I’m a fan of meaningful objectives being at the heart of team-based player versus player mechanics. Do a search here on our blog for “Darkness Falls” and you’ll find dozens of posts where I expound upon the merits of something meaningful to fight over — something the winning team has access to that the losers will want, thus giving them a reason to get out there and fight.
Guild Wars 2’s Eric Flannum gave out a few basic details in an interview about a mechanic that may end up resembling DAOC’s Darkness Falls.
“One of the coolest things that we’ve added to WvW recently is a persistent mini-dungeon that can be accessed through the three keeps in the center map. This area is designed with multiplayer PvP in mind and players can do things like activate the traps in the mini-dungeon to defeat enemy players. Of course, at the end of the area there’s a chest full of rewards.” [Source]
Based on what I know about GW2’s WvW combat, the center map (Eternal Battlegrounds) has 3 keeps forming a triangle with the Stonemist Castle in the center. According to what Eric Flannum said, those three keeps will have portals to the “mini-dungeon”.  How WvW works is simple: All keeps are vulnerable at all times, and to take the keep one simply kills the Keep Lord.
I’m not sure if we simply do not have all of the details, because I have a few questions about how this will work. There are a few flaws that jump out at me immediately. First, a “mini-dungeon” sounds a lot less “cool” than a dungeon with bosses, great loot, and room to actually progress your character. DAOC’s Darkness Falls was one of the better places in the entire game to find gear and gain experience. If this “mini-dungeon” is nothing more than WoW’s Baradin Hold, I will be disappointed.
Second, I think it’s a mistake to make only the center map, Eternal Battlegrounds, the contested area for control of this dungeon.  I would make it so that whoever is winning the overall World vs. World struggle, a feature already implemented, would be granted control of the portal into the “mini-dungeon”. Make Stonemist Castle worth more points if it’s not already, and create a desire for players to want to control, AND DEFEND, every keep, castle, and supply point in all four of the WvW maps.
Hopefully someone at ArenaNet has the foresight to see the obvious issues with the system that Flannum described. As it stands now, the mini-dungeon in question will be zerged and change hands all the time with no clear owner, and no clear desire to “hold” the rest of the keeps outside of the Eternal Battlegrounds — a zone with a current cap of 200 players per server.
I liked DF in DAOC because once we lost control of DF and you were still in it (as a stealther) you could have a great challening hunt. However, the great hunt made me go back a few times…the RPs and the associated realm rank and realm abilities kept me going back continously…it was a blast. Anyway, DF is nice but I hope GW2 will implement some significant personal rewards and character progression based on “open world” PVP.
Activate traps? Sounds familiar…. oh yeah, WAR. Stonefist does have one important feature, you can upgrade it and respawn there.
It honestly sounds a lot more like Passage of Conflict than Darkness Falls.
Either way, it is a good thing to have in the game.
Passage of conflict was after my time in DAOC.
@Argorius
As soon as I read Keen’s thoughts on the matter, I thought of my stealthing days in DF as well. What a blast it was. I also remember being rolled when the control of DF changed. Those were the days.
@Keen
I agree with you that there has to be something like DF to bring players into the WvW fight. Regardless how PvP centered GW2 is, there will be many players who will only PvE or only particiapte in Structured PvP. It’s those players that need a carrot of some kind to get involved in the WvW fight. The carrot has to be so big and sweet that those players just can’t resist getting involved in WvW.
Passage of Conflict was a dungeon out in New Frontiers. There were three entrances, one in each realm’s domain out in the Frontier itself. Inside it was a high-level endgame dungeon that was simply full of tons of mobs along large corridors, set up much like a maze.
It was basically a great leveling spot for groups to grind or powerlevel, but with the added drawback/excitement of a constant pvp threat.
Darkness Falls had the entrances in the PvE zones of each Realm, and was locked down depending on whom owned which keeps. PoC was always open to everyone, you just had to get inside the door. Those doors were out in the middle of the Frontiers, so did not come with a keep to guard them. But it sounds very similar to what they are talking about for GW2.
There’s really no reason they can’t do both types of dungeon though. Probably should.
http://www.valmerwolf.com/mappe/DF/NF_PoC.jpg Great picture of PoC to give you a better idea.
I for one am glad they are not repeating the mistakes made in DAoC.
“DAOC’s Darkness Falls was one of the better places in the entire game to find gear and gain experience.” – Keen
“I agree with you that there has to be something like DF to bring players into the WvW fight. Regardless how PvP centered GW2 is, there will be many players who will only PvE or only particiapte in Structured PvP. It’s those players that need a carrot of some kind to get involved in the WvW fight. The carrot has to be so big and sweet that those players just can’t resist getting involved in WvW.” – Thomas
Sorry guys, but that would be against GW2’s basic design, which is not to push players down any specific route. Putting the best loot/xp in that dungeon would just do that. And Thomas’s argumentation is just a recipe for failure… do you seriously want to force people who do not want to PvP to still do PvP? Two things will happen: a part of them will simply quit if forced into something they don’t enjoy, and the others will just ruin PvP for those who actually enjoy it because they will only be there for the trinkets, not to play the game and participate.
Should that dungeon have specific gear so that those who choose to participate can obtain something unique? Yes. But should it have better or even the best gear to force people into it? Hell, no.
For your second concern, Keen, I think ANet want to make the dungeon part of the battle and not just something the winner owns. They want fights to happen inside the dungeon. I actually like that idea, it will permit the place to change hands more often instead of being locked to the winner for days or more.
At the end, we will have to experience it before making a final judgment, but there’s one thing I’m sure about, giving that place better rewards than anywhere else to try to force players into it is a bad idea and also something that would be the opposite of GW2’s design, a mistake that I’m confident ANet will never make since they aren’t Mythic. Leave the gear carrot to the lame games who don’t know any better.
I agree with Mero on the first point. Here is an excerpt from a Mike O’Brien interview(http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/#s:guildwars2-16):
“…the I want to point out that in Guild Wars 2, being competitive isn’t all about having the best gear. It’s not like you’re going to go into world-versus-world and get smoked because someone else has a godly weapon that you can’t hope to acquire. We’ve always been against that kind of thing.
Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.
So once you realize that you don’t have to run on this gear treadmill to compete, then ask yourself whether you think it’s fair or unfair for players to be able to trade microtransaction currency with other players, which essentially allows some players to trade money for time and other players to trade time for money. I think it’s more fair to allow that.”
edit, it should read “…I want to point out”
I’m going to sound like a noob, but I still don’t grasp PvP in GW2… “Be In The Mists” What the hell does that mean? And is Eternal Battlegrounds “the Mists”?
And is “structured PvP” basically instanced battlegrounds as we otherwise know them?
The wiki isn’t doing any good..
In any case, I agree, a heaver burden should be on taking control of the entrance to this dungeon.
Players were never, ever, forced into Darkness Falls. It was one of many areas to gain experience. I would often forgo DF when other spots were not camped. Gear is another issue, but I see no reason why PvE and PvP gear can’t be one in the same and on equal footing.
As for it being something the winner owns, I stand by my belief that players require the motivation. If ArenaNet doesn’t get it right, the consequences will be apparent within a matter of weeks.
@Zeldain: There are battlegrounds, but there is also something called “World vs. World” where 3 servers are matched against each other and fight over 4 large zones. Each server has a zone considers theirs, but the keeps in each zone can be captured by the enemy servers. The middle zone, a no-man’s land at the start, is called “Eternal Battlegrounds” (Poor name choice).
I understand what you saying Merovingian. Your pretty much always right in my opinion. When I said big carrot I did not mean gear with stats. There would be cosmetic armor that would be unique and only earned in a DF like zone.
I have to say they are already going against their game design by giving various incentives / rewards, which forces players into doing certain things. Gear gets a little better as you level. So GW2 isn’t totally free of gear grind. I would just say gear grind is greatly reduced but not eliminated entirely. There is also Structured PvP gear that can only be used in structured PvP. There is also better gear in one of the dungeons. Of course this could all change by launch.
These are just some my big carrots for controlling a DF like area in GW2 and would help everyone in PvE, Structured PvP and WvW
Armor does not take any damage. Loot bags will double their regular capacity. You earn 10% crafting experience while in your main city. You get a 10% discount at vendors in your main city. You get a 10% discount at the cash shop in your main city. You get a 25% speed boost out of combat. Quick travel costs are reduced by 25% Supply trains move 10% faster. I could go on but I feel you get my point.
They are already providing incentives for winning in WvW. So adding a few more like I have mentioned can’t hurt the game.
@Thomas:
The gear progression as you level isn’t really a “grind”. The gear comes naturally as you progress, you don’t have to get out of your way to get it. This is quite similar to most other games by the way, the real gear grind always starts at “max level”.
And we agree – the rewards for the dungeon should be something unique you can only get there, yet not something better than anything else that give you an edge you can’t get otherwise.
I just want to point out that in GW1 at launch, there was a “Win PvP to access PvE” mechanic in place: A king of the hill tournament which allowed players of a given region (US, Asia, Europe) access to a couple elite PvE areas while their team held the “hill” (Halls).
This mechanic was toned down and eventually removed. I didn’t play at the time, so I’m not 100% certain what the reasons were. I know that the system broke down a bit because of timezone differences, i.e. Asian teams were rarely awake during US prime time. I also know the PvE players whined and complained about not having the ability to do end game content.
As I said, I didn’t play GW1 then due to not having a PC (was on Mac at the time), so my memory of the details might be faulty. Point I’m trying to make is that ANet has toyed with this sort of setup before, but ultimately backed off and removed the links between PvE and PvP. For this reason I’m not expecting them to add a system similar to DF in GW2, unfortunately.
“As it stands now, the mini-dungeon in question will be zerged and change hands all the time with no clear owner, and no clear desire to “hold†the rest of the keeps…”
Yes, that does appear to be a problem. In the last BWE the tendency on my world was already for everyone to fight in zergs on the central map, rather than tackle the subsidiary objectives on the other maps and adding more incentive on that central map isn’t going to make the situation better. It’s something that may be quite hard to fix. I imagine that the dynamics of player distribution in WvW are so complex that they’ll probably just have to make it up as they go along by rebalancing the importance of different objectives etc.
I’m hoping you have or will be leaving your comments in the GW2 Forums. I think they actually listen, since this is a “real” beta first, and an free play advertising gimmick second.
I will if they don’t wipe their forums.
[…] dungeon is purely a “PvP dungeon” with no monsters. I was thinking it was more like Darkness Falls, and I was totally wrong in that assumption. Mystic Forge sounds more like an underground area to […]