Is Anet Deterring Players from Playing Many Characters?

So you go to your job everyday and start from scratch...no benefits on Friday from being there the rest of the week?

Edit: Never using knowlegde attained one day to the next, never learning how to consolidate things to make them easier or more effiecent? Forced to daily sit and learn the same function over and over again? Work day over please step into the mind numbing and erasing machine.

Again.
I repeat.
This is about time spent and the reward for the effort and their relations and expectations and wants and needs of the player.

Because thats all the OP's idea is about; Time, Effort, Reward for Effort.

The idea doesnt delve into accumulated knowledge or efficiency of the player (or worker). Its about changing the game (or the job) to suit the player's (or worker's) selfish wants.

I spend a certain amount of time with X , my reward is Y.
If i want to get Y repeatedly, I have to do X repeatedly.

Replace X with Work. Replace Y with money.
Replace X with Playing the game. Replace Y with a finished character.

The idea seeks to gain Y without X.

Lyra_songs logical arguments are sound, the different conclusion is a result of a different opinion on basic premises of Guild Wars. Lyra (if I may shorten it so) has predicated all her arguments on guild wars being a static entity, very well demonstrated by the immediately previous X and Y example. Lyra is not scaling (X of time) higher with every new release in any logical argument Lyra gives us. While she has agreed that the quantity X of time is increasing to complete each new game, because more characters times more campaigns = more time to play, Lyra is of the opinion that more time spent playing to complete the game with more characters is acceptable.

An argument could be made that the assumption that the statement "I spend a certain amount of time with X , my reward is Y" is true on a character by character basis, since if the average time to finish a campaign is equivalent to a week at work, 40 hours, then yes 40 hours will net you a reward Y of finishing a game. When you factor in more characters, then it becomes essentially (X+2) with every campaign release. Thus by simple math, taking no characters back through previous campaigns, no backtracking to help guildies or such, and buying only the primary game to keep the number of characters straight without preorder-extra characters:

Prophecies (4 characters x 1 prophecies) 4X = 4Y
Factions (4 char x 1 factions) + (2 char x 1 factions) 6X = 6Y
Nightfall (4x1 NF) + (2x1 NF) + (2x1 NF) 8X = 8Y

So with each release of GW, time X is definitely going up. The time totals for Factions and Nightfall have the first 4 characters already having done Prophecies and Factions, respectively, etc.

If you took characters back to play previous games, and did all possible permutations of characters and campaigns played through, then the numbers change.

Prophecies (4x1 proph) 4X = 4Y
Factions (4x1 factions) + (2x2 proph & fact) 8X = 8Y
Nightfall (4x1 NF ) + (2x1 NF) + (2x3 P & F & NF) 12X = 12Y

That is triple the time spent for Nightfall! New releases every 6 months (or thereabouts) frames the problem in a sort of milestone for more added campaigns.

Given the basic assumption that more time is acceptable, she cannot be logically proven to be wrong. If Lyra_song has a much lower X to finish a game than I do, then perhaps there is no time crunch.

But Lyra has admitted that completeness is not a goal. Her argument was capped with the minor fallacy that "The idea seeks to gain Y without X". That statement is skewed to imply laziness on our part. A more precise way to phrase it would be "The idea seeks to gain Y a second, third, and fourth etc time without fully completing a whole unit of X for a second, third, fourth etc time". Every option I have seen discussed here has the fundament that you must complete X to get Y, the first time.

I do not accept the laziness implication, when 12X = 12Y as above. That would be like implying that labor efficiency measures implemented by Henry Ford to allow more cars to be made is....lazy? Because the cars were not made by hand the hard way it was before? The argument being, that cars were more in demand and efficiency measures were necessary to keep up!

If the time Y factor were not increasing with each release, then there would be no need for improvement in efficiency, and I would not be here.

One facet of the demand, of course, being in collecting new skills to participate in PvP and allow you to compete on a level playing field there.

...and that leads us back to the basic assumption that it is pie in the sky to complete everything. Fanciful thinking. From Lyras perspective, that is absolute truth.

To persuade Lyra, I would have to do exactly what she has done to me, change the others opinion that the basic assumption that completeness is not OK, is not OK. Or vice versa. Well, you know what I mean. That is why I keep asking "What is wrong with completing the game with every character?" and the response is along the lines of "That is not necessary". By whose standard and opinion?

Really, I do not want to tell anyone how to play the game or imply that they have to conform to what I do. If Lyra is happy playing only 4 characters through each new campaign, then that is just as valid a way of playing the game as mine.

And it would be lying to deny that most of the ideas about unlocking content would give her an option to speed up play, and be done earlier. If her threshold of 4 characters played through the game can be done in half the time, then Lyra would be spending less time playing GW because as far as Lyra is concerned, the game is played, and now we wait for the next release.

Unlocking access to older campaigns cities and missions would not affect her current game, though. Unless she did go back, which I have no direct evidence of one way or the other, but that impact would be less than many of the others.

Also, using your stable of characters as "heroes" would, depending on how it was implemented as an option, give her the choice to use or not use, and play the game her way while giving poor sods like me the chance to be a little bit more efficient.

In the end, it comes down to opinion. I just hope that ANet is reading this and maybe, just maybe, sees the problem that we do and gives us PvErs some love. I will keep raising the flag and storming the front, because I have nothing to lose and much to gain.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

Again, under this argument, explain to me why anybody should be forced to play through the game even once. Why not give players the option of starting with full unlocks of all skills and towns?

There are two kinds of fools.

The first kind says: This is old and therefore good.
The second kind says: This is new and therefore better.

To avoid all kinds of foolishness.

Nobody wants newbie players trying to do Abbadon's Mouth and messing it up for everyone who knows what they are doing.

Someone who does have experience of how to play, that's a different issue.

I think you are right.

There are 2 possible conclusions to draw from your statement.

1. You are serious, which is the less likely of the two.

This seems very like the PvP "unlock packs" attitude, but we will come back to that.

If so, then this would make whatever games were unlocked very convenient. But Tromador, and incidentally people who play the game who I actually speak to outside of forums, have a valid provable objection that newbie or stupid players will be able to ruin the experience of teaming with other players in PUGs in the later missions by being inexperienced and/or stupid.

I get that now, even if they are made to play through the game linearly. It would be much worse if that were taken away, without having them to play through the game once.

Just like any opinion-based discussion, there is a spectrum of opinion that goes from one extreme to the other, with middle ground. If changing the game to be more efficient were to the "right", then you are the "far right".

I can safely state that no one here with the exception of you is arguing that the game be completely unlocked for new players and characters, as that is an extreme position. Extreme positions = always bad. Middle ground = not necessarily good but always better than Extreme positions.

As had been said before, and will be again, the nature of the game is changing over time, as new content in released.

So, if you only get one point from this discussion, it is this. The option of completely unlocking new content would make PvE a lot like.... PvP? Is that what you want? The freedom of PvP in PvE? Everyone has everything making it a completely level playing field?

2. This is merely a rhetorical question with some mastermind muhahaha plan of yours to trick us into agreeing that our position is wrong by making an extreme example (that does not apply to us) seem as if it does. I can reference wikipedia for your logical fallacy(ies) if you want.

Muhahahahhahah!
TabascoSauce

Well, this is what I got from previous posts regarding this stance:
a) Players should get unlocks for certain things (ie. areas, elite skills, etc.) for all of their PvE characters once they have been done on any character, because it's convenient, and convenient = good.
b) The issue is a matter of opinion, and opinions are equally valid.

I'm simply showing you the logical extension of that argument. This isn't a matter of extreme positions or moderate positions. This is a matter of taking your principle and showing what logically follows.

As for your counter-argument that newbies will ruin the game for other players if given advanced unlocks, consider the following:
a) playing one class through the storyline is different from playing a different character. Someone who beat the game with a warrior is not necessarily proficient with a monk. Therefore, giving your monk an outpost unlock simply because you beat it with your warrior will produce the same effect that you claim you wish to avoid.
b) you cannot argue that playing through the game once actually imparts sufficient skill to prevent the "newbie ruins game" phenomenon, as there exists overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Therefore, why should you get unlocks on other characters after one playthrough? Why not two? Or three? Or ten? Maybe players should have to pass a test of some kind to check if they are still at newbie skill level and therefore should not be granted unlocks.

Why can't we just use our characters as heroes? It would be great to have my own characters acting like heroes.

Recap (as it has changed from OP-not that many get past that-)

Suggested requirements

Account unlocks

1. Toon must have completed at least one campaign (completing 2/3 of all missions cuz we all know in Prophecies you can get away with skipping the whole game if you want)
   
2. Unlocked areas must be unlocked by more than ONE toon, before they become available to be "account" based.
   
3. Toon must be 200 hours old (of play time not afk thus the reason for the next requirement)
   
4. Toon must have no less than 700,000 exp. (numbers pulled at random)

Changes

1. Bring back skill quests for the different classes to change it up even just a bit.
   
2. Let us use our current toons as heroes.
   
3. Make some NOT all titles account based. Flipside make ALL TITLES (including PvP) Toon based..."Yes, you're a rank 9 warrior. So? If you never played monk in HA, you'll probably suck."
   
4. MapMaker (moneysink)

Missed some I am sure.

Conclusions (used loosely)

1. We are lazy and want handouts
   
2. The flaw is the player not the game, though almost all agree that the game is not perfect so I am personally not sure how that really applies.
   
3. Stupid for making more than a few charas. "Don't want to play them don't make them!"
   
4. Because other RPG's don't do it this way(BTW there a some that do), we have to stay in the box.
   
5. Because it is this way now, it must stay this way.
   
6. Giving an option to unlock it, would somehow force people to do it and take away from their game play and character building.
   
7. Allowing it to happen would affect PUG'S (arguements both sides)
   
8. Johnny and Jack are brothers...(LOL, sorry couldn't resist.)
   
9. This is a viable issue that Anet is going to have to address, if they haven't already, for future chapters.
   
10. Time consuming /= Hard. Boring yes, but not hard.
    
11. Everyone has different amounts of time they can spend on GW.
    
12. This is NOT about NEW characters.
    
13. Most people never read past the OP before responding.
    
14. We agree to disagree.

Perhaps i should change "Finished Character" to "Character who is level 20 with access to max level armor, end game content as well as missions to help guildmates, but not neccesarily have access to all skills or outposts" to clarify my opinion on what a finished character is.

Again, one of the problems is the basic premise of the idea is to not playing the game.

If the basic premise was in fact an alternate way to play, then: "I do not want to tell anyone how to play the game or imply that they have to conform to what I do" is a valid response.

That response would be a much more valid response if I was telling people to play PvP and not to play PvE. Since playing PvP is a different way to play from playing PvE. Or if i was telling people to Farm and not do Missions. Or if i was telling people to not get run. Or if i was telling people to stop making mesmers. Or if i was telling people to do all the side quest. Or if i told people to stop using a specific skill.

==========================

It's not the game design thats stopping you from playing many characters. The only thing stopping you is really your lack of time since you will not accept the laziness factor. nyuk nyuk.

See "straw man" in wikipedia.

Maybe I am missing something. Can someone quote me saying anything even remotely close to "Unlocks for all!" "Newbies unite!" "Gimme Y without X!" in a past posting?

Why would you expect us to defend a position that we do not agree with? You can build a case all day about not unlocking areas and skills and such for newbies, and we'll agree with you all day as well.

? dont want to unlock for newbies ?
You got my vote, dood or doodette.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

This isn't a straw-man argument, it's reductio ad absurdum. If you're going to use wiki, at least get it right.

Since you seem to be missing the entire logical flow of my argument, I'll map it out for you. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to simplify each argument in terms of wording, but the idea should still be accurate.

1. Your initial argument: It is convenient for players to have account-wide PvE unlocks of certain items (eg. skills, towns) once said items have been unlocked by any one of their characters.

2. My followup: By the convenience argument as stated in (1), said unlocks should be granted even if *not* unlocked by any existing characters. This is more convenient, and (1) does not contain any logical support for the limitation of completion by an existing character.

3. Your counter-argument (support for limitation): Giving unlocks prior to completion by an existing character would result in newbies ruining end-game missions.

4. My counter-argument to (3): In order for the argument in (3) to counter (2) but not (1), we must assume that once an existing character has completed an item (eg. unlocked a skill or town), the player is no longer a "newbie" in the context of that item. This assumption is invalid for two reasons: first, proficiency in one class does not imply proficiency in any other class; and second, in-game evidence suggests that a single completion (and, in many cases, even multiple completions) is not sufficient to raise player skill above "newbie". Ergo, your counter argument (3) contradicts not only my counter-argument (2), but also your initial claim (1).

A corollary to 4 is this: Your argument (3) assumes that preventing newbies from ruining end-game content is more important than player convenience, since you are sacrificing the ultimate convenience of full-unlocks without prior completion in exchange for preventing newbies from ruining end-game content. This being the case, anything which allows newbies to ruin end-game content in the name of convenience should also be removed. The obvious example of this is running (specifically, the running from town to town of lower-level characters, usually by higher-level characters, for the purpose of skipping ahead in the game). By your argument in (3), running should be abolished.

Bottom line: "unlocks after first completion" and "unlocks for all!" are equally valid unless you can provide a reason for why "first completion" is a valid limitation. As of this post, you have not done so.

I've got 4 accounts going with 36 characters! OK, I admit it, I'm a character addict. I love it. I've got all 3 games going on all 4 accounts, but each account and character has it's own specialization. Trust me when I say this, ANET LOVES it when you buy extra slots. I even got a signed Christmas card from the staff.

I've got one char that is just for green farming, one going for cartographer, one is just a healer going for protector titles, some are just for experimenting, others are more for playing with builds in the arenas. The combos are really limitless.

In other words, it's not a grind at all unless you make it so.

God, I love this game.

So, I am speechless. You admit to your own logical flaw, and then expect me to debate you about it? Ooooooooooooooookay.

Let me sum up for you because you seem to be missing this, and move you back into the stadium with the rest of us, and out of the parking lot of specious (and absurd) arguments.

While this is not exactly what the OP is asking for, the discussion has moved on, and I am maintaining the spirit of his original argument, expressed succintly in the title "is anet deterring players from playing many characters".

The argument I/we are making is that "Time X possible spent to play the game for new content and experiences is increasing dramatically every release of the game simply because of new content and more character class choices".

There is no refutation to this assertion, because it is true no matter which way you look at it.

That's the framework, and we are trying offer suggestions up, and hope ANet gets visibility on this, as it will continue to worsen as a problem. I am personally hoping for your characters as "heroes", allowing you to take 4 (or 8) around at a time! That would rock.

So here are the 2 refutations, of which you fall into #2.

1) We as players have unrealistic expectations about the quantity of the game that we should reasonably experience.
2) Taking the argument to an extreme (and absurd) position that has no relation to what was originally asked.

Direct quote of wikipedia and straw man:

"A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted."

Sounds like what you are doing to me...........? You changed our goals and put one forward that none of us are asking for.

The wikipedia entry for "Reductio ad absurdum" (I'll give you a pass on the misspelling)

"Reductio ad absurdum, is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption must have been wrong, as it led to an absurd result."

Looks like we are both right. I'll agree that you went to an absurd level.

So why are you saying that you are using absurd arguments, and trying to apply them to the discussion?

No one but you is asking for complete unlocks. If that is what ANet decides to do, then I will live with it and be happy. If ANet decides that the game is fine as it is, then I will live with it and be happy. If ANet does something in the middle, say such as letting you use your own characters as selectable heroes to team with (ROCK ON), then I will live with it and be happy.

This does not prevent me from stating my preferences in a public forum.

I submit to you, avoid the logical fallacies, and put in your opinion. Are you against this? Say so! Have a better idea? Say it! Got more specious absurd arguments? Heh you are not fooling me sir.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

Except that reductio ad absurdum is not a logical fallacy. If you'd bothered to read a little further, you might avoided yourself embarassment:

Reductio is a logical argument that holds. Since you didn't seem to get it from the wikipedia article, I'll spell it out for you here: I am showing that your argument results in a ridiculous outcome, and therefore is invalid. This is also known as proof by contradiction.

This is the context of your argument, not the argument in and of itself. Your argument is that *because* of the situation you just described (ie. "Time X required to experience the game is increasing"), players should be given the option of unlocks as a convenience.

This statement has the logical construction of, "A is true because it is true".

A straw-man argument is one that does not follow from the original argument. The argument I am offering to you *does* follow. If you do not agree, I invite you to show why you believe that the absurd position I present does not follow from your argument (I have outlined the argument flow in my previous post).

Re-read the article on Reductio ad Absurdum, and read my explanation at the beginning of this post. The entire point of a reductio argument is to show that the opponent's argument results in an absurd outcome.

In this case, I assume that your original argument is correct, derive an absurd result (ie. full unlocks without work), and therefore show that your original argument must be incorrect.

You have yet to refute my reductio argument, so any further discussion can be addressed to my previous post here:

If you want to discuss, explain to me why the above quoted argument is incorrect.

So if my argument results in a ridiculous outcome, why do you persist in modifing it? Specifically by extending it to include everything unlocked from the start? No no no, that is your argument. That is not showing that an argument results in a ridiculous outcome, it is changing the argument. If you want to prove that my argument has an absurd outcome, then unfortunately for you, you have to stay with my argument.

Does your argument of total and complete unlocks from babyhood have a ridiculous outcome? Well, that seems to be your point, so in the interests of being a nice all-around guy I will agree with your premise, that your argument results in a ridiculous outcome. Now that that is out of the way, are you ready to discuss my ideas? You know, the ones without the tacked-on absurd (your word, not mine) add-ons like unlock everything for newbies and such?

I think the reason you cannot stay within the confines of my logic is that you cannot refute it without modifying it. Go back and read the X = Time and Y = Result post.

The part of wikipedia that you chose not to put in here, because it demonstrates what is wrong with your logic is appended here:

"Attempts to construct a valid reductio ad absurdum are sometimes vulnerable to degenerating into fallacious straw man and/or slippery slope arguments. For example:

Father- I don't think the police should arrest teenagers for soft drug possession.
Daughter - So, you are basically arguing the police should not enforce the law and we should live in a society of violent chaos."

Hmmmmm, that sounds real familiar. The daughter extended the argument beyond the confines of what the father said. I just want to make the game more efficient, not unlock everything. The unlock everything hysteria is yours, not mine.

....Because it isnt my argument, and I have explained this to you several times. I am confused about your confusion. Do you want to discuss your idea or mine?

Heck, what exactly is your idea? Unlock everything? I will accept that as a separate argument, and what the heck, I'll vote for that too.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

I currently have 11 characters and all three games, I know people who have finished all three games with all their characters, and good luck to them.

I for one will not be bothering too much, my Necro is my main character and has done more than any other pretty much finished prophesies 1 miss to go.
Finished Factions "rather easy imho" and am well into Nightfall "excellent game btw".

The other characters were mainly to see how they worked out and they pretty much stay in their start games and just visit others for the odd elete skill.

As for titles Well I do like them, but only those with some basis in reality, if a hero only killed dragons he would eventually become known for it.

If he sat in bars getting drunk and talking about killing dragons he would become known for that too so they are fine by me.
Same for lucky unlucky etc.

I am a little dissapointed by the cartographer title as its a little boring going over territory again and again to see which pixels you missed.
Far better imho to increase the title as games come out, so you get a partial title for exploring in a realistic way the prophesies map.
Then a little more for the next game etc maybe 25% for each world you explore.

But im really really dissapointed by the presearing title "legendry defender of Ascalon".
According to guildwiki to gain this title you must.

1 do all the missions but dont take any reward till your 19th level "oh really"
2 fight your way to 16th level just by killing monsters "ok"
3 from lvl 14 onwards you only gain xp from the 4 charr bosses "this could take a while"
4 from lvl 16 onwards you must use death leveling ie stand by a res shrine and let them kill you till they are high enough level to give you xp "go to bed leave game on all night prob"
5 once you reach 19th level claim all the mission rewards and you have the title.

Please rename this title "I have no life "or "I didnt know it was only a joke title"
Please please don't do any further titles as pointless to roleplaying as this one.

regards
Gremlin

For the last time, this is not a modification of your argument. Your argument is an increase of efficiency for the player, correct? You say so yourself here:

By that logic, if I opened up the entire game to you from the very beginning, you could experience even more of it on your limited time budget.

I chose not to put it here because it doesn't apply. But if you want to give me more ammunition, I will gladly use it. The above situation that you quoted does not apply to this case because you can argue a distinction between "soft drug possession" and "living in a societ of violent chaos", whereas you have yet to provide a logical distinction between "unlocking after one playthrough" and "unlocking from the beginning".

What is the difference? What does the player with one playthrough gain that a new account definitely doesn't have? Why does the account with one playthrough deserve the unlocks, whereas the new account does not?

The lone argument you gave was this:

And as I've already explained twice, that argument is not sufficient for proving a distinction.

Tabasco, stop dodging the issue. I don't care about your wikipedia citations, and I don't care about your casual insults. I've outlined a concrete explanation for you 3 times now, and all you're doing is the forum equivalent of putting your hands over your ears, closing your eyes, and shouting, "YOU'RE WRONG AND I'M RIGHT!"

Must not be very effective deterrent, all my character slots are filled up. :P

What ANet has done is allow a multi-campaign owner to mix it up a bit when it comes leveling up new characters.

Being able to cross over to other chapters and pick up that chapter's story line allow for some variety. Different profession combinations also grant a different experience because of a changing play style.

Thank you for providing and definitively explaining the logical distinction between "unlocking after one playthrough" and "unlocking from the beginning", which also happens to be the difference between our positions. I mean wow, that is really concise. I'm glad that no one got confused and thought they logically meant the same thing! That's silly. Not to mention impossible.

(da dum ching)

apples =/= oranges

Maybe you should explain to us, since you obviously agree to the root problem of "X = Time is increasing" with every campaign released, why you want total unlocks for efficiency.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

Taking the easy way out again, huh?

"unlocking after one playthrough" and "unlocking from the beginning" are equally valid. There's nothing special about playing through the game one time that makes you qualify for unlocks. Playing through the game once doesn't make you good at it, and playing through the game with a monk in one campaign, with one set of skills, doesn't indicate you know anything about playing a warrior in another campaign with another set of skills.

There is no meaningful or relevant distinction between an account with a character that's played the game once, and an account that's brand new.

I'm still waiting for the part where you actually face the argument and tell me why you think an account with a character that's played the game once deserves unlocks, whereas a brand new account does not.

Please look up reductio ad absurdum again. A reductio argument assumes the opponent's stance is correct, then proceeds to show that the stance produces an absurd result. So no, I don't "obviously agree" to any "root problem", and I don't want total unlocks for efficiency. I'm showing you that your argument logically results in total unlocks and is therefore an invalid argument.

I don't understand why you even bother with wikipedia, since it's clear that you are either unwilling or unable to actually read it and apply the knowledge.

Honestly, this argument isn't that complicated and shouldn't require all of these posts. If you would just stop beating around the bush and actually address the subject matter, we can conclude this and be on our way.

sigh...Burst, I don't think you should waste your time here. It's very obvious to us now how someone on this thread fails to provide any valid arguement or proper response to your messages. Trolling the forums and acting like "I'm too smart to explain my (faulty) idea" is a lot easier than giving an "actual" explanation after all.

Trying to look "smart" and funny is cute for the first few times. But doing it again and again is annoying and....*gasp*....STUPID.

To me, the humor of the whole thing is people quoting from wikipedia.

You sure are quick to declare victory.

Reductio ad absurdum is literally using the others argument against them. Nowhere does it say you can modify the argument. In fact, that defeats the purpose of showing an argument to be absurd, since you are showing a derivative or modification of the argument to be absurd. Lets see a good example, and a bad example.

-----

Valid use of Reductio ad absurdum:

Father- Why did you start smoking?
Daughter - All my friends were doing it.
Father- You're saying that if all your friends jumped off a cliff, you would do that too?

Here, the father refutes the daughter's justification by showing the absurdity of its consequences. His is not talking about her girl scout troop, or her schoolmates. He stays with the original argument that her friends provide justification to smoke. That keeps the integrity of the original argument.

Invalid use of Reductio ad absurdum:

Father- I don't think the police should arrest teenagers for soft drug possession.
Daughter - So, you are basically arguing the police should not enforce the law and we should live in a society of violent chaos.

She alters his original premise, violating the integrity of the original argument.

You have to refute the original argument, not a derivative or altered copy.

-----

You chose door number 2. I think it is funny that you followed the following steps to get where you are now:

1) Change the original argument because you cannot refute it without alteration, specifically "unlocking after one playthrough" and "unlocking from the beginning"
2) inform me that the burden of proof for your change is mine
3) argue speciously that a remedy for the original problem is flawed, therefore the original problem is flawed, when you are not even debating the original problem
4) declare victory

Unlike you, I want this issue thoroughly debated, even with specious arguments. The problem will only get worse with new campaigns, as has been shown before. So back to debating civilly.

Time = X to get Result = Y is still increasing with every campaign release.

I do not have to prove that there is a logical distinction between "unlocking after one playthrough" and "unlocking from the beginning". You have that one covered.

I think a more appropriate step than declaring victory would be to prove to me that the result of "unlocking after one playthrough" will be identical as you claim to "unlocking from the beginning", because that is the basis of your claim, and has never been proven by you aside from emotional assertion that it is true, without factual backup.

Since you base your whole argument on a refutation by mutual exclusion, you must already be aware that it affects your assertion as much as mine, since your statement cannot be true in all circumstances either. There is no proof that they will get better enough to exceed an arbitrary skill level denoting "newbie", and there is no proof that they will stay at the same skill level below "newbie". Welcome to the two edged sword, bro.

That leaves us with a common sense argument of a learning curve, where a players performance will improve over time.

That common sense argument also refutes the claim that "unlocking after one playthrough" will be identical to "unlocking from the beginning" simply because of different player skills learned over time.

Next you will be refuting the learning curve? This I would like to see.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

A "derivative" argument, as the term is normally used, is fine for a reductio argument, because a derivative argument must logically follow from the original argument, and is therefore equally valid.

For instance, in the father/daughter example you are quoting, the girl's original argument is, "All of my friends were doing it", with the limitation of the activity being smoking. The father uses the derivative argument with the limitation removed. Similarly, your original argument is, "unlocks for convenience, after one playthrough", and my derivative argument removes the limitation of "after one playthrough".

As for the logical equality of "unlocks after one playthrough" and "unlocks at the beginning", it's interesting that you would bring up burden of proof now, considering that you already tried to prove a difference earlier (eg. "newbies would ruin the game"), and failing. In actuality, I have already explained once why I believe the two arguments to be logically equivalent, which is why I asked you to refute my argument if you wished to continue the discussion.

But, here we are again. My assertions:
a) One playthrough with one character does not imply skill in any other characters.

Self-explanatory. Someone who beat the game with a warrior has no experience monking. Therefore, they cannot be beyond a "newbie" level, no matter where you set the bar.

b) One playthrough is, in general, insufficient to elevate one above the status of newbie.

As "newbie" is a subjective consideration, I will specify a "newbie" as being one of less than ordinary skill. I believe this to be a reasonable definition, because our primary concern here (as voiced by you) is your belief that newbies ruin the PuG experience for other people, who we consider to be those of ordinary skill. The average player, "one of ordinary skill", has experienced more than a single playthrough of the game. Without actual statistical server data, this statement must necessarily be an assumption, but I believe it is a valid assumption based on the age of the game and observations both in-game and on the forums. Therefore, the average player who has experienced only one playthrough will be below the threshold of ordinary skill and therefore is a newbie.

The broader argument here is that your requirement of "one playthrough" is arbitrary. It could easily be any other number of playthroughs, including 0, up to the point where a player could be considered one of ordinary skill and therefore no longer a newbie. Said another way, "after one playthrough" and "from the beginning" are different in an obvious way, but not one that is significant. The analogy I would draw here is, "10 year olds should be allowed to drive" and "9 year olds should be allowed to drive". Are the two arguments technically different? Absolutely, one specifies an age of 10 and one specifies an age of 9. But for the purposes of determining whether they should be allowed to drive, the difference has no relevance.

It is arbitrary, and certainly there is no guarantee of any skill level at any time in Guild Wars. I am sure we could swap funny anecdotal stories all day about stupid situation we have seen from players. In addition, I concur with your agreement that 9 or 10 year olds should not be able to drive.

If you are looking for an absolute guarantee of player competence after 'x' play throughs, then no logical argument can persuade you because no logical argument can be formed - it cannot be guaranteed one way or the other. Some will be competent from the start, and some will never reach it.

So yes, this requires the choice of an arbitrary number of completions, in this specific example of unlocks across all characters on a per account basis.

The only other reason I support this idea is simply because it seems easy to me to implement for ANet. Most likely, this can be done by flipping a bunch of zeroes to ones in a database. I appreciate what they do for us with this game, and would hate to have them coding all night and day for something far more complex, such as using several of your characters at once, keeping track of where they have been and what equipment they have so exploits are not possible. This idea is the simplest one I have seen.

Like anything else, taking it to either extreme breaks the argument. I think what we may disagree on, and which is an opinion and not fact and therefore impossible to prove logically, is that definition of extreme. Maybe you feel that unlocks are extreme, while I see them as merely making the game more efficient.

The game will have a quotient that can be indexed as related to "efficiency". Unlocking everything like PvP will raise it almost to 1, and it also can be lowered almost to 0 if ANet chooses to. I think that the efficiency quotient can and should be raised to where it was with Prophecies, considering that now there are 3 campaigns and more than double the characters allowed without buying extras, which we all probably have.

Lyra_song, as well as others, has made a convincing argument that total and absolute unlocks for cities, maps, items, etc renders the game less of a game, as everything is available to a player from the beginning. That is an extreme position and while evidently valid for PvP where all characters start at 20th level, it will affect PvE more in that the progression is really only measured through 20th level, at which point the player is as powerful as he/she is going to get as far as attribute points, and skills become the primary vehicle of expansion.

The other absolute extreme is a game that will take longer than the lifetime of a human to complete. Not likely to happen.

There are other ways to achieve the efficiency speedup, and if you do not like this one possible answer, then you can choose to support another, or none of them.

I understand that you disagree with the base premise. Your probably like Guild Wars the way it is now. So that is cool, I cannot logically change your opinion any more than I can logically convince you say, to be or not be insulted by the recent editorial about PvP.

Its all good
TabascoSauce

So because I chose to make a Dervish and take her through first...therefore my 21 month old with over 5 million experience points is a newbie? Or any of my other characters, all of which have no less than 800, 000 points?

Once again NOT about NEW characters.

Tempy, that position is even less defensible.

Why should your old, existing characters get unlocks for new campaigns? The "increasing time" argument no longer holds if you're talking about existing characters, because you already had previous time to complete previous campaigns. For instance, if you started a character in Prophecies, you had the entire time from whenever you bought Prophecies to the Factions release date to beat Proph. Then, you had the time between the Factions release and the Nightfall release to beat Factions.

In other words, the time it is taking you to play your old characters is not increasing relative to the amount of time you are given. Each new campaign comes with its own 6-month block for you to play it in. The only way you could conceivably argue for convenience is if you are starting completely new characters, because those characters *do* take longer and longer to "catch up". But old characters should *already* be caught up, so they deserve no benefits according to the "increasing time required" argument.

Well, not quite. With Prophecies, you had 4 characters to play, and one campaign to play in. With Factions, you have 6 characters, and 2 campaigns. With Nightfall, you have 8 characters and 3 campaigns. To completely play through permutations for Prophecies (excepting extraneous uncountable data including deleting and making new characters) equals 4 character-campaigns. Make that 12 for Factions, and 24 for Nightfall. I am sure that you can do the math for a 4th etc release. Even counting all previous character campaigns, the delta between campaigns is increasing, as there are simply more permutations. That would be +4, +8 and +12 respectively.

I can state that there are six times the possible permutations simply based on character slots and campaigns from prophecies to nightfall. This does not even attempt to take into account every possible character build combination now that we went from 6 classes to 10.

The number of skills is also increasing. I am sure someone can provide specific numbers, but based on the hint books we have ~450 skills in Prophecies, we added ~250 more uniques in Factions, and another ~300 uniques in nightfall. That is a lot of gold right there you have to get, let me tell you. And a lot of elite skill hunting.

All this takes increasing amounts of time. If you actually play the game as opposed to absolute draconian efficiency, the game is not over in 2 days, or 2 weeks, or 2 months if you are trying to complete any campaign (but specifically Nightfall) with 8 (or more) characters!

Based on your personal drive and efficiency, if you cut to the absolute bone will running a half-dozen characters through the bare minimum of Nightfall be possible in a single weekend? Sure, I believe it possible. You will need toothpicks for your eyes, but I believe that the real mountain dew types could do it. Is that any way to play the game? Not really, as you miss the experience of sightseeing, if nothing else.

So to sum up, maybe all the people who do not like the idea are simply super-efficient, and do not see this as needed. Well, I am not super-efficient, and have seen enough posts from other people like me that want to enjoy Guild Wars while still getting a majority of the skills and seeing a majority of the game.

And even for the super efficient, what will you do at episode 6? If the 2 character slots more per campaign holds true, then that is 14 characters x 6 campaigns = 84!

No one will be able to keep up with that. Maybe we should discuss the problem now while we are not yet at the breaking point.

All good
TabascoSauce

Running permutations in this case is misleading because, again, Tempy is talking about existing characters. An existing character going into Factions has already completed Prophecies, and an existing character going into Nightfall has already completed Prophecies and Factions. Therefore, each additional campaign only adds 1 campaign per existing character to your workload, which is exactly the same workload as you had when you started the game. Therefore, the argument of increasing workload *does not* support unlocks for existing characters, because their workload is not increasing relative to the amount of time available.

The argument of increasing workload does support the need for unlocks for *new* characters for *previously* played chapters. For instance, Factions adds 2 professions. The workload for each of these two professions is 2 campaigns, instead of the normal 1, because these characters have not played through Prophecies. This demonstrates the principle of increasing workload. Therefore, the argument would suggest that these 2 new professions get unlocks for previously played chapters to bring the workload per character back down to 1 campaign as usual.

Of course, when you apply the argument to new characters, we then get into our previous argument of "unlock after one playthrough" vs. "unlock from the beginning" etc., on which we have agreed to disagree, so I won't go into that further.

Again, bottom line:
1) Workload for existing character is only increasing by 1 campaign per chapter, which is exactly the same was when the game was first released. Therefore, the argument of increasing workload does not apply to them.
2) Workload for new characters is increasing by x campaigns per chapter, where x is the total number of campaigns already released. This is an increasing workload, so a convenience argument would apply to them.
3) I do not agree with the convenience argument, but we've already dropped it.

Well...the question that is still unanswered is.

Why should this be implemented, other than for the sake of convience?

Regardless of how exponential the increase in time and gold the cost to beat a campaign is (which is self-imposed), what does the argument boil down to?

Because it would be nice? .-.

The only reasons I've seen so far have been

1. procrastination
2. laziness
3. having 36 or more character slots with some kind of a pack-rat problem
4. wikipedia
5. one character did it, now the rest should have it handed to them like the heroes.
6. because they want it, and want to play however they want, even if it means skipping out on content and getting ran everywhere (basically not having to play the game), because they see it as an improvement to the game some how. Which seems to only be a benefit to 1 and 2.

I've recently deleted a couple of characters and started new ones, and the time it took to get through all campaigns starting from Prophecies was less than 4 days. Since that was incredibly easy and took such a short time, I started a mesmer in nightfall and have already gotten done with it, now working on Factions and Prophecies. I don't get runs anywhere either, just thought I'd mention that. Also, I took my time, since I kind of enjoyed going through all the campaigns again. If all those towns and missions plus skills were already available to me, it probably would have taken me less than an hour to do all that.

No thanks. I think it would take a lot away from the game. If people find it so repetitive and time consuming, maybe it's time to try some PvP? Or, you could delete some of your 2 year old characters that are living in the bat cave, and start new ones, have a fresh start. Besides, you'll be right back where you left off in no time, minus all the vanity armor collections. Also, if you picked an ugly face or hair-doo, you can do it again! yay, lol

It is just as easy for us to make sweeping judgmental statements about you.

If I wanted to go to your level, then I could say that you were were obviously an unemployed nerd that is scared of leveling the playing field because that would deprive you of the only arena where you can win.

I submit to you that I am not lazy, and you are not an unemployed nerd.

Thx!
TabascoSauce

*bump* for Thizzle's purposes.

And yeah, it doesn't always seem too terribly consistent which titles are account vs character-based. Weird.

This is a good subject, as it sums up my thoughts since the announcement of GW2 and the transfer of accomplishments from GW1. If this has been mentioned in this thread already, forgive me, I lost patience about 1/2 way through the thread...

Has it been stated, officially, that only one character's accomplishments/hall of monuments will be transfered? I ask this honestly, for if this is the case, then I have felt that my continuing enjoyment of the game has led me to play a single character for the sake of GW2.

Before the Hall of Monuments was created, I did use all of my (10) characters regularly, and did strive to achieve a uniqueness about them by getting individual titles for them. It gave the character a purpose after it finished all 3 campaigns (and a usefulness so to speak). I wasn't interested in achieving the KoaBD titles whatsoever. All of my characters have finished all campaigns. I did this for the pure fun of bringing each and every profession through. Each one was a neat, unique experience. I enjoyed it.

But with the lack of account-based titles, there's no real purpose for my ele to achieve even a single level of cartography (even if she is at 96.7% average across all 3 continents) when my ranger already has it. My necro can stop progressing in the Skill Cap title as well now, since my ranger took over that job having achieved Cartography titles on 2 lands, and the focus to combine achievements has shifted for the sake of transfer to GW2. As for treasure hunting/wisdom tracks, my ranger has far exceeded all my other characters, therefor is the designated 'unlocker/identifier' of the group. This also means I don't pack lockpicks/keys with any of the other characters any longer...therefor they wander aimlessly through already explored and vanquished lands without any real...purpose?

So I pose this question: What can my other characters do once they've experienced 2-3 years of playtime, but have absolutely no function to further my future with Guild Wars? Forget the enjoyment of doing it factor - I've enjoyed them many many times over and over again.

The point is your so bored of playing another campaign that you don't even want to go through again that's the point. I totally agree everything account based.

Not quite 36 ... yet

Each character has 45 storage slots and 25 heroes. Each hero has two weapon slots and 5 each of armor and insignia slots. That's quite a lot of storage space for your main character.

Yes. They made their choice when they destroyed the running game after prophecies. Doing the boring campaigns 6 times = not fun.