Locked out of end game content, again. Will ANet ever respond?

Has it occurred to you that these people are newbs because it is their first time there?

It is like evolution man, restricting access = less players = slower rate of evolution of game play strategies. Do you think we would have barrage/pet if access to old tombs were restricted to a grand total of 1 out of every 1000? Don't think so.

Make access to the elite missions restricted to certain times of the day or even the weekends only if that's what it takes. 100% total lockout is uncalled for plain and simple. If you fail to see that you are just an elitist twat and nothing more.

YOUR argument is bullcrap.

Guess what? Skills, items, fow armor. All these can be earned by YOUR own individual merit.

What about access to elite missions? Hmm let's see. Well you can singlehandled buy 100 copies of factions. Download Autohotkey and make bots to farm faction out of Fort Aspenwood by leeching. Even then I still don't see you entering the elite areas any time soon.

Oh, now you change your tact and say well access to elite missions are granted to those who can work in the "team" (ie: alliance) and contribute towards that goal. Quite a leap to go from what is attainable as an individual to a guild.. nah.. 10 guilds don't ya think? Access to the elite missions is by Anet's definition, exclusive. Because only the top 1000 players can attain it any one time. Not a region, not 50%, heck, not even 10%. An alliance is limited to at most a certain number of players, and these players and these only can gain access at any one time.

So Anet wants us to spend time "fighting" with each other. Way to go Anet. In fact this is a better time and gold sink than just charging each of us 10K to enter each time... you know, rather than creating some REAL content. Guess the average joe player is smart enough to see through it, and the same elitist twerps are too dumb to realise it.

What's next?

"Earn your free KILLER ARMOR skins by exchanging the head of a known Blizzard employee for an access key by mailing said head to NCSoft at the following address..."

Because by your analogy it is fair dinkum for Anet to make you do anything they want for access to what you paid for.

I think you killed your own argument there.

Take it easy people this is still a game!


I have only been to Urgoz once and it was not so interesting, long, boring and the items .... well I did not get any!
I never been in all the other places, first because no one will take me :P second, I really don't care! If people in my guild or pugs feel like I'm not good enough to go with them.

I play mostly only PvE and now with the improved henchies I don't have to beg/ask for help ....... unless the mission is very hard!

Really who wants to play a game that stresses you and make you swear? Not me thx. Real life to do that every day, games should relieve you of your stress and make it easier, at least for a while you can escape reality!

...here's a novel idea-

1.) ping the favored skillbar if that's what you need for a ferry. Amazingly you can change your skills. If teams won't let you in, tough...we all have to deal with that.

2.) if you don't want to take the time to earn favor and can't be bothered with it, change to a European server.

...problem solved.

Well before Nightfall was released I got bored and grabbed and preordered FF XII. Man this game sucks though. I mean, to access the highest level of dungeons you need to actually play through the game. I mean how stupid is that? It should totally be based off some a side game that has nothing to do with the game alot of people play. I mean, god how boring is it if your own actions control what you can access, rather than have a group who either cannot access or do not want to access the area control it.

And moreso, I was able to really rush right into the high end areas. Man, talk about fun killer. I was expecting to farm at least 18 hours a day for 2 weeks, then 8 hours a day there on just to be able to play these special areas. God, this game is horrid.

I am so glad I have Guild Wars though to keep the tried and true custom of how games should be played alive. I love swapping regions to be able to access elite missions, and having to keep a list of people who I do not like, but speak to to help me get into elite missions. And of course, having one character who's sole function is to park in the factions elite missions. I guess that was what the prerelease character slot was for though. To make up for the one you will never get to play again.

Wow, who cares.
Honestly.
Does it really affect you THAT much if you don't have 'free', sorry, 'quick' access to areas like The Deep, FoW, or UW?
I highly doubt that.
These areas have restrictions upon accessing them because they are deemed 'special' or 'elite', that is why you pay 1k to get into FoW and require a skilled team to successfully move about the area. That is why The Deep requires some level of merit to enter.
If everybody could enter these areas at will, it would be ridiculous.
JUST like the 'everybody gets access to Elite missions' weekend.
People with level 12's being ferried to The Deep? Hello?
Not to mention that all the rare and special items you can recieve in these areas would plummit in price. Zodiac weapons? Ectos? There would be no satisfaction in having one because EVERYBODY ELSE would have them.

Like people have said numerous times;
You did not pay to have access to all content possible;
"You paid for the game as it was designed by the people who created it."
Which is true, absolutely.

Personally I don't care whether I ever get to The Deep.
1k to enter FoW and UW is kind of a waste considering we already have to wait for favor, which I agree we shouldn't have to do, and should either do one or the other; IE. Pay or wait.
But regardless, it's not like I'm spending the majority of my time farming those areas, so I don't need to waste the money and the time to get in.

Unless these areas are going to have some severe impact on your characters/general gameplay, there is no reason why we should have easy/free/quick access to any of them.
Just like FoW armor is so expensive.
There is no personal benefit besides the reward of having it. And if the armor were easy to get, there would be no reward. As much as everybody pretty much has the set now, that's still not the point.
People work for that which they truly desire. As much as it sucks, and the waiting is lame, and you want these things NOW, that's not always how things work, and that's certainly not how ANet developed Guild Wars.


/vomit

the whole point of faction farming and controlling towns are for the perks associated with it. if an alliance has control over a town and decides that theyre going to charge people outside of their alliance access to their elite or shut people out entirely, they are entitled to that decision. the alliance that controls a town had to "grind" [unless people actually enjoy faction farming] for it and will have to continue to "grind" to maintain it so what they choose to do with that control is completely up to them.

there is more content to the game then just the elite missions. and im sure that once youve done the elites a few times youll understand why the majority of people could care less about them.

That is trolling. Playing through the entire game.. is NOTHING compared to what you would have to do to gain access to the elite missions.

Having to get some burned out Alliance to grant you access to Elite areas was broken from day one. The Majority would rather go to UW/FoW when the favor is up, even if having to wait for some random PvP group to win.

I wonder what PvPers would say if PvEers had control over PvP arenas. Or could control that gate that let them GvG. Now that would be funny.

In what way?

Tell me, how can YOU gain faction to get into the elite mission? I do not mean YOU as in "you" alone, by "you" I am referring to EVERYBODY.

Unlike TOA where a reasonable proportion of the player's base is eligible to enter UW/FoW at any time with the payment of an entrance fee, this is not the case here for Urgoz and the Deep. Today you are in an alliance which charges 5K daily. Tomorrow EVERYBODY is doing as you said and working hard to earn their access. A month from now you will need 50K daily to maintain your access. Same other players will still be working still even harder to compete. Soon it will rise to 100K daily, 1 million daily... when will it ever end?

That's right. You bot. There is no other way. It is a flawed system intrinsically, because at the very end of the extreme it breaks down like this, and even then not everyone will still gain access.

There has never been a 100% lockout ever and no one is asking for that. I always love this style of argument though," You either see it my way or you're (insert choice insult here)." I don't see anyone in the stores saying," You know what, since I can't access the Elite missions screw this game." It's not going to happen. Innovation happens regardless of population size.

B/P is a really bad example to use. If you look at the first mention of it I'll bet you find that it was created by a seasoned farmer or team of farmers and not some goober that fell off the internet turnip truck. I hate it for you man but historically speaking ground breaking builds are created by seasoned players and seasoning has nothing to do with the ability to access Elite content. Seasoning happens by regular gameplay, which last time I checked, wasn't restricted.

First timers in Elite sections can still be competent players through regular gameplay experience. That's how I got my first introduction to Elite content, not through some cheap access gimmick. I got my first invite to the Deep by performing well in an Alliance battle. We lost the battle but I did my job well and that performance was recognized by the Alliance holding Cavalon at the time. It was my first time there but after a quick strategy briefing I knew my job and performed well. Not every player in this game has that kind of seasoning and giving them unrestricted access to the Elite content will make them too frustrating to play. If you have the skill then you can get yourself noticed. It can be done. What I'm hearing thought is,"Oh but Str0b0 I'm too lazy to get there on my own merits. I want to whine to the devs until I get a free ride." Tough cookies! It's a mechanic of the game and a well founded one if you ask me. Cry about it all you like but I say it should stay the way it is for good reasons.

No, it's in reality just a 99.95 lockout, thanks for setting things straight.

You're not reallly serious there, right? "On your own merit" indeed.

You didn't get there "on your own merit". You got there by sheer luck and happenstance. What if no one who could have granted you access had been paying attention during that legendary game of quick wits and unsurpassed skills? What if you'd been doing a good job in the company of the 99.95% of the player base NOT holding Cavalon? What if you only EVER play with people not being able to grant you access, because you only play with a select group of people? Where would your skills get you then? The only skill you'd need in that case is the skill to beg for rides.

Again, no one is asking for a free ride. All we need is for people to be able to earn access "on their own merit", instead of either being forced to play with hundreds of people of whom I don't even care if they lived or died, or to beg those same people.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...88&postcount=1

So..... I guess alternate elite mission access is coming.

I totally disagree with this. I would not buy a game if they gave you acess to everything from the start because the game would not be fun this way. Play the game! discover things, become a good player, experiment!

And now, Alt F Four will get the thread locked by stating the blindingly obvious:

Sorry buddy, but guess what? You already bought Nightfall, and Anet already has their money. Infact, they had their money when they sold it to the store you bought it from.

Better yet, if you bought it online. 50 bucks for a... what was it, seven digit number? Please show me where in the EULA it states that Anet has to give you access to every last shred of un-earned content in the game?

I'm tired of people whining like children about not having favor. You know what these people do about it? They sit on their hands and wait for a PvP team to get favor.

I'm not sorry in the least that you can't touch things because America dosen't have favor. Suck it up, it's just a video game.

Then you get stuck in the hall, if you leave or fail to a group of a different country, you lose favor. You never get to play the area. Stupid suggestion.

Control a town? You mean control the one town that has access to the mission. Let's not forget that controlling far more irrelevant towns requires millions of Faction transferred. A full guild of straight faction farmers would take probably a month to control the town. Stupid suggestion.

God forbid we are granted access to content we already paid for and that is the only real end game content for those games. And the ones in Factions will completely die as everyone leaves the game.

Not only full of stupid suggestions, but also logical fallacies.

I'm petitioning to have a GWG forum-specific version of Godwin's Law, pertaining to "free FoW" armor and "perfect crystaline swords" instead of Nazis and Hitler.

We are not asking for a completely free ride here.

FoW armor is not even a valid comparison, how much is that? 100+ ectos and shards plus 75K, pfft! Cheap!

To gain access to Cavalon/HzH requires an UNBOUNDED amount of time and money. That's right, it is a virtually unbounded requirement that depends on how tough the competition is. How is that fair to expect everyone who just wants to gain access to do just that.

You may be some cheap punk living out of your parents' basement, but the rest of us has other responsibilities and yes, real lifes. When factions was released Anet said they'd implement some form of alternate access. Now Nightfall is out and there is still nothing. What the hell is going on here.

Again, nobody is asking for a free ride. Make a NPC charge 10K per entry, so be it. Piss off on that stupid elitist attitude, I'd gladly pay 10K each time to a NPC than to even pay 1K to get a "ferry" from the likes of you.

Considering said Alt F Four is probably spending his Fridays and weekends winning favor for said losers then taunting emotes like his life depended on it, perhaps you should be the one who should realise it is "just a video game".

You fancy me or something? because you sure like riding my ass..

I will express my opinion in anyway I see fit, always have and always will. If you could stop with the childish behaviour that would be great, if not just don't read my posts and carry on living in your little world.

I still greatly fail to see how people are in love with this system of accessing the elite missions so much they will insult anyone who feels it shoiuld be changed. Would it ruin the way the game is now to make it so people can access these missions in alternative ways? Because that is what people are asking for, but it seems to always degenerate into a OMG YOU HAVE NO RIGHT OT PLAY THESE AREAS NOOB, sort of debate.

Lets face it, it is horrid game design to have areas in a game that CANNOT be accessed by all but a minority. It is obvious that Chap 2 is destroyed now, as the Elite missions would be all that people would want to access in general there, but now to do so they need to get a guild who is willing to farm that chapter, or to at least AFK farm. At least UW and FoW is easier to access, just join the bandwagon and jump to European servers. But people should not have to create there own alternative ways to access these, when for one, ANET already stated they were adding ways to access the chapter 2 elite missions which never happened, and B, it would improve the game overall if these were added.

Ahh once again the excuse of the ages." He's somehow different. He's either luckier than me or better than me." Sure I did something that no one else here can do. I have better luck than everyone else in the game. That's it...sure. Stop making excuses and stop whining. My point is that you don't have to be in a faceless faction farming alliance to get in. You can get in by working within the game mechanics instead of whining and crying to Anet that they need to change the game mechanics to suit your laziness. Pathetic.

Well, Why wasn't it finished before release?


As for access to the elite missions, I think A-net underestimated the human factor on access. This is about power, control, and the Haves vs the Have-Nots.
I HAVE it, you don't...pay me for access.

Oh and fyi, I've completed Urgoz more times than I can count, was in the Xoo alliance when they held House, and the ONLY group I ever go in is one led by a warrior.

I can't help but laugh at how serious some of you guys take this stuff.

It certainly provides the rest of us with some very entertaining reading.

Please keep up the flaming and bitching and take it to an even higher (or lower depending on how you look at it) level.

Sometimes after a hard day like yesterday when i had to have a prostate examination (oh yeah it's fun) , coming home and reading up before a little play time is just what i need to bring up the mood..

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

No, my excuse is: "I only play with a very limited group of real-life friends and I don't give a flying toss about the rest of the people playing the game. I certainly won't be strongarmed into dealing with them AT ALL. Six to eight people can't earn their way into an elite mission."

That's all you kind of people can really come up with, can't you? "Stop whining." Why don't you stop sounding like a broken record?

Tell me, how do I get into the elite missions by working with the game mechanics without being in a faceless farming alliance? Mind you, I consider everyone on the internet I've never been face to face with in real life 'faceless'. I also don't consider begging for rides 'working within the game mechanics'.

Enlighten me? How do I do it? Buy 100 accounts and set them up botting for faction 24/24?

And please, can you respond with real arguments and valid suggestions instead of doing the broken record thing again. Otherwise, don't bother.

I dont understand why some players cry so much, i am not in a guild that owns a city, so i also need a taxi to urgoz or the deep (1 tip, if a guildmember is in that area he can taxi you from the guildhall), i am not a pvp players so i rely on other players who can win the favor.

Every one want unlimmited acces to fow or uw so they can farm for their armor, or collect rare skins. so do i, but i dont cry about it, i work for it.
That is why i got 3 sets of fow armor and perfect weapons for all my 5 chars.

What is next, start crying because you have to pay 1k to go to UW or FOW.

The fact that pvp play is needed to open pve content is a contradiction that goes beyond me.

Being on the euro server I can access uw and fow almost every day and don't have to pvp myself for it so I don't complain, I just find it an odd system which seems to do one thing, annoy people, and it fails at all the rest. It also increases rascism. Many times I have seem people 'curse' the players of the continent who had favor. That's against the eula, but people have freedom of thinking so even if they don't say it, they think it. It's a rotting apple in the Anet basket of fruits.

I started this thread to express annoyance with a problem that, as it turns out, doesn't exist.

Literally!

I assumed that the Elona Elite mission was only reachable through certain mechanisms that are locked off by favor, like UW and FoW. Now that Gaile has officially told us that the Elite mission is *not* in the game, my original rant is somewhat pointless.

In the end, it is still bad design to lock people out of PvE gameplay because of something in PvP (and vice versa).

Given how much PvE content there is in Nightfall, I'm exceptionally happy with the game. Thrilled, actually. I ahve so much to do, the lack of an alite mission isn;t a show stopper.

But that doesn't mean ANet is perfect, or that I have no right to express polite displeasure with certain poor design choices.

There's a difference between working for something and facing the annoyances of entering the elite areas, and "working for it" doesn't really play into the picture here. For FoW and UW, I've never seen anyone go off to take the halls if our side doesn't have favor, and the thought of someone who just won halls going "Yay! I can go to the underworld now!" is just absurd. So, entrance here isn't something to work for, just a timing thing.

As for the Factions elites, we have two guilds out of thousands that get control. The vast majority of people will take the obvious route of looking for a taxi. The "callenge" here is finding people to taxi you who haven't abandoned factions for nightfall. And once you get down there, its only a matter of not taking the character anywhere else. An pointless annoyance, by no means difficult. These restrictions should now be removed.

Here is the game mechanic I believe you are looking for:

1) Everyone had opportunity for access when ANet provided the NPC's in Kaineng.

2) During that time, take all your characters there. Have your 6 to 8 friends do the same.

3) Reserve one character, between you and your friends, to remain "parked" in the elite mission staging area to serve as a "guild hall ferry".

4) Anytime one of your friends (including you) needs access to the elite mission, get on the "parked" character, map to the guild hall, form a party, and then leave the guild hall.

5) All in the party will now be in the elite mission, presuming they have all followed step 1.

6) If someone wishes to play on the "parked" character, create a replacement "guild hall ferry" by completing steps 3 through 5 for the replacement.

7) Repeat as necessary.

edit: Note: If you didn't not take advantage of the special weekend of access, then any characters that have never been to the eilte mission(s) will require a ferry for the first time.

I just came in here and it was like...it was like a big wave of fail just washed over me; the weight of all the stupid sitting on my chest, crushing the air out of me.

Complaints lodged:
1) Favor sucks
2) Elite mission control sucks

Fair enough.

Solutions suggested:
1) Form a party and fight for favor
2) Change regions to get favor
3) Join an alliance controlling HzH or Cavalon. Both if you actually want to do either mission.

The rational response to these "suggestions" are the following two words:

Main Entry: not
Pronunciation: 'nät
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle English, alteration of nought, from nought, pronoun -- more at NAUGHT
1 -- used as a function word to make negative a group of words or a word
2 -- used as a function word to stand for the negative of a preceding group of words <is sometimes hard to see and sometimes not>

Main Entry: fea·si·ble
Pronunciation: 'fE-z&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English faisible, from Anglo-French faisable, from fais-, stem of faire to make, do, from Latin facere -- more at DO
1 : capable of being done or carried out <a feasible plan>
2 : capable of being used or dealt with successfully : SUITABLE
3 : REASONABLE, LIKELY

But what of the other solutions? What have I omitted? Oh yes...
1) Wait for favor
2) Wait for a ferry
3) STFU

And of course the obvious reply to those is that nobody should have to.

These threads, rife with stupidity have surfaced a hundred times before and always the same two players come to the table: the devils advocate a.k.a. the snob a.k.a. the elitist asshole, and the casual PvEer, a.k.a. the whiner, a.k.a the noob, depending on where you stand. And it always goes like this:

Jack: I think that favor sucks and should be changed.
Tyler: I think that YOU suck and should fight to earn the favor.
Jack: I don't really have the time or inclination to do that asshole.
Tyler: Then you don't deserve to be there.
Jack: Who are you to judge you ANet fanboi elitist turd?
Tyler: I'm a person that knows what an ELITE mission/favor restricted area is, and it's not open for everyone.
Jack: But that's not fair, I paid for the game.
Tyler: It doesn't say in the EULA that ANet has to give you free access.
Jack: I don't want it to be free, I want it to be feasible on my own terms, even if it is difficult, but not linked to an activity that I have no desire to do, ie. Faction farming for a month/HA.
...
In this section, Jack and Tyler get to go on a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style of "debate", and the topics can usually be:
1) Free access will hurt the economy
2) Thinly veiled insults declaring the superiority of PvE/PvP
3) Highly speculative theories about why ANet made these systems
4) Stunningly bad and inconsiderate suggestions by Tyler about what Jack can do to solve his problems (see above) without considering for a minute that they play differently and that Jack might be content in his guild, with his friends, who might not share the same individual goals
5) There's probably more, you get the point.
...
*Gli's adaptation of Godwin's Law goes here*
...
*If we're lucky, a mod will close the thread here*

And everyone goes home none the wiser, but with lots of new enemies. Fun times.

Jack loses his head at Tyler's willful ignorance, completely debasing any valid arguments he might have had, and Tyler goes out of his way to be an asshole, usually because he can cheaply afford his opinion because he's got no interest in whatever Jack is talking about. Lesson learned? Hell no! I bet everyone in this thread that in another 6 months, another thread with another name with the exact same content will be on the front page of The Riverside Inn. Go ahead and copy this post just so you can paste it when you need to. I'll bet it'll still be 95% accurate.

You guys are stuckin fupid.

-Jessyi

Which requires you to waste a character when you dont want to solely do elite missions or guild matches with it.

The whole point of end game content is to provide something grand and epic that can keep you interested... but if that content is only easily accessible to only a tiny proportion of the gamers who are playing it doesn't that mean that only the tiny proportion of the gamers who have access, HAVE end game content?
I dont think that's right frankly.

First off you did buy the game for content - however that content includes ALL the mechanism ANet designed. This means if you have to do X to get Z then by gosh you got what you paid for.
X can mean farming, beating a mission or winning Halls.
Z can mean armor, weapons,sigils and access to a level/mission.

That being said, the current Urgoz/Deep mechanism is flawed because the farming and coordination it requires is just too much to ask for 99% of the GW population.

You just summed up an entire thread...
Your my new hero!!!!

Ok here we go. The fact of the matter is I did nothing, let me say it again for the young man at the back of the room NOTHING, that you yourself cannot do. I am not in an alliance at all. Look at my guild name for crying out loud. Do you honestly think I want to be bothered with an alliance? I am a guild of one and I like it that way. Now you want to blame my fortune on luck and happenstance. The fact of the matter is that any controlling alliance will have a significant number of players in Alliance battles at any given point. It's an easy and enjoyable way to get some faction and maintain your hold on the capitals. Now we get into statistics, and while I don't have exact numbers we can form blanket equations based on common sense. It is statistically more likely that there will be a member of the controlling alliance participating in any alliance battle or other faction earning activity. So if you participate regularly in Alliance battles, which I do, you are statistically more likely to attract the attention of someone that will see your abilities and say,"Neat. I'd like him on one of my elite teams." And the invitation will happen.

Now if you would care to enlighten me on how I did anything that you can't do then I'll retract my arguments. If you can show me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I somehow bucked the system and that it is impossible for you to follow in my footsteps and do the same I'll retract my arguments. You damned yourself with your first statement, where you said that you only play with a limited group of friends. That is your right, however by making that conscious decision you should be prepared to deal with the consequences. This is a social game believe it or not. Now you don't have to go out and pimp yourself to an alliance or anything like that but it does help if you break out of your clique and actually play with the other people. You willfully cut yourself off from the majority of the game population and now you want to cry because you can't find a way to get into the Elite content that doesn't require you to get outside of your comfort zone? Where do you get off? This is a MMORPG with a competitive twist. Now you tell me where Massively Multiplayer ever entailed you and 8 buddies? The game mechanics are supposed to be accessed by groups. It entails a certain amount of social interaction. By willfully cutting yourself off from that of course you will miss out on some of the content. You are ignoring one of the games major aspects and therefore, by your own actions, keeping yourself from accessing 100% of the content.

In conclusion Gli I say this to you. If you don't like the other people in the game then this game probably isn't for you. This is a game with a strong social aspect to it and while you don't have to join a gianormous guild to enjoy it the social aspect does play a strong role in the game. By ignoring this very strong aspect of the game itself you are of course going to miss out on a lot of the content. I know that by being in my own little guild with just me I miss out on GVG battles and the global tournament ranking. I don't ask Anet to make it possible for me to fight in GvG all on my lonesome, nor do I demand to be ranked like other guilds are ranked. Why? Because I made the choice not to be in a guild and to therefore miss out on some of the content of the game. You have done the exact same thing by isolating yourself from the population and playing with just your buddies. So yeah unless you and your friends can muster up a few million faction on your lonesome you'll never control cavalon but that's not the only way to get access. The problem is you're too hung up on your clique to try anything else.

In Cantha, they are called ELITE MISSIONS, now tell me what is elite about farming for faction. You don't have to do anything elite to earn faction, even a noob can do it. So how is that elite? And truthfully both of those "elite" missions are just tons and tons of enemies to wade through, not much there to really figure out. And lets be honest, once everyone finds out the "right way" to do these missions, nobody ever really tries to deviate from that. Just try taking a char other than a Monk, Ele, Warrior or Necro to the deep.

In Tyria, sure the favor of the gods issue can be annoying at times, but at least it was fair. And FoW and UW are way more challenging and require more thought than the Deep and Urgoz. IMO, in case anyone's looking to argue the point.

I have been to the Deep and Urgoz with alliance groups before. This was when a ferry was easy to come by. The ferry usually just asked for tips; I was usually generous.

I'll admit I haven't looked for a ferry lately; but I would easily believe that controlling alliance members are fewer and farther between now that everyone is Night-thralled.

The Deep and Urgoz, apart from the greens at the end and one or two interesting golds in the meantime, do not offer much in terms of "stuff." But, I'll agree with you in this, Str0b0, it is a social game for the most part. What could be better than a 3-hour group bonding challenge like an elite mission? We go there not for the drops but for the fun of playing together. At the moment, it's the ONLY 12-person event out there.

Earn favor yourself for the UW/FoW? Not enough time in the day.

Earn the control of HzH/Cavalon for access to Urgoz/Deep? Again, not enough time in the day.

A friend of mine who was in the alliance controlling HzH, claimed that with all the faction farming, their own members never had time to do Urgoz. This is why they charge/ask for tips. Because they do all the work with no other (real) benefits.

Then if we continue the rabid anti-whiner approach and say... fight for favor or faction farm if you want access, lazy butt! ... Then what happens to the most diligent faction farmer for the HzH alliance? They don't deserve access to the Deep because they were farming for Urgoz? A hotshot PvPer doesn't deserve access to either one because they're working their buns off fighting for favor?

Yes, it's all about choices. But for me one of the great aspects of GW is the chance to be a PvPer, a PvEer, when it suits me; or when it suits my guild/alliance as a team.

I think ascension +1k is a reasonable criteria for access to Fow/UW. Favor is a strange thing, but to me it still seems to work (other than the previously mentioned racism that manifests itself). It's kind of fun to cheer on guilds/teams as they fight.

I do not think perma-neglecting an entire character slot just to placehold in the elite mission is reasonable.

With the success of Nightfall, maybe in a couple of months, no one at all will be playing Factions. Then all you'd have to do is do the Lut run once or twice to control HzH long enough to get your team in there.

I'm not saying that people who work hard shouldn't get rewarded. I'm saying that decent, hardworking, goodhearted, casual players shouldn't be penalized.

This also means I'm not saying that you should have access to anything elite the second you step off Noob Island or out of presearing; I mean, make it reasonable.

wow so much mindless bullshit to read just to get here.. good thing i skipped the last 3 pages.

To those of you who think so highly of yourself and that you pay for everything to be handed to you on a silver platter have it BACKWARDS.

"locked out of end game content"
lemme fix it for you;
its, "not unlocked end game content"
YOU HAVNT UNLOCKED IT. its your fault, now shut up and figure it out.

i dont see how a game can be a game without challenges, the hell is your excuse? "oh this isnt reality - everything can be 1 click away", then what? are monsters supposed to commit suicide when they see you trying to open a chest? "BUT I PAID TO OPEN THE CHEST, ANET HAS MY 50$!!"

get REAL, and get the hell out. shut up, play or leave. and stop making useless topics. k thnx boi

What ferries? Few are playing there anymore -- they've all moved on to Nightfall. Just like it's near impossible to find groups for the Titans quests in Prophecies anymore.