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

A big NO to that
This may lead to even more unfinished chapters and selling things they miss for extra $. Selling small pieces of content would make it much more expensive for the players, unavailable to those that can't buy in the online store, and the effect would be similar to having a monthly fee.
Prophecies actually have some end-game areas - Sorrows Furnace and Tombs
Only Nightfall doesn't, but there will be one added as soon as its finished. And for free.

I'm so glad there is no more faction farming (remember you needed 10,000 faction points for either Luxon or Kurzick) in order to move on to the next mission area.

While I would love to see this happen - the problem is there is no profit in it for Anet - its all expense work. Fans would love it but the business model would not.

Maybe if it were sold as an add on - where they could fix that stuff and maybe fill in more regions on the map, ad quests, maybe even missions and what not they could swing something.

I have a feeling that the next Chapter is going to be something very different... something that we may not even call a Chapter, but a sequel to the trilogy. Guild Wars 2.

Why do I think this? Because I can't see any more links in the current game world to major lands outside of our maps that could be used for new PvE campaigns. Cantha was a fairly obvious one and was predicted early on. After that people quickly looked to the Elonians and the Margonites who had come to the Crystal Desert as the next link - that we'd visit their homeland to the south/east of the desert. And now we have it.

There are things such as the druids of the jungle, the Charr homelands, and the Mursaat 'city'... and even unknown invaders who came across the sea to the Watchtower Coast long ago. But these cannot form a whole new stand-alone chapter in my mind.

The next Chapter is a new beginning after the end of this trilogy and so I believe we may return to the old continents, some years on in game time. There may be new foes invading, or a new destructive force bringing its foot down on Tyria, Cantha and Elona. We may return to see things such as a green, revived Ascalon, Deldrimor victorious in the Shiverpeaks, the White Mantle crushed in Kryta and the old monarchy restored, a new safe path between the Crystal Desert and Elona, new god realms (Dwayna, Lyssa, Melandru) opened up, and the Charr being driven back to the northern lands they came from. And of course in Cantha there may be new trouble afoot between the Luxons and the Kurzicks, or a rebellion against the emperor driven by some evil force. All of these are speculations but there is so much in the old continents that can be refreshed, changed, expanded upon and added to. There are plenty of gaps in Cantha and Tyria that could be filled with new explorable areas and missions against new enemies.

And you never know - with all this they could even refresh the battered old PvP realm, not just with things like new Guild Halls and skills. Plus they haven't given us an improved trading system or better storage or... nah I'll stop there

What I'm saying to the OP is, if one of the teams goes back and reforms the old continents - better to do it all together and make a shining new chapter filled with new content and features. In fact, they may already be doing so.

but why???

I don't want to pay to play some more factions content,

I want to pay for new content....

Prophecies was a finishd project (with tweaking etc...)
Factions is a finishd project (if its good or not thats an oppinion not a fact)
And Nightfall will be a finishd project when chapter 4 comes out

There is nothing interesting in it for them of creating more content for the other chapters.

if anet is doing something new they need to make it as option, not the major chuck on the game.

little risk is good, but the hole thing???

Actually you have to farm 2500 Sunspear points to advance in the storyline. Fortunately this goes somewhat smoothly along with normal questing. Unfortunately its character specific unlike in Factions where you could just get 10k faction and advance all your characters in one pop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
It has happened! ;s

So think Chapter 4 will become what will be known as Guild Wars 2?

Lol at Godwin's Law.



anyways.....................................

I think Anet needs to make a REAL expansion. A Expansion trilogy!! Expand the CORE only.

more realms of the gods.

MORE PvP maps/modes/guild halls.

MORE repeatable high end quests thats accessable from any of the UW/FoW outposts (so all 3 chapters can use it)

MORE armors

Additional CORE skills.

Additional "Dungeons" like Sorrows furnace.

*rambles on*

I resent that

Well please do blame me if this thead will be closed by Wehrmacht

they can sell special minipet,special dance and special skin armors with the same sta as the in game ones for extra bucks. I think that can bring anet some extra money without unbalance the game.

I, for one, loved Factions, I liked the new professions and the looks of the characters, most of ll I loved the theme and feeling of the game, so I would be sad seeing this chapter fade away.

I don't think the game needs a major overhaul, just slowly bring the convenience of each chapter into the previous chapters, such as the storage upgrades were given to Prophecies, albeit a bit later.

I don't want to see playing, in my opinion, a good chapter as a chore, so bring the heroes to the other chapters.

But of course every chapter needs its own content, so leave Factions in Factions and leave Sunspears/Lightbringers in Nightfall, just bring over the stuff that make the game convenient.

And as for revenue, if there was an update disc or something similar, just to make the games generally more enjoyable, better cut-scenes and such, I would buy it as soon as it came out, so I can continue to enjoy a already great expansion.

In other words... don't leave those that enjoyed the older chapters in the dark, please?

[edit]
Please excuse my ignorance, I do not own Nightfall yet and did not know that there are heroes in the older games, if you own Nightfall, if there are any other inaccuracies, well sorry.

That's a bit unfair. You have to consider both Prophecies and Factions as "first efforts" from both development teams. Factions was under development at a time where it was still too early to learn from the experiences of the GW community. Nightfall is the first to do that. The "Factions" team should now have the learned experience to create a better product in the upcoming Chapter 4.

I'm curious to know how many more chapters they will churn out before they decide to do a complete overhaul and begin developing a real sequel - Guild Wars 2. That would entail a new game/graphics engine, completely separate servers and possibly an entirely different world.

Realistically, Anet has about 2 more chapters left to squeeze the life out of the existing GW technology before the general fanbase begins clamoring for something "New". When that happens, it'd be hard to beleive they still maintain active servers for the old GW chapters. Perhaps release a final update that allows players to play the old game offline then repurpose their servers to running the bonafide GW sequel?

They have upgraded DX8 with no 3dsound to DX 9 with advanced effects and implemented DirectSound3d & EAX.

I can see "GuildWars 2" where they change fundamentally game mechanics. I would love a final "offline" mod if there going to move own or end the series.

Yes, because they certainly haven't added any new effects to the graphics engine, right? They certainly didn't implement DX9 support etc after release, why that would be impossible! Wait a second, they did update it, and they will continue to do so.

That's the beauty of Guild Wars, they can expand and upgrade the existing product as much as they want to, they'll continue making chapters as long as we keep buying them

Chapter 5 might have radical changes if Anet decides the ball needs to change in response to Nightfall, but don't forget that Chapter 4 is already halfway done. It's halfway to release date. Chances are they have already written and coded out most of it and are just moving into 'internal alpha testing.'

That means it will probably be reflective of concerns these communities raised a few months ago about Factions and Prophesies, and less so over the broad acceptance of Nightfall.

In the next six months, they will be able to bootstrap on a few ideas gained from our feedback over nightfall, but most changes chapter 4 will have put in from what came in Nightfall; will have already been put in there by now, based on what they 'guessed' would work out good.

It may very well be that around this 'time' last chapter - when Factions first came out, Nightfall had code for alliance battles. Certainly the fact that Nightfall exists in the backdrop of a war indicates that it -could- have been coded to have a super-sized version of alliance battles. But in the last six months they had an opportunity to strip that out when it failed in the community.

However, other Factions features are present in Nightfall - such as skill trainers rather than quests - despite being generally unpopular... Probably because by the time Factions came out it would have been too much an overhaul to rewrite all of Nightfall to include for skill quests...

So... my guess is that the bulk of chapter 4 is going to resemble what we were asking about and ranting about a month ago and on back, and everything from here on out will be reflected in a minor portion of the changes.

The development cycle has half the time for each chapter finished by the time the chapter before it comes out, and that somewhat slows the pace of change.

Hi Trin! Yea, I agree. The idea of having it as an add-on might work, but I doubt ANet will go for it, for the reasons you mentioned.

Jeff actually said the NF is the last in a trilogy? That's interesting. I wonder what the next chapter will bring!

I think Anet should take it as a compliment that so many players would like to see the previous chapters "spruced up" with some new content, and other ideas the OP has. This to me says that you are involved enough in the Guild Wars world that you would hate to see it fall into disuse.

I see it as you loved Tyria and loved/hated Cantha enough that you WANT a reason to go back and re-visit these lands. But as it is now, once you finish everything there is to do, there really is no reason to hang around when new chapters with new lands are released. I feel this way about Tyria, it will always be my ele's home, I just need a good reason to go back there. besides redoing all the missions.

I think Factions has so much hate because it just doesn't feel like some things in the game were used to their full potential. Well, take the whole idea of gainging faction...what did it really get you? Not much. Jade or amber for armor. Controlling a town? netted you a very slim discount at the merchant, big whoop. Give us a REAL reason to work hard for faction to control a town. And the most pointless thing in Factions to me was the moving of the line on the map? What did it get you if you were on the winning side? Jack and sqwat. If I am wrong please correct me but it only gain a side control of that town in the whirlpool. Big whoop. They could have made the line move so that a side could capture the others CAPTIAL! That would have made Alliance battles worth playing for. Just seems like Factions was a lot of ideas that never were fully fleshed out to their full potential. I could go on about Factions but thats all I am saying here.

So back on target. I would LOVE to see some attention given to Tyria and Cantha but I seriously doubt Anet will for financial reason, which is a crying shame