Another Interview with Dev!

hey everyone. i honestly love the idea of adding life skills, but under one condition only. if they are implemented correctly. if they are just thrown in the game then dont even bother, but if thought is actually put behind them then i think this would be great. also the voice comm. that would be good as well. it would make it easier ,for ppl who dont understand TS or Vent very well, to use voice chat. it would also put everyone on a lvl playing field instead of some ppl not accepting someone into a group because they dont have TS or Vent. "yes i have seen it done." well ok that is my 2 cents.

IMO titles are the life skills.

Runescape: Yo bro i got teh 99 thieving yesterday. GW: I've opened 1000 chests.

I am up for a more Chinese theme chapter... maybe not a stand alone since imo Cathan is alot more Chinese-influence than Japanese already. But its going to be hard to convice the mainland Chinese to go weild a katana or be a ninja (which the assassin is obviously based on) due to the general dislike of the Japanese.
I see the way this could work is just open up a small part of Cathan and introduce a new class thats more Chinese based, such a some sort of kung fu fighter to keep the mainland Chinese happy as well as those of us who always wanted something like this.

Limited, not banned. (Yet)

Whether Guild Wars is considered CORPG or MMORPG, its under the same moniker and will most likely be treated as such.

life skills could turn GW into a WoW, but im really for the idea alot; it will get alot of WOW and everquest players over to this game, for that only reason i dont know...but people seem to like those kind of things. Ive seen in my time alot of people really like to buy items created by other players....idk how that would implement GW though...like the economy and all!

"Life skills" is a repulsive idea, and one i really doubt will ever, ever be implemented into guildwars. I was a hardcore PvE'r who came to realise guildwars is about the fighting, the competition, owning and getting owned and learning things that are not tied to some grind-figure on your character but things you hold in your head and apply to all aspects of your game. If "life skills" were added it would NOT be for the betterment of the game, it would be to create/hold more customers and nobody can deny this - it is a staple of the subscription mmo market...give people utterly meaningless tasks to compete on "hey 'Sordgal2007 X', I got level 245 woodcutting, i can chop down uber-willywibble trees now!!" and make them pay for the privilege - guildwars set itself apart from the rest - it has no grind, nothing remotely comparable to the grind found in other games, the grind which basically forms those games - creates them, runescape is a wonderful, and highly successful example of this. PvP in that game consists of...well, next to nothing (and plenty of lag). I wouldn't know about WoW, i heard it was a grind fest and instantly dismissed it.

Yes, i know i won't have to do lifeskills if they are implemented, i don't need to be told that, but what "lifeskills" represent is a pure waste of time.

signed.
a former hardcore PvE'r who saw the light.

please Anet, add some of these so-called "life skills"

/displays his Grandmaster Chef title

Interesting. Whilst GW was meant to be a primarily story-driven and PvP-centered game, and not one of those "make a house and have uber cyber s-" games, life skills would be interesting, especially if you can make some money off of it - I don't like how making money in GW relies heavily on farming/FoW/UW.

Plus, a friend of mine is an evil WoW addict, and I'd love to rub it in his face that Guild Wars is starting to become more like it (minus the evil subscription fee part).

The Government has limited Internet Cafe usage to 5 hours with a real life break time. Since few people have computer in their home this is easily enforced.

http://playnoevil.com/serendipity/in...a-Online-Games

As someone that read alot of chinese history, classic etc. Cantha is just a big china town to me. I am somewhat glad that I am not the only one who felt weird about Cantha (if cantha is chinese+japanese+korean, and cantha is only 1/3 of the culture in the continent, that make the chinese, japanese, korean influence only 1/6 each of the entire continent with gothic 1/3 and some kind of barbarian 1/3). I suppose their way of expressing the weirdness is saying that it is like japanese, while I say it as a big chinatown. Actually... japanese influence are far greater than chinese, as the whole shing jea island belong to the japanese with mainland cantha being split between chinese/japanese/korean.

Anyway, just an honest opinion.

If anyone wondering what's the difference about shing jea. Just take isle of meditation for example (it is shing jea themed guild hall), it illustrated the japanese version of quietness with water running, waterfall, and small bridges. While the chinese prefer water to make no noise while making clear reflection, along with a little building to sit around in the middle of all that water. Chinese garden are also often filled with religious stuffs, such as stones walk way with things comming up and down (to block ghost as they believe ghost can not move across tall borders). But, that weird dragon on top of the building and the color of the bridge is defintely chinese (then again, that depend on which chinese peroid you had researched). If they wish to make chinese feel more chinese, they need to study the han/song/ming dynasty instead of ching/modern. It is one of those funny things. It is like puting USA in GW, except you see all the factories and assembly line instead of good old cowboys or civil war soldiers.

Mongolian <~~explains the barbaric part

Quite true. As a Asian theme chapter I don't think Anet should have made the Kurzick and luxon so...non Asian. The lore and culture of Asia is enough to fill a land the size of tyria without having to include some half baked gothic theme like in cathan. Maybe this has something to do with goth culture being popular in Japan?
In terms of Cathan itself, the architecture is very Chinese based, but all the people and items looks Japanese. Things like land of the dragon was an obvious reference to China (since Japan would be refer to as land of the raising sun instead).
It would have been nice if the cultures of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese were 3 ways splitted between mainland Cathan, luxon and kurzick. However, that wouldn't have been good politically since even though it is a game, there is real life political strain between the 3 countries and may offend some people.

I agree as well! A little off topic, but I am so tired of seeing China being potrayed by the qing dynasty with the qipao, bald head/pigtail. Not that I am against the manchu as they are part of the Chinese culture now... but for the majorty of Chinese history people wore hanfu and hair styled in top knot or other pony hair like style. watch some old school kung fu movie to see what i mean. The tong dynasty is also an excellent time to based a game on since many consider it to be the golden age of China.

Im really concerned that GW will be a major flop in China, as it has been in singapore, korea and japan


I also don't think GW will last very long. It will probably be dead in a year or two too many players are leaving. nothing more to do, and no one enjoys the pvp. Most people dont even know that there is a championship... they just couldnt care less.



life skills sounds cool, but im afraid its to late. people have already deserted to wow, and the only ones left(mostly) are does who cant pay the monthly fee.

wow has 7 million active players and no expansion(perhaps 14-15 million sold copies in total if we go by the analogy that half of the people who bought the game are still playing it).

gw has only got 2 million across two seperate games, and its in fast decline:

its so sad that our beloved game is dying

also now when 2Moons and other online RPGs are coming out with no online fee either...

Well... one problem with tong dynasty is that... it is too peaceful aside political struggles. The country was wealthy enough to have ALOT of fat people, and making the beauty sense into "more fat, more beauty". Come to think about it... maybe USA are going into golden age with more and more fat people LOL j/k.

So generally chinese folk tales are around ming, where there are more chaos in the country; song being destroy by mongols; han being at war from exterior and interior. As chaos give rise to heroes.

I don't think NCSoft (or ArenaNet) would agree with your assessment. Sales increased from quarter to quarter and grew by 71% in the last year, yet the game is dying?

-Tom

Having life skills would in way turn it into World of Warcraft.. that's a silly statement. I'm sorry but I don't see why anyone would complain. The additon of any new content should be a plus so long as it's not necessary.. I mean I'm playing Guild Wars which is fairly heavey on PvP yet I hardly ever do it. Thats my choice... yet I don't complain when they add PvP content or more specificly.. in Factions when it was more of the foucs .. it actually made me try it out for the first time at Fort Aspenwood ect.

So yeah more content = more to do = longer lasting appeal. That's how I see it.

I agree..

its stupid to say that its turning into wow because they add a stronger social structure:/

I couldn't disagree more I feel that there is a great fan base to Guild Wars, and as long as they keep producing there'll be people like me to buy their games.... There's still a lot of people that are playing consistently that I know from over 1 year ago when I started playing. This says a lot to me...

The thing we witness with the numbers when comparing Guild Wars to other games like WOW or EverQuest is something we call a competitive advantage -- specifically being first to market. See because WOW and EverQuest was first to market they established a fan base and where able to maintain that fan base even after Guild Wars came out (sorry working on the last stages of my MBA, so I'm studying this stuff). The fact of the matter is there is no other better competitive advantage in this market (other than free services), because after you hook us gamers in that's it!!

We get addicted by creating relationships, and good game play. Anyway... I'm hearing a lot of things about WOW vs. Guild Wars and all I got to say is you can't touch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcWXL8jpFGs

BTW, I believe that they can make Guild Wars last 10 years... been hearing a lot of ppl saying stuff like that seems way too long, but think about it from a business stand point. Guild Wars is a product line to Anet, therefore what do you do to product lines to keep them selling? Upgrade them, Guild Wars II, Guild Wars III, etc. This can be by improving graphics, communication improvements, etc. War Craft was originally released in 1994... it's been 12 years for that line and they are still kicking it live!!! (Although they lost one big time War Craft player here when they started charging, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this transition).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft

I think Anet can last as long or longer with Guild Wars, and would go as far as saying probably outlive their original commitment of 10 years. Guys you have to have faith!!!

I mean man... this is Guild Wars... and Anet not some cheap startup company working out of their basement anymore. They have the resources and can use them very efficiently. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! POWER TO GUILD WARS!!! Ya, I'm crazy... but that's what keeps me sane.

-Dave

perhaps if they milk the franchise with guild 2 and guildwars 3 and so on it will probably have a chance.

but GW1 in itself wont... our characters and everything with them, wont last. it will be over very soon enough.


what you have to remember is that Anet can not afford to have a small player base because there would not be enough people buying their games and then they would not be able to let the servers running.

Wait a second... are you considering us gamers that have multiple accounts when you say that? If what Soccer55 pointed out is true, then a smaller player base may actually work for Anet (as long as it doesn't get too small).

I only had one account a year ago... now I have multiple accounts. I know many other players (in my guild alone) that have more than 1 account, and we upgrade them religiously when new releases come out (already got 2 - Collector's Editions coming for Night Fall).

So, check this out... with players like us Anet is actually making more money. You know why? Because they don't have to pay for the bandwidth of having 1 person online for each account, much less the other IT related costs. Keep in mind it's not subscription based, but product based.
Cheer up my friend… we will survive!!!

-Dave

What you have to remember is that ANet probably did a great deal of research into their business model and how viable it would be before they decided to use it on the first game that they've ever developed and launched.

-Tom

Oh crap...now you made me feel like some kind of lab guinea pig

lol the real guinea pigs were the alpha and beta testers...

In rpgies they are known as Talents not life skills

I can tell this dev never played a rpg game.

cry wolf cry wolf

god, theres nothing wrong with some little mini games, or mini hobbies in the rpg SIDE of gw? go whine somewhere ppl care?

ill take anything, cause i know anet would make something fun out of it.

duh, ppl forgot about dodge ball and snowball arenas already? pfffffshhhhh you noobs.

Names are not important. As many things can be lost in translation. Remember, M&J are English speaker, there's already a lost of information when they first translate it to Chinese, and now I translate it back to English will lose even more.

Things like fishing or mini card/collectable gaming would definately help to space out the boredom of PvE and provide much more social interaction within guilds other than PvP purposes. A definately welcomed idea unless you are one of those: "If you want (insert ideas here) go play WoW" trolls.

To some extend i can agree with Lawnmower comming from an asian MMO perspective, other than the balanced PvP component, theres nothing really great at all about guildwars. Yes i said it. Not even the free to play marketing is impressive since theres already so many free MMOs if you even cared to look. If i had not have my guild, i would have left long ago.

Korea has long has its roots in Lineage and last i heard, 1 out of every 5 Korean plays L2(before the NCsoft lawsuit) while Japan have a large gaming base in the FFX series. Singapore, China and Tawian seemingly has a large community of addicts in WoW, and i doubt GW will do well in china just as it was released in Tawian and Japan but merely perhaps interest the gamers to try it out of the marketing pretense of free to play CORPG but will have a hard time keeping those markets interested for long. But based on the fact that the gaming market in China is HUGE so there might still be hope at least from initial promotions and box sales profit taking.

Besides, we all know most asian players loves grind and Uber 733t Phat loot lol.

Guild Wars is too balanced game. You can't be a half-god even you have played it since the release. That is the main reason why majority don't like it. Just tells how many kids there really is.

If GW will die, at least it has good research material about player community preferences.

It has been many years since college and my Asian Art History classes (and Chinese history classes). But I distinctly remember that Tang dynasty is where all the "Daoist Warriors" came from. Knights who would get drunk, fight for the common man, and then claim they were just going with "The Way". "Journey West" (if you are familiar with Dragon Ball Z, thats the story where Sun Wukong comes from) is a Tang Dynasty creation.

As far as the comments about it being too Japanese or not enough Asian, etc... The architecture blends Japanese and Chinese. Kaineng is sort of like Hong Kong's Old Walled City Mega-slum. On Shing Tea island, many of the buildings seem to have a NORTHERN Chinese stone base, but with semi-Japanese roofs. Sort of like shrunken Japanese castles actually. I really see a blend here. I do agree though... the Kurzik and Luxon are insufficiently Asian. Kurzik could have been more like the Khomer empire. Architecture has some simularities. And the Luxon could have been more Mongolian. Actually, I usually see them as Khomer and Mongolian influenced...without the fake Asian accents. I don't need to here an Asian accent to feel like its Asian, but maybe US players need that in order for them to feel it is more exotic.

Just thank god they don't have that sort of homosexual accent that the Ascalon NPCs have (no offence to homosexuals intended)

Yes, I think many people would appreciate life skills, or more of an rpg style format in guild wars. Really, from my point of view there is no downside to it. People who want to participate in that type of stuff can, and the people who don't, well...SIMPLY DON'T. All of those ignorant monkeys who say "OMG OMG NOOB GO PLAY WOW AND LEAVE US ALONE YOU NOOB OMFG!" really don't make sense, as whatever you do in a game is your choice.

The only problem I see is how they will be implemented into Guild Wars type play, specifically the private map portion part. Perhaps ArenaNet will change that, and just add some areas where more players can interact without the party forming system. Just a thought...

true... I just wished that wouldnt happen

LOL, why do people always say "xxx game is dying" - go read the WoW forum and they say the same thing there

Really it's just stupid and if people are going to make such claims they should be able to back it up somehow, just because some people left your guild or something doesn't mean the game is dying - obviously every game will die eventually, but I have no fears for GW at this moment in time.

Personally I've noticed no noticable decline while playing the game, so I'm going to claim the opposite of the pessimists.

I can see adding weapon smithing. You use materials + some gold (disposable materials). Then you attempt to create a weapon.. The out come is random within a range of your skill. The more weapons you make (eating up materials) the better your score becomes.

The "Journey to the west" story certainly slip from my mind, but I believe the daoist wasn't very popular around the tang dynasty. Budhism grew heavier in tang, while most daoist fighters in stories are swordman, and swordman in china did not come back until ming dynasty.

Well, I think this got a little off topic... Anyway, if I see another "asian" chapter, I hope it would be better than 1/3. While I hope Africa/Arabia/?? won't be split into 3 weird things in nightfall. (and assassin actually do fit into chinese theme, as chinese basically came up with the ninja thing) I certainly hope to see the bard class one day from the concept we see in the art book from faction.

Guys, I'm sure ANet meant "Asian" as in "Oriental" where the latter is a better choice of word.

Anyway, I'm in for Life Skills. But I reckon they should add 'Life Features' too, such as, dying hair, giving us a wardrobe to keep our different armors.

Life Skills could probably incorporate (but not limited to):
- Blacksmithing Skill to craft any types of weapons (of all different skins except the ones that drop in special places like UW, The Deep, etc) apart from those offered by the Weaponsmiths, using different materials/items (e.g. Jade Sword requires 1x any sword + X Jadeite Shards + X Dust with the base stats dependent on the sword used)
- Weapon Enchanting Skill to add upgrade to a weapon by using specific materials/items (with a chance to fail and varying mod stats, but better stats and lower failure rate with increase in level)
- Alchemy Skill to create consumables that help to attain various timed non-healing effects (e.g. run faster for 10 seconds, etc)

I also feel that Life Skills should work like Professions in GW. Basically, you can unlock all Life Skills but only have 1 active (as with secondary profession) at any one time.

Not into wow sorry, I am into guild wars getting better :P

all gw needs is jumping,swiming, flying and cool mounts with homes and ships and JEFF GRUBB and game is over for all other mmorpgies out there. With no forced pvp!

you forgot the ultra sarcasm symbol on that

why are you and the others trying to turn GW into a free wow clone?

you forgot
logging
fishing
mining
basketweaving
baking
the rest of that crap

Ok, why is everybody saying that if life skills are added that Gw will turn into WoW? They might share one thing in common, ala life skills, but that wont make Gw into a grind fest. Angela Mertel(Channcelor of Germany) will probably not be the next Hitler, so why should Gw be another WoW?

who wants to have a free wow, wow is not even a real rpg but grind fest!

the main point of this game is to have fun


who cares about wow! i don't like wow it is unheathly game!


gw needs cool factors and I want to see gw at the top of the selling charts!!! I want to see it last along time.


I want to see guild wars as cool game with cool stuff. With cool rpg in it.



another thing if anet fails people will blame it on anet models saying it is because they didnot have no mounthly fees!!

o_O you know i actually agree with you there.

nah lack of interest is what will kill them, if ever.