Interview with Design Lead for GW Bonus Mission Pack

Those missions sounds so bland especially the 'Togo' mission.

Instead they should introduce a competitive mission of Guild Wars; Ascalon Vs Kryta Vs Orr. Allowing players to choose which sides to fight for and reliving the epic moments. Maybe I'll come out of retirement if they implement that.

Right...

The BMP sounds quiet interesting and if it holds true, very unique compared to what we are currently doing to say the least.

It will be rather entertaining here in just a few more weeks to do this, been waiting since that promotion first came out :P

Actually, I had been wondering the same thing about loot. Hmmm... Can we keep what we get? How? How would Saul or Gwen have access to Ayelet's storage account? I know for a fact Ayelet didn't see Gwen from the time of the searing until meeting her on the steps of The Eye Of The North, I would have noticed. How do they hand off items to future heroes? Maybe they've looked into a scrying pool, saw the future and how our character would someday rise to save the world and they left it for us in our HoM? I mean if there weren't other pools -- eyes -- the one in the North would just be The Eye and not The Eye of the North, right?

Obviously the devs have worked out the problems involved with the transfer of goods or they wouldn't be ready to go live with it. I'm just speculating on how they're gonna pull it off. Maybe through the storybooks, like following Zho's journal to come up with a baby black moa -- we'll see where they stashed the stuff in the past and be able to go back after it.

Although, of course, sometimes FUN is reward enough.

Is the $30 requirement from the day they started this promotion or just overall? Because I've purchased 3 character slots, but I bought them before we even heard about this Bonus Mission pack..

You must have bought $30 worth of goods DURING the PROMOTION not before and certainly not afterwards. The promotion started around the end of August and runs to Oct 31st. That's the window you have to spend the $30 in.

Important questions, not answered:

1) Will the mission locations be uncovered on our world maps (e.g. the War Minister's estate in the south of Cantha), or can we only use U?

2) If loot can be acquired during the missions, how? Will we have separate inventories, or the inventories of the characters we entered with?

3) If there is no loot, what rewards can we expect and how do we get them?

Why the hell would you expect that?

Oh ok, that's why.

As long as it's interesting I don't care too much. Aren't the campaigns pretty much single-player anyway?

Im betting the storage will involve tsomething in the BMP to bury or hide your loot and your real character finding it somewhere.

I could see minipet rewards accessible after a successful mission using the /special command:

Mini Palawa Joko
Mini Saul -or- Mini Mursatt
Mini Togo -or- Mini Tengu
Mini Gwen (adult) or a different Mini-Charr

... with the added possibilities of unique weapons or something else.

"I'm wielding the Staff of Palawa Joko!"

I'd be surprised if there was a direct loot transfer, but I wouldn't complain. I just hope they're repeatable after successful completion.

*invisions hundreds of animals mugging a poor enemy to death*

Ohhh, so THATS what they wanted to use it for... (hmmm...I'm guessing either Turai or Gwen...what, Gwen is good at charming things. I mean, take us for example >_>. All those expensive gifts we gave to her...)

And what about a thank you to the people who bought GWEN in the high street stores or other online shops?

If this isnt made available outside of the Anet online store, or sold seperately at a cheap price I wont be impressed.

yeah,our money is as good as theirs,
either way hopefully these wont be a massive let down,
the idea earlier on about an ab kinda thing sounds fun

This was a way to promote the store and to try and get the money within the company it self, rather then going to a third party (Amazon, Target, etc.etc.) purchase.

Sorry you guys didn't do that, I didn't do that either. But I did buy 3 Character slots and GotY pushing me right over that price

They are ineligible for the special promo since they didn't participate...thats just common sense. Are people still trying to try to find some reason to justify getting something for an event they didn't participate in? Really its getting old.

Transformers came out on DVD this past tuesday. Theres at least 9. Count it. NINE special promos depending on the store for the dvd. Best Buy, Suncoast, Walmart, Target, etc. Each store got a slightly different gimmick to get you to buy there, and each one is exclusive to the store. Best buy has exclusive action figures, Walmart had a dvd narrated by Peter Cullen, Target has a comic + the dvd case transforms, theres hats, posters, an MP3 player, steel casing (suncoast) and a laser pointer thing. If you didnt get one because you didnt participate in the promo, thats your fault. If they ran out, thats another story.

Unless you are incapable of buying anything at the store, theres no excuse.

And one more point (important for me): it's ecological, because there's no physical content, only electronic. In addition to the BMP, this tipped the balance for me (7£ on one side, and the BMP and no physical content on the other).

Save the earth ftw .

Unfortunately, your ecologically-minded choice is undone many times over by 5 seconds of China, India, the US, etc. existing. Might as well have saved those seven pounds.

Well firstly I bought Transformers on HD DVD, so I got the best of both worlds!

Secondly you cant compare the sales of a DVD to the sales of GWEN from Anet. The reason is because had I bought GWEN at the Anet store it would have cost £10 more compared to play.com, something I cant afford. Why should I pay £10 more to get a "free" bonus pack in a special offer.

In essence that means its not free. It means im paying £10+ for that bonus pack. Its not about "not choosing to take part in a special offer". Its about not having the luxary to buy GWEN for £29.99 when I can get it for £17.99.

I dont have loads of cash to splash out on special offers that arent actually free!

Plus I dont like to pay that much money only to download something. I want something in a box that I can see and hold for that much money. I like to see it on my shelf and be able to control what im installing on my machine.

This is compared to a DVD which (no matter where you buy it) will always be an item you can hold and see and put on your shelf.

Did Anet give us an option to buy a boxed version from the store? Not that I know of!

The bottom line is, why restrict the bonus pack to only those who spent a certain amount of money between set dates?

Why not sell it as a seperate item and charge us £5 for it like the other weapon bonus packs?

They still make money from it! Id be willing to buy it seperately from the Anet store, but I dont want to be forced into spending £29.99 to get it (I say £29.99 because there is/was nothing on sale at the online store that I would want to buy for £17.99)!

So why not just sell it seperately to everyone? why restrict it?

I cannot single-handedly change the world, I have to start with me and my actions. And try to spread the word around me (I remember Gaile mentioning it in passing!). One cannot elude the problem by saying that China makes it impossible, or India, or the USA. It didn't cost me much and I'm proud of being able to do small acts like these (but recycling and poluting less is more important!).

the BMP itself only exhists because of this promotion, if they never deiced to run it anet probably wouldn't have even created these missions.
Even if you don't see it as the same the transformers dvd example is very simmilar to this situation just like any other store promotion.

also, play.com charge less than a retail store too, doesn't mean they are the ones overcharging you. Retail stores and the in game store all charge rrp.

you can see why play.com are able to charge less here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play.com

You mean like this?

Ditto.

I was really looking forward for playing throught it with my chars, teams and teambuilds.

That was exactly my point, and I also know why they charge less because their in a tax free zone.

Anet expected me and others to pay £29.99 (play.com being £17.99) for a non-boxed version just to get a "free" mission pack.

End result im paying more and that "free" mission pack isnt really free!

I accept their a business and dont like being undercut, and they want us all paying full RRP. But their basically asking us to pay £12.00 for the mission pack which only contains 4 missions.

Its not even like I had a choice to spend that £17.99 (being the lowest you need to spend) on an alternative item in the Anet store. I dont need or want extra character slots and I dont need any pvp skills and I have the weapon bonus pack already.

My only choice would have been to spend the £29.99 on the game and be ripped off by £12.00 dont have!

The bonus mission pack now exists, so why not just sell it as a stand alone item or simply add it to the GWEN box set as an extra?

Anet is usually all about making everything in the GWs world available to all on an equal level. But if this remains a one-off deal that we could only get by spending £17.99 on the Anet store at a set date, then how is that equal?

It could be there are oober powerfull greens in this mission pack, or very importal Lure to be seen (which im more bothered about).

All id ask is that its made available to all online at a cheap price or its added to future editions of GWEN in the box set.

Actually the in-store price is £24.99, so you can consider its price to be £7. For me, part of this is an "ecological" tax (and it increases Anet/NCSoft's profit I guess, but in my opinion they deserve it and I'm not ripped off).

It was more because i like havng boxed versions of games, as to why i bought it from play.com. I prefer to pay money and get something physical I can see and touch and know where my money went.

Yep I got that part of your message, and you've got the right to have it of course! I felt the same until 6 months ago when I realised that despite the fact that I like to look at it (especially the NF CE) it's not very useful in my library. And since I believe that every small gesture towards ecology is a nice thing to do, I decided to use this occasion.

But I think it's like the minipets, you can find ways to get them, except it's virtual money (i.e. REAL time) and not real money. But one can always complain about the way to get them. I think in long term, Anet will have to release the BMP with a different mechanism.