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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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

Sure, that's what they say, but they expect people to buy every chapter, that is how they make money.

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

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.

Agree with most points people have made.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

that mean chapeter 4 will be done by Faction team

Kick their head developer i say

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
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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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!

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 :\

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.

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!