aims. Chris Chambers, the former deputy director of development for America's Army, admits it is a recruitment tool,^[8] and Chris Morris of CNN/Money states that "the Army readily admits [America's Army] is a propaganda device."^[9] The game, considered by the U.S. Army to be a "cost-effective recruitment tool," aims to become part of youth culture's "consideration set" as confirmed by Army Deputy Chief of Personnel Timothy Maude in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee"

Recruitment tool .... thats all.

Originally posted by Redemp
Snip

So you found nothing about military gaming? i find it hard to believe, that aspect is very well documented. Now what influence it really had on e-sport, i guess this is all subject to opinions afterall.

Depending on the ongoing balance between the classes and their respective weapon skill sets...  I think GW2 has more potential becoming an Esport than WoW ever had or will ever have.

Originally posted by Requiamer

Originally posted by Redemp
Snip

So you found nothing about military gaming? i find it hard to believe, that aspect is very well documented. Now what influence it really had on e-sport, i guess this is all subject to opinions afterall.

 No I didn't , I won't say I looked overly hard though. If you know of any sources please clue me in because i'm just not remembering it at all.

 I DO  remember day dreaming while owning people in Counterstrike that perhaps I had actually become a super solider able to quickly identify and destroy targets. I also remember thinking I was absurdly good at Starcraft and that I really should take a shot at being a General to command troops one day. Then I grew up .... a bit, and Korea ... Korea happened.

Originally posted by DannyGlover

Esports, cash shops, instant travel, combat only classes, combat centric crafting, no player made houses or cities...

Is this the future of mmorpgs? :(

Yup, sad day indeed.

Originally posted by Nevulus

Originally posted by DannyGlover

Esports, cash shops, instant travel, combat only classes, combat centric crafting, no player made houses or cities...

Is this the future of mmorpgs? :(

Yup, sad day indeed.

 Way to contribute to the discussion, you get a gold star  and look I've responded to you thereby validating your exsistance and afirming that your opinion does matter ...

Sucess?

Yup, Sad day indeed; indeed.

Originally posted by Redemp

 

 I DO  remember day dreaming while owning people in Counterstrike that perhaps I had actually become a super solider able to quickly identify and destroy targets. I also remember thinking I was absurdly good at Starcraft and that I really should take a shot at being a General to command troops one day. Then I grew up .... a bit, and Korea ... Korea happened.

 

 

Ho lol, that's in reference to AA being a recrutement tool. I was thinking wtf you were talking about. But ye they probably don't want to recrute guys that have no basic skills to begin with, maybe, sound obvious for a recrutment tool no?

But anyway, it's amazing how hard it can be to just have poeple make a 10min research on google or whatever, as if you had to fight against a tsunami wave or something, ego is a bitch i guess. And yes i agree it sound ridiculous and all, but well that's how it is. Rts came from old military commanding trainning and fps came from fighting simulators which later turned their simulators into game like experience, i know it's bit hard to swallow, sorry for that.

Originally posted by Requiamer

Originally posted by Redemp

 

 I DO  remember day dreaming while owning people in Counterstrike that perhaps I had actually become a super solider able to quickly identify and destroy targets. I also remember thinking I was absurdly good at Starcraft and that I really should take a shot at being a General to command troops one day. Then I grew up .... a bit, and Korea ... Korea happened.

 

 

Ho lol, that's in reference to AA being a recrutement tool. I was thinking wtf you were talking about. But ye they probably don't want to recrute guys that have no basic skills to begin with, maybe, sound obvious for a recrutment tool no?

But anyway, it's amazing how hard it can be to just have poeple make a 10min research on google or whatever, as if you had to fight against a tsunami wave or something, ego is a bitch i guess. And yes i agree it sound ridiculous and all, but well that's how it is. Rts came from old military commanding trainning and fps came from fighting simulators which later turned their simulators into game like experience, i know it's bit hard to swallow, sorry for that.

 

I don't understand how any of that equates to :

  " The only problem for rpg e-sport is that fps/rts have a lot of people that want to promote/enhance real life warfare skills and rpg isn't a good choice for them, fps and rts are, this is probably the only reason why fps/rts already have his own e-sport structure and rpg don't. "

 If I am translating correctly, you mean that FPS's and RTS's were supported by real life warfare skills or in an effort to enhance said skills. It's easy to make the next logical step in that statement and say that without Real combat and strategists supporting these two genres ... they would have never made it into E-Sports.

It simply doesn't make sense ....

Please name ONE  game, be it RTS or FPS that helped with the creation of E-Sports, that was developed by anyone with the purpose of  " promote/enchance real life warfare skills ".

Further more ..  RTS's and FPS's did NOT come from command training nor fighting simulators.

First FPS  : 

" The first-person shooter has since been traced as far back as Maze War, development of which began in 1973 "

"It was originally written by Steve Colley (later founder of nCUBE) in 1972-1973 on the Imlac PDS-1's at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. He had written a program for portraying and navigating mazes from a first-person perspective."

First RTS : The line blurs here as no one seems to be in agreement on who made the first RTS. Here is the Wiki link .. figure it out yourself, I found no game that was developed by anyone that had anything to do with Real warfare for Real warfare enhancment.

 At any time you can provide links to blogs, wiki's, studies  ..... anything to support your side of the discussion. For clarification are you also contesting that America's Army was a recruitment tool ?

I honestly don't know if at this point its a langauge barrier or your trolling me, or you've some wallop of sources to backup your claims your waiting to smack down.

I FOUND IT!! That needle in a haystack that I assume you take to mean the Rts and Fps genre have Real warfare to thank for their origins, or esport support .. whatever.

"Spasim led to more detailed combat flight simulators and eventually to a tank simulator, developed for the U.S. army, in the later 1970s. These games were not available to consumers, "

There it is! Oh WAIT  it wasn't avaliable to CONSUMERS.

The game that was however release to consumers was Battlezone ... here's what the history shows for it.

The vector technique is similar to the visuals of games such as Asteroids. The game was designed by Ed Rotberg, who designed many games for Atari Inc., Atari Games, and Sente.

" A version called The Bradley Trainer (also known as Army Battlezone or Military Battlezone) was also designed for use by the U.S. Army as targeting training for gunners on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.^[1] Approaching Atari in December 1980, some developers within Atari refused to work on the project because of its association with the Army,^[2] most notably original Battlezone programmer Ed Rotberg.^[3] Rotberg only came on board after he was promised by management that he would never be asked to do anything with the military in the future.^[4] Only two were produced; one was delivered to the army and is presumed lost, and the other is in the private collection of Scott Evans,^[5][6] who found it by a dumpster in the rear parking lot at Midway Games. The gunner yoke was based on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle control and was later re-used in the popular Star Wars game.^[4] The Bradley Trainer differs dramatically from the original Battlezone as it features helicopters, missiles, and machine guns; furthermore, the actual tank does not move—the guns simply rotate."

Can we call it yet?

Tl / Dr  ---  You're wrong,  utterly and completely.

If guild wars 2 is planning to only offer 3 classes each with very few abilities and no options for the player to choose for that chracter as well as remove gear from the game as well as critical strikes, all procs, anything random (basicaly all the fun elements in an mmorpg).  Then I can see gw2 possible being an esport.

The fact is for something to be a sport is has to be competative, in order for soemthing to be competative it has to be purely skill related or atleast as close as humanly possible.  Who wants to watch a 1v1 where before the game opens the winner is decided in the prep room based on his class / gear / spec?

There is a reason every mmo that has tried to get competative has failed to do so, RPG isnt just about the skill of the player.  You can play an RPG competatively on your own and enjoy but but its impossible to invision an RPG being an e-sport and theres a reason major e-sports promotions such as MLG stoped doing WoW arena.

And before some newb tries to say HOn / LOL are mmorpg esports just stop yourself before you open your mouth and look dumb they arent mmorpgs.  They are room based action games, you dont grind levels / gear your char, you spawn a new fresh game every time and you carry nothing over from your previous game thats not an RPG, and the following for lol / hon is pretty weak compared to real competative RTS/FPS games.  Not to mention these games are spawned from an RTS map settings they have never even been in the same room as an MMORPG.

Originally posted by the420kid     and the following for lol / hon is pretty weak compared to real competative RTS/FPS games. 

League of Legends would like to have 32 million words with you... or ... League of Legends would like to have 1.3 million concurrent words with you.

Take your pick ....

Originally posted by Redemp

Tl / Dr  ---  You're wrong,  utterly and completely.

Google military gaming, wargaming, use wikipedia, read some damn books, whatever for god sake, and stop loosing my time, its becoming ambarassing here. If you want to think that those games are just kids stuff that got so popular, and so competitve out of nowhere, fine, keep your naivness all you want really.

Originally posted by Requiamer

Originally posted by Redemp

Tl / Dr  ---  You're wrong,  utterly and completely.

Google military gaming, wargaming, use wikipedia, read some damn books, whatever for god sake, and stop loosing my time, its becoming ambarassing here. If you want to think that those games are just kids stuff that got so popular, and so competitve out of nowhere, fine, keep your naivness all you want really.

Seriously ?

 I spend actual time researching sources for E-Sport origins,  then FPS origins, and then RTS origins .... and this is best you can muster to answer the discussion.

 I just wasted even more of my time by googling Military Gaming and then War gaming .... neither of which had ANYTHING AT ALL to do with E-Sports or the Origins of FPS /  RTS's.

You made a statement in refrence to E-Sports origins, which was false. Then you made further statements on Fps and Rts origins, which are also false.

Let's not go and call me naive for not just nodding my head. I'm more than willing to let you rephrase your first statement, perhaps it was said wrong or I translated it wrong. Would you like to now amend it to mean " While Fps's and Rts's were not developed nor designed with warfare or strategic purpose, Fps's and Rts's are in some  way influenced by historic origins of a warfare means,  thus warfare helped E-Sports "

I'd accept that ... as its techinicaly true but I'd have to wonder why you would even state it, as it has no bearing on your original response nor the discussion prior to it.

Edit * Just so we are clear, I understand your original statement... but its wrong, Warfare had nothing at all to do with E-Sports. There's a multitude of better reasons that we don't see many RPG E-sports, the genre's support or origin has nothing to do with it.

Originally posted by Nightshade55

Originally posted by Redemp

 Leagues a good game, enjoyable and skill based. I don't really care if they bastardized Dota in its mechanics. That said ... if not for Sc2 and LoL I would give exactly two flips about E-Sports because frankly the rest are boring to watch. As much as I love my taste of Gw2 I don't think its E-sport scene will get to loud , the game just doesn't make for good casting. The game is chaos , they want it to be chaos ... you won't be able to cast it like you would a Sc2 or Moba game.

 

Just my thoughts ..

 

     Actually thats exactly why GW2 will do well. In SC2 and LoL to understand any of the exciting bits you have to have prior knowledge of the game. Expansions are only exciting in SC2 when you know why its risky and rewarding. LoL is  pure chaos to people who don't know about it. GW2 on the other hand is immediately understandable. I'm not sure if you've watched a 5 v 5 yet, which is understandable. Durring our 8 v 8 though it was quite clear to tell what was going on. Its harder to tell what's going on when you have 40+ players but that's only natural. When you have an 8 v 8 or, especially, a 5 v 5 it is extremely easy to tell what's going on. Anet made it that way deliberately. All player effects are visable (crippled players limp, burning players are on fire, etc.). Every buff and debuff can be seen by looking at the character. AoE's have their radius shown on the ground, etc. Nothing takes place under the hood in this game. The audience can see exactly what's going on at all times. If your being damaged by bleeding you will lieterally be bleeding.

     That being said I do think it has a good chance and doing very well in the scene. We will see where it goes.

I can tell you from a real world perspective that sports/games that are not at least viscerally slightly understood from a standpoint of a person with little knowledge of the game don't do well no matter how awesome they are.

As someone who did american collegiate wrestling for a long period of time as child and onward  I can tell that most people with little knowledge find most wrestling matchs rather boring to watch.  While people who have done wrestling find them very exciting because they notice the little cues that signify things like attempted but failed throws.

In the USA wrestling is one of those sports where, for whatever reason, certain States are much bigger into it than others.  For example Pennsylvania and Iowa are much bigger into the sport than say Maryland (which for some reason is awesome at LaCross).  In Pennsylvania wrestling is huge and most people understand the sport either because they did it or had someone explain the important parts.

In vast swathes of America its very hard to convince people that the match you are watching is indeed rather interesting and exciting.

Yet at the turn of the 20th century wrestling was the most popular sport in america.  Mainly because almost all rural people did it and various traveling entertainment popularized it.  At 1900 in america wrestling was twice as popular as boxing.

Now its the first sport to go when a college has a problem funding due to an imbalance of men's/women's sports from title 9.

Soccer also suffers in the USA for similar reasons although to a lesser extent.  Mainly most americans do not understand the significant of the crossing plays and headers.  Thus they miss out on 60% of the dangerous plays and just think its a typical out of bounds.

In general any sport, physical or "E", will never have wide audience base if they cannot instinctively grasp what is dangerous (or for whatever social reason have been educated in it).  That is the heart of the drama for the spectator, the danger.  The ups and downs of your guys being in danger vs. puttin the other team in danger.  The drama of pulling out or battling against danger.

Without an understanding of when things are dangerous or more important close to getting dangerous a sport fails as a spectator sport.  It then simply becomes an intramural affair only known by very few people.  Like say fencing.

Compared to something like American Football where no matter who you are the big hits are just viscerally say "Wow" and "Damn".  Same goes for a long pass that just barely misses a receivers finger tips.  You may not know much about the plays or what is really going on.  But there is something for even the least informed person to grab onto.

I can tell you as someone who ardently believes that american collegiate wrestling is one of the best sports in the world.  I don't try to ever really explain it to people.  I recognize that it really is just is not that exciting to watch for the neophyte and the level of expertise and the just plain amazing subtlty of some of the cues is simply too much to explain or expect people to understand without either having done it for a few years or have alot of experience watching. 

It may be great but it can only be a great spectator sport due to culture not its own merits when it comes to watching.  Its barrier to entry is too high and it needs outside influences to make it truly popular.

Back to the topic at hand,

I think Gestalt better ilustrated what I was driving at in my insinuation that Gw2 pvp is just to chaotic to be properly cast. I sometimes enjoy watching PvP videos from Mmog's so I guess those would be spectator sports as you've described them Gestalt? The ones that are interesting to watch , but the viewer doesn't nessecarily know exactly whats going on.

     I'm liking where this discussion is going. I think GW2 appeals to a most basic visceral level of understanding. You don't need to know all the moves to see a thief dodge a warriors claymore. You know what lightning is so when a guardian reflects it its exciting.

    I disagree with a point someone brought up about football above me. I don't know a single person who watches football and doesn't know anything about it. I don't actually find the game that appealing to watch though. I prefer MMA. So that could be where the differences are. 

Regardless I have a much more exciting time watching skilled players dodge and come down to the wire (like in that video I linked above) in GW2 than in SC2 or in LoL or in Quake. There's just something so easy to get into about it. To me, I had to understand both SC2 and LoL to fully get into them. Matches weren't that exciting at first because I didn't know why big plays were big plays. I just saw armies chaotically fighting. If you want to see chaos look at SC2 durring mob clashes. That is chaos yet it is casted perfectly.

     GW2 will not be hard for the good casters to cast. If anything its a field day. Keep track of 10 characters and cast the big hits, etc. Again the caster doesn't have to stand by and iterate every single ability every character uses. Its quite obvious when someone is suffering from bleeding (they bleed) or is crippled (they limp).

     Someone else above asked if the game was built from the ground up for PvP and if they designed the moves in PvP specifically for PvP. Actually yes. Anet has been pretty open about their E-sport dreams and structured PvP is completely and utterly seperated from all PvE. It kind of takes place in its own little realm. Anet has stated that they have done exactly what you criticized the game for (whoever that was who said that, you know who you are :p). 

     They have stated the game is built for competitive PvP as well as fun PvE. They simply made the PvP rules first and balanced the classes first. Then they added the PvE elements around that. That way you don't have a conflict of usefulness when transfering from PvP to PvE or from PvE to PvP. Instead of making the two elements at the same time and trying to fine tune the abilities to two different wavelengths as most game development cycles go, they made the moves first and fine tuned everything to them. 

      So yes, it is an E-sport through and through but its not ONLY an E-sport. The only part that is an E-sport is the structured PvP which,a gain, is completely seperated from the rest of the game. Its like a game, within a game. I don't know if I'm making sense haha, pretty tired.

  "GW2 will not be hard for the good casters to cast. If anything its a field day. Keep track of 10 characters and cast the big hits, etc. Again the caster doesn't have to stand by and iterate every single ability every character uses. Its quite obvious when someone is suffering from bleeding (they bleed) or is crippled (they limp)."

 I'm just going to single this out because it didn't sit right with me when the OP said it. Gw2 is far to chaotic for the untrained eye to pick out the conditions on people without a casters comment on it. Most conditions in this game only last a few seconds, some last less. With the amount going on .. the untrained eye won't be able to spot that slight limp or multiple stacked conditions  on that Human elementalist as he lighting flashes out of the mix to save his skin. Pretend a necro stacks conditions on secondary targets then uses his abilities to bounce them to his intended target ( Pulling from tactics I used in Gw1 ) ... without a caster announcing that your aren't going to know it took place in a fight. There are FAR ... FAR , to many subtlities going on with Guild Wars 2 combat for it to be properly casted or for anyoned untrained to understand it.

Originally posted by Redemp

  "GW2 will not be hard for the good casters to cast. If anything its a field day. Keep track of 10 characters and cast the big hits, etc. Again the caster doesn't have to stand by and iterate every single ability every character uses. Its quite obvious when someone is suffering from bleeding (they bleed) or is crippled (they limp)."

 

 I'm just going to single this out because it didn't sit right with me when the OP said it. Gw2 is far to chaotic for the untrained eye to pick out the conditions on people without a casters comment on it. Most conditions in this game only last a few seconds, some last less. With the amount going on .. the untrained eye won't be able to spot that slight limp or multiple stacked conditions  on that Human elementalist as he lighting flashes out of the mix to save his skin. Pretend a necro stacks conditions on secondary targets then uses his abilities to bounce them to his intended target ( Pulling from tactics I used in Gw1 ) ... without a caster announcing that your aren't going to know it took place in a fight. There are FAR ... FAR , to many subtlities going on with Guild Wars 2 combat for it to be properly casted or for anyoned untrained to understand it.

      Are you sure? I ask that question because if I can point out who is crippled and bleeding in a castle siege involving hundreds of people I don't think it'll be that difficult to see them in a group of 5. 

     Not only to they limp but the wound glows red. Its all very visable. A caster doesn't necessarily need to state every time a character has a condition placed on them. Just like in SC2 and in LoL they don't cast EVERYTHING. As aforementioned SC2 mob clashes are the most chaotic things in gaming history. They are impossable to make sense out of with pro's operating at insanely high APM's. All of the splits, abilities, focus firing, and base management all happen too fast. Ironically though, that is what most people yearn for. The chaotic large scale battles. Not the small, easily followed chunks.

     I had an experience watching a versus match between BoXer and one of his victims. I remember looking to my right and asking a friend of mine if he had any idea what just happened. He said no, but wanted to watch more. That is what I'm talking about here. 

     The battles are visceral with lots going on. The announcer/caster does not need to let everyone know every time a cripple is applied. Just like they don't let people know in SC2 every time a split happens or every time a new ability is researched. In LoL they don't cast most of the ability uses. Just the general swaying of the  match. I believe it will be no different here. The audience doesn't need to notice every single cripple or bleed but they are noticeable. It all depends on where and who the audience is looking at. Also as I stated previously professional battles happen on small scale skirmishes. By that I mean it is a very poor tactic to keep your entire team clumped together and to try and zerg the other team.

     Maps are too big for that and you can be quickly outpaced keeping everyone in a ball. This means you will not really see a bunch of 5 v 5 full on, and when you do it will be exciting. Out of my entire day (sunday) playing competitive PvP I had only witnessed a small handfull of teams who all stuck together in a ball. Those teams lost dramatically. Our team covered more ground, surrounded them, and got map control. 

     It is more likely that you will have small pocket skirmishes happening all over the map. If that video that I showed you earlier with its poor caster got over a thousand likes to its 40 dislikes then I think its safe to say most people thoroughly enjoyed that (most being that over 90% of the community enjoyed the video and felt urged to respond). If people are enjoying that, with a questionable caster and a 1 v 1, I have no issues believing people would absolutely die for an epic team struggle back and forth casted by a professional.

Originally posted by Nightverge

Originally posted by Redemp

  "GW2 will not be hard for the good casters to cast. If anything its a field day. Keep track of 10 characters and cast the big hits, etc. Again the caster doesn't have to stand by and iterate every single ability every character uses. Its quite obvious when someone is suffering from bleeding (they bleed) or is crippled (they limp)."

 

 I'm just going to single this out because it didn't sit right with me when the OP said it. Gw2 is far to chaotic for the untrained eye to pick out the conditions on people without a casters comment on it. Most conditions in this game only last a few seconds, some last less. With the amount going on .. the untrained eye won't be able to spot that slight limp or multiple stacked conditions  on that Human elementalist as he lighting flashes out of the mix to save his skin. Pretend a necro stacks conditions on secondary targets then uses his abilities to bounce them to his intended target ( Pulling from tactics I used in Gw1 ) ... without a caster announcing that your aren't going to know it took place in a fight. There are FAR ... FAR , to many subtlities going on with Guild Wars 2 combat for it to be properly casted or for anyoned untrained to understand it.

      Are you sure? I ask that question because if I can point out who is crippled and bleeding in a castle siege involving hundreds of people I don't think it'll be that difficult to see them in a group of 5. 

 

 No you can't ... be realistic. Perhaps you can if you watch the video a few times ... but not during a stream as a caster. Even if you COULD see it, you wouldn't be able to process it in  sea of people fighting.

No a caster doesn't have to comment on everything going on,  but the casters not going to notice the condition stacking by said Necro when the Engineer is dropping his  Supply Drop / Slick shoes / and Bombs to keep them in tight AoE range for the Necro to work. There is just far to much going on under the hood .. I challenge anyone to pull a 5v5 from Youtube and Cast it for even one fight.