GW and The Sims series: Expansion Pack Philosophies

Hi Mazz, grats on your first post!

I think this concern has been raised before, and to the best of my knowledge, I do not believe anyone from ANet/NCSoft has directly commented on this issue. My personal feeling is that since all chapters are going to be standalones, there will, in theory, always be those who have only that particular chapter and will hence always be playing on that specific continent. I don't know how acute this potential problem can be, though, with more chapters coming. My guess is that only time will tell.

I wouldn't, I'm not worried at all.

Your forgetting that Factions is built on an exisiting Game Engine and the devs already have access to the tools needed to implement new things and change parts of the exisiting Engine.

The only reason Prophecies took 5 years to make is becuase they had to first create the game core game Engine from from scratch, which most likely took 2-3 years in its own right.

Then they had to create the content of Prophecies.

Thus the time it took to create.

Firstly, I understand that Anet is a business and therefore needs to make a profit to stay in business.


However, I will not be buying Nightfall. I have had Prophecies for over a year and have enjoyed it. I recently (through the nudging of my guild members) purchased Factions. I have been very disappointed with Factions overall.

There are novel ideas in Factions, to be sure, however much of the "enhancement" is just poorly executed.

Now, that's not to say that Factions is not a ok game to play. I just don't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the original. Nevermind the fact that with this "standalone game" we didn't even get a level cap bump.

A friend of mine and I discussed this very situation and agreed that Nightfall will be the end of Prophecies. Factions will become the core and Nightfall will become the new one.

It would be ignorant to try and speculate as to what will happen, but I'm an ignoramus, so I will anyways.

I believe that the majority of players are core players. And frankly, if I could go back and change my decision to purchase Factions, I would. I do not see many core players purchasing Nightfall.

I hate the idea of Guild Wars dying out (no servers), but I'm sorry, if Anet wants my money they need to make a better quality product that SERVES the community of GW.

Sorry, thanks for playing.


Disregarding the fact that the level cap will never, ever change, why would ANet be stupid enough to give their two games different caps? It goes utterly against sanity (not to mention their entire stated philosophy) to presume that they would allow Factions-only characters to be inherently better Prophecies characters.

this analogy is kinda flawed because you are comparing a single player game with a multi player one. In GW, I need to build up my chars or I get left behind my friends. In Sims, I can go at any pace, it doesn't matter how far I have progressed. I have nobody I have to keep up with.

On a side note EVERY MMO has to contend with the problem of new land masses spreading people out too much. But they have to put out new content because if they don't people become bored and quit. There is a direct and proven correlation between mastering a game and the amount of time people spend playing it.

I personly think anet should take 1 1/2 or two years on one chapter. i think one year is not enough!

2 teams staggered at 1 1/2 years would equal to a release every 9 months.

This would make it difficul to land on important fiscal dates and release times regularly chosen by game manufacturers for specific reasons.

April = End of the 1st Fiscal Quarter

November = Beginning of the Christmas Season

You also have to keep in mind that they have to have something to show at important gaming conventions like E3.

My immediate reaction to this was something rude and derrogatory, but you are right and I am (at least logically) wrong. I guess the "thanks for playing" was your smarmy, in-your-face-rebel-without-a-care-attitude. You sure showed me!

I wonder why companies keep repeating the same mistake?

GW is my first online game. I'd taken a look at others, even tried a trial period, but didn't bite. Why GW? What attracted me to it was the existence of henchies. I liked that you could hench, according to what I'd read and the GW players I asked. Well, they ruined that with Factions.

I understand them wanting to drive sales, but they should do it by releasing a chapter with compelling content that their players rave about and recommend to their friends, not by forcing people to buy new chapters if they want upgrades to basic game items like storage.

I doubt that. I have Factions, but I'm back to mainly playing Prophecies. When I do play Factions, I've noticed that some towns/outposts in Cantha have even less people in them, and less districts, than those in Tyria. As well, I have two accounts and belong to two different guilds. Everyone in both guilds who owns Factions and Prophecies thinks Prophecies is the superior game, every single one. Except for one time, every time I've grouped with either guild in the past couple of weeks, it's been in Tyria.

Of course, Anet might decide to kill Prophecies, but that would be different.