Oopsies! A small snag with the GW March Tournament

By Shawn Schuster
Contrary to popular belief, it turns out ArenaNet is comprised entirely of humans after all. In this weekend's Xunlai Tournament Playoffs, it seems there was a map rotation bug that caused quite a stir among the players involved. Apparently, the correct progression of maps was mismatched, causing some guilds to lose their battles outright when the next (incorrect) map loaded and they weren't prepared for it. Not only did this affect the championship participants, but also those who waged predictions on the tournament's outcome.

ArenaNet quickly came to the rescue the best way they could. They basically had three choices: 1) Restart the tournament, 2) Ignore the bugs and let everything continue incorrectly, or 3) Fix the problem mid-tournament. They opted for choice number three, in hopes of proceeding with a working event and not restarting the progress that had already been done. But was this enough for the players involved? Sure, the progress had already been done, but was it fair progress if it's based on a game bug? The most pressing concern on the minds of participants was the fact that none of this was announced anywhere in-game during the tournament.

Honestly though, mistakes will always be made. The tournament has been tainted, as well as ArenaNet's reputation in this context, but our lives will go on. Not only have they apologized for the mess-up, but they've also promised to use this as a learning experience and take any suggestions on how to better deal with a bug that affects such a large tournament, especially when real-world prizes are at stake.

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