Louis8k8

As of Yesterday

https://www.guildwar...-ascended-gear/

"This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.  As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game.  Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."      

- Lindsey Murdock, Game Designer   

3 Months Earlier

http://venturebeat.c...s:guildwars2-16

"Here's what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can't realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game.  Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear.  We don't make grindy games -- we leave the grind to other MMOs."

  -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

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While it is pretty clear of what Arenanet has in mind going forward, many of us want to know "What happened?"  One does not simply decide to simply build a MMO claiming to "defy all existing conventions" & 2 months down the road completely change ones business practices & betray its playerbase without reason.

Some speculate "No endgame, not enough micro-transactions, player activity declining" & well I have a opinion on those matters which I will share, but none of these issues should have been addressed with a gear treadmill/power creep.  This is one of the milestones Arenanet promised its playerbase which made it unique in the MMO industry & now threatens to go back on.


No Endgame:

While I am sure to get opposition on this, I happen to agree on this matter.  GW2 is very limited on endgame.  Here is #1 reason.  Players are limited to 2 Zones.  We have a MASSIVE world out there & only 2 zones are populated.  Why has this issue gone overlooked.  Currently the majority of the 80 population is found in 1 of 3 areas.  Lions Arch, Orr, Frostgorge.  Why?  There is no incentive/reward for players to be active in the other zones.  T6 crafting materials, exotic/rare drops, higher exp/karma/silver for participating in dynamic events.

Suggestion:

Zaishen Daily Dynamic Events - Each day 1 zone is selected (Outside of Orr/Frostgorge).  For the first completion of every dynamic event in that zone the player would be rewarded a large % increase to Dynamic event rewards.  Significantly higher than that of Orr/Frostgorge.  For example:  Orr/Frostgorge reward something like 378 karma for completion.  ZDDE would reward 500.  Once every dynamic event in the zone was completed the player would be rewarded with a 20-30 T6 mats of their choice & a fair sum of silver.  ZDDE applies to 80's only.  (Yes, I'm aware it would have to be affiliated with some other organization, just using Zaishen as a GW1 reference)

Not Enough Microtransactions:

This is 100% on Arenanet.  Currently there is nothing in the gemstore that appeals to me as a player.  I do not speak for everyone but I think many would agree that items such as Black Lion Keys are not a viable purchase.  I conducted a study on these very forums & the numbers speak for themselves.

http://www.guildwars...een-r-d-thread/

The probability of a player getting a desirable item such as the permanent bank/trader is likely less than 1%.  When Black Lion Keys are going for roughly 1G which equates to $2.00 US Dollars, its hard to justify such a gamble.  

Suggestion:

New additions need to be added to the gem store more frequently & not just during holiday events.  Additions such as unique emotes, musical instruments etc.  Black Lion Chests need to have a much much more appealing drop % for desirable items.  5-6% would be more realistic for items such as permanent bank/trader etc.

Player Activity Declining:

I don't necessary agree with this.  I will say that of my 6 friends who started playing GW2, I am the only one continuing to do so but my inner circle is not indicative of the games population as a whole.  GW2 is unique in that there are no monthly fees.  So one has the freedom of coming on & playing when he/she chooses.  I think we will always see a increase in activity during event weekends & lulls when there is not.  I feel GW2 is fine, but when one fundamentally changes the games core philosophy with additions such as the one that is coming it is very possible that players will move on/leave.  After all, "No grind/No treadmill" was one of if not the main selling point of this franchise.

should have replied to his mail with an ascii turd with his name on it.

Rofl, I've seen some bad ideas around here, but this is golden. OP, do you honestly think that the "best" players don't die?
No, on the contrary, they are probably the ones that die the most. You know why? Because they don't run away from a fight, they are not afraid to get a repair bill to take the enemy siege down, they are not afraid of going in 5v20 if there is the smallest chance they will win.
I'm not sure if your concept of "map awarness" is "port to spawn at the sight of enemy" or what, but this idea is just plain stupid.

What Does Guild Wars 2 Need to Become a eSport?

Guild Wars 2 is a Massive Multiplayer Online game focused on many aspects of the genre. We’re going to focus on what is known as Structured PVP. Structured PVP is a 5v5 (Tournament PVP) or 8v8 format (Hot Join) on multiple maps with three capture points and one unique objective for each map. If it hasn’t been apparent to fans Arena Net are huge fans of eSports, so much that they are striving for their game to become one.


Early History of eSports

General
Electronic Sports is the art of playing a video game competitively. But it goes further than just that. eSports provides the arena in which you can  compete (in a video game) for a sum of cash on a team or solo for a video game(delete). Imagine a basketball superstar like LeBron James, someone at the pinnacle of his sport with a big salary. Now keep that image in your head, but imagine playing a game like Starcraft 2, League of Legends, or even Guild Wars 2 at the highest level. Being paid a salary to perform at your best, and have the potential to win a tournament which can reward you through cash prizes, peripherals, and even fame.


Creating a Super Star
Now for a brief history lesson, eSports started as early as 1987 when Billy Mitchel had top scores in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Fast forward 12 years and you have the beginning of (add an adjective like competitive)eSports for the juggernaut Starcraft when a Korean TV channel named OnGameNet sponsored the first OSL championship. This event created one of the first superstars in eSports history, the Canadian Guillaume "Grrrr..." Patry. After winning the event he was mobbed by rabid fans and even appeared on talk shows.

When people think of celebrities in the eSports realm they think of people like “BoxerR” from Starcraft, T2 (t squared) from Halo, and Fatal1ty from Quake. Those three players have made over $500,000 in prize winnings, sponsorships, and other deals. Arena Net has claimed they have to make superstars in their eSports to be successful, and I can’t help but agree. If Arena Net can make Guild Wars 2 an eSport the USA will be one step closer to reaching the legitimacy that countries like Korea have.

Reaching Korea Status
Korea was always far ahead of other countries when it came to realizing that a video game could become a sport and pay their “athletes” reputable sums of money to perform. In Korea it is acceptable (by society?) to grow up to be a professional gamer. This is not yet realized in the United States but is slowly becoming more acceptable by the mainstream audience. Big leagues like Major League Gaming, Intel Extreme Masters, DreamHack, and Electronic Sports League have a variety of games in their leagues and provide the top teams with respectable amounts of money after winning tournaments.

Some leagues even provide salaries, like when MLG sponsored Final Boss for Halo 3 at 1 million dollars. Salaries are a way of the future, something League of Legends is doing with their upcoming Season 3 League of Legends Championship series. Not only are they giving their teams participating salaries, they are competing for millions of dollars in prize winnings.



Guild Wars 2 as an eSport


GW2 Different than other MMO’s
What has set Arena Net apart from other MMO’s or online games in general was before the game was released it held three live events (also known as LAN events) in major eSport (and gaming conventions. These were held at places such as IEM Germany 2011, Gstar in Korea, and PAX Prime 2011 in Seattle, Washington. All three of these events had live commentary, and were structured 5v5 PVP matches between Arena Net Devs and other competitive teams.

I think this was used as a test of some sorts, almost a preview to fans of what is to come. It was not professionally shout casted, or even between professional teams. However, the matches were still very entertaining, especially when the general populous was not able to play the game at the time. When we talk about an MMO becoming an eSport it’s usually a sticky situation. The only MMO to ever be an eSport (albeit shortly) was World of Warcraft.

The Mistakes!
However, WoW was pulled from many pro circuits because of Blizzards lack of support. They saw WoW as primarily a PVE game, and were more focused on PVE Raidcontent and Battlegrounds over arena, which was what was showcased on pro circuits. But problems stemmed from more than just that, arena it’s self is very rock paper scissors. Every comp can’t really beat every comp in a match; it was very cookie cutter in approach. Also, WoW was one of the few if only games where the objective was to ONLY kill your opponents.

There was no planting a bomb, fighting for resources, or winning a Baron Nashor buff battle. That in my opinion was why it was never a truly popular eSport.

The GW2 eSport Format
Now when talking about Guild Wars 2’s potential to be an eSport you look at what game type would be played as an eSport. Tournament PVP, which is a 5v5 across three different maps with three points to capture and an interesting 4^th mechanic unique to each specific map.

With Forrest of Niefhel, you have a mob a style map where you not only focus on the capture points, but killing the buffs that yield rewards too. Then you have Legacy of Foefire, where you have to worry about attacking and defending your keep lord that can yield 150 pts if slain. And finally Battle of Khylo utilizes a siege weapon called the trebuchet which is capable of dealing massive damage across the battlefield. It can be killed, as well as repaired.

So ArenaNet has given Guild Wars 2 a distinctive feel and interesting meta to go with its competitive format. We are still unsure as to the specifics of the formatting at live events, or big tournaments. But one can guess it will have something like best out of three, or best out of five. Single elimination doesn’t make sense when matches end as quickly as GW2 tPVP games.

I believe ArenaNet has a good foundation to build a very strong eSport centric game. However, there is huge room for improvement in order to get to that point.

What does GW2 Need that other eSports have?
Guild Wars 2 currently does not have all the tools to become an eSport. I want to transition into the main topic of this article, discussing what GW2 needs in my opinion in order to become an eSport powerhouse. As many know, LoL and SC2 are the biggest eSports at the moment. SC2 has the highest paid gamers, while LoL has the more known teams/players. Because of that Arena Net has been looking at them to gauge what they should do to be successful which is wise thinking.

I believe you should take careful attention to notice what makes each game successful, and what mistakes each one made.

What does Starcraft have that Guild Wars 2 does/doesn’t need?
Starting with Starcraft 2, the game already had a pre-established eSports scene with its predecessor. This helped for its immense popularity early on, but I think what Starcraft does really well is pacing. The games start off with players gathering resources, scouting, and deciding which builds to use. This allows commentators like Artosis time to discuss each players ideas and what they are trying to accomplish early on which helps to set a scene for more casual players.

If the games started with a large number of resources already it would lose a lot the accessibility in my opinion. As I said, the pacing is fantastic. A Starcraft game on the pro scene never takes longer than 30 minutes. Hell, most games don’t even last 15. You have so many possibilities with how in depth the game is, it keeps it very fresh and exciting.

Guild Wars 2 in the same boat?
Guild Wars 2 has something similar with this, instead of builds for your race in SC2 (Terran, Zerg, Protoss) you have individual skill builds for professions as well as team makeups. This will keep things fresh and interesting, as long as Guild Wars 2 keeps it balanced so no meta becomes TOO strong. Now addressing what I was talking about when I described SC2 and its efficient pacing. I think pacing has a lot to do with the people describing the game, the commentators.

We need to have strong and fun commentators for Guild Wars 2 to be fun and accessible to the casuals or people who don’t play the game. Many people watch SC2 eSports but don’t even play the game. That is paramount for Guild Wars 2 to be widely accepted. Commentators like Artosis, DJ Wheat, “Phreak”, and Day9 are all incredible at what they do for their respectable games. If we could get someone with a name like that to guest star, or someone to match their charisma with a high knowledge of the game this would greatly help Guild Wars 2’s eSports scene take off.

My opinion
Now something I personally think Blizzard flubbed when supporting their game as an eSport was they preferred online tournaments over LAN events, or live events. The reason why this such a bad decision is it is much harder to detect if someone is cheating online, like for instance “map hacking” is the most common SC2 hack. This hack turns off fog of war for the user, a huge cheat for the person using it. There is a very small percentage of being able to cheat at a live event, in fact I have never heard of a scenario that actually happened like that at a LAN event.

Another reason that many people are passionate about is that LAN events are just more enjoyable. You have arena style setups where computers are facing each other on a platform, it’s almost like you are watching a sporting event…except video games are involved. In Korea these events are big enough to fill entire stadiums; this just brings eSports to the next level and removes us from the stereotype that all gamers are nerds who live in their basement. This presents them as cyber athletes, performing in front of large exciting crowds. I don’t think online events should be scrapped altogether, they are still necessary to have a steady flow of tournaments. But they should not be preferred.

Now that I have discussed Starcraft 2’s pros and cons I want to move onto the current eSport juggernaut known as League of Legends.

What can be learned from League of Legend’s pro scene?
League of Legends came out in October 2009. It was based off of the ever popular Dota (Defense of the Ancients) mod for Warcraft 3. LoL however was much more accessible thanks to an easier learning curve and an easier to understand character roster. However many people think a game has to come out as an eSport out of the gate. But League of Legends proves too many that that thought is just wrong. LoL didn’t have a eSports tournament until WCG Los Angeles, nearly one year later. I think Guild Wars 2 certainly has plenty of time in order to make the transition to an eSport game. People are being too quick to judge their performance; LoL did not start with eSports and look at how popular it is now. Allow GW2 to grow and deal with balancing issues, and expect to see moves towards eSports soon after I am sure.

I definitely think GW2 shouldn’t take it’s time because people get restless easily, but it’s not a good idea to rush anything. I think LoL does a lot of things right, not only is it easily accessible to the public the developers help it be even more accessible with the observation mode they offer to people watching a competition. League of Legend’s observation mode in one word is “effective”.

Accessibility is important!
It’s very slick; I have never experienced any lag or anything. It gives you the rundown on what is going on whether it is items, minion kills, gold count, and buff timers. It’s very easy for people to watch games, even games that might not have any real impact in eSports. Like for instance your best friend is playing a game and wants you to come watch, all you have to do is right click his name on your friends list and hit observe. It’s very intuitive and extremely effective in presenting the game in the most optimal way.

Arena Net actually has history with observation modes. Guild Wars 1 had an observation mode for their very popular Guild Vs Guild game type. The maps were much bigger, and people moved much slower so it wasn’t as exciting as something like LoL. However, with the changes and different feel for Guild Wars 2 if they can put out an observation mode like the one in the first one but just add a few upgrades I believe it would be very successful.

I would say things like buff timers, lord health, trebuchet help, and res timers would be very informative to have in an observation mode. Anet understands the meaning of having something that momentous to help their game reach eSports status, it’s really just a matter of implementation.

Closing Comments

I have given you guys the reasons I think Guild Wars 2 has a chance to be an eSport, as well as what it needs in order to get there. I truly think Arena Net can push their product to the next level, the competitive level. I however do not think it is solely A-net’s job to do it. We as fans, and big tournament organizations need to really do our part too. Ultimately, we the fans need to spread our passion for Guild Wars 2 in all assets that we can. Streams, videos, articles, and word of mouth will help GW2 grow to the eSport it should be. The difference in popularity between an eSport game like Starcraft 2 and games that aren’t, is it has that extra level of depth added to the game. It has something you can anticipate for weeks and months, and watch on a Monday instead of turning on your TV to watch football or other sports.

eSports gives video games the ability to reach true mainstream audiences, and allows for people to view it as a competition, a hobby, or even a career choice. Arena Net has the ability to make Guild Wars 2 a juggernaut in eSports. Give them some time to get their feet off the ground and we will be watching furious competitions for big bucks in no time.

I as a competitor myself can’t wait; many people are willing to dedicate part of their life to make it big in eSports, some specifically for GW2. With the fans supporting Arena Net, the next couple of months will be very exciting for everyone.



Sources: http://www.nbcnews.c...te-sales-999089

For all you people that want to speed their way to 80 on their alts.




Written Guide:

I created this guide because after getting my main to 80, I wanted to "powerlevel" my alts to 80. I looked around for a guide, but found none. There was some research done and trial and error, and I've decided to share this guide with you guys. There are obviously faster ways to level, but this guide doesn’t really incorporate crafting. I’m trying to show you a good way to take advantage of these dynamic event chains to level up fairly quickly.

1-15:

15-35:

For those having trouble getting ANY type of medal:

35-50 (55?):

50-60 (65? or 70?):

70-80:

HELP! The Lone Post gate is blocked!

But what about 60-70?

Good luck getting to 80!

Video guides: the WORST POSSIBLE WAY to convey information.
They're slow, linear, and usually (I haven't watched yours, so this isn't about you specifically) poorly done/shot/recorded/written/edited so much so it's painful to watch. (And too often they're just people posting some irrelevant crap, hoping to fluff their viewcount.)

If you have a list of DE 'chains' to follow....just write the list down.  Then share it with us.  It would be much appreciated!

I think HOD is adopting this classic motto:

"GTFO, HOD IS FULL"

Another thief

Yesterday, ArenaNet announced that they were opening up digital sales of Guild Wars 2 again, and we have to admit: we're frustrated. We wanted to post here, simply because we know that we aren't the only guilds and players who are - the Ascension Alliance transferred servers because of the queues, and that's something that we empathized with (and is the reason that we didn't critique their decision.)

That said, every time the queue is brought up, the threads degenerate into a bunch of accounts making accusations about those who indicate that the current system is untenable (e.g. "If you were winning, you wouldn't care about queues.")

We hope that, by bringing this forward as the alliance on a server that - at the time of this writing - is currently undefeated in WvW, that it will add some degree of credence to just how bad things actually are.

The Problems
1. The current queue system is broken.

Everyone is aware of situations where they've been in queue for hours and a friend or guildy logs on, queues up, and gets in much more quickly than those who have been in queues for hours. There's all sorts of home remedies cropping up ("Queue from the mists!" "Queue from an overflow zone!" "Log out of the game, spin around in a circle, listen to Gangam Style, and then queue again!") This needs to be a top priority for ArenaNet to fix.

2. Servers are too large and/or the WvW maps are too few.

With the vast number of players on each server that far exceeds the concurrent-user cap for World vs. World, there are simply too many players in the mix.

3. Transferring servers would be, at best, a stop gap measure.

We've certainly (shocker!) had conversations about transferring servers as an alliance. This has nothing to do with the players on Henge - the quality of which we've been really impressed with, and who have been great allies in WvW - but more to do with the frustration of not being able to play with our friends and guildmates due to the queues. Even at resets, we're lucky to get 20% of our guildmembers on a map together, and that's if we're lucky.

The issue is that with the re-opening of digital sales, there wouldn't be any point to transferring anyway - sales are going to go through the roof once again, and the few remaining medium population servers are going to be high within the next couple of days. So while we've discussed the idea of moving, at this point we think it would be an ultimately futile effort.

4. Even servers that have the status of being "full" like Henge of Denravi, are still accepting new transfers.

We have some of our own ideas, between our various guild leaders as to the solutions for the queues, and we're sure ArenaNet does as well.

Suffice to say, though, while we believe Guild Wars 2 to have some of the best open world PVP in history, something needs to change soon.

Color Code
Increased Two Tiers
Increased One Tier
Neutral
Decreased One Tier
Decreased Two Tiers

10/5 - 10/12
X Rank - Henge of Denravi
S Rank - Jade Quarry Eredon Terrace
A Rank - Stormbluff Isle Isle of Janthir Blackgate // Crystal Desert Dragonbrand Tarnished Coast
B Rank - Sea of Sorrows Maguuma Fort Aspenwood  // Yaks Bend Sanctum of Rall Northern Shiverpeaks
C Rank - Gates of Madness Ehmry Bay Sorrows Furnace // Darkhaven Anvil Rock Ferguson Crossing
D Rank - Borlis Pass Devona Rest Kaineng

History

Arena Net Official Ratings
Arena Net Official Rankings Chart

Since BWE1 I have been working on full maps of Tyria.  These are high-quality fully-zoomed in maps that have been connected together to form one, fluid map.

It is in PSD format, so you will need Adobe Photoshop to have full functionality while editing.  The individual maps are divided into groups, so it is very organized.

You can use this for anything.  Projects...wallpapers...etc.  I will keep this updated also.

NOTE:  This is a big download.  As of BWE3, this is over 700MB.  I didn't clean it up much for BWE3 and further tests,

Download Link: http://www.fileswap..../world.psb.html

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please tell me.  Enjoy!!!

Intro

I've been asked by several people to start a new topic based on this one, which would try to lay out the problems in an organized and well explained manner. I've already made a post in the thread, but it's not as noticable and well written as it should be.

So, in this topic I will try to explain the problems that a large part of the GW2 community has with the camera and controls, reasons why they are an actual problem, and possible solutions.

A plea to the community

Before I begin, I'd like everyone who doesn't have an issue with the current camera and controls to refrain from posting how they don't have issues. That's fine and I'm really happy that you can enjoy this otherwise great game. But dismissing the problem does not contribute to the discussion, since the problem is there, with its roots in the camera algorithm. If you don't experience the problems present now, I assure you that you wouldn't notice any changes if they were made later on, or if the camera behaved differently to start with. And that's perfectly ok.

That being said, the cause of the problem, unless you have problems that would otherwise add to the current one, is not in the hardware / software / network latency. So please, don't advise people to buy a new computer / mouse, reinstall drivers / game or get a faster connection. It has nothing to do with any of those, and you will end up sounding arrogant and foolish.
So now that we have that covered, let's get busy.

The issues

If you stuck with me so far, you probably experienced some of the effects that the current camera has. Some may say that the camera is slow, or that it feels "floaty". Some people experience dizziness while playing and some will just tell you that the camera feels "off". These are all symptoms, and they are all real. But let's get down to the causes:

1) Input lag

What exactly is input lag? It is the time required from the moment you made an input (mouse movement, key press, etc) to the moment that there is a visible change on the screen.
All LCD monitors have some input lag (response time + signal decoding), so in no circumstances will you have 1:1 movement. Video options such as triple buffering and vsync also add to the input lag. The problem with the current camera is that it introduces input lag on the camera controls. That means that there is a noticable delay between mouse movement and the camera response. This is probably not an issue in itself, but a consequence of the later issues such as smoothing and inertia.

2) Negative acceleration

Mouse acceleration is a relic from the times when we had low DPI mice. It can be turned off for the OS  (not the game) in the mouse options, under the cryptic name "Enhance pointer precision", which will also remove cursor snapping to x/y coordinates (toggling this option in Windows will not affect the game, only the OS).
So, how exactly does mouse acceleration work?
If you move your mouse exactly from point a to point b on your mat and back, you would expect the ingame camera / cursor to come back to the same place. Mouse acceleration works by modifying the distance travelled according to the speed of the mouse movement. So if you moved your mouse a -> b slow, and b -> a fast, even though the distances are the same, the camera wouldn't end up in the same place.

We have positive and negative acceleration. Positive acceleration increases the distance travelled with speed, while negative acceleration decreases the distance travelled.
This game seems to feature negative mouse acceleration which is most noticable while trying to do a 180° turn. If you twitch your mouse fast enough, you won't cover the same angle as if you did a slower turn.

3) Smoothing

Another relic from the past. DPI is an abbreviation for Dots Per Inch. Or you could say Pixels Per Inch. That means that if you have a 1000 DPI mouse, you would move your cursor 1000 pixels in 1 inch. In the past, mice had lower DPI so the mouse moved more than 1 pixel per reported dot. That means it skipped some pixels. To make the movement appear smoother, some games introduced mouse smoothing (UT99 pioneered it) which interpolated the movement, adding the missing positions in between.
However, what interpolation did was introduce input lag, since it needed to capture the first few frames to smooth them out, and prediction, to predict where the game thinks you would move the mouse next. You can already see why this is a bad idea.

4) Inertia / easing

This is the bad part. Most of you have experienced inertial scrolling on your smartphones. You flick to scroll, and the screen keeps on scrolling. The same method is applied here, but with an added negative, since the camera requires some time to accelerate as it starts slow.
This is bad because the camera doesn't start moving when you move the mouse, nor does it stop moving when you stop moving your mouse. This makes camera facing really frustrating, and is especcialy bad in jumping puzzles and PvP when you are trying to make fast, precise turns, since you will almost always need to reposition the camera multiple times after the initial movement.

Try playing with the effect duration on this page. Try easeInOutCubic with a duration of 1000 ms and 200 ms. That's an approximation of how the camera easing works in GW2 with regards to the camera speed slider. Here is another example of how the camera behaves in regards to mouse movement: cursor following menu.
What we need is 0 ms of easing, that is, an instant response.

In my opinion, this is the primary reason why the controls aren't as responsive as they should be. Depending on your playstyle, you need to put in the same effort to fight the camera as you would to fight your opponents.

5) A physical camera presence in the world that even gets stuck on terrain

You might have noticed that your camera bumps into stuff. A lot. And that it drags behind your character. That's because the camera presence in the world is too... present.
You will often experience erratic zooming in when there is an obstacle near the camera, or even a camera stuck in a position while your character continues out of the shot (Try jumping over the Asuran Chess in Metrica).

6) Zooming / snapping / bouncing

A side - effect of too much physical camera presence. When climbing up/down stairs, or panning the camera in a narrow space or a one with columns, the camera keeps on zooming in and out in a very nauseating way.
If you hit just the right spot (which is often for me) the camera will keep on bounce zooming in and out until you correct it. Very irritating.

7) Narrow FoV

Now we come to the part why everyone is complaining that they don't see enough and the main cause of the nausea. To put it simple, the field of view is a degree of vision which is rendered in front of you. The default one is very narrow and people try to compensate that with zooming out, leading to more camera / terrain collision, and asking for more zooming out.

The FoV is tied to the focal length of the camera. To explain it better, here's a nice example. Your character is the red bottle in this picture. Notice how the distance to your character hasn't changed, while at the same time you see a lot more of the surroundings. The distortion effect is less pronounced on widescreen images.

The game features a dynamic FoV which can be modified with the screen aspect ratio. Here are some screenshots I made with a very close camera, but with different FoVs:

• A regular 16:10 (1650x1080) screenshot
  
• A windowed mode at 1650 x 736 - wider FoV
  
• 1650 x 588 - even wider FoV
  
• How much one needs to zoom out to have the same vision as #3

When you compare #1 with #3, the difference is more than obvious. And in a real implementation, you would see more in the vertical axis as well. Notice that I have decreased the height by almost 50%, while retaining almost 100% of the scenery height-wise.

As you can see, you don't really want a camera that's further away. You want a larger field of view which should also increase on the y axis (height), which is currently not the case. Also, this fixes almost all of the nauseating feeling I had while playing.

8) Camera positioning

Try playing in a squished window (greater FoV), zoomed in over the shoulder. It's an awesome experience, which would be even better if the game featured a true over-the-shoulder camera, perhaps even a dynamic one like the one that is featured in UT3 engine 3rd person games such as Mass Effect, Gears of War, Arkham City and War for Cybertron. There is already a dynamic camera present during boss fights, but it's not really that good.
Anyone who has played, for instance Arkham City knows that you have excellent situational awareness and control in all the available camera modes:

• over the shoulder (walking)
  
• centered (running)
  
• centered with increased FoV (gliding)
  
• 1st person (airducts)
  
• zoomed out (group combat)

That said the camera is lacking in this department in GW2. The first person PoV is a must for this game, since the game already zooms into 1st person when you have your back against a wall. The implementation however is not good, and very disorienting, especially while in indoor jumping puzzles. An alternative camera for when you have your back against a wall could be a true over-the shoulder camera previously explained. Norns often collide with ceilings, and the Asura have grass blade problems.

The camera positioning simply needs an all - around polishing to make it feel better.

9) Lockups / erratic movement / other

This is not something that is intended like the previous examples, but simply bugs that need to be fixed. The camera will often lock up, or move really slowly. Sometimes it might even spazz out and you end up looking in a completely different direction. Combine that with the zooming and you have a very disorienting experience.

There are also other numerous camera bugs which can't be categorized easily, such as camera zooming with Asura jumping on platforms, first person view lockups when near walls, not being able to turn with the RMB, etc.

There are videos out there that demonstrate these problems:

• GW2 camera acceleration
  
• Guild Wars 2 Camera Motion & First Person View
  
• Guild Wars 2: Camera and Movement Issues
  
• BWE2 Camera Glitches
  
• Guild Wars 2 camera glitch (BWE1)

Even though the problem has been fixed in my case for the previous 2 videos, people are still commenting that the problem is present for them.

Why this matters

A lot of people have been commenting on how the camera and controls don't feel good ever since BWE1. There have been numerous well documented reports on the official forums, GW2 guru, reddit, Twitter, email and support tickets. Clearly people are not just imagining things.
To quote:

velourfog, on 03 September 2012 - 07:56 PM, said:

And tight, precise and responsive controls are the first and foremost thing a competitive game needs.

ArenaNet has stated multiple times that they intend for GW2 to become an e-sport. If the current camera implementation remains, they're in for a rough surprise.
There is no way that a camera that doesn't show you what you want to see, that doesn't respond when you want it to, and that ocasionally stops working will allow a professional player to demonstrate his skill, apart from the skill required to tame the controls.

While there are options in the game that affect the camera motion, such as the camera speed slider, free camera toggle and the keybinding to turn 180°, they don't actually fix the underlying problems, even if they may somewhat alleviate them.

What can be done about it

I believe that ArenaNet has far more pressing issues than camera controls, such as getting the game to work. That said, for a game that focuses around action oriented combat, positional and surrounding awareness, competitive PvP and jumping puzzles, this is not acceptable as a permanent solution.

As we have seen gamepad buttons in the .dat file by datamining, and it has been confirmed that the game was being also developed for consoles at some point, it is also possible that they are using some hybrid gamepad / mouse camera algorithm, possibly even 3rd party. That would explain a lot, since the game often does feel like a bad console port, even if the idea was dropped at some stage of development.
That may suggest that the camera algorithm may have to be completely reworked, but hopefully I am wrong.

In any case, the camera algorithm should be reworked, and options added for people who for some reason prefer the current camera behaviour. What we as a community can do is report the issue, send support tickets, and let the dev team know that the problem is present. This way we can show that this is a legitimate problem which we expect to be fixed in the near future. Here is my ticket. You can also suggest this on the official wiki, confirmed by Reggie.

Thanks for reading

So, thanks for taking the time and patience to read this, geting to know the problem inside out, and what to look for. Hopefully this will be fixed soon. Cheers!

Lappdancer, on 27 August 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

On contrary, I linked this in similar thread and I will do it again, since we can't avoid the comparison between the two in any case.
http://us.battle.net...e/naming-policy

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What you will notice once you read through Blizzard's name policiy is that it is accurate and far from being so vague that could include the Moon in. At the same time, it more forgiving when it comes to witty or funny names in comparison to Arenanet.

Just to make things clear, here is Arenanet's naming policy:
https://www.guildwar...-naming-policy/

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Now lets make a paralel analysis of those two naming policies.
1. Racial etc connotation, They both match. No discussion there. Makes all sense.
2. Now, here they start to differ one from other. While Blizzard does not tolerate any kind of extreme or violent sexuality and extreme violence. Arenanet does not allow any kind of sexual  references altogether. All kinds of violence are not allowed as well.
3. When it comes to sexual orientation Blizzard does not allow any kind of hate names. Arenanet is silent on this, but I would like to see how long a character named "Gay Smith" would last before getting a ban-hammer in his ass.
4. Next is, what Blizzard calls obscene and vulgar. This includes any kind of naughty references to human anatomy in pornographic conext. We can see that Arenanet's references of bodily functions and human anatomy fall under this as well. Arenanet's rule about pornographic falls under this.

5. Next category, are milder breaches, that still get sanctioned. First as such is insulting others. Either players, Blizzard Employees or groups of people either in or out of the game. Arenanet has biggoted slurs and hate speech.
6. Imersonating Blizzard employee. Ok, Anet has nothing similar, closest to what they have is reference to real-life people. But this in itself is as vague as it could possibly be.
7. Inapropraite names that go all the way from in game character NPC names, realm names to referencing great religion figures like Jesus and Budha. For Anet this would include copyrgihted and trademarked characters including referencing real-life people.
8. Next one on Blizzard's list is advertising, in WoW this is a No-No. It seems advertising gold selling with your name is legit as far as their name policy goes.

The third category of Blizzard's adresses minor breaches that will not end up in severe measures, but will instead bring warning. This include any trademark names, real world people names and similar. But puns of this were and are always a fair game. You do not get banned for calling your character Vodka, or CritneySpears.

What you should notice by now is that Blizzard's policy is all encompassing, it has more categories and is defined, not vague. It is precise.
Arenanet's in comparison is like some strange orders that no matter you do you will dissobey.. There is no breathing space, even worse anything you call yourself could potentialy be breach of that policy.

Lumm, on 27 August 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

the key here is while it is a private space, it is a private space created for players who theoretically are teen and over, or have parental consent to play a teen+ game.
So the question is how SHOULD the rules be handled for the intended audience.

A) Should Bans be 72 hours
B)should ban letters contain no explanations of the offense
C)should people be banned the same amount for copyright / real world names as other offenses
D)Is what constitutes a ban worthy action clear enough?

Just because they dont have to follow federal law, doesnt mean it is their best interest, or the players best interest to do things the way they are doing them.

Now its possible that right now people are getting half the info and everyone that is banned has good reasons, but since they do not tell people why they were banned, and since the Ban worthy actions are so open ended, it really becomes impossible to see what is real and what is not.

As far as we know from TOS someone is just as likely to get banned for naming themselves Vagina Mouth as being named Mizter Roper.

anyhow i think they need to tighten up exactly what consitutes a ban, and definately include the exact reason for any ban in whatever email they send, thats the bare minimum for creating any rule set.