Locked gates again... possible compromise solution?

To the point:
-Grinding is almost non existant in guild wars. Doing a few quests and killing a few monsters in nothing compared to most RPGs especially MMORPGs.

-I found gates to be much less obstrutive in Nightfall comparatively. I visited many areas before missions sent me and it was never a problem.

-With more to do on an individual character, I fail to see the incentives of power leveling. You can go to low level arenas and pwn noobs with worse equipment-- you're a big man.

-Absolute freedom means more difficulties in game design. Guild Wars should have more freedom (something Nightfall captures), but complete freedom means sacrificing some of Guild Wars stronger elements.

End all locked gates. :/ It was a step in the right direction having almost none in Nightfall, but there are still some.

Grind is grind, even if it's less, relativistically.

God, not this debate again.

Look. All you "pro-gaters" who want to be forced to play the game in a straight line: Do It.

Don't go off the main primary quest, pretend all the gates are locked, and enjoy yourselves.

But for the last time: Quit telling others how they should play the game.

Some of us (hard to believe, I know), actually enjoyed exploring places we weren't "supposed to" in Prophecy. Why Anet is changing one of the best parts of their game, is beyond me.

To me, because I started playing Guild Wars with Prophecies, Locked Gates are NOT Guild Wars. There's really no reason to compare other RPGs, get off-topic, etc. The Original Guild Wars has no locked gates. Factions only had locked gates to artificially lengthen a very short game.

Nightfall, if it's as good as Anet claims, should not need locked gates. If the designers do feel they need gates, I'd like to hear why Prophecy didn't need them, and now future chapters do.

This issue is moot. I thought all low level arenas are closed. If I'm wrong, I apologize, and that's an issue that needs to be addressed by not allowing certain armor into those arenas.

Locking off areas of the game just for that problem is not the best solution.

As a comment, I did not find Blacktide Den closed when I jogged to it. Granted I was like level 14 or something and had done some other missions, but I was just exploring and entered it. The one that was locked is Beknur Harbor.

In any case, it seemed the place was roomy enough and I did not feel compelled to do the main quest to unlock things.

However, for those who wish to get to Kodlonu Hamlet at level 3 just because they want to, well, ANet obviously thinks you should not. So... Tough luck.

The low-level arenas are still open as far as I know. As far as why didn't Prophecies need gates, what makes you think it doesn't? Perhaps they didn't realize gates were needed until it was too late to put them in.

Given that Factions jumped to a ton of gates, and the number of gates in Nightfall has fallen off, it seems like they're trying to figure out how many gates they need to prevent abuse, while still allowing as much exploration as possible.

Those of us that like gates can't just pretend they're there when they're not, because this is an MMO. We have to interact with other people, and when those people have circumvented things the designers thought were important, problems arise. Remember all the n00bs at THK? Gates and more complicated and challenging missions (which people are forced to do) help prevent that by blocking people from the later parts of the game until they've had some real experience.

As far as the open-endedness of Morrowind, I didn't like it. After I'd played the game and knew where things were, the only way I could make it hard was to set the difficulty slider to max and then try to finish the story and become the head of every joinable guild without ever reaching level 6. Levitation + bows & Daedric Crescent + sujamma ftw.

I have a level 20 character of every class, half of them made in Factions, and the gates have never bothered me.

They're updating the game all the time. It'd be relatively easy to simply close off areas (like the Drok run), but there have been quotes posted time and again that the reason they don't, is they don't see running as a problem.

As I said, my opinion is the gates in Factions are just there to make the game longer. I mean, Missions are another topic, I'm fine making Missions unplayable unless you've done the previous one (as long as I can explore the area around the Mission freely).

Simple solution. Make Missions unplayable unless you've done the previous one (can't "Enter Mission") No excuse for gating off the whole area, however.


Good for you. They did bother me.

Still haven't heard an objection to "no-gates" that can't be fixed in another way....

Basically, having Gates is lazy design, and against (IMO), the Foundation of Guild Wars where we always had choices on how we want to play the game.

Aren't Sanctum Cay and Thunderhead Keep "gates" in Prophecies?

The problem with Factions (and I'm assuming Nightfall) is that there are numerous quests within the mission areas that are only available AFTER you complete the mission. They use the same space for laziness in design, obviously, but that can be expected with a 6 month turnaround on new chapters.

The solution for this, obviously, is to not allow ANY quests or missions to be performed until a mission is completed for a certain area. That will allow runners to make it towns, etc...but then those runners can't complete the game until they actually follow the storyline.

I like the way Nightfall appears to be handling the Primary quests by requiring a certain level or "Sunspear points" before you can take the next Primary Quest, but you can still have pretty open-ended exploration.

It seems like a good compromise, as long as there are limited gates in Nightfall.

(The Gates in Faction were out of control, with really no logic behind some of them.)

Think we agree Mordakai. The issue with "too open" a game is people losing the storyline all together, then world changing events don't make any sense.

Uhhh ... since we're all cool enough to prove our points with an online encyclopedia:

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

"Flamebait is a message posted to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame") or argument over a topic the troll often has no real interest in."

Here's an example:


I think what you're referring to is a "Flamebot".

It's funny though, calling us all ignorant or "too young" to know what a genuine RPG is ... yet you started with the magical insult of a "troll" which ... is a word I haven't heard anyone use since I was about 8 years old. But I guess that makes you the almighty leader of the RPG phreakers right?

As for the whole Ultima vs. Guild Wars post ... Ultima is an OLD MMORPG ... that, albeit fun for a while, is nothing even remotely fun compared to Guild Wars. Plus, I'm pretty sure if you've played ALL the renditions of Ultima Online, you'd realise that, eventually somewhere along the line, people started getting cut off from certain things. MOST "RPGs" nowadays have some sort of blockage due to either low level or a notch in the storyline. It keeps the whole "eternal story" going, I.E. RPGs were meant to be played over a long period of time, not 4 days, like the majority of other games being released. (PREY anyone?).
Guild Wars, although perhaps intended to be so, is not an MMORPG else we would have ourselves a more realistic version of WoW ... save a few major details and a player audience that never sleeps (and I mean major to state the obvious so none of you hardcore WoW vs. GW people decide to rip me apart. I am not comparing the two at all.) The only time it's even close to "Massive Multiplayer" is when we're in a town or there's 100+ people watching a GvG match or an Alliance battle. If anything, I would consider GW an Online Strategy RPG. RPG in that, yes, there are many RPG aspects, certainly not that of an MMO because the max amount of people you're ACTUALLY playing with at one point in time is 8-12, and strategy in regards to the PvP play.
Have you ever looked at the ratings Ultima has gotten over the years either? No. Probably not. Not that ratings matter or anything, I mean, they ARE the publics' "opinions" rallied via many "votes" conducted by the either the game's editors or the game's reviewers ...
You want a true RPG? Go play Final Fantasy 1-5. They even come in the same cartridge together now.

I do not mind locked gates myself. At first in factions I had to get use to it. But with my second character I knew what to do and didn't bother me.

When I look at "grind" myself, I think what does it take to get an Airship pass (and not pay 1/2 million gil) or Choocobo License in FFXI.

definitely. prophecies wasnt guild wars. it was run wars.

I honestly never found a gate I couldn't pass through in the Nightfall preview event, and I thought I explored pretty heavily while trying to work on my Sunspear ranking.

I heard later there was a locked gate preventing entry from the Cliffs to Blacktide Den, and then I heard after that that you could bypass it by going around through Farahnur, The First City.

So I don't understand any complaints at all.

As I stated, it looks like they're trying to figure out how many gates they actually need. Prophecies had none (or 2, if you count Sanctum Cay & THK), Factions had gates everywhere, Nightfall has gates in a couple places, but certainly not all over like Factions had.

Yes, there are other solutions to limiting access or preventing abuse besides the gates, but how much additional time would it take them, and what other area of the game would suffer as a result of their developing a new solution to a problem they already have a solution to? I understand why it bothers some people, but I really don't think it's a big enough deal to justify diverting resources from other aspects of the game.

To me, Nightfall seems a perfect compromise. (If what I've seen is representative for the whole game.)

I could explore huge chunks of content before taking missions, even the mission areas themselves. Explorers have nothing to complain about.

It seems that the only people who are out of luck are the people wanting to skip huge chunks of the game on subsequent characters, and people wanting to skip ahead, get good equipment and go back to breeze through the game. Tough luck, ANet obviously doesn't want you doing either. Isn't it great we've found out about it for free, during a preview weekend? Now you guys don't have to buy the game and endlessly complain about it on the internet.

OK this was NOT supposed to be yet another "locked gates vs unlocked gates" debate

This was supposed to be a "can we have a compromise solution that will keep both sides pleased?"

I accept the criticisms to my suggestion: Sunspear masters at level 1 are silly. But maybe there are other options?

I of course agree that, from the perspective of someone who doesn't like locked gates, GWN is an improvement from GWF.

What I wanted to suggest would be some way to keep GWN locked for the first char that does it (forcing him to go through the storyline), and then let it remain more "open" for the rest.

BTW anyone tried for example going into the 2nd mission (must have the Dervish hero + done some specific quests before) having in the party someone that hasn't done the needed quests?

As this was a preview weekend I wasn't concerned when I found the gates to Beknur Harbor and Blacktide Den closed. That is until I quested my way through them.

Instead of locking gates and discouraging exploration why not lock the NPC's until a character reaches a reasonable level for the area they are in? Factions proved locking NPC's can be done.

I'm against locked gates, but it would be acceptable for me if it was level based, without any other restrictions. So the player can choose either to gain experience by following quests and missions, or by grinding as much as he likes
Its all ok to me as long as I can choose how to play myself. I don't want to be restricted, e.g. by the necessity of completing missions.

Where's Savio when you actually need him...

Considering the title of the game "Guild Wars" refers to the game's past and lore, this comment makes no since what so ever... or I'm missing it. Don't like runners, don't use em. I don't care whether they are thre or not, but I don't use em. I prefer to play through the game and if I'm not in the mood to do yet another mission, I like to explore, not farm. In Factions, I couldn't do anything if I didn't feel like doing a mission.

The fact that they are there, means Anet is goofing a great game. In other words, rather than options and playability, Anet is hand holding again to apease those who's friends lists and guilds are too small to complete missions unless they use PuGs.
I don't think gates were meant to block runners at all. I think they were put in to force players through the missions so those that still PuG would have more people to put a group together with; and lengthen a terribly short game.
If Anet really wanted to stop runners, it wouldn't be hard for them to do so at this point. Anyone that's been around longer than a month would know this as we've seen what kind of updates they can stream us.
Other options to locked gates could be:
Missions and quests should be set as a checks and balance system. That way, players' armor and skills are "set" available by what missions and quests they have completed. This allows the world to be open and more life like, rather than an imitation action adventure game on the Nintendo Gamecube.
Use titles as a checks and balance to determine what armor and skills are available. Set this title to count what mission or quest you have completed and have the merchants and skills for purchase available at that point.

Anet can choose to limit and destroy the game's immersion again, or they can grow up and let their players grow out of the hand holding stage by getting rid of the gates all together.

Nightfall is going to be awesome if Anet will lose the gates before release. With the gates, it will only be great. Personally, I would prefer awesome... When game play is concerned, options are always good, limits are bad.

edit:

Stuck behind a locked gate