This game is AMAZING!

i'm having lots of fun with the preview ^^ and will most definitely be getting it asap instead of waiting around.

the slow levelling is good if you're new to a profession i find, gives you more time to work out what your role is. also liking the fact that not all quests are unlocked in an outpost once you reach it and that you have to keep backtracking, it's gotten me to lvl 18 just doing all those side ones as well as primary. so the option to stay and train on the starter isle seems to be around whereas it wasn't in Factions/Prophecies.

I decided to roll a ranger for it (Yes I already have a Ranger, but it is my favourite profession). Big mistake. It had been too long and I had forgotton how horrible it is levelling up a Ranger. They're pretty much next to useless until they hit level 10 and even then they're stuck to expertise + marksmanship if they want to be effective.

The whole concept of slow levelling makes it horrible to play these types of proffessions for longer.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the preview. Gonna hit the sack and get those last three levels, that last 100 promotion points and those master level quests I skipped.

Long Low level grind allows newbies not to become noobs....... and experienced players can just rush through

the leveling is perfect, It make better rpg. if you make leveling too xlow you may fell like it is grinding. too fast and the game it self will feel like it is going too fast. it is better to have slower than fast leveling. the way it is feels perfect. I think, i have not played fully yet

I personally like the leveling in Prophecies and Nightfall better than Factions. Factions was a shorter game, but it had way fast leveling.

To be honest, I like the slower lvling as well. To get it just right it should be faster than Prophecies but slower than Factions IMHO.

To be honest, I like faster leveling. It's not really going to bother me that the leveling is slowed down from Factions. But I obviously would prefer faster leveling.

I hate doing low level stuff, and playing in low level areas. But hey, you gotta do it. That's the way I look at it.

For me, PvE is more about farming and trying to see what I can solo/duo. Trying to see how well I do against everything else. It's not about trying to see how high of a level I can get. If I wanted to do that, I'd play D2. So that's why I <3 the lvl 20 cap, but dislike slow leveling.

All in all, it really won't matter because I'm mainly getting Nightfall for the skills anyways.

Because Kryta is Level 20 content...
... oh.

Yes. I really hope they dont add too many quests like that (will be probably some since they where in the preview).

Othervise a good preview event.

You know it dude, NwN2 is gonna remind us what 'roleplaying' actually means. I mean, I like GW for what GW does, that is mindless but highly addictive and dopamine rush inducing objective completion. GW = Go to A), speak to 'B', get item C), take it to 'D' over at 'E'. Kill A), cap 'B'. Rinse, repeat. PvP works pretty much the same as most other games, in terms of concept mechanics, but is admittedly probably handled with a higher degree of flair by ANet, since it has always been the game's claim to fame in regards to focus in innovation, i.e. the guild ladder, WC, etc.

As for this discussion that seems to have taken over the thread about slow leveling versus powerleveling, Faction's was 'designed' to be a "level 20 in 6-12 hours" campaign. If you analyse it, alot of the ways Factions 'is', are understandable. Firstly, its a money sink. ANet (rightly) anticipated that even though they would be picking up alot of new players with Campaign 2's release, many ifnot most of the new player's on Cantha would be 2nd generation character's from origonal Tyrian player's. Since they knew (and therefore planned, and had reasons 'for') they would be implementing access to Storage early on in Shing Jea, they knew these new characters of existing and seasoned player's would have access to money and items far beyond the 'normal' power curve of someone playing any normally balanced MMO. Why do you think there were no skill-quests in Faction's? Not one? Because they wanted you to have to pay for every skill your Canthan character's were ever going to be able to use, that's why... and predictably, with resources you had built up and hoarded for weeks (possibly months... for some, a year or more). It was an economy balancing exercise. No point asking "I wish Faction's had had some skill quest's... waaah." as if the dev team just said "Hmm... should we put in skill quests? Whadya' think guys?" "Dunno man... lets flip a coin...". It didn't work like that. Whatever choices you'll see for stuff that like Nightfall, or successive campaign's will be done for a clear and transparent reason (if you have the perceptivity to work out the motives).

Same thing with Faction's leveling. They assumed alot of the player's would be established Campaign 1 refugee's, with between 1-4 level 20's already set up... and used to that level of power. Holding back player's from achieving a level effectiveness quickly if they wanted, that they had had months to get used to having in Tyria, would only of been poor business sense. It is also probably somewhat related to Faction's PvP orientation aswell. I, personally, believe that ANet is hoping to pick up alot of 'new players' (totally unestablished ones i mean) with Nightfall's release, and therefore have introduced a more Prophecies similar advancement curve, in order to not totally scare away these new additional player's... It would also make sense with the more PvE based gameplay on Elona, since a slower progression to 20 will probably provide many (in a, like i said, more PvE environment) a more rewarding experience, over time. I mean, imagine how Faction's would of sucked if it had been pretty much PvE only, and with that speed of advancement? 20 in 6 hours... Fair enough you still gotta cap skills, farm, get your green drops, etc etc. But extending the time it takes you to max out that character at '20th level' can only give another angle of reward to the mix in a PvE heavy environment, that would be more of a 'limiting factor' in a more PvP one.

Though, to be honest, I haven't even tried the preview event, and I don't plan to, to be honest (my other character's always need work, and im not wasting more than 10 mins of game time on something that will get wiped on Sunday ) ...so it could be $!&£'ing Tetris for all I know...



- Tremere

QFT.

Sorry to agree with Mokone but for those who dont enjoy the PvE/roleplaying aspect of leveling, please go and level your toons in factions and stop ruining the PvE game for the rest of us.

Really thoughtful post, Tremere. Well said.

Well i think in factions, anet had to balance new characters with content for tyrian characters. In tyria, there are really only 6 missions for level 20s (southern shiverpeaks and fire isles), whereas in cantha, all except 2 of the missions are for level 20s (the two on the island, maybe vizunah?).

This meant that tyrian characters could benefit from most of the factions content, missing out on effectively 4->6 hours of gameplay on the island.

Presumably anet have decided that for nightfall, they've got enough high level content to give elonian characters 15-20 hours of extra gameplay.

I'm taking it as a good sign on the size of nightfall

/agree

In terms of a good leveling speed, I think Prophecies was pretty good.

You leveled at a nice, steady rate, and had a chance to actually get the learning curve all right. The one thing that really ruined it from my point of view, was that because of the slow pace of things, continuously needing to buy armor every other level was too costly for people like me who cant, or dont farm.

Factions was much much too rushed at leveling, and compaired to Prophecies, would in my opinion probably be harder to learn, as after the first day or so, your immediately thrown right into the hardcore action. So Factions was more rushed than Prophecies, but got rid of requirement to need to constantly buy new armor and weapons as in Chapter 1.

Now for Nightfall, I can only hope that third times the charm, and Anet can balance it out where you level at a fair pace, and dont have to spend so much money on things you really cant afford.
At this point, my only thoughts are that so far, I'm really enjoying Elona .

That leaves what.. 9 missions? xD

Damn are there many of those sort of quests? I HATED them in WoW, such a blatant attempt to disguise grind as content. What are the drop rates like for those quests?

I think guild wars is perfect the way it is.

For the few of us that actual enjoy playing this multiplayer game as a multiplayer game, fast leveling really is a bad thing. Have you been to Iron Mines or THK lately? You know most of those players that still need to do these missions have been run here or there at least some of the way through Tyria, with what all the spamming for runners in seemingly every mission now there, and they have no idea how to play there in the South Shiverpeaks. They really don't! Go check it out! Playing with clueless party members is entertaining for awhile but I sometimes like to actually get the thing done I came to do.

So I'm a full advocate for setting up Doppleganger in his pre-nerfed state (back when he could bring his choice of whatever skills you knew), putting gates up in Tyria, and installing about 15 M1A1 Abrams Tanks in Dreadnought's Drift.

Slow some of these nubs down long enough to where they may actually have to ponder about what skills they're bringing!

/endrant

That all said, yeah, me likin' Nightfall thus far. Even though with these customizable henchies I think we can all say goodbye to the pug group entirely (and thus the ingame community apart from forums like this).

As many have pointed out, the process of leveling does not necessarily make a game an RPG. You need an extremely strong plot, a superb story, well-written dialogue, well-designed stats-based combat, the ability to make choices that affect gameplay, etc. However, the leveling and character customization process itself is also an integral part of the role-playing experience. It is very important for the player to empathize and associate themselves with the character. This is brought about to a large extent by the amount of care and effort that needs to be put in to build up a character that is not only strong enough to survive the harsh world around him/her, but to also have a skillset that makes sense from a role-playing perspective (i.e., non-munchkin).

Guild Wars has always had (and in all likelihood, will always continue to have) mediocre storlylines and horribly written dialogue. Combat, as we all know, is stellar. Good combat, unfortunately, cannot by itself provide a good role-playing experience. The only reason why Guild Wars PvE can call itself a RPG instead of an action-adventure game, is because of its character customization.

The ability to re-assign attribute points at will already completely kills of a very important part of the empathy between player and character. However, this was a critical tradeoff made by the devs that admittedly did increase gameplay value immensely, and I personally don't think I would enjoy Guild Wars without this characteristic. Fortunately, expensive armors and customized weapons do tend to make you attached to your character. But even with the re-distributable attribute point system, a slow and controlled pace of leveling goes a long way in enhancing the feel of "development" of the character. Factions completely destroyed this feel.

Another terrible Factions feature was to make all skills available near the beginning of the game at Kaineng. I remember that while playing Prophecies through the Ascalon and Northern Shiverpeaks areas, I would look up the skill lists and find that some of the best skills (elite and non-elite) were only available at the desert and beyond. The feeling of accomplishment that I had when I finally received those skills was worth much more than having to play the game until that point without those skills. This is a large part of what PvE is about: accomplishment, development, progress, adventure. PvE is not about having a full level-20 character and a complete repertoire of skills, selecting a skillbar and going out and bashing monsters on random quests. Call it grind if you will, but level-20 should feel like you have achieved something. Of course, once you have achieved level-20, you should have plenty of non-grind content to actually enjoy your awesome character. But half the fun of playing the end-game content should be due to the fact that you have meticulously built up a character that is able to withstand the extremely difficult challenges that these high-end environments throw at you.

Flashing news: the preview is not "a game", it's just a carefuly selected part of it, designed to make you buy the abovementioned "game". KTHXBAI

Yup

100% agree

First, I would like one of every primary, and if I don't keep making new ones for the proffessions I don't have yet, I can't do that.

Second, since when was there any fun in reaching lvl 20? For me, this game isn't really that fun untill its the lvl 20 content...

And last, why would you want a bigger noob area if you are going to skip it?

Accually, you are both wrong. Yes there are 3 teams(as far as I know), but I know for a fact that both team 1 and 2 made prophecies together, then team 1 went to make factions, and team 2 kept working on prophecies for half a year, then went to nightfall. Now the factions team should be halfway done with chapter 4, while at least part of the nightfall team is working on chapter 5.

Also, if only one team made prophecies, then what did the other team do for the 2+ years prophecies was in development? Oh, and I think that the event team also helped make prophecies, and then started making events at prophecies' release.

Thats a really good point. Ill make sure to do that....assumming I'm not yet lvl 20 when I have access to factions and prophecies with my nightfall chars...

Yes, heros do rock so far. But, IMO, no profession has currently come close to being as fun as assassin. And, if you payed attention, the missions also have time limits, along with a bonus. Or does it just show the three sword thing if you do the bonus?

You can't please everyone, stop complaining that there is fast/slow leveling and just be happy that they're trying to please as many people as possible.

You know how the saying goes.

If you don't like it, go play what you do like. NwN2 is supposed to be god to you, then go play that.

I mean honestly, you said that you haven't even tried the preview. You have nothing to base your thoughts on other than the past games.

I can only recall one specific quest but it had three parts. The first part was the hardest because you had to find a Drake Skin (or something like that.) I ended up finding it though and I didn't go out of my way. I just followed the story line and did the quests and missions. No farming required....just play the game.

Edited for run-on.

If only there were a way to make instant level 20 characters...

I like Nightfall event too, the enemies, map areas, different items to collect. Not mention the hero system (although it's boring to equip them with weapons). I have to say, this is a right step for A-Net to bring back the excitement to Guild Wars series. As for slow leveling, it's okay as long as you get different quests and missions to level you. I don't want to level by killing ton of enemies.

As for making an instant level 20 characters? That would be done through PvP, unless A-Net change it in the future where all new players starts off at level 20.

did i say preview is a game? cuz i dont remember saying that

On the leveling argument, here's my two cents.

I was incredibly disappointed with the lack of level 20 content in Prophecies. Just the southern Shiverpeaks and the Fire Islands. ArenaNet has constantly stated that they want to eliminate as much grinding as possible in order to get to high-end content more quickly. I loved the Factions leveling system. At the end of the tutorial, you were level 20 and ready to take on the actual game.

In Prophecies, the end-game content was the best, and in Factions everything after Shing Jea was, imo, on a nearly comparable level. If we can explore as much of that Elonian map as I think we can, then we're gonna have the same ratio of training:game content as in Factions, but both "amounts," if you will, will be larger. What I mean is that the ratio between training time and high-end time will be similar to that of Factions, but each will be longer.

If that's the case, great job Anet! Most grind has been eliminated or at least well-disguised, and it looks like we're gonna have a boatload of level 20 content anyway. What surprised me the most was that Anet succeeded in making the low-level content almost as interesting as the high-level content from the last two games. High-end content is still much more fun, but it's closer now, and if Anet can keep improving that, then I will be their loyal customer.

So yeah, this game does seem amazing. Skill quests would've been nice to see again though...Ah well. Thanks for the look, Anet, and I can't wait to see the high-level content!

This game is Amazing. Period.

. . . Ever make a PvP character?

Better rpg makes for a better game

In the end all i can say is told ya so.

Now it is up to the marketing team to try to win back the pve players they lost.

World Wide preview of Nightfall newbie isle is "marketing"
- and it rocked in spades for PVE

PvE content =/= Level grinding

That's just dumb, wheres the adventure in that? I think working our way to level 20 is good and it gives you time to explore through out the continent and discover diffrent things. If the game were was like that it'd become really boring and people would quit, sure getting too level 20 is rather boring but atleast it'll keep you busy for some time. ^^

Oh dreamhunk, you card.

On a side note, I love everything about Nightfall that I have seen thus far--and I'm aware I said the same thing about Factions, and Prophecies as well. Fanboy? Meh. I just know a good game/series when I see one.

I rather like how they're taking a different approach with each chapter.

there is Noob its called pvp why dont you stay there.

QFUT
The Factions preview looked great but what they didn't tell you was that it was placed after all the crappy bs in the beginning.

Leveling aside (because OBVIOUSLY many didn't go exploring enough to find high end monsters).
I think thus far I am going to really like Nightfall. I'm also very tempted to delete my Tyrian warrior just so I can remake it there. I liked how very few places had locked gates and even if they did you could get in the back if you were willing to make the trek. My brother and I spent hours exploring and only doing quests if they were right in our path. We managed to uncover almost all of the island and we had only done one mission.
Heck we didn't even know about the double xp and sunspear points until later that evening but we were doing fine as lvl 5s and lvl 12 henchies lol.
For us it was the adventure. I think thats more of what RPs are supposed to be, story and adventure!

We had great fun, thanx Anet it promises to be a lot better than Factions and that has me saving my money!

That strategic usage of an ellipse indicates sarcasm. Just so you know for future reference.