Here’s a bit of MMORPG e-sports drama for you: A major Guild Wars 2 e-sports team bailed from competition last night. Competing in the game’s ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League for a cut of $200,000 in prize cash, a member of team Zero Counterplay apparently abandoned play mid-match, handing the win to its opponents. Member aerodynamique explained his team’s motivations on Reddit, citing multiple problems with Guild Wars 2’s PvP design and technical problems with required anti-cheating software:
You know, I was gonna write an entire post that explained that we had one ragequit and one legitimate D/C due to ESL Wire, and then I realized; It does not matter, because, at this point in the game’s meta, it is just not worth dedicating more than thirty seconds to this game. Everybody can say we’re unprofessional or terrible at Guild Wars 2 all they want, but, the fact of the matter is that if one point getting capped at the start of the game makes us call a GG, and makes one person leave, while another simultaneously d/c’s due to ESL Wire (which already gives us 300+ ping), this game just isn’t worth spending time on.
I apologize that we did bow out so early, but, at this point, it legitimately is just so hard to care about the game in its current state. If you need to, go back and see Game 1 of the series; 3 nodes contested something like 12 minutes into the game, with the score something like 30-0? Look at that, and then look back at me and tell me that we should be expected to sit and mash buttons hopelessly for 15 minutes. In this meta, as soon as somebody gets 1 cap, it’s over. This isn’t just me; so many people I know and talk to that are also in NA Pro Leagues agree. So many of us are relieved now that a four-week break is coming up. For the first time, so many of us, when we come home, settle down, and grab a coffee or soda or whatever, and given free time to play Guild Wars, are simply not logging on, because this game is simply un-fun to play against. It’s boring, unskilled, and… ironically, it has zero counterplay.
