Ilum isn't dead because of no rewards, it is dead because it sucked and was unplayable. It sucked so bad, people stopped going there even when it still had rewards. It is just the opposite, they removed the rewards from Ilum, because it was dead, not the other way around. Of course GW2 has rewards, they are just all cosmetic, like better looking gear and titles. There just no rewards with better stats. Yes in WvW gear counts, but there is no gearprogression at Maxlvl. You get weapons and armor with maxstats easily, the ones you have to grind for or get as rewards are just better looking but in no way stronger than the standard crap every casual will have at maxlvl. Cosmetic rewards and titles are enough rewards for pvp. Why should it drop because of this in no time? Gw1 had it the same way and didn't drop, it kept growing for a long time. If you think better looking stuff isn't important for enough people, just ask the guys from riot what they can tell you about it and if they are starving. You are not forced to be in more than one guilkd at one time. It really doesn't make sense at all to be in more than one specialized WvW-Guild at one time. Why Multiguilding is allowed has other reasons, i.e. so you can be in a big WvW Guild with 50 other people and at the sametime have your 5 man-guild for competitive structured tournaments. Different gametypes need different guild setups, so they give you the ability to have a guild for every type, so you can play whatever you have fun with, whenever you want to, because that is their philosophy.

really? you must be blind not noticing the drop in activity ingame. you know many players bought a 2 month prepaid card with the game or just paid a 3 month subfee from start? so they are actually active subscribers in the statistics for bw till their sub run out, even if they uninstalled the game long before. you know why these people say pvp is fun from 10-49? because gear doesn't matter that hard while lvl 50 pvp is all about gear and no fun at all. you really don't understand that there are many, many players who just play for competition and fun. who just want to play in a teambased game against other teams to measure their skill, this is just impossible to do in swtor. no, joining random bgs with a premade team is nothing like that. there won't be any complaints in gw2 about the lack of geargrind beside some wow and swtor fanboi-trolls, like there never were any complaints in gw1 about that. Competing in tournaments and playing highly competitive matches, winning or losing with your friends in hard games against another team of friends is rewarding more than enough. And it is just so much more fun than playing this random**** in brainafk mode here where half of your team doesn't even care about winning.

you could say that 4 weeks ago, when nobody played the game. now the hype is beyond that point after they let the press play their game and let them cover video footage and talk about the game without nda restrictions. the hype is now based on people who actually expirienced the game. maybe it won't be the second coming, but it is a far better game than swtor ever will be, especially if you look at it as a pvp-player

This is not the majority of pvp'ers. The majority left this game or didn't come here in the first place. Swtor has no content for PvP'ers at all, Ilum doesn't work and random BGs are for casuals by design. rated bgs are coming too late and even then without cross-server. What is a PvP'er with only the tiniest competitive attitude supposed to do in this game? gw2 is just different. it delivers content for all of the big groups of pvp'ers. WvWvW for the RvR-Lovers, Hot-Join-structured for casuals and 5vs5-structured-tournaments for hardcore-competitive-players. There is something fun to do for allmost everybody and you are not forced to do something you don't enjoy to get there. If the activity is fun itself, you don't need rewards for it.

Actually the hype is based on what ArenaNet (not NCsoft) delivers, it's not based on some flashy Trailers and the fact that lightsabers are in the game.

Die Infos gibt es schon etwas konkreter... Im WvW gibt es immer zwei-wöchige Matches zwischen drei Servern, wobei es in bestimmten Zeitabständen Punkte für gehaltene Objekte (Burgen, Türme, Nachschubcamps, etc.) gibt. Die Serverboni gibt es anhand dieser Punkte und durch diese Punkte wird nach den 2 Wochen auch der Sieger im WvW bestimmt. Dann werden neue Serverpaarungen bestimmt und es startet ein neues zwei-wöchiges WvW-Match wobei es ein Matchmakingsystem anhand der Servererfolge gibt, damit auch ungefähr gleichstarke Server gegeneinander antreten. Im WvW werden deine Grundstats automatisch auf LvL 80 angehoben, man hat als Lowlvl aber noch nicht alle Skills und auch die Traits nicht so weit ausgebaut, ist also im Nachteil. Das ist gut vergleichbar mit dem Lvl 10 - 49 Bracket in SWTOR. Auf Maxlvl hat GW2 eine "horizontale Itemspirale", d.h. man bekommt sehr einfach an Maxstats und verbessert dann nur noch sein Aussehen durch schönere Waffen- und Rüstungsskins. Structured PvP ist etwas anders. Dort ist man automatisch Stufe 80 mit allem was dazu gehört. Man hat alle Skills und Traits freigeschaltet, genau wie ein "echter" lvl 80. Man kann sich frei Max-Waffen und Rüstungen zusammenbauen, es sind alle verfügbaren Upgrades freigeschaltet. Man wird sich auch niemals bessere Waffen oder Rüstungen erspielen können, sondern nur kosmetische "Verbesserungen". Structured PvP ist nochmal in 2 Modi unterteilt. Hot-Join und Turniermodus. Bei Hot-join wählt man in einem Serverbrowser ein Match aus, dem man beitreten will oder man erstellt selbst einen Server bei dem man Teamgröße (1vs1-10vs10), Maprotation und eventuell Sonderregeln selbst bestimmen kann, vergleichbar mit FPS-Serverbrowsern oder LoL-Customgames. Man kann auch private Turniere erstellen, ebenfalls mit eigenen Regeln. Im Turniermodus wird immer 5vs5 gespielt. Es gibt tägliche, monatliche und jährliche Turniere. Bei den täglichen Turnieren kann man sich Qualipunkte für das nächste monatliche Turnier verdienen und im jährlichen Turnier spielen dann die besten Teams aus den monatlichen Turnieren. Rated BGs oder Ladderspiele gibt es nicht, ist auch nicht nötig, da es als kompetitiven Modus die Turniere gibt. In GW1 hat sich nach Einführung des Turniermodus, der sehr ähnlich ist, auch niemand mehr wirklich für die Ladder interssiert und alles hat sich auf die monatlichen Turniere konzentriert. Das WvW sieht schon gut spielbar aus für eine closed Beta-Version:

You think they'll rage when they discover they're in the only game in this genre without any character progression in pvp?

???

That's wrong. They didn't call GW1 MMORPG because it had no persistant PvE World, this had nothing to do with the PvP-Element or the RPG-Element of the game. GW2 is called MMORPG by their Devs, cause it has all aspects a MMORPG needs to be called MMORPG.

You mean like people whining because they can't take a keep in WvWvW solo and are forced to group up? Or because they get stomped in 5vs5 competitive tournaments with their pug and don't want to form a real premade team?

If geargrind is anybodys only reason to pvp, he won't be happy in GW2. And i'm really glad these people won't be there.

*** Little casual pve-boy who played some alliancebattles against other noobs talking to a competitive GvG-Player, how funny. Maybe your grandmother with a table tennis in her garden wants to go over to china and explain the game to them? Elite Armour? You know elite armours in GW have exact the same stats as normal armour? There is no *********** difference! Everybody has acces to the best weapons, armour and upgrades in GW, there isn't any gearprogression in GW, not in PvP and not even in PvE, your elitearmour just looks different... It is not the devs fault if you equip a shield with bonus against firedmg while the opposingteam runs a watermage or you give your weapon an upgrade for bonus dmg while enchanted without anybody in your team has any longlasting enchants for you. You are not gimped because the opponents grinded more than you, you are gimped because you're a gimp. In GW2 you have unlocked every skill, the best weapons and armors, the best upgrades of any kind and you are automatically lvl 80 when you enter structured pvp. There is nobody with any gearadvantage and there never will be. That is a fact, don't buy the game if gearprogression and beating newbies with OP-Gear is what you need to be happy. Your stats in your character sheet will never progress in any kind, ever.

cu in GW2 Where i will be competitive and have fun from minute one. Where i'm not forced to do stuff i don't have fun with to grind levels and gear and then don't have fun stomping others who are about to grind gear. Where skill, teamplay, strategy and tactics is deciding matches. Where they have a devteam caring about PvP and don't completely ignore their hardcore PvPers because casual PvEers give more money. Have fun in SWTOR and chase your carrot on a stick while i'm eating mine.

very good read http://www.darkademic.co.uk/blog?id=202 Were there MMOs in the last couple of years without gear-progression in pvp? I think GW was the only one in the last 7 years and it worked, it had a big pvp-community of mostly hardcore pvp'ers (in the competitive formats atleast). But GW could only work this way, cause they had enjoyable content for pvp'ers, which SWTOR lacks completely.

Das Problem ist doch einfach, dass SWTOR ausschließlich PvP für Casuals bietet und darauf ein Belohnungssystem setzt, dass Hardcore PvP'ler belohnen soll. Das ist schon so dumm, das kann man gar nicht beschreiben. Es sind die Casuals und die PvE'ler die Gear als Belohnung wollen, die wirklichen ambitionierten PvP'ler brauchen und wollen das überhaupt nicht. 1. sind die sowieso besser, völlig unabhängig von Equip 2. sollte das selbst der dümmste Nerd raffen, dass ein System, das dem Nachwuchs schadet irgendwann auch den etablierten Spielern das Spiel zerstört. Es gibt in SWTOR einfach nichts für ambitionierte PvP-Spieler. Random BGs sind eine reine Casual Veranstaltung schon vom Prinzip her. Das ist reines Dummgeschwätz wenn jemand behauptet PvP'ler würden Gear farmen um Noobs in Random BGs abzufarmen. Wenn es in SWTOR eine kompetitive Alternative gäbe, würde man überhaupt keine PvP'ler in den Random BGs sehen, höchstens noch aus Langeweile, wenn man mal auf Teamkollegen warten muss oder ne neue Skillung ausprobieren will.