Elite missions available to all

Note: this topic is not about alliances. Please, refrain from criticizing or even naming old or existing alliances. This is not the place for another flmae/argue about who was right or who was wrong. This topic is about elite missions, and how to access to them, not about alliances.

Sorry for this note, but we had many alliance flames on this topic, and i'd rather not have this thread locked about that.

For the new players who were not here when Factions was released, let me tell you a bit of history. The very first alliances who holded Cavalon and HzH decided to keep the elite missions closed. Actually they did not really decide that: that was how it was. The elite missions were designed for the alliances holding the main town of each side, and the concept of "taxi" did not exist yet. Actually most of the players didn't know someone from another alliance could be ferried to the elite missions by a member of the alliance holding the town.

Then a luxon alliance was created in the purpose of opening the Deep to all. After a few weeks they indeed captured Cavalon and started ferrying people for free to the Deep. Their aim was not only to let people who had no chance to be in an alliance holding Cavalon play the elite mission but also to make ANET change the way players can access to the elite mission themselves.

Meanwhile, several threads about how unfair the entrance of the elite missions were were posted on the main fansites forums. Unfortunately, the threads posted on guru seem to have been deleted, but you can still check one old 12 pages thread on gwonline about that: http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=398729

Realizing that those threads were not just ranting about some silly aspect of the game, ANET decided to change that. I quote Gaile Gray:

That was posted in May. Five months later, ANET hasn't still done anything to change that. We only had a 3 days event with the missions opened to all via a NPC in Kaineng Center. I first believed this WE was a joke when it was announced. But some people pointed out the fact that it could have been some kind of testing for a real, definitive alternative means of gaining access to the elite missions. Several months later, I think ine can conclude it was not.

So what now? Was it just an inconsiderate promise? Or is ANET really going to open the Deep and Urgoz?

Gaile may be too busy to read that, but I'd still really appreciate some feedback from ANET.

- Cheers.

Well the did indeed say something about looking into an alternate means of access to elite missions. But I wouldn't say available to all, as they would no longer be elite; they'd just be missions.

No offense, there's no argument with your idea, but... god, we have a SEARCH, use it and post in existing threads...

THERE ARE 31 PAGES OF THREADS ABOUT THIS TOPIC!!! I'm sure half of them relate to open access of the elite missions. Deleted my a**...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...cope=4&order=1

Well according to PC Gamer; the elite mission in Nightfall will be available to everyone once you get far in the game. So do your farming there, but I don't think they're going to go back and patch Factions at this point.

It appears that faction farming to control towns and outposts has helped keep players active in Factions (PvE grinding, Aspenwood, and ABs). Just my opinion, but Anet proly realized that they would lose players if they opened up the Elite missions to all.

Having been in alliances that controlled HzH, I got the impression that many of those players (not all) would leave if the point of PvE grinding (typically a running quest) was taken away. I expect that a few months into Nightfall, Anet will announce new drops or some other attraction to increase the demand for access to elite missions and thereby the incentive to control the capitals of each faction.

About a month ago, the controlling alliances were maintaining about 35 to 45 Million faction. Now factor in the 10% daily loss of about 4,000,000 faction that was being replaced. How much is that in player hours? I don't know, but it's certainly enough for Anet to realize that keeping the elite missions closed is in their best interest.

I was not able to find topics from May, which is the period I am refering to (right after the release of factions, when people got really upset about the elite mission system). And if I wrote such topics had prolly been batch-deleted with the other old topics, it's perhaps because I used the search function and could not find them. I haven't found either such a reminder for ANET, since after the quote of Gaile Gray is clear enough. You should also have noticed if I have taken the time to use the search on other forums to post here, I also used it on this forum. No need for harsh comments.

EDIT /

Actually the topic I had in mind is listed there: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3032505 (hence the name of this topic). I couldn't find it yesterday when I searched. Read it for history, however I think it's fair enough to post another topic about that 5 months later.

Concerning the other topics, restrict the search to the recent topics (1 month old - I would have searched for 2 months old topics if such an option existed), and you have 7 topics left ( http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...cope=2&order=0 ). None of them is relevant.

/ EDIT

Yes, I'm affraid that's, at least partially, true. But it's stupid at the same time. I mean... if I'm talking about this it's also because I was a part of one of the alliances i'm talking about. I definitely know what farming factions is, and how much you must farm to keep Cavalon or HzH. You can do that for a while, but most of the hardcore factions farmer I know (some of them who could farm 150K factions in a week-end) no longer play the game. Because that ruined their fun. That's just sad in my opinion.

I was in the alliance that had the HzH but I don't faction farm anymore. But I'm not complaining, I'm just moving on. I don't have a grudge or rivalry with anyone. I'm on good terms with the guild I was in.

When I was in all this, I ferried for free. I also wanted the Urgoz elite mission to be available to everyone. I'm sure the programmers didn't make the entire elite missions so that only the alliance people, out of all the gamers in GW, can play in them. And I sometimes asked people in local chat if they wanted to park a character in Urgoz. And I encouraged this so that people in their guild can get in through the guild hall. Of course anyone else who wants in this way has to have been there at least once, and I offered to help out by ferrying anyone who needed it. It was the usual me, wanting EVERYTHING to be availble to EVERYONE in Guild Wars.

I did accept tips because I didn't want to blow anyone off. But never required them. A lot still did tip and it was nice pay. But not many go there now with Nightfall out.

I'm still going for the Steward of the Kurzicks title so I may do a one or two day stay in the guild I was in every now and then to faction farm for it.

As far as the Elite missions go I have been in one 1 time thats it. I do believe they should be open to all but only after you have completed the game and gotten at least half of the masters for the missions. This may seem a bit extreme but it will make players actualy play the game and not just go out and do a rush job to finish it. This could be implemented as they do in nightfall now. You must meet certian requirements before you can continue. Do the sme for the Elite missions.

Mega Mouse

Not fully true. They're not just elite because only a handful of people can access them. They're elite because they are above the quality of regular missions. How many missions do you know that have the same difficulty? How many do you know that have the same complexity and length? How many do you know that have unique skin drops?

Hopefully they will find better ways to implement them in other chapters. As for the Factions ones, may just have to accept them as they are now that Nightfall is out. Of course, maybe they are seeing how their way of doing the Nightfall elite (whenever/wherever that is) will work out, and they could use that as a test to find the alternative way for the Factions ones.

Fully agree with this. The 'eliteness' should be in the quality of the mission, not the access to it.

I was a member of the alliance currently controlling HzH till recently(quit after getting fed up of FFFing), and have been to countless Urgoz runs. The problem? The lesser the pool of people you have, the lower the quality of the groups. Typically, you wont find quality PvErs in FFing guilds. More than half of the runs I've been in ended mid-way pretty badly. It takes an hour or more to find the right group, and there arent enough people present to try anything other than a standard B/P group.

I think opening these Missions would actually get more people interested into Factions. Some other uses for Amber and Jadeite would be nice to keep people playing AB and FA and maybe possibly one day Jade Quarry. =/

With Nightfall out, finding ferries will be VERY HARD for new Factions players, so it would be pretty fair. so /signed

For god sake.

Im sorry if this sounds like flaming, its not.

But honestly. How do you expects the devs to do two things at once.

Its been 5 months since that statement by Gayle was posted right?

Lets think about what Anet has been developing before and during and after that time....

...NIGHTFALL!!!

Stop winging and let them do their jobs. Theyve been busy and its impressive alone that they managed to do that special "elite weekend" while they were trying to get nightfall ready to go live.

I know what its like to have lots of jobs to do when developing a system, and it and build up.

They probably have alot of stuff to be doing, such as fixing errors and all the other countless issues people constantly complain about in here.

Most of which are rubbish anyway and just individuals being petty.

We just had a major update to GWs which probably took alot of time and effort.

Would you rather that time and effort had been taken away from nightfall and the last major update and been dedicated to making elite missions public to all?

I know where id rather the time and effort had went.

I hope- REALLY HOPE- that you don't think developing a full game takes the amount of effort it takes to simply allow access to content inside the existing game?

I thought it may be a cool idea if you can trade 2, 3, or maybe 5k faction for a ticket pass good for one entry into the elite missions.

You might as well say they'd never get anything done, since they've already been working on the next expansion. Besides, opening elite missions to public isn't going to take alot of time....
/signed

Im not saying it does, but they have a priority list.

And the OP said it had been 5 months since Gayle made her statement.

Within 5 months, we have had nightfall, elite weekends, other special weekends, halloween night, preview events, and a major update.

All of which would have been getting developed in that space of time.

Yes it may not take much time to create a way to allow people to access elite missions, but its still time and effort which they are obviously putting elsewhere.

Their probably developing that system now and it might be ready for all we know, but due to other obligations they had to get other things out first.

Its not exactly easy updating software when you have users barking at you from all sides saying "i want this", "get rid of that", "why did you do that", "i found this error, fix it".

These things all go onto a list and are given priority.

The fact is that elite missions work... there is no desperation to give full access to people and they will get around to it.

So be patient and just use a taxi in the mean time.

Don't get me wrong I really appreciate the hard job done for Nightfall, the latest big update, etc. BUT...

Everybody knows ANET has 2 teams of devs: one working on the current campaign (Factions when I posted this topic, NF now) and one working on the next campaign. So saying that they don't have time to work on it because of the hard work for NF is wrong as I uderstand it, as different people were working on both campaigns.

Now about the idea itself: I probably wouldn't have posted this thread 6 months after the release of Factions if ANET, despite all the people complaining about the elite missions, had told us they wouldn't change the requirements to get there. But if you read again the post by Gaile Gray I quoted in my first message, she said that opening the elite missions to all were for them a priority. One can say 5 or 6 months later it was not. Hence this topic. If they had said they wouldn't change it, it would have been harsh, but I would have accepted it. But it's as if they had said "yeah we're going to change that" to make people calm down, hoping ferries will be enough for them, and still didn't really want / take time to change that.

You're talking about ferries, saying we can still use ferries to go to the elite missions outposts. Yes, that's right. But you know, one of the reasons I posted this topic is also because I was a part of the alliance that opened the deep. I did ferry people for free - members of the alliance weren't even allowed to ask for tips or, in certain guilds, to accept them when offered without asking for. But when I ferried people, I did that for the community, because I believed it was injust that 99.999% of the players of GW (without ferries) weren't able to play the elite missions. But the question now is: can you ask players to spend their time ferrying people only because they farmed an insane amount of factions, enough to hold one of the two major cities? Also: What is a system based on the generosity of a few players worth? I thank A LOT the members of the alliances owning Cav and HzH for ferrying people - but this sytem is not reliable at all. And it's even stupid gameplay-wise. Players can't be sure to have access to the elite missions: everything depends on the generosity of other players. When they find a ferry, they can get there but they've met no requirememnt to get there. When they can't find a ferry, there is no requirement they can meet to get there. This is the problem, and this is what ANET said they would change, one or two months later. This is what they said almost 6 months ago now.

Just some thoughts:

I also ferried to Urgoz for free. I even made an effort to ask if people want to park a character in there. But it adds up in amount of time to do this. And there were also the people who would whisper me asking me for a ferry. I asked them to do this when I'm standing by the fireworks guy, which means I'm available to ferry at a moments notice. But no, I got whispers while I was faction running or doing other things. Usually I say I'm busy, and it was okay and that's alright. Once I went over and ferried a group and got 10k total and an assassin green for tips. Didn't even ask for it, which I never do. However, once someone actually spam whispered me repeatedly asking me for another ferry. Full on scrolling text in the chat window. That was the ONE time when I decided, reasonably I think, to tell this person that I won't ferry him because he freaking spam whispered me. I didn't prevent him from being ferried by anyone else or whatever. I don't care if anyone ferries him and I honestly hope he got ferried. But just not me, that's where I had to draw the line. It's not that I'm not allowing him. I'm just not gonna be the one to stop the car and help change his tire.

Even with the tips I got, and I do mean good tips, and even if I were still able to do this for the tips I typically got, I'd still prefer the elite missions be open to EVERYONE. No ferry requirement or anything like that. Maybe a requirement of beating Shiro or paying some amount of faction to enter or something. But not leaving it up to other gamers.

I realize there are alliances that intended to open the elite missions for everyone and I thank them for that. But there was one ferrier in Cavalon who did the opposite. I won't say who it was nor do I remember or care. And I won't say when it was or which alliance was in control, nor do I quite remember anyways. But he flat out said that he will write down the names of anyone who tips low or doesn't tip and report to the alliance. Tips were being expected. And big tippers get ferried during "busy hours." I didn't like that at all and that's one of the incidents that motivated me to put extra effort in having Urgoz open to everyone.

I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist and I don't mean this in that way at all. But I wonder if this was programmed to see how people interact and deal with this. I've witnessed alliance and guild leaders put massive hours into keeping the outpost, then get burned out and hand over leadership to someone else. I wonder if the programmers assumed this would happen and figured it's a good way to cycle guilds and leaders. Thing is, I don't think tiring people out is really cool, and I hope that wasn't the intention. There's also the matter of personal choice and responsibility of the gamers and I think it's mostly up to them what they do. It's not like the GW website told people to faction farm for hours. The gamers came up with that method.

I totally appreciate what you wrote and have said.

I think its wonderfull that your guild started the trend of allowing people to taxi to the missions for free.

It just gets to me when people complain that Anet arent doing their jobs by fixing issues people DEMAND, or implimenting changes which people DEMAND.

I maintain inhouse software for a fairly large training company in the UK. Im the soul developing guy who improves it and adds and fixes what people ask for.

Now Im aware that what I do in comparision to GWs is on a far far far far lower scale.

I work in vb6 and its relatively easy what I do.

But on my pin board at work, I have a long list of stuff which people ask for. Now my trend is to do the easy things which will take 10 minutes and then a day and the get onto the longer projects.

But in doing that, I can get a call from the user or I call them and in speaking to them, they add a new HUGE update or fix they need and they say its has priority.

It may be the case that their are two development teams at Anet working on two seperate continents at the same time. But thats still only 2 out of 3. And they will have other things which creep up on them and take priority.

Im sure Gayle said in all sincerity that making elite missions available to all was a priority, but in the last 5 or 6 months, alot can happen and more updates and fixes can creep up and take its place.

I just ask that people consider that and consider these people are working their bums off constantly 24/7 working on improving the gaming experience and be patient with them.

It does they read these posts and give us what we ask...

..just look at Heroes ad white dye.

Im sure they had white dye planned for months before hand, and had it all ready to get out.

But they waited until every other project and update was finished before bundling it all together in one large update.

They might have the elite missions ready and waiting to update, but are waiting for other projects to finish to bundle it in with.

I just say we keep asking nicely and politely and be patient.

Just my opinion, but Anet proly realized that they would lose players if they opened up the Elite missions to all.

lol lose player huh
the only reason i got factions was to do elite mission and if i would have know or wish my stupid guild mate would have told me that if u need a ferry to get there and it was that much of a pain i would have never gotten it, the only thing worth having factions is the elite missions and AB the rest of it sucks out loud.
i think they should open to all player who have gotten the 1st AB title (friend of) so if some 1 wants to farm there all they have to do is AB for a few weeks i think that would make the player "elite"
once u have title u can go anytime u want with out a ferry

The elite missions should be opened up the same way the elite mission is opened in Nightfall. There should be an NPC in both Cavalon and House zu Heltzer that will take you to these missions, but only accessible after you beat Shiro. Quite simple, really. It makes you wonder why they haven't done this yet.