Chapter1,2,3,4 and beyond.

CAUTION: LOT OF READING, DO NOT POST YOUR PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR WILLFULLY-STUPID FORUM IGNORANCE. No one wants to read it.


This is infact a post i made else where, but its got so many of my thoughts i been wanting to spill for so long, it deserves a thread where people can rip it apart, flame me, ruin my ideas, shun my existence, and maybe get banned for it? i could dream right?... nah lol


I start with a Quote of someone who knows what they are a thinking before speaking. Infact, his/her name reveals a hidden truth of GW too.

exactly, sorta.

And really, its beyond stupidity to say no new professions, when you can't deny there are 2 new ones coming regardless what drops from your ass, whether its a gold egg idea or a brown worthless bowl of stupid in the morning.

The fact of having so many profession combinations is a great thing, the more there are, the more the possibility that one combo of totally different origins could do the same job -just with more of a twist. I see the future for GW containing so many cool professions to ultimately pick from, that thats the just of it, thats it. Being cool. Doing the same roles yet totally different. A mesmer style profession for example that is actually doing a mesmer job from a combo of *insert new profession here*/necro. A bad example, cause thats mesmer (core), and necro (core) but you get what i mean, Ill come up with a better example later.

And you won't need all the chapters to jump in, we already know this. How worthless would it be to NEED all chapters to play with one of the chapters - we already know thats one of Gw's good points for new players-standalone games. You could totally skip chapters if you don't particularly like some professions, can live without them, and can do the same thing with other already existing professions.

Much similar to a Ranger now is, a Paragon, spear throwing, ok, they can add conditions like a ranger could, they could cripple ppl very often with the right chant, its a new twist, to the same mechanics. Didn't see it yet? and if you grew tired of seeing it that way, flip it, Ranger/paragon has different things to offer as well, even with just spear alone. We saw the premade build (pet+spear attck spamming).


Each profession pair has their own place of story background which serves as 2 things;
How they fit into GW's world, and 2 - the training for the profession, how to play it some what effectively in the environment.

It's obvious in Factions, the assassin IS not made for the use of tanking - such as there are exploding mobs when they die. IT is IN FACT, the perfect Chapter, when i look back at it now. You see how it taught the stupid noobs? "This isn't your profession, cause you can't play it right" is what the story told them, and finally they deleted it, good, cause we didn't need professions with stupid players playing them wrong. Right? Who can't agree with that? If you attempt to answer, ask yourself one more question, would you want to play with that player who hasn't got a clue of their own profession?

You could say for the Ritualist, it was made, "Casters, are not meant to tank, while you can handle it alittle better with your cast times (+15 armor activating) or with skills (+15 while under weap spell), the point was to give you a chance if you got your skills/spirits up at least still helping the team for a moment. But other wise it was too dangerous for you to step in close and risk being blow to pieces. Thats how you were supposed to play Ritualist, as well as if you really wanted to fit in the middle of the team, and defend (other way to play Ritualist) and protect an area for the team, you needed to get up the right spirits, have the right synergy with your team and move with it (draw spirit) etc.
***and before anyone says, oh those 2 classes didnt even have the right skills when the chapter released anyway - this may be true, but that was then, this is now, i am me, you are you, so shut it and look at it now.***

The same could be said about Dervish and Paragon now, their purposes can be wide and far, they are very flexible indeed, it's a good thing for noob players, to step in with an eased learning curve. They have the chance to tank with both professions, and deal their purpose without too much thought. Lets face it, compared to Factions, Nightfall is specifically for the people who can't play and progresses the hardness for us pros who can think about how to play a profession. Factions on the other hand, was indeed for more so pvp, which at the same time means, for pros. If you sucked, you really didn't get very far easily in that chapter. Its good and its bad, it depends what results you want.


SO that brings us to this new chapter coming, I hope its more like Factions, but enough of nightfall's points, to stop whining, maybe have ways to show if you beat the game on "easy", "expert", or "Masters". But mind you, not how the rewards are in Nightfall, I mean hard shit, like time limits combined with other bonus objectives, similar to Factions missions were.

While it is my opinion on this matter alone - it seems very close to the truth:
maybe more of you can see just how Anet probably works their content, stories around, missions/objectives included as well. If you don't want a new profession, how you gonna play boys and girls? kill more monsters who just happen to hurt a village who are defenseless? Just how lame and boring is that, simply put: (caps for extremeness)

YOU CAN'T HAVE A CHAPTER WITHOUT NEW PROFESSIONS, YOU FRUITCAKES!

Guild Wars is on a great road of success still, fun, and imagination, and you assholes want to keep it undeveloped.
I wanna say fudge you, but i'll just say "SHAME... SHAME ON YOU"

i love it when new skills and classes and whatnot come out. it's great.

but every time that happens, guild wars dies a little bit.

if we continue on this road, it will become impossible to get started in guild wars as a noobie. Just as getting started in HA is probably much harder now then it was back in the day. And it seems that starting a new guild will be much harder soon too. (although i don't quite understand the details of the new system, this is the one drawback i seem to gather.)

new skills and classes certainly excite me, but that is NOTHING compared to the wonderousness that is the skill update.

less than 1/4th of the skills in the game see usage. I love ANet, they made guild wars, hail them all... But when it takes 500 bucks and a billion faction just to get started in the game... something is wrong.

cheerio.

thats just it, the way the system is, you don't spend over 50 to get into the game. that is already good.

other things now, like faction unlocking could use changes, but this isn't about that point.


Theres several things that make skills see no usage in public:

-PvP situation only
-PvE situation only
-way too conditional in all areas to be seen worth taking
-gimmick library skills are only usable in certain builds

-some people can't even understand skills, and learn how to use correctly or effectively

-you can only take 8 skills to begin with, you aren't going to take skills you don't see as the best options for that profession combo/attribute distribution you settled with.

theres more things that play a role, but i could go on and on, and i'm not here to do that. at least not extensively to provide all points of interest.

i just think its a funny way for people to shoot themselves in the foot when they say, no new professions, just skills. What types of skills do you want?
A= overpowered ones
B= situation ones
C= limited by a wall but useful ones
All the above are fun, but A's will get nerfed either way, B's may get buffed either way, C's usually stay the same. But we have all these types already fluxing but with the same professions.

What do you think professions have to offer?
A=new skills of all of the above you wanted - correct
B=new ways for skills to effect the world - correct
C=new twists to game play and cool/interesting looks for the new professions - correct
D= all of the above - preferred answer

Off topic, but what you going on about? What have i missed

new profession action is key.

(see that. your entire post summed up in one sentence.)

I disagree with you on the new professions and skills. I don't believe it kills the game. It adds a new dynamic if nothing else since you are seeing not only a new player class and new player skills but new monster classes and skills. The addition of new classes and skills keeps the game dynamic from growing stagnant. I'm sure you remember Prophecies, where there was significant lagtime between the release of prophecies and factions. Once the more efficient builds were defined it became very difficult, if not impossible to find a group willing to take a chance on a new idea. The current development cycle and the trend of adding new professions prevents this from happening. Some die hard builds will always be useful regardless of nerfs or new content, like the MM, but others, while not dying out completely, become less useful in the face of new monster skills and new player skills. this forces us to think creatively once again. Granted this creative thinking can't last throughout the entire time between the release of a chapter and the release of the next chapter , but it does provide a brief respite of inventiveness and a chance to test new things out without so much build discrimination. A prime example of this was when I was about to do the Ronjok mission. I got into a party with a couple of other dervishes and one very worried monk. I was using my Ebon Dust Aura build, which while not new in concept is new as far as the exact skills used. The monk was terrified and said." You had better bring Avatar of Balthazar otherwise don't blame me if you drop like a fly. " I clicked my skill bar to let him scope the build and he agreed to let me give it a try. We destroyed that mission. As time progresses and builds get more ironed out then we will end up seeing less of a willingness to experiment and more people using tried and true builds. The next chapter will bring about another round of invention and willingness to try. That's a good thing no matter how you look at it.

That wasn't a long post.

Something a lot of people don't notice is that the core professions are core- the chapter professions are expansions. The core covers the basic areas- the chapter-specific professions specialize. For example, the Ranger. The ranger has a huge load of different things. Pet control, bow, spirits, traps, preparations. That's not really specialized (though the spirits and traps seem to be a side thing). Warriors- Stances, shouts, melee attacks, 3 different weapons. However, the profession specific ones specialize. While the warrior can both go offensive and defense, the assassin can only go offensive, and is specialized in killing as fast as possible. Dervish is based on enchantments, keeping themselves alive with it- with decent damage output. However, they don't have the warrior's shouts and stances. Rangers had limited battle field control- Traps and spirits. Ritualists are the masters of battlefield control.

So, I can see professions dedicated to these things:

-Protection (ritualist only covers healing)
-Traps
-Glyphs
-Wards
-Different kinds of hexes (ala chants and weapon spells)
-Shape-shifter (the dervish is currently also a bit broad actually)

Put simply, it won't sell without new professions. New professions are almost guaranteed.

You show a good argument. I was very impressed. Are you a lobbyist?(For those who don't know what a lobbyist is, its someone who speaks for a living. Watch Thank You for Smoking(FUNNY, AND IMMORAL LOL) lol.. but with seriousness.

I'd rather get a new race over a new profession('s).

What would everyone want?
1. 2 new professions.
2. New race, and more than normal new skills
3. Hmm.. no new race, or professions, just lots of PvE, and new RA/TA maps, guild halls, HA maps (plz!).

New professions also have one other advantage for us grizzled oldbies who already have a character of each of the core classes: They provide a character for playing the newbie areas that isn't a duplicate of an existing character ;-). That said, you only need one new profession for this... but if you only introduced one new profession in a chapter, the population of that chapter would be even more homogenous shortly after release than it is now...

I personally don't like timed missions for the bonus unless there's a story reason for them to be timed. Sometimes it's appropriate - the faster you go, the less damage whatever you're trying to stop can do before you stop it - but I found all the timed missions in Factions to be a bit of a copout. Nightfall had more of the right idea, but some of the bonuses could stand to be a little harder... a lot of them just involved hunting down a few more relatively easy mobs or showing a little more care as you completed the primary objective.

On 'doing the same job with a different twist' - to a certain extent, that's already happened. Triple/Cyclone Axe Warriors like Jade Brotherhood Knights, for instance, can behave a lot like Dervishes in the melee crowd control area, as can some builds of W/E and even primary Elementalists doing the point-blank thing. However, while previous practitioners of the technique did so with simple spells and special attack skills, the Dervish employs enchantment management and a weapon that strikes multiple targets by default.

I've seen the mention of new races come into play a lot however I have only one reservation about that. What could a new race possibly offer? This game only has the skill attribute point mechanic and not personal attribute point mechanics. In effect what you want is a new character skin which is nice to look at but doesn't add anything to the game aside from a little more eye candy. The thing about a game like this is that it must evolve or it will die. Look at the number of dedicated players we have here on the boards. Nightfall was released a relatively short time ago and already the new profession boards are multiple pages of builds. It doesn't take us long to figure out the skill dynamics and how each skill will work with the others. Without a more or less regular influx of new skills and attributes the game grows boring fast. The only way to introduce a new race as anything other than pure eye candy would be to create a player stat dynamic, like in Diablo.

The paragon covers healing and protection with command and motavation

Am I correct to believe this is in reply to me? If so, I will check out what you mentioned about "Thank You for Smoking".

Also, I wanted to comment on the fact that I personally shun the idea of new races, for the very reason of how people present it. Its always all about "hey i wanna look like an elf" type deal. Thats all cheese and crackers but still, you only need a body build change, and what else would Anet add to make it much more different than Human? I'd stay human and take a better looking glorious armor any day over looking like an Imp or something else.. I am human after all, I'm the one with godly power to defeat a god, and reverse the end of the world, not some birdman (i refer to him cause its funny lol...talon love you pal..).

Well...if they really wanted to get fancy, different races could have different innate abilities and disabilities. Like, humans are the basic race, an "elf" would have maybe 3/4 cast time and a health penalty or something, or longer skill recharges. Just has to be so no race is strictly better than any other race, even in a particular profession (an elf mage can't be strictly better than a human mage, else everyone with eles right now would cry foul).

yeah but it just sounds too "WoW" to me... meh

i've played wow before with a bunch of friends, don't accuse me of blind hate.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, does not have new professions, yet it will sell like hotcakes.

Why? CONTENT!

TBC is rumored to have 2-3 months of content. That's far more value than any Guild Wars chapter, which I can clear in...about a week or so.

If ArenaNet focuses more on content than new profession balance, we would be at a happy medium.

I don't know why you're going on a tirade like this, it's in Anet's hands... and you certainly, nor anyone else at this point, do not have any insight on what the Dev's are thinking. So everything you've said is really just your opinion.

In the end, people buy what they think it's going to be fun. Do you think people would buy a new guild wars chapter with 4 new classes (or more) but only 1 noob area to teach you how to play (and reach level 20) and that's it, go play the other chapters?

I doubt it. (Tournament Edition doesn't count alright?)

Even then, the chapter would still sell if people like it enough, no matter how less the content is. I guess that's all that matters.

Totally agree.

Also,

More proffesions = some proffesions getting rejected or disfavored in groups.

Are you sure that the WoW expansion has more content than a GW chapter? 2-3 months? I think you forgot about something important, something WoW has and GW (almost) has not. It's * G R I N D *

Idk about TBC selling like hotcakes, most ppl I know who play wow aren't too thrilled about paying for it. They only like putting up with the monthly's, but thats what they want, not the masses I guess..

I try to enjoy Gw's chapter's the first time around going slow, but thats my way of doing it, and by slow, I actually read the quests and watch the cutscenes, nothing extra for me (ew side quests... lol, only if i need gold, some collectible, or it sounds funny like koss's elixir - that was funny).

But I think you failed to realize GW and WoW are two completely different games...in the way they are played. Theres always the common references in rpg games.

I'd like to see one race added, just one.
I dont truley care what the race is, i just want to know that:
Not only Humans can save a planet time and time again.
The Tengu are strong feriocious warriors, but they look like Chickens in a Roost!
The Summit are also powerful, yet we just beat them to the ground and Humanity > Other again.

Let us be the others, please.

Also, can someone PLEASE tell me why we know chpater 4 will come in to existance? I have no clue whats happening with it!

And on another note;
I agree with Content.
The more Content the longer we play the game for, so long as this content is good content the GW players will like it.

However i wana see the race thing

Ummm...not really. If you've actually played WoW you would know that you don't have to grind. Some people choose to. You can easily get to 60 by questing almost all the way, and its faster than grinding. Don't believe me? Check out Brian Kopp's or Joana/Mancow's leveling guides.

And do you get perfect (or comparable) equipments that easily too?

I see this franchise at a crossroads. If Ch 4 is really just more of the same, I'll just stick with the first 3. Between the first 3 there are more than enough classes, skills, builds, and wacky combinations to make due. Taking my dozen or so characters through all 3 titles is plenty to do. And Anets stunt with DOA (making it near-impossible, and frustrating to the point where I just won't waste my time), and my various other issues with the games that probably won't be addressed soon if ever, and more of the same is not going to do it for me. I couldn't care less about PvP, and PvE is pretty much stagnant. I've played about 1500 hours (at least thats what /age tells me), and it's pretty much been there, done that. I guess I could be called 'jaded', but if Ch 4 is to Ch 3, what Ch 3 was to Ch 2 (some incrimental improvements, but it's still more of the same), I don't see myself throwing down the money or the time to more level 20 PvE'ing, repetitive farming, and just the fact this title, as is, has hit stagnation.

I do agree with the OP, from both the PvE/PvP point of view and how GW is marketed as both an expansion and standalone product for each chapter. Therefore each new Chapter will come with new professions. Such is the choice Anet has made when it started with factions.

Your choice as a consumer is far simpler.

hehe this is so untrue... They both have GRIND, the only difference is u grind for Sunspear points and lightrbringer points, in wow at least u get better reward for stupid grind. And "almost" on GW side is far from almost... GW became almost all about grind since it offers nothing but grind after u finish ( not that good ) storyline and u dont like the PvP.


And on topic, I stated many times before that making new Chapters is just plain stupid ( from player view ) why the hell do i need another 100 of new proffesions whwn they end up being the same old core classes with little makeover. And insted of making new chapters every few months make addons and implement existing chapters and gameplay so player base would be spread out threw all chapters and not just in the last one, LA and KC so anet would stop complaining they have no time to fix this and that and make more improvements because they take too much time.

I hope Chapter 4 doesn't have new Professions, just more content in general.

There is alread too many skills for me to unlock, let alone adding yet another two Professions to the mix.

Im afriad to burst your bubble but Anet have already Said they wont make a new profession every Campaign.

The reasons behind it:

Uniqueness. If you begin to add lots more types pretty soon there will be alot of classes vurtually the same. say u add a dual sword weilding Warrior, basically its an assassin with bigger blades. It adds nothing to the game.

Game life span. Have unique professions adds a value of replayability, since each type has a different style of play, this increases the games lifespan. People enjoy playing as numerious types. Alot of people have 1 of every char type. However if u add alot more char types soon people wont have the time to use them. New char types will be played a little, then abaddoned since there is no time or point to putting them through all the campaigns so they will just play older core types. Eventually people will end up using just 1 char profession due to the time demands. Then then there is little variation in there playing the game. It soon gets boring then and people soon abandon gw.

Lore. Whats to say every continent has a different set of professions? For example if we had a campaign set in the Risen Orr, or just north of Ascalon, we would be virtually in Tryia, in tryia there are only the core professions, there are no other types. having a new profession just appear out of no where would break the lore and make the back story much less interesting. In Cantha and Elona the non core char types are part of there lore.

Workload. Adding constant new professions increases Anet work alot, new game mecanics, new armour, new animations, etc. etc. If they add too many they will spend more and more time on them and less and less time on actual game content.

@ thread starter

This thread sucks. You know, you CAN add a lot to the gameplay just by adding to the current professions. Such as new attributes/Skills/weapons.

I'm with many people in saying I would rather there not be any new professions, just add to the ones already there and I'll be happy.

that wouldn't be fair.
to add a assasin or a paragon to chapter 4
i bought factions and i get the assa and ritualist with it.
same for nightfall only the paragon and dervish.
those are chapter bounded.
So iff you don't have factions or nightfall you don't have those proffesions.
it's your choise, but who plays every proffesion ok maybe you try it but.
ok maybe there is a hold sometime in the near future that there can't be a new proffesion.
but can't think of a reason why not, threre are numerous proffesions 2 add like palladin or hand mallee attacks (i have seen it somewhere on this forum) or elemental summoners like summoning earth or fire elementels.

I imagine there are at least three people who have posted on this forum who might have an idea of what the devs are thinking .

To respond to Sparda's post: Economics in computing does place a certain premium on getting something sooner rather than later. If the Ritualist was reintroduced in, say, Chapter 6, is that really much less fair than if at around the time Chapter 6 came out (let's say mid-2008) somebody picked up a copy of Factions out of the bargain bin for five dollars? Or if around that time ANet released a package deal with the first three chapters for not much more than the price of a single new game?

In all three cases, a hypothetical player has picked up the Ritualist without paying as much for Factions as you did - but on the other side of the equation, if you acquired Factions when it first came out you've had the Ritualist for two years longer than they have. As the saying goes, time is money.

Paladin - We already have that warrior/monks
Elemental Summoners - we dont need a whole new class or skills that should be used on an already existing char type ie the elementalist.
We may not have a hand melee type but would it but it would almost be a copy of a warrior or assassin. It adds no value to the game, and so doesnt increase interest in the game.

*COUGH* SUNSPEAR POINTS *COUGH*

There is no grind for sunspear points, ive managed to get my chars past sunspear general without any difficulty and without haveng to deliberatly go out and gain Sunspear points.

Then whats the selling point for that supposed chapter? New way to play? no. More look at this, do the same thing?? yes.... I'll take both, which is how it has been so far.

It just baffles me how someone can believe a story, new chapter, wouldn't bring anything new besides essentially just a story, possible IU changes, and other polishing to the game. Is it not clear enough? New professions make this game move, it gets stale when you keep it the same.

And judging from this post you don't pvp very much, I personally play both, and have almost every little thing unlocked, except for nightfall's elites, those have yet to all be finished. But Factions and Prophecies are completely unlocked for myself.

I'd like to add myself from someone else's post, don't ruin it for other people calling for less goals in the game when you can't complete your own fast enough for the new one, no one is forcing you. Keep playing at YOUR speed. That is the whole reason for chapters to be standalone, and are not required to be purchased for you to continue playing.

The 2 new species do have their own unique abilities and stuff, however, they're not just skins.

So essentially you're saying, that Anet makes their unannounced decisions by your reasons? Now, I'm interested.
How do you know what Anet would add to the game? By your narrow road of ideas, that would be entirely possible for a profession. But Anet doesn't have such a small view of the possibilities like you. If you ask me, I didn't expect what we see in the Dervish and Paragon at all, we all knew small things, and wished for certain types of weapons for them to use, but we didn't know. And certainly you yourself did not know as well.


I'm sincerely trying to understand what you tried to type here.
I believe you assume you know how long it takes for everyone to finish playing with a profession or how many professions everyone plays. Some people play just one profession all the time, they are not effected by "adding alot more character types soon". I myself make my way playing all of them through each chapter slowly, if it gets boring, I do it on the side even more so. But I do play all of them (yes even mesmer in pve), and I still looking to start 2 new ones in Chapter 4. I find the time to play all of mine here and there, mostly my Favorites though, and thats pretty much a given for everyone. You play your favorites.

Well nothing is to say every continent has to have different set of professions, how many continent's will there be on the World of Tyria anyway? But aside from that, whats to say every chapter will even be on a new continent? Do we honestly know exactly what Anet will do? Time and time again? The world most likely will have about the same amount of continents as the Earth itself. And we have quite a few to go still based on that.
Once again, who said we would revisit Tyria and ruin it's backstory? There again, who says we had to visit, current time tyria? In the Lore world of our hero's and all, its been a few years since we left Ascalon, assuming we all started with prophecies that is.

Uh, once again, makes me think too much here.. Do you work at Anet? I doubt you do, and if you did, you'd know more often than myself that they are hiring more people consistently. Anet is growing, you can't possibly comprehend what a growing company's work load, abilities, potentials, or limits are. It's clear from the past chapters, they can significantly improve the game more and more at a time.

Your display of willful stupid-ignorance is hilarious.

Indeed, you can add new attributes to current professions with NEW professions already, and will be able to continue to. The same goes for the current state of guildwars, just load up that 2ndary profession, and you get a whole full new skill list for your already made profession since even prophecies! Wow! amazing, gotta love how Anet helps us all out with our selfish agendas.

We'll I'm not with your crowd of clouded-thinking-fruitcakes. Not even realizing that new professions create what you all want so bad. New professions open up new stories - for (your happy dose of) content. They bring you that new line of attributes, they bring you those new weapons, they bring you skills. What more can you ask for, when you get what you want, and more?

you're the one that sucks

I'm not sure what stuns me most.
Your aggressive attitude towards your readers, or the fact that your argumentation is, at best, only a weak link.