Eurogamer: Colin Johanson & Mike Zadorojny Interview

I mentioned this in Raidcall tonight, while we were out in WvW for Club G, so thought I'd post it here for folks to read for themselves: You thought that was it for Guild Wars 2?

WvW players, take particular note in the section under: "Concern: I hate being on an underpopulated/rubbish server! We were rubbish in the world-versus-world league."

If you put that into context of the whole, it sounds like the WvW Season 2 is going to be pushed back until later this year, once they're done focusing on this PvE story deal in March.  Keep in mind that they still have the Runes/Sigils and other balance changes that they will most likely push out before they start the WvW season, as well as the sPVP updates.

Personally, I think that Anet is taking a huge gamble on being able to keep their core WvW players away from ESO, but we'll have to see what Zenimax can finalize and offer to the Siege Warfare players.  Personally, I believe that a return to a more DAoC/Warhammer design of Siege Warfare system will pull that fanbase away from the zerging speedball mess that WvW has turned into, especially if it continues to limit 80 players, per world, to a map.  That "Queue Map" concept is just not going to cut it, IMO.  Its not siege warfare, its just mass open-field zergballing, which is not something that they will want to encourage more of.

I still maintain my belief that disabling swiftness on WvW maps and removing non-guard NPCs and raising player population caps from 80 to at least 120 will be the best improvements to the WvW system.  Without those two things happening, I just do not see a whole lot promise for continued interest in Guild Wars 2's offering to the Siege Warfare fanbase.

You'll have to take away from it what you will, but that's my thoughts on the direction that I see coming.  (also don't forget that Camelot: Unchained is still looming in the not-so-distant future)

My thoughts...  even taking away the speed buffs - the maps are too small, keeps and towers too easy to take, NPC mobs too fragile and since the best PvP worlds have huge numbers and the smaller realms tend to be "outmanned" except during peak hours - increasing the numbers or players on the map will only help the zerg ball.

They need to fix the stuff that is really wrong and that is the map size and "fluffiness" of the NPC guards at check points, in camps, in towers, and in keeps.  It is not an accomplishment to take any of these - all it takes is large numbers (and I can solo a checkpoint or supply camp when there is no opposition). When we can speed rush a keep and take it in under 2 mins - there is something drastically wrong.  Since trading keeps and towers is the easiest form of accumulating WvWvW points for players - then that is what is done.

It sickens me to hear in map chat "Is there a Karma Train?" and it fills my heart with joy when Fog responds "We don't do that".

I'm just not sure with the way they have built their system that they can fix it.  As Fog explained it is layers on layers on layers - with everything interwoven - and nothing separated.  To change one layer - you have to change them all.