Nov 12 World Restructuring Beta Delay

[subversiontwo.7501]

I'm not going to be as blindly positive as all the happy go lucky 5-post people here, but it is true that seeing Anet communicate in more detail about their game is a fresh breath. It also sends a signal of having a better outlook on your playerbase.

What I find missing from this is any inkling of time and resources. A transparency in description is good, a transparency of urgency would be better and even relatively broad estimates helps people set expectations. While alot of us can appreciate that this is a daunting task and (with some reservation) can appreciate setbacks I think it is also apt to point out that we're looking at a soon 4-year feature of 7-year (and two expansions) of promises. The longer something is left behind the more daunting it becomes to pick back up again (refactoring, etc.). I think that is a fair point to raise here when legacy is mentioned.

I also think that it is apt to at a time like this remind people of that Guild Wars 2's WvW mode was inspired by Dark Age of Camelot: A game that it took 25 people 18 months to complete, the entire game. Rhetorical questions to parallel would be: Are there 25 people working on WvW? The cornerstone game mode. When there are legacy issues developers may argue for slating with a rebuild, has this notion been entertained? We're likely way past that point now, but it is an interesting topic in cold discussion: The design of WvW has proven its stability over the years and it isn't overly complex on the concept level.

Things like code, management/direction and HR have their relationships. What we can see out from Anet is that they seem up to both new- and old tricks. Some of it reassuring, some of it concerning.

Anyway, this was alot of words to say: Techspeak good, timeframe important, commitment is resource allocation.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Zok.4956]

On 11/11/2021 at 12:18 AM, NotNoPants.9573 said:

So many paragraphs to blatantly say you don't have your core developers anymore and no one knows what's going on with the core game engine anymore. 

GW2 was released in 2012 and is based on the engine from GW1 (which was released between 2005-2007). 

Because of this, my guess is, that there is a lot of old (legacy) code that is 10 years or even 15 years old and older and in this long time span a lot of different developers (that understood the code sometimes better, sometimes not so got) worked on the code and because of this, the changing of old/legacy code can have a lot of unexpected side effects.

I am glad that the devs share the details about their work and their decisions.

[subversiontwo.7501]

3 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

GW2 was released in 2012 and is based on the engine from GW1 (which was released between 2005-2007). 

Because of this, my guess is, that there is a lot of old (legacy) code that is 10 years or even 15 years old and older and in this long time span a lot of different developers (that understood the code sometimes better, sometimes not so got) worked on the code and because of this, the changing of old/legacy code can have a lot of unexpected side effects.

I am glad that the devs share the details about their work and their decisions.

That would suggest that they would have game-wide implementation issues. GW1 did not have WvW so particular code for WvW does not specifically use old code from GW1 while other parts of the game would not either. It is rather the other way around. Instead, there are likely (as noted in the post above) two other primarily contributing factors to difficulty working in the WvW environment: 1) It was poorly drafted to begin with (SCW, Anet's programming guru, commented on that on Reddit in 2016 in a series of relatively interesting posts when he was made temporary WvW director) and 2) If you don't touch something for 7 years it tends to get left behind (not necessarily just in the sense of possible lost competence, but also lost familiarity).

For example, there is an interview with Colin J before he left company speaking about how the team that made Megaservers would be kept intact to iterate on back-end infrastructure work. Clearly, that team was not kept around to iterate on WvW or its persistant EotM beta. It's the services and competence of such a team they would need for this, deeming by the update notice. Had they done it then, we would not be here now. Though there is little sense crying over spilled milk beyond pointing out its plausible fact.

Case in point: We're pretty much playing the beta (relinks) of a beta (rushed conception), with a separate beta (EotM) on the side waiting for a beta (alliances) to replace the beta (relinks). Not to mention holes ripped up by things like the Warclaw not plugged, like being able to jump into objectives etc. (which just furthers an unpolished or unfinished beta feeling). Whenever Anet will concentrate (divert, recruit) the needed resources for this mode to actually be a cornerstone game mode remains to be seen. So far it seems good talk, no walk. Like I alluded to above: What we see is still rather the other way around (no balance updates because Cal is moved from Ben to Karl, or however you want to phrase it). While not the most important example in this situation (Alliances, programming) it shows taking resources from the PvP modes rather than giving resources to them as an ongoing tradition. A studio of Anet's size should have enough GD to do both things at once and without moving resources from traditionally understaffed areas of the game.

Edited November 15, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Zok.4956]

23 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

That would suggest that they would have game-wide implementation issues. GW1 did not have WvW so particular code for WvW does not specifically use old code from GW1 while other parts of the game would not either.

All game modes share some code (that probably could originated in GW1). And GW2 was released in 2012 and the development work for GW2 started obviously years before 2012.  If that code is still in the game, it is more than 10 years old legacy code.

 

[Josh Davis.7865]

 

[Norbe.7630]

Will you play with us on next test?
Will you stream with us on next test?
Will you see it for yourselves what reactions on that test?
Will you experience what we will experience on that beta test of either good or bad reactions?
Will you?

[Laurencius.9258]

As of 12/2/21, Darkhaven has been made to be absurdly, overwhelmingly powerful.  This completely ruins WVW.  You are either in Darkhaven and automatically win, or you're in another server and at best, you finish a distant second.  We can't even get out of our spawn area anymore.  Even if you are a thief and sneak out, you are pounced on as soon as you try to flip anything.  After trying for hours this week, I just feel like this is no longer a game - it's just work and since I'm not being paid for it, not going to do it anymore.  Puzzled as to why Anet would want to drive off customers prior to a release, but how Anet runs it's enterprise is no longer any of my concern.

[TheHeretic.3529]

15 hours ago, Laurencius.9258 said:

As of 12/2/21, Darkhaven has been made to be absurdly, overwhelmingly powerful.  This completely ruins WVW.  You are either in Darkhaven and automatically win, or you're in another server and at best, you finish a distant second.  We can't even get out of our spawn area anymore.  Even if you are a thief and sneak out, you are pounced on as soon as you try to flip anything.  After trying for hours this week, I just feel like this is no longer a game - it's just work and since I'm not being paid for it, not going to do it anymore.  Puzzled as to why Anet would want to drive off customers prior to a release, but how Anet runs it's enterprise is no longer any of my concern.

It's MAGUUMA, not Darkhaven. Maguuma always plays like this. It's one of the many reasons no one likes them. I don't want to be linked with them and already have suggested our guild leave DH just to get away from Mag.

[omegazone.9254]

100+ members in guild - and we are all registered in the beta under correct guild but have been moved to three different servers in wvw- guild panel says one location, wvw locations says other! this is un playable as a guild . 

 

2nd fail with regard to having us all together to play in wvw as a full guild!

 

Hope we get a fix with this soon.

 

[Kasumi.8532]

So, Alliances won't change anything in how WvW or large scale combat works. But now you just have to look where everyone from your server is again, great. Also: endless queues, chat is a mess (reason why I transferred to national servers that weren't linked with international ones), mixed languages once again (someone for the love of god please explain to Arenanet how Europe works when it comes to languages).

Why even spend ressources on this crap system. Just release a new map or make changes to large scale combat which is more than overdue now (reversing the damage nerf patch would be a good start). Everything about this expansion is just a mess.

[F Bombs.5071]

on another note..my husband and i play and are in the same guilds but the guilds are showing different WVW servers. like one guild" Ambition" shows to be on Moogooloo for me and Seven Pines for him at one moment then will show something like its on Seven Pine for him and Reapers Corridor for me. 

[Malus.2184]

I really like that there are more peopl at all timese. However, I did experience some bugs that needs to be fixed.

- The colour coding for an area. Captured areas often have the wrong colour, like friendly colour and hostile because it really belongs to someone else. The supply camps are usually the correct colour, though I have flipped camos that ended up with the wrong colour. This is especially a problem in the Desert Map since it's so vertical. So you can jump off an area into ióne that looks friendly and is in reality hostile so you die from falling.

- When a node is captured it mentions the server of the Alliance that took it. Which is really confusing since you also have no way to see what Alliance a server is a part of.

- There's also weird shifts. One moment I was in third at sub 1k points. The next, after a crash, the Alliance had 2.3k points.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Malus.2184

[tcapanna.2703]

Where are the instruction for join my guild member?

We've been reporting this for several days now, both here on the forum and via the bug report....

I can only play a few evenings a week and with this update you be able to take away even this pleasure.

If I had known you weren't going to fix this, I could have uninstalled the client for a week and recovered 50GB of space.

Edited December 9, 2021 by tcapanna.2703

[Abanga.7451]

Alliances kill wvw now -70% lonline than Piken and need wait end of beta alliances for fun games wvw from Piken badiest idea for kill wvw

 

[Lyssia.4637]

On 12/5/2021 at 8:39 AM, F Bombs.5071 said:

on another note..my husband and i play and are in the same guilds but the guilds are showing different WVW servers. like one guild" Ambition" shows to be on Moogooloo for me and Seven Pines for him at one moment then will show something like its on Seven Pine for him and Reapers Corridor for me. 

Got the same thing with my daughter; we picked the same guild in the beta tab long ago, but the same guild showed up as linked to different servers (Moogooloo for her, Phoenix Dawn for me); although I played in Phoenix Dawn the whole time, the guild would occasionally show up with different servers for a couple of hours (Seven Pines, Dragon Claw); and my daughter and I were actually playing on opposing sides (Seven Pines, for her).

 

Very bizarre.  Luckily, she loves hunting me down in WvW wherever I might be and slaying me at inopportune moments, so we had a ton of fun anyway.

[Metaliki.3269]

gj once again on reset ppl 😒

[Debesyla.7102]

It's broken again? I wasn't placed in a team, there is no list to pick the team manually..?

[panthera onca.4251]

As we all arent allowed to join the maps... its a new bug 🙂 good or bad sign? xD  we decidet to make next beta drink game for every bug we drink.. so pls dont kill us xD

[Rabbitsocks.3726]

apparently this "bug" has been around for over 10 years perma queuing. can someone at anet go dig up the person who wrote the code for this and have them tell you how to fix it? or hire someone to unspaget the code pls?

[Envoy.2594]

I dont log on lot but would be cool if you could mail in game ahead time to remind players of the server reset/relink so people can choose their guilds. I am in really small guild and tend only log on on weekends. Would be cool choose ahead time  

[Fryggenbart.3907]

Mixed languages is a huge issue. I hardly understand any French or Spanish and I do not want to play with fellow Germans ever again. EU needs an option to choose language.