Writing contest

[KingOfPain]

Guild Wars Battle Report Contest
The Guild Wars Team would like to invite all of you who participated in the World Preview Event and Beta Weekend Event to submit your best battle report for consideration in our Guild Wars Battle Report Contest. We will select the ten best combat stories based on Guild-versus-Guild warfare. The ten best stories will be immortalized on our website, and the writers of these heroic tales will receive an invitation to join the ongoing Guild Wars Beta Test.

This sounds like a piece of cake for a lot of the folks here
No mention this has to base on a real event. I am guessing this is NOT just for Weekend Beta Events, since the winners have to sign a NDA.

KoP

[Sirian]

Did RB do any guild fighting on the beta weekend? We did not during the Preview. I'm not sure from where you're pulling the "not based on a real event" notion. Looks to me like they are asking for actual battle reports.

It looks to me like they are seeking quality beta testers. Maybe they have a shortage, or maybe they are not entirely happy with the current crop. If folks here want to get involved, I'm sure they would do a good job if selected.

For me, Diablo II Expansion was my final beta test. I was offered a spot in the Civ3 Conquests beta and I turned it down.

In fact, last year, some of you may remember, Occhi floated the notion that I should apply for a scenario-making job with this company, on this game. You may not realize that I gave that serious consideration, but I did. However, I would have had to move to Washington state, and that was undesirable, so I never sent in a resume. Judging by what I've seen so far, I could have made an impact.

As for "heroic tales immortalized on our website", I think most of us here would be more concerned about them getting the game right than about whatever fame might acrue to us by helping them.


- Sirian

[Occhidiangela]

Did RB do any guild fighting on the beta weekend? We did not during the Preview. I'm not sure from where you're pulling the "not based on a real event" notion. Looks to me like they are asking for actual battle reports.

It looks to me like they are seeking quality beta testers. Maybe they have a shortage, or maybe they are not entirely happy with the current crop. If folks here want to get involved, I'm sure they would do a good job if selected.

For me, Diablo II Expansion was my final beta test. I was offered a spot in the Civ3 Conquests beta and I turned it down.

In fact, last year, some of you may remember, Occhi floated the notion that I should apply for a scenario-making job with this company, on this game. You may not realize that I gave that serious consideration, but I did. However, I would have had to move to Washington state, and that was undesirable, so I never sent in a resume. Judging by what I've seen so far, I could have made an impact.

As for "heroic tales immortalized on our website", I think most of us here would be more concerned about them getting the game right than about whatever fame might acrue to us by helping them.


- Sirian

It's a pity that a remote e-enabled position could not have worked out, however, I am sure Arena.Net has its reasons for having all their folks under the roof and behind their firewall, or whatever.

A pity, as many folks working from home do good work for their company. My brother has been doing that for a few years with IBM.

Arena's loss, as I see it, but maybe a loss to the Guild Wars gaming audience.

So it goes. We, the Nefarious Variant Scum, get to keep you for ourselves, in a manner of speaking!

Occhi

[Sirian]

It's a pity that a remote e-enabled position could not have worked out

Yeah. On the other hand, sometimes passing up one good-looking opportunity puts you into position to find an even better-looking one that you would have foreclosed. Opportunities do not grow on trees, but they do come around more than once. I'm content with the choices that I made.

I hope that Guild Wars will be fun. I like the directions they are going with it and I believe in much of what they have done. I still have my copy preordered, although I am NOT happy about getting zero response from them about problems involving the preorder and where I chose to order from.


- Sirian

[KingOfPain]

Oops, guess I read too fast this morning when the header said stories and tales. Skipped the second paragraph when it actually used the word "report" Rereading it now it also mentioned Battle report in the header. Bah. Does it have to be a real report?

AFAIK, no one got involved in any GvG action. *taking a break from the RBGW site and surfing the net in between* just came across This Article

A nice cautionary.

KoP

[Sirian]

Cautionary? Yeah. Sounds like those people overdid it, though. I mean, I've played nonstop games for 12 hours. I've done it for days, even. But even at a weekend LAN party where you INTEND to do nothing but to game for three days straight, you take breaks, you swap around teams, you play different mods, you play different levels, you play with different people. Variety is the spice even of gaming intensives.

Still, the competitive aspect can be bad for us on some points. Are we going to play to win? Or are we going to play BNM and take ubervariants into battle vs other guilds? If we ever do the latter, how will the competition react if/when they realize that is what we are doing? There are a lot of things that could go wrong if we aren't careful.

Still, when Occhi first pointed out this game, the PvP and the teamwork elements were a big part of the appeal. Competitive multiplayer is something that can be very much fun under the right conditions. The odd thing seems to be that one needs to balance SP and MP in order to get stronger characters. That may tend to favor those with lots of time or a greater capacity to handle Feast Mode. We'll just have to see.

Frankly, the biggest appeal so far in SP is the tactical element. I'm afraid that the quest system, or what I've seen of it so far, is rather shallow and even boring. The combat was a lot more interesting than running around gawking at the art and trying to guess at the bonus quests. I never was one for Mario Brothers type "secrets" and puzzles.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

Reading the contest rules, I actually got a flashback to Blizzard. That's not a good sign. Every time I read too much here, I find something not to like.

- Sirian

[Sirian]

Following your lead of looking through the fansites, I found the most and the best info at The Guild Hall. There are some positives I've read about that have picked up my morale a bit.

- Sirian