PC Gamer May 2007 Information - "Guild Wars Reborn"

Its not that we don't like change. (well I don't care about it) But I don't want Guild Wars to become like EVERY OTHER mmo. Which by the summary and description it seems like that is what it will become.

Secondly, I do not like how I spend X ammount of hours on this game farming and grinding and feeling like I accomplished something, but then I can't bring the characters over. It's not that I don't like starting new but from all the time I put into them...I don't want them to just be like..gone.

I ain't playing it. Oh well.

TO ALL OF THE...........PEOPLE BABBLING that maybe/hopefully/probably the level cap raise is only cosmetic and a level 30 will be equal to a level 100 in power you are flat out wrong.

NAME A SINGLE OFFLINE/ONLINE/SINGLE PLAYER/MULTI PLAYER GAME THAT STOPS CHARACTERS FROM GROWING STRONGER WITH EACH LEVEL (INCLUDING GW1 ) UP TO THE CAP

they are raising the level cap not pretending to raise it

FACE IT

I agree with Gaile about NOT transferring your characters over. It's a new time, new world. Plus, we are going to have better character designs (hopefully closer to other mmo's where you can tweak eye color, brows, lips, etc...). I cannot wait to make new characters that are descendants of the ones I have now. GW2 is shaping up to be great!

Also, to all of you that are quitting and not even going to try GW2...well, good bye. Seems like you're the same type of people that leave missions when things get tough. You haven't even tried any of it. You're making your decision based on words. Try the beta. Heck, if you cannot get into that, try the free trials they give 1 month ahead of the release. Just don't go pouting in some corner without giving it a shot.

Very, very bad analogy, Gaile.

All but one of the examples are not RPGs. RPGs are all about character development. If you restart that character you spent 1000+ hours on, how would you feel? The accomplishments you did mean nothing (This "Hall of Memories" seems useless...).

I would appreciate if you clarified if the reason for not allowing charater imports is due to design choice or hardware limitations. Because the former is inexcusable.

Hmmmmm.... Where have i sen this before?..... Oh yeah that one game 10 years ago... whats that MMO?..... Dioblo?

No offense ANET but.... You just destroyed Guild Wars..... the original 3 or 4 depending on what you decide.... (This reminds me of something from the past)...*cough* Diablo *cough*... yeah you know what i mean. Diablo players for so amny years so much time spent... so many Hours spent in the Dungon....
(oh how i long to hear Farhan the drunk again)... but nevermind that... the point is... Diablo 1 was out for a long time then one day the news comes... Diablo2... everyone abndons Diablo 1(like what will happen to GW1) and moves to Diablo2(yeah thats right)....

I dont like this direction your going ANET, but this is GW, and everyones gonna get GW2, so if everyone gets it then they will be playing it, and not GW1(see what i was saying).

Nice stuff coming out, but still, your destroying your baby( now in the pre-teen stage i would say) and bringing up a new baby(an evil baby) this dose not look good...

anyone else rdy to Rage on A-NET?(Blizzard isn't much better)(Don't even think about Runescape)


myself, i will be in GW1 and if im alone.... then ill have a 1 man guild... and ill be Rank 1 guild 4 ever!!!!! XD (untill i get bored and give up another MMO)

Sony, Microsoft, and nintendo is gonna have some more sales for sure.

2 Million members in Guild Wars... and then this... Nice job....

No it isn't, don't be an idiot. The classes in their current forms will almost certainly not be carried over directly; hell, from that alone it would be impossible to implement a character transfer.

Why the HELL did you do this Anet? This is ridiculous, know what my guild meeting is about? What game were gonna move onto next.

We had polls, on character transfer with an INCREASED LEVEL CAP, how easy would it have been to just transfer characters over? You won't even reserve our character names?! The reasons stated in the magazine are complete signs of "We're a bunch of slackers." Why would we ever, and I mean ever trust you now? You just seriously contradicted yourself on all levels.

We will make campaigns every 6 months! We will make the game fun and balanced for PvP! We will be creative in environments for future campaigns!

Reality Check

We stopped the campaigns because we got bored and didn't want to work so hard on them anymore. The game is balanced and fun for PvP .
Oh yea no more anything, and you get a "Good Little Boy" sticker for spending over 200$ on our collector edition products and 4 campaigns when you decide to play GW2! Which is just turning into HALF of what WoW is. Tell me, how do you even compare to the market? Imbalanced PvP, great well PvP doesn't make me want to buy this game, makes me want to buy FURY. Limited PvE, great there are better games for that to begin with already that you lost your customer base to, WoW. Then you decide to succumb to the ideas of other companies and just "expect" this to sell? Just because you copy/paste some good things from other games does not truly show how innovative and inspiring you are, such as THIS GAME DID. People made high level caps, you said screw it, games made non-skill testing pvp, you said "bite me it can be done". Now you fold, well guess what, this skipper is not going down with the ship. If I am ever going to play GW2 this has to be seriously awe inspiring, and not something similar that is most likely described in this article to half the games ALREADY OUT.

Few words, Anet you have officially disapointed me. I thought the better portion of the Blizzard staff was here, I am presumably wrong.

ROFL... point well made... bravo..bravo... ROFL

Since it is a new game, I could care less if I couldn't bring my other characters over. It would be a little more painful if GW got shut down and I couldn't access my old characters anymore sure. But I'd get over it.

Also, I wouldn't mind if a higher level made you stronger as long as there wasn't PKing left and right I'd still have great fun with it. Still get a sense of accomplishment from it.

Oh and I'm just gonna say, that for every person that leaves GW because of this or doesn't buy GW 2, there will be another one to take your place so I don't think anything too traumatic will be happening (so I hope you don't plan on it). But I'm sure Anet will still try to accommodate to you, what I like to call half loyal customers even though they shouldn't. I'll stick with them, I could care less about the changes, I'm all positive about it. It depends on if the game is fun to me, not if it's similar to any other game or is the same as GW.

Good points... i would like to see this answered too!

In the same way the game is "supported" right now, with a full dev team? Years-promised features missing? Lack of fun in new content because of listening to the raging minority who want the game unplayable difficult? Necessary components of a good game non-existent? Numerous bugs unfixed, for ages (refer to the bug reports forum)...

I'll add this to the pile of things Gaile said that have never happened. (Storage improvements, trade improvements, pet controls, open access to any mission anytime [namely, the Canthan elite missions]...)

True. Hadn't considered that classes may be different in GW2. I just don't think Gaile's defense is appropriate.

The PC Gamer article is too cruel. It's a carrot on a string.

Hmm..good arguement..I am thoroughly convinced.

Higher level cap? Anet, are you trying to kill off your customers before they can even think about preordering GW2? Seriously, I think I just got an ulcer.

Sure, it will be alright if it's just a way to show off how much experience you have gained on your char without actually affecting character performance... until this comes to mind:
"glf 1 nuker 2 monks, must flash level 70 emote"
After all, rank doesn't affect character performance either now does it?...

I stay out of Heroes' Ascent because I hate the idea of GRINDING rank just so I can find a decent group, and I doubt I'm the only one. No matter how you slice it, if you take away the level cap, level will become the new way to quickly measure "skill" when forming a PUG. Think about it, when you see someone with one of the hard to get titles (legendary survivor, grand master cartographer, etc) don't you think, "Hey, this person might actually have a slight clue what they're doing."

Any item's value is relative to what people agree that value holds. Just because the devs say that higher levels mean nothing but cosmetics, doesn't make it so. When it comes down to it, the players decide what it's worth. If players decide that level = experience (in terms of veterancy and knowledge), then that is how it will be, and, if the community as it stands now is any indication, that IS how it will be.
Take away the level cap and you introduce into pve a system promoting elitism almost identical to that already found within the guild ladder and HA rank. Sure, we had titles, armor, weapons, etc to show the vets from the newbies, but that's not a quantitive value that can be used to measure a player's experience like Balthazar Faction, Fame/Rank, and Guild Rating can.
Casual gamers like myself found a safe haven in pve. We aren't taken seriously in pvp because we don't have high rank, we aren't in high ranked guilds, and we can't spike worth beans. Pve is different though. You ask a question in a pve town and *gasp* you generally get an answer. There may be a few smartasses in the bunch, but you aren't gonna get 'LMFAO YOU NOOB'd out of the district like so often happens in many of the pvp areas. Why are pvp areas like this? When you give the masses a number that can be used to measure just how good you are at something, people use it to see how much better they are than anyone else lower than them in that scale - I suppose it's human nature to brag a little.

Of course, pvp is competitive, so there's reason for people to have a way to measure their abilities quantitively. But pve is NOT meant to be competitive between players, at least not the way I (and I'm sure many others) play it. Pve focuses on things other than fierce competition - storyline, different landscapes, interacting with npcs, tackling difficult quests, etc. Yes, there are competitive missions in Factions and Nightfall, but those are more like mini-games, not the focus of pve. PUGs aren't the greatest thing to do pve with, I'll admit, but sometimes you want to meet some new people who are working with similar goals for the time being (beating a certain quest, capping a certain skill, etc). Adding in a QUANTITATIVE measure for how much experience you've put into your character will add competition into pve...

Don't turn pve into a competition for PUGs... Poor lil Mesmers have hard enough time getting a group .

Seriously, do you think the game won't have a warrior, or a ranger? Which games don't have that?

Noes, not my minipets .

There are already things set in stone.
GW2 will be a different game, period.

The main 'problems' are the level cap (I trust ANet on this one), and the fact that people will miss their characters.

Let me clarify the reason why I'm angry at ANet for now already finishing off the GW1 saga and proudly announcing GW2.
When I first bought GW, I did it because of the lack of a fee; I always wanted to try an online game, and after reading some reviews which stated lots of problems MMO's have (such as the boss spawn camping thing, described by Gaile... I've encountered it when bèta testing ROSEonline) been taken care of GW, I decided to buy it.
I was also prepared to invest a bit of time in playing/perfecting it. The level cap was perfect: by the time you've reached level 20 in Proph, you should have an idea on how to play your profession decently, the only thing that had to improve, was the player him/herself.
I expected to see the campaign system exist for about 8-10 chapters, and was willing to save up and pay for each chapter.

But what has REALLY happened?
GW: Proph was released.
1 year later, Factions, which severely throwed off the skill balance.
Half a year later, Nightfall, which brought loads of unbalanced skills AND professions, then toned down them down a little.
They announce an expansion, not a chapter; to tie up any loose ends and make a stepping stone towards GW2.

... and that's about it. The promise of chapters had already been broken before the second chapter was released, and I forgave them that. But now making an expansion (with merely 100 skills for PvP...), and simply saying "Oh, Campaigns? We don't do that anymore, but our next game will be much more fun (read: mainstream, as in, more like the other games.)!", just gives me a gutted feeling.

Well, at least... if I'll like GW2, I suppose I shouldn't keep my hopes up on the game's longevity, they might release another game and leave GW1 and 2 to rot, whilst they make another completely different game compared to its predecessors. (Slippery Slope Fallacy, I know... but come on, it's basically exactly the same situation as now.)

Pro's for me:
-New playable races
-Still free
-Graphics update

Con's for me:
-No transferrable characters (waste of effort on my current chars... a monument hall? Who should I share it with? It's more like a Mausoleum for forsaken characters.)
-More mainstream: As in, 'PvP Raids'. I prefer coördinated stuff, like what's going on in HA and GvG. Or we'll all end up playing elementalist, nuking the heck out of eachother without having any idea on what we're tossing fireballs at (Play AB's, I rest my case... and that's only 12vs12).
-Different level cap: Can't wait to see some elitists go 'OMFG YOU LEVEL 17 NUB I ARE TEH LEETEST LEVEL 1337 YOU SUK', indicating no skill at all... and the sad part will be, the level will actually matter when taking groups, just like rank discrimination in HA nowadays.

That's my opinion thus far.
I'll likely change my mind, but it's as if Anet is already giving up on the first formula. Did the original formula fail? Or did they just want to do something else quickly, before it start getting worse ratings due to imbalance (in PvP) or repetitiveness (in PvE)?
I think it's the latter option.

PS: Imo, it's actually the community that ruined most of the current GW: PvP was basically the real end-game (though ANet decided to toss in more end-game content later on, thank you for that!), and it got killed.
Rank elitism in HA, smurfing with GvG's.
Maybe some auto-balancing system (has been suggested somewhere on these forums before) would work well in GW2. Auto-nerfing cookiecutters, auto-buffing underused skills slightly, maybe even each week a few minor tweaks to keep the meta in every PvP scene moving.

PPS: Also, even though GW:EN will only have 100 skills, I have a hunch that there will be some useful Mesmer PvE-only skills. Thank you.

Heroes, heard of them?

Now, I admit I don't know anything about the technical side, but... if the classes remain similar, that still doesn't mean they'll look the same, use the same models, even have the same faces and hair to choose from - character creation may be completely different.
And if you CAN create the same character in the new system... why not just recreate your character anyway?

I expect the core classes to return, but if the game supposedly takes 100 years later in Tyria, I could see complications for Assassins/Ritualists/Dervish/Paragons.

Plus I doubt ArenaNet will try to balance 10 classes at this magnitude. They'll likely slim down.

Has anything been said on carrying over names?

I would think this would be a MASSIVE problem. I bet alot of the more well known names would be snapped up by people asap e.g. Power Of My Rangers. It would totally suck if everyone knew you in Guild Wars by a certain name and when you went to Guild Wars 2 you find someone has taken it. People who dislike you could take your name just to grief you.

Also friends lists. Could they somehow be incorporated into Guild Wars 2 from Guild Wars 1 as not everyone plays all the time and it would be nice to know if old friends are playing Guild Wars 2. Not everyone uses forums so exchanging new details is not always possible.

I so agree, well said.

I laughed when I read that analogy. I really hope you have a better excuse than for tradition's sake. Just to make my point clear however, I do not particularly care wether or not my chars get carried over.

Last I checked,I played online video games to play with other humans..I'm old fashioned that way.

Only a few exceptions to the rule including that of Neverwinter Nights 2, I mean I really don’t care if it does or doesn’t. There are just some here that believe being an old toon should bring out the new.

Let me get this straight. Nightfall will be the last campaign of Guild Wars? Is that it?

I'm going to share my thoughts on this not as any sort of official position, but just as a personal opinion as a gamer. When I played Diablo II, I did not have a portal to magically carry over my Diablo characters. When I played Half-Life 2, I didn't get to carry over my chars or weapons from HL. Sim City 3000? Nothing moved from the earlier Sim Cities. Civilization 2 didn't have a tie to Civ. MoO 2 wasn't MoO with the same guys. I didn't keep my 10-wheeler from Railroad Tycoon when I started Railroads.

You catch my drift?

Yes, some of you have played a long time. Dwayna knows I have played Guild Wars a long while, too, and I put time in all those other games, as well. But as the article says, GW 2 offers a whole new world, it's not even the same century, and goodness, I feel that it's ok to start fresh! Yes, I'll miss my characters. But I know that the ones I make in GW2 will be even better.

Mostly, I want to point out that these GW->GW2 changes are a long time away! The article mentions a beta in 2008, right? I vote we look to the distant future with positive anticipation, and to the near future with joy.

Again, just my two cents.
__________________
Gaile Gray
Community Relations Manager
ArenaNet
The Guild Wars Site







Gaile made some interesting points, but people will not be so passionate about playing a terminally ill game. Instead of the uncertainty of whats going to happen, you know the game will cease to be and your characters will end with the release of GW2. I for one will play to the end, but i see people becoming less interested as it is and now the news it is all coming to a end sooner than later. You go on living because you don't know when your end is coming, so can you image how my characters are feeling now

There are the 2 facts people will miss their characters and the level cap but is Guild Wars 2 going to be like all other MMO's with the life skills and other things that are in WoW and CoH and all the other MMO's because that is what is turning me off about this game the most.

I feel like the Anet staff is trying to get their customers to leave the game. My eyes are bleeding from this news. Why Anet....why....

wow I really don't know what to say to this lol. I wasn't expecting like any of the things mentioned..
I don't mind raising level cap, but 100+? seems a little too much..like, way too much. And about no limit to party size? Wtf? I think that what really err pissed me off..I was on vent with a friend's guild when I read this and they said the guild wars will be like free wow (and they play wow so I guess they may be right). Playable classes was something I didn't want in GW, I dunno why but for some reason I've never liked that idea..I think it's because most of the games that have playable classes suck and look cartoonish..I guess as long as gw never looks cartoonish I'll try gw2 o_O

Best info in the summary for me? That they'll keep supporting GW1, so I simply don't have to go play a game with uninstanced areas, huge level caps (TELL me that won't be grind. Go ahead, tell me.), and multiple races.

So much for my predictions that Anet wouldn't abandon everything that made GW different and great. I hereby consider myself corrected.

Harshly corrected.

This was what first interested me in Guildwars, this novel concept. Well the novel concept goes out the door apparently and I'll be out the door too running after it... well said

It's ridiculous that people associate a higher level base with grinding. I'm sure the higher level is just a front to show how much time you've spent and probably won't have much to do with how well your character does damage/supports/heals at all. Don't jump to conclusions until you've tried it. After you've tried it, jump all you want.

Mortal Kombat doesn't have a ranger. Kidding.
I think what Zinger meant was the classes will be the same but the skills, weapon types, etc...will be different. Time to start thinking about new names and what you want new characters to look like. Remember, 100's of years in the future. You don't see Bruce Wayne as Batman in the future...you see Terry McGuiness, Damian, etc... It's a new time period. No time travel for characters. It just wouldn't seem right.

Oh, how I remember the fun days of fresh pugs, good for you maybe we can pug later together .
I would, if Anet could just do some reasonable compensation for gw2 for the things done in guild wars 1, i mean after all, they are both "guildwars" esque games right?

Oh, and by the way, what happened to the "just plane wrong and misleading" parts of the stupid Inquirer article?

From what I see glancing at the PCGamer summary posted here, they were spot-on target with everything.

well 2009, hopefully im still into it by then. yay!! college!

The funny thing is, Anet is under the impression that by making the game a WoW rip off, they will make the fortunes WoW earned. Unfortunately, what they fail to realize is that by making this a WoW rip off, the people who played GW for its uniqueness leave and the people who like WoW styled games... go play WoW.

There were some plain wrong parts..and people were mislead and not lead straight on with information..so technically Gaile and Anet speak the truth once more.

Gaile Gray:
That sums it up for me. I am looking forward to the near and the far future. ANet is once again showing it has vision as well as adaptability when it comes to creating a gaming experience.

Keep true to the current business model while blending in the best of standard MMORPG's is a great move. Maximizing strengths and bolstering weakness is a great strategy.

By adding a persistent world to the instanced design, we truly will have the BEST OF BOTH WORLDS.

Hoo-rah!

First off, no limit to party size in World PvP or whatever, I don't think it said anything about that, PvE wise.

Also it's not classes, it's races and I don't think they will look too cartoony.