Dev Update: Ranks & Elite Mission

Haven't outside sources also released false information before the release of a game before? Whether it's because they were speculating without enough information, or were given inside information that was then chosen to be left out, I don't know. But I'm sure things have been wrong before.

Well if you're killing words... this doesn't mean it's included at release. It says that it will have an Elite Mission but states nowhere when you'll be able to access it.

Yes, we probably all assumed it would be in by release but that's how life is. We were wrong and it was probably cut out in one last final discussion to implement something else or to refine another very important aspect of the game.

/edit:
And yes, don't trust Gaming Mags. I still remember that one german famous magazine stating that Guild Wars would be playing in space and you would use ships and teleporters to jump from planet to planet oO
There is only one minor fault on A-Nets side. They should have told us earlier, the expectations for the Elite Mission were obvious after it being included in the manual and the countless previews. The rest is our own fault for doing a ghost hunt, jumping to conclusions and myths.

While I agree that outside sources have made false claims in the past, the issue of PC Gamer was the one with the highly touted Gray Giant. If there's one article you think they are going to get right, and have A-net approve, it's going to be this one. Did they just get lucky on predicting the 3 challenge missions? Or were they told about the three challenge missions, and then made up the elite mission info for fun?

Sorry, im a little pissed right now. I've spent countless hours in the past week looking for an elite mission I was told was going to be in the game, time I could have spent bringing other characters through. I even sent Gaile a pm asking her about it because I knew I'd be pissed in the long run. I'm done with this discussion before I get really mad.

i find the game to be very entertaining and, like myself, im sure the "majority" of players are taking their time with nf. there will always be a small percentage [i think its a small percentage] of players who will try to finish the game as quickly as possible. as for the rest of us, not having access or any availability of an elite mission for a few months, which wasnt even advertised by anet, will not be the end of the world.

We arnt getting anything free, the elite mission was stated to be in there as a feature.

Its like ordering a cheeseburger, and then not getting the cheese. Then having the person that gave you the food say "well we wanted to get you your meal fast, so we left out the cheese till a later time". Thats just BS.

Id rather wait longer for the game to come, then to start playing the game and have to stop and wait for stuff to be added

Stop making excuses for them. The fact is we were led to believe there was an elite mission then a week after release we get "in a few months". I think someone at anet could have taken 30 seconds out of their schedule to tell us the mission wouldn't be there from the launch. But wait, we've gotta think about the sales, right?

I understand now, thanks. I couldn't get hold of a PCGamer magazine so its my ignorance at fault.

When you kill a rezzed mob you don't get neither XP nor drop. Therefore, getting SP/LB points seems more like a bug. There is even an area where mobs rez automically and you can get AFK and the heros/henchies keep killing them for you and you grind around 100 LB pts an hour while AFK... It doesn't seem to be intended.

Regarding the elite mission, its absence at release time is a disappointment. BUT every other element of Chapter 3 is excellent! Everybody I asked rated it higher than Prophecies or Factions.
One suggestion before the elite mission comes out : would it be possible to add some rare drops in real of torments ? Although this is not an elite mission, the difficulty of the area deserves a bit more than Primary quests, LB pts farming and skill capping ...

Exploit... if a rezzed enemy doesn't give you xp why does he give you points? is just if i say that i'm millionaire because i can take out from my pocket 1 million times the same 1 dollar coin. And anyway, there is a great mistake in this... you reach rank 8 and you have to say: damn! why did i promote? now i can't promote more, has that any sense?

Thank you for a straight answer. I appreciate it.

There is no harm in letting people get max sunspear now, so long as it doesn't give them an unfair advantage (which it doesn't).

I realize you only have one shot at printing a manual, but if you include something in the manual and then don't notify gamers that it's not actually in the game it tends to make people frustrated. If post-poning some promised features for a later update will reduce or eliminate (haha) crunch time, that's fine, just let people know. You gain nothing from ambiguity.

Okay I can understand what they mean by releasing stuff every couple of months. After hearing how Gaile put it I can understand what they were doing. When some players finish the game they may get bored. Not that there isn't anything to do but some "milk it for all it's worth" in the first couple of weeks. This way there is something that players can look forward to and keep their attention untill the next chapter.

I can understand though people being a little upset about the elite mission being in the manual. I actually like this idea that A.net has and would only suggest that they make the updates more clear in perhaps a "Things to come" page in the manual.

Though I think there should be a more clear way to get sunspear points so I'm glad that is being fixed.

While we're at it, can we get the title of grandmaster cartographer yet?
I've reached 95.7%, I've got 2~3 more places to check to get a few more percents, but I'm not sure they'll give me the 4.3 I'm missing...
plus my character is from tyria/cantha, he can't access the very first part of the starting area

Anyway, if there's a new area opened soon, waiting for it may be the easiest way around

people have already got 100% of the map. and any elite mission they would add, would be like any other high level area and wont be mappable

I thought arena net are gods to make an elite mission which is so hard to discover and i had a lot of fun to puzzle about where it could be but now.. I`m a little bit disappointed.I must say it sounds a bit as anet dont had the time to finish the content till release date because a few reviews and promotions told us there will be an elite mission.Thats why we all searched for this. There are so much open questions now: where is razah? what are diamonds for? what is the place in realm of torment that we can see but cant enter?Anyway .. Nightfall is a great game and i hope this update comes soon because a chapter without an elite mission is a incomplete chapter We need high end content^^

And Gaile can you please tell the design team that they are my masters of the universe? thx^^

So what do we know here? There will be an elite mission. PC Gamer said there would be an elite mission. Where's the conflict? Did PC Gamer say that the elite mission would be in the game upon release? Well, then, they erred, obviously. Don't be critical of that error, though, because it happens. There has never been a preview or review that didn't contain errors. Writing such things is very difficult; I know, I've done it myself. The fact is, you spend hours with a dev team and you take notes or you transcribe hours of taped discussion and in the end it's almost inevitable that you'll make a small error here or there. (As I recall, I included the wrong stats on a StarCraft unit in the review I wrote--and it was a Protoss unit, to my undying shame! One person previewing Factions took a joke that one of the designers said--"Campaign 3 will be all about unicorns"--and wrote it up as fact! )

But you know, my instinct is that no one erred with this; I think that it was simply assumed that all that the magazine listed was going to be in the game on October 27th. (And yes, sure, I can understand why people could even make that assumption.) Again, we're sorry if you're disappointed with the timeline. I feel that having a major update a few months after release is an exciting thing to look forward to, but I can appreciate that someone else might prefer to have everything all at once.

I agree with you 100%. I wanted to give you the straight, correct, and full scoop on this, and frankly, with all of us having various meetings and other obligations, and with wanting to run it by three very busy team members, it took longer than it should have to get the info on ranks and the EM. I really am sorry for the delay in this!

Your point (politely made, and I thank you for that) is well taken, and I will check with the members of the team to see if I can get my mitts on more forward-looking information. I'll try and I know they will try, but all of us are really busy, and who can blame the designers for not being around to answer my question(s) when they were, literally, in a 9-hour meeting on Friday!?

The thing is: Sharing information benefits everyone, and I promise I will do my best to provide as much info as is appropriate, accurate, and timely!

Done! (And MotU was sooo much better than Sheera!)

I thank you again for your answer, however I feel almost as if this 'big update' is going to be something like...stuff that probably should have been included with the release of chapter 3, but is being held off so it can appear that we are getting a huge update. Well, either that, or the elite mission just wasn't done in time for NF. Normally, when something is included in a manual, it is in the game. Is it a big deal? Not particularly...I love NF and there's still plenty to do, I just wish that since it really was implied that we'd be getting the elite mission with the game (and yes, I do believe that it was implied), that we had found out earlier that it wasn't in the game...ah well, it's not a big deal I guess.

Thanks for responding to the issue. The community has made a lot of assumptions about comments or magazine articles about Guild Wars future. Not to be rude or put more work onto you but if you read something that the community could make a wrong assumption about, could you post a comment about it if an advertisement (pcgamer) is posted on guildwars.com.

Thanks for all your countless hours dealing with us and tell the designers nf is great

Congratulations, I will be waiting to buy chapter four until everything that has been promised has been delivered.

If this means I wait till chapter 5, or just long enough to get verification...

I think what led people to assume it was there on release is that on page 121 of my manual, supplied with the game it says that NF has elite mission areas. Not will have, has.

Now, please dont mis-read this. NF is hugely massivley fun and IMHO far better than Factions both in gameplay and artwork. So this is not a whinge, merely a suggestion.

On reflection would it not have been better to leave that section out of the manual, and then announce. Next week we are delighted and proud to present two new high end areas called xxx? Like what was done with sorrows furnace. It was announced after release and was a huge success.

People will go wow, free, extra content is'nt that wonderful rather than wonder and grind where there heck a non existant thing is, and that it gives some people the impression of an unfinished work.

My own view is that if it's possible for people to hit the max levels of Sunspear and lightbringer by an inventive method then why remove the cap for all now?

Yeah, like all of the recent nerfing, and then "Oh look guys, you can see your dye mixes BEFORE you dye your armor! Rejoice!" They like to try to cover things up a bit...

With Sorrow's furnace I thought it was awesome that we were getting a free update with a huge area. Although I have no idea what the 'huge update within the next few months' will be, I just automatically now have the feeling that we are getting stuff that wasn't ready for the NF release. I think overall the fanbase was much happier at the notion that we really were getting a free update that was totally unexpected.

Haha, Yes, ma'am

Thanks for the update. I so hate myself for doing this but, we can technically say that the manuals in GW Nightfall about the supposed Elite Mission are clearly falsified right (I’m not going to point fingers but is this NCSoft’s doing)? As for some other things like the last hero, I’m really not surprised there; I could see some serious maintenance problems laid out in this hero when the line was added “Profession: Variable."

its not done .. nothing we can do .. i would rather wait then have them do a rush job on it.

Hmm.... Factions advertised, or other means of getting info out, Elite missions and guess what! They were there.

All titles were attainable as well , no "bugs".

So NightFall is/was supposed to have and Elite Mission(s) and they are not here - maybe in a few months, c'mon. I read that as not having been done yet at all.

And now there seems to be a reason why the Prima Guide was axed as the one for Factions had the Elite Missions in there. Imagine the uproar had we gotten the guides with Elite Mission in it, but not in game - louder than this I would say.

The Title thing is annoying because I went through game and am not looking forward to "farming" points.

Hmm...... like NF a lot as it is fun to play and not a grind. This however has left a bad taste, enough that I'll be waiting on Chapter 4. Reading forums etc to see what is up with that.

Oh well, help guildies and friends get through and move other chars along is all I can do.

And Gaile, sorry - your posts sound like company spin. The rank thing should be dealt with yesterday for sure, not in some update. And 3 months for an Elite mission is BS. Additional content to me means something akin to Sorrows Furnace - unexpected.

ign - Huntress Velasca

I thought she was talking about added content like a new explore-able area (i.e. sorrow’s furnace) not a full out elite mission or am I wrong? That’s why I as asking, I don’t care if that’s done on time; I’m already enjoying Nightfall as is.

^Actually I believe she said a new method of elite mission access but not a sorrow's furnace style update.

Come on people...

"I can't get Rank 9", Boo Hoo. "There is no elite mission" YET, Boo Hoo.

You can't speed up the process by bitching about it, ANet have now stated that a update to these issues is coming... Sweet, Problem solved. I mean, Its not as if the game is ruined because you cant get your precious title or do an Elite mission.

How many Hours have you all played NF for by now? 100+ Hours? 200+ Hours? Even if you recieve no more free content, that is still EXCELLENT value in my books. (Based on a Game hours played Vs. Money Spent Ratio)

Coming from playing BF2 where the support, patches and updates are horrid, To Guild Wars where there is Constant updates, Dev's that actually take the communities opinion into consideration, and EVEN a dedicated community manager (props to Gaile)
You so called "Old School" Guild Wars players dont realise how lucky you have it.

I say bring on the update, and In the meantime I will be doing the other 991 things that there are to whittle away time in Elona.

i only want a short answer:

do i can find razah in the game now? (i have all gw chapters)

sure its fun to make everything to find him
but i would feel fooled if i am searching for something thats not ingame!

Yes at least give us conclusive answers on content. We're all under the impressing that the Elite mission, Razah, etc were all in the game and now you're telling us the Elite Mission isnt in yet. The least you can do is tell us whether or not Razah is in the game yet so we can stop spending hours double checking NPC's and searching area's and outposts.

It felt a bit confusing trying to figure that one out, but yeah from that point of view maybe you’re right.

For the love of cheddar, I am not complaining got it, I was just confused; CONFUSED I TELL YOU! You want me to spell out or sacrifice blood, to say I love Nightfall as is (Jeez).

My point exactly. I reached Castellan just before moving on to Vabbi, without farming for points at all. I've just been playing: exploring the map, doing quests, capping all elites, and sometimes going back to areas I completed to help guildies along. This got me to Castellan without trying.

Now, I've played through Vabbi, without blessings, and will play through it again, capping the elites and probably again helping guildies, and at the end of it, I won't have scored a single promotion point.

A few months from now, when there's absolutely nothing more to do in Kourna and Vabbi for my main (title collecting) character, I'll have to go back and grind for 7,000 points. Doesn't feel right to me.

When Factions was announced, there were a couple months until its release. Assuming that the dev team split and began working AFTER Sorrow's, that leaves much less time for Factions to be developed than Nightfall. Which is weird, because we'd expect more bugs from it. Nightfall has had ~6 more months to develop. Much more PvE content is definetely noticed, as well as depth and all that other jargon. But- IF Nightfall has been in development for so much longer, why are there such hugely glaring errors on ANet's part, and such odd PR cover ups? I personally am completely discontented w/ Gaile's post, simply because it tells us lots but nothing at the same time. An update- woohoo, more content to cover in the short 6 month time period between new chapters.

"With our current schedule a sorrow's sized update (not quoted perfectly) would not be very practical". Well, maybe it's something wrong w/ your update schedule then? Why there is such imbalance between the chapters? Not much cohesion at all, besides a link between the continents? Hrm.


Actually, we can fix a lot by "bitching". Complaining and arguing for something we seriously think should be changed and need to be changed, as consumers, as a majority community in guildwars, our opinions definetely matter. I've played BF2, UT2004, CS, Runescape, Silkroad, blah blah blah. GuildWars players are lucky to have such input from the devs, yes, but it's a double edged sword. They try to "balance" the game based on our discussions and input so much it becomes a mess. Look at farming now. Money-production is coming to a virtual halt. It's a very strange era of GW play. If we're promised something, multiple times, if we BUY their product on this premise, and they still interact and update w/ the community... then there is no reason to have such a content gap. Covering it up as a holiday update doesn't change the fact that things are missing. Maybe Factions WAS a horrible game, but it gave what it promised, AB'ing, elite missions, shiro, assassins, ritualists. Nightfall... I don't know what to say. I love the game, but I'm not loving at ALL the way ANet is handling their current PR. I have mixed feelings.

Only an a seriously mis-informed person would go by what a gaming magazine said (pre-release) would be in a game.

That said.

I find it very unfortunate that what was included in the game packaging ('manuscripts') and the online manual (which was online up til yesterday as of 9:14PM EST - still in my Internet cache) both stating misleading things about the elite mission being in NightFall.

A simple addendum, note or maybe some info on your support site instead of 'no comment' per your online visit 11/4, would have made alot of people a little less worried about finding the Elite Mission and a little more concerned with enjoying the game.

I had lots of nice things to say about Nightfall, most of them are still true, but this has left a very bad impression with me.

/signed - a very disgruntled long time customer

Perhaps Anet needs to remember this phrase. They're very good at it, but it only serves to annoy the rest of us.

NF is big enough to wait for the "big update" that is coming, I mean, come on, there are a lot of stuff to do, please don't say that now you can do nothing untill next update(unless you live in the game?), we have a great game, with 3 campaing right now, 10 classes, millions of quest, millions of skills, pvp, gvg, hero ascend, farming the new green items, getting FoW armor ....... etc etc...

I see that there was a mistake with the info gathered by magazines or what-ever(including NF manual) , but we are lucky that we have ANET Team that will fix it. A lot of games in the market takes years to fix/add something, so please, give them the time to fix it, don't rush at them , let ANET team do the job correctly.

Thank you Gaile for the support and the answers , your work is much appreciated !

Go Go ANET !

PD: Sorry for my english lol :P

/cheers

Malevolence

I see pitchforks! The mob is angry.

This thread is a pretty good indication of how addicted some people are to this game.

people should relax, give anet time on this one i would rather have a elite fun mission than one that is rushed.

has any one ever made a game or animation or programing. Anet gave us alot of content, just give them time for the rest of the game.

we all want to check out and play the end game content so lets just wait.

patance is a vuture


Anet take your time

love NF...

i thought i was gonna hate it (was of asian origin, so i thought i'd like faction more...) but ever since NF released, i cna't stop myself playing it... even amidst my exams...

GJ anet, GJ...

a for the sunpear thing, would it be possible to raise in rank as much as possible with blessing, and then do quests which give you promotional points?!

much like in prophecy pre sear, how you would get lvl16 before get out of pre-sear?!

ps, @ gaile: love you speech in "making of NF" =D Mike's funny too... oh oh... can you bring my regard to the person who incorporated battling music in NF... i ABSOLUTELY love it!!!

It's nice to see that GuildWars community has developed to become the biggest whining sissies in the entire online gaming community. There's not one game, not ONE, out there that has more reflections of user demands than Guild Wars. They constantly reflect what the users have been bitching about, over the course of the entire existence.
I think the devs spoils us too much.

Btw, Gaile, I appreciate your continuous effort to communicate with us the latest info, and hope the missed content will be coming soon. Keep up the great work.