32 replies to this topic

[MaZt]

I heard Anet saying over and over again even pre-launch that they are aiming for GW2 to become an Esport but all I see is words and no action. Many people bought the game based on Anet's words that they are taking PvP seriously and with Esports in mind and now 6 months after launch we are still waiting for the PvP patches that contain what already what the game should had at launch, basic PvP mechanics like proper matchmaking and custom arenas.

There are games that are in Beta that are aiming for Esports too and they already have these features that ANet is gonna release 6 months after launch and even spectator mode and price money for tournaments. Even with all these supports those games might not get the attention that they expect so my question is:
Why Anet is so confident that GW2 is gonna become an Esport since people left the game with a bad taste in their mouth after all the PR about being aimed at Esports and launching without basic PvP mechanics and tools and god knows how long will they take to implement them when other games have put all their effort into that and still didn't make it?

I love the game but I just don't see the potential in here when most people left the PvP scene disappointed with it.

[Gilles VI]

MaZt, on 26 January 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

I heard Anet saying over and over again even pre-launch that they are aiming for GW2 to become an Esport but all I see is words and no action. Many people bought the game based on Anet's words that they are taking PvP seriously and with Esports in mind and now 6 months after launch we are still waiting for the PvP patches that contain what already what the game should had at launch, basic PvP mechanics like proper matchmaking and custom arenas.

There are games that are in Beta that are aiming for Esports too and they already have these features that ANet is gonna release 6 months after launch and even spectator mode and price money for tournaments. Even with all these supports those games might not get the attention that they expect so my question is:
Why Anet is so confident that GW2 is gonna become an Esport since people left the game with a bad taste in their mouth after all the PR about being aimed at Esports and launching without basic PvP mechanics and tools and god knows how long will they take to implement them when other games have put all their effort into that and still didn't make it?

I love the game but I just don't see the potential in here when most people left the PvP scene disappointed with it.

Cause it'sa B2P game, which means they can get back whenever they feel like it + PvP is completely separate from PvE.
So if they update PvP in a couple of months, the people that get back don't need to grind in PvE before they can start back in PvP.

All of this means that when Anet puts out a big PvP patch, everyone can get back and see if the PvP improved.

[Lordkrall]

Seeing as there still are LOADS of people playing PvP I don't really think it will be much of a problem when they add the esport features.

[UssjTrunks]

Gilles VI, on 26 January 2013 - 01:36 PM, said:

Cause it'sa B2P game, which means they can get back whenever they feel like it + PvP is completely separate from PvE.
So if they update PvP in a couple of months, the people that get back don't need to grind in PvE before they can start back in PvP.

All of this means that when Anet puts out a big PvP patch, everyone can get back and see if the PvP improved.

The problem is that few people are willing to return to a game after giving up on it. The population is already almost completely gone (there might be a few hundred players PvPing at any given time). It's going to be hard to win people's trust back.

Edited by UssjTrunks, 26 January 2013 - 06:45 PM.

[Gilles VI]

UssjTrunks, on 26 January 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

The problem is that few people are willing to return to a game after giving up on it. The population is already almost completely gone (there might be a few hundred players PvPing at any given time). It's going to be hard to win people's trust back.

That's true, but IF Anet puts out a huge PvP update, which lots of new stuff/updates/balances/... and makes some publicity around it, I think it's easy to get alot of these people back, just because they want to try it.

And also given that there are no real other games they can go to at the moment.

Edited by Gilles VI, 26 January 2013 - 06:50 PM.

[MaZt]

Gilles VI, on 26 January 2013 - 06:50 PM, said:

That's true, but IF Anet puts out a huge PvP update, which lots of new stuff/updates/balances/... and makes some publicity around it, I think it's easy to get alot of these people back, just because they want to try it.

And also given that there are no real other games they can go to at the moment.

Lets be honest in here, even if Anet puts a PvP patch that fixes some of the PvP major problems(Matchmaking,Balance,Rankings) don't expect people to be like "OMG Guild Wars 2 is gonna be an Esport now, lets hurry up get back to it".

In order for a game to grow as an Esport both the devs and the players should do their part and that means the devs to provide the tools and the players to promote the game through their channel. Even with that it will take a long time for people to start watching GW2 PvP matches and then for companies like MLG or ESL to take notice.

There are many other PvP oriented games that their goal is to become an Esport out there and PvPers will focus on those while they're early in their development so they can learn the ins and outs of those games and grow up their fame through streaming them,coming back to GW2 after god knows when the tools would be ready will not benefit those PvPers one bit cause they will have to start from square one again.

[GammaWolf]

I tend to agree that the window to capture a huge spvp audience has passed.

Even if MMR and ladder somehow get into the game in the next 2 months, I suspect that some people will try it out but not many will be willing to stay in the long term due to:

1) If the ticket system stays then spvp is pay/grind 2 play which has little appeal to new teams who are probably going to lose a lot in the beginning. Its very disheartening to lose hard earned tickets over and over again and it ultimately becomes too expensive to learn how to play at a competitive level.

Its no wonder why the hardcore wannabe e-sport heroes who sit in queue all day farming new people 500-0 have barely any viewers or competition. Beating newer people over and over makes it impossible for them to keep playing because they have a net-loss of tickets so they just leave since farming frees or buying gems only to most likely lose them is lame.

2) Conquest mode is played out at this point. We have 5 maps that are virtually the same thing and they lean towards a meta that is unappealing to a lot of people at this point.

The prospect of people returning to a game mode that is already boring even if it has MMR and ladder is still probably fairly low especially when they will be largely confined to a very narrow meta.

3) As long as a true solo queue is not in the game it will never be able to build a large skilled player base. A huge number of people do not want to commit to a team and prefer to build up their skill in solo queue. It is these people who create the audience for an esport.

It also greatly improves the competition in a game because it gives teams a strong pool to recruit from. If someone has a poor solo rating, then they are probably not going last long on a competitive team, and it allows people who do not have teams to actually be able to prove their skill.

[Pharexys]

Damn, best explication from Wolf

[DragonWhimsy]

It actually doesn't matter at all what the pvp community likes or doesn't like at all. Because spvp in this game is not fun to WATCH. No audience means no esport.

There's no ebb and flow to the battles. Despite every map being about command points, there's no actual sense of taking or holding territory. And the combat itself is just not fun to watch someone else do. I'm not actually sure that an MMO can be entertaining to watch as an esport. There's a reason all the good esports are RTS games. There's actually something there you can follow, understand, and there's a flow to the game.

No non-GW2 player can understand what is going on in a GW2 match. I don't play SC2 and I can always understand what is going on in a match. GW2 does not have that and never can. Nor can any MMO I've ever played.

I think to be an esport GW2 would have to start by eliminating every spvp map and start again from the ground up. And even then it'd be dicey.

[Killyox]

MaZt, on 26 January 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

I heard Anet saying over and over again even pre-launch that they are aiming for GW2 to become an Esport but all I see is words and no action. Many people bought the game based on Anet's words that they are taking PvP seriously and with Esports in mind and now 6 months after launch we are still waiting for the PvP patches that contain what already what the game should had at launch, basic PvP mechanics like proper matchmaking and custom arenas.

There are games that are in Beta that are aiming for Esports too and they already have these features that ANet is gonna release 6 months after launch and even spectator mode and price money for tournaments. Even with all these supports those games might not get the attention that they expect so my question is:
Why Anet is so confident that GW2 is gonna become an Esport since people left the game with a bad taste in their mouth after all the PR about being aimed at Esports and launching without basic PvP mechanics and tools and god knows how long will they take to implement them when other games have put all their effort into that and still didn't make it?

I love the game but I just don't see the potential in here when most people left the PvP scene disappointed with it.

You make it so so dramatical when it's not. People always leave games. A lot of them stayed and new people are coming. LOL also took 1 year to even be considered e-sport and needed a lot of work.

[deluxe]

Killyox, on 30 January 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

You make it so so dramatical when it's not. People always leave games. A lot of them stayed and new people are coming. LOL also took 1 year to even be considered e-sport and needed a lot of work.

It is dramatical though.
None of the people that I used to play GW1 PvP with still play the game. (A lot!)
For GW2 PvP to become big, you really need the support of the GW1 community.
Without something like GvG and Tombs, Anet's not going to get that.

Edited by deluxe, 30 January 2013 - 02:51 PM.

[RandolfRa]

I hope that the already suffering spvp will soon completly collapse. That would allow anet to get rid of that outdated instance based pvp, and focus on the mmo aspects of the game.

[Killyox]

deluxe, on 30 January 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

It is dramatical though.
None of the people that I used to play GW1 PvP with still play the game. (A lot!)
For GW2 PvP to become big, you really need the support of the GW1 community.
Without something like GvG and Tombs, Anet's not going to get that.

gw2 is different game though gw1 was very niche

[TGIFrisbie]

If it isn't obvious yet, GW1 succeeded as a esport because PvP WAS the end game.

The fact they have done everything than can to make GW2 a totally different game, a heavy move in the completely PvE direction, running away really from PvP, has killed off any real chance for an esport in this game.

You can blame anet or applaud them.  Your choice.

[Smellyead]

RandolfRa, on 30 January 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

I hope that the already suffering spvp will soon completly collapse. That would allow anet to get rid of that outdated instance based pvp, and focus on the mmo aspects of the game.

What's not MMO about people playing together?

[omar316]

GammaWolf, on 29 January 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

I tend to agree that the window to capture a huge spvp audience has passed.

Even if MMR and ladder somehow get into the game in the next 2 months, I suspect that some people will try it out but not many will be willing to stay in the long term due to:

1) If the ticket system stays then spvp is pay/grind 2 play which has little appeal to new teams who are probably going to lose a lot in the beginning. Its very disheartening to lose hard earned tickets over and over again and it ultimately becomes too expensive to learn how to play at a competitive level.

Its no wonder why the hardcore wannabe e-sport heroes who sit in queue all day farming new people 500-0 have barely any viewers or competition. Beating newer people over and over makes it impossible for them to keep playing because they have a net-loss of tickets so they just leave since farming frees or buying gems only to most likely lose them is lame.

2) Conquest mode is played out at this point. We have 5 maps that are virtually the same thing and they lean towards a meta that is unappealing to a lot of people at this point.

The prospect of people returning to a game mode that is already boring even if it has MMR and ladder is still probably fairly low especially when they will be largely confined to a very narrow meta.

3) As long as a true solo queue is not in the game it will never be able to build a large skilled player base. A huge number of people do not want to commit to a team and prefer to build up their skill in solo queue. It is these people who create the audience for an esport.

It also greatly improves the competition in a game because it gives teams a strong pool to recruit from. If someone has a poor solo rating, then they are probably not going last long on a competitive team, and it allows people who do not have teams to actually be able to prove their skill.

Holy shit. Common sense and logic. Great points.

[JPB]

Killyox, on 30 January 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

You make it so so dramatical when it's not. People always leave games. A lot of them stayed and new people are coming. LOL also took 1 year to even be considered e-sport and needed a lot of work.

The difference is GW2 was released after LoL and SC2 showed us how to create successful popular esports titles. LoL needed a year because it was pretty much figuring it out on it's own. GW2 had LoL to base their design off of, particularly seeing as they made 'esports' a focus of theirs.

[kvantum789]

is it not timer to face the fact arena net has *et us all and the word esport was only a words that the used to sell the little pvp the
put in to this game and the will never put any more work then the have now
pvp will not give them no cash from the shops
this is a pve game 100% that is all i cant still understand why guru still has even a pvp part ofd this forum
as it is clear by now that this part of this game nerver got the chance

Edited by kvantum789, 01 February 2013 - 09:51 PM.

[Perm Shadow Form]

And WvWvW will be the place where ESport will happen. Ha.. Ha... Ha.....
I'ts not even funny.
GW1 had E Sport potential, GW2 ... I don't see that happening.

[Killyox]

JPB, on 01 February 2013 - 04:02 PM, said:

The difference is GW2 was released after LoL and SC2 showed us how to create successful popular esports titles. LoL needed a year because it was pretty much figuring it out on it's own. GW2 had LoL to base their design off of, particularly seeing as they made 'esports' a focus of theirs.

Seriously. Are you comparing GW2 to lol? Lol is 1 map, 1 dimensional. GW2 is something more than just pvp. Comparing MMO to MOBA is like comparing country structure complexity your house's interior.

GW2 has time. SC2 is not as succesful as people claim. SC1 was what made sc popular. LOL is to me just lame and uninteresting for example.

If any game can claim to have shown us succesful e-sport title it's CS, not lol, dota, sc.

[Soki]

The way paid-tournaments exist now, GW2 will never have a big following for PvP.

[kvantum789]

killyox things u can compare gw2 to lol as the are both pvp game not the same style ofc
and gw2 hade it chance to grow that ship is gone now
u have Arena net that has so far only talked about the future of the pvp in gw2 and that dont cost them a penny
and no GW2 has no time as things are now with the game that are on its way out in form of free to play and so on
just look at planetside2 has starting to look on esports
as things are now u dont have time to * up get it right from the start and grow

[Corsair]

Killyox, on 02 February 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

Seriously. Are you comparing GW2 to lol? Lol is 1 map, 1 dimensional. GW2 is something more than just pvp. Comparing MMO to MOBA is like comparing country structure complexity your house's interior.

GW2 has time. SC2 is not as succesful as people claim. SC1 was what made sc popular. LOL is to me just lame and uninteresting for example.

If any game can claim to have shown us succesful e-sport title it's CS, not lol, dota, sc.

CS, Quake, dota family, Street Fighter/2d fighting games, SC/SC2. These have all reached esports level. Played by people for large sums of cash. And while I think DotA and HoN are ahead of LoL in design, it does end up with more viewers because of it's larger audience on streams. These are proven esports with thriving competitive communities. Without a competitive community, a game cannot become an esport. Without a community to watch it, it won't be an esport.

These are two big issues currently facing GW2 from an esport perspective. It lacks a lot of high tier players. It also lacks interest in it for watching. The time for a big PvP patch is past, people have moved on to other games now. There were a few endemic issues in the design which caused this, but even should it be fixed people won't come back. The issue now is it's too late. They talked a big game and left it high and dry.

[Reason on Cooldown]

Perhaps ANet just saw the popularity of eSports and thought "me too!"  But thurned out to have bit off more than they can chew.  I don't know.  Maybe getting everything they needed turned out to be a bigger task than they though.  Maybe they're just going about it all wrong and don't even know it.

I think it will be difficult to grow PvP intoa n eSport, just because the hype of the release has pass, and they will need to put new PR life into the game if/when any big PvP patch comes.

I haven't been in PvP since the beta.  I don't know how the tourny tickets work, or if there are any other changes in the set up I've missed.  But they will need a few things if they have any hope of salvaging GW2 as an eSport, in my opinion:

Observer mode.  Hands down.  Without this, we're back to the days where people had to do what they could with games because they weren't made for observing.

Custom maps.  If ANet tries to control all aspect of eSports for GW2, it will fail.  It will be to restrictive and too limited.  People need to be able to set up their own tournaments with their own format and their own players on their own schedule.  It's the only way to grow it.

TRANPARENCY!!!  I'd almost say this is paramount, but the other two are dealbreakers as well.  ANet has to be open with the community, listen to their input, talk about what they're working on.  I know they like to keep things close to the chest, not reveal too much, not commit to anything or any timetable.  And I can understand that.  But if the eSports community can't see what they're doing (at least in the PvP area), and if they don't bring the community into the process, people will walk away.  The community has total power over whether GW2 succeeds as an eSport.  Bring them into the process, and they'll feel confident and vested, and will help it grow.  Otherwise they'll find somewhere else to put their time, talent, and money.

The are my opinions.  They do not reflect the views and opinions of gw2guru, ANet, or the National Football League. lol

[MaZt]

Reason on Cooldown, on 02 February 2013 - 11:19 PM, said:

Perhaps ANet just saw the popularity of eSports and thought "me too!"  But thurned out to have bit off more than they can chew.  I don't know.  Maybe getting everything they needed turned out to be a bigger task than they though.  Maybe they're just going about it all wrong and don't even know it.

I think it will be difficult to grow PvP intoa n eSport, just because the hype of the release has pass, and they will need to put new PR life into the game if/when any big PvP patch comes.

I haven't been in PvP since the beta.  I don't know how the tourny tickets work, or if there are any other changes in the set up I've missed.  But they will need a few things if they have any hope of salvaging GW2 as an eSport, in my opinion:

Observer mode.  Hands down.  Without this, we're back to the days where people had to do what they could with games because they weren't made for observing.

Custom maps.  If ANet tries to control all aspect of eSports for GW2, it will fail.  It will be to restrictive and too limited.  People need to be able to set up their own tournaments with their own format and their own players on their own schedule.  It's the only way to grow it.

TRANPARENCY!!!  I'd almost say this is paramount, but the other two are dealbreakers as well.  ANet has to be open with the community, listen to their input, talk about what they're working on.  I know they like to keep things close to the chest, not reveal too much, not commit to anything or any timetable.  And I can understand that.  But if the eSports community can't see what they're doing (at least in the PvP area), and if they don't bring the community into the process, people will walk away.  The community has total power over whether GW2 succeeds as an eSport.  Bring them into the process, and they'll feel confident and vested, and will help it grow.  Otherwise they'll find somewhere else to put their time, talent, and money.

The are my opinions.  They do not reflect the views and opinions of gw2guru, ANet, or the National Football League. lol

Even if those things that you say are implemented people still wont come back.Why? Simple, cause PvPers left a long time ago and only a tiny number left hoping for some big patch that finally focuses on PvP and not PvE which this game has all became.Yes,GW2 is officially a PvE game and Anet shows it by their actions when they let PvPers leave the game and didn't even tried to stop them by giving a little attention to the PvP aspect of the game.And does Anet actually believes that they are going to return after they way they treated them, its like saying to someone that bought your product:"F U we don't care about you,we trick you with our PR just to buy our game,LOSER". And then coming 6 months after that and saying:Oh remember those jerks that bought our game for the PvP, well lets put them a patch so they dont whine all the time".

That's how I see it. If Anet didn't hyped the game as an Esport game I wouldn't be so mad but the way they done it seemed like they totally tricked the PvPers players into buying this crap of a PvP mode and then expecting them to just wait god knows how long for Anet to even remember that they have PvP in their game so they can patch it with what? The basic mechanics that they were supposed to be in, in the first place like matchmaking and custom arenas.

The thing is that PvPers are long gone and they probably never gonna come back. I too stop playing the PvP and moved to other games like Smite which by the way is in open beta, has Spectator Mode ready and they are going to make a tournament with 100k as a price. And for those that would say "but GW2 is an MMO and has a lot of more things to focus on rather than Smite has", dont forget that they told us that Anet has is split into different teams focused on different aspects of the game. So what the PvP team has given as this past 6 months, a map, just a Freaking Map. Yeah thanks a lot for the dedication on the PvP aspect Anet I'm sure people appreciate it so much since most of them left your game based on your actions.

This is how I see it and I don't care what other say. Anet has proved with their actions that when the game was still fresh they decided to focus on PvE more than PvP and here are the results that we have today. A 100% PvE game. Have fun.

Edited by MaZt, 03 February 2013 - 08:04 AM.

[Reason on Cooldown]

MaZt, on 03 February 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

Even if those things that you say are implemented people still wont come back.Why? Simple, cause PvPers left a long time ago and only a tiny number left hoping for some big patch that finally focuses on PvP and not PvE which this game has all became.Yes,GW2 is officially a PvE game and Anet shows it by their actions when they let PvPers leave the game and didn't even tried to stop them by giving a little attention to the PvP aspect of the game.And does Anet actually believes that they are going to return after they way they treated them, its like saying to someone that bought your product:"F U we don't care about you,we trick you with our PR just to buy our game,LOSER". And then coming 6 months after that and saying:Oh remember those jerks that bought our game for the PvP, well lets put them a patch so they dont whine all the time".

That's how I see it. If Anet didn't hyped the game as an Esport game I wouldn't be so mad but the way they done it seemed like they totally tricked the PvPers players into buying this crap of a PvP mode and then expecting them to just wait god knows how long for Anet to even remember that they have PvP in their game so they can patch it with what? The basic mechanics that they were supposed to be in, in the first place like matchmaking and custom arenas.

The thing is that PvPers are long gone and they probably never gonna come back. I too stop playing the PvP and moved to other games like Smite which by the way is in open beta, has Spectator Mode ready and they are going to make a tournament with 100k as a price. And for those that would say "but GW2 is an MMO and has a lot of more things to focus on rather than Smite has", dont forget that they told us that Anet has is split into different teams focused on different aspects of the game. So what the PvP team has given as this past 6 months, a map, just a Freaking Map. Yeah thanks a lot for the dedication on the PvP aspect Anet I'm sure people appreciate it so much since most of them left your game based on your actions.

This is how I see it and I don't care what other say. Anet has proved with their actions that when the game was still fresh they decided to focus on PvE more than PvP and here are the results that we have today. A 100% PvE game. Have fun.

I did say it would be difficult for them to get people back.  Although you offer a different reasoning as to why.

To be honest, I don't think this was a big scam for ANet to get money off of PvPers.  I think they just failed to deliver on what they thought they could.  Maybe they thought what they have was good enough to start.  Maybe putting in the necessary additions to PvP ran into difficulties, or took way longer than expected.  That is where my whole transparency point comes in.  If they were/are open with the PvP community, let them know what they're doing, what they're working on, and some sort of (rough) timeframe on it, the PvP community might give them a bit more slack if they saw ANet was putting in an honest effort to deliver.  And maybe see that ANet was listening to input from them.

It's still possible for them to recover.  Do what needs to be done.  And bring in new people.  It may not be possible for them to bring the people who left back, however.

[Killyox]

Corsair, on 02 February 2013 - 10:58 PM, said:

The issue now is it's too late. They talked a big game and left it high and dry.

I don't think it's too late at all. Once it's all in place people can pick it up provided it happens by the end of 2013.

Thing is what do they value more. GW2 becoming an esport or just a fun mmo game with competitive mode but not aimed for esport

lol took over a year to get to esport level and it's 10x more simplistic than gw2

Edited by Killyox, 08 February 2013 - 12:15 AM.

[Var]

Saying it "too late" is rather short sighted not by comparison to other games but simply by looking back at the history of this franchise itself. People said "too late" and "its over!" back during the starting months of GW1 because of a plethora of bad game design choices that everyone seems to have forgotten existed when looking at GW1 as some sort of bastion of PvP greatness. The game's popularity and potential as an e-sport most certainly didn't take off until WM and EvIL faced off in the first World Champhionship, after HoH had been left to fester and die off and GvG became accessible to the general public (its like history repeating itself with 8 team tournies goes the way of the dinosaur and 1v1 being much more open and welcoming to the general public), and that wasn't until ~half~ a year into the games life time. There was a major surge after that and into the first expansion... where everything came crashing down because of imbalanced classes; hellloooo Assassin and Treefarmer.

With the introduction of the 1v1 and hidden matchmaking, the PvP has actually spurred itself back to life and getting games going is now possible on an almost instantaneous basis. If they can unhide the matchmaking rankings, ie by ladder and personal ranking scores that everyone can see, come this next update, and bring about observer mode and CA within the month after, we might actually see some life flow back into the competitive nature of the game.

[Corsair]

Killyox, on 08 February 2013 - 12:14 AM, said:

I don't think it's too late at all. Once it's all in place people can pick it up provided it happens by the end of 2013.

Thing is what do they value more. GW2 becoming an esport or just a fun mmo game with competitive mode but not aimed for esport

lol took over a year to get to esport level and it's 10x more simplistic than gw2

LoL grew from a relatively small and free release into the giant it currently is. GW2 released at giant status with a high hype level. These are very different situations to start from. LoL grew up. GW2 has sloped down.

[Killyox]

Corsair, on 08 February 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

LoL grew from a relatively small and free release into the giant it currently is. GW2 released at giant status with a high hype level. These are very different situations to start from. LoL grew up. GW2 has sloped down.

Hasn't sloped down. It's pretty much stale and according to ANet they are seeing steady increase. I wouldn't worry about it. No one should who is not planning to play it competitively. I wll play it once again (pvp aprt) when it gets better but it's not like i have dropped the game myself.

And i see my friends being every week in QP boards so they must be playing too.