News/20080117

Informal Discussion Begins Regarding PvXwiki2
I'm sure that some people are aware that ArenaNet has lost no time in creating a Wiki to document Guild Wars 2. For us at PvX, this raises the inevitable question of where GW2 builds will be stored. I for one would like to see a second PvXwiki -- while we may not have earned the best reputation, I hope few people would disagree that we've done a better job than GuildWiki did. One of the problems however was that we started too late. While a a lot of people on this site may simply enjoy discussing builds for the sake of doing so, the only people who genuinely need all of the content that we have to offer are those who are either new to the game or perhaps those who are new to PvP.

Guild Wars 2 presents us with a golden opportunity however. When a game first comes out, particularly during open beta, there are no established builds. People may, via theorycraft, decide that a particular skill is good simply because they can recognize its value, but it's a stage during which everyone is learning. The key to a successful PvXwiki2 is to establish ourselves as the place to go to discuss all of those new develops as they are occurring in the context of build creation. It won't last forever of course, but if we can establish a strong reputation from the beginning and get more people involved, we can build a strong community from the start.

As the header indicates, all the discussion so far regarding a PvXwiki2 has been very informal. However, I was spurred to create this news item by a couple of conversations I had on MSN Messenger regarding the possible future of PvXwiki in regards to GW2. We were bandying about a couple ideas about how to make the site successful, among other things a strong relationship with GW2W (which will obviously see tons of traffic when GW2 first comes out) were mentioned, but I wanted to give everyone, Admins and users alike a chance to get involved in a discussion to plan (in a very rudimentary and even theoretical manner) how to best establish ourselves (assuming we plan to do so).

The theoretical goal of a "BuildWiki" should be to originate the meta. While this is largely impossible, we do have an impact on Guild Wars, and when Guild Wars 2 comes out, we'll have an opportunity to possibly come much closer to achieving that goal. And if we manage to do so with reasonable success, we'll have a much brighter future (and hopefully a much improved reputation).

So, any comments related to the formation of a PvXwiki2 (I believe Gcardinal may have registered a domain name for this eventuality), the best ways to promote such a site, the best ways to prepare, anything along those lines should be posted on the talk page.