Guild Wars: Appreciating Fine Whine

Here's why I love the Guild Hall – you can find people ranting and raving about everything. Case in point – this thread bemoaning the lack of PvP players at the recent community event. Which, you know, misses the point completely. That's not so much an opportunity for feedback or actual constructive criticism so much as it is to reward the various fansites for keeping the flame burning. It's a day long photo op aimed at the people who frequent the forums. Beyond that, freaking Billiard was there. Can't say I've ever had the pleasure of meeting him but, frankly, that's exactly the sort of PvPer I'd want to be grilling the devs. Someone like Chuckles would grab the nearest dev and deliver a forty minute monologue on why Fireball needs to do 100 damage at Fire 14 instead of 105 (What's that? Me? Um, you realize I'm not a PvPer, right?). He'd have graphs and charts, people. That, or you know, he'd get into a fistfight with Mr. Cartwright before day's end.

And maybe because it's Superbowl season and we just had media day so I've seen plenty of athletes try their inept hand at interviews and being interviews but the hardcore PvPer cares about things that most people, most devs even, can't follow. It's arcane, obscure stuff that doesn't translate well. They wouldn't ask very interesting questions. And they wouldn't provoke any interesting responses (Certainly not in an event as scripted as the Community Day, anyway.) because they'd be talking a separate language. Just like those athletes that mouth the right words about commitment and hard work and respect and whatever other talking points they've developed to deal with the media – knowing how to do something doesn't necessarily translate into being able to talk about it. Not with people who aren't in that same subculture, anyway, and not in a way that anyone else can relate to. They care about things that the rest of us just don't. Because we haven't been there, we can't relate, and that gap in our respective languages prevents us from understanding. You don't want someone from a top ten team, then. You want someone calm, rational, dedicated, and able to step outside of that box because they're not so far gone that they've lost that detached perspective. Someone who understands PvP concerns and has experience in that realm but can also relate to the concerns of people not playing at the top-flight level if they play competitively at all (Because – newsflash - there are a lot more of those sort of people than there are who keep the PvP scene going.)

So, as the various posters point out the premise is ludicrous. It being TGH, though, that hasn't stopped anyone from throwing the napalm around. What I'm here to talk about though is what comes up late on in the thread – after the audio of the day's Q&A has been shared. Someone brings up that one of the questions was about a jump button. You know, like in WoW. And it's rightly mocked – the game just isn't built to support that kind of thing, the ruleset gets all kind of screwy when you start dealing with the y-axis (Although, you know, all of those Chapter One maps weren't made with the ability to teleport at will in mind, either. And that didn't stop them from including teleporting.) as anyone who's conducted melee through thirty feet of open air and a bridge will tell you. It's a bad suggestion that betrays a lack of understanding about the game.

At the same time, I've actually talked to people who don't understand the game. Who don't play it. Or who sampled it and moved on to something else (I mean, put aside my friends, I helped run one of the biggest Guild Wars forums when the game originally came out – you think I didn't have to deal with questions and complaints from the uninitiated on a daily basis? I'd like to think I helped them but there was plenty of data to mine there.). And I'm pretty sure that jumping would make more people happy than automated tournaments ever will. It's probably too late now as the impressions been made but one of the biggest complaints I've heard about the game deal with how “on the rails” it is. How you're led along a path where you can't deviate. And you're given the illusion of free roaming exploration that, in fact, a lot of people enjoy but it's not really there.

They don't put it like that, of course, as they talk about things like invisible wall and rocks you can't step over. But if there's one thing I heard the game was (and is) missing at the time it was the ability to jump.

It's a seemingly easy feature that's horribly complex and adds something – freedom of movement. It's a subtle thing but since it's available in other games people have come to understand that they really like it. The game EverQuest 2 recently introduced a race who's main selling point is that they don't take falling damage. That opens up new realms of exploration as they glide around areas that would kill other characters. That are, in so many words, they're restricted from because they lack that apparently simple freedom of movement.

People make their own games, after all, and play the game in ways that weren't intended – if, of course, the game's deep enough to support that sort of thing. And feeling free to explore an open world is part of that.

I'm sure whoever asked that question has been bothered about the lack of jumping, and asked about it, and heard it requested on their site for, well, years now. It's, I think, a legitimate complaint. Just one that your average PvPer has absolutely no way of comprehending. The same way that question would gaze upon someone like Chuck or Silmor and recoil in horror.

I bring this up not to reinforce the already existing gulf between these two tribe but to point out that this was a community day. And there are all sorts of player types to be represented whose views are nearly mutually incomprehensible. Yet they're all under the same umbrella of the community that supports and enlivens the game. A little understanding and cooperation to make the game better for anyone wouldn't be a bad thing. Of course, avoiding easy generalizations and incendiary insults is not exactly what people go to TGH for.

And that, motherfuckers, is how a real TGH vet flamed someone back in the glory days. Maybe not as well crafted as a good Scrivening but, you know, I'm just warming up.