Stop Killing Games - Feasible?

Sign the Stop Killing Games UK or EU initiative!

AAA Devs on Stop Killing Games

Repeatedly, I hear AAA developers argue that it is an expensive and infeasible amount of work, as seen in the recent response of Video Games Europe.[VGE25] While I have my own thoughts and beliefs on their overall response, I want to focus on the idea of it being expensive and infeasible. However, I haven't worked in AAA. I am an Informatics: Games Engineering student. Any defense I bring up out of my knowledge and experience might be written off as naivety or inexperience. So instead, I'm gonna make an assumption, a hypothesis. This assumption is: "If it is infeasible and expensive, then no one would be able to do it." Thus, we won't be able to find examples of games that handled sunset or have sunset plans that comply with the Stop Killing Game initiative despite being affected by the changes.

Are There Games That Comply?

game

how it complies

source

Game 0/0

Last Update: 07.07.2025
(Disclaimer: Stop Killing Games does not intend and can't apply retroactively. These are examples to prove the point of feasibility.)

[VGE25] Video Games Europe. Statements on Stop Killing Games, 2025, https://www.videogameseurope.eu/news/statement-on-stop-killing-games/ (Accessed: 06.07.2025)

Guild Wars 2 WvW - True Camp Value - Part 2

It's been a long time, but I finally found the motivation and time to work down my list. Last time we looked at the true camp value based on the actual points camps produce in the Guild Wars 2's World versus World game mode. You can read up and refresh your knowledge over here. One of the follow-up topics I wanted to go over is the balance aspect, specifically whether or not one team's camps provide a significant advantage over the others.

Answering this requires three equally strong teams. Environmental advantages are hard to quantify. Thus, to reduce complexity, we will assume that landscape plays no role. Under these circumstances, the teams will own structures by distance primarily. The resulting structure ownership will look like this:

Ill. 1: Guild Wars 2 World vs World Theoretical Objective Ownership in an equal match by GreenyNeko (Some graphical elements by ArenaNet)

Notice that the map's owner typically conquers the bordering keeps due to increased priority. Now, we can calculate each camp's true value using our dataset. For this, we consider objects connecting to camps and their color. Applying the dataset yields the following result:

Ill. 2: Guild Wars 2 World vs World Dolyak Points Per 5 Minutes by GreenyNeko

We analyze the balance by summing each team's points from our setup. Shared objects yield a percentage of their points to each relevant team. We will use the unbuffed walking speed values because the speed multipliers become irrelevant and for consistency. The result is:

Team	Total Points	Desert	Green	Blue	Eternal
Green	35.332	2.975	10.79	4.075	17.383
Blue	38.355	2.94	3.575	10.79	21.05
Red	41.567	13.507	4.075	3.575	20.41

We already see an advantage in the matchmaking system. As a reminder, we explained that matchmaking ranks servers from highest to lowest: green, blue, and red. The table reflects this, empowering the lower-ranked teams. The big question is whether or not this is confirmation bias, measurement errors, or fact.

To check this via the null hypothesis. We assume equal team points, and the difference is error based. Thus, the scores' average is close to the truth. Finding a significant deviation from the average disproves the null hypothesis confirming our previous supposition. For significance, we will use an alpha value of 0.05. The mean of the scores is (35.332+38.355+41.567)/3 = 38.418. Thus, we get the following deviations:

• 1-35.332/38.418 = 0.0803 (8.03%)
• 1-38.355/38.418 = 0.0016 (0.16%)
• 1-41.567/38.418 = 0.0820 (8.20%)

Apparently, the difference is significant enough to consider it more than an error. Therefore, we conclude that the teams gain a significant advantage from Dolyaks d inversely proportional to their matching rank r. (d ∝ 1/r)

Lastly, I apologize for having taken so long. I needed more time and motivation to write between theses and seminar papers. Since I swapped to Lost Ark, I probably won't post about Guild Wars 2 for now. I hope you will continue to read my blog to learn about the kinds of stuff I present. :3

Interactive Post: How Long Guild Wars 2 WvW Reward Tracks Take [Updated]

The post is now up to date with the 9th November patch! There's a comparison with the old system at the end.

With Elona neither being green nor dominating any matches, I couldn't finish the World versus World
(WvW) Dolyak research yet. However, I noticed an inaccuracy in Guild Wars 2 wiki's minimum WvW reward track time.

Screenshot of the World vs World Reward Track Tab
from Guild Wars 2 by GreenyNeko

What Are The World vs World Reward Tracks?

Players find the reward tracks in their tab in the WvW window. By playing WvW, they gain participation, determining how much reward track progress they get every 5-minute match tick. This table shows the progress given the variables.^[2]

Map	Tier 0	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6
Core WvW Maps	0	25	60	95	125	160	195
Edge of the Mists	0	19	46	76	90	120	146

The following buffs further increase these:^[2]

Buff	Bonus
Guild Enhancement: World Reward Track	3-10%
Experience Booster	50%
Black Lion Boost	25%
Festival Gobbler Boost	25%
Celebration Bonus	10%
WvW Reward Track Enrichment	5%
Call of War	25%

The buffs sum up to 1.0+0.1+0.5+0.25+0.25+0.1+0.05+0.25=1.5 or 150%. Given that reward tracks need 20000 points, the wiki's supposed minimum estimate is 20000/(195*(1.0+1.25))*5=228 minutes or 3h 50m.^[2]

The Discrepancy

But there are two more sources of reward track progress: Dailies and the skirmish reward track. Since a day has 24 hours and ticks happen every five minutes, we get (24*60)/5=288 ticks. Add that dailies awards players 3*250=750 progress^[1] we gain 750/288=2.60 per tick.

The skirmish reward track gives players one to seven 25 point-rewarding-Instant Reward Track Progress. The amount and frequency depend on the player's skirmish track progress. More on it over at Guild Wars 2: Time Consumption of WvW Pips.^[1]

First Interactive Post! Woooo!

With all the variables, I leave the selection to the reader, allowing them to choose the calculation and result of their interest.

Map

Core WvW maps Edge of the Mists

Boosts

None 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 10% Guild Enhancement: World Reward Tracks
Experience Booster (+50%)
Black Lion Booster (+25%)
Snowflake Gobbler or Zhaitaffy Gobbler Boost (+25%)
Celebration Bonus (+10%)
WvW Reward Track Enrichment (+5%)
Call of War (+25%)

Pips

Wood Bronze Silver Gold Platinum Mithril Diamond Chest

3rd in Skirmish +4 2nd in SKirmish +5 1st in SKirmish +6 War Score Placement
No Title +1 Bronze (150-619) +2 Silver (620-1394) +3 Gold (1395-2544) +4 Platinum (2545-4094) +5 Mithril (4095-6444) +6 Diamond (6445-9999) +7 Max (10000) +8 WvW Rank
None Commander +1 Public Commander +3 Commanding a Squad
Commitment +1
Outnumbered +0

---

Calculation

^[1] Guild Wars 2

^[2] https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track

^[3] https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/104411-game-update-notes-november-9-2021/