To the Devs: Nightfall Wishlist

Nightfall is hot on the rise and we should but voicing our opinions in a more organized way regarding things we want to see and problems we are having with the game thus far. After experiencing the preview event I decided to throw together a glob of things that the community can add on to in order to help Nightfall deliver as a great release.

MAJOR OUTCRIES:

-Avatar Customization
Of course the community would like to see a wider arrangement of facial graphics and hairstyles with more extreme differences. After the preview event it would be a disappointment to only have 4 faces to choose from and only 5 styles of cornrolls. Think of some of the necro hairstyles (like the wild flayed one). It would be nice to see more things of the sort.

Regarding the customizations I believe everyones agrees on the idea of a STYLIST npc that would allow older characters to change some of their features in order to incorporate some nightfall or factions styles. This would appease older players like me who have beta old characters and would like to see some nightfall style on them and also perhaps help goldsink the economy (which nightfall will impode once immigration hits.)

MINOR OUTCRIES:

-Abruptness of Music
I've heard complaints about the stop and go nature of the music tracks in nightfall, which are way better than the other chapters IMHO. A nice fade in and out would help the mood of the game and help things smooth out.

KUDOS:

-New Gates: They look great

-Level and Creature Design/Weapons and Armor: No complaints here, the design looks great. The new weapons and armors look awesome like usual and exciting to grab.

-Cutscene Improvements and VA: HUUUGGGEEE improvement, the moving mouths dont make the game feel cheap although they are far from perfected. The cutscenes arent up to par in comparison to other games but still, they are alot nicer and help the game feel more EPIC, which is something factions hugely lacked.

-New Skills: Alot of great stuff to help existing classes and breathe new life into assassins and rits. I GREATLY appreciate effort going into keeping the factions classes alive, this is something no one expected and shows the devs dedication to the game and players. Just looking at the elementalist line shows how much work was put into listening to player gripes and improving the game. Some ideas even originated here, to show that our voice is heard.

-New Classes: They rock and will flip the metagame in a nice way, suddenly everything is fresh again and rangers are running around in HA chucking spears... its a beautiful thing.

Feel free to add things that you personally feel important to the game as long as they are reasonable.

ON A FINAL NOTE:

I believe guildwars success as a game is the constant deliverance of fresh ideas and concepts over a long period of time. Change and the introduction of new game elements that flip the entire world two times over is why we still play (along with great PVP). I still remember when I once logged on after a long haitus and was like Sorrows Furnace WTF? Prophecies was a great game but was plagued by a choppy story, however despite subpar storytelling, the variation in the game, great PVP, and this kind of underlying epic feel that made your character feel important and at the center of something great was what made us come back for more.

With Factions I believe some of this was lost. The rushed feel from Shing Jea outward made progressing through the game feel like a chore and repeated skills made us kind of feel ripped off. A little bit of that guild wars majesty was lost and alot of things about factions seemed like a hinderance (like the excruciatingly horrible scenes to the problems of aspenwood and AB which still continue). Factions really survived in my opinion only because the original guildwars was so great. I do have to say I like the new classes of factions and many things about the game still caught my attention, like the level design of the Jade sea. However as a stand alone game, factions really doesnt compare to the original GW. To me I believe its because factions doesnt feel EPIC and complete. Theres alot of good material in factions but your character just seems thrown into the mix and you dont feel important like you did in prophecies. Factions feels like just an expansion

With the preview of nightfall I saw the developers really listen to what we had to say about factions and from the open level design to the return of decent storytelling thus far I feel Nightfall has the potential to be free from the "Just feeling like a quick expansion" curse. Just playing through the preview I felt as if the feeling that we all first felt with the release of guildwars and when we were first introduces to the wonderful world of presearing once again returned. Nightfall IMO has the potential to be great, instead of being just an expansion . I would like to see this atmosphere continue on with the final release of the game and all the way up until the final battle that awaits us all.

To devs, I like to thank Anet for listening to what the community had to say. I feel like we've had alot of impact on the shaping of nightfall and we are getting exactly what we asked for. So far to those making this game, they should know that they have something quite special in the works for us. As a player, I know im not the only one who felt this way playing the preview. I just hope that it remains this way and is released free from some of the problems that plagued factions that the community has pointed out. Granted it doesnt have to be perfect but so far its damn good and I think that all of us, players and devs want to see it successful.

From what i remember. there was about the same amount of avatar faces/hair/stuff for the factions WPE..

yea there was and they vastly expanded that as well once it went live...

And I'm surprised it wast mentioned but I know and you all know its still in VERY HIGH demand...

AUCTION HOUSE!!!

And My personal Fav Key rings...

I'd like to be able to have my heroes wear my guild's cape, that would be awesome.

Id like to have a bit more command over the hero's. I think they need a command to stop usuing a skill/skills, as for certain situations it would be a massive help.

Example: I tried to give my Dervish hero mending so she had another constant enchantment on her, but she casts it on everyone she can untill shes has only 1 pip of enegy regen left. Just a simple double click or whatever on the skill and a big red X goes over it so they will stop using it would work.

Other that that i think the game is awsome, i cant wait for full realese.

Agreed.

For crying out loud, why does ANET make online game with offline features? Don't make customizable bots, fix communication between people.

And write the goddamn auction house, i have full storage of items which i could sell, but i'd have to stand in kc for 2 hrs spammin... the game trading is almost dead ^_^

I'd like either skill quests, or to be given a set of free skills for each rank I get.

Skill quests request is self explanatory and seems to be quite common.

For free skills for each rank, I mean like the 15 attribute points quests in NF, but you get given some skills (say 3 each for primary and secondary) as your only reward. Hopefully with the skills being given there being a small step above the skills you would expect to have at that rank, so a character going for the minimum rank to progress would get skills from the next area from where they are now.

It was made by the prophecies team, of course it pwns.

My requests:

More skills avaliable on the starter island - I had so many problems filling my bar without spreading across too many attributes.

Fix AI of heroes wrt maintained enchantments

AUCTION HOUSE

Storage Upgrades: dyes, armour (or just all customised items),

I would like a easier time for people just getting started with the hero system, I remember being stuck before the first mission wondering how am I sopose to get koss into my team?[then after I cleared out my team of henchies, I felt dumb^^]

Paragons ftw

I second this.

-Decrease the amount of partrolling monsters in maps dramatically.
-Add other challenges (popping up bosses, traps, random dungeons)
-Slightly increase the power of skills, gear and levels with every new chapter.
-Determine the difficulty level of a map by the stats of the party entering it (with a minimum preset to prevent abuse by low level chrs).
-increase the droprate of white items.
-Add a random quest interphase to access an unlimited amount of small quests.
-Remove the popping up conversations of npc's (I mean the big pop ups in the middle of the screen).
-When leading a party of heroe's/henchies: add a button to turn off dancing. (to me it really looks silly when npc's start to dance while preparing for battle - but others may like it lol)
-Did not encounter it yet in the event but... No blocked gates please!!!

From the uproar over the lack of an auction house, I thought it would be an obvious addition to NightFall. A few features that are a lot more important to me than improved henchies:

- Auction House (duh)
- Build Configuration Save/Load (skills and attribute points at a minimum, armor and weapon slot configurations would be nice too, GUI layout could be considered too I suppose, for example, rearranging the radar and party window when monking)
- Improved/Additional Storage (Key Rings would be a good start, armor storage is a pretty obvious choice as well)
- Party Window: Ability for leader to order the list of party members through drag'n'drop while in a town/outpost
- Did I mention Auction House? Yeah, an Auction House would be good.

The armorers have diffrent styles... at least for the paragon. I dont know about for the other professions, but if we're going back to armor skin = stats, thats a step back from factions.

Never thought about having heros wear your cape, agreed that would indeed be awsome.

Yeah, and soon as someone just mentioned it: NO locked gates please

add " carry" "drop " command for heroes

show blue bar of every member in party

My wishlist:

-E-Mail system. It would be great to have in game. Particuar for guilds to keep track on their planned events. but also for friends.. it would be neat if we could sent items and gold with this e-mail system

-Being able to carry weapons at back when not used, in both explor, combat areas and towns.

.With a massive part of the population moving to elonia, it would be great if english, american, korean and japanese districts could be merged in LESS populated towns and outposts where its impossible to find groups. so for example, in "the wilds" which is a quite unpopular place, all people could start in the international districts. that way, more people will be combined under one banner, without certain parts of GWP and GWF feeling desolated.

-auction house / trade improvements

- heroes having their own seperate belt pouchs and bags - would take care of the storage problems

- 1 vs 1(dueling)!

- more emotes(cry, sleep, joke...)

-more character customization - more hairstyles/faces. eye color? pircings? tatoos? head accesories(bandanas, headbands, earrings, eye patches, scars, halos, horns...).

-more community features

-two handed swords

-very rare new weapons and armor

-long lasting end game pve. very hard... almost impossible areas.

-hardcore mode, diablo 2 style?

-moveable heroes to cantha and tyria?

-LIFE SKILLS:-D

the auction house will come, most likey a few months after nightfall is out and they get it running good. So i see it around Jan-march 07

- items: plz add a few special collector items or quest rewards we had in prophecies in the past (not just thousand items with the same stats like +xx life or skill recharge)

6v6 arena, please.

I think that sums up my feelings as well, although I guess I liked Factions a lot more than you did

Heh, heard that one before..

Oh and skill quests please.

honestly.. i'm really happy with it. Much for fleshed out than Factions (my opinion of course @_@) UmMm.. i guess a fade in and out of the music would be nice (but i like it) Um yeah.. wow I really can't think of anything. OH!

I'd like to be able to have some sort of ward type thing when a Paragon uses a chant or what not just so I can be sure as to who I effected with it. That would be very helpfull!

agreed.

I'd also love to see some pet commands and pet stables.
The commands could be as simple as attack, stop attacking, come, or the ability to set a target for my pet independently of my own. Ofcourse this would also pave the way for sit, stay, rollover and paw commands.
Stables are self explanatory, but I think they're becoming a necessity considering that more pets are released with each new chapter. I'd be happy with the space to store two pets, or one spot per campaign purchased. Ahem...goldsink perhaps?

Pets have always felt very limiting in this game, I know I've been waiting for an upgrade since prophecies.

Other than that GG devs, Nightfall looks great so far.

I imagine the "Stylist" will come eventually, but be prepared to be "Maple Storied" for it. Sounds to me Anet is going to once again lie about a "global feature" being free for all players. I've asked multiple times in several forums whether Anet plans on releasing a stylist for free. And the question was dodged each time by Gaile. I finally saw mention of paying for appearance changes and other things by her the other day... let me go find the quote:

"Originally Posted by GaileGray
No plans to sell gold. If we sell items -- and I don't know of any plans yet, but I sort of hope that we do offer some optional items because I have a list! -- they will be items that do not impact gameplay. No "Uber Weapon of Dooooom." No "Armour of Gotta Have It Or I'll Die." Anything that was sold would have stats that made its purchase optional for appearance or unique qualities NOT related to winning the game or besting an opponent.

Just thought you'd want to know. "

There's the quote; here's the link: here

Note, she doesn't say we will be paying for a stylist, but the fact that she has dodged the question several times and the fact that here she mentions "purchase optional for appearance" makes me very wary of trust.

As for good stuff; Nightfall is awesome. I am loving every second of it and have barely a complaint that isn't a long standing "irk" of mine. It is IMO from what I have seen of Nightfall, it is as close to perfection as I have seen an online game be. I can not wait to pick up my copy and run with in October. Briliantly made and designed.
Wish List:

No locked gates; changable armor on Heroes; a free stylist (as in no charge of real money); elites to be capped by the heroes rather than passed on from what the players already have; more armor choices; more skill quests.