What would you like to see fixed before release

I like the map setting, and how music change in the transition of roaming -> battle.

I dislike how sometimes I can't finish listening to the full song/music. I hope these is an option that let us choose

Majority of the Nightfall characters did not have white eyeball (sclera?). I hope to see this change...

Also, some skill description are incorrect. I don't know all of them, so I won't bother posting them =(

1) More character customization options and variety (especially for Paragon and Dervish males) because I doubt all people in Africa have big noses and lips. Think Arabs*. If adding more unique options to customization is something that can't be done, then implement an option where we can choose options from previous chapters because those are done and ready for us.

2) Let us skip the tutorial if we choose to.

hero ai....koss was not very aggressive, while the monk never stayed where the marker was, and the ele would run off and agro when I wasnt asking for it.
Also made koss w/mo....in one instance the rest of my party was dead and I had used my res sig....we had dunkoro, the prot monk and 3 henchies....he raises me first, nice thought but I had dunkoro targeted.....he raised everyone ELSE before he rezed the monk.....just not right.
another thing about the heros----they only get skills that you have unlocked, this sucks since I dont have nor will I ever make a warrior so my koss had the same 6 skills and never got any new ones the whole time I played (and he was level 18 when I finished)....this was a freebee account, but my real account will be the same--no warriors. So I wont be using Koss---I will use the henchie instead.

the lack of more hair styles and colors options....the only character that I made this weekend with an abundant amount of color options was the necro, even the ele had less than when I made my first one 14 months ago.....the hair styles were not so good and the faces were horrible!
the lack of colorable parts of the paragon armor----it was almost impossible to tell people apart with there being sooooo limited hair options as well....I found 3 others who looked just like me!

grinding sunspear points got very old, and I only did the 1000 on one character, if all my other characters have to do this as well I wont be getting the game. Its too repeative to just have to kill the same stuff over and over again to get to the next level.....boring!!!!

a little more story line----I never got the trial quest cause I didnt even know about it....or where to get it, I was able to progress thru the rest of the story ok, though I did go to a few places out of order (and got wiped quickly).

a place to put the stuff our heros need---like extra weapons....if there is none I will need to make another mule character (the dervish) just to house them all.....especially since I have 6 characters I play on now....thats 6x12heros....or if you just go for a few....lets say 6x4...thats 24x whatever amount of stuff they each need......ok, will need 2 more mule characters!

maybe some kind of reminder when you enter missions towns that it IS a mission town even though the mission button is gone........

better drops----it was stinking HARD to get that dang drake flesh (I would purposely go out of my way to kill them just to see if I could get 1.....only my ele got one the whole weekend of playing)....and the reward just wasnt worth the wasted extra effort. (I finally gave my kabob from my ele to my paragon via a guildee so that I could finish the quest and clear my quest log before the preview ended). Maybe more of those drakes would make it easier.

I enjoyed the event.I liked the non linear part.I wanted to enjoy the scenery.It was excellant.
I think there needs to be some work done with Heroes but I really liked how they worked.I think they just need to do some tinkering with them.Use of skills and such.Some I tried didnt work.
I like the Sunspear points and how they worked it to get you atts.
I think the monsters were definately tough enough.If you didnt pay attention you got spanked.
Someone said they were killed a hundred times..whoa that is alot..)
It was such a enjoyable expierence for me I have a hard time picking what I think could be improved.
More selection on class of npcs and heros at the start I think would be good.I would of like to seen a necro.I really like the Ele that came later.He rocked.It was nice for the heroes to have viable skills.
I think the Dervish could use some work.I agree he was hit to hard with the nerf bat but still enjoyed playing one.
More facial selections.I like a few with beards..no bias on my part because I have a beard..)
Like I stated earlier I enjoyed the Beta.I havent had this much fun in along time.

I'll try to group my likes and dislikes so it's easier to read or skim over:

New Classes
Likes:
1) Paragon seems like a swiss army knife, even moreso than the Ritualist. I can play healer, buffer, and damage dealer in one build, and I'm loving it! (still loving my Rit, too)
2) The Dervish is still going to be a sweet soloer, I believe. Their unique AoEs and decent attack skills make for a killer tank.
Dislikes:
1) I think the Dervish was hit a bit too hard by the Mysticism nerf. That's the only beef I have with them right now.

Heroes
Likes:
1) Absolutely the best thing that ever happened to PvE, IMO. The henchies were great, the Heroes are phenomenal.
2) Customization, FTW. Just being able to change their skillbar is fantastic. The fact that you can equip their weapons and runes, control their skillbars, set their aggresiveness, and setup waypoints is above and beyond!
3) They have personality and are a more integral part of the storyline unlike henchies. I like having to take certain Heroes on certain quests/missions because of the important part they play.
4) Being able to use your own customized stuff is a nice feature.
Dislikes:
1) Wish they were just a little smarter and not so gung-ho while in aggressive mode. Defensive mode tends to make them stand around and not attack a lot, while Passive mode can actually make them run away, but into another mob threatening the whole group's survival.
2) The flag waypoints need to control Allied NPC's as well. It seems in-place so you can do maneuvers such as pulling, but Allied NPC's will ruin that entirely just as the old henchies do.
3) Need to be able to set a "priority skill" that they will use over any other. i thought that the check-mark did exactly that until I realized that all it did was buffer that skill to be used next, no matter what. You should be able to let a Hero know that "Watch Yourself!" and skills like it are a priority and should be spammed as much as possible.

Quests
Likes:
1) Tons of quests! The more the merrier! As long as they're not required, it's fun to have options.
2) Quests that are only available when certain criteria is met. There's a small handful of these in the other two games, but it seems prominent in Nightfall, and I love it! It makes the game seem alive and dependant on what you do.
3) Quest rewards are creative and quite useful. The promotion points are ingenious, and it feels like I'm gaining status within the Sunspears for doing oddjobs for people. Glad to see the "Quartermaster" rewards are still there. I thought that was a great idea in Factions and I'm glad to see it carried over.
Dislikes:
1) I was a bit sad to see that there were no skills as rewards to any quests. Even in Factions you at least got a good chunk of skills in the beginning to try out. In NF, you can only get about 8-10 for each class.
2) Any quest where you need to get a certain item or items to drop to complete the quest, please make the drop rate a little better, even if it's only while the quest is active. I never did finish the chef quest for that very reason.

Audio/Visual
Likes:
1) The game is absolutely beautiful! Landscapes, monsters, architecture, effects (love the zone portals!), character armors, and items are leaps and bounds ahead of Prophecies and Factions. People in the art team are getting paid well, I hope!
2) Jeremy Soule, you've outdone yourself. The music sets the mood so well. If I wasn't so caught up in everything else, I'd swear I was watching a movie with the score done by John Williams.
3) The battle music is an awesome addition. I know people were suggesting it and I'm glad Anet listened and stuck it in there. Adds a new dimension to battle.
4) Animation - just want to say I think the Dervish attacking with the Scythe is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The way they hang their head after a killing blow just oozes mega-Fonzies. The dance animations are all sweet, too. Yes, even the female Paragon, I love it!
5) Cutscenes, lip synching, and voice acting... superb! I know it's been said over and over, but I commend thee! These improvements are long-awaited and much appreciated!
Dislikes:
Just a few glitches in sound effects to mention here...
1) Sometimes there's no sound effects right at the start of battle, as if it's washed out, then I can start hearing it.
2) Also, I noticed that when raising minions, the character goes through the motion, filling the progress bar, then the minion is raised, but at the finishing of the spell, the character just abruptly stops and it plays the 'clicking' sound as if the spell was cancelled, but yet the minion was raised. Not sure if it does it for all corpse-exploiting spells, but it is kinda annoying cause I have to make sure the spell was completed.
3) One more thing, about the battle music, it does seem to start at odd times. It shouldn't start just because you activated "Blood of the Master" or "Orison of Healing" when there's no enemies in sight. It makes me kinda freak out thinking we're being ambushed or something came up out of hte ground and is attacking us.

Oh, I can't wait till release! This is a very solid game and I think the amount of whiners with this chapter will be a LOT less than Factions. Personally, I had a hard time trying to come up with any dislikes, and I look at them as more "things I don't absolutely love", rather than dislikes.

The game just needs a little fine tuning. For instance....

...the skill/attribute interface, which is kinda cumbersome and even counterintuitive. I mean, how many players tried to drag and drop skills from the skill list into a char's actual skill slots? There's no reason there should be two sets of skill slots on the screen at the same time....

Other than little stuff like that, NF is pretty cool. Already looks much more polished than Factions, which had massive terrain bugs until well after release.

Quest rewards could be more creative:
- xp was fine
- 10 promotion points is not much, point farming with npcs is faster. Makes doing certain quests redundant. (promotion point rewards should be increased)
- no skill rewards (bad, yes I can buy them all, I could even buy a crappy crystalline sword but there is the fun, skills should be earned not bought)
- finishing certain quests gave a random dye, a rune or materials (this is an example for a good quest reward)
- there are no item rewards, what about an item with random stats as quest reward

Collector Items:
- were all the same (boring)
- collector items should have unique stats but thats just my opinion, example: http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Poor_Tenant

Quest became unrewarding after faction release. How about Item rewards...

U get lets say gold unindentified Sword, or gold unid rune... At the earlier quests you could get blue or purple items.

For quests ( MASTER difficulty ) u would get 15K armor piece ( there would be many master quests so u can collect whole 15K armor threw quests ) how about that? That would be quest worth finishing.

At the beggining early quests simple rewards, later on better rewards. That would make me complete all this quests later on ( i would have a big motivation doing it ) and one more thing would probably be solved this way: there wouldnt be so many empty outpost because ppl would group for this quests where they all get their rewards and they would keep coming back for more.

I've always been a fan of PvE and was crushed when Factions and the "closed-doors" came out. But Nightfall was a return the original feel of Guild Wars PvE!

Things I think need improvement:
1. The so-called Master Level quests...were too easy! I defeated both on a level 7 Paragon character with assistance only from my sister's level 9 Dervish character. :O
2. The switch from roaming to battle music - as console gamer I appreciate this because I am very used to listening for that type of cue. However, I had many false alarms when the battle music would start up and I was standing in an area with no enemies!

Things that I loved (the short list):
1. The Paragons. A highly useful buffer/healer/damage dealer. I can't tell you how much I loved playing this class!
2. The absolutely lovely landscapes. It made exploring so much better than trudging through the big city in Factions.
3. The return of open-door portals. I loved this in the original Guild Wars - not so much for the runs, but because I could explore as a I pleased. I love exploring.
4. The music is absolutely stunning!

There's more that I loved, but like I said that's just the short list!

Talking about portals, I like the old ones (just with a unobtrusive film of mist) much more than the new ones (big flashy spheres). The new ones remind me that each region is clearly seperated and only connected via some "warp portals", whereas the old ones strenghten the feeling of being in a huge global world.

Gonna quote you for truth on that one. Although there are more than 2 Master Dilficulty Quests, all but one of them were easy as pie to complete, the one where you defend the harbour being the only real challenge amongst them all.

Thoughts on the Dervish: Mysticism is dead in the water as it stands. If you ask me, a decent compromise would be a scale similar to the A's critical strikes attribute:
0-7 Mysticism: 1 point per level
8-12 Mysticism: 2 ponts per level
13+ Mysticism: 3 points per level
So, for example, A dervish with 6 Mst would heal for 6, a dervish with 10 Mst would heal for 13 (7+6) and a dervish with 15 Mst would heal for 26 (7+10+9.)

As for the energy management of the Mst attribute, I feel that while 1 per 3 ranks looks a little underwhelming at first, once it is played out, it works just fine.

Scythes and Scythe mastery: 9-41 damage is a big range that encourages players to invest >12 in Scythe mastery for the increased critical hit rate. Because of the massive criticals a scythe is capable of doing, A/D was an obvious choice even before it was shown in the pre-order box's mini strategy guide. W/D may also become popular, as the warrior has several hard hitting attacks that are not tied to a particular weapon, as well as being able to spam wild blow for heavy hitting criticals - although this is a tactic better implimented by a D/W. Bulls Strike: It's fairly obvious - an untied to weapon type attack that can cause knockdown. This could situationally knock down 3 people silmultaneously, which when combined with the dervishes AoE deterrent, could be devastatingly effective. The last thing to note is that Twin Moon Sweep is the only melee attack in the game which can actually heal you, as far as I know.

Wind prayers did not get any love from me during the weekend, so I wont comment on something I have no experience in.

Earth Prayers: Okay, where to start. Earth prayers is currently, in my opinion currently the strongest Dervish attribute. Put quite simply, a D/x or x/D with 9 Ep can heal themselves for 234 points for only 5 energy with an 8 second recharge. I am, of course taking about Vital Boon>Signet of Piety. The defensive skills on offer were also impressive, but that was the combo that saved me on several occasions over this weekend. Also to note at 16 Ep, this combo heals for 334 health!

Dervish Armour: If theres stuff like what the holy henchman has? Sold.

Paragons: Hmmmmm, yeah, theyre nice, but I didnt really get to experience them a great deal over the weekend. They have some nice armour, thats for sure, but one thing a friend of mine commented on, (and I agree on, btw,) is that the effects of dying P armour black are virtually identical to what it looks like in silver! Also, the motivation henchman looks positively greek in origin.

Heroes: Me likey, very much. Just being able to give them a second profession and set their skills makes them a world apart from the henchmen of old. One thing I have noticed is that they will ocassionally charge off towards a group of enemies and lure em back to the main group - this NEEDS to be fixed, as this could have very serious consequences in higher level areas.

The starter Island: Artistically it's a fantastic effort, as usual. I was also impressed by the sheer variety of locations they managed to shoehorn in. Not that it's a small place, oh no, it's much bigger than the starter island in factions - Zehlon Reach, in particular is impressively large, incorporating an area much bigger than any I care to remember in Factions and far more interesting to boot.

Graphical Glitches: There was an error I noticed during play with my Dervishes hair - if you zoom out far enough for the LQ textures to implement, the hair on her forehead would disappear entirely!

PvE Rank: I have mixed feelings on this. First, I think it's a good way to spice up PvE and I think the system with which it was implemented during the preview was exceptional. But on the other hand, even during the course of the weekend, that ugly thing we call Rank Snobbery was rearing it's ugly head. (GLF R6+ for Defend ---) I'll say it now, the last thing PvE needs is the sort of attitude towards new players that is predominant in HA. Granted, R6 wasn't THAT hard to achieve, but it takes time to do, nonetheless, time which some people may not have. Again, this is purely in the context of a 3 day preview, we will have to see how it affects the game at release, until then, all we can do is speculate.

Lastly, I have a request for Anet: Please, oh please, give us few female eles with some dignity a non-skimpy armour set! I dont care if it's statisticly the worst piece of armour in the world, I and many others would still buy it
(i.e, something that actually covers our legs for once? That'd be nice )

Ok, long post, but I think I've said all I need to say, for now anyway...

I thought everything about the event was great.

The only thing I didn't get was how to start the Jokunar Diggings mission. I prefer the Enter Mission buttons, but thats probably just me.

Enjoyed the preview, except everyone looked the same. They definately need more face and hair options. My main character is an E/Mo. I would like to see some new skills that bring back their destructive capability, particularly in PvP. Same with Necros. With yet more professions, if their all going to a single account, we're all going to need more storage.

First and above all: Something MUST be done about the messy transitions in and out of the battle music. The only world class composer working in the entertainment business today has poured his heart into this game and I feel they are taking him for granted. It is upsetting to see an otherwise very classy outfit being so boneheaded about this.

Almost as important: This is becoming a single player game. There should be some incentive to PvE with humans other than loot trading. The who-gets-what game makes everyone feel dirty on some level, and the opportunity to take part in that doesn't match the benefits of an all hero & hench party.

It's too easy to level, and there aren't enough incremental rewards. What a drag finally reaching 500 gold stars on my Sunspear hat, going back to headquarters, and the guy who congratulates you on your gold stars won't even shake my hand.

I missed the vertical, maze-like design of the Factions world. To look up or down at something very distant and then later find yourself there adds to the sense of the setting being real and grand and big. In Prophecies the maze factor was a little much, but in Factions you could usually takes several routes, yet there was still some adventure in finding your way.

I didn't expect to enter buildings and so forth, but it was disappointing we were never, ever able to go up onto the ships, balconies, scaffolds, ewok villages, etc. The first time I found myself running across the rooftops in Cantha I involuntarily burst out in delighted cursing and accidentally woke up my girlfriend.

Factions made me feel like I was part of an old and honored organization. I'd go back to the monastery to log out because it felt like home. I didn't care too much about the Sunspears or their place in the world this weekend, and I think it's because the process of choosing a secondary profession didn't involve much questing. There were either too many NPCs or not enough interaction with each character. The Sunspear HQ wasn't impressive like the monastery, and when I encountered them in the field they were just standing around. I felt no connection to their traditions and endeavors. The one exception to this was the haunted ruins in the western swamps. I found myself very moved when I realized that within this very dangerous region I felt safe in that place and didn't wish to leave.

And I don't really care for the map icons for towns and outposts. The designs are too familiar, and the colors make them look a little cheap.

Reading this over, it looks like a very negative post, so let me say in closing that, while I wanted to register here every complaint and concern I have about the game - I am in the end MADLY in love with Nightfall, and this weekend was easily the most fun I have had gaming-wise in the past five years.

I had a great time plaing a dervish with my friends. I'm usually the caster type, I found the dervish melee was fun and rewarding.

Loved the Heros! Some AI needed, though.

I didn't like the skill attribute interface either. I did the same thing as easyg, tried dragging skills to my skill bar.
I suggest losing the "second" row of skills and opening up more space to see the list of skills.
With so many skills now, it was more difficult to scroll through them as I could only see a dozen or so at a time. When I'm looking at my Monk "Protection" skills, it would make is much easier to see them all at once!
Having the skill points on the interface was nice, though there was some space that also used up the skill list window. Maybe a reorganization of the whole interface might help.

As others have said, bring back the skill rewards for quests. It really helps for us poor folk!

All in all... Nightfall was very rewarding for me. Seemed better than Factions.

Dwig

I like the idea of rewarding skills for doing quests, but I think the these skills should not appear in skill trainer until you advance a bit further in the game. This is because I bought many skills that I could have gotten from quests back in prophecies. Another alternative is to give away skill points for quests (I actually like this way better). Also increase the money/xp rewards amount for long quests, for example Defend Droknar.

I found the translation between the games background ambient music to battle music was interesting. It doesn't work very well technically speaking. A few times it made some really screwed up loud sounds. I can't really even describe it, definately was annoying, but I am guessing that was more or less a issue with it being a "preview" event. You might want to look into getting that to work on all sound cards.

What would I like to see fixed? Well fixed may not be the best word to describe some of the changes I'd like to see, as they currently aren't "broken".

Anyways most important ---> least important

1) Making PvP and PvE characters EQUAL in PvP. This means either handicapping the PvE characters to make them equal to the PvPers (no armor switching, 2 primary 2 offhand weapons max) or boosting the PvP characters to PvE level (let us get 4 primary, 4 offhand and 3 sets of armor with different runes PLEASE).

2) Balthazar Faction sinks. I'm UAX, and I'm usually UAX really early once an expansion comes out, and sticking at 10k balths faction with nothing to spend it on seems like a bit of a waste to me.

How about having "Maids of Balthazar" or something that'll exchange balth's faction into items? Maybe like those flames of balthazar for the 4v4 arena event so you could store / sell your balthazar faction off (good way to make money without PvEing). If this is implemented I'd think that 10k normal balths faction would be able to buy 5k of storeable / tradeable balths faction.

Or how about having a skin unlocker for weapons / armor? Even if the most basic skins cost 10k faction and you had to work from the bottom up at least it'd be something.

3) TA / RA rewards. Alliance battle has faction that can be converted into amber / jade for money, halls has fame / the chest drop for emotes / gold, GvG has capes and real life money. TA and RA only have a title track (which all the others have as well). How about putting those medallions back in? (Maybe not for RA, as it doesn't encourage team based builds).

I enjoyed the event. I hope that the mainland will be just as good.

1) I was confused when I first got to the diggings. It said co-operative mission, but no mission (or NPC to talk to about the mission) was available. Later, when I'd completed the storyline quests this was okay - but initially confusing.
2) Density of quests was a little high in some cases - for instance, you finish a quest to find the same NPC giving you something else to do in that area straight away - the bog got a little tiresome. With prophecies the same quests would move you through the game into more areas, giving a feeling of progress and newness even though the quests were fairly repetitive on the whole. I love skill quests, but I guess they're a thing of the past. I liked how the inheritance quest transported you to the area you needed to be and back again - a nice touch and time saving too!
3) I'd like clarification on what you feel Master level is - I'd see the quest and not take it because I was concerned it would modify the area to be too difficult if I couldn't complete it - I come back later and the lvl 15 enemy is a bit of a push over.
4) *All* of the paragon armours are white and dye very subtly. I am hoping that there are armours with more dyable areas later on. Because you don't particularly stand out in the crowd, or from the NPC sunspears for that matter.
5) Thank you for balancing the Dervish.
6) Drops of collector stuff was fine - just not the iron drake flesh. I didn't see any until I got to the keys a fair way through the game. The aboba petals were listed as a salvage item rather than a collector item.
7) I felt that the story flowed more, the town transforming to mission outpost was neat. The tribunal was fun and made me wish I'd read the dialogues as well as watching the cutscenes. Voice acting was much better - but I'm sure there's still room for a Danika to appear in the story somewhere. The only break was a wait to get sunspear ranks, but that was based in my confusion about how the sunspears scouts worked - I didn't talk to them when I went through an area initially, which would have made a great deal of difference. People claim they felt they needed to farm sunspear points, but talking to the scouts in the process of doing quests and just travelling through an area I thought the points tended to accumulate just fine.

The sad thing was I finally got used to it by the end of the preview event. I logged in today to cap an elite and decided to change my attributes (first time changing anything since the preview) and immediatly hit "k" instead of "h". *sigh* - at least if you tried the old method it ditfully opened up the correct new window.

I liked it over all, no real complaints. I thought the Dervish will probably be hit with the nerf bat again (I have not played a GW PvE char that powerful) but do not know know from reading PvP reviews. I didn't play a paragon so no comment there.

Probably the only "complaint" is no skill rewards for quests. I really miss that even if it was mostly spells I never used. Too many skills are worth a try if free, but not worth a skill point and 1k to goof off with.

I would say one of my very big likes was crafting materials, minor vigor, and random dye for rewards. It really makes a new character easier to play - I hated either sitting for hours on factions waiting on a material to be available or to spend hours farming for that materia (can not imagine a new player that can not farm - had to be really frustrating)l. I wouldn't support it for any max armor other than very plain (have rare materials for other skins/stats), but for non-max armor that you are essentially required to purchase (waste) gold on for a short amount of time it was a real help.

The factions preview I was pretty much non-excited. Factions release I would give an "Ok" (I liked the professions and skills, hated the actual game) - how good prophecies was is why I am still here. All my factions characters were immediatly moved to tyria and played there. So far, Nightfall has me feeling like prophecies again - really looking forward to the retail version. Not only that, but I think they will easily meet my expectations and have a good chance of exceeding it.