PCGamer recently sat down with ArenaNet’s PvP designer Jonathan Sharp to discuss the topics of eSports, spectator mode, streaming and customization.
When asked about the structuring of PvP in Guild Wars 2:
Right now what you have is free tournaments that you get into, where you get your tickets to get you into the paid tournaments. [The paid tournaments] have better rewards – you can actually get gems through those, so it’s more of a case of putting money on the line and somebody’s going to get some really cool stuff.
Some of that “cool stuff” entails players customizing their tournaments for friends and rivals. As well as having daily and yearlong contests that players can take part in either in a hot join or a more focus group with guildees and friends.
But what did Sharp have to say about spectator mode?
With the spectator mode, what we’re trying to do is have these three capture points that they have to focus on, and then the secondary objectives. Because that’s consistent across everything you don’t have to relearn the rules all the time. You don’t have to relearn basketball if you’re playing pick-up ball, college ball, high school ball or professional: they use the same rules throughout, which is what we’re trying to do with conquest. We’re trying to model it after a sport so we can say that once you learn the base rules, there you go you can just spectator and understand.
This idea of knowing the base rules also applies to visually understanding the scene. Most in the community have expressed the overuse of visual spells and abilities.
You want to communicate enough that people understand, but if you over-communicate then people can’t understand, visually there’s too much. We have a lot of tools internally that threshold that stuff. So if there’s three or four fireballs in your general vicinity you’re only going to see the ones that impact you the most. It’s the same thing we use in world vs. world, though we find in PvP that it’s not as bad because usually it’s just five on five.
And if all of this wasn’t sweet enough, ArenaNet is planning to allow finisher moves to be customizable to the profession, both in a “oh snap that is awesome” and “did a cow just kill that guy?”
Make sure to check out the full article and to let the forums know if you plan on setting up tournaments.
