Save Guild Wars - Ideas to Fill Empty Towns

EDIT - This thread is about collecting ideas to bring more players and life to the game (specifically fill towns and get people helping eachother).

We've already established my first idea is no good, so add or progress other ideas.


Original Idea

It's a problem that makes me miss 'the good ol' days'. I remember my computer struggling to cope with the full Ascalon City or having to look through 5 full districts to find suitable players for a PvP attempt but now all that is found is an eiree silence and a few tumbleweeds.

The towns are empty, and it's made the game less enjoyable.

Now this is just an idea, but I believe properly implimented, it would work. Why not make Guild Wars entirely free?

I suggest Areanet create an unlimited free access key, for anyone to use on a game client (obtained free off their site or off a CD from say, a game shop). Allow them to access all areas of the three maps, all the towns and missions, and allow them to participate in any party, but impose major restrictions on their gameplay. Do this in such a way that they get the fun feeling of participating in Guild Wars (the one I felt playing Prophecies the first time through), but with all the fun detailed bits missing, driving them to buy the game. Also, allow players with 1 or 2 campaigns to acces the ones the don't have with the free access key privelages.

In short, it will attract more players (and hopefully further sales) and those who don't purchase it fill up the game and make towns more lively (also have them act as a gold sink)!

The only challenge is making the system balanced, fair but unfair at the same time.


I could post a list of suggestions (for restrictions etc) but I think that would be better listed in the replies in this thread.

I like free free and its a novel idea but...
I don't know if anet could swing the bandwidth / big enough yet

They would have to change several things:

Create a datafile set that only has chapater 1.. or everyone will be downloading 2.7gb.. or worse if they hit that bug that makes you download factions twice causing the gw.dat to grow to 4+ gb.

No trading (or this will be used to unlesh bots on the world) this would include not allowing you to drop items on the ground.

I would more like to see they get access to Pre-Searing + Post Ascalon Region, Starting Island Faction / Nightfall and access to no where else. Sample all 3 flavor's and changes .. but at same time not cause too much disruption.

Like EternalTempest said, it would take up bandwidth. Since Guild Wars has no monthly fees, I can't see how they could do all that without going bankrupt. Sure, they have a "store" where you could buy character slots for $10, more campaigns, or PvP unlock packs, but I'm not sure that'd support the game enough to allow such a thing. However if they do come up with such a method that doesn't involve monthly fees, then seeing something like this actually happen would be cool.

- Unlimited mule characters for everyone

- eBay/account traders/money sellers (remember the 10 day trial?)

- Griefers, foul mouths, random spammers and insulters, profanity galore

- Alt accounts for scamming, getting even, annoying players

Yay. Let's do this.

Those, who are interested in the game are playing. Those who aren't, are not. Making the game free has never in the history of MMOs solved anything. It's a sign that game is put into hibernation before shutdown.

Could make the free-characters not able to carry any item or gold.

But still feel not a pretty idea, if they could play the whole game. (maybe only at limted spots) GW's first attraction is its single-player like RPG story, and if allow that to be free, than all thats left are gold farming and grinds, which devalue the game down to a typical MMO with level cap. So would say no...

I think Heros is good enough to do mission with... and a centralize PvE town area (see Lyra's thread) is good to gather people around too. And since most in game player don't give any good social interactions, I like to hang on the fourm more.

I personnally dont like this.... it would bring all the free people that cant buy games.. Most arent bad but then we get immature people (The word Runescapes keeps nudgeing me).

A better solution really would be combining Districts from different continents if the total population is less then x. Add some Basic commands like Go there, Attack that, etc and were set.

Lets see... "save" guild wars by bankrupting the company that makes it...

Edited by Faer: Let's keep the political nonsense out of this discussion, please.

/unsigned

~the free rat~

The idea is nothing new. It's already implemented in a huge number of the simpler more grinding type mmorpgs, especially those from the east. From what can be seen, any increase in sales is minimal. People who can afford or who would buy, will still buy. Those who can't or won't, most likely still won't. And given the business model of GW, it's a very risky venture.

Maybe it isn't a decrease in the number of players. Maybe those players are going elsewhere in the world - there are 3 continents now after all. If the growth in the number of players is lower than the growth in the number of possible outposts they could visit, then it's inevitable that on average, you will start to see fewer people in each outpost. To get the outposts filling up more, more people need to buy the game to increase the population density. From there on, it becomes a balancing act for ANet. The number of people they can entice into buying the game with marketing campaigns versus the server traffic that they're capable of supporting. And as a side note, some places are still extremely busy. Kaineng Centre in Cantha is a place that in my experience is definitely not lacking in human traffic. Even during the quieter times my 2Mb connection and fast PC still have trouble handling it.

actually, i think Anet should make a "free expansion" for people.
This "free expansion" will be the joint bone in linking all the different chapters together.

In this way, all different chapters ONLY accounts can get together and play (eg. guild friends), have a common trading town for all chapters.

Fow / UW should also be in this place. Who the hell thought of making replications so many times in different chapters.

Like Zin Ku corridor... no one is around there. Does this mean that those who are Factions Only accounts will be penalised for it?
Not to mention, absolute almost zero favor for other countries. Eg. Korea, Taiwan, Japan.

I think they should change the name of those places to a legendary country name ( like ff online), this will keep politics off the game. and 100k migrating fee. (eg. 100k gold to change server from america to korea, 100k to change back).

I hve friends across different continents, still feel pissed off that i cannot play together with them in fow / uw. this will also allow the chance for other continents to get to otherwise *unaccessible* contents

What about an ASSISTANCE title?

Dunno how you could impliment it but the idea is players gain points towards the title for helping others in lower missions. What I mean is, if a level twenty is in a mission Anet worked out was for say a level 15, they can earn points towards the title.

Or maybe the game can store how many times you've completed a mission and for each extra time you earn points. The number of points earn equates to your character level and the mission you completed (otherwise level 20s would just sit doing the early missions over and over and earning points). If a level 20 did Ruins of Surmia They'd earn less points for helping in Ring of Fire. It would be better if only level 20s can earn this title because if you can earn it as you play through, you could have it by the time you yourself finish the game, leaving no incentive to return and help others. Maybe as an added bonus you earn something for each stage of the title. Maybe access to new areas, new weapons, money ... etc. A good incentive for people to earn the title.

Like I said, not sure how you could impliment it correctly, any other ideas?

The main point of this would be to fill up these dead areas again, and help those that have just got Prophs or Factions etc and are sat in a mission area looking at the prospect of having to do it with Henchies, which we all know is virtually impossible with some missions.

Anyway, if we can elaborate on this, help Anet come up with a way to get people back into these ghost areas without costing them money (apart from coding the ideas) then we shoud do it, I say.

I've been trying to persuade my housemate to buy guildwars, at first he was like 'Oh no, RPG no way' etc but I gave him 2 trial keys and he liked the game and said he was going to buy it. 'WAS'. He never bought it and hasnt done in ages. I guess some people dont like it as much as I do.

As for the free idea, heres a suggestion:

Make Prophecies free up to lions arch, and make RA + Zaishen arenas free. Also, these characters playing the game for free can join guilds, but cannot visit the GH/parcticipate in GVG, and can only have 2 character slots. It would be like half of the first game for free, then if they like it and want to continue, they can buy the game.

How about a free trial like WoW has? You just D/L the client use the free trial key and you get a 14 day trial with full access

Okay, so my idea wasn't new, or great and has many flaws, but fortunately this is not what this threads about.

Another great idea previously mentioned is to make an expansion that uses the three current continents.

There is a fear that a fourth continent will spread the game thin and possibly collapse it. So imagine the fourth chapter was an exceptionally long campaign (possibly with 2 new professions introduced) where you travel across all three current continents accessing new areas, towns and quests.

This would disadvantage those who don't have all the current campaigns, but they could realease box set deals or something.

If you want to fill towns, there's only one solution.

$14.95 monthly fee.

In subscription games, people feel forced to play the game. So they have their characters parked AFK in towns. This will severly increase the number of characters online, and cities will be fuller. You will of course have much less players overall, even less will be interested into helping you and even less will be doing stuff, but cities will be much fuller.

As the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for.

I believe since the only real chance for old campaigns to get new content is part of a purchase, but I do not think that an expansion is necessary. If they release a new chapter, couldn't they just add new content to existing chapters through that purchase? I'm just thinking of small things, like a few quests per town (based around the "new" evil doer), a few more bosses strewn about with elite captures, etc., etc. Maybe even a new mission or two. But this content would only be available if the player had the area's original campaign and the new half-expansion, half-new content chapter. It might have to cost a little more to cover the additional development, though.

I have thought of some of the restrictions that would get casual players to still play the game but get the ones who want more to buy it:

-No greens droppable or usable
-No elites cappable or unlockable
-No elite missions like uw, fow, urgoz, etc
-No other armors then the standard 1.5k ones
-Less storage slots and storage can only contain 100k, a char only 20k
-Instead of 8 char slots 4
-Chance to drop good stuff like golds or rare materials way lower

I think those things are acceptable as a casual player can play without greens, 15k armor and elites (althought thts a little unfair in pvp). Because of that they also need less money so they dont need many golds or rare materials to drop, and also dont need as much storage. Casual players also just play casually so they dont need many slots and they wont spend theyr time in fow or uw or elite missions or whatever.

PS: if anet would really introduce such a thing (wich i highly highly doubt) i must admit that id sell my copies of guild wars and play the free version as i am a casual player.

2 words : no way

green items are amazing for people who cant afford perfect items and elite missions are fun for the guild and a good way to test builds out

The only Way I see this Recitifed, or solved is a Title for side Quests. Many Side Quests make you end up in random outposts I did not even know Existed untill a month after I finished the game the first time (Beetlerun *whistles*)

Title for quests seems perfect.