Guild Wars Nightfall Exclusive...

I wonder if after throwing the spear, will it magically reappear in your hand or will you run a get it xD

lmfao. Like playing fetch with yourself. xD

It does that with Ranger arrows (They appear out of nowhere - I guess quivers are reserved for NPCs) - I would assume that yes, they do appear out of nowhere and you have an unlimited supply of them

unlimited spears? >.<
arrows are ok, but im worried how the spears are gonna look...

A/Me with illusion of weakness will solve your low health problems...somewhat.

Anyway, I'm wondering if GW will be able to stay in business and keep interest in the game for very much longer. The only reason I personally am putting any interest in the Ch. 3 is because I really love the fighting style of pole-arm weapons like the scythe. (which better be a two-handed polearm) With so many char slots the game is just becoming a huge timegrind

That is so cool. I didn't know that. but mostly what I'm drooling about is the idea (the hope from over here) that you won't have to delete a character. Has the added character slot question been answered yet?

*sigh* Im at work, and the article is blocked! Its ok, Im getting a lot of info from reading this post.

So I wonder if this is the trend now. It took (I believe) at least 1 year for the 2nd chapter to be announced from the time Prophecies debuted. Now for the third chapter, it has been barely 6 months since factions actually hit the store shelves. Does that mean we should be expecting chapters to be churned out at a lightning pace?

I sorta have mixed feelings about the new classes. But then I should wait and try them out before I comment further. What is more important is that the game will now have many more combinations to work with, and even if the new classes do not make very effective primaries, it is ALWAYS interesting to see how they compliment other classes as a secondary.

I like the way the theme is moving though. Prophecies was Classic Anglo Medieval. Factions was oriental. And now the third chapter is looking a little bit Arabian.

I think it would be awesome if they made the paragon like the amazon class from D2. I was just thinking of how sweet Spear and Javelin Class amazons were lol. If paragon was like a javazon with warcries ... that would be unbelievable lol.

AND WTH! they still need a shapeshifter class!!

For crying out loud, ANET has said over and over and over again that the level cap will not be raised AND Gaile has just repeated that the level cap will not be raised not too long before your post.

Every 6 months.

Its been alittle over 3 months since factions release actually, which means Nightfall would hit in like 3 months.

I hope it is indeed Javelins/Darts/Harpoons instead of general "spears" because one is a generally a throwing weapon, the other is not.....

But anyway...Disappearing weapons shouldnt be such a big deal i mean...go out into a exploration zone and do an emote

I have to agree with TheMosesPHD. Those who are looking for a lvl increase for characters are forgetting that A.Net does NOT want the normal MMORPG game. Their success is attributed to the niche they have carved out for themselves - that is a relaxed RPG with no real stress on leveling or getting the UBER equips. This is honestly the only RPG where you can finish the storyline in less than a month CASUALLY playing.

Also the best part you don't feel left out joining the game now because everybody is NOT decked out in uber attribute adding gear. A.Net has always maintained that the focus is on your ability to select 8 skills and create a build that is effective - not epic items or max lvls.

Also for those crying for more difficulty in the PvE portion of the game, another note they are forgetting, is these chapters are independent. You don't need prophecies or factions to play nightfall. So increasing the lvl cap is sort of pointless. Really the point of bringing out a new chapter is NOT to challenge you in PvE but to challenge you in creating a new build that owns in PvP/PvE/Both.

i totally agree with this its so right

Yeah I agree.. no need to raise level cap when the new chapter is independent. It's mainly going to be for creating a new character or exploring the later end with faction/prophices characters.

As for difficulty.. it's difficult enough. There is a variety depending on where you go and what you try to do. There is UW and FoW which are accessable in both characters alone.

Would I love the cap to be raised... yeah but that's my own fault. I play it so much that i milk it for everything it has (or that i enjoy) rather quickly. But taking a step back I think they are on the right track. I just love the PVE of Guild Wars so much that I could have a lvl 100 by now but it's nice and less frustrating when everyone is pretty equal.. as some said it makes it more fun and less stressfull.

Maybe someday A.Net will make a Guild Wars type game that has a higher lvl cap and expansions instead of stand alones. Though I'm very happy with this for the time being. But...

Guild Wars 2... I will be there

FINALLY! Somebody has the logic and rationale to state it: Assasins are NOT designed as tanks!

I really am sick of ppl knocking the new classes. From the beginning (if ppl remember that far back) A.Net stated they will NOT charge a monthly fee, but to continue making money they WILL create new classes and content that will encourage you to buy the "expansions". I initially thought, that is more than fair making an "expansion". But to make things even easier, they decide with factions, it would be an independent game (hence no need to buy prophecies).

And it does make sense, if the motive of them is to increase its gamer base (not just appease its original prophecies gamers). If gamers expect that they be appeased and everything is an improvement to the original they are definitely playing the wrong game. Monthly fee MMORPGs are for those ppl. Isn't that where the monthly fees go? Improving what is already good or existing? eg. World of Warcraft. I used to play it, and I stopped for 6 months, and they have added so much more content since I stopped, it might as well be a new game.

And the whole assasin issue lol. STOP bad mouthing the assasin just because ppl don't know how to play the class. If ppl actually knew how to use the assasin (rather than using it as a tank) - eg. adding DPS to a mob, and smartly using the teleport skills to lose aggro; sins wouldnt be that bad.

So to all you whiners, give A.Net a break. You're aren't gods that are meant to be appeased every patch and release.

And that is my griping of the day.

I'm so excited I could just .......errr... hope for them to start working this hard on fixing all the small bugs left flying around and put someone to work on deleting the excessive amounts of bots training through certain towns like a conveyor belt.

My guess is that if they really want to exploit players more then already so far, then they make the new classes just ever so slightly more advantageous (like maybe nerf the warriors recently, ala the nerfing of +5 energy weapons before Factions, etc.)..... then the real kicker........

Don't give new slots to accounts so that you either buy yet another entire set of cd's for getting all skills you might want for certain combos of skills... whoohooo!! Bend over all you delighted. [Gosh I hope they don't pull this, but losing faith pretty quick as it seems the almight buck is really becoming evermore powerful in the ANET eyes since we get marketting tactic after tactic and the "smaller issues" of bugs, bots, game scammers, etc. are let run rampant.]

On the Guild Wars Guru homepage, in bright red it says that the special PvP weekend will be from the 21st to 23rd? Is that just a misprint, or was it changed to grasp the hype even more? I hope its not this weekend, I'll be in the car all Friday and Saturday going on vacation.

There is a double-point event this weekend.
The Nightfall preview is the weekend after.

Two events, two weekends in a row.
Be happy.

as has been stated countless times they have two (2) main development teams working on a 6 month staggered schedule.

it took 1 year for factions because it took one year from release of GW to the release of Factions.

THE NIGHTFALL TEAM STARTED 6 MONTHS AFTER THE RELEASE OF GW AND WILL RELEASE NIGHTFALL ONE YEAR AFTER THAT WITH 1 YEAR OF WORK ON IT.

CHAPTER 4 STARTED ON THE RELEASE OF FACTIONS FOR A SECOND ANNIVERSARY RELEASE APRIL 28 TH 2007.

EACH GETS ONE FULL YEAR OF WORK NOT THE 6 MONTHS BETWEEN RELEASES WHICH CONFUSES PEOPLE.

That's not the preview event I don't think, it's just another double-faction/fame PVP weeekend event.

GJ

1. SKILLS THEMSELVES
A lvl 30 is nothing if it doesn't have skills. It's all about the skills. Why do monster only skills rock so much? Because the mobs are capped in level too.

2. SKILL USAGE
Also, if the mobs use their skills better it may mean your demise. Think of it as if the player versus player intelligence of GvG oriented guilds comes to PvE.

3. AGGRO/PATHING OF MOBS
A warrior's isn't lethal if it is beating on another warrior with a healer, it becomes lethal when hammering your healer.

4. NUMBER OF MOBS /DIVERSITY
If there are 3 mobs, it is easier than 8. 8 Mobs are easier than 12. So on and so forth. Especially if the mobs have one of each type of profession, it becomes tougher.

5.TIMING
if you had to kill Glint in 15 seconds, it would be harder than if you just had to kill her.

SKills are the big thing if they wanted PvE to be harder...

They would just give them better skill bars.

Most monsters right now pack 2-3 skills at most, and they almost never party with complimenting classes.

The hardest mobs in the game are the ones that come in balanced partys, and/or use skill sets that test your own builds. Monsters are "easy" because they are so oneminded..

Because they're ridiculously overpowered?

That makes absolutely no sense. You are basically saying that the current user base is never valid, They have to attract new gamers and only new gamers. That is bull, plain and simple. Anet MUST appease to the current userbase as well as bringing in new players, otherwise they lose current users to a game that actually improves and progresses. That means, LESS profit not more. Getting 2 million(based on sales) users to buy the next Chapter in ADDITION to a million or more means more money for them and more that they can achieve.

If Anet expects to keep everything exactly the same and somehow bring in more users, then current users will leave and not buy future installments. Why, because nothing was Improved and nothing was Unique.

I hope you can change from throwing spears to also poking people with em, like melee than range.

i think the crappy part of gw is not really the game play but the amount of places you can get items .... i would like to see more uw and sf were u can get exclusive items .... but thats just the first part .... gw should make it HARDER to kill these monsters cause people get these items no problem ..... I would like there to be something like in wow with raids but people would go to sorrow to get awsome stuff but it wouldn't be such a walk in the park .... gw might say that this game is about GUILD play so something interesting would be that you can only go to these places to get the items and face the hard monsters with a 12 man group from YOUR guild ONLY or ALLIANCE .... this will prove which guilds are powerful and there can be competitions to which guild can take a boss down first ...

didnt factions come out like.. 7 months ago? 8? already a sequel? i normally expect it to take at least a year before a sequel to a game comes out O.o

anyway, cant wait. :P whats pathetic though.. is ive barely done anything on the factions campaign o.O will be painful doing 2 campaigns at once..

but, who cares.. more PvP fun

Few comments and thoughts:

-Paragon's are likely to be a half casting range class. I'm getting this vibe from the casting range on many of the "spear" spells as well as the shout range. This matters significantly in how the character is played (and balanced). You can have more powerful effects in close range because the risk at that range is higher.

-Melee range AoE makes too much sense not to be a significant element of a class. Smiters make their money on two skills both of which are basically melee range AoE. While I don't expect this to be overpowered, it is a proven mechanic.

-Shouts are another proven mechanic which is ready for a balanced implimentation. Orders are basically super shouts, which have had much success in PvP. Warrior shouts are kind of mixed, but they aren't very developed. Give me a shout that costs 15 energy and you have something to build around.

-Single weapon classes (Rangers, assassins) have enjoyed some success in a strong weapon development. The ability to get a wide variety of skills for the same weapon across the class makes for interesting building IMO. We seem to have two such classes, which is promising. Down the road I'd like to see a two weapon class with real options for carrying two weapons, but I can wait.

-Monks and warriors again bear the majority of the overlap. GOOD! Monks and warriors are played the most and providing more alternatives helps the meta game. That said neither will be replaced as primary healers or damage dealer.

-Dervishes mysterious "god skills" will definitely provide something unique to PvP. Anything that turns you into a god is a "Timmy" skill. Seems a dervish will have low-medium sustained damage, weakish utility and some mega skills. I feel this could be an awesome game mechanic or a noob-only dud.

-Assassins and ritualists get too much hate; they are as good as advertised. Assassins have excellent movement and 1v1 potential. Ritualists provide good support healing and excellent turtling ability. I hope future expansion classes aren't this niche, but after playing a rit over the gvg weekend I feel they contribute nicely to the game.

-I don't think I'd be very happy with 2 professions each expansion, but if they keep the game mechanics interesting I'll keep playing them.

-I have high expectations for the new professions and I feel that they won't feel as foreign as rits or assassins did. Depending on the details, both could easily find unique roles in high level PvP without displacing current styles of play.

I agree that introducing new professions could cause "parity" and devaluation of uniqueness amongst the profession's role. This possibility is dependent on good/bad design.

So far ANet has given us no reason to doubt their designs(that wasn't discovered quickly through very informative testing and subsequently "fixed")

What else are new professions good for? Aesthetics. More pretty armor, more pretty faces.

Anyone have any speculations on what the each new prof's primary attribute will be? I was really hoping that there would be a class who's primary attribute increases attack speed, like 2% increase per point in attri, but it doesn't seem like that would fit either new class.

Also from the explanation of the Dervish class, I can't really discern whether or not the "ebodiment of a god" feature will be something involving multiple skills of different effect like the rit's urns, or if it's just a hype teaser that will really end up being just one elite skill that will have to be nerfed over and over.

PS: My increase attack speed attri idea isn't imbalanced :P

I see what you are getting at, and in most situations you are right. But I believe you're missing my point. I was responding to ppl who believe they need to make the PvE more challenging by raising lvl caps, increasing difficulty, and so on and so forth. Others are claiming that they are just cheapening the game by bringing out new classes and not improving the old. But those ppl are forgetting from a marketing standpoint they do NOT need to need to do this. Why is that? Because of the type of game A.net has created.

GW is not essentially a storyline RPG like WoW, or FFXI, or Everquest. Most MMORPGs are designed epic storylines first, and PvP a secondary activity within the game. Guild Wars was essentially designed with PvP in mind (as I remember A.net claimed back in summer of 2005 when I retired WoW to come to this game). During beta, I remember a contest on who could be the best guild in the ladder and I think the prize was they get to keep their name in final. As a moot point, ppl the game is called GUILD WARS... hopefully that explains the focus a bit.

So if GW is primarily PvP focused, why do they have to make the PvE more challenging? PvE serves a sole purpose of getting you from lvl 1-20 in the fastest, most efficient way, so you can of course do what? PVP! And think about the way GW chapters are designed. They are completely independent of each other. Honestly many would agree that you really are not missing anything by playing Factions only and completely ignoring Prophecies. The warrior in Factions is completely the same as the warrior in Prophecies.

So I think that hyphothesizes the answers to why A.net is not improving and increasing the difficulty of PvE content.

But what about the adding new skills and such to the existing classes. First off they have added some skills in each chapter. Those skills are nothing to get all excited about, but they have added skills. Second, based on the strategy of how they are marketing this game, they shouldn't have to. A.Net has always been emphasizing certaing attributes of the game. The one that I see on their website, in the game manuals, in reviews of the game (etc etc) is: the number of combinations of dual class builds you can have. And you the fact of not being stuck with a crappy char if you build it wrong! Every combination has its advantages. So it is only natural that they add more classes in and give gamers more OPTIONS (which is what they pride GW on).

And finally this may sound arrogant or idiotic, but I believe its true. First off, those who are whining about PvE are in the wrong game. Please try WoW or FFXI or DAoC or whatever. Because from experience, those games will challenge you PvE-wise. Second, no matter how many people say they are going to leave this game, I believe (and I think A.net has concluded from market research) few will actually do it. This game has good reviews, has been recognized with awards and editor's picks, and is always on the top 5 PC list. GW is not a perfect game, but it still is a damn good one. Thus, this game will not crash and burn if all the whiners left, because it has a large enough reputation that there will always be newcomers to replace the person who left. And that is the power of good marketing

Not that I don't agree with some of your points but Jeff Strain --Categorically DENIED that Guild Wars was a PvP only focused game. And it is foolish to think so.

Yes they DID design the game with PvP in mind compared to other MMOs. But if you remove the PvE half of the game and you won't have even half of the people playing the game. That's why PvE exists. They can't remove it without losing sales. But they have to make it challenging and less linear to keep it fresh.

I don't blame people who think that PvE isn't a challenge. AND I don't blame people for whining about PvP being favored over PvE because its true. But remove PvE and its half the game it used to be and those "RAVE Reviews" will turn into average reviews.

actually no as found in this Jeff Strain interview

I stand corrected I guess it is a personal view. And I believe my bias comes from favoring the original game and the reasons why I left World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI. I have had the opportunity to play games with much superior story and quest lines, and of course with that comes PvE that requires as much teamwork as the PvP in GW. So leaving that and coming to GW I understand A.Net's "inability" to grow an increasingly challenging RPG lol.

So despite their shortcomings, I will say they have a done an awesome job, and I will be greatly anticipating Nightfall.

why the ---- (sry for the expression) have they decided to make that event when most of people are on SUMMER HOLIDAYS?? I will not able to play in this event I WILL go mad

What is the Holiday?Still on 4th of July vacation?If so that sucks. Anyways Im pscyched for the preview pvp thing.You think there will be a pve thing similar to factions? Zasalamel FTW!

i'm spanish and i have 3 months and normally we go out to the beach or enjoy them on july or august so... i can't play

So you are on holiday, not people? :P

yes but Spanish people play gw too

it's not like they planned to ruin people on vacation's day. It happens to fall here because Ch3 is due out in a bit. And, I know I'd at least rather have it out during summer than when I'm trying to write a paper/lab for school.

yeah i know but you know, its summer and most people is not at home during this period (at least on my country)

the thing is that i will not able to play the event, nothing more. i know the do it when they want and depending on the date of the realising the new chapter

i love this events