Anet - Good job, but maybe it's time to change strategy!

Grats with Nightfall! In my mind it's vastly superior to any online RPG I have ever played. As far as Im concerned it craps all over the two previous GW games. Im nicely surprised and happy.


However, playing Nightfall now and going back to Cantha and Tyria, starts to show me how far these games have become in mission structure, and design and so on.


Jeff Strain once said, that NF was the final part of a GW trilogy. That NF would round of the loose ends. I think it did that very well.


But I also think that this can not go on. It's apparent right now, that bigger changes needs to happen if the 50 bucks campaigns are gonna keep being interested.

What I suggest, is that you take one of your development team and put them on hold. Give the other team who is currently doing chapter 4(the factions team), extra time to really give Campaign 4 some groundbreaking new features for the series.

The Nightfall team, should instead go back and update cantha and tyria and just in general add some stuff for the game. Like what? perhaps some more end game areas. the other gods realms(lyssa, mendu...). more armor. add lip synching and improving cut scenes and improving confusing story points for the first two campaigns.

maybe improve the trading and LFG system. Adding some benefical interface updates, adding some more faces for cantha, doing some tweaking with the much hated "locked gates" in cantha.

its important that ArenaNet also gives the old areas alive. heroes is a great tool for people to help gather skills and getting titles and getting quests done, in a more easier way in the old campaigns because of their superiority compared to henchies, but still. I really think that tyria and cantha needs a tune up.


I honestly would have no problem waiting a year again. I would much rather wait 1 year from now, for campaign 4 and have campaign 5 team doing some much needed content and game upgrade here and now.


thoughts?

I whole heartedly agree with everything you just typed.

Nightfall has certain things that lacked in factions, having the Nightfall Team tuning up Tyria and Cantha would be a good idea (although not the best one to Anet, economically speaking)

The again, im [Guessing] the nightfall team will still be busy updating things in Nightfall as problems apear, and generally balancing things as needed.

The Factions team needs a completel overhaul. Nightfall shows how much more focused they were. Factions was an aborted fetus, pure and simple. And this is coming from a primarily PvP player. It added zero high level content for PvP. ABs are/were a joke. The new classes weren't well received at all in high level play (Ritualists are barely seen now that Rit Lord was nerfed, Assassins have a couple viable builds however).

Nightfall did far more for PvP than Factions did, even though Factions was billed as PvP focused. If this is what a PvE focused chapter does for PvP, they should make all chapters PvE focused. The classes are better, there is a higher percentage of good skills and the new armor/focus/inscriptions are a godsend to PvP players.

Also, Factions PvE was unbearably bad. I never did finish that campaign. The enemy density was absolutely ridiculous. Every 10 paces, you'd fight a mob of 8-10 guys. They weren't even difficult to defeat, it was just tedious. On top of that, they'd plant traps every possible time they could. So after killing those guys, you'd walk 5 paces, trigger a Spike Trap, and fall down. Walk 5 paces, trigger Spike Trap, fall down. Fight 8 rangers, walk 5 steps, fall down. Nightfall PvE, however, is so much more sensible. The enemies are more varied (eles, mesmers, warriors, dervishes in a single group), the enemy density is down to probably an encounter every 30-45 seconds and the quests are much more involved. Factions' quests primarily consisted of going into the middle of an explorable area, clear 15 mobs surrounding the quest guy, get the quest, go into 4 different zones to hit the green star (clearing 15 mobs in each zone unless it was a town/outpost), go back to the original zone, clear the same 15 mobs surrounding the reward. Ugh.

/signed

I completely agree. That is a great idea. I was also thinking how far Guild Wars has come and I think it would be great if they went back and did a few of the updates to previous chapters. I rather have little updates for the night six months and wait a year before chapter 4 thus letting chapter four be even more exciting.

I hope A.Net considers that!

The teams would not have autonomy on how they create a chapter. The chapters don't turn out how the particular team wants them to - they work out according to what they have to create. it's not specifically the Factions teams fault that Factions was a poor expansion, Arenanet was just trying something new which didn't work. I'll lay odds a hell of alot of dev time was put into the alliance battle system and town control. Nightfall didn't have anything like that, so they had more time to develop other parts of the game.

they should add the 4 expansion professions to all the chapters, if a user combines the accounts. instead of limiting to chapter specific professions.

Excellent suggestion. I think part of A-Net's thinking is fear of losing customers (and revenue) with the length of time between expansions.

A Sorrow's Furnace update would do much more to "tide us over" than these weekend events, and would buy enough time for the developers to really start something groundbreaking in Chapter 4.

There will be more chapters, however, this is the end of the TRILOGY...so expect them start new series' and do various things in the future.

Great suggestion but think about it for a second. Would A-Net take the time to update what is already implemented? Sure it would make the first two chapter more enjoyable but the time it take might be too long and hence slow down their plan for future series of Guild Wars. I like those changes but think about how long it took (and still waiting) for auction house and bigger storage. Not to mention a better trading system. I'm still surprise that we gotten Lip-sync and white dye from Nightfall. Also what would stop A-Net from doing a new series (or start up another path for Guild Wars) using these new ideas.

Well, at any rate - I still bought factions. its stilla part of guild wars. its still connected and its still relevant. GW factions affect us all on a daily basis in the game.

I dont want to look at factions and tell new players not to buy that campaign because they made some strange choices.

We need focus. They are running on a succes. they proved everyone wrong, when we thought that their 6 month campaign model would not work. we where sad to see factions as a result after 1 years work.

There are so much they can do. right of the bat - Im thinking vista, and DX10 support. HDR lightning?

what about perhaps revisiting some of the more mordane aspects of the game? And try to add some more sense to the story. I know alot of people felt disconnected in the first game, as far as story went. Alot of people felt it was confusing and suddenly things happened and people just lost track of it. this was before the pop up boxes that was introduced in factions.

First and foremost, I agree with the OP, that Arenanet should slow down and focus more on quality rather than speedy productions.

I do see the reasons, however, behind their system. Their production value every six months seems to round off the game at 35 dollars per game. Which means that witholding the summer release of a game, and forcing an annual release, would mean future Guild Wars game would be 70$ per year.

That would certainly raise alot of demand on the quality (not that Anet can't meet that demand...).

They are nice suggestions, but the whole "update the old games or not" idea has been done to death. Anet does have good customer support, and really seems to enjoy our imput, but they have to make money, and how could they make money from spending time rejigging the old stuff?

Sure I'd love more god realms, and maybe they are a future possibility, and yes certainly since Ch4 is the begining of a whole new set of story arcs, it does need alot of effort, but pausing team1 isn't going to help for that i dont think

I disagree, I think that six months for each chapter is enough time to wait between them. This concept was introduced as soon as Guild Wars was announced, I doubt very seriously that Anet is going to change their buisiness model because you think that one chapter is more polished than another. Redoing all the original character models in the original chapters of all the NPCs that take part in all the cutscenes would be a lot of work with little impact on a large portion of the Guild Wars community. As someone pointed out, the faction system, town ownership and such probably took up a lot of time in the development of Factions. I personally loved Factions, and I know that I wasn't the only one, however Anet has probably heard the cries of a large portion of their fanbase and won't likely be revisiting concepts such as locked gates (I loved how you could explore as much as you wanted up to the Desolation in Nightfall [after you were off the island], yet you had to complete the storyline in order, and I anticipate that will be the style of future chapters).

good points. Anet would loose possible more gained revenue, but both they and NCsoft has to look at the long term.

If they continue to build a stable and large playerbase, they might will be able to grow the GW brand for much longer. Diablo 2 is still kicking and thats 7 years old now!

I aggree, but I dont think it's feasible for them. Their business model is a game every 6 monthes to keep them rolling. They did a great job to convince me to buy nightfall on release day. I'll wait and see for chap 4.

Bottom line: Changes takes time and effort. If A-Net has other ideas, they would probably spend their resources to do that now that got the first three chapters out of the way.

Honestly, I'm not certain that gw gameplay has been exhausted enough to do this yet. Keep in mind that they have to make up for quite a few years of development with no revenue, and that the aggressive release schedule is what keeps them financially solvent. We do want these guys to stay in business, correct? I'm sure they will do this eventually - just not yet.

Besides, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with for campaign 4 and 5. I have often wondered why game development companies have previously felt like they needed to re-invent everything between each game instead of releasing more iterative improvements. It seems like a smarter business model to me (reusing valuable code and content), and gives people more of what they like.

Oh, and I honestly don't buy into the entire notion that they have some sort of A-team (Prophecies, Nightfall) that produces gold, and B-team (Factions) that dumps out crap. I recall interviews where Jeff Strain said a number of key personnel, such as all the leads (including the lead designer - can't recall his name) work on all products. So, a lot of the top people are pretty much responsible for all the games. They obviously tried some different things with Factions that players didn't care for. The result? They returned with Nightfall, having learned a lot of lessons. I'm betting that the next campaign will be as good or better than Nightfall.

Totally agree...after campaign four people will begin moving on, because the game in itself is getting repetitive.

Guild Wars however, is very fun, and adding new things to tyria/cantha, perhaps even making one giant map, would make the game overall more enjoyable.


*coughauctionhousepleasenowgodagahh*

I see what your saying but still! factions town control! This is exactly one of does systems that needs to be looked at.

maybe alliance battles, and alliance stuff in general. maybe it is time to spread some of these features out across the campaigns to make a wider appeal.

if you go to shing jea island right now, you will still see tons and tons and tons of new players coming in every single day who have just bought factions. As I see it, they need to be satisfied to continue buying these chapters. Yes, that is exactly why I think it will be worth it for the long term investment.

I can not explain to you how much NF has motivated me.

I went from a average GW player with GWP and GWF to a super hardcore dedicated fanboy nerd with GWNF. And I think im not the only one. The core of GWP and GWF are there. we are not talking fundamental changes, but tweaks, additions and little upgrades. stuff like trading, auction house and new LFG system of course would be universal changes.

they always talked about that new technology would be free of charge and made for all players to keep interest, while new actual content would be the reason why people would pay for the new campaigns. so maybe the new god realms are stretching it.


maybe the favor of the god system needs to be revisited? who knows how china is going to affect it, once they join in on the fun!? same with India... if they plan to launch there aswell!

ok - But then let me ask you this mate. Do you think that the new additions like alliance battles and heroes, have been enough so far?

for a new set of feature of this scale for campaign 4 and 5, will it really be enough.

nothing wrong with the GW formula. its great. but perhaps its just time to be more ambitious.

GW still looks great today. but actually if we think about it, GWP is 1,5 years old now. the first one is beginning to show a bit of age. ?

I still don't get why A-Net scrap the alliance control towns in Nightfall.

Because no one cares about AB? ;]

[QUOTE=Silly Warrior]Totally agree...after campaign four people will begin moving on, because the game in itself is getting repetitive.

QUOTE]

Agreed, there is only so much you can do with your standard "fantasy" games before they tend to start being repetatitive and similar to every other game in the genere. GW broke the mould in some ways but at the end of the day it still is just like any other fantasy MMO...level, beat the bad guys,farm or PvP.

EVE and possibly WoW are the only current MMO's I can see still being around in a few years time. EVE is the best MMO and the only game in its class worth playing and WoW still might be around because of its vast following.

Anyways..Lawnmower, good post and I'd have to agree with most things on there except new updates for old chapters..this will never happen because Anet need to get people to buy new chapters and this won't happen if they keep updating the old ones.

Art Director - Daniel Dociu

Another note, when they create new things in the game (depends of course of type of content) these updates will often flow back to previous chapters. This is of course due to the streaming update system they have in place. Making global campaign changes something that currently is taking place. As far as going back and re-making things in Chapters 1 and 2, I don't see them devoting time to do that as people would most likely whine about the changes and about how they used to do this or that, or whine about how the changes weren't good enough and where is our new chapter....

That being said, everyone indeed likes quality, and I'm not opposed to making things better in the first two chapters, but I just don't see them devoting dev teams to it at this point.

I have to say that I disagree that updating the original campaign is really needed at this point in time, I would like to see the series constantly move forward not have half the development team devoted to tweaking a year+ old campaign that is not really bringing in Anet enough to justify such actions and development costs. If Anet loses half its revenue because having to devote half its programmers to Prophecies then do you really see them being able to produce quality products the Nightfall is? If they ever do take this approach in the future (Which I doubt) then I would like to see the Factions team be placed in the position not the Nightfall one, which IMHO produced a product that's way above the quality of Factions.
Looking at how Factions compares to Nightfall I am not overly looking forward to Chapter 04 but I am really looking forward to Chapter 05.

Anet probably knows that much better and has it already planned, but my suggestion to the strategy is:
Instead of creating another stand alone campagin and releasing it April'07, then another one 6 months later, do the following:

(1.) Upgrade the previous 2 chapters to the current GW:NF standards and promote them, so that any player who owns a single campagin, especially ones who started with Nightfall, would want to have the complete trilogy.
Deal with the BIG THREE issues that beg to be done since the beginning of GW - Reconnets! (for everyone) Storage! (more and better for each owned campagin) and a Trading system! (maybe an auction house with limited functionality for everyone, with full advanced version being a feature of...

...(2.) An expansion that is not stand-alone! Coming April'07! Cheaper, smaller than a whole new game but containing mostly high-end content, focusing on replayability. Obviously add some new skills, PvP maps, new items, armors, pets n stuff, but No new professions. This expansion should tie the whole trilogy into a whole compact world, filling all holes that need to be filled like introducing the missing 3 gods realms.

(3.) The next ground-breaking hit, a full standalone GW campagin 4 to be released Autumn'07. With more time to work on it make it perfect. Make it big with a completely new world and story. Significant engine upgrades, completely new features, 2 new professions or maybe a new playable race, or something else. I bet Anet has a lot of cool ideas for it.
LATE EDIT: i forgot to add that the Autumn'07 campagin would obviously be compatibile and connected to to the whole world, so that characters can travel between the lands. A full standalone like Nightfall... I thought its too obvious to mention...

...but I want to bring my toons too One of the merits of the Guild Wars Universe to me is that I'm still playing with the character I created 18 months ago, and enjoying it. If a stand alone campaign will be released... I guess I'll stay in Tyria/Cantha/Elona then...

Okay... Lol

I think there are two major points missing from this discussion...

A. This company made Guild Wars.... Have you all lost faith?

B. This game from the beginning set out to break molds from other games. So what stops this game from breaking the molds of itself. It has been said many times that Magic the Gathering is a major influence on this game. For those who do not know, the way magic works, is this.. Every year there is a major "block" consisting of 3 expansions to the magic universe... in the fall comes the BIG set consisting of 360+ cards, then 3 months later comes the middle set with like 160 new cards and 3 months after that the last set in the block with 160 new cards... every summer comes a small set of some sort(some summers nothing) The small set is usually a Core set... Core is a reprint set that brings back all the goodies of the entire past of magic to keep what makes the basic game function...

Magic is the same game it was in 1992 when it was first made... Cards with pictures and words... Players with life totals and libraries... Guild Wars set up a foundation of fun gameplay that Anet plans to build on. The gameplay is perfect to me. 8 skills, primary attributes, 3 supportive...

The number one rule of magic developers is its okay to break the rules of the game...

To sum up, I think Anet is a great company, they come from good upbringing at Blizzard NORTH, I think all 3 GW campaigns are brilliant... I trust these people as developers and I understand that they need to pay the bills. They will continue releasing games in the cycle they started and they will get more efficient at it.. They will continue to make good games without diverting terribly from the core gameplay and we will all buy and play it... In the very late future I forsee a "Core" release of guildwars bringing back all the things that worked and dropping the things that didnt and releasing it as new content... It too will succeed... Magic is an extremly old game and it really is the same as it was in the beginning... Guild Wars will do this as well and I will play to the bitter end...

I love the idea. I'm probably one of the few people who enjoyed playing through Factions multiple times, and I would love to see some new updates made to the campaign. I rarely set foot in Tyria anymore, but I would love to see some new things there as well.

If we could get continuous updates, then I think waiting a year would definitely be worth it. However, Anet would need a way to continue bringing in revenue, so I don't think it's practical.

/not signed

I like the 6 month strategy, Guildwars is the only game I play (maybe this is because I don't got alot spair time) but imo its the best game I've ever played and I want a new GuildWars every 6 months so I can keep playing new content over and over again.

Also don't forget they need to pay for the servers, they need money for the servers and they don't get money from you for playing a year, they need this 6 month new game system to pay everyone in the company, to pay for the servers and offcourse to be a profitable company.

I am just amased by Nightfall, that a company can create such a game in 1 year... unbelievable, congrats Anet.

Oh and don't forget Anet is not only looking at ppl that have been playing for years, they are looking for newer players who pick up the game and say, hmm heard of this game gonna try it.

I don't understand that now nightfall is just out and you haven't even played the full game yet in all his aspects that you are already saying that they should change strategy (these topics were also here after factions and look what nightfall gives us)

Anet has proven that they can make game changes, and lovly games in 1 year time, why not let them do it? I rather have to much content then to less.

I agree with the original poster that an overhaul of the previous chapters is needed to bring them up to par with what we have seen in Nightfall.

I am even prepared if need be to have that overhaul and a new storyline encompassing all three chapters currently existing as the next chapter, in my mind it would be better to improve on quality and give us a storyline well worth it than keep up with the new content while leaving the rest down, I know the game have been presented to us as separate but who among us trully thinks of Guildwars as asingle campaign.

Pfft.. i have full confidence in what A-Net will do in the future. We can suggest and recommend all we want, but at the end of the day they are the professionals that have been making games for quite some time now. Sure, they might make a few minor mistakes here and there.. but thats the best way to strengthen their products in the future.

I personally like Factions and how it played out. Its just unfortunate about the lack of players in the Jade Quarry.. not to mention the constant leeching that happens in Fort Aspenwood.

I decided I'd come out of the woodwork, and actually post something!

Here's the way I see it. When GW came out, there were skeptics of course, about everything being instanced. Sure enough though, everything worked out fine, and 3 campaigns later, GW is not only still alive and kicking, it's actually thriving. It seemed that A.Net was more than a step ahead of everyone. They had an idea, and went with it with confidence, and it paid off well for them. In a world full of emerging MMOs, they tried somethign slightly different and it worked out quite well. In this aspect, I look at A.Net as having entrepreneurial characteristics.

That being said, I'm sure A.Net is already one step ahead of us. Afterall, they started with a group of developers who suceded from Blizzard to do things the way they saw fit--the way a gamer would want. I have no doubts in my mind that the developers are already working on something different than the current style of GW. They're smarter than that. They finished the initial trilogy and it went extremely well, I have no doubt that future productions will be just as successful.

In the end, I think we owe it to A.Net to assume that they've already thought ahead and are in the process of developing something that is slightly different than what they currently have (GW), but only time will tell.

Guild Wars could follow a precedent set by another popular RPG, Oblivion.

Oblivion had considerable success with add-on's sold for a low price through their online store.

Do a Sorrow's Furnace-style addition to Cantha, and put it in the online store for $5.00. Give Prophecies a real end game area (something, say, after the Titan Quests), and charge $10. Make realms for Lyssa and Melandru, and sell them for $10. Then, after six months and a few add-ons, package them all as "update packs" in stores for $29.95.

Just a suggestion.

As for Campaign 4: I'd like to see a return to lands north of Ascalon, and the rebuilding of the Kingdom. The King needs a new heir, the Charr still need their fannies kicked...

because apart from a few rare occasions the faction line rarely moved and was all a bit of a waste of time?

i dont think people took to it as anet would of liked, they saw it as a constantly moving battle line but it was actually a pretty static region marker

yeah because all those dervish/assassin/paragon/ritualist trainers and quest givers in GWP are just bored :P

Each chapter gets 1 full year of development.

I feel that nightfall went so well because the plot controls so many aspects of the game, and hiring one of the original creators of the DND Forgotten Realms settings creators was a huge impact to guildwars. I hope he stays on.

I can see the OP point where if you have a soild game that keeps selling enough to support the fan base and bringing money to the company even to keep GW going (like diablo 2).

Anet is not big enough / stable enough to do this. Anet is still a really small dev company under NCSoft publishing. I don't think they have the man power to do this. They may in the future but Anet makes such a great game it seems like there hundred of employees but I suspect < 100.

Now if they started a side project where they keep adding "little" things that can make an impact. Material Storage, Gui Updates, Henchmen control do make very nice upgrades to older games but adding a quest here, a visible tweak there. Cross chapter quests (assuming you own all chapters involved) can be little things they add value but don't take large resources.

I think Factions was weak because Anet miscalculated about people losing intrest in 6 months, I think they planned a game with "6 months of play material" where Nightfall appears to be designed that you can get really involved.

I think NF has shown Anet that close attention to plot, story, (variation like the single person mission), is the new standard for Pve.

I have some difficulty understanding your logic. Hitler for example rose to power when Germany was in severe recession. He started public construction projects, gave people work, degree of lifestyle and generally boosted morale. And yet I somehow don't particularly like what the man did. That is he led the world into an unimaginably brutal war, committed the ultimate attrocity and in a sense consequentially eased the moral grounds that might have kept America from using weapons of mass destruction against civilian population first and last time in mankind's history.
I'm not associating Anet with Adolf but I think judging by past accomplisments is not the greatest of arguments.

Next about MtG and GW: Yes, there are certain similarities between the two. Both depend equally on skill and equipment (skills and stuff). While I agree that MtG's core idea might be to break all rules it certainly is not GW's statement. On the contrary GW aims at balance above all else. Wizards of the Coast rarely restricted the game and only as the last resort. Of course once in a while decks (builds) emerged that were totally overpowering that dominated tournaments until something better came up yet nobody complained. See, MtG was competitive but it never tried to be fair nor balanced. You were never penalized for being better player than the opponent whereas in GW such builds are dealth with swift (and more often than not half-assed and shortsighted) nerfs. And behold: people complain!
This is how I see things at least.

Uhhh, and then I kinda forgot what this thread was all about but nevertheless I'm enjoying my NF tremendously. Great game but I don't think I can handle another total overhaul.

Sounds like you want Guild Wars 2 (not like Chapter 2, but a real sequel with a whole new engine/system).

Give it time.