GuildCast 30: ArenaNet Gives Guild Wars 2's Official Launch Date

Cyclops07

Good show last night. Can’t wait for launch, pray it all works out

http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P

Guilds are raging over guild wars 2….

Old Ben

Arena Net’s meta-gameplay plan is finally being revealed.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

It is kinda odd that one of the weakest features of Guild Wars 2 is the guild system.

Brosaxon

What’s this? Genuine criticism towards Guild Wars 2 in GuildCast!?

Impossible!!!

What will the trolls whine about now that the GuildCast crew have proven that they’re not just a bunch of fanboys incapable of ever seeing anything NOT perfect in GW2?

Won’t somebody please think of the trolls!?

QSatu

Trolls will say that the issue with Guilds will kill the game and it’s the end of the world.
- Brosaxon
  
  I know trolls will find something to whine about regardless.
  
  I was just pointing out how so many people have said that all the hosts of GuildCast are just fanboys incapable of seeing anything wrong on Guild Wars 2 and yet here they are criticising the guild system in GW2.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    I’ve been saying it for the past few shows. The Guildcast show has been much inproved, now the GamebreakerTV crew doesn’t defend every single action by Arenanet.
    - ScottHawkes
      
      It’s not that we decided to start doing it Dularr, it’s just aspects have risen for us that are issues. Things like the gem strore content etc. just weren’t really things that we found problematic. As we’ve always said, if there’s something we don’t like, we won’t hesitate to talk about it.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Thanks Scott. The current Guildcast crew is a perfect mix and a very entertaining show. I guess I’m referring to early episodes of Guildcast (pre-gardian). I do recall, GG getting alot of disapproving looks. The cast was really protective of Arenanet.
  - Old Ben
    
    Clear proof that they’re all paid by Blizzard.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo
  
  yea, even though the new guild system will be in BWE 3.

NoorElBahrain

The Thief is not OP Scott :p
<– Biased thief

QSatu

I don’t like huge guilds so for me it’s a complete non issue. but the ability to log in as an alt and be hidden from your guild would be a good addtion.

http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey Jenkins

Great rant guys. I’m a big GW man myself, but It’s good to ask these type of questions for game design purposes and just because (most) viewers like to hear your honest and genuine opinions about the game. Not to say you don’t do that usually, but I for one like it when you guys go into detail , weather your talking about something you truly love about the game, could care less about, or just total speculation. Even if it extends the show a little bit.

on a side note I agree generally with what you guys said as well, the guild system is decent, but I feel like it could be a lot tighter. Theirs just a lot of tiny things that they could fix up. Which I’m sure some of them will be at some point or have counter arguments for(I could name a few) but overall compared to the excellent quality of the rest of the game it feels slightly under par. Great show though guys!

Shanaeri_Ryanle

The issues with the in game community goes beyond the sub-par guild system. GW2 is in danger of becomming a game so focussed on game mechanics it loses it’s heart. Player ran events, give aways, contests and a poorly fesatured chat system are all risk of put a spanner in the works of community building.
(shameless plug of a full and long anaylsis ) http://shanaerirynale.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/guild-wars-2-the-tin-man-mmo/

http://www.facebook.com/liam.williams.184881 Liam Williams

So Scott did Gary change any of your post while you weren’t looking?

ScottHawkes

Nope he didn’t actually. I was quite surprised
- http://dev.gamebreaker.tv garygannon
  
  Changing to Scott Hawkes kills kitttens.
  - ScottHawkes
    
    That’s a secret!

http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier

About the server transfer here are my thoughts; it will cost real money/gens and I seriously doubt they will give us free gems. The only time where your servers “really” matters is WvW. For PvE and sPvP your home server does not matter. In PvE you can just guest (i.e. log in on any server to play PvE). The only real reason to server transfer is WvW, and once you decided with your friend where you want to play, then a transfer fee, although kinda sucks is going to be there. Why? ANet already say they want server transfers to be a serious thing, there will be a limit of once every 7 days if I recall and there will be a gems cost similar to what was in the beta.

WoW asks 25$ for character transfers. 25$ per character. Of course you can create alts on any servers, but still, most people play a main for serious end-game.

http://dev.gamebreaker.tv garygannon

You make a good point but if they people to switch to help balance things out they would really need to entice them. I think most players would agree that they would put up with it and hope it balances out in the future instead of dishing out some coin.
- http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier
  
  Hey Gary
  Yea. I suspect as you and Scott said that it will be a mess at launch, especially with people going to “hot servers”, those scoped our by big guilds, creating some power and population imbalance. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the discounted rate lasts for a few WvW cycles. My guess is ANet won’t set it in stone how long the discount will last and will wait and see what’s happening with server balance. A free transfer would be great, but I wouldn’t count on it. Rather I’d expect a fairly low price (say 5$ish) and if the server balance is a real mess they might grant a free transfers for a limited time at some point, but not right at launch, a bit like they did during the beta weekends. I’m confident they’ll find the right compromise depending on the situation. I know I wanted to be on Darkhaven with some friend. Not all of them made it in.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  To balance WvW may require more than individual transfers. While I had to queue for an hour or so on Darkhaven to get into WvW during peak hours. I would never transfer to a server that is not interested in WvW even if I got a instant access to maps.
  
  Arenanet will need to recruit entire guilds to move servers. Once a server has 3 or 4 hardcore WvW guilds, that each dominate the map every day or so, its going to be hard breaking that up. Once you have a keep with reinforced fortifications, it does not take a large force to defend.
  
  As it stands, it takes a well organized, well funded guild less than two hours to flip a poorly defended map. Individual transfer will not fix that.
- Sklys
  
  A thought on server set ups. If they get the guild set up fixed (and they will),
  the folks from gw1 who come over to gw2 will be looking for a server that is
  less used to take over. This will balance out the server pretty quickly. This and
  a few free gems (or one gem for tranfer only) would take care of the pretty
  quickly. IMO
- Jay
  
  Oh hey, Gary took a break from Griefing to grace us with a comment! :3
  
  I think offering realm transfers for 0 gems just for a couple weeks will help. I’m sure they can adjust gem store prices on the fly, but as long as I’m on a server with some of my peoples, I’m straight.
  
  Btw I’m waiting for that banjo song 10 hour remix… I think Rubi would approve.
  
  M3o5nster
Old Ben

> I seriously doubt they will give us free gems

If they’re smart, they will give players a few gems at the start. Just a few; enough to buy a couple of items or maybe a single world transfer. Part of the “barrier to entry” into the gem (cash) shop is psychological, and simply by getting players to use the gem shop once, they’re making it far more likely that they’ll use it again in the future.

And yes, I know players can buy gems from each other without actually spending money (well, the first player would still need to), but at the start there won’t be enough gold in circulation to make that very viable, and Arena Net wants to get people used to buying stuff with gems ASAP.
- http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier
  
  Yea. I think that is probably the case. I was thinking about it when I was posting. A few boosters or pets or something very minor, but not character or bank slots, the stuff most everyone will buy regardless. I totally agree about the psychological nature of “not using micro-transactions” can probably be broken with a few freebies.
  - Old Ben
    
    To “convert gold into gems” in the actual game (after release), someone will always have to buy those gems (and decide to sell them to other players instead of using them to buy items).
    
    In other words, if players aren’t buying gems for cash and selling them in-game, they won’t be available for gold (or will be so rare that they’ll cost a lot of gold).
    
    If Arena Net sold gems for gold directly, they’d be eating into their own profits.
    - http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier
      
      Lol. You’re trying really hard to justify how you’ll get some free gems. By the way, I was only replying to you regarding the “psychological barrier of entry” you mentioned, which I think is an important point; some people need a little push to start using the gem shop. Whether a given person acquires them trading them from someone who did buy them or gets them from ANet is not relevant for that person’s psychology; all you want is get them is to start using the gem shop. Actually maybe trading gold for gems might be better psychologically as people set a value on gold in their mind (as it takes time to collect). Being handed out a freebie doesn’t create this association that gold = time, and that time = money and that money = gems.
      Also, how does ANet giving everyone gems not eat in their profit? It’s ultimately better if all the gems in the economy were bought from customer.
      
      All that being said; they will do what they think is best both for the pocketbook and for the good will of their community. I’m not expecting free gems; if we get some I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
    - Old Ben
      
      > how does ANet giving everyone gems not eat in their profit?
      
      The same way that a drug dealer giving you your first dose for free increases his profits in the long run.
      
      They already give players several things that “cost gems” (like character slots). Instead of giving players 5 slots and 0 gems, they could give them 4 slots and N gems (where N is the final “gem cost” of a slot). Giving players free gems at the start doesn’t actually _cost_ Arena Net anything; it’s all a matter of finding the ideal balance to get players used to the gem shop.
      
      I don’t think the distinction between the 500 “free” gems and the 2000 “bonus” gems in the last beta was an accident. I don’t know if 500 will be the exact number of gems they’ll be giving each player, but I think that was a test for something they plan to keep doing after release.
      
      And I don’t really care about getting free gems, I just think it would be a smart move which would increase Arena Net’s profits in the long run, and ensure they have the necessary resources to keep improving the game.
    - http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier
      
      Perhaps. I’ll think about you if I have free gems in my account
      
      There’s 1000 ways to skin a cat. I see your point completely. I am just putting my money on black .
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  About the barrier to entry — remember that for all the beta weekends (except the first press beta) have had the cash shop available with free gems, so a lot of players (basically everyone who’s prepurchased, plus anyone else who managed to get in) has already had that introduction to the gem store.
  - Old Ben
    
    If Arena Net is aiming to be “more successful than WoW”, I’m pretty sure they’ll want to keep attracting new players after release, so I suspect that policy (a small amount of free gems -not necessarily the 2000 extra ones we got during beta) is going to carry on to all new players.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The “free” gems gives Arenanet an opportunity to link your account to a credit card. My understanding was if you used the gems, you were asked to enter a credit card number.
- Old Ben
  
  No, only if you wanted the 2000 “bonus” gems. You got 500 “free” gems straight away.

veilleux_alain

In the background video playing of PvP at 39:00 of the Guildcast, the Engineer drops 5 mines in a record time !!! Even with a programmed macro I can’t reach that mine laying speed.

Is that what Jon Peters was saying about the Mine Kit revamp into a Minefield ?

Where is this video from, that is supposed to come out with the third beta weekend?

Tommy_NOR

all the shows on gamebreaker need more Scott!

Old Ben

You heard the man, Scott, hit the cake!

http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/guildwars/guildwars2/guildwars2BWE2interview.html

new guild system. shouldn’t fanboy community sites be aware of such things?

Joey Biggs

The elementalist has the most skills at one time, because he has the 5in each atonement, equaling 20 + if their utility skills are all weapons ( the summon weapon skills) then you get an additional 20 with a total of 40…. plus heal…

dawolv

This is why i think there will be Asura AND Sylvari playable next BWE:
1) they can’t only do 1, because they share kinda the same geographical region. Who’s to say the might even share starting zones.
2) if the DON’T show them, or just one of them, release date will see a heavy load on the left-out-races starting areas.
3) They need to test it! Last excuse was “they are just not there yet”, Well – we have a release date, if they weren’t there yet just a month ago, testing might be necessary!

http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier

1) They don’t share starting zone: see map http://en.gw2codex.com/carto/
2) Doubtful. Loads of people already know what race they want to play. Human is likely the most popular
3) They are running an internal closed beta likely with people under NDA, hence why you don’t hear about it.

That being said; they might have them in the next BWE, but those argument aren’t solid.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

While Im going to stay away from them during the next BWE. (Okay maybe Ill try an Asura Guardian) Arenanet needs to dissuade any mass rush to those two races at launch. A character wipe and the final two races would be a smart move for the final BWE.
BigH001

About #3, I’ve heard this mentioned around the internet a lot as the BWEs have progressed. “They need to release them so we can test them”. I think this is a fallacy. Just because they don’t release it for US to test, doesn’t mean it isn’t being tested.

With as bug free as these BWEs have been, I can almost guarantee they have a smaller internal, NDA locked, team in there testing content builds. There’s just too much content we haven’t seen to expect it all to be tested in the last BWE. Even if they open up the 35-80 level zones during that last weekend, the population is going to be so low in those areas that there won’t be adequate testing done if it were left up to us. Not to mention all the other dungeons and the last two races, and everything else that has been locked. So they must have an internal team going through all this stuff. So just because WE haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been tested.
- Old Ben
  
  > So just because WE haven’t seen it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been tested.
  
  Of course it has been tested. Everything is tested as it’s being made, and Arena Net has an internal QA department, just like any other developer.
  
  But things that work fine with 5 or even 50 people in the area might not work fine with 500. The low-level zones will be hit by hundreds of thousands of players within the first few hours after the game’s release. Any bug there will have a huge impact on people’s perception of the game, and put a lot of pressure on their coders to fix things quickly. It’s a big risk with almost no pay-off (does anyone seriously think GW2′s launch won’t get tons of coverage just because they didn’t “hide” some race?).
  
  Bugs in high-level zones will be encountered by fewer players at a time, since different people level at different rates and spread to different areas of the game world. It’s the starting areas and the cities that need to be as reliable as possible at launch.
  
  Some bugs will only be found when a large number of players is unleashed in an area; the question if whether Arena Net wants that to happen during the beta testing phase or at release.
  
  Having worked as a coder and QA tester, I find it very odd that they’re only doing one more BWE. I would expect a minimum of two to test the asura and sylvari starting zones and at least one more dungeon. I suspect they picked the launch date based on some external factor, and will have to do a lot of server monitoring and bug fixing during the head start period (August 25-27).
  
  Luckily, GW2′s server architecture lets them apply most updates with no downtime, or at least with downtime measured in seconds.
  - BigH001
    
    And that’s just what I said. I never implied whether it was a good plan or or bad one to not push stuff to the BWEs. Just that people who say that because we haven’t seen it in a BWE it’s completely raw and untested content are misguided.
    - Old Ben
      
      I don’t think anyone actually means “completely raw”; after all, you can’t even know if you’ve finished coding it without _some_ testing. I think when people say “not tested” they just mean “not tested under realistic operating conditions” (i.e., with a lot of people at the same time, connecting from multiple places, etc.). But maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
    - BigH001
      
      Maybe. I tend to be more pessimistic about the motives of people on the internet than I normally am in real life, so maybe I’m giving them too little credit.

Krzysztof Kotarba

TBH… more battlegounds and playstyles would be nice… fix skills que for thief… It feels clunky

http://twitter.com/Amantis_Asoko John Doe

I think the engineer issue is similar to the learning curve associated with the Mesmer in GW1, what do you think?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

Speaking of Dr Who..What’s Scott going to do when Dr Who’s new season begins in mid August also? Dr Who vs GW2

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Oh giving Scott a “Sophie’s Choice.”
http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

That is easy, put the TV next to the monitor.
ScottHawkes

Two monitors. Boom.

Sklys

A good and fun show. I hope that A-Net takes some of your question/comments ( ie the guild
systems set up) under advisement. I would suspected they will.
As for the last two races, could it be a bwe3 for one race and bwe4 for the other race. Just a
thought.
In any case keep up the good work folks, always fun to watch.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Smith/100000531128393 Ian Smith

bwe4? You know something we don’t?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  Well the headstart is like a BWE minus the wipe.

http://profile.yahoo.com/VDFYPX2KBEE74AHXNPK7RNA2EA mark

Dungeons and pvp teams are 5 man…100 cap means you can have 20 full groups in 1 guild that is more than enough. Also if they raise the cap you will then have to change the whole guild system so the buffs cost is determined by the # of people in your guild. Otherwise you will have 3-4 spam guilds with 1000 people in them where noone knows anyone or wants to cause they are only in the mass group so they can have all the buffs due to the fixed cost no matter how many players. I don’t know anyone who would want to be in one of those mass messes let alone be all but forced into one. Your gamebreaker ideas sound horrible. And the thought gw2 has to allow 300 because you wow guild had that many …who cares your wow anything has nothing to do with gw2 this is NOT wow.

Shanaeri_Ryanle

Couple of things in response to this. Firstly whats wrong with having 20 full teams doing stuff? Secondly, A guild of 100 does’nt mean 100 people on at one time. It could just mean 10 split across timezones. Also, if you are referring to the influence system, it’s just fluff and not game affecting. You wont win or lose because you dont have a lot of it. Further more no one knows how much or little you have, so there is no E-peen involved Finally on the matter of influence, member activity is the key factor not numbers in a roster. A guild of 20 no lifers will out earn a guild of 100 casuals..

As to why people would want to be, well there are many reasons. But the most important one is choice. Many gaming communties have grown together over many years and so expect to be able to play together whereever they go. You personally might hate the idea, and that’s fine. But to force people who don’t is just as damaging
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  The Influence system includes things like stat boosts within claimed forts and cheaper catapults in WvW. That is more advantage than fluff. Influence is also gained by simply having many people logged in, they don’t even need to be doing events.
  - Shanaeri_Ryanle
    
    If you read the full description you’ll see it’s not just the guild who gets the WvW buff, but allies too. So the ‘love’ is spread to other guilds too, regardless of how much influence they have earned. If you think the buffs the influence system has are game breaking, then so must the cash shop and rewards for doing well WvW because they all give the same sort of buffs.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
      
      I did read that but I am referring to the people on the other teams. The cash shop items aren’t supposed to be usable in WvW. I am completely ignoring the PvE side of things.
      
      On the other hand the issue can be dealt with fairly easily. Just cap the per member multiplier at 100. That would mean no need to rebalance any influence effects while allowing for an unlimited guild size.
http://twitter.com/Aoewin Maxime Beaulieu

WvWvW I want more than 100 people in a guild, sorry. This is a negative thing that need to be fixed.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The GamebreakerTV guilds are now stuck in three or more different guilds.   The 300 guild number is from the GamebreakerTV community in GW2.   You are the one with WoW in his eyes. If you don’t want to join a large guild, don’t join a large guild.

The idea that a game would prevent you from playing with the community you want, is just poor game design.   It’s unacceptable that if your community selects a server, its possible you won’t get on that server if you don’t log into GW2 within the first few hours of early access. That’s what happened to Darkhaven, that server filled up within the first few hours and players had to spend gems to transfer later on. Just another revenue stream.

Arenanet created this situation with their limitations on WvW.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Davis/100000286723150 Brandon Davis

hell no, leave the kits alone! as far as weapons, give me my rifle, grenade kit, elixar gun, and im good to go! (the mines might be good too )

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Quinn/504633100 Jason Quinn

WoW helped me escape living at home, it was as far away as I could get. Now I’m looking for something to play for actual fun. In university I don’t have much time and GW2 seems to fit the bill.

http://twitter.com/EdwardvanRaak Edward van Raak

I never really had a problem with my small guild of real-life friends so I wasn’t aware that big guilds have these kind of problems. The limit problem will be fixed, I’m sure of it. The rest? Most likely after release but who knows…

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Don’t be so sure, database design can be unforgiving. Could be a limitation due to design or cash shop revenue opportunity.
- Old Ben
  
  > Don’t be so sure, database design can be unforgiving.
  
  If someone coded a database that was limited to 100 entries and couldn’t be changed, he wouldn’t find a job coding spam bots, let alone at a major game developer.
  
  I think they’re putting a member cap on guilds mainly to avoid the “large impersonal guild syndrome” that affects other games, where making a huge guild is the fastest way to get access to all guild perks.
  
  The main problem at this point, IMO, is the fact that joining a guild immediately exposes your account name and all your other characters to everyone on the guild (and I think the same happens with your friends list). They need to treat characters and accounts separately, like Blizzard does with character ids and players’ real id.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
    
    They seem to have mostly forgotten about that in D3. Anyone who has ever played with you, friend or not will know your character names and account name.
    - Old Ben
      
      To be honest, they seem to have forgotten a lot more with D3.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Never underestimate the damage that can be done while attempting to “fix” a design.

Jay

A vast majority of guilds won’t be hitting the 100 player cap, and
having to balance around the few that will seems like it may be more
trouble than it’s worth. Having the Alliance system from GW1 should help
with this, creating an overarching social structure to operate in.

Gary is right about Scott being somewhat of a celebrity… 90% of the
people who join the GBtv guild (and ask Scott a ton of questions) are
people who just want to be a part of Gamebreaker spotlight. Which isn’t
bad, and it’s fun to actually talk to the people you see on TV or
Guildcast in this case, but not many actually care about the goals of
the guild or how it’s being run. If they weren’t allowed to join any
guild they want, how many would actually pick the GBTV guild as their
one and only guild?

I feel it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond, rather than a
sardine in the ocean. Nothing wrong with wanting to be a part of the
Gamebreaker community/guild, it’s definitely more along the lines of
casual play as opposed to a tight group of friends.

Hopefully ANet comes up with something to ease Scott’s rage, or at least take away his late night coffee. ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

It would be interesting to know how many guilds hit the 100 member match. Also, wonder if any guilds made the mistake of inviting all 5 character slots to a guild. You would end up with a guild of twenty players.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Smith/100000531128393 Ian Smith
  
  You don’t invite characters to a guild, you invite accounts. I can only assume that once one “character” has been invited that you cannot invite a person again on the same account.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Does that mean your account can be invited to multiple guilds? Can each character represent a different guild? Scott invite my account to the WA Space guild, I created a new character, did not know about representing a guild and wandered through the rest of the BWE1 not chatting with a soul. It wasn’t until the Guildcast after BWE1 did I learn you could represent the guild, so you could chat with guldies.
    - Old Ben
      
      Currently (up to BWE2 / ST2), guild invitations are account-based, not character based. All of your characters will automatically belong to all the guilds that you join, although you can have each “representing” a different guild.
      
      People in any of the guilds will know your account name and the names of all your characters (although I think they won’t know which other guilds you belong to – but they’ll know if you’re actively “representing” their guild or not).

http://www.facebook.com/mjtlsnelling Matthew Snelling

I played with the trait system quite a bit, and even did a little bit of theory crafting for a Mesmer build I like (I love the Mesmer like Scott loves the Guardian). I think I really do understand how the various professions, weapons and traits allow people to play their way. I see the professions as the primary tier of preference, wherein one chooses a profession that inherently plays the tools they are given with a certain type of style. This is where one has that superficial anticipation as they wait for the loading screen, thinking about all the things they imagine they are capable of doing with their profession, and don’t shake your head, we all do it a little bit .
Next, we realise that it just isn’t that simple and we begin to play with the weapons, the weapon combinations, and the weapon sets in tandem. This is the most common point where people prematurely decide that they dislike a class. I tried the Guardian (Scott) and expected to be throwing down loads of barriers and smiting evil in all directions and just flexing my metaphysical muscles profusely. What happened was, I didn’t like the starting weapon, I played through the tut, and I logged out in dismay and went back to my Mesmer. Then I thought to myself and realised that perhaps I had been unfair, and I took a deep look at the various weapon skills on the wiki, and I realised that I would probably enjoy the Guardian very much, once I had had the chance to make it reach that second tier of preference, where I truly got a chance to play with the tools at the professions disposal.
This brings me to the third tier – the trait system. During my theory crafting for my Mesmer, I found myself playing a back and forth between the weapons and the traits, and found myself sucked into this melting pot of ideas, where slowly but surely, a very specific, and unique type of Mesmer emerged, who dominates opponents and supports allies in the way I naturally found myself using during my encounters with bandits and the like.
A very tiny fourth tier exists in my mental model, consisting of supporting signets and runes that offset some of the weaknesses of the choices one makes during the second and third tier.
The grand beauty of this is that, without too much conscious direction, I created a character that took advantage of how I already like to play. A type of character that can take more than average punishment, that can take full advantage of battle from a distance, and that can avoid, escape, or punish close encounters. And I can do it with a ridiculous stack of clones. YES!

My point is that this system of naturally refining your class to fit you like a glove, rather than forcing you to fit the class, is what the trait system is all about.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

I have to so some out-of-game research within the first 10 levels. That surprised me. My first entry into sPVP was also a jarring experience.

Old Ben

Leaving the asura and sylvari starting zones for the last BWE is “not a good idea”… but no large-scale testing at all before launch is a better idea? Can’t say I follow that logic.

There’s a difference between not testing high-level zones and not testing starting zones: The starting zones are going to be full right on day 1, so any bug there will affect hundreds of thousands of players (especially if one of those zones is “new”, which will make people more likely to level there). Bugs in higher-level zones will be encountered by less people at a time, so their impact won’t be as noticeable.

If there’s no beta test of the remaining starting zones, pre-purchasers will effectively be “beta testing” them in the 3 day head start period (and Arena Net’s coders will be working overtime to have them fixed for the official launch).

Seems like a shot in the foot and an unnecessary risk, both in terms of PR and internal pressure on the developers. I think the reason why we haven’t seen the other starting areas yet is simply that they (and / or those races’ personal stories) weren’t finished yet.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Illum
http://noizy.myopenid.com/ Olivier

Closed internal beta.
- Old Ben
  
  Internal testing is very small-scale, compared to the BWEs. Look at the number of bugs found in BWE1 and even in BWE2, and it’s obvious that a lot of stuff just doesn’t show up with a low number of players.
  
  You know what they call a company that relies 100% on internal testing for their games? Bethesda.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Using internal only beta testing of end game content is very risky. It has undone many an MMO.
  
  Would be interesting to know how many internal groups have completed the Zhaitan dungeon without a “god mode” cheat.
  
  But, it may not be a problem, I suspect very few players will level to 80 and have the PVE skills to complete the Zhaitan encounter. Former GW players I have spoken with say once a guild complete the harder end game content, its difficult getting them to re-attempt the content.

Derek Ratliff

Please arenanet. Please have a sylvari elite skill that turns them into wolves. I don’t care if its for april fools day. Make it happen.

Old Ben

What will vegan monsters eat then?

Old Ben

Richie, “she reached for her ruby button” can be taken seriously out of context.

bsqminus4ac

Note: I may be way off base here as I have no first hand knowledge of the guild system. My little bit of knowledge of the guild system comes from hearing Scott talking about it on GuildCast.

It seems obvious from Scott’s extreme discomfort with the guild system that there’s allot of room for improvement.
At the very least ArenaNet needs to streamline guild management.

Could the 100 character cap be solved simply by implementing an alliance type feature?

Lastly, and most importantly, what’s the deal with Gary’s shirt? (I’ll leave it at that).

ScottHawkes

If the 100 person limit isn’t going to be increased then certainly an alliance communication feature would help considerably.

Old Ben

It’s funny how Flannum says that letting players choose their starting weapon “resulted in some players picking more complex weapons”… but (as Elixabeth points out) they never actually had that question in the betas. Not even the closed beta. In other words, the “players making bad choices” he’s supposedly talking about are… Arena Net’s internal testers.

So, because their internal testers are dumb, rangers must now start with an ax and mesmers must stat with a sword (for example)? How does Flannum know which weapon is “best” for my characters? He has no idea how I imagined them. Maybe I want my rogue to use a dagger, maybe I want him to use a bow. Isn’t shaping your character to you personal taste a fundamental aspect of RPGs…?

Also:

a) How are some weapons “more complex” at the start? At the start all you can do is spam #1. By the time you unlock your other weapon skills, you’ve already come across every other weapon type in the game (both as drops and available from vendors).

b) And what if some weapons are indeed “more complex” ? If I want to play an archer, I’m going to get a bow and use that. If it’s “more complex”, then the sooner I start learning the better. By giving me an ax instead they’re not making me enjoy the game more; on the contrary, they’re just adding a little annoyance and a little barrier between me and my character.

By all means have a “recommended weapon” for each class, but don’t punish people who want to try a specific play style be removing a choice with the argument that you’re “protecting” dumb players from “bad decisions”.

bsqminus4ac

I respect your opinion but I really think it’s a non-issue given how simple it is to acquire a different weapon within a very short period of time.
- Old Ben
  
  I wrote exactly that in the post you’re replying to.
  
  But the question is: What does forcing a single choice on everybody _add_ to the game? And, if it doesn’t actually add anything, why introduce that little annoyance into players’ experience? They even let you pick some pauldrons (which have no real influence on your play style), so why remove the question about which weapon you want to start with?
  
  If indeed they “removed it”, as Flannum claims. I have some doubts they ever had it in the first place.
  - bsqminus4ac
    
    I understand both points of very.
    
    On one hand it’s nice to have the choice to customize your experience right from the start.
    
    On the other hand, it’s very easy for people to get “put off” of a class or even a game by the first few minutes of a game. There is some logic to trying to make the experience as smooth as possible by restricting a choice that might make a game/class too much of a pain to deal with.
    
    Again, however, I still think it’s a “making a mountain out of a mole hill” situation.
    - Old Ben
      
      > There is some logic to trying to make the experience
      > as smooth as possible by restricting a choice that
      > might make a game/class too much of a pain to deal with
      
      That could be true in some games, but it simply doesn’t happen in GW2. Every weapon boils down to spamming #1 at the start, and they are all viable (in fact, the first chapter of the game is virtually impossible to fail). And Flannum knows this, which is why he doesn’t actually provide any examples.
      
      > it’s very easy for people to get “put off” of a class or
      > even a game by the first few minutes of a game.
      
      Exactly. And you saw what Scott said in this episode of GuildCast – he couldn’t connect with his ranger until he got a bow, because he simply didn’t like the weapon the designers picked for him (ax). Once he got the bow, he enjoyed the class a lot more.
      
      Other people might actually prefer the ax. People play RPGs because they like (and expect) customization. There’s no way for the developers to know which weapon (or which class, or which race) a player prefers, or how they imagined a particular character.
      
      > I still think it’s a “making a mountain out
      > of a mole hill” situation.
      
      The long-term impact on gameplay is very small, I agree. But the fact that the game’s lead designer thinks this is a good (or even acceptable) justification is a bit worrying, because it’s likely to affect other aspects of the game.
  - Randa_Sue
    
    Based on what I’ve seen seen when starting a new character is that they all start with a one-handed weapon and your reward for completing the intro area is an off-hand to go with it. I think this may have something to do with not allowing you the choice in weapon and I also think it allows them to have you try a weapon you might not be willing to try on your own. For instance, my first character was a necromancer and I was given an axe, if i had been given the choice of an axe for my caster class I may not have given it a shot but it is one of my favorite weapons.
    - Old Ben
      
      Everyone is going to try every weapon their class can use, sooner or later, if only for the achievement.
      
      And if the issue is the first quest’s reward, then they can simply change that reward based on what weapon the player has (or increase the number of choices). Not exactly hard to code.
      
      This idea that people should be forced to do something they don’t want “because they might like it” sounds like something a psychopath would say.
    - Randa_Sue
      
      My point was that many of the weapons play differently than what you might expect, so I see no harm in starting you off with one you may not love. It’s not like it’s really going to ruin the whole experience and if it does than you need to be more open minded. Also, psychopath seems a bit harsh; am I one for making my husband try new foods he doesn’t wanna try? I guess you would think so, oh well, life goes on.
    - Old Ben
      
      > I see no harm in starting you off with one you may not love.
      
      You’ve just described “the harm”: you could be starting with one you love.
      
      > psychopath seems a bit harsh; am I one for making
      > my husband try new foods he doesn’t wanna try?
      
      If you deliberately throw all other food out of the house and lock him inside until he eats it (in other words, if you don’t give him any _options_), then yeah, I’d say you might be.
      
      It’s one thing to give people an _opportunity_ to try something they haven’t expressed an interest in; it’s quite another to _force_ them to do something they don’t want to do. I would hope most people understand the difference, if only for legal reasons.
RolyVento

I totally agree with your stated points of view, their excuse makes no sense to me.
- Old Ben
  
  I think there would be three good solutions for this:
  
  a) Give players a choice of weapon during character creation, listing all the weapons their class can use, with a short description (like the descriptions found in the GW2 Wiki, or the descriptions they have for the other biography options). Optionally, have a “default” or “random” button that players can click if they don’t want to make a choice.
  
  b) Give players a “choice of play style” during character creation. What I mean by this is just give them a more generic question like “When it comes to combat I prefer to [hit my enemies in the face] / [shoot them from a distance] / [focus on my own survival]“, and then give them a weapon that fits that style (ex., a hammer / a rifle / a mace and shield). This wouldn’t be as versatile as a) but would perhaps fit in better with the other biography questions.
  
  c) Right at the start, near the first NPC you talk to, have a weapon rack that players can click on and pick one weapon to start with. As long as they don’t finish the first boss event, they can go back to the rack and pick a different weapon. Once they finish that event, the rack disappears, and they must find or buy any other weapons they might want.
  
  Option c) is basically a simplified version of the weapon selection in The Secret World, which I really like because it takes place inside the game world, and not in a menu.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

You have to wonder how much of the “players making bad choices” came from the press betas. Watch MikeB press beta videos, alot of the press was still following the tank and spank play style.
- Old Ben
  
  They didn’t have the “starting weapon” question in the press beta either, though. I think it’s just their standard excuse for not implementing some choice.
  
  They said it about the trait and skill tiers, too. Some designer (possibly Flannum) said they had “tried rebalancing the abilities but it just didn’t work”, so they decided to tier them to prevent new players from making certain “bad choices”.
  
  Except they didn’t remove any of the “bad choices” (they only removed the _best_ choices, and decided to force everyone to pick the bad ones, instead of going back to the drawing board and making them more appealing) and they never actually tried rebalancing anything. They had the open system in BWE1, gathered statistical data there, and then introduced the tiered system in BWE2, instead of resetting people’s abilities and giving them a rebalanced open system.
  
  I guess they’ve found that, as long as they justify something with “we’re doing it to protect new players”, people won’t actually question their logic. It’s a bit like saying “we’re doing it for the children” or “we’re doing it for the troops”.
  
  “But why are you forcing people to buy skills they don’t want…?”
  “Why do you hate the children?!”
  - Jado Cast
    
    Quote:
    I think it’s just their standard excuse for not implementing some choice, which they pull out whenever they’re not sure how to answer a question.”
    
    It’s not just an excuse from when they don’t know how to answer, I think it’s a carry over from what was “broken” in GW1 that basically made them start over instead of making more GW games. There was such a problem with “trash” skills and builds because of the nerfs and balance issues. PvX became the staple for every kind of build you needed, ie “running, farming, dungeons, specific quests, etc.” There were a lot of people however that made bad builds for their class and became frustrated unless they used a cookie cutter build. Anet is trying so hard to get away from this problem, that they went too far to the other extreme, and have taken away too much variety and “choice” from the player. They want “everybody” to have “FUN” so by god you will play with the weapon they give you and the skills they make available, so you learn to play correctly, whether you like it or not. LOL So play it their way dammit, this isn’t Burger King. :-)

Old Ben

Regarding the guilds, I think the #1 thing they must fix is the distinction between “character” and “account”. I don’t want everyone I meet to know my account name or the names of all my other characters. Arena Net can definitely learn from Blizzard in this matter.

After that, they need to decide if the guild cap is based on the number of characters or the number of accounts. If I join a guild with two characters, does that take up two “guild slots” or just one?

I can understand having a cap to avoid what happened in WoW, where everybody just joined a mega-guild so they could get all the guild perks ASAP, which made the guilds themselves both mandatory and meaningless. But 100 characters (or even 100 players) seems like a very low limit, and we still don’t know how that limit will be raised (they’ve said it won’t be influence).

Overall I agree the guild system feels unfinished (and uncertain), but until the #1 issue I mentioned at the top is fixed, I think it’s hard to draw any conclusions about what an “appropriate” member cap would be.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Starting to sound like Arenanet was you to purchase additional boxes, so you can separate accounts.
- Old Ben
  
  I doubt they care much. It’s not like they’d be getting two subscriptions (unlike WoW, SWTOR or TSW), and the total money you’d spend on the cash shop would probably be the same regardless of whether all your characters are in one account or two separate ones.
  
  BTW, considering a new account costs $60 and comes with 5 character slots, if a new character slot cost more than $12, it would be cheaper to get multiple accounts than to buy 5 extra slots for your main account.
  
  I’m sure they’ll add some way to prevent everyone from knowing your account and / or the name of your other characters. I just hope it isn’t some half-assed solution based around the “invisible” mode that creates other issues (like not being able to see guild chat, etc.). The simplest way is to give players the options “join with this character” or “join with account”, and the same for the friends list.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Arenanet would love to sell you multiple boxes. If I’m still playing this game in six months, I would consider picking up another box if I find it on sale. The lack of monthly sub would encourage multiboxing.
    
    I’m not one to jump guilds, so a second account would be great idea. I could use the second account to jump worlds looking for that “perfect” WvW guild.
    
    That second account would be perfect for spying on another world during WvW, another opportunity for P2W.
    - Old Ben
      
      > Arenanet would love to sell you multiple boxes.
      
      No more than any other company (in fact, significantly less than most companies, since they wouldn’t be doubling their running profits, due to the lack of a subscription).
      
      > If I’m still playing this game in six months, I would
      > consider picking up another box if I find it on sale.
      
      Why would you find it “on sale” ? The box price is the only guaranteed source of profits for Arena Net. It will only get cheaper after they start releasing expansions.

http://twitter.com/mobtekl mobtek mobtekl

Man I hope they keep Sylvari back, only cause I’m in the pacific soaking up sun and rum during the next BWE. Selfish I know

http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

In other words you will be a veggie in real life instead of pretending to be one in a MMO?

Sukh Bhatti

Someone get Sharuko in here, I need opinion from a profession unlike the rest of you that are posting here. =(

http://twitter.com/RussellGusto Russell Hunt

Is Gary wearing a dress under his brown hoodie jacket? Can’t focus on the show cause I keep looking at that shirt/dress…WHAT is it? Good show again though! All you guys doing a great job, keep it up.

http://twitter.com/Leithian Duane Lee Hampson

I think the server selection is going to be a bigger issue than the guild one. I have played several MMO’s long term, WoW to a fairly hardcore level through to the end of Ulduar. I’m on East Coast time now, I was from the UK and I have friends on the West Coast too. The chances we all create characters on the same server is looking grim.

Even in the beta even my buddy couldn’t get on the same one as it was full and I ended up taking a transfer to a lower pop server to be able to do things like guilding and WvWvW.

Now some people are saying you can guest to the server but this doesn’t get you in the same guild. I’m not really sure why they have made it so you cant create different characters on different servers is there a reason? This is probably the first game I’ve come across where you cant have toons on different servers.

As far as guilds go I get the social aspect of having everyone you want under one roof, What I’m still no seeing is what guild events there will be to do. You cant really plan an open world boss kill cause I’m assuming they spawn randomly thats the point right? The instances are 5 man I guess set up multiple teams and make your own contests as to who finishes first, best loot etc ?
There just doesn’t seem to be a reason to be in a guild yet other than the social aspect and the perks. Maybe this is why the limit was set so low?

They really do need to look at real Id and its history in WoW and amend the current system. I really dont like the idea that by guilding or friending someone they can track me every time I log in.

While I can respect they are trying to move away from the norm of mmo’s this is my biggest stumbling block with GW2. Raiding brings the guild together for a common purpose. I like the idea of not being tied to a raid schedule but I also feel I will miss the team work (not that the current raiding is very challenging or requires much thought in WoW).

Long post kind of ranty and after ready sounds a little wow fanboi (I would actually say im more of an old school Everquest fan even met my wife on the game!) I genuinely have liked the game but they have made some strange choices based on what has been before.

Old Ben

> some people are saying you can guest to the
> server but this doesn’t get you in the same guild.

I’m pretty sure it will (at least the developers have hinted at that possibility).

You just won’t be able to fight for other worlds in WvW (only your home world).

> I’m not really sure why they have made it so you cant
> create different characters on different servers is there a reason?

Probably to prevent people from hopping into whichever server happened to be winning in WvW. What’s the incentive to fight for the “Red World” when you also have characters in the “Blue” and “Green” worlds?
- http://twitter.com/Leithian Duane Lee Hampson
  
  Ill stick with using wow for our base line. It has PVP cross server battle grounds , arena etc you can still make a character on whatever server you want…..can even make oposing factions on the same server except on actual pvp servers.
  - Old Ben
    
    You can’t “stick to WoW for the baseline”, because it’s a completely different line (i.e., a completely different PvP system).
    
    In WoW it’s Alliance races vs. Horde races, and your server is irrelevant. In GW2 it’s server vs. server, and your race is irrelevant.
    
    The WvW score gives significant bonuses to players on the server that is winning, so why would you care about conquering control points for the Red world if doing so would _remove_ bonuses from your characters on Green and Blue worlds? It wouldn’t make any sense to have WvW characters on multiple servers.
    
    For PvE you can transfer your characters to any server at any moment (no region locks, no fees, no delays – unlike WoW), which is more practical than leveling characters on multiple servers. Your characters are effectively available on all servers at any time, with the exception of WvW where your server is your “faction”, and competes against all other servers.
http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey Jenkins

You can actually invite people to your guild that are on a different server.

http://profile.yahoo.com/V3HR6CMXI5WF5PXOHJV4Z5XPJA Yoh

I love the Engineer, and it’s my main.
I like the change to the Mine Kit as it was a third wheel, even when I loved the idea of it, in practice it wasn’t that great.

The only other thing worth adding would be that some other kit should take it’s place, as there used to be 3 weapon kits and 3 utility kits. So what, there only 2 utility kits now?
I think they need one more utility kit as a replacement….. maybe a Rocket Boots kit.

Old Ben

The mine kit wasn’t all that bad, because it let you put down 5 mines and detonate each individually, which is a different mechanic from any of the other kits. It was a bit boring, but still tactically interesting.

Jason Cloutier

The engineer is amazing, just go to http://www.youtube.com/user/Teldo/videos and watch this man play engineer in multiple builds and wreck everything.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R35J5EUERGS3E6JRIQMBCDTRRY Nathan I

Why are big guilds so important to people? I personally never join guilds that have more than 100 members because at that point, you only actually know like 5-10% of the people.

For rangers, if your pet can’t survive against a single enemy at low level, then you’re probably doing it wrong. My pet can kill an enemy by itself with zero interference from me. If there’s more than one enemy that’s when I need to step in, but me + pet can take on 3-4 enemies our own level quite easily. Pet AI does need work though, because there are times when the pet just stands there. So the survivability issue some people are experiencing are probably more “Pet AI bugged out so the pet just stands there and die” issue instead of an actual survivability issue.

QSatu

I agree with you. I think the problem with large guilds is exaggerated. It’s not a guild anymore. people treat it as a community with hundreds of people. they rant about it b/c they want to join reddit guild/gamebreaker guild/some kind of forum guild etc. At this point it stops being a guild and becomes simply a way to talk to this few “celebrities” who log in from time to time. This gamebreaker guild showed that when Garry had to spend most of the time answering to questions from people.
I think they will have to increase the amount of influence needed for bonuses for large guilds, otherwise smaller groups would be at disadvantage and there will be no point in joining anything smaller than 100+.

http://www.facebook.com/lukas.debeer.5 Lukas De Beer

I had no issues with my ranger whatsoever when i hit lvl13-14 about i was doing lvl19-20 content. For me it was picking the right pet. I was using the moa and was totally owning anything. With longbow and short bow as my weapons. Also putting traits in the right places made my pet pretty tough and with troll urgent and the moa self heal ability it went pretty smooth

CCLemon77

Ranger: I had perhaps the most fun playing that class. Yes, the pets need work, but even so, I was like level 7 and I easily took down a level 11 Ent. I can’t wait for pets to be more responsive, but the Ranger abilities, especially with a warhorn and short swort was very very fun to play.

http://twitter.com/Xmi Tris

I don’t think huge guilds are good for the game, so I am quite happy with the cap, but I do think an alliance of guilds with alliance chat is a great way forward and it would give guilds that want over a hundred people in their guilds a way forward.

CCLemon77

For me, I can’t agree with this. I must agree with Scott on this and from my perspective I see the value in allowing guilds and guild leaders useful tools and absence of restricting limits and functionality a good thing.
Though, I’d like to know why you think that large guilds would be bad for the game. As long as there isn’t any type of ‘elitaphobia’ innuendo…
- http://twitter.com/Xmi Tris
  
  I don’t have any big objections to large guilds but they can take over a server, especially if they have an elitist attitude, and if one folds, it can also cause a lot of disruption to the rest of the server.
  My main argument was for an alliance option as that is an extremely flexible way to bring together and manage many guilds.
  - Old Ben
    
    Isn’t a bit contradictory for a _large_ guild to be “elitist”…?
    
    It’s a bit like saying that one day all Americans will be rich enough to be in the top 1%.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

Im weary about them adding and revising so many systems in the game with only one BWE left…
They better have one hell of an in-house QA

http://profile.yahoo.com/VWPCFIR6UUPBEGCLK5OYNYR4LI Daniel

One reason they might not give free gems or do free transfers at the start of the game is because “guesting” will be allowed and working so you can visit and level with your friends in PVE at any time. thats how guilds can expand across multiple servers. the only thing that picking a home server will/should affect is who is on your side for WvW and for what server bonus’s you recieve in PVE from the Orbs of Power in WvW. so visiting your friends is not a problem if you pick a different server and your dont have to wait for the queue for the server because of the overflow servers and because, once again, guesting to a different server

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Arenanet will give free gems because players will have to link their credit cards to the gem shop so they can use the free gems.

http://twitter.com/ByronLumley Byron Lumley

Who is going to bother theory crafting for some free to play game?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle

buy2play is the right term

And why not? Is it better to theorycraft on a game that has a sub?
I dont really get your point there, sry.
Old Ben

Yeah, who would bother to theorycraft chess, for example?
- Jado Cast
  
  Chess = Pay to win. LOL
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

PVE and PVP players?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=567072816 Lloyd Knauerhase

On the character slot question, going by the wiki for GW1 it was 2 slots per account plus 2 slots per campaign, plus there were bonus slots from Collector’s Editions, with extra slots buyable. That equates to 4 slots for 6 profs in Prophecies and 4 for 8 in Factions and Nightfall, so I can easily see them leaving the slots at 5

http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle

Someone has to explain this to me, i dont really understand.
Why is 100 ppl (at start at least) in a guild not enough?
There are no raids in this game, so i dont really understand it.
There are “worldbosses” i know, but 30 active players are enough to beat it. The “Bosses” are not instanced either, so there will be plenty of other players in the area to help out.
100 members sounds a high number to me.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Having a guild of 5 players is more than enough to complete PVE content. The problem is when you have a community of more than 100 people want to be in the same guild. Seems to me limiting GW2 to 100 player guilds is a throwback to when Guild Wars actually had guild wars.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle
  
  The Gamebreaker-Guild is a special case of course. The community watches the show and tries to get into that guild.
  But a casual guild shouldnt have any problems i think. Most guilds dont even get close to 100 members.
  Until you hit the 100 mark you should be able to upgrade your cap, however this will be possible.
  
  I see that for Scott it must have been a pain in the arse. I totally understand that. But its still a special case.
  From a casual perspective, i still dont understand the fuss about the 100 members cap. Sounds more than enough for me, especially if thats the “1st level” of your guild.
  - ScottHawkes
    
    For many people I’m sure 100 people will be enough, but there will be plenty of examples where it isn’t. The fact that ArenaNet have spoken on growing the guild slot number either through an in-game mechanic or perhaps even just increasing the overall size shows there is a need.It might not be for all, but it is for some, and a limiting, punitive mechanic with no discernible advantage in game doesn’t seem to meet the desing of the rest of Guild Wars 2.
    GW2 is fantastic at getting people to play together, why it then in the other hand restricts the creation of large social structures doesn’t mesh.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle
      
      It makes me wonder a little too, to be honest.
      If a guild wants 1000 members, fine by me.
      But maybe it would create some sort of “racism”, like: “If you are not with us, you´re against us.” and that non-guild char would get flamed. The more ppl there are, the higher the risk something like this happens. This is an extreme example of course, but its not like it has never happened before.
      
      The more realistic problem a huge guild could cause is within WvW.
      A massive guild could claim almost every keep for themself where the smaller guilds would never stand a chance to represent themself.
      
      Probably i´m thinking too extreme today, but i am kinda in the mood to debate
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      So, you would force this 1000 man guild into 10 separate guild manged by one person. How would you decide which guild gets to represent the keep in WvW? Would you end up with a “main” guild and all the serf guilds?

Sorte_Slyngel

Yah funny story about me and GW2 at the 10/04-12 it opened up for pre-purchase wich is my fianceés birthday, at the 08/06-12 first betaweekend my own birthday. It launches the 28/08-12 wich in no problem but I got the headstart 3 days because of the pre-purchase wich is the 25/08-12 the same day I will get married been waiting for that game for almost as long time as we’ve been engaged.
Well I will be joining you all about a week later

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Congratulations on your wedding. Really do hope you can join the server and guild you want after the first week.
ScottHawkes

Congrats!
- Tobias L Hansen
  
  Thanks…
dawolv

Same here bro,
I have my vacation with my GF and the family booked for the 24th (for 2 whole weeks) and before I’m abroad for a month, just so that my parents can come visit me “one last time” on the last Beta Weekend…
I know how you feel…

H S

I think the over 100 guild issue is yours scott. Sure the interface could be made more UI friendly, but the reason guilds need to be capped is for a more focused tighter fighting group of people. Just like the Trinity system, this is a residual of other games that allowed guilds to be virtual dumping grounds for joinaholics.

If you raise the cap, all it will do is create more guilds that are filled with dozens of dead alts or inactive people. IMO, they should have made a guilds cap at 50, so 100 seems high enough in case some people aren’t logging in enough.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Scott has over 300 people that want to be in the guild together. How should he have handled all the requests? Tell people to shove off, because the GamebreakerTV guild filled within an hour. Scott has become a bit of a Internet celebrity within our community because he seems to care and is jumping through hoops to keep the community together.

To me, limiting guilds to 100 members will lead to more joinaholics, people will want to join many guilds because their friends are spread across many different guilds. Leading to many dead guilds each with dozens of the inactive people each guild.
- QSatu
  
  Why even there have to be a community representation in game? it wasn’t a gamebreaker guild. it was a gamebreaker community of people which wanted to chat with Scott, nothing more. Maybe they should allow to link guilds together and give alliance chat.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Alliance chat is a good idea. Still doesn’t solve the headaches of trying to manage your guild once it hits 100 player.
- H S
  
  Find 3 good leaders, make 3 guilds and call them an alliance.
  
  And no, if you limit the slots to 100, all that does is force the guild leaders to choose active players only. You can create a casual guild for friends only on the side, thats why they made multiple guild joining an option.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    I request a guild invite from Scott because I have friends in that guild. His guild is full, so he send me to Larry. I wait for Larry to log in, he tells me his guild is full, so he sends me to Mike. Mike doesn’t log in for two days. After talking with three people over several days, i finally get a guild invite, and I’m still not in the same guild as my friends.
    
    Are we back again to kicking people from a guild, great idea. If you have a husband, wife and kid in the guild and Scott ends up kicking the husband and kid out of the guild because they are not active. You think he’s going to get an ear full from the the kicked players wife and mother!
    
    Lol, you know its going to happen, players will contact all three guild leaders and request guild invites.
    
    Why make it so complicated, let Scott invite who he wants to the guild.
    
    You can’t join multiple guilds if the are full. I tried, Scott would not invite me to the other guilds as well.
    
    Really, you are going to shuffle players between guilds, based on how active they are.
    
    Let the guilds grow free!!!
ScottHawkes

I’ve already had people from existing guilds in other games talk of the worries/difficulties they will experience when trying to move to GW2. Please don’t dismiss the concerns I raised as one person’s freak situation. It’s just not the case. Just look at guild sizes across the history of games in MMOs and you see those groups exist. Whether they’re efficient or not is frankly superfluous, people want them, they do occur frequently, the GW2 guild system makes them very difficult, even in comparison to that demonstrated in the first Guild Wars.
Increasing the cap won’t fill guilds with “dead alts’ they’re account based, not character.
If you feel the system is fine as it is then cool, but I didn’t make these issues up out of my head.
- H S
  
  I feel like you are bringing old habits to a new system. No different as someone who is stuck in the trinity combat style arguing how the changes are frustrating. Yep…that’s what happens when you are trying to change a mindset. Frankly, large guilds are lame, there is no “comitatus” when guilds get to frivolous and large. There were also WvW reasons to keep them small and limited.
  - ScottHawkes
    
    ”Large guilds are lame” in your opinion. There are those who would disagree with you. There are also those who would say there are WvW reasons to have a guild with over 100 members (large groups to go rampaging in various timezones etc.)
    To completely dismiss the play of others because it isn’t something you want does not necessitate design choice.
    Having a guild with 100 player limits does not solve any issues that arise from having larger guilds in the game (dominating WvW etc.) as you would still have ad hoc alliances forming, it will just be really annoying to run.
    The only thing it does is cause communication and logistical issues for those who want to be in anything larger than the arbitrarily selected number which currently does not satisfy the needs of a lot of people.
    - H S
      
      that is my opinion, but it is also one born of overwhelming experience.
      
      As for causing logistical issues, that is why it is a GOOD thing to do. Because not everyone wants too be in a guild that is large, and the WvW would be be very hard for smaller guilds to operate if 300+ people were able to just zerg together with easy communications.
      
      So we are back to square one, the only people who are upset about smaller guilds are:
      People who played other games with larger guilds (can’t let go of the past? cause my other game had it, maybe we should bring back the trinity as well?)
      
      And people, like yourself, who have access to hordes of people, through a website like this one or reddit, who want an easier time to mange it.
      
      But for the other 99.99% of those who played the game, no one ever mention to me in game about how that 100 cap limit was ruining the game for them.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/LKDL4CACPMBFCNWTA73K4SSRJ4 sdgf
      
      Wholly smokes look at all the comments here revolving around “one”, I repeat, “one” topic, haha! I can’t imagine how the guild chat would look like with 100+ people..maybe in-game, I should get down on my knees and beg not to get banned cuz I had other views/opinions hehe, whew wheee! And I agree with you H S, smaller guilds are nicer =)
    - ScottHawkes
      
      Yes, an issue that doesn’t effect you isn’t a big problem for you. The issue that does effect a lot of people does bother them.
      There are plenty of large guilds who want to be together. They want to be together in this game. Whether it is due to having been in guilds from previous games or not, it means that guilds that will organically grow (as they do) will be hitting this issue as soon as they get to 100. Saying that it’s simply something that happens in other games that is passe, just doesn’t match with how social groups have grown through the history of these games.
      These groups don’t form large guilds because those games make them, these gorups form and those games simply don’t impede them.
      Because in your experience it isn’t going to bother you, doesn’t mean you can in a blanket fashion disregard anyone else who disagrees with you.
      It’s as ridiculous as saying every guild has to have more than 30 members but that’s ok because I’m in a large guild.
      
      I’m glad your cozy small guild worked well, it should and I’d certainly be as fervent about the issue if there was a reason it didn’t.
      We’re going in circles here though, essentially you think there shouldn’t be large guilds for reasons I don’t agree with, I say there are already large guilds and giving them a punitive organisational system is wrong, which you disagree with.
      
      Fair enough.
    - H S
      
      Yes I disagree with the larger guilds. Because the designers are trying to make tactics and not numbers matter more in WvW. Larger guilds kills that ideal.

SiderFace

I high guild cap is not a guild after a certain point. Its a forum.

Anyone who legitimately thinks they are going to consistently play with more than 100 people are out of their minds.
Maintaining a giant group of people beyond 100 is a job for a forum community.

I would be REALLY interested to hear a hypothetical/simulation of playing with more than 100 players.
I’ll challenge anyone to explain how they would play with over 100 players over the span of 3 months. That is a generous challenge. THREE MONTHS!! You’ll still onyl paly with 30 people maybe, less in most cases.

If you want a larger guild, they will have to incorporate a “squad” system or something of that sort in order to nurture good group play. Its best to have alliances of several guilds where tje alliance has a greater goal, and each guild actually braeks down the mechanics of their team. With more than 100 people your strategy is ALWAYS going to be the same thing : ”GO!!”

A giant guild chat for tactics discussion and brainstorming is (once again) a forum… not a guild.

that sounds very contradictory to the GW2 play style/mechanics.

All of Scott’s problems relate to answering questions about a GIANT community of people he is trying to conduct. Doing that is a REALLY big job that is not appropriate for a guild, bur rather a web site. I am willing to be ANY amount of money that he is forming this guild with mostly people he has NEVER talked to. He didn’t even know these people. That sounds like a group that won’t be cohesive. A great, cohesive group will roll his group cause he’s gonna have strangers and randoms quitting in the middle of battle cause they aren’t winning an argument they started, and other like raging issues that happen with strangers. Noone WANTS to rage, but they will when the awkward miscommunications happen amongst strangers.
Avoid miscmmunication through typed (emotionless) messages by getting in a VOIP. Can’t wait to hear 200+ people voice chatting…. -_-

Not just griping here, I want to ask Scott a real question:
What is your actual goal in having more than 100 people? What is the end goal of that, and what do you think will be accomplished? ”I want more people” is not sufficient. The question I ask is, what is the goal and purpose of “more people” ?

SiderFace

SHOW THE GAMEBREAKER COMMUNITY YOUR GUILD COHESION.

I will admit that I am wrong, and I will cahstise all those who disagree with you, if….

You show me the coordination and organization of your CURRENT 100+ guild. You should be able to EASILY get 100 guild members to send a reply to my message with nothing more than their character name.
I imagine it would take more than a week to accomplish this goal. Most likely can not be accomplished. I will win this challenge with GREAT ease because if you post in your guild chat to do this, they will continue farming and ignoring you. If you are a SPECTACULAR guild, you MIGHT get 20-30 people to reply to this challenge.

I am about 90% sure you guys will read this post, and I am also about 90% sure you will just “ignore” it, cause it is a very well-formulated challenge that (imo) destorys the theory that larger guild creates some benefit.

Even if your current 100+ guild doesn’t coordinate well in battle beyond the “GO!” strategy, then I’m sure you could still EASILY get 100 player names in this reply; a forum could do that easily…. but wait… its not a forum…. its a guild… a goup of Brothers at arms… not brothers at game analysis. The constant search for gaming perfection has you randomly finding flaws. GW2 has MANY flaws you’ve overlooked because of a bad day you had with trying to run a forum from within a video game.
- SiderFace
  
  I think you should hire me…
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    SiderFace, did you really just respond to yourself. You are hired, report to yourself on Monday.
    
    Your post proves the problem with the artificial guild size limit. If I want to chat with the GamebreakerTV guild in GW2, you can’t, you are currently limited to an artificial third of the community. If you want to arrange for a GamebreakerTV squad for WvW, you cant, you can only chat with a third of the community. It is silly you have to use something like Twitter or Twitch to setup a squad in WvW.
    - dawolv
      
      That’s the thing though, if you want to chat with the GBTV Community, set up a shoutbox on the website.
      
      If you only use the guild as a mean of chatting WHILE NOT REPRESENTING ANOTHER GUILD, are those the guys you actually play with?
      
      I have my own guild, + friends and family and I will probably never not represent any of these guilds (becuase of chat notification) just to chat with random guys.
      
      IDK I think SiderFace has some valid points. I don’t necessarily like the 100 people cap, but I am certainly not opposed to a cap. 250 might be good. And they should definately bring back the Alliance feature.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Why the heck would you setup a shoutbox on a website to talk with players in GW2?
      
      The point is while running WvW we had players from the three different guilds there.  To organize it, the squad leaders had to send out tweets and steam the action to manage the players from the three guilds.
      
      Let them all be in the same guild if they want. The only reason they were in three different guilds is because of an artificial limitation put in by Arenanet.
      
      If you want to be in a small guild, great. If you want to be in a large guild, great. Why do you care how large a guild can be.   You mention a cap of 250 players in a guild, WHY. From your post why should you care, you are not going to be in that guild.
      
      GW2 does have guild vs guild combat, why does it matter how large a guild becomes.
      
      I would love to see an Alliance feature, but why require a Guild Leader to make an alliance with himself, if he has over 100 players.
ScottHawkes

My goal in wanting more than 100 people in a guild is not having to work around obstructive, unintuitive means of communication and management to manage that guild. Wanting more than 100 people is not the point, lots of those guilds already exist, including ones from different games who wish to remain intact when joining Guild Wars 2.
I’ve been in plenty of guilds with more than 100 people active, they didn’t all set out to be that way, they just grew due to a positive environment.
I think that penalising such guilds is detrimental to the game, hence my concerns.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I watched Scott try and manage a guild in GW2 it did not look fun or rewarding.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

I ran WvW with well over 100 people the last BWE. Ran with three different squads. It is silly the squad leaders had to use twitter and live steam to organize and direct a squad spread over three guilds.

SiderFace, you really need to answer a question. What should Scott have done once the GamebreakerTV guild hit 100 players? Tell the two hundred additional people who requested a guild invite after the first guild was full to pound sand and go away. Start kicking people from the guild and become an elitist jerk. It wasn’t like Scott was standing in the starting areas spamming chat for guild invites. All Scott really wanted to do was have people ask him for a guild invite and provide a password.

Let the guilds be organic. The guilds are no longer at war, why artificially limit them. If you don’t want to join a large guild, don’t join a large guild.

It was silly that I joined a guild and was limited to chatting with a third of the community, because of a artificial barrier to guild membership.

The answer guilds are limited to 100 players because Arenanet says so is not sufficient.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/LBXQ2YOVBJRTPJU32MNQIBLGZM ajporter
  
  Hey Dularr I posted a minute after you so you might not have read my post but I think if a developer stepped away from the current MMO idea of guilds the community would be better for it. I suggest that we have more in depth communication features in a game like GW2 and that the communication and the guild features don’t have to go hand and hand. Why cant we have some hardcore chat features that are separate from guilds.
  
  If they are separate you can then have a large 300 chat channel that you can do with as you please and then have a guild that concentrates on game mechanics for a more reasonable number of players you are actually might play with.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    It just seem the 100 account limit on guilds is so arbitrary. Haven’t heard anyone come up with a reason it should be fixed at 100 accounts. Lots of folks posting reasons they don’t want to join a large guild, but then, don’t join a large guild. No one was forced to ask Scott for a guild invite.
    
    The communications I would love to see in GW2 is persistent squad invites and communications. That way I can belong to a large social guild and still have separate communications with my hardcore squads.
    
    As it stands now, if you hit the 100 account limit and you want to start a hardcore squad, you would have to start kicking casual players to make room for new hardcore members. Not cool.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/LBXQ2YOVBJRTPJU32MNQIBLGZM ajporter
      
      That is why i think my suggestion should get us thinking. Why cant those casual people be apart of your large chat group. If they are casual and are jumping between guilds they can still chat with you and still be able to join you whenever they want. They just wont be able to represent. I don’t see a problem with that. It allows your hardcore guildies be able to really say they are with xyz guild and be proud of what they have given to the guild. It then also allows your casual friends who want to play with you a way of communication.
      
      Any thoughts?
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      I’m confused by your point. So, you would flag players as being casual and not allow them to represent a guild.
      
      Just because someone is casual doesn’t mean they are a bad player and shouldn’t represent your guild. Just means they don’t have the time to attend all the squad events. Why would a casual player be jumping guild? Once you find a guild you are happy with, wouldn’t you just stay there.
      
      Are you back to kicking players from your hardcore guild?
      
      Are we back to a guild leader saying your are casual, so you have to be in ABC guild, our hardcore players are in XYZ guild?
      
      Lol, really, just keep it simple let the guild leader invite who they want to a guild. Don’t force this odd 100 account cap to a guild.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/LBXQ2YOVBJRTPJU32MNQIBLGZM ajporter
      
      Sorry should not have used terms as “Casual” or “Hardcore” as they mean half a dozen things.
      
      The determination of who is in your guild would be up to the guild leader/officers.
      
      I just meant that players that are going to jump around are going to jump around. Why hold a spot for them. Find 100 great people who are going to be apart of your guild based on your criteria and be done with it.
      
      Those remaining players who want to partake in content with your guild could use the greater chat features that I suggested above to do so.
      
      If my idea isn’t clear enough I simple think all chat functionality could be taken out of “Guilds” then allow the player to create their own “groups” allowing whoever they want in it. So they can communicate and foster a community. Then have guilds be something completely different with or without population caps.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      So, are we back to having the guild leader start kicking players out of the guild, because they are not representing the guild.
      
      What remaining players? Remember, because we are limited to 100 accounts per guild, the remaining players are spread across multiple guilds.
      
      Keep it simple, let the Guild Leader invite people to their guild, stop making them jump through hoops.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  I thought there was a limit of 100 people per side per map in WvW? Could have been 300, memory fuzzy. But that aside, why twitter instead of the squad chat channel?
http://profile.yahoo.com/LBXQ2YOVBJRTPJU32MNQIBLGZM ajporter

I agree with a lot of your points SiderFace. The first time I read about how they are handling guilds made me kind of sad actually. To me I see it as a glorified chat channel. With a rudimentary attempt to make the guild cohesive and to work together but at the same time undermining that attempt by allowing people to be in multiple guilds.
I think what they should have done with this is have an extensive chat feature to join and create groups at will with whoever you would like even cross server. Then incorporate a system similar to guilds but in a smaller fashion. These guilds would be small and focus more on the squad size group. The goal would be to create and emphasize the idea of having a great squad of individuals, being able to rely on the people that you play with consistently.

On the other hand I think it is very easy for us to sit here and be arm chair game designers. So I have to put my faith in Arena Net to smooth out any rough edges and that they will listen to their fans. Which I think on those terms they have done a good job so far.

The above is my opinion so take it as a grain of salt.
http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul

managing one Gamebreaker Guild > Managing three.
would be His answer to Your last question,I know it’s mine.

Other than that, I don’t think large guilds are easy to keep going,
certainly not with any real sense of community.

4 of my 6+ years in wow were in a guild,
that went from 50 or so to over 300.

it sucked, imho.
http://profile.yahoo.com/LKDL4CACPMBFCNWTA73K4SSRJ4 sdgf

Totally agree, another reason I don’t join big guilds is because the minute you praise a smaller and more organized guild, you get flamed, kicked, and banned haha! Power corrupts!
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Sounds like GW1 had some really ass guilds.
http://profile.yahoo.com/LKDL4CACPMBFCNWTA73K4SSRJ4 sdgf

The answer of 100+ people per guild is simple: a feeling of power, or for money so people can go to their google ad heavy websites. It’s human nature..

http://www.facebook.com/elias.rowan Elias Rowan

Can’t wait

http://twitter.com/Aoewin Maxime Beaulieu

This is so funny to see that when something is negative and not perfect about gw2, as soon as you express it, there is the butthurt fanboi wagon coming in defending the situation. Its okay guys, no game is perfect, even your god damn gw2…

http://j.mp/shagral Shagral

Gary’s shirt, anyone?

http://twitter.com/NitroGTX Nitro Industries

I noticed that as well, I think he stole it from katy perry

dekintold

/

http://www.facebook.com/chris.cooney.330 Chris Cooney

I recent talk with my one of my friends brought out this little conversation….read on…

Theyrealone

Do you Remember the old 3 T-Shirt Picture?
http://www.guildwars2live.com/images/promotion/release_corrections.jpg
It has happened to be true it had realy will be released at the 28th of August 2012.
-GuildCast has featured that picture at one of the firsts episodes!

moonzage

As for people thinking that the guild size problem is just Scott Hawkes problem
I can assure you that it is not !
The guild I’m in has 210 very active members and I also know of several other guilds
That are 200 And over . Being in a guild of that size I can see
All the issues and problems that concern him I and several other
people share these concerns
So rest assured he is not alone in this

Miksa Miksic

Left Wow as soon as I pre-purchased Guild Wars 2, it’s far inferior compared to GW2 , in my eyes at least.

http://twitter.com/zaphod6502 Sean

I stay well away from guilds with 100′s of members. Apart from being a logistical nightmare they are very impersonal and tend to develop intra-guild faction conflicts. I dare anyone to say they know all the members of such a guild. I prefer small guilds of no more than 20 members.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Ive been in big guilds and small guilds, you get to know your guildies.

The only logistical nightmare I’ve seen in GW2 is trying to manage a guild of 300 spread over three 100 person guilds. Let the guilds be organic.

Small guilds, especially if you have family members in it, can really bring the drama trauma.
http://profile.yahoo.com/LKDL4CACPMBFCNWTA73K4SSRJ4 sdgf

I agree with Sean, I’ve been to several GW1 guilds consisting of 100+ people, either I get lost in the crowd, or I only know/play with 1-2 people in the guild (people that actually invited me). Drama is at its peak in big guilds when compared to smaller guilds, you can’t say anything in the guild chat without somehow invoking disagreement or flaming…because 100 people will see it…it’s just ridiculous..
H S

Im with you on this, been in guilds large and small, they all have their share of issues, but large one’s tend to just have them in bulk

Honestly, I feel 100 is too big, would rather the caps be 50ish, but if they allow it to go above 150 or so it would really suck for the smaller guilds in WvW. We had to fight against the reddit gang in WvW last beta, and it was a terrible experience for us. So much so, that we all quit WvW on saturday. Making guild larger would only make that worse.

Old Ben

A lot of people here seem to be missing a fundamental point of GW2′s guilds, which is that you can be a member of as many guilds as you want.

This means that guilds’ purpose won’t necessarily be to “play together”. You can be in a guild of armorsmiths, for example, which simply tries to regulate armor prices, and where people don’t actually form parties. These guilds could easily have hundreds or even thousands of players. They would rarely be “represented” during actual gameplay, and would basically function as a channel where members of a specific profession (or a specific race, or a specific class) would exchange tips and / or decide on global strategies.

So don’t assume “guilds over 100 players are pointless because they’re impersonal”. That’s just a narrow vision of what a guild can be (what it normally is in games where players can only join one). GW2′s multi-guild model enables the creation of completely different kinds of guilds.

I do think Arena Net needs to allow people to read and post to guild channels independently of the guild they’re “representing”, though. If I’m a member of guilds A and B, I shouldn’t be blocked from talking to the people in B just because I’m currently representing A. That’s effectively like limiting you to a single guild, and just letting you swap guilds on the fly.

jeff ardley

Gary, since everyone else is coming out, given your choice of clothing – you might as well declare your homosexuality now.

http://www.facebook.com/osvaldo.landi Osvaldo Landi

Im happy with what happened with the mine kit, feels much better. But still the toolkit needs a lot of love because it is mostly useless..

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

If Arenanet wipes characters during the next BWE, I may have to try an Engineer.

Vidina_SS

I played GW1 at lunch. Loved it.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Watched Bogotters steam for GW1, it looked good.

http://profile.yahoo.com/LKDL4CACPMBFCNWTA73K4SSRJ4 sdgf

Because the leader needs to obtain what no1 in the game can obtain through normal means…Power!

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

So am I hearing a new theme here. So if a player can join multiple guilds, they can join a large guild, insult them, cause problems, attempt to break them up and steal the players for their smaller guild. There is no damage done, because they already belong to several other guilds.

Am I seeing that right from the post to this article? There does seem to be alot of decisiveness going on about guilds. Is this from the guild wars from GW1?

http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

That didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to join the guild of some troublemaker?

GW1 had Alliances after Factions released but you couldn’t join multiple guilds. There were guilds that split by “drama” but I don’t think that is unique to GW1.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Still trying to understand if there was a guild meta-game in GW1.
  
  Guess, except for WvW, large guilds are social convenience. Not sure why ArenaNet wants to limit them.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
    
    No idea what you mean by gulid meta-game. In terms of competition there was a Guild Ladder. AFAIK that is not visible in game but I haven’t looked in a while. Inside of the game your guild’s status could be displayed through the character’s cape trim, assuming your guild was placed high enough in the last tournament to get a trim.

http://www.facebook.com/benni.nord Benni Nord

US only gw givaway I would guess?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz

I want to marry Elixabeth…. On a side note, they really need to fix the guild system. As is, it’s simply ridiculous. On a side-side note, I need to know what server the guild is going to be made in.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

There is no way a GamebreakerTV hosts will do a GamebreakerTV guild at launch. It is too much work and not appreciated. Suspect the hosts will keep their server, characters and guild secret as long as possible.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  You’re probably right…. but a man can still dream.
http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

I would expect people to “keep” their BWE servers. It would be nice if our friends list can remain intact for release. It would be VERY nice if our guilds can remain intact too.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003347431503 Fjorever Ulone

Will gary buy a shirt, if it doesn’t have a V-neck? (new gw2 shirt that is)

Ryan Weckbacher

I can’t wait for the Asura!

Ryan Weckbacher

Regarding guilds. I also believe the cap should be raised.

If not, at least being able to expand that number as the guild progresses.

http://profile.yahoo.com/VDFYPX2KBEE74AHXNPK7RNA2EA mark

Recently saw something that said they were raising the cap past 100 but making it so only the 100 biggest rep contribitors add twords unlocking guild perks so that mass zerg invite guilds don’t get a huge advantage just because of #s. I also find this compromise to be acceptable. It lets small/medium guilds compete on the perks and the large guilds well be large.

http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey Jenkins

agreed, would be nice to see them go that route.
ScottHawkes

I was informed by a board member over at GW2guru when I brought this up as a way to avoid issues that there are already those kind of limitations in the game. I haven’t had chance to check this yet, but apparently only the first 15 members of a guild to participate in any type of activity contribute to the total Influence.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  That’s odd, so if I’m part of the core team, I don’t contribute to the guild influence.

Jado Cast

Nice photoshop. LOL

Jado Cast

You guys should get Wooden Potatoes on here as a guest sometime. He is very entertaining!

http://www.facebook.com/imansfield1 Ian Mansfield

YES! though hes a hige Lore guy but still love his Mechanics too ^.^

Jado Cast

Anet has said that “community” is important, and I totally agree. If that’s the case, then the most important ingredient of building community in an MMO, is guilds/clans. The current system so far does not make this the center piece and make guilds “important” as Scott suggests. As a GW fan, I simply don’t understand why they didn’t implement a register system to reserve “Alliances” and make them guilds, cap it at 1000, then bring them over from the original game. This would of satisfied that community. At once time in GW we had 4 alliances, but now we are down to 2, (one European and the other american) and both are full. So how do you organize 2000 members and bring them over without drama and huge logistical problems? My biggest issue, is how they have really taken the importance of Guilds in PvP and made it less meaningful. Winning in the Hall of Heroes was a big deal. They have lost some of the essence and significance of Guilds from the original game. It really needs an overhaul and they should rethink the entire system in my opinion.

http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

Community or a bunch of isolated communities? I don’t think they want people to login to see that no one in their guild is on and feel that they can’t do something because no one in the guild is on or not enough of them are on. Larger guilds lowers the chance of that situation happening but I think ANet would prefer if people simply did things with other people as opposed to other people who must also in their guild.
- Jado Cast
  
  That’s a good point. No doubt that many guilds die off when players become less active. I really don’t have an issue with their approach, but I agree with Scott, it can be better than what they’ve come up with so far.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The original GW sounded like a cool game. If it wasn’t for twitch and twitter, would have never had a sense of community in GW2.

http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan

GW1′s launch is probably a terrible predictor for GW2′s launch. GW1 took 5 months to go over 1million. GW2 is expected to do that at launch.

The following is regarding stuff at around the 1 hour mark.
People are focusing on describing the solution rather than describing what problems they are actually trying to solve. Allowing giant guilds may just be a means to an end, not necessarily the best way to address the underlying problems. As an example, if it’s for chat reasons like Richie mentioned then it would be better to allow for player created chat channels.

Scott, what exactly do you mean by “make guilds important” and “necessary”? What makes being part of a guild important? A guild should be useful, it should not be necessary. Guild exclusive content would be a terrible way to force people into guilds.

The implication by Gary that people won’t be able to play together if they can’t get into the same guild is also wrong. ANet has pretty much been shouting about the fact that players won’t need to be in any sort of formal groups for most content and you just need a party for dungeons.

http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The GW2 crippling of guilds just seems archaic and unnecessary. The guilds are no longer at war, why limit a guild to 100 players? Why tell a guild leader they can have 100 players, but not 101. Why require a 100 player guild to start kicking players if they want to add new players?

GW2 does see to display a serous lack of communication and coordination. Check your map, go to the event, do your single-player thang. If things go bad, don’t worry you mostly likely will never see or remember the players again.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  People seem a bit too hung up on the name. The actuals “wars” ended before the start of GW1. While I don’t have the answer for why there is a limit, I am very certain the answer is not because .
  - http://www.facebook.com/rtloveless Ryan Tyler Loveless
    
    Get your lore right as well. during guild wars 1, that was the whole POINT of the game. Guilds fought.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
      
      Unless there were lore in the PvP side of the games, the whole point of GW1 was
      1) running away from the Charr
      2) running pass the Stone Summit Dwarves
      3) fighting the White Mantle
      4) running away from the White Mantle
      5) ascend
      6) fight the Mursaat
      
      but even if you ignore all those, the last of the Guild Wars ended with the Charr invasion according to the timeline in the Nightfall manual. By the start of the game the invasion had already started.
    - Artemis Frost
      
      Lol, get your lore right, The guild war they refer to in the game ended with the searing and subsequent charr invasion.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002530168528 Nikolaas Wajon

love ur show guys, just for future reference my name is pronounced “way-on”

http://twitter.com/BigMac37s Brandon m

We want arena in GW2!!! Thats the only thing that might keep me from playing this long term. I understand it has 5v5 point control maps, but arena is a must IMO.

http://www.facebook.com/rtloveless Ryan Tyler Loveless

That is arena? Also, if you EVER read anything that Anet has posted in the past, that will NOT be the only mode for Structured PvP.
Marshall Patterson

Theres a total of 4 structured PvP maps/game modes, so far we have only encountered 2. So expect something different on launch (fingers crossed a CTF and TDM)

http://www.facebook.com/rtloveless Ryan Tyler Loveless

Really, Stop with the dubstep. It’s annoying.

http://www.facebook.com/rasmus.nielsen.75491 Rasmus Nielsen

It’s not Zhaitan, it’s one of his Champions

http://twitter.com/Yoitshunterhere hunter osborne

I want buildcast to discuss best pc custom builds and all in one pc buys. Also what to upgrade from user submitted pc builds!

DoctorOverlord

I didn’t know you
could kill friendly NPCs when you became infected in the end event! I hope it happens again, I need to do that.

I would watch a UFO
conspiracy show with Gary, for a little while at least

I did not know the guild system in GW2 was so lacking. That would be horribly ironic if it was the weakest part of the game. I really hope ArenaNet manages to polish it before launch.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1322927144 Lauren Pagan

Around the 55 minute mark, about guilds:

Unfortunately this is the one area I could see ANet taking a lesson from WoW. I’ve seen 2 systems that do what ANet is trying to do but so much better, and those are WoW after the addition of BattleNet real IDs, and FFXI.

In WoW, after they added the BattleNet IDs, you could then add friends by their real ID and this know when they were online no matter which character. BUT you could still also add characters by their name, and this would only show you when that specific character was online. However if someone added you by real ID then they always knew when you were online – as far as I know there was no “invisible” mode.

FFXI’s system is actually very similar to what ANet wants to do. In FFXI you could join multiple Linkshells (their equivalent of a guild). And you could only be in one at a time by equipping the LS you wanted to be in. This meant that if someone was not wearing your LS, you could not see them in the roster.

So basically if ANet could mesh WoW’s superior guild interface and structure with the idea of real ID’s and such, it would be much better. I do think it’s stupid that people can see that you are online but “not representing” the guild. And you should only be able to add a person’s account by using their login ID and not just a single character’s name.

As for guild’s being useful I do think the options they have now, the upgrades and things, are plenty. I do think guilds will be useful, but not necessary to the gaming experience which I think fits in very well with the whole idea of GW2. But I do agree the tools used to manage guilds could be increased greatly.

For instance one thing I hated so much being a guild leader myself was that it took me like 2 days to figure out how to promote someone. It wasn’t a simple “find their name on the list, click and the options come up, promote” thing. You had to click ONLY on the icon that was their current status (which btw was very small icon) and that was the only way you could get the menu to appear. It was absurd. I also found it hard to do other simple manager type tasks like simply count the number of the people in the guild.

Anyway, I do hope they get it all figured out before launch.

GuildCast 30: ArenaNet Gives Guild Wars 2's Official Launch Date

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
What’s A Fire Festival

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sign in to your account