Predicting the future of Anets “Stand alone game” approach to guild wars

[markus_thom]

Okay guys and girls just getting an idea of what we can expect for future chapters and discussing whether or not old chapters will be revisited and expanded on.
I am aware that only two games have been published so far so keep in mind this is just a prediction of the very worst that could happen.

<<<Let’s just imagine if Anet decide to stick to the current formula>>>>
This was proven in how the past games were very isolated from each other and even affected economy. We saw many items worth dropping with the release of factions and with many it has stayed that way. I only play factions now due to the reason there is no reason to play prophecies anymore besides collecting skills and gathering titles.
And with each new release of each new chapter people will flock like geese to the newer chapters and the older chapters will be ghost towns.

So basically Anet decide to drop the old chapters into the ground and focus only on the new chapters when they are released. Meaning wasted opportunity on anets behalf to extend on storyline or game play mechanics which easily could have been built upon. What will happen to the faction system, with the release of the next chapter?
Will people forget about older chapters and just move on due to the reason we cant expect added content to previous chapters.

So after the release of chapter 5 we will have 5 different continents that’s unless anet decide to expand off previous continents.

<<<<The impact it will or could cause>>>>
Players of guild wars will be spread out across all the different landmasses, meaning it will be hard to find humans to team with, and outposts will be like ghost towns.

Previous flaws and lack of depth in storyline/game play will be left unsolved in previous chapters when it could have easily been implemented.

Sometimes expansions are needed; they can just release the patches/expansions for the previous chapters through the new games if they are worried about money and profit.

Too much isolation between chapters is a lame thing, why cant people see that?
It's like leaving a story untold. We need unity between the different chapters, such as story that carries on or flows or links to other chapters which could involve quests that link to playing more then one chapter.

Give the players something which makes each specific chapter worth owning besides individual titles and skill collecting. Make the chapters come toghter in other words

[Paperfly]

It's a serious concern to the game's long-term prospects. In fact, I'd call it the largest obstacle predicted for around the time chapter four comes out.

...But I don't think your solution will help much. The newest chapter will always have the most people flocking to it just for the novelty value. Even a later chapter's flopping isn't likely to send a significant number of players back to older chapters.

ANet's solution so far has been to encourage people into PVP and PVP/PVE hybrid modes, with a certain amount of success. That has a nasty side-effect of reducing the breadth of their appeal slightly... Ah, we'll see where they stand in a year or so. :o

[Xenrath]

Looking at Factions overall, I'd say they should have just released it as an expansion. Compared to Prophecies it's not really good enough to stand on its own two feet and feels much more like an expansion than a true sequel. This half assed "it's a standalone but it's also an expansion" isn't off to a good start at this rate imho.

[Silent Kitty]

I think the Auction House will come with chapter three, and will not be available to other chapters.
I hope Guild Wars will get an off-line chapter too, but I think they are very happy how pugs work out now.

[Arcador]

I hope they will somehow manage to implet the pvp to be some sort of combined - i.e. many more maps for TA, CA, HA, GvG, adding more war factions in the war (with new global maps etc) (the last one will be quite hard). Other wise it may really happen as the op predicted. Anet are smart people, I hope their designers know what to do.

[Slainster]

its kinda sucky to think about.. I still love playing Tyria so much that i havent bothered to fully explore Factions yet.. when i do play in the factions world, I always come away feeling a little let down somehow...

[Sily Wabbit]

one of my greater fears is keeping the game fresh. how many new skills can they come up with, how many skills can be duplicated? how many new pvp arenas can be made, how many new styles of missions can be introduced? how many new armor sets can be made, how many unique skins can be used? etc etc

I'm not seeing much life after Chapter 4-5 because this game lacks the system in which other MMO's use in which each new expansion increases the max dmg items can do, raises level caps, etc

Guild Wars doesn't have that. your never going to go past level 20. swords will always be 15-22. attirbutes will always be capped at 16 with runes. the game is going to get old, fast imo. there just won't be enough new content to make the game any more enjoyable then it already is. there can only be so much origionality, before stuff just seems to be reptitive and too alike to the point in which people just aren't gonna wanna play anymore.

[0mar]

The biggest mistake Anet made was to make PvP and PvE integrated. If each side were seperated, then the PvErs could better weapons, more levels and more attributes. PvPers could get full unlocks, level cap and removal of the PvE advantages (armor switching, imba items and 4 weapons being a few).

Having them together makes GW a huge mess in which no one can tell what Anet wants to do. There's zero focus in either of these modes. PvE gets a boring mishmash of ideas with zero ability to progress upwards (ie capped weapons, capped levels). PvP has to go through PvE for unlocks or spend an eternity going for unlocks through faction and on top of that, has to get several PvE toons ready for PvP (armor switching and 4 weapons is a really big advantage).

[Rent]

one of my greater fears is keeping the game fresh. how many new skills can they come up with, how many skills can be duplicated? how many new pvp arenas can be made, how many new styles of missions can be introduced? how many new armor sets can be made, how many unique skins can be used? etc etc

I'm not seeing much life after Chapter 4-5 because this game lacks the system in which other MMO's use in which each new expansion increases the max dmg items can do, raises level caps, etc

Guild Wars doesn't have that. your never going to go past level 20. swords will always be 15-22. attirbutes will always be capped at 16 with runes. the game is going to get old, fast imo. there just won't be enough new content to make the game any more enjoyable then it already is. there can only be so much origionality, before stuff just seems to be reptitive and too alike to the point in which people just aren't gonna wanna play anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen of the court, may I present to you Exhibit A:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2914/card4693ks5.jpg

Nothing further, Your Honor.

[Hengis]

My biggest concern over the long term path for Guildwars has to be the level and weapons cap limits.

In the first game and even in Factions, these limits made sense. Anet's policy of "no grind" to achieve maximum character level was great to get us into the game, but once the third chapter is released many many of us will have been level 20 for around 18 months or so.

I am sure the new content will be interesting and entertaining for a while, but I would still like a new target to aim for.

The titles have helped a bit too I guess, as I know I will be going for Grand Master Cartographer and Protector titles on the new continent, but what else are they going to add?

In Factions, the monster levels have been upped considerably from the first game, but that cannot keep happening in subsequent chapters or they will of course become impossible to beat.

I don't actually believe that they will ever raise the lvl caps, but it might just be possible for weapon levels to be raised in order to fight even higher level monsters. However, even that would probably change the metagame way too much for it to work.

Just some random ramblings.. LOL

[Amity and Truth]

Well, even MTG implemented Abilities that you just couldn't fight without evening up the odds by upgrading your own deck. All those special attributes MTG introduced with each Edition raised the powerlevel of the game.

My personal grief with GuildWars is simply lack of communication. Yes we have Dev Talks and such but all in all the communicational link is lousy. What i'd love to see would be some ETAs. Not just "on the radar" or "maybe". But moreover downright ETAs for Updates.
And i'd sure like some words of explanation why they nerfed this or buffed that. Without any explanation the updates sometimes appear absolutely random. One day everything is fine, the next day, totally out of the blue, your whole style of playing was altered and you're not even told why. For example the Warrior Nerf (NO Discussion about this, just an example). If A-Net would have said something like "We had to weaken the warriors defense a bit because of the new classes in Chapter 3" or something along these lines. I'm quite sure, people wouldn't be quite as pissed as they currently are.

So in a long term point of view, lack of proper communication kills every game. Being left alone in the mist and shadows while the allmighty developers work their magic doesn't help much to fight the grief one might feel about certain things.

Give rough Dates for Updates:
Auction house will be there by September.
Guild Storage will be there by October.
If you know how long you'll have to wait, your time of waiting will be much much easier. Not being given a rough date and seeing how your beloved and much needed update shifts from "next update" to "yes yes, we're thinking about it" down to "Maybe next chapter!". This causes grief for many.

Keywords are:
Trade
Guild Storage
Party forming
Reconnect
Roleplay Districts

Give detailled explanations when altering a whole aspect of the game.
As it is now, you'll never know if your style wasn't completely annihilated over night during an update. And once you find out it was, you've got absolutely no clue as to why it was killed in the first place.
A short explanation would surely help the community understand.

[majoho]

What's with the speculation and negativity all the time?

[Aera Lure]

This is the problem as I see it (the quotes below). I dont see a solution, given GW's chosen game model. PvE remains interesting for only so long until the game becomes almost entirely PvP in order to continue with anything actually new. This is not to say I disagree with or fail to admire Anet's chosen path.

Anet worked too hard to limit farming which actually was one of the fun ways to spend time in PvE if you had 1-2 accounts full of maxed or nearly maxed characters. They also worked hard to limit running which for me, frankly, simply as a gameplay mechanic and way to spend time, was challenging if you aimed to really be good at it and was a lot of fun, irrespective of whether or not you actually earned anything doing that. You couldnt spend all you time replaying missions over and over with no net benefit yet they seem to have a single-minded desire to steer us in that direction. Then we have a concerted effort to limit wealth accumulation through constant nerfing and downgrading. PvE players have these sorts of things as the only reasons they play, when level caps and the like are as low and easy to acquire as they are. They've sort of shot themselvs in the foot as far as PvE is concerned, imho, much as I do understand their rationale. Cant see what they will do, if indeed anything, that's different from this road they are already on.

The one thing that might have done it was far more frequent game additions. A more dynamic environment, where you might be exploring old trodden ground and run across a new area, a new NPC with a quest that continues some aspect of the story, new monsters, a Charr resurgance and series of subsequent events - possibly like the holiday events, but not holidays events but major game events. At the very least monthly, some new story, mission and quest developments. They dont seem to have the resources to create quite that dynamic a play environment, but I am sort of at a loss to what else they can do.

The biggest mistake Anet made was to make PvP and PvE integrated. If each side were seperated, then the PvErs could better weapons, more levels and more attributes. PvPers could get full unlocks, level cap and removal of the PvE advantages (armor switching, imba items and 4 weapons being a few).

one of my greater fears is keeping the game fresh. how many new skills can they come up with, how many skills can be duplicated? how many new pvp arenas can be made, how many new styles of missions can be introduced? how many new armor sets can be made, how many unique skins can be used? etc etc

I'm not seeing much life after Chapter 4-5 because this game lacks the system in which other MMO's use in which each new expansion increases the max dmg items can do, raises level caps, etc

Guild Wars doesn't have that. your never going to go past level 20. swords will always be 15-22. attirbutes will always be capped at 16 with runes. the game is going to get old, fast imo. there just won't be enough new content to make the game any more enjoyable then it already is. there can only be so much origionality, before stuff just seems to be reptitive and too alike to the point in which people just aren't gonna wanna play anymore.

[Aera Lure]

What's with the speculation and negativity all the time?

Boredom, combined with a love of the game. I dont see it as negative. Constructive criticism is by and large a good thing. If nothing else, its something to discuss if presented at least somewhat objectively.

[sassoonssamson]

I agree with some of the points

1) Even though I dont like grinding most of my characters became level 20 in a week or two. I would like in the 3rd chapter the cap limit to be raised from 20 to say 25 and some real challenge in achieving that

2) Also Acnet will try to bring something unique to a chapter so that people switch over liek auction houses or riding or flying ..

3) Ghost towns can be even felt in Factions Very diffcult to finish missions these days in some areas.

4) Overall I like Factions but the element of excitement and gameplay was better in Prophecies ( I remember that in Prophecies in the deset there were some missions that tooks days of trying to get thru , in factions maximum 2 trys were req to get thru

Hope Chapter 3 Nightfall will have enough gameplay

[Snowman]

it sure is an interesting topic :)

Id rather be optimistic about future editions, Factions was great for me.. still got lots to do, yea I suppose I am bored with the pve but thats only because Im getting more and more in the PvP side, which provides infinate fun :)

I actually think the standalone thing as opposed to expansions will be a good thing!.. after all, a cheap expansion may not provide enough 'meat' to keep me going for 6 months.

Good luck them I say :)

[WasAGuest]

What's with the speculation and negativity all the time?

It's a side effect of what Anet is doing to the game the above players enjoy so much. if Anet would be honest and true rather than apply marketing spin towards things, less speculation and negativity would show... yes I said "less" - there's always some who are negative, but that's just how we people are.

Example of marketing spin: Turning an obvious feature such as storage and calling it chapter content in an attempt to help the sales of an weak chapter; Factions being weak in content. The reason given makes no since to anyone with any since. Anet wants to sell more copies. Ok. What about people that already have Factions but not Prophesies? No storage upgrade for Proph, only for Factions. Anet said they were adding storage to Factions only; and they say that's a valid content upgrade to enhance sales... Riiight.

With the above said, it's smart that people (the players) are looking at the next chapter with concern. If Anet is allowed to rename a feature and call it content; then take their (Anet's) word that it is to help sales; then we can expect Chapter 3 and foreward to have weak content such as Factions does.

We can then expect to see the many features we've been needing and wanting to be spun into "chapter specific content" to push those chapters. I fully believe Anet will do this rather than work on real content that is playable. I hope with all hope I am wrong here as I really enjoy the game, but Factions is so poorly done and has so little to do, it's sad.

When the player base does not 100% enjoy PvP or competitive play, Anet needs to see that and adjust to their player base, not the player base adjusting to them... the players will just take their money and go elsewhere without much thought*... much in the way the "flameboys" always say "Then your playing the wrong game" or "go play WoW". They eventually will if Anet doesn't start seeing the bigger picture. - I have no intention of playing WoW and am in no way saying WoW is a better game, but with 6 million active and paying accounts, they are doing something right.

*Any smart or half intellegent business person will cater to the requests of their customer base. Attempting to merge PvE and PvP is not adding playable content; it's shortening the duration and amount of playable content by a huge amount. This type of merger also does not give any longevity to the game.

As the OP has also said, the past chapters will become void of life eventually. Henchies will be the only ones in the outposts and they still haven't made henchies 100% reliable to complete missions and bonuses in Tyria. Anet has also stated that additional "content" (read features) will be added to only new chapters to enhance sales. So new players joining in at Chapter 3 will have no real reason to go back and buy Chapter 1; or those coming in at Chapter 5 will have no real reason to go and buy Chapter 3, for example... which also makes no since; since that would be many lost sales for Anet.

Will Chapter 3 be any good? I still hold a little hope as it is the team that made Chapter 1. So we will see. I will not, however, be pre-ordering it. I will hold off and see what other's have to say.

[sassoonssamson]

When the player base does not 100% enjoy PvP or competitive play, Anet needs to see that and adjust to their player base, not the player base adjusting to them... the players will just take their money and go elsewhere without much thought*... much in the way the "flameboys" always say "Then your playing the wrong game" or "go play WoW". They eventually will if Anet doesn't start seeing the bigger picture. - I have no intention of playing WoW and am in no way saying WoW is a better game, but with 6 million active and paying accounts, they are doing something right.
.

You have hit the nail at the right place

I like PVE more and thats me and that how I will play I do enjoy PVP and GVG but at the end of the day PVE is what attracts me and FACTIONS was a dissappointmnet in this :mad:

[lyra_song]

It is a very valid concern how the population will thin out across various chapters once we start reaching 3-4 etc.

Prophecies high level maps like Hell's Precipice will have even less players and thats simply NOT fun.

I think one solution is to release future chapters bundled with older chapters.

Imagine if Chapter 4 built up on Tyria, and came bundled with Chapter 1. It would bring players to chapter 1 and give them new content in that area.

Just an idea.

[Spike]

I just don't get this obsession with raiseing the lvl cap. What difference does it make if your a lvl 20 fighting a lvl 28 mob, or a lvl 40 fighting a lvl48 mob. None. At least as far as I can see. The same applies to changeing the stats of the weapons, your will just be faceing mobs with more hp so it will make NO difference.

Was a guest was right when he said "When the player base does not 100% enjoy PvP or competitive play, Anet needs to see that and adjust to their player base, not the player base adjusting to them... the players will just take their money and go elsewhere without much thought*... much in the way the "flameboys" always say "Then your playing the wrong game" or "go play WoW". They eventually will if Anet doesn't start seeing the bigger picture. - I have no intention of playing WoW and am in no way saying WoW is a better game, but with 6 million active and paying accounts, they are doing something right. " He was wrong about wow, it DOES NOT HAVE 6 million active and paying accounts. I have seen NO proof of this besides PR releases from blizzard which are by no means proof.

[Snowman]

I just don't get this obsession with raiseing the lvl cap. What difference does it make if your a lvl 20 fighting a lvl 28 mob, or a lvl 40 fighting a lvl48 mob. None. At least as far as I can see. The same applies to changeing the stats of the weapons, your will just be faceing mobs with more hp so it will make NO difference. Variety is the spice of life!

But I do agree with you, im not botherd about the level cap at, I think its great... and actually Ranking up in HA is just as entertaining as leveling up for those who like to grind something. (though I realise I am comparing apples with oranges)

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who does all the PvE with Henchies.. he says that in factions one or two missions are very hard, nearly impossible to do with just henchies... this got me thinking about ways ANET will make additional chapters more 'difficult'

If you do any mission with a team full of real players on teamspeak.. its exceedingly boring!! (because they are insanly easy). so these missions where you hook up with another team does make it more interesting.

However, is that the only way of making future chapters more challenging?.. by making it so that, gradually, missions become harder and harder to 'hench' ?

if everything in Chapter 3 is doable with just hench, and all the levels are the same (which they will be) then appart from the new classes, skills and weapons.. what new challenges are there? how can they spice up the pve side?..

Its like games like Dungeon Siege, once you have gone through the game.. sure you can take your character through new maps and new monsters.. but really, its the same thing, and becomes boring.

anyway, I hope they come up with something :)

[Omega X]

I just don't get this obsession with raiseing the lvl cap. What difference does it make if your a lvl 20 fighting a lvl 28 mob, or a lvl 40 fighting a lvl48 mob. None. At least as far as I can see. The same applies to changeing the stats of the weapons, your will just be faceing mobs with more hp so it will make NO difference.


For one, it gives a sense of accomplishment. Going from 1 to 20 in Factions was like a simple drive to the store. People like to feel like they can accomplish something in the game. Raising the level cap also allows Anet to spread out content and difficulty. Now they "have" introduced titles to absorb some of that disappointment. BUT Titles are a different story.

They don't have to raise it in PvP since its "supposed" to be balanced play. But when they eliminate their options by giving PvP and PvE the same rules, it makes the game less appealing.

[Don Zardeone]

1. ANet said they weren't going to add new stuff to old chapters.
2. ANet said that the storage would be completely free.

1. ANet added those greens.
2. Storage was NOT free.

Conclusion: ANet lies
Conclusion2: ANet will add new content to make the new players who bought chapters 2, 3, 4, etc get interested in old chapters so those old chapters will be bought again. ANet will, in that way, recycle old content and make money off of old cows.
Conclusion3: no worries... as long as they don't have a dumbass running the show

[Domino]

A-net isn't the only game company to over-hype their game.

Bethesda hyped Oblivion's Radiant AI as "revolutionary" and they made it sound like NPCs were going to acquire sentience and take over the game world. Needless to say, Radiant AI is still pretty quirky, unrealistic, and was obviously overhyped.

So the point is.... be cautious. Just about everyone I know has a bad taste in their mouth from Factions, and as a result, Chapter 3 is going to be put under the microscope by people before they dish out another 49.99

All I can say is this. If there aren't radical and fundamental changes and improvements to the "Guild Wars formula" - I'm probably going to pass on Chapter 3. I found the "new factions skills" which were only renamed copies of Prophecies skills to be a pretty tacky stunt on the half of A-net. They toted on their site, before Factions was released, how every class was getting new skills and whatnot... and most of them are just photocopied prophecies skills. I'd say that's pretty misleading, to say the least.

and the extra storage options? Those were obviously a gimmick to get people to buy Factions. Just like certain Prophecies elites aren't cappable by Factions players (forcing them to buy Prophecies if they want to use certain elites) It's not like you are missing out though, as the material storage has several fundamental flaws:

1. The materials that you NEED large quantities of (Tanned hides, etc) can only hold 250....

2. The materials no one needs 250 of (Rolls of Vellum... ink vials....) will never be filled, and their value is so low that it's pointless to hoard them.

On top of that, one of the big problems with what they are doing is they are separating the games like this. The populations of each will become thinner and thinner. Places like the Henge of Denravi frequently have about 5 people in them.

I think it has to do with this staggered development mentality... they are cranking these expansions out, and it's obvious that the two dev teams don't talk to eachother, because the problems with Prophecies were still there in Factions, and I predict many of the problems with Factions are going to be right there in Chapter 3. I would rather have 1 massive expansion, that's polished and full of content, every year... rather than half-assed, buggy, ship-it-out-the-door-as-fast-as-you-can sequels that follow the same tired formula.

just my .02

[Shyft the Pyro]

The biggest problems, in my opinion, are the size and frequency of the chapters. Everyone understands that as a business venture, ANet is trying to increase revenue by releasing chapters every 6 months rather than every year, but 6 months may not be enough time for some players to fully explore a chapter's content, and that may turn off later purchases. Further, if the players feel 'rushed' through the content in order to complete it before the next chapter's release, they may become disappointed in ANet's business scheme and stop buying subsequent chapters.

Conversely, to make sure that people breeze through chapters in time to buy new ones, ANet has reduced content on the PvE side. I don't count "recyclable" PvP content because though its location may have changed (AvA instead of HoH now, etc.) its nature is still the same - kill players for reward. As many people have stated before, PvP "content" reinvents itself through the imagination of the players, so it requires the least input on ANet's part. But since PvP content is essentially the same across all chapters, it isn't a sufficient driving force behind people's desire to purchase new chapters. PvE content does that.

In Factions, PvP was tied to a PvE game mechanic to provide an additional incentive: if you do good in AvA or faction-producing PvP areas, your alliance gets to see its name on the map. This, however, sets a bad precedent. If Chapter 3 does not have the same ability, what non-PvE incentive is there for town-holding alliances to move? If the town-holding is still an option, how many alliances will want to lose their prestige in Factions by moving to Chapter 3 and restarting from nothing again? And if Chapter 3 includes something even more advantageous, what incentive will there be when Chapter 4 rolls around?

In short, I believe PvE content is extremely important in influencing player decisions on buying new chapters, and ANet should recognize that. PvP may be the easiest thing to implement, but unless ANet wants GW to become Counterstrike:Fantasy, they need to work on the PvE content in future chapters.

[Rent]

All I can say is this. If there aren't radical and fundamental changes and improvements to the "Guild Wars formula" - I'm probably going to pass on Chapter 3. I found the "new factions skills" which were only renamed copies of Prophecies skills to be a pretty tacky stunt on the half of A-net. They toted on their site, before Factions was released, how every class was getting new skills and whatnot... and most of them are just photocopied prophecies skills. I'd say that's pretty misleading, to say the least.

Here we go let's do a count:

Thirty skills were added for each class. Of those, five for each profession were "copy" skills.

Thirty out of one hundred eighty is not "most", as most implies a majority, and this is certainly far from the case. Whether these new skills are as powerful as the old ones is irrelevant.

[felinette]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who does all the PvE with Henchies.. he says that in factions one or two missions are very hard, nearly impossible to do with just henchies

Yes, and couple that with the population being spread across two continents now, and you can see a looming problem as they add more chapters. I've been surprised at how few players are around. When I login at 7am on Sunday morning, I expect only one district at most mission areas. I don't expect that on a weekend afternoon or in the evenings, but that's what's happening. For PvE, they need to ensure that the game is completely playable with henchies because it's just not possible to get a group all the time, not because of cookie-cutter groups or hate of certain professions, but because there simply aren't enough players available. And if I have the choice of waiting for an hour to get into a group or playing another game for an hour, guess what? So I see that as the number one potential "killer" of PvE GW right now--the population will be spread too thin and if Anet is designing missions that are impossible to complete with henchies, or without "real" healers, etc., then they're just shooting themselves in the foot. Bigger problem: people who play the game for the social aspect and who like grouping with real people will likely be frustrated and move on. Anet needs to figure out how to add content without thinning the population further.

I also agree with those that say PvE must be separated from PvP in order to keep things fresh for both. To continue to force them together will only promote mediocracy. We've seen that already with Factions.


but 6 months may not be enough time for some players to fully explore a chapter's content,

You can easily explore PvE Factions in 6 months, even if you're a casual gamer.

[felinette]

The one thing that might have done it was far more frequent game additions. A more dynamic environment, where you might be exploring old trodden ground and run across a new area, a new NPC with a quest that continues some aspect of the story, new monsters, a Charr resurgance and series of subsequent events - possibly like the holiday events, but not holidays events but major game events. At the very least monthly, some new story, mission and quest developments. They dont seem to have the resources to create quite that dynamic a play environment, but I am sort of at a loss to what else they can do.
That's a fabulous idea that would help to keep PvE players active. Right now, you can "finish" the game and have nothing much to do, especially in Factions. Okay, they added titles, and that adds some life, but who wants to map the entire Tyria and Cantha with more than one or two characters, for example? The titles will get old quickly, too. With Factions being so short that you can beat it within a week or two and then have nothing to do unless you like farming, they need to add free content here and there until the next chapter comes out. Otherwise people will defect to other games and may not come back, and you want some momentum going into the next chapter so people will buy it.

[actionjack]

I think people tend to forget one thing... that the game is not meant to last long. Since GW have no monthly fee, it should be consider as a sort of single player RPG, like Fable or FF or DQ. Therefore, like most of those game, once you finish it, there are few reason to replay and go back to it (unless you are one of those who like lv99 on everything) Many are mistaken to expect a constain update of new content on old world, since that is how things are done in other MMO. Its a nice thought, and would be nice to see that, but A.net don't have much obligation in doing that.

Personally, I am gunning for Chapters for major "New Stuff", but also include expansion (cheaper, 4-6 misssion that would expand on the stories and few new stuffs) for smaller, but more constant updates.

[Ganik Thress]

Well, for one, the game isn't pay to play, so I'm sure ANet is a little hesitant to release a stream of such contact like Aera Lure said.

However, what I do hope ANet does in the next chapter is make the story even mediocrally (is it a word? :P) okay. I mean, it started out cool, but then it goes to something that feels extremely rushed.

[Quozz]

After only 2 chapters Guild Wars has hit a crossroads. Anet has some very important decisions to make and they will be critical in determining whether or not GW will be around for the long haul.

As someone else mentioned, PVE and PVP need to be seperated. Its like a marriage that had a great honeymoon but dissolved into a divorce shortly thereafter. Prophecies was the honeymoon and factions is the reality check that the marriage is doomed and needs to be terminated. I'll give Anet an A for effort in trying something new but it just doesn't work. The very things that drive PVP players are almost polar opposites to what drives PVE players.

PVE needs a major transformation. Characters need to grow in order for people to want to continue to play. Right now the PVP balance issue holds back this growth. What is needed are new things for characters to learn so they can further differentiate themselves from every other character of the same profession combo. We need new abilities for every class so that we have choices to make in how our characters grow. Right now the only choice we have to make is what secondary and even that is easily changed.

As a side note to Anet, please distribute new skills differently in chapter 3. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to bring my Tyrian character over to Cantha only to find out all the new skills were immediately available to me (not counting Elites). Where is the sense of adventure in just having these skills handed to me? This one design "feature" hits home that the design team for Factions had a very PVP oriented mindset. Quickly give them the skills so they can get to using them...... No, no, no, No! Us PVE players live for the journey in acquiring new skills. The icing on the cake is being able to use them after but the real fun is the challenge in learning them.

[felinette]

Since GW have no monthly fee, it should be consider as a sort of single player RPG, like Fable or FF or DQ. Therefore, like most of those game, once you finish it, there are few reason to replay and go back to it (unless you are one of those who like lv99 on everything)

Agreed, but the problem is that GW needs players. If everyone buys the chapters when they come out, spends a few weeks playing them, and then leaves, there's no one left to group with. The game isn't pay to play, and nobody is expecting tons of new content, but a couple of new quests a month wouldn't kill them. Also, GW *isn't* a single-player RPG--you want players to stick around until the next chapter.

[dreamhunk]

After only 2 chapters Guild Wars has hit a crossroads. Anet has some very important decisions to make and they will be critical in determining whether or not GW will be around for the long haul.

As someone else mentioned, PVE and PVP need to be seperated. Its like a marriage that had a great honeymoon but dissolved into a divorce shortly thereafter. Prophecies was the honeymoon and factions is the reality check that the marriage is doomed and needs to be terminated. I'll give Anet an A for effort in trying something new but it just doesn't work. The very things that drive PVP players are almost polar opposites to what drives PVE players.

PVE needs a major transformation. Characters need to grow in order for people to want to continue to play. Right now the PVP balance issue holds back this growth. What is needed are new things for characters to learn so they can further differentiate themselves from every other character of the same profession combo. We need new abilities for every class so that we have choices to make in how our characters grow. Right now the only choice we have to make is what secondary and even that is easily changed.

As a side note to Anet, please distribute new skills differently in chapter 3. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to bring my Tyrian character over to Cantha only to find out all the new skills were immediately available to me (not counting Elites). Where is the sense of adventure in just having these skills handed to me? This one design "feature" hits home that the design team for Factions had a very PVP oriented mindset. Quickly give them the skills so they can get to using them...... No, no, no, No! Us PVE players live for the journey in acquiring new skills. The icing on the cake is being able to use them after but the real fun is the challenge in learning them.

I have been saying that along time. I was right about pvp and fame! I was right about factions. I am right on the money on this one agin!:cool:

[Dj Tano]

Its sad to say this but if guild wars doesnt get improven in some way then i suppose everyone should do the following.

START LOOKING FOR OTHER MMORPG'S.

A couple good ones:
World of Warcraft + The Burning Crusade
Lord of the Rings Online
Warhammer Online

[Rent]

Its sad to say this but if guild wars doesnt get improven in some way then i suppose everyone should do the following.

START LOOKING FOR OTHER MMORPG'S.

A couple good ones:
World of Warcraft + The Burning Crusade
Lord of the Rings Online
Warhammer Online

Why would I play an MMO? I came to GW just to avoid that.

[Chadatog]

Here we go let's do a count:

Thirty skills were added for each class. Of those, five for each profession were "copy" skills.

Thirty out of one hundred eighty is not "most", as most implies a majority, and this is certainly far from the case. Whether these new skills are as powerful as the old ones is irrelevant.

Actually Domino is even more wrong. The 30 repeat skills were not included in the "new" 30 for each core class. So we actually got 30 new skills and 5 repeats per core class class. So that's a total of about 480 new skills in factions and 30 copies from proficies. For a grand total of 6.25%. Your math is way off Domino. :p

[eternal pho]

I'm glad that the lvl cap was halted at 20 since I really wouldn't want to spend countless hours on lvling up, which isn't much fun.

[lyra_song]

After only 2 chapters Guild Wars has hit a crossroads. Anet has some very important decisions to make and they will be critical in determining whether or not GW will be around for the long haul.

As someone else mentioned, PVE and PVP need to be seperated. Its like a marriage that had a great honeymoon but dissolved into a divorce shortly thereafter. Prophecies was the honeymoon and factions is the reality check that the marriage is doomed and needs to be terminated. I'll give Anet an A for effort in trying something new but it just doesn't work. The very things that drive PVP players are almost polar opposites to what drives PVE players.


I think you want to say the it doesnt work for you. I love the PvP/PvE duality of Guild Wars and i want the line between the two to dissolve and blur further. I like how i can jump from PvP battles to farming/questing very easily. While I agree that pure pvpers and pure pvers are very different in personality and motivation, those players who enjoy both are really the ones who are truly getting the benefits of the way the game is set up.

PVE needs a major transformation. Characters need to grow in order for people to want to continue to play. Right now the PVP balance issue holds back this growth. What is needed are new things for characters to learn so they can further differentiate themselves from every other character of the same profession combo. We need new abilities for every class so that we have choices to make in how our characters grow. Right now the only choice we have to make is what secondary and even that is easily changed.


I wholeheartedly agree. I think Chapter 3 needs to introduce more attributes and unique skills for the core classes (and maybe the new classes too) so people can personalize their characters and make the gameplay unique to them.

As a side note to Anet, please distribute new skills differently in chapter 3. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to bring my Tyrian character over to Cantha only to find out all the new skills were immediately available to me (not counting Elites). Where is the sense of adventure in just having these skills handed to me? This one design "feature" hits home that the design team for Factions had a very PVP oriented mindset. Quickly give them the skills so they can get to using them...... No, no, no, No! Us PVE players live for the journey in acquiring new skills. The icing on the cake is being able to use them after but the real fun is the challenge in learning them.

Well they are setting up the game for further expansion. By not having rooted skill trainers, except in the newbie area, they are getting rid of the grind for experienced players who just want to go in there and try out all sorts of skills. Theres no need for a skill trainer if you know how the game works already (well...this is debatable, some people wouldnt know how the game works even if they had a few thousand hours in). Pick and choose your skill and play how you want to off the bat.

I think one of the critical flaws in Prophecies was how skills were handled. Everyone essentially used the same build until they reach the southern shiverpeaks area. Your skillsets were very very limited. I remember being a ranger, and wanting to try out traps very early in the game. However, traps were not available to me until the desert. They alleviated this by allowing skill trainers to teach you any skill you unlocked, giving you access to skills just right out of the searing.

The factions way is not flawless either, because it forces a lot of new skills to you that you have no idea how to use. I think a compromise between the two would work better. Perhaps "loaner" skills, that let you test out a new build, then buy the skill if you are happy with how it works.

[ElinoraNeSangre]

The biggest problems, in my opinion, are the size and frequency of the chapters. Everyone understands that as a business venture, ANet is trying to increase revenue by releasing chapters every 6 months rather than every year, but 6 months may not be enough time for some players to fully explore a chapter's content, and that may turn off later purchases. Further, if the players feel 'rushed' through the content in order to complete it before the next chapter's release, they may become disappointed in ANet's business scheme and stop buying subsequent chapters.


That's me.

I love playing GW. But I can't devote the kind of time it would take to get through every chapter and really enjoy it; full time job, writing projects, drumming, keeping my house in order... those things also take time. GW is fun, and a great distraction. I'll probably purchase further chapters, but how much time I'll spend playing them is up in the air. It might be that I make a stab at getting 1 char through per chapter. It's also possible I might figure it's a losing battle and not bother. :: shrug ::

[Duly Thankful]

Originally Posted by Quozz
After only 2 chapters Guild Wars has hit a crossroads. Anet has some very important decisions to make and they will be critical in determining whether or not GW will be around for the long haul.
..
..


Good post. I wholeheartedly agree with you here - PvP gets the limelight but PvE pays for the game. Anet know this, so I expect Ch3 to concentrate more on content to attract the casual player. After all, a few new maps along with whatever new skills are added should appease the PvP players, but it takes more than that to satisfy the extremely large number of PvE-only people. They need to come up with some new ideas to make people pay hard cash for their fun time.

[Kai Nui]

If only someone was reading this. When I mean someone, I mean someone who is part of the Guild Wars staff that can change things. Why? Because this is like a gold mine of information. The players are actually yelling out to them everything that's wrong and what needs to be done, but it's being completely ignored. Sadly so.

[0mar]

I think you want to say the it doesnt work for you. I love the PvP/PvE duality of Guild Wars and i want the line between the two to dissolve and blur further. I like how i can jump from PvP battles to farming/questing very easily. While I agree that pure pvpers and pure pvers are very different in personality and motivation, those players who enjoy both are really the ones who are truly getting the benefits of the way the game is set up.


If the two were seperated and PvP was given full UAX, you could easily do the same in that model.

[Age]

its kinda sucky to think about.. I still love playing Tyria so much that i havent bothered to fully explore Factions yet.. when i do play in the factions world, I always come away feeling a little let down somehow... I like Tryria to and the whole game should reflact on your char.s advancment and keeping up with other players not just skills and new sets of armor.

[Yarly]

A certain title of mine comes to mind... When they finally enable people to max that.. Then you know its all over. *cough* Skills *cough*

At that stage you might aswell sell your account on ebay before people get wise that its the last chapter, i know i probably will. At least to make up the cost of buying the game in the first place.

[Mr_T_bot]

The games are standalone but they are unequivocally linked together. The company position of completely ignoring old games when they are just as viable to sell as the current game is a ridiculous idea on its face. Combine that with poorer and poorer marketing and word of mouth, less games will be sold of new chapters but more people will spread across the various worlds maknig every single chapter worthless, especially with the company emphasis on playing with a team while simultaneously making playing with a team unfavored. Soon the thing will break down entirely.

[samifly]

Actually Domino is even more wrong. The 30 repeat skills were not included in the "new" 30 for each core class. So we actually got 30 new skills and 5 repeats per core class class. So that's a total of about 480 new skills in factions and 30 copies from proficies. For a grand total of 6.25%. Your math is way off Domino. :p

There are 25 new skills, plus 5 copies per class. However very few of the new skills actually bring something new and worthwhile to the core classes. But then there's always been skills that have never been used.

[natuxatu]

Well I was concerned too but I think the older chapters are more or less SUPPOSE to die away and everyone is suppose to flock to the new one. Assuming it works that way i don't see a major problem.. the majority of the people will be in the most current Chapter... and if they get bored they can go to some older chapters just for the heck of it. So it will probably work out though I too was concerned with there being too many but they'll have to add something new because as someone said
if the levels never get higher
if the weapons have the same stats more or less even greens will be cheap and many to choose from ect.

[felinette]

I love the PvP/PvE duality of Guild Wars and i want the line between the two to dissolve and blur further. I like how i can jump from PvP battles to farming/questing very easily.
You could still do that if they separated PvE and PvP, meaning use the same character to do both. By separating them, I mean allowing PvE and PvP to have different skills, not tying access to PvE areas with PvP results, and not forcing or encouraging PvP action as part of the PvE storyline.


Well I was concerned too but I think the older chapters are more or less SUPPOSE to die away and everyone is suppose to flock to the new one.

It's not working that way, though, at least from what I've seen. When I wrote about mission areas having only one district, I was referring to Canthan missions. Anet itself has said many times that you can pick what chapters to buy and which ones to skip. They, of course, want you to buy them all, but they've also acknowledged people will skip chapters for whatever reason. And when I buy an online game that's advertised as a game with no monthly fees!!!, I don't expect it to have a six-month expiry date. That's hardly remarkable.

[lyra_song]

You could still do that if they separated PvE and PvP, meaning use the same character to do both. By separating them, I mean allowing PvE and PvP to have different skills, not tying access to PvE areas with PvP results, and not forcing or encouraging PvP action as part of the PvE storyline.

You do know thats essentially destroying the basic model of how the game functions?

The battle system in PvE is the same battle system in PvP.

If we seperate the skills and completely make each side seperate, then it wouldnt be the same game.

It might as well be 2 games. Like how Unreal and Unreal Tournament both use the same game engine and exist in the same universe, but its not the same game.

If thats the case then PvPers should get their own "pvp expansion" with different skills and PvErs should get a "PvE expansion".

Why pay for content when you dont even play it? Can't you see how ridiculous that sounds?

If the two were seperated and PvP was given full UAX, you could easily do the same in that model.

I believe Isaiah Cartwright addressed the issue of a UAX as something of a possibility when more chapters exist and a player wants to "catch up" on older skills after entering Guild Wars from a later chapter. As it stands, a UAX would allow players to "burn through content".

I completely oppose seperating pvp and pve. I think what needs to happen is allow players an easier way to jump into pvp and unlock things much more easily to be competitive.

[Mr_T_bot]

Arena Net has driven too much of the wedge between PvP and PvE to continue to try and link them without removing the wedge

[felinette]

If we seperate the skills and completely make each side seperate, then it wouldnt be the same game.

I never said the skills would be completely separate. I said that PvE and PvP could have different skills. Separating PvE and PvP would change the game in some fashion (natch!), but it wouldn't be as radical as you make it sound. It wouldn't destroy the game's model, and both could still have the same battle system.


Why pay for content when you dont even play it? Can't you see how ridiculous that sounds?

Not really, since many of us are doing that now, anyway, with the current model.

[lyra_song]

Not really, since many of us are doing that now, anyway, with the current model.

Exactly. It would fragment the community even further. I mean, we're already fairly divided as it stands.

Its like the Luxon/Kurzick thing. Why really "choose" a side?

You can play both sides and you need to if you want 100% of the map. You can enjoy more of the game if you play both sides.

Why choose PvE only? Why choose PvP only?


I feel that Anet should continue to try to resolve the rift between the two player types and maybe we'll have just 1 type of GW player, The PvE/P player. I think that should be the direction that Anet should go. Better PvP and PvE that is interconnected enough that players will want to play both types.

[anonymous]

Why choose PvE only? Why choose PvP only? Because they are practically 2 different games. Apples and oranges are both fruits, but you don't have to like both, you can like apples but not oranges. Some people find pve mindnumbingly boring. Some people don't like the competive atmosphere and dont want to put up with zomg you arent rank x you cant play. So they play what they like and don't play what they don't like. People choose PvE only or PvP only because they can chose.

[dreamhunk]

I think the problem is not pvp and pve. but people who want both.Pvp and pve they are in a real minaority.

[lyra_song]

Because they are practically 2 different games. Apples and oranges are both fruits, but you don't have to like both, you can like apples but not oranges. Some people find pve mindnumbingly boring. Some people don't like the competive atmosphere and dont want to put up with zomg you arent rank x you cant play. So they play what they like and don't play what they don't like. People choose PvE only or PvP only because they can chose.

Yes, in the end its about the player and their choice of playing styles. However, i feel that GW is the one of the best games that fosters a playing style with this duality of PvE and PvP and they should continue that mindset instead of splitting the game in half.

I for one would LOVE to make PvP and PvE more interconnected. Things like World At War (although flawed) and Alliance battle/PVE-P missions (Also flawed) are good ideas in this direction but are of course, flawed. The benefits have to be more obvious and still reward more hardworking players, without punishing people new to PvP.

I think the problem is not pvp and pve. but people who want both.Pvp and pve they are in a real minaority.

Yes its quite sad that people who enjoy all aspects of the game are the minority vs the extreme pvp or pve inclined who are close minded completely to one side of the side or the other.

[Nevin]

There are already ghost towns in Factions. I mean major cities like HzH and Cavalon only have 2-3 districts at a time from what I've seen. Thats not a lot. This will be a major problem, when Chapter 3 comes out. Who will want to own any cities in Factions, what will be the point? None. So far the only reason ANYONE will go back to Factions is for the material storage, and nothing more. Why oh why couldn't such a bueatiful game taken a different approach.

[unholy guardian]

Well if guild wars starts going down hill, i say let the people eat cake! Give them what they want, guns, rockets, heck give them sportcars!

Yes, well some of us want that, but many of us don't. Who knows, if things do get bad, and you have to appeal to the masses, things happen.

If they want original ideas, i say let them looks at the suggestions, i mean heck so many have voted for engineer, and many other cool concepts classes. I know i have one, nevin you have some, actionjack has a bunc too. Rikumaru, although i'm not sure at 1:19 am if it's riki or er i don't know my brain hurts lol. Still i mean heck those are some crazy orignal thoughts, never know maybe we will seem them someday.

Although you never know, the factions may be popular, i mean heck if less people fight for it, more will. If it seems easy, like hey i can finally control a town, more will get the idea and go through cycles of grinding again.

Still either way, i'll be playing guildwars for a while, only thing that will stop me will be real life issues, or if they change the game in such a way.. that makes me not want to login.

We just have to see what the future holds, i doubt it will be the apocalpse.

[Sirus Dibley]

I'm very optimistic about Chapter 3. Why you ask ? Because if Chapter 3 is as average as factions , there will be no more guild wars ;)

[lyra_song]

I'm very optimistic about Chapter 3. Why you ask ? Because if Chapter 3 is as average as factions , there will be no more guild wars ;)

Thats some serious flamebait right there.

[BoondockSaint]

There are some really good points ppl are making on here. This is my input, A-net created a great game mmropg without a monthly fee, I believe a first. They claimed that they would release stand alone expansion in place of a monthly fee. On paper this seems like a wonderful idea. But as we have seen, things get unorganized and hinder the game. Personally I loved prophices, factions on the other hand was good but with the unfinished story, somewhat slummer maps ect, did not compare. From reading the forums It seem that most people found prophices to be superior, which would not be bad if factions was an expansion, but it supposed to be a stand alone game.

MY IDEAS:

Anyways heres what I prepose, many ppl have suggested seperate pvp, from pve, I agree but only do that to a certain extent. I woul have the new games not necessarly expand into new places but instead expand the story. Heres an example, You buy the next game, with all its new content, now you have defeated the white mantal, the undead, and held of the charr invasion, inorder to advance you must complete the titan quests and because you owe the dwarfs a favor finish sorrows fernece, ( who else has had trouble finding ppl to do these missions. Now you can port to new maps like ascalon being rebuilt, but you can still go back to old ascalon (prophices ascalon).

You goal now would be to prepare Tyria for it huge offence into the nothern charr lands, so you must travel to Kratya to ask for help, (you of course will be sent on different missions before they will help you) as well as the dwarfs for their gun powder, Cantha for men, Kurziks for their those walker things, luxons for siege turtles. Now as for openning up new areas you could also be sent south to see if the rumors of a large surviving Orr army are true.( that huge blank spot on the map in Tyria will be open explorable). Now you would head north with all that firepower, for new content in missions you could have it were you guard the Ascalon catpults as they bomb Charr homes or be in the invasion force, not that new, but A-net could think of something, but the plus side would be that you could kill charr babies or something ;) this would require like 2 or 3 teams of 8 as well as several NPC's so it would seem like a HUGE battle. Well this is getting to long but you get the idea, expand the story within the game, you could always have a new enemy appear that are allies of the charr or something but adding brand new stuff every 6 months is crazy. This also would still not solve the problem of not enough ppl in towns.

Sorry this is so long, my above solution is just part of a story That I'm writting about GW, I'm a poltics major which is boaring so I take up creative writting as a hobby. So you think the idea of expanding the story is a good idea or what, please dont flame me to bad on the poor writting.:rolleyes:

[jackie]

Best situation would be to link these new chapters to old ones so that we have one big world that gets bigger by every chapter. Not 10 continents with no interaction between each other. That way older chapters won't be so dead in future.

That is the flaw of Stand Alone concept & zero proper connection with each chapters.

[Crimson Ashwood]

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure a multi-million dollar company with a long history in MMORPG's has a better idea of how to execute Guild Wars from a business and gameplay viewpoint than your average bitchy, whiney yet frequent player of the game.

Have a little faith. Being jaded and negative about the game isn't doing anyone any good, and you can't sit there an pretend you have any where near the clear view of the game as A-Net regarding how things should go, nor full understanding of the reasons behind their decisions.

If you did, you'd be doing what they do, and visa versa...

If y'all hate factions so much (a flawless addition to an existing winning title), why do you bother sitting behind a forum screen bad mouthing it for hours on end.

Have faith in the powers behind Guild Wars because it's a given they know more about the business than you do...

[Domino]

If y'all hate factions so much (a flawless addition to an existing winning title), why do you bother sitting behind a forum screen bad mouthing it for hours on end.

You're saying Factions is flawless? Are you serious? .... wow

[Crimson Ashwood]

For what it is, a stand alone/add-on for the original, big enough to be fun, small enough to keep people hanging around in chapter one, with a host of new items and skills as well as 2 new playable professions... yes, it's flawless in that regard...

I mean, what exactly did you expect? It's more Guild Wars, if you're looking for a different game, perhaps you should just continue your search...

[tear]

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure a multi-million dollar company with a long history in MMORPG's has a better idea of how to execute Guild Wars from a business and gameplay viewpoint than your average bitchy, whiney yet frequently player of the game.

Have a little faith. Being jaded and negative about the game isn't doing anyone any good, and you can't sit there an pretent you have any where near the clear view of the A-Net team of how things should go, and the reasons behind it.

If you did, you'd be doing what they do, and visa versa...

If y'all hate factions so much (a flawless addition to an existing winning title), why do you bother sitting behind a forum screen bad mouthing it for hours on end.

Have faith in the powers behind Guild Wars because it's a given they know more about the business than you do...

Actually, as players we've become aware of problems that have begun to arise with the introduction of Chapter II and that appear to run the risk of increasing in severity with the release of additional chapters.

Guild Wars is a new style of game that ANET is sort of monitoring as it unfolds for what does and does not work, and believe it or not, they seem to be working and exploring as they go along and likely don't quite know everything yet, as no one can clearly predict the future or the results of each of their decisions.

As the masses of players that know the game from the position of customers, our concerns are the developers' concerns and just as with actual players being the best means of testing out a game, our perspective on their work is a valuable tool to them.

If we'd always "had faith" and didn't speak up about any of our discrepencies, the changes we've ever desired would never have been realized and often met as they have been many times in the past up through the present. We don't hate the game just because we have issues with and worries for certain aspects of it, and feedback is important to any business. Through criticism, we get more of what we want in the game and they get happy(er) customers and their money. We're trying to ensure that each chapter of Guild Wars is successful, in which case, everyone wins.

[Shyft the Pyro]

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure a multi-million dollar company with a long history in MMORPG's has a better idea of how to execute Guild Wars from a business and gameplay viewpoint than your average bitchy, whiney yet frequently player of the game.

Ah, but that's where you hit a snag! A successful business venture is quite different from an engaging computer game. Just look at how many "nice" games have been absolutely loved by gamers but were discontinued as commercial failures, and how many spectacularly produced (or hyped if you prefer) games failed to live up to player expectations and died on the player side. Considering the history of PC games, it seems that finding that perfect balance between a "good game" and a "profitable franchise" is nearly impossible.

ANet, however, tried to make a "good game" with a new business model. What we see now, and what concerns a lot of people, is that instead of expanding the "player friendly" game ANet has made some "profit-driven" decisions - like shortening the release schedule and restricting expanded storage access - which could end up tipping it into the "commercial success" territory at the expense of "gameplay experience."

I'm sorry, but I can't blindly trust any gaming company because blind trust usually results in abuse. While ANet may be able to measure how commercially viable the new model is through the number of copies sold, only player feedback can determine the customer satisfaction, the "good game" side of the equation. A "multi-million dollar company" may have an idea of how to develop Guild Wars, but plenty of those same companies have died when their ideas failed to coincide with reality.

[markus_thom]

It is a very valid concern how the population will thin out across various chapters once we start reaching 3-4 etc.

Prophecies high level maps like Hell's Precipice will have even less players and thats simply NOT fun.

I think one solution is to release future chapters bundled with older chapters.

Imagine if Chapter 4 built up on Tyria, and came bundled with Chapter 1. It would bring players to chapter 1 and give them new content in that area.

Just an idea.

Its a good idea and hopefully anet are considering it.

[Greedy Gus]

Will people forget about older chapters and just move on

Pretty much. This isn't an MMO, it's a competitive online roleplaying game, and you really have no reason to play through the old chapters over and over. The PvE isn't massively multiplayer and it doesn't need to be packed full of people. The campaigns are made to be fun/interesting one or two times through, and the only reason they're still crowded now is that people play this game wanting it to be a free WoW MMO alternative.

With the business model A-net has created, they have no reason to make people feel warm and fuzzy about the PvE of old chapters. The emphasis is on buying and playing the next chapter, and enjoying it enough to buy the next chapter after that. Personally I like the model.

[Nexium]

i hope they make Chapter 3 more like Prophecis and skip the whole Faction thing which was pretty bad in the first place having diffrent faction's too choose betwen it was more hmmm political crap in faction an ''less'' of an adventure like it was in prophecis i don't want too be some delivery boy runing around giving messages sorting out problemms from each faction i want it too be like prophecis where yu get's side quest's as you follow the mainstory
and i really hope they skip having big cities it's like runing around in a maze
and i hope they allso make upp some new farming place and nott some Elite mission stuff maybe something new like fow where you can do quests if you wan't.. oh and that they fix new skills and not just slap on a new name tag and picture to it.

[Rent]

i hope they make Chapter 3 more like Prophecis and skip the whole Faction thing which was pretty bad in the first place having diffrent faction's too choose betwen it was more hmmm political crap in faction an ''less'' of an adventure like it was in prophecis i don't want too be some delivery boy runing around giving messages sorting out problemms from each faction i want it too be like prophecis where yu get's side quest's as you follow the mainstory
and i really hope they skip having big cities it's like runing around in a maze
and i hope they allso make upp some new farming place and nott some Elite mission stuff maybe something new like fow where you can do quests if you wan't.. oh and that they fix new skills and not just slap on a new name tag and picture to it.

First off, congratulations for the most generic rant ever.

Second, I am tired of seeing people say this:

ome delivery boy runing around giving messages sorting out problemms from each faction

Name me three quests from Prophecies that WEREN'T "go get this for me" "take this here" "kill that guy/those guys".

[LuckyGiant]

Ah, but that's where you hit a snag! A successful business venture is quite different from an engaging computer game. Just look at how many "nice" games have been absolutely loved by gamers but were discontinued as commercial failures, and how many spectacularly produced (or hyped if you prefer) games failed to live up to player expectations and died on the player side. Considering the history of PC games, it seems that finding that perfect balance between a "good game" and a "profitable franchise" is nearly impossible.

ANet, however, tried to make a "good game" with a new business model. What we see now, and what concerns a lot of people, is that instead of expanding the "player friendly" game ANet has made some "profit-driven" decisions - like shortening the release schedule and restricting expanded storage access - which could end up tipping it into the "commercial success" territory at the expense of "gameplay experience."

I'm sorry, but I can't blindly trust any gaming company because blind trust usually results in abuse. While ANet may be able to measure how commercially viable the new model is through the number of copies sold, only player feedback can determine the customer satisfaction, the "good game" side of the equation. A "multi-million dollar company" may have an idea of how to develop Guild Wars, but plenty of those same companies have died when their ideas failed to coincide with reality.


For me you summed it all up really nicely there. I think Anet has got most things planned out with approx dates. They had every intention of releasing added storage during Chp2 to make it Chp2 exclusive (obvious way for maximising profits), but they keep giving the classic "Anet soon" answer to everything (its in their best interest not to answer one way or another) I think they are taking this route

which could end up tipping it into the "commercial success" territory at the expense of "gameplay experience."

[Xenrath]

If only someone was reading this. When I mean someone, I mean someone who is part of the Guild Wars staff that can change things. Why? Because this is like a gold mine of information. The players are actually yelling out to them everything that's wrong and what needs to be done, but it's being completely ignored. Sadly so.

Some of your suggestions will be looked in to, and possibly added.






Oh yes, only for the next chapter, and there's going to be a catch don'tchaknow! Oh and it might get changed after that too. Please preorder. Stop whining. Deal with it. <end sarcasm> <sigh>

[felinette]

Yes, in the end its about the player and their choice of playing styles. However, i feel that GW is the one of the best games that fosters a playing style with this duality of PvE and PvP and they should continue that mindset instead of splitting the game in half.

They can, but they'll lose players who strongly prefer one type of play over the other. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they're sure the game will survive if that happens.

Yes its quite sad that people who enjoy all aspects of the game are the minority vs the extreme pvp or pve inclined who are close minded completely to one side of the side or the other.
It's not a matter of being close-minded. It's a matter of preferring one type of play over the other. Different people prefer different things. You can't force people to like something that just doesn't appeal to them.


I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure a multi-million dollar company with a long history in MMORPG's has a better idea of how to execute Guild Wars from a business and gameplay viewpoint than your average bitchy, whiney yet frequent player of the game.

Yeah, because no game company with a long history has ever gone under because of bad decisions that have alienated its fan base.</sarcasm> And I haven't seen much bitchy and whiney happening in this thread--I've seen a lot of reasonable discussion.

[Crimson Ashwood]

Yeah, because no game company with a long history has ever gone under because of bad decisions that have alienated its fan base.</sarcasm>

I can't think of one single company that has done that, no. They've gone down by developing games nobody wants to play, and GuildWars is SO FAR away from that mark, your point holds no water what-so-ever...

(FYI)

[Xenrath]

*cough*sierra*cough*ion storm*cough* oh my I need to get a drink for that cough. The history of gaming is awash with games developers thinking they know best. Well, to be fair, probably marketing execs these days. They might still be around in one form or another but they've surely helped kill game series/titles. Then you have the guys who made awesome games like Looking Glass, and they still went under...

On a side note, if it's so amazingly flawless and great, why is it most places in Factions seem to be empty on euro servers at least (and I've been trying a lot of hours day and night over the past few weeks due to holiday/time off work). During the height of Prophecies' popularity this was not a noticeable problem. Maybe PvP has increased in popularity I dunno, not my forte, but the rest of it doesn't appear so (from personal experience)

[felinette]

I can't think of one single company that has done that, no.

Then you either haven't been gaming very long or haven't been paying attention. Someone has already mentioned Sierra. The one that springs to my mind immediately is 3DO. Had two lucrative franchises that they managed to destroy. There have been others. Not all sequels live up to their predecessors.

Yeah, Looking Glass was really unfortunate.... :(


Yeah, because no game company with a long history has ever gone under because of bad decisions that have alienated its fan base.</sarcasm>


They've gone down by developing games nobody wants to play
Nobody wanted to play them because the devs made bad design decisions. The two things aren't unrelated. And I never said GW is a game nobody wants to play. We're talking about the future, not the present.

[majoho]

Actually, as players we've become aware of problems that have begun to arise with the introduction of Chapter II and that appear to run the risk of increasing in severity with the release of additional chapters.

Guild Wars is a new style of game that ANET is sort of monitoring as it unfolds for what does and does not work, and believe it or not, they seem to be working and exploring as they go along and likely don't quite know everything yet, as no one can clearly predict the future or the results of each of their decisions.

As the masses of players that know the game from the position of customers, our concerns are the developers' concerns and just as with actual players being the best means of testing out a game, our perspective on their work is a valuable tool to them.

If we'd always "had faith" and didn't speak up about any of our discrepencies, the changes we've ever desired would never have been realized and often met as they have been many times in the past up through the present. We don't hate the game just because we have issues with and worries for certain aspects of it, and feedback is important to any business. Through criticism, we get more of what we want in the game and they get happy(er) customers and their money. We're trying to ensure that each chapter of Guild Wars is successful, in which case, everyone wins.
Why are you presenting the above as facts and thinking you are speaking on behalf of the majority of the community?

[SpeedyKQ]

So as new chapters release, you won't be able to PUG your way through older chapters. You'll have to use hench or play with helpful guildmates. If you're into pugging, you should buy each chapter as it comes out and focus on it. Doesn't seem like the end of the world.

[Beat_Go_Stick]

Its sad to say this but if guild wars doesnt get improven in some way then i suppose everyone should do the following.

START LOOKING FOR OTHER MMORPG'S.

A couple good ones:
World of Warcraft + The Burning Crusade
Lord of the Rings Online
Warhammer Online

Why would I play an MMO? I came to GW just to avoid that.

Exactly. People who keep telling us to play WoW need to get something through their head: We bought Guild Wars and enjoyed it because it was not one of those massive, neverending, monthly fee MMO's. It has an ending that is achievable within a relatively small time frame. It does not require you to grind for weeks just to obtain the equipment required in order to remain competitive. It is a one shot charge. You pay. You play. You don't pay again unless you want more and, if you decide you don't want more, you can still play with what you've already bought.

Those online games are nothing like what I am looking for in a game at all. I'd honestly rather not play games than play any of those for free (since money isn't honestly an issue for me).

If y'all hate factions so much (a flawless addition to an existing winning title), why do you bother sitting behind a forum screen bad mouthing it for hours on end.

I have a lot of time between tasks at work :) I don't even really play Guild Wars any more but I still enjoy adding my opinions in hopes that one day I'll feel like playing it again ;) And yes, Factions is the reason I no longer play so it's pretty safe to say I hated it....

You say they know better than we do but the method most companies use to decide whether or not their decisions and/or features were good ones is through customer feedback. You think these guys took some classes in college and now just automatically know what's best? They made a great game and altered it during alpha/beta testing based on the feedback they recieved.

But I digress....

Personally, I think the problem is too many gaming companies try to milk a game name until it's dry. They should accept the fact (yes, fact) that Guild Wars can only really go so far and move on to another game. Take the ideas they have and, by all means, implement them, but do it in something completely new and exciting so that we can say "A.Net releases amazingly fun games!" instead of "A.Net released areally great game and then expanded it into the depths of futility..."

I would really love to see what A.Net would come up with next while they are still completely inspired from their success. I would most likely buy their next RPG based on their success with Guild Wars so long as they don't burn out every idea they have on a game that really should not be expanded infinitely.

For example, I loved Halflife and bought the sequel because the original was great. After playing the sequel, I found myself wishing they had just come up with a whole new story line, new characters, and named it something completely unrelated to the original. A few thousand more dollars on script, plot, and story arc combined with some more character interaction and originality would have made that game the most epic FPS ever. As it was, I won't even be buying any of their expansions for it.

You milk a cow for what it's worth and then sell it off before it dries up. Gaming companies have a tendency to keep on milking until there's nothing left. It's really a shame.

[Quozz]

I completely oppose seperating pvp and pve. I think what needs to happen is allow players an easier way to jump into pvp and unlock things much more easily to be competitive.

I asked this question in another forum once and I can't remember if I ever received any kind of response so I will ask it again. Why do PVP players so desperately want me(or in general PVE players) to play PVP? There is nothing Anet or anyone else can do that will entice me to play a format that I do not find fun and entertaining. If you further blur the line between the two then PVE players will go elsewhere for there gaming fun. Now if Anet's great game design vision is to have this type of forced PVP play at the expense of inovation on the PVE side then so be it. What they need to understand is that its the PVE player who upholds their very lively hood and if we go elsewhere GW will become another bright star that suffered a tragic burnout.

On another side note, I noticed they published some info on two new classes for chapter 3. Still early as I am sure more info on the game will be forthcoming but I find it disappointing that I won't be able to see the new classes on their beta weekend unless I PVP. Also 2 new classes is not the kind of content I am looking for in chapter 3. I already have 6 characters I am fond of playing and I want those classes to be expanded on (haven't even bothered making an assassin or a ritualist). Please Anet, can we get a little love for our existing characters so they don't end up going through another chapter with naught to gain but a few new skills.

[mqstout]

So many of the game's problems would be solved if Factions were an expansion rather than an attempted stand alone. Even the recent debacle over the storage, and the older (and continuing) issues of different continents' characters accessing older missions would be alleviated by this. I hope they change their model to true expansions. GW Chap 4: (Requires GW:Prophecies to play.)

As the OP states -- the ghost town syndrome is already a problem for people trying to go back to do some of the harder content in Prophecies (like the Titan quests). There's no reason they can't add some generic NPCs to pre-sear either, for expansion characters quests. If they keep adding new continents, what will happen when someone wants to start their Paragon in Cantha?... Sure, it might not "make sense" with the story, but few things do as it is when it comes to that.

I also want to echo one final part from the OP: Indeed it is pointless to do any random play in Tyria now, since it was not affected by the huge increase of drops from mobs in Cantha. I regularly see Canthan mobs drop rare crafting materials -- something I almost never saw anywhere in Tyria.

It IS in A.net's best interest, for sales and the community [which drives sales] to keep all areas of the game active and developed.

[QuietWanderer]

I guess I don't see the gameplay issues that everyone has with Factions.

I like the idea of moving the battlefront using 12 vs. 12.
I like the idea of having my Guild hold a town.
I like the addition of the duplicated spells.
I like the whole Master's mission acquisition.
I like the dual 8 man team missions.
I like the amulet reward at the end of the game.
I like the Factions end game piece over the Prophecies dump you in Drok's ending.
I like the Dragon mask and the festival.
I like the new 15k armors.
I like the new Ritualist Obsidian armor.
I like the new elite missions like "The Deep"
I like the two new character classes.

Are there annoyances? You bet. But I'm having fun with this game and like that they are trying out new things. I'm excited for the next release and I can't wait to see what the new character classes and spells are. I can't wait to see the environment. I have a good guild and I do't worry too much about the empty town syndrome because I play almost exclusively with them. I love Random arenas and I like 12 vs. 12. I am excited to see how the new character classes perform in the smaller PVP arenas. I'm just as excited to see what new gimmick they come up with.

[SpeedyKQ]

Very well said, QuietWanderer. Flawless it isn't, but there is tons and tons to like about Factions.

If chapter 3 is as good as Factions, I'll be satisfied. If it is as good as Factions and as big as Prophecies, I'll be thrilled.

[Rent]

If chapter 3 is as good as Factions, I'll be satisfied. If it is as good as Factions and as big as Prophecies, I'll be thrilled.

I can do little more than quote this for full emphasis.

[Amy Awien]

I like the whole Master's mission acquisition.

I don't, and I think it is exactly what is wrong about Chapter 2. This Master thing with missions only results in PuG's going as fast as possible through a mission without any chance of getting more then a glimpse of the story, if there is one.

This is ANet's intention, it must be. This whole Master's thing is just bound to lead to more and more go-go-go rushing. It is also obvious that this would lead to the story being drowned. Thus, there probably was no story to begin with.

I don't care a bit about the current CoOp style, PuG's are only rarely fun to be with, but usually as boring as henchies and sometimes plainly annoying. I hate it when I am forced to play with them.

So, if they want to speed-skill PvP'ers, just unlock them their skills but don't have PvP ruin the story part. In the end, it is PvE content which will have players shell out $40 for a new chapter, for PvP


I like the dual 8 man team missions.


Well, I've only seen the Vizunah one, we've killed a gazillion afflicted in total chaos .... boring.

[beanerman_99]

I like Factions though it is a struggle for me to get all my characters from Prophecies through it. I have only completely finished it with one of my characters and the thought of finishing it with the rest kinda makes me sick just thinking about it.

I gave up on my assasin for a while because even though I play it well, no one wants them in a PuG. I think that the reasons go deeper than just the typical "sin can't tank" hype going around. I think the class is much better suited for PvP and not so much for PvE. The ritualist I made got deleted because I just didn't not find them fun for PvE. Seems like the new classes are more suited for PvP, which is fine, BUT I think more attention should be given to PvE as well in future releases.

I think that Nightfall will be fun. I just hope they keep the PvE interesting and make me WANT to complete it with all my characters. But I feel myself leaning more towards Anet doing expansions rather than more stand alones. I like the world of Tyria and would love to see more quests and areas opened up to explore. The same could be said about Cantha. I like the feeling of getting used to a place and making it feel like home. I hate having to move on and hardly ever re-visiting it again because my game travels takes me other places.

my 2 cents

[felinette]

Amy Awien and beanerman99: I agree with both of your posts in their entirety. I'm hoping Nightfall will put the zing back into PvE.


But I feel myself leaning more towards Anet doing expansions rather than more stand alones. I like the world of Tyria and would love to see more quests and areas opened up to explore. The same could be said about Cantha. I like the feeling of getting used to a place and making it feel like home.

I wouldn't mind at all having new areas open up on existing continents. My Tyrians feel like foreigners in Cantha, and vice versa. They're much more at home on their continents of origin. I had taken some of them over to the "foreign" continent, but they've all returned home to work on cartographer titles.


I don't care a bit about the current CoOp style, PuG's are only rarely fun to be with, but usually as boring as henchies and sometimes plainly annoying. I hate it when I am forced to play with them.

Agreed. Sometimes I feel like PUGging it because I know a mission will go faster (I usually try to PUG Naphui because that has got to be one of the most godawful, mind-numbingly boring missions I've ever played, so the faster I can get through it, the better), but I'd also like the choice of going with henchies. It's all about choice. I'm not sure why the devs are so determined to limit our choices.

[magnawiz]

Thank you so much for addressing this issue. It's been a problem that's been stuck in my head since Factions came out. I thought Prophecies would get updates along with Factions but since the storage update, I've lost hope. It doesn't look too good in the future if they continue to isolate old chapters. The first thing I was worried about was the story and how Prophecies would never been concluded, but now it's much more than that. Please let auction house be a global update :(

[beanerman_99]

Thank you so much for addressing this issue. It's been a problem that's been stuck in my head since Factions came out. I thought Prophecies would get updates along with Factions but since the storage update, I've lost hope. It doesn't look too good in the future if they continue to isolate old chapters. The first thing I was worried about was the story and how Prophecies would never been concluded, but now it's much more than that. Please let auction house be a global update :(

agreed. If you are going to make a change in the basic mechanics or whatever of the game then they shoulddo it for all chapters. I was shocked when I took my Tyrian character to Ascalon thinking that the storage addition was global and there was nothing! I just don't understand it. Why add something that important to only Factions and then still say the each chapter is stand-alone and you don't need buy both chapters and blah blah blah. I love Anet but I am calling a big BS!! on that.

[Hell Marauder]

I also want to echo one final part from the OP: Indeed it is pointless to do any random play in Tyria now, since it was not affected by the huge increase of drops from mobs in Cantha. I regularly see Canthan mobs drop rare crafting materials -- something I almost never saw anywhere in Tyria.

It IS in A.net's best interest, for sales and the community [which drives sales] to keep all areas of the game active and developed.

Although I too wish Anet can keep all areas active and developed in the future, I don't think it's pointless to play in Tyria yet. There are things you can do in Tyria which you can't in Factions, such as running, farming (for exp or drops), and FOW/UW. Some of us also prefer hairstyles/faces of Prophecy toons to those of Factions. And how about weapons/armors that are chapter-specific, like icy/fiery dragon swords? Many pve players will still go back to those old chapters to play, if only for those chapter-specific features.

[Mr_T_bot]

Arena Net works on too many assumptions. It assumed people will buy every progressive chapter and thus people will be in 1 game. No. Also, 1 copy sold is not 1 person in game. Thus, already a fraction of the number of copies sold arep laying. Spread that out between time zones and it lessens further. Add another chapter where maybe 60-80% of old players move plus a few new sales and the number of people playing is split. Arena Net is also dropping the idea of favoring the player for a more commercial model. The whole business model relies on the player staying happy. If they arn't happy, they won't buy new chapters. But Arena Net seems to think they can pull whatever they want and forget old chapter.

Therein lies a major problem as well. You can play World of Warcraft for what? $160 a year? If you buy every chapter, Guild Wars is $100-150 a year. But instead of a persistent world with massive content, you get a new world and the old world drops off the face of the map so to say. Other games like FPS and RTSs sell a new game and ignore the old games, but they don't introduce a new game with limited content every 6 months, then their life is extended by online play. Guild Wars only has PvP to extend the life of the game and there are only a handful of modes open to all chapters. Why should PvE players pay $100-150 a year to play a game with limited content that only expands once they drop another $50 and the old content gains nothing but is already less content than major RPGs start with?

With the a lack of overall content plus a small and smaller amount of people to play with in excessive chapters combined with the progressive amount of deception on behalf of the company how much longer can Guild Wars go without some one more realistic put in charge of Arena Net? Not very far I say,

[Sanji]

I really like Guild Wars but I don't see myself supporting it's stand alone priced expansion packs, especially when they are being released every six months.

There's no real reason to expound on this because Mr_T_bot pretty much said how I feel about their release platform.

[felinette]

Arena Net works on too many assumptions. It assumed people will buy every progressive chapter and thus people will be in 1 game.
I've seen Anet folks say that they always intended that people would buy the chapters that interest them and skip those that don't. However, that doesn't work well in practice.

While the two new professions announced for Nightfall have potential, they'll have the same problem that Rits and sins have--you'll only be able to create new dervishes and paragons for chapter three. This is another thing that discourages players from remaining in previous chapters. They can't create characters with the new professions for any campaign.

[J snukka]

I guess I don't see the gameplay issues that everyone has with Factions.

I like the idea of moving the battlefront using 12 vs. 12.
I like the idea of having my Guild hold a town.
I like the addition of the duplicated spells.
I like the whole Master's mission acquisition.
I like the dual 8 man team missions.
I like the amulet reward at the end of the game.
I like the Factions end game piece over the Prophecies dump you in Drok's ending.
I like the Dragon mask and the festival.
I like the new 15k armors.
I like the new Ritualist Obsidian armor.
I like the new elite missions like "The Deep"
I like the two new character classes.



amen to this. seriously people need to take time with their games and appreciate it.

[Mr_T_bot]

I've seen Anet folks say that they always intended that people would buy the chapters that interest them and skip those that don't. However, that doesn't work well in practice.
Sure, that's what they say, but they expect people to buy every chapter, that is how they make money.

[Yawgmoth]

It's just too fast. I'd really like them to make one stand-alone GW game a year AND one big purchasable Expansion that would add lots of content into the game but wouldnt have to contain all that stuff a new standalone campagin HAS to include.
So we would get 1 stand-alone campagin a year with 2 new professions and new storyline and whole new continent and new types of gameplay and hopefully significant upgrades to the game engine and lots lots of new things...
Then after 6 months we would get a huge expansion (req. ANY standalone campagin) at a cost of say ~30$ containing new skills for *all* professions to shake up the metagame for new tournament season, many new features that would make every GW player want to buy it, high lvl PvE content only and lots of it, 1-2 char slots included
I present this idea ecause im worried that Nightfalls and other future chapters will be rushed too much, not good not refreshing enough, without enough thought into them. I'm afraid that Nightfalls will be just like Factions (see many threads complaining about it, i'm not going to repeat that here)
The upside would be more time for devs to work on real improvements to the game and adding long requested features into expansions. There would be no need for two full development teams, just one and a half. With a new game release once a year it, GW will get a similar number of new players a year

[0mar]

amen to this. seriously people need to take time with their games and appreciate it.

Apperciate a watered-down, patchworked mess? You must be easily satisfied. Most people here agree that Factions is seriously under-par compared to Prophecies.

It lacks in compelling PvE content (it's there, it's just not very good). There is very little new PvP content (ABs are a gimmick, same level as RA). Factions is just not very good.

[Carth`]

Agree with most points people have made.

[scrinner]

Havent read this whole Topic but!

- In chapters storyline, Are we already forgetting about the Darkness in the tombs and the festival?
- And i doubt they would continue making More continents. Tyria still needs to be finished, Doubt somethign will happen to Factions though, its a nicely wrapped box. All content given a conclusion. (storyline= shiros death, Wardens= urgoz warren, Outlaws or something= The deep) the only speculation i know about factions is that damned glowing chest in keineng
- Btw, Im glad Anet is actually making full continents and Full storylines though, Even though it might be a bit quick its better then Everquest. We Do get nerfs and patches streamed to us.

[inscribed]

My personal grief with GuildWars is simply lack of communication. Yes we have Dev Talks and such but all in all the communicational link is lousy. What i'd love to see would be some ETAs. Not just "on the radar" or "maybe". But moreover downright ETAs for Updates.

And i'd sure like some words of explanation why they nerfed this or buffed that. Without any explanation the updates sometimes appear absolutely random. One day everything is fine, the next day, totally out of the blue, your whole style of playing was altered and you're not even told why. For example the Warrior Nerf (NO Discussion about this, just an example). If A-Net would have said something like "We had to weaken the warriors defense a bit because of the new classes in Chapter 3" or something along these lines. I'm quite sure, people wouldn't be quite as pissed as they currently are.

So in a long term point of view, lack of proper communication kills every game. Being left alone in the mist and shadows while the allmighty developers work their magic doesn't help much to fight the grief one might feel about certain things.



Yeah, this is my biggest gripe as well. Anet would cut down on a lot of flaming and stuff if they would just explain the reasoning behind their changes. Gaile Gray is the only voice we have coming from ArenaNet, and her response to everything is "I don't know, but I'll be sure to ask about it", and then we never hear about it again. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with Gaile, but I would like the people actually responsible for the changes to simply explain them. This isn't even related specifically to the previous patch, this has been something I've asked for multiple times in many previous threads where this subject comes up. (Although speaking of the last patch, why gimp pets even more by adding DP? Of all the possible things to rebalance, they chose the weakest line of rangers to gimp even more. Too many beast masters soloing the Underworld or dominating in PVP? I seriously doubt it.)

ArenaNet just needs a more accessible way for players to communicate with the developers. Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed that maybe she'll respond specifically to this. :)

[dreamhunk]

I don't, and I think it is exactly what is wrong about Chapter 2. This Master thing with missions only results in PuG's going as fast as possible through a mission without any chance of getting more then a glimpse of the story, if there is one.

This is ANet's intention, it must be. This whole Master's thing is just bound to lead to more and more go-go-go rushing. It is also obvious that this would lead to the story being drowned. Thus, there probably was no story to begin with.

I don't care a bit about the current CoOp style, PuG's are only rarely fun to be with, but usually as boring as henchies and sometimes plainly annoying. I hate it when I am forced to play with them.

So, if they want to speed-skill PvP'ers, just unlock them their skills but don't have PvP ruin the story part. In the end, it is PvE content which will have players shell out $40 for a new chapter, for PvP



Well, I've only seen the Vizunah one, we've killed a gazillion afflicted in total chaos .... boring.

Dam rights it is the rpg that pay for this game! for each and every chapter it!

[ahfeng]

I don't, and I think it is exactly what is wrong about Chapter 2. This Master thing with missions only results in PuG's going as fast as possible through a mission without any chance of getting more then a glimpse of the story, if there is one.

This is ANet's intention, it must be. This whole Master's thing is just bound to lead to more and more go-go-go rushing. It is also obvious that this would lead to the story being drowned. Thus, there probably was no story to begin with.

I don't care a bit about the current CoOp style, PuG's are only rarely fun to be with, but usually as boring as henchies and sometimes plainly annoying. I hate it when I am forced to play with them.

So, if they want to speed-skill PvP'ers, just unlock them their skills but don't have PvP ruin the story part. In the end, it is PvE content which will have players shell out $40 for a new chapter, for PvP



Well, I've only seen the Vizunah one, we've killed a gazillion afflicted in total chaos .... boring.

I agree with Amy. Sometimes it's just totally irritating that people call others noob just cos they do certain things wrongly. Like c'mon, everyone was a noob once.

Yes I agree also that story is what drives an rpg game. Not just the leveling and the upgrading of weapons and equipment. It's a great idea to integrate PvP and PvE together. Personally, I don't mind both really but I sincerely hope that the missions are made possible to go through with henchies. Even the quests. PUGs, imho, are meant for PvPs and if and only if you're playing with your friends or people you know. I don't really believe in socialising through gaming.

[Rogier]

the funny thing is... Anet doesn't respond to these sort of topics, how ironic.
but every1 in here is right, with 3 or more chapters it'll be impossible to do some missions now, and ghost towns certainly will be there, even now if you try to do the desert missions it's almost impossible, it took me 3 days just to do thirsty river, this will be a major problem for GW if they keep doing this

[jesh]

MY IDEAS:

Anyways heres what I prepose, many ppl have suggested seperate pvp, from pve, I agree but only do that to a certain extent. I woul have the new games not necessarly expand into new places but instead expand the story. Heres an example, You buy the next game, with all its new content, now you have defeated the white mantal, the undead, and held of the charr invasion, inorder to advance you must complete the titan quests and because you owe the dwarfs a favor finish sorrows fernece, ( who else has had trouble finding ppl to do these missions. Now you can port to new maps like ascalon being rebuilt, but you can still go back to old ascalon (prophices ascalon).

You goal now would be to prepare Tyria for it huge offence into the nothern charr lands, so you must travel to Kratya to ask for help, (you of course will be sent on different missions before they will help you) as well as the dwarfs for their gun powder, Cantha for men, Kurziks for their those walker things, luxons for siege turtles. Now as for openning up new areas you could also be sent south to see if the rumors of a large surviving Orr army are true.( that huge blank spot on the map in Tyria will be open explorable). Now you would head north with all that firepower, for new content in missions you could have it were you guard the Ascalon catpults as they bomb Charr homes or be in the invasion force, not that new, but A-net could think of something, but the plus side would be that you could kill charr babies or something ;) this would require like 2 or 3 teams of 8 as well as several NPC's so it would seem like a HUGE battle. Well this is getting to long but you get the idea, expand the story within the game, you could always have a new enemy appear that are allies of the charr or something but adding brand new stuff every 6 months is crazy. This also would still not solve the problem of not enough ppl in towns.

Sorry this is so long, my above solution is just part of a story That I'm writting about GW, I'm a poltics major which is boaring so I take up creative writting as a hobby. So you think the idea of expanding the story is a good idea or what, please dont flame me to bad on the poor writting.:rolleyes:

That sounds like tons of fun. I think it would be more feasable if you didn't need a certain expansion to play it; people in your group can be doing the same mission/quest from another chapter.

I'm concerned as well about the ghost town thing that's happening. I for one also like Prophecies more, but what is there to go back to? Henchmen? Does anyone else remember when Prophecies was still played, and there was always more than 50 disctrics in Ascalon?

There have been a lot of other people that have said the same, but maybe Anet will notice if one more person says it too.



Give us a reason to go back to other chapters!



Finish the story and add more to it! PvPs only focus is balance, and you don't need a new chapter to do that.



I know a lot of people get tired of playing on the same old maps. What if there was pvp on the actual continent? In other words, you could be doing a mission, and all of a sudden have 24 PvPers storm across your screen. The AI would go after them as well.. Maybe it's a bad idea, but it's something, right? PvP maps would be as varied as the continent, literally.

Somewhat off topic, but I'd buy the new expansion if it just had a graphics update. Make the spells look like something is being done, instead of different colors of pixie dust and lines. There's nothing wrong with making it look like you're doing something. As it is, there are countless skills that have no other effect than a little yellow number, and I can't express how dissapointing that is.

I don't know about you, but I'd love to have it the point where someone new playing with you would think, "Holy !@*%! What skills is that?!"
It's not as if it would introduce lag. There is a graphics section in the options menu for people with slower computers. :rolleyes:


Now as far as the rift between PvP and PvE.. if Anet wants to keep them tied together, they need to do some serious research on what it is that people want. All the PvE people say that they want to not have to do PvP because it's too competitive. All the PvP people say that they don't want to PvE because it's mind numbingly boring. Sure, both of these are valid reasons, but why do you feel that way? Why not tell Anet what they can do to change PvE/PvP to make it appealing to you? Sure, GW will never be an only PvE or only a PvP game, but that doesn't mean that they can't improve upon it, right?



It just seems to me that there was some kind of magic in Prophecies that was lost in Factions.. and if Arena Net intends to keep taking my money, they should really try to find out what it is.
What drew so many people to the original game? Why did they get dissapointed and leave? No one would have to worry about ghost towns if there was a reason to keep playing the chapters you have. It should be to the point where you can avoid buying a chapter simply because you don't like the theme of the area, you're that satisfied with what you have.

I realize that this game isn't an mmorpg, and I don't want to come across that way. There does need to be some replayablity value, though. Currently, the best way to do that seems to be to cross content between chapters and expand upon the story that's already in place. Why not make it so that in the new chapter, if you travel back to Cantha.. something goes terribly wrong, and you're taken back to the time that Shiro first unveiled himself to the world? There's so many twists and cool things that could be done. I wish Arena Net good luck on their new game, and sincerely hope that the wishes of the customers are taken into account. I don't see how both their company and the players wouldn't both win if we're both happy.

[markus_thom]

the funny thing is... Anet doesn't respond to these sort of topics, how ironic.
but every1 in here is right, with 3 or more chapters it'll be impossible to do some missions now, and ghost towns certainly will be there, even now if you try to do the desert missions it's almost impossible, it took me 3 days just to do thirsty river, this will be a major problem for GW if they keep doing this

They are reading it, hopefully.
I know I brought up the whole ghost town thing and issolation between chapters.
But I suppose I have friends and a guild to help me in that department.

What saddens me is how they plan to throw away perfectley good ideas or unresolved story plots instead of extending on them, I could be wrong of course.

To "JESH"
I was upset because they chose to never extend to such a great game like propercies.
No more charr, dang it.

But as people have stated the devs ussualy only respond to positive posts, so thats partly another communication fault on anets behalf.

[Raiin Maker]

What you all forget is that the people who designed prophecys is making chap 3.

Anet has 2 design teams.

When Team 1 started Prophecys Team 2 started Factions.

When Porphecys was realsed Team 1 started work on Nightfall.

When Factions was realsed i assume Team 2 started work in Chap 4.

As this is true it means that this chapter was designed by the same people as chap 1, meaning it should be much like the orrigional in design, etc, and also its been in development for 1.5 years.

Hopefully this will be a great game... but only time will tell.

[Mr_T_bot]

The sad fact is that they could easily sell old chapters instead of being forcec to churn out subpar new ones by introducing more quests, more areas, and overall paying more attention to them. Factions is going to get ignored, but think how much could be added to it? The plotholes are big enough for a barn to drive through, provided you could get one on wheels. The very nature of the standalone game systems means they really can't ignore old chapters. Arena Net is trying to introduce a new Prophecies Collector's Edition because it has all the weapons they hadned to the Asian players. Why would anyone buy it? That is $70 for a game we already have or for a game that will no longer have any more attention paid to it as Arena Net chugs along and since it is a totally online game, it will pull fewer and fewer players maknig it pointless to even buy for the newcomer. Arena Net needs to rethink their business model of throwing games out onto shelves and calling it productive.

They need to go back to the prerelease Arena Net - listening to the fans and working with them, not ignoring and going for the $_$ by throwing out crappy games.

[IAmAI]

I have an idea: If you look at the explorer maps of Tyria and Cantha, that are a great deal of unexploreable areas. When they release later chapters perhaps they could add some additional exploreable areas, quests or missions to these areas that relate somehow to new chapter. Also, perhaps, they areas can only be accessed by going via existing outposts/areas of the continent. They could either be exlusive to those with both chapters, or not - I have no opinion there.

[Ensabah Nur]

Before I start let me state; I want Guild Wars & Anet to succeed and be around many years however,

PvP content is easier, cheaper to create than PvE content. PvP content requires smaller game environments and no true need for storyline creation therefore is more attractive to developers/marketing. However, it is PvE RPG content that warrants sales of new product in the hopes of new adventure.
There is room for both in GW but creating less PvE content and hoping to keep up or even increase profit by attempting to sway PvE style players to PvP to increase profits is the wrong direction to go and will eventually lead to THE END.

From what I've read here and elsewhere Factions was a disappointment overall, especially with the PvE storyline. I concur. I know people in my guild and Alliance that were able to beat the whole storyline in 2 days, If Anet had actually provided enough PvE content into Factions this should not be possible.

Many buyers of both GW chapters have stated many times the lack of PvE content in both chapters, and the huge maps of both continents that although we may be able to explore 100% of the areas we can get to we cannot get to 100% of the Land mass on both maps. In all my years(20+) of gaming I have never until GW crossed paths with an RPG that an explorer cannot visit every square inch of the land mass from sea to shining sea. Yet Anet/GW maps have so much blurry land mass that we cannot goto. I think Anet should fill those areas with something and open them up before moving to a new continent where they will likely once again not provide 100% of the land mass as explorable.New quests/mission/outposts would be great, but I'd settle for just explorable areas with mayhaps some new creatures to kill, this would greatly expand the explorable area and give PvE more to do in every chapter.

As for Nightfall, Anet please start listening & learning from us your target consumer what we want and start providing it. I feel certain if you do Anet and Guild Wars will have a long,healthy and VERY PROFITABLE life. Just some advice from someone(Family accounts) that has purchased 4 copies of Prophecies($200) & 4 copies of Factions($200) and is leery about giving you another $200.

[Clone]

I have an idea: If you look at the explorer maps of Tyria and Cantha, that are a great deal of unexploreable areas. When they release later chapters perhaps they could add some additional exploreable areas, quests or missions to these areas that relate somehow to new chapter. Also, perhaps, they areas can only be accessed by going via existing outposts/areas of the continent. They could either be exlusive to those with both chapters, or not - I have no opinion there.

Indeed. I'd love to see more Sorrow's Furnace like addons to Tyria and Cantha. For Tyria, you could do more exploration in the ruins of Orr, push further north of the Great Northern Wall into some high level Charr strongholds, or go to the home of the Seer, wherever that may be. Prophecies left plenty of unanswered questions. And you can always introduce new problems in old areas, like the invasion of grasps during the dragon festival.

[sassoonssamson]

What you all forget is that the people who designed prophecys is making chap 3.

Anet has 2 design teams.

When Team 1 started Prophecys Team 2 started Factions.

When Porphecys was realsed Team 1 started work on Nightfall.

When Factions was realsed i assume Team 2 started work in Chap 4.

As this is true it means that this chapter was designed by the same people as chap 1, meaning it should be much like the orrigional in design, etc, and also its been in development for 1.5 years.

Hopefully this will be a great game... but only time will tell.


that mean chapeter 4 will be done by Faction team:mad:

Kick their head developer i say :mad:

[Beat_Go_Stick]

I guess I don't see the gameplay issues that everyone has with Factions.

I like the idea of moving the battlefront using 12 vs. 12.
I like the idea of having my Guild hold a town.
I like the addition of the duplicated spells.
I like the whole Master's mission acquisition.
I like the dual 8 man team missions.
I like the amulet reward at the end of the game.
I like the Factions end game piece over the Prophecies dump you in Drok's ending.
I like the Dragon mask and the festival.
I like the new 15k armors.
I like the new Ritualist Obsidian armor.
I like the new elite missions like "The Deep"
I like the two new character classes.

amen to this. seriously people need to take time with their games and appreciate it.

I take as much time to play a game as I can and I appreciate it as much as it deserves to be appreciated. Let me throw out my own quick list of Factions fun...

12 vs. 12 is a mere 3x Random Arena
Guilds holding towns does nothing aside from show you can grind faction
Duplicated spells are pointless. Being a mesmer with the elite spell, Echo, should mean something
Master's mission acquisition replaces extra content with doing the same thing again, only FASTER :D
Dual 8 man team missions are a great way to watch the best groups lose anyway
The amulet reward at the end of the game was a great addition
The Factions end game piece........well, I was actually hoping for more. Prophecies sucked too, mind you
The Dragon mask and the festival was Wintersday revisited. The only new thing was gambling
There are new 15k armors but I prefer content to carrots
The new Ritualist Obsidian armor? Again, content to carrots, please.
The new elite missions are fun. I wish they tied it in with PvP instead of Faction grinding Guild Alliances
The two new character classes are pretty fun but I would still much rather start one in Tyria than Cantha. I'd be happy never setting foot in Cantha again.

So there's my appreciation. A "stand alone" game that offered the exact same content as its predecessor, only half as well and a year after its predecessor did so. Adding more of the same doesn't always make a game more fun...in fact, it usually doesn't. Calling more of the same "stand alone" even though theres no way it measures up to the original, true stand alone game is the mistake they've made. Half the content, half the character slots when you combine, half the quality of story, and a linear path of travel removing all feeling of freedom that made me actually like the original game.

Maybe if prophecies had never existed I would have been happy with Factions, but as a sequel, it was terrible. A.Net will have to pull a freakin' 200 pound gorrilla out of a Barbie doll sized hat to get a good portion of their playerbase back into this game.

[felinette]

It's just too fast. I'd really like them to make one stand-alone GW game a year AND one big purchasable Expansion that would add lots of content into the game but wouldnt have to contain all that stuff a new standalone campagin HAS to include.
Funny you should say that. I was in a Factions area last night and people were moaning in local chat about how they aren't ready to shell out another $50 for Nightfall, and won't be any time soon. We forget that most of us here on the forums are hardcore. There are a lot of casual players who aren't interested in shelling out $50 every 6 months, especially when it's mom and dad's money. A number of guildies only just got Factions, while others don't have it yet. They're not interested in hearing about yet another chapter, and won't be for a while.

[Cirian]

My beef with Factions was having to grind old skills for my Core secondary professions. I mean, I'd like to think I could play the new Chapter 2 classes with some benefit from having played Chapter 1, but no, only PvP players see the benefits of sharing skills across to new classes. That was really annoying, so I just played Factions through with my Tyrian characters and their large multi-class skill sets that had taken me months to build up.

For casual gamers, grinding the old skills to be able to play with them again just isn't fun. If Nightfall is the same, I'll mostly boycott the secondary profession as a waste of time and think of my new characters as primary profession only... except for maybe a handful of absolute essential secondary class skills. I think the skill system is horribly handicapped in PvE - of course, I think you need to have a mix of PvP+PvE experience to truly appriciate how much more powerful the PvP skill system is, especially as new chapters get added on. Imagine if all Ascended characters had access to every unlocked skill on your account... now there's a system I'd like to play with!

[Inde]

Anet has 2 design teams.

When Team 1 started Prophecys Team 2 started Factions.

When Porphecys was realsed Team 1 started work on Nightfall.

When Factions was realsed i assume Team 2 started work in Chap 4.
Actually, I have seen no verification if that is indeed how it works. All we know is there are 2 teams. We do not know if they switch back and forth. These teams could be set up where one team consistently does the newest chapter and one team remains with the older chapters. Just had to note that as it has never been clarified so this would be speculation.

[Firestone]

First off, congratulations for the most generic rant ever.

Second, I am tired of seeing people say this:



Name me three quests from Prophecies that WEREN'T "go get this for me" "take this here" "kill that guy/those guys".

1. Magi Malaquire: Malaquire's Test
2. Grazden the Protector: Protection Prayers
3. Lina the Healer: Adventure with an Ally
4. Armin Saberlin: A Second Profession
5. Damaris: The Ascalon Settlement
6. Orozar Highstone: Noble Intentions
7. Tabor Woolridge: The Missing Artisan
8. Duke Gaban: The Egg Hunter
9. Town Crier: Message from a Friend
10. Warmaster Tydus: Scavengers in Old Ascalon

[Navaros]

The Dragon mask and the festival was Wintersday revisited. The only new thing was gambling


No it wasn't. The Dragon festival items were not useful, not worth anything and not farmable (other than for orbs, which were the least useful and worth the least).

Whereas with Wintersday, the opposite is true. Hence Wintersday was actually much better.

I like the gambling of Dragon's Festival, that was the only good thing in the Festival in my view.

[Beat_Go_Stick]

No it wasn't. The Dragon festival items were not useful, not worth anything and not farmable (other than for orbs, which were the least useful and worth the least).

Whereas with Wintersday, the opposite is true. Hence Wintersday was actually much better.

I like the gambling of Dragon's Festival, that was the only good thing in the Festival in my view.

No way, dude.......I run CIRCLES around you in town now! :p

Heh, I really wish the Dragon helms dyed better.......mine looks really lame since I can't get it to match the rest of my armor :\

[Rent]

1. Magi Malaquire: Malaquire's Test
2. Grazden the Protector: Protection Prayers
3. Lina the Healer: Adventure with an Ally
4. Armin Saberlin: A Second Profession
5. Damaris: The Ascalon Settlement
6. Orozar Highstone: Noble Intentions
7. Tabor Woolridge: The Missing Artisan
8. Duke Gaban: The Egg Hunter
9. Town Crier: Message from a Friend
10. Warmaster Tydus: Scavengers in Old Ascalon

1. How is this not a "kill that guy" quest? You have to kill a boss; that's it.

2. Escort. I forgot this classification, but it CAN be boiled down to "kill those guys before they kill this NPC here".

3. "step outside and come talk to me" Doesn't even count as a quest.

4. "go there and talk to that guy" Falls under "take this there".

5. Escort.

6. Escort.

7. "go get this for me"

8. Escort.

9. "go talk to that guy" See above.

10. "go talk to that guy" I'll give you this one, since it takes a specific method of talking to get it done.

One unique quest in all of Prophecies. Hurrah.

[angshuman]

10. "go talk to that guy" I'll give you this one, since it takes a specific method of talking to get it done.

True. Scavengers in Old Ascalon is probably the most intricate and well-designed quest in the whole of Prophecies. I'm being completely honest, every other quest falls into one of the categories you mentioned. Scavengers actually has a dialogue tree, with different outcomes depending on what options you choose.

Incredibly, Factions takes this a step further in the Am Fah poison-drinking series of quests, where your choice actually has a relatively long-term impact on how (a part of) the gameworld perceives you. Thank you, Anet, for giving us one slightly-better-than-lame quest in the game!

[The Wonder Twins]

I'm not sure if the thread is dead or not, but here are my observations.

I see two major problems with the current model that I haven't seen talked about yet (or if so not in great detail)

1. The biggest issue I see with only allowing the new character types to be generated in the newest chapters is the flood. In a way it almost dosen't matter if the new characters are the most awesome people to play because EVERYONE and their mothers are playing them so unless you are a hench type of player you are never going to get a PuG. It is really discouraging to people who PvE at all for the social dynamic to not be able to really play through the new characters because no one ever wants them in a group. This includes your guildmates because it is extremely hard to put together a functioning group with 5 Assassins.

2. Part of the Proph. afterglow and the Factions anti-afterglow or whatever terms you want to use I think have something to do with the learning curve as well. The prof. campaign was so big that for the first 6 - 8 months people were exploring the content and the character types and it wasn't until people started hitting a content-rejection buffer (not wanting to play completely through the Tyria plot with 6 characters) that the rest of the options (such as farming, running, etc) really started to fill out. I think that the higher-level mentality of alot of the Tyrian players (finding options for farming, etc) carried over to Factions and exacerbated a couple of the problems people are talking about 1. a drive to push through an objective very quickly (to get specific drops like ectos) and linked to that is 2. The cookie-cutter model of playing.

/sorry for the long rant
//slashies forever!

[WasAGuest]

heh, the quest talk is funny to me. I always saw the quests as what you did with henchies or just something to do before you got to the missions. The missions are where the actual fun took place for me. Comparing the dullest parts or "time wasting" aspects of the game is cause for me to laugh.

Nightfall needs fewer quests, more missions and more explorable areas, with or without a need for having to go there. Nightfall also desperatly needs a much larger game area. Why? Well, those annoying quests that we all seem to love were much more fun and enjoyable in Proph simply because there were fewer and they took place over a much larger area. So many in Factions, in such a small area caused many to burn out too fast on such a small area.

[Markaedw]

Personally I think that the "stand-alone" model is unsustainable, eventually old chapters will have to be removed or overridden. Even now there are places in Prophecies and Factions where there are not enough people to sustain a mission or quest. When 3 comes out it is just going to get worse. Unless something changes, I don't forsee GW having a sustainable population past 4, we'll just be to spread out.

[Omega X]

Actually, I have seen no verification if that is indeed how it works. All we know is there are 2 teams. We do not know if they switch back and forth. These teams could be set up where one team consistently does the newest chapter and one team remains with the older chapters. Just had to note that as it has never been clarified so this would be speculation.

Actually there were some confimation. Gaile explained it one time and Jeff Strain said it the second time. I'll see If I can dig them up but it was a while ago.

-There were 2 teams and they each would start on a chapter while the other was going on. I specifically remember Gaile saying that Factions would have been out last year around Fall, but they stopped production on it a bit to do Sorrow's Furnace which pushed things back. So Chapter 2 was started sometime after Chapter 1 went into Beta testing, most likely Janurary or Feburary 2005.

-Chapter 3 was started on sometime in October or November 2005. And it is planned to be released sometime Fall 2006, Most likely in October.

-Factions was released in April 2006. Not too long after(or before. Can't remember), Chapter 4 was started on. Chapter 4 is slated to be released in April 2007.

They started a trend where each game would see a Year of development and 6 month releases. Factions would be the only exception because its production was turbulent(which probably would explain the quality of content).

[Xaero Gouki Kriegor]

I compare this kind of farming for FoW armor, you gotta ignore other people's comments and downing opinions, and make judgment for yourself, and if it is truely worth it to yourself, go for it, I myself think the same to the new chapters and etc and new content being added to the guildwars game, every subject has a thread cirtizing it to hell when it comes to the internet, imho , you gotta make judgment for yourself before you observe the judgments of other people, for observing and taking in other people's judgments will truely affect your full opinion on the subject on the spotlight.

[markus_thom]

Indeed. I'd love to see more Sorrow's Furnace like addons to Tyria and Cantha. For Tyria, you could do more exploration in the ruins of Orr, push further north of the Great Northern Wall into some high level Charr strongholds, or go to the home of the Seer, wherever that may be. Prophecies left plenty of unanswered questions. And you can always introduce new problems in old areas, like the invasion of grasps during the dragon festival.

Yeah for sure, and it isn’t exactly hard to implement these changes or add explorable areas to past chapters, I'd like Anet to comment on why they plan to throw old ideas into the dirt, and justify if with a proper explanation.

I like the idea of areas past dragon gullet or quests that link into something big, north of Ascalon, it would sell like mad.

Even an expansion to the poorly developed faction wars between Luxon/Kuzerick which moves a line up and down the map and that’s about it, this is perfect example of something you could extend on. Don’t get me wrong I do enjoy alliance battles, and the whole Luxon and Kuzerick war thing going on, but it had next to no effect on the game and needs more depth put into it.

It’s quite obvious when you put an idea out there that people like you should extend off it, instead of ignoring it and going onto the next chapter.

Did you guys notice how excited people got when they noticed the dredge dug their way over to Canatha, it’s because when people get to know a story or situation they want to see it through.

fresh material is good but its worthless if you don’t give it a proper background or leave it unexplained, I hope you do go back and extend or explain or go into detail about past story plots or game mechanics that people enjoyed.

Yeah I know I’m basically retyping what I said but I want people to get behind this.