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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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).

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



Nothing further, Your Honor.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ::

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.