Bad Business at Arena Net

I'm much more of a PvEer than PvPer. Not that I don't PvP on occasion.

I liked Factions' PvE, but as has been said, it didn't feel as well done as Prophecies. This isn't simply because the map is so much smaller and thus takes less time to explore (I can still see some beautiful sights in Cantha), but that the storyline of Factions didn't satisfy me.

I didn't expect it to be as expansive as Prophecies, but I did expect it to be better than what it turned out to be. On the other hand, storylines in so-called RPGs these days usually leave much to be desired, so... *shrug*

In the scheme of things, PvE in Factions is fine. I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to pull each of my characters through the multitude of quests/missions for elite capping, but then, the third and fourth time through Tyria got tedious as well.

Guild Wars is about doing stuff (whether PvP or PvE) with your friends. Really, no matter what you're doing, if you're in good company you're more likely to have fun.

LOL the op is right it comes down to money! The fan base is rpg players.

If you don't have enough people buying this game, You will not have gw and by by pvp and gw!

I see that alot of pvp players have now effected these fourms!


look people don't have to adted, they just don't have to playing the game! you get enough people not playing this game by by gw.

*sigh* Being a primarily PvE player I have to say that I do not find anything wrong with factions PvE content EXCEPT the length that is to say there should be more of it. The set up of the whole system is fine to me it is different from prophecies as it should be otherwise we would be complaining that there was nothing new. I enjoy the game in all its aspects there is nothing I don't like even the grind. Why do I enjoy the grind you ask... that is because of the friends I have found in the game they are great and make everything fun. We don't always do everything together but we talk on teamspeak and laugh all evening long. And to those that say that they are bored with the game.. I have been playing at least two hours a day about 5 days a week for six months I am still not bored. I am enjoying my friends, helping them, farming with them, AB'ing, etc. And when nightfall comes out I will buy it in the hopes that the PvE is longer but if not I will enjoy it for what it is and continue to play with my friends.

Ah, an interview I read a while back makes more sense now. In it, someone from Anet (maybe Jeff Strain) said they were surprised at how many people wanted to stick with their PvE characters, which I guess means how many people continued to play their characters in PvE after finishing the storyline, instead of moving to PvP. If that's the case, you'd figure Anet would take that into account when designing new chapters, rather than trying to force the player base to adhere to Anet's original vision. That's not to say that nobody moves from PvE to PvP--obviously many do. But if more than they thought remain with PvE, they should play to that a little more.

I agree that Factions PvE is way too short.

I think what it boils down to is there are two really distinct forms of play, this applies to gaming in general as well: one is Co-Op, where players play together in a team vs AI baddies, or go off doing quests and adventures and exploration together.

The other is Player vs Player, which by and large forsakes everything else. Truth is the Co-op mode is quite popular in itself, and not everyone wants to play PvP - which can become very intense, very serious competition which not everyone wants.

I think Factions PvE is both too short and the attempt by Anet to push PvE players into PvP has overall, failed. Without any stats from Anet, this conclusion is based on the state of Jade Quarry and Aspenwood (at least in Euro servers) which are really not all that popular. One is mostly empty and the other isn't jam packed with eager PvE'ers either. This in itself supports the OP in that it could indicate a decline in interest in GW (the ideas in Factions just haven't taken hold, and if Anet is to continue with this it very well could cost them an established playerbase of PvE folks already)

People who generally prefer co-op type of games are probably less inclined to want to take part in direct competition or find it less enjoyable (and vice versa might well be true too)

Well some of the high end PvP players are apparently in close contact with parts of the Dev. team. I would not be surprised to find that a majority of the Beta testers are PvP players first and PvE players by necessity.
But as long as they don't force me to play Pvp I will continue to play GW.

Considering that they probably made this realisation as work was already under way on Chapter 2, the team responsible for Chapter 1 would be aware of this, and if Anet played their cards right, add more PvE content to Chapter 3.

I'm a PvPer mostly, and before I PvPed I went through Prophecies around 5-6 times and was sick and tired of it, probably only because you have to group up with people that most of the time have no clue what they're doing. And the henchies suck too and get boring real fast.

I dreaded doing Factions PvE and it took me about 2-3 months before I created a character (Monk, to take things into my own hands) and completed the game. Before that, I was (like the majority of PvPers) unlocking new skill, trying out new PvP builds, etc.

I'm definately buying NightFall purely for the new professions&skills that will introduced, as I tend to enjoy making new PvP builds and combinations that new content introduces. Definately not for the PvE element, but it is a nice break from PvP (although I definately don't agree on it being a distraction for PvPers, as that's a bit over the top).

I actually tried to enter battle in Fort Aspenwood last night. I'm an avowed PvE player, but one of my characters is working on the cartographer title and I wasn't sure if Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry counted. So I figured I'd join a battle and see if the percent explored increased, though whichever group ended up with me would have had my sympathies. However, after repeatedly getting the message "No opposing team joined the battle. Restarting counter," I gave up, and this was during prime-time playing hours. There's a guy in the alliance my guild belongs to that's constantly trying to get people to join him for alliance battles, but nobody ever wants to, even when tons of people are on.

Good point!

Anet has moved away from what it promised from the start. If I was anet I would get ride of their beta testers. get fresh good batch of beta testers that know what they are doing!

if anet doesn't have better rpg, this will not make the top list next year! I will bet money it!

If chapter 3 has better content for rpg. Then the guies that made factions will always have a bad rep among rpg players.

Any ways this chapter 3 will make or break anet, good luck!

they allready do, the dev team from factions need to broken up and completly reorganiste.
They are proberbly very good at what they do as individuals, but as a team they have not been impressive yet, IMOP

I have been primarily a PvE player. Love the Factions content, there's plenty. Especially if you go outside and find the hidden quests!

But then... freakin alliance battles. They're addictive.

Do alliance battles, get faction. Convert faction to jadeite. Trade jadeite for minipets.

PvP has turned me into a minipet collector. The PvP/PvE line has become blurred now such that there is no real distinction for me anymore.

I find this a good thing.

GW always maintained that it tries a balance for PVE and PVP players


Chapter Prophecies

PVE content was really good right from the start .Took months to finsih the mission and very enjoyable

PVP content was good too


Chapter Factions

What the hell happened to PVE content .The map size shrinked .
Agreed PVP content was more with elite and coop missions etc but i didnt pay 50 bucks for just PVP/GVG content

I paid becoz i believed that GW would have a balance between PVP and PVE

The PVE of FACTION is disguisting I finished 2 of my characters in jsut 1 month

Where is the thrill like the desert , or capping heaven like abaondon mouth , where are the challenging missions like Sorrow Furnace

and WTF i can kill shiro under 2 minutes that the game finale cmon ....

10/10 for the 2nd team for making PVP content as per the PVE content goes you guys should be fired

So when Chapter 3 comes out (Thank God it is done by the team of Prophecies) i expect a good quality PVE content for my 50 bucks
I dont care how many times u nerf what not and keep PVP balanced ,,

And beta testers affect the content of the expansion how? They just play the game, report any bugs they find and such. While there was some very odd and obvious flaws in Factions, they might be last minute changes, or simply were overlooked. Or completely untested (like "Charting the Forests"-quest proved"). Still, even if you have a good team of betatesters, there still will be stuff a force of 500,000+ players will find, that's so much more spare time and inventiveness in that bunch.

I wouldn't go blaming beta testers for any game problems, in any case

Prophecies can be completed easily within a week even without playing hardcore, what's your point? GW has always offered pretty weak PvE portion, since there isn't six months of grinding required to reach the max level.

Agreed here. I didn't PvP at all before Factions, and now I do it pretty actively in form of AvA and Aspenwood.

I'm mostly a pve player and I'm happy with factions. The original campaign was messy, unstructured and without any focus, with people bypassing 80% of the game shortly after release. I enjoy the current style of gameplay and please keep in mind that there's not one definition of pve gameplay out there - 40 man zergraids for loot might be the most popular, but if you want that there's lots of games out there. Why play GW which was openly advertised as being geared towards balance and low lvl cap?

The Factions PvE content discussion has been going on and on since a week after release, but let's take a look at PvP instead. Did Factions deliver value for money in that area?

For me, as a casual PvPer, the answer would be "no effin way." Casual PvP has gone from moderately entertaining to excruciatingly annoying with the release of Factions. The competitive missions are a JOKE. Fort Aspenwood is plagued by AFK faction leechers, an endless cause for annoyance. I've given up on it. I wish I could say something about the Jade Quarry. Alas, I can't. The mission has never started for me. I just don't have the time to wait for it to start, if it ever does. I've waited for over 15 minutes at several occasions, and no luck. My limited gaming time is too precious to waste waiting any longer.

Arena Battles. I loved them in the Factions Preview Weekend, but I can't be bothered with how they turned out. For me, Another wasted part of Factions.

Random Arenas used to be more fun before Factions, despite all its shortcomings. Now, after the introduction of the Gladiator title, the '5 second leavers' have become a multitude more common. Don't like the party composition? Leave. 90% of these leavers are Mo/Mes, R/Ns or some other cookie-cutter build who only want to play with a team of other cookie-cutters so they can get their precious Gladiator points at the expense of destroying the playing field. Bugger off to the Team Arenas, pick a team and do some real fighting instead of harvesting easy wins.

As always, ANet stands by and does nothing to fight the abuse.

That about covers all the PvP variants that I might want to play. I can only conclude that Factions wasn't even worth 1 shiny dollar to me as far as the PvP part is concerned. Let me be the first to say that Factions does add some great PvP innovations, but they fall complete flat due to an unwillingness or inability on the part of ANet to weed out the abuse.

You forget that WoW has expansions too and you still had to pay for the game.

What I'd have paid for the last year:
Guild Wars: $40 game + $40 expansion = $80
WoW: $40 game + $40 expansion + ($12/month * 12 months) = $224

Anets main focal group with Guild Wars was the casual player. Thats why people with the time can blow through the game in 24 hours if they so choose but those that might have 5-10 hours a week to devote to the game are the ones that are the target. If you game say 8-12 hours a day and tire quickly of farming and PvP then perhaps a game oriented toward those with a lot of time to devote to it is better suited for you.

Where on Earth did you get that fact? lol

OH NOES, Anet is doomed

Factions Was worse than prophecies, however, I have enjoyed (when I finally got out of the damn city =.=) most of the PvE I played, I enjoy ABing, and it was worth 50$.

What Malice said may or may not be true in general, but at least for Guild Wars, I believe the largest market is the US, or North America.

Where on Earth did you get that fact? lol

Im gonna edit your post. You give me headaches when i try to read your shit. All bolded parts are my edit. Ok..now people who read the forum might be able to read it.

Lets me state my opinion as simple as possible.

Even without PvE, the Guild Wars PvP system is very balanced and competitive enough to survive as a PvP only game

Sponsorships and corporate marketing can support GW. PvP servers dont require as much load as PvE/PvP servers combined.

I'm trying not to flame you, but you make it oh so very difficult.

Ok. You keep repeating it like it matters to the current thread, "They are moving away from what they promised from the start".

Games change. Concepts change. As Anet has moved forward, they continually change the game and tweak it. Maybe you havent noticed skills got changed, items got added, replaced, or modified.

Second thing. Beta testers? What are you babbling about? Beta testers are PLAYERS. WE ARE BETA TESTERS.

Maybe you mean Alpha testers??? The ones who play on Anet's closed server, where they can spawn weapons, etc (Gaile mentioned this before IIRC).

And guess what, Alpha testing is about making sure the game WORKS. They dont make decisions on content. They make sure the game works and doesnt crash your PC, or do some crazy bug that deletes all your items.

I do agree that Chapter 3 needs better PvE content and a portion of the PvE community is disappointed.

Exacly
GW is more Bang for the Buck
i mean just look att all the time and money they spend on event's and uppdates and we get uppdates quite freqvently for free since it's ans CoopRPG they could just as well forget about the event and pve in-game stuff and just focus on the skill's for pvp it's cheaper and in the long run i whould say it's 10times more worth then wow put lvl 20cap on wow and game content whould run out alot faster cause you don't haft grind all day...

No, we aren't. Nightfall betatest is going on, we have (probably) two opportunities to participate, first the PvP weekend and later on the PvE weekend. Closed, internal betatesting goes on at ANet up until it is finished, and the product is ready to be shipped.

Unless you meant "We are betatesters!" in the 'funny' "Windows is just a beta and we are the testers HURRR!"-joke.

I don't believe that for 1 second.

No, beta testers test software BEFORE release, not after.

But on the subject of beta testers, or any testers, for that matter, note that reporting a bug doesn't guarantee that it will be fixed. Depending on how complicated a fix is, and/or how long it would take, and/or on the impact to the customer/player, the dev team might decide to delay the fix, or to never fix it. So if something ships with tons of bugs or with what looks like bad design, and you think to yourself, "how could they have missed this in testing???", it's quite possible that they didn't. It's possible that they knew aobut it, but someone made the decision not to fix/improve it before releasing the game.

Go to arena net's team website.

Ctrl + F "Beta"

You will find 1 entry, referring to the history of one of the Game designers.

Ctrl + F "Alpha"

You will find 4 entries and mentions of the Alpha tester program.

Even though Factions had lesser content, I still love both chapters the same.

Still doesn't make us betatesters. We have the two "open beta" weekends when we get to fool around with the stuff they have made, but otherwise it's closed beta testing.

Having the real game package in your had is the gold release, anything that goes on before it is the beta/alpha test (and preproduction and whatever).

The PvP and PvE beta weekends are beta testing. Its open to all existing players. So we will the beta testers.

Arena Net makes no mention of a closed beta testing program. They only mention an alpha testing program. I make my claims based on evidence i find on their site. It is their information. Please present me evidence for their beta program.

anyway we're getting off topic...and semantics is a fun game to play.


----------------------

Back OP:

^_^ OMG! I found someone who thinks like me!

PvP/PvE line needs to be blurred more!!

We're not beta testers in the sense that the industry generally uses the term, as the wiki entry makes clear. When we participate in a beta event, we're seeing only some features, and we're under no obligation to give feedback to Anet. Anet will not contact every player who plays this weekend and ask for feedback.

So you are saying all betatesting ANet needs is total of 4 days without having all of the content even available to the betatesters, and have a fully tested product after that?

It is closed, internal betatesting. They don't need outsiders to betatest their stuff, they fool around with the program themselves, share it around the workers and such. There isn't visible "beta programs" for other games either, there's some that have open betas, we have at best a limited preview with some chances of pointing out the flaws their internal tests and meddlings have failed to notice. Thus there can't be any evidence about their betatesting methods and how their developement cycle really goes, unless someone from the ANet staff drops by to enlighten us.

man your nutts!!! You are looking at the very guy who predicted and pick apart pvp. (iway) 100 dallars say anets pvp would not make it in the pvp makret! BY the I was right about alot stuff! I was known in some fourms as the blackman!


You are a very small manority wanting pve and pvp together. If you were the owner of anet the game would go bankrupt! LOL

ewll ouy aer teh samll manority taht hsa on cule atbou hwat uyo rea tlkaning abut!

I dare you to read GWGuru threads involving feedback/complaints/bug reports/suggestions and then tell me we arent the beta testers in that same sense

Yes we have no obligation to give feedback. But boy this forum sure is loud for having zero obligation, and im sure you'll agree with me on that.

here is somthing you will under stand money talks! LOL

I have to agree with the original poster on some points. When you contrast Proph and factions, factions falls far short. Im not going to try to say that iether sucks. no. im proud that my character was created on day one of gw's release in america.
what i will say is that if you compare factions and prophecies, prophesies was far richer in content, imagination and creativity.
what did prophecies offer?
1 presearing- dont laugh, most of you were shocked when after googling over the gorgeous graphics of the presearing ascaloncatacombs and other parts, BOOM! the REAL game kicked in. That was a stroke of brilliance.
2. the missions themselves were all different from each other, you had to repair siege weapons, light beacons, play flag football(well not really but the mission seemed like it.). free hostages and refugees, there was a ton of diveristy in the missions, and all this before ascending! i mean the ascention procees was a badge of honor, those missions were very challenging and being ascended meant something for you cant into the UW and FOW without it.
3 the uw and fow and the furnace, again strokes of brilliance. hard challenging and very rewarding areas that demand good team play or precice solo build play.

now as for factions, the missions are :
kill mobs kill boss your done.
there are no new uw type missionsand areas. if you think about it, faction players get access to prophecy content free. they can ascend and go to uw and fow, but prophecies plays cant access any factions areas without buying factions.

on that same line, the folks who bought prophecies (and put GW on the map) have been begging for more storage , but this was grated to factions only players.
back to content. no one can honestly argue that factions is a continuation of the pve gameplay proph contains. this wuld be totaly understandable if factions didnt cost as much as proph. dollar for dollar you get far less from factions than you do prophecies.
I personally would like to see anet continue where they left off with prophecies . keep being inovative.
you guys have been kind enough to read this far so im not going to go into all the stuff i would like added to the game, most of it can be found in these forums anyway.

OK my turn now, lol, this is my story, this is my first on-line RPG game,
and it has been amazing fun and there is alot more to these kind of games
than I ever thought of.
The reason I choose GW was because the no monthly fees, but as I got hooked
on GW and have spent thousands of hours playing, I have come to realize
that even if GW had a fee like WoW it would not bother me in the least. I
realize $12.00 a month is "chicken feed" I bet most ppl here spend three
times that on pop and munchies every week playing the game.
I have completed Factions seven times with seven different professions already,
do you think I got my money's worth, YES I DID, problem is ppl don't want
to let go of the game because it is fun and like to see and be involved in
new things, just those NEW things are not panning out as good as most had
hoped for. I think we are going to see some new areas on the map open up
before Nightfall, I am praying hard, and if not, no big deal, I will just
truck along until the next chapter release.

p.s. Message to OP, I wish you the best of luck on your drinking problem,
your health comes first and gaming comes next.

I made a post similar to this regarding the problems at arena net and was obliterated by people that have some desperate need not to criticise Arenanet… this was a huge disappointment, unfortunately there was little I can do but sit there and shake my head at the people who instead of trying to understand my point decided immediately it was not for them and wiped there buttoxs with it.

The point of this is that Arenanet DO have problems with how they are seemingly destroying the PvE environment, and that Guild Wars NOW has a flawed business model.

Yes it may work as a PvP only game, but that is moronic

Simple... weather you are PvP, PvE or even both… what ArenaNet is seemingly doing to Guild Wars Alienates a huge percentage of there players. This is becoming more and more a fact and less of a arguable point.