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...