A little area to breathe in next campaign?

Well...

My taught is very simple, so there is no need to expand it into a huge line of text which no one reads anyway... So here I go...

I think that in the Nightfall and Factions campaigns, the areas are always shut when you want to come to a new mission, which cant make you come any further without doing this mission. I think this is bad, since you will always have to fight your way to next city.

My suggestion is to make the next campaign alot more "Free", maybe use the whole map, and only have a couple of small isles to expand if needed... and please, take those freaking doors away!

In between the missions it would be cool if, just once in a while, there was a more mellow zone where you didn't have to cut your way through nine hundred monsters just to get 250 xp for talking to some overly wordy guy that you don't know or care about because you know that there will be at least twenty more guys just like him on your way to getting to the good part of the game (even though you have no idea what that part is because it's all the same).

I really enjoyed the pre-searing area. In my opinion, and in many others', that's still the best PvE that ANet has ever done. It was simple, it seemed like a real living world. Every other zone in the game is just... some place where you kill stuff.

what? no you cant have free land then you could get 15k armor at lvl 3
plus it could ruin the storyline......no thanks because you can get max stuff at too low of a level.

I believe the OP is suggesting that the next campaign(s) are designed in a geographically more open manner. Storyline progression and item upgrade challenges can be handled via instanced areas as usual, just not to the degree that has chopped up the game world in the past.

hmmmm....is this also included in what you say?

I agree.

Factions made 'freeness' a huge letdown. 1; Slums are cramped and give off a claustrophobic feeling

2; I hate coming across 'locked doors' when trying to capture a certain elite.

I like the doors. It removed a lot of the spam for runs which I found as a big plus.

As for open areas, I am for more space between missions and more roleplaying aspects like pre-searing, but I would still like to see some cramped areas like in Cantha and sorrows furnase. I always admire these areas and they are usually the ones I like to sit around and wonder at.

~Death~

The only thing I disliked about Kaineng was its lack of variety. The entire place was one giant slum, with Tahnnakai Temple stuck in the middle for good measure. You see a lot of 'Canthan Noble' NPCs, but I didn't notice anywhere they would potentially live (unless they *all* lived in the Imperial Palace).

Area design for MMOs is in kind of an odd position right now. On the one hand, if you want to give the players better immersion/realism, there need to be more 'friendly' areas that aren't overflowing with monsters. I mean, even in Fantasy novels, there aren't many areas that have packs of man-eating baddies patrolling everywhere. Look in any RPG, though, and you'll have to wonder how anyone ever goes anywhere or gets anything done with all of the monsters roaming around.

On the other hand, everyone knows that 90% of the players of any RPG don't have a damn bit of interest in any area that doesn't have some sort of practical in-game use. Therefore, any attempt to create more RP-like areas with nothing to fight (ie. farm) and no quests to complete are going to be skipped over and underappreciated by most of the players.

/signed

Need a little more open areas with little to no purpose just for either social aspects or for quests with interesting perks. I loved the Bergen Hot Springs and all the empty outposts in the Crystal Desert.

Never ruined my storyline for Prophecies when I got a free test run from Ascalon, to Lion's Arch, Henge of Denravi, Amnoon Oasis, and then Camp Rankor (also a whole bunch of other outposts and, missions in between.)
It's easy to replay the missions, it's not hard to catch on to the story.
/signed

If they opened up a free world (whoo!), then why not put level restrictions on the NPCs that craft armor/weapons? Have a level 18 requirement for basic max armor, a level 20+200 attribute point requirement for 15k armors. I do agree that pre-searing was the coolest PvE ever

Well, the Imperial Palace explorable does have some districts by the ocean that could be where the nobs live. They're generally nicer than the rest of Kaineng, though there are a few clum textures sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb...

On 'peaceful' zones: A lot of people have referred to presearing as a 'more living' world. One solution could be to populate some areas with critters which, while level 20-ish, aren't inherently hostile, instead only attacking when their group is attacked as level 2 critters do.

This way, you can get a sense that some creatures are inherently hostile, and others, while dangerous, will generally leave you alone unless provoked (but which may be profitable to hunt nonetheless).

What would probably work best is if the majority of the map was open, however, in order to get things like 15k armour, you would be required to go through the campaign, in order. I think the way it was done in Nightfall would work nicely for the idea (making it so you can only do the mission once you've done the right quest).

This way, people who want to rush all over to get elites, Cartographer or to just get there, can. While people who want to go through the storyline, won't have to deal with level 5's trying to do the mission.

Also, if you don't like the idea of "locking away" the 15k armour, tough luck. Your supposed to be required to work for it. Maybe they could do it similar to what was done with the Sunpear 15k armour crafter (you have to do a quest).

Also, the barriers in Nightfall all had acutal reasons for being there. You can't get to Vabbi because you don't know a safe way there. You can't go out into the Desolation because you don't have control over the Wurms. The area you can access right after you do Consulate docks is rather large. You can get as far as Rilon Refuge or The Gate of Desolation.

I love that idea. So let´s hope they include that.

i like draxynnic's idea too - best idea ive heard all day

I think most of us are in favor of a less linear/more open environment. I really like how Morrowind and Oblivion handle it. It's pretty much entirely open, but when you get your butt handed to you a few times that's the game's way of telling you that you gotta do some lower level stuff before you progress.
However, I'm for furthering this (again like Morrow and Obliv) but raising level cap, adding more attribute points as you level. I'd like to be able to, eventually (in PvE) be able to run over about any area, if I take the time in levelling, etc.

Exactly what I was thinking

Most people will want to do the whole thing the first time through but on later characters you might want to avoid some missions.
Put level restrictions on NPCs
Also Factions and Nightfall rewarded players at the end of the campaign (book of secrets , amulet of the mists) In order to stop players taking advantage and running new chars through just to get these rewards make it that you can do the final mission whatever but you only get the final reward if you have done all the missions (and the reward can be dependent on how well you did in the missions - 1 type for standard , a different 1 for all experts and the best for all masters (+ you get chap 4 protector title)

I think with a bit of imagination a-net can have an open game without it being exploited

this would be great, im only working on the titles for one of my characters, so playing through every mission 10 times, once with each of my characters gets repetitive, since with my other characters all i want is to aquire the elites.
This is what i dislike about factions, how i have to play through the entire game to open the areas with the elites i want/need, sure it kinda means ive earned them but.

GW is not about levels. There are no levels - people just get confused by the number 20 next to their name.

It seems that GW tries to make the game increasingly into a single player campaign that you play through once, then are done with it. This has been the general direction in Factions and NF.

Why opening is bad: You'd see a bunch of people not even remotely interested in doing the missions being level 1-5 who'd just get to high-end areas, powerlevel there in 1 hour, then go back to claim the rewards.

Level restrictions serve no purpose and with running they only hurt players who want to play through the game properly - powerleveled characters wouldn't suffer from the penalties.

I do not like this idea sorry -

I like this 'form' of free-ness guildwars has. I like the fact the best armor is reasonably hard to get to, but not impossible without having to do missions.

I utmost agree on the pre searing aspect.
I don't know if it's just me and my memories of pre searing, but the scenery their is lovely and the quests aren't all run- about quests. *sigh*...this makes me want to make a new PvE char in prophecies

Let's just say Cantha isn't the nicest scenery to look at, hm? I was relieved to get out of the sewers and into the green, lush grass.