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

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!

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.