The Longevity Of Guild Wars 1

Before people automatically decide to bill this as yet another "OMGZ QQ GW IS DYING" thread... know this, it's not, so a read a little before you go all coocoo crazy.

So, guild wars is getting OLD, we all know it, we all accept it, and only the nubs cry about this as they see it as a statement meaning that the game dying. Personally the fact that it is old speaks to me as a statement of how good the game is(/was for those of you quitting). The fact that a game this old can still hold onto so many players for so long, and even it's graphics themselves, for a 3 year old game, is great in comparison to others.

But, even with all of these positive statements made about the game there arises a rather important issue that is "what will make players continue to play?", some may say the work towards GWAMM in preperation for GW2, but for many this is either not an option or too easy of an option, some absolutely refuse to put their nose to the grind stone, whereas people like myself don't see it as being too much of a challenge (having started farming my titles only two months ago and already having gone from 4 titles to 21 in that amount of time) don't see it as something that will last long as something to do (that is other than farming the friggin money titles). For those that wont or those that already have, what content is there to continue on with?
ANet Sees such festivals as the one coming up soon to be something that will keep the game mixed up enough to make it continue to be entertaining, even the though the entire player base clearly states that it isn't. So what? What is there? the part in this that seperates this thread from QQ threads is the fact that i have a few suggestions that may provide a answer to this question.

When it comes to PvP, very simple, more maps plzkthx bai.

When it comes to pve there are so many different things they can do:
More content, suggestions range from: elite missions (what about dhumm, what about friggin set ups for what will occur in gw2 aside from the wheels we put in motion with eotn)
what ever happened to the rumors and suggestions that anet produce a "melandrus realm" "lyssa's chaos realm", cmon, these would be easily implemented (aside from the coding of course, sorry there programmers) and would increase the longevity of all campaigns.

I only have a few suggestions, and all are inspired by ones i've seen on this forum in the past, so now i wanna know, whats yall's opinions? whats yall's ideas?

I leave this in hopes that someone with some sort of power will take it to heart only knowing that anet doesn't care, thats the beauty of a pay once only game, they gots our moneys, and they seem to be becoming the types of peoples that could give a damned if we stay or not because they've stopped looking at the bigger picture of a transition from game to game only to focus upon the upcoming game.

The problem with Anet is that they are undermaned. They use up all of their resources for Gw2, and don't even care about how boring GW1 is.

The real problem with Anet is that their business model leaves them with far too little revenue. Yes, we all know the reasons why subscription-free games are the best from a player's perspective, but the company can do much more and interesting things with 5x the revenue. They have already demonstrated with GW1 that they are not lacking in talent, so it is a pity to see it wasted while trash like Age of Conan end up dominating the scene.

while new content would likely be very good for this game, it would also cost anet a significant amount of resources to develop. anet's official position on new gw content atm is "gw2, kthxbai". they are after all a company funded solely by game sales; player retention is not as profitable for them as it is for some other companies who charge monthly fees for the continued use of their games. sure, you could make the argument that new content might encourage new people to buy the game, but honestly, after three years its very likely that the vast majority of people who want guild wars already have it.
while i certainly dont disagree with your idea that new content would increase the longevity of the game, it seems anet has concluded that it would not be in their best interests, financially, to spend more resources in an attempt to retain players - and i agree with them.

It's just a dry-spell.

Personally, I think it's good, in 2 very big ways:
-Makes Q.Q-ers quit out of fear.
-Shows how hard they're working on GW2, in turn showing that they really do care about what we think.

As for your suggestions for new content, there's nothing you said that I haven't seen before on other threads. They're not bad, but they're simply not new.

I think to say that ANet doesn't care about GW1 is a bit much. It's been stated that they're aiming to hire more people so that both games can get some attention without slowing the production of the new game.

I don't believe ANet should reward us, however. Most new players will have events they'll want to experience. New realms is only giving new content to pissy players that complain about every little thing. I can see it now: more QQ threads about how ANet only gave us new realms to give people more grind; they lack quality; they're too hard; they don't reward as much as the other realms have in the past; no new armor with the new content? Oh no!

Please. They give us enough as it is.

I don't think calling games like AoC or WoW "trash" is gunna do anything. In fact, it makes it more sad that these so called "trash" games are beating out GW. So lets stop the WoW/AoC hate here. They are beating GW for a reason.

What would be cool to me is to have Alliance battles be kill matches. Like, forget capping shrines. There are three teams to each side, 4 people on a team, the goal being to eliminate the other teams three units. I might play that more than anything if they did it. As it is, AB's remind me of wintersday games.

wow my post got deleted

Having been one of the players to quit GW in favor of 1 month of WoW before AoC came out, what I miss most about GW is the basic functionality of the game.

Not saying the functionality sucks now, but in comparison to AoC which is a great game as it is (bugs and all) there's still much about GW I could only hope would inspire other programmers to implement into their own games.

GW still is the best game when it comes to PVP style of play. Hands down, the best. I don't care about anything except AB though, and AB could stand some kind of revamp by now, hell I might even be willing to spring for a new account for a buddy to get back into it if something happened to AB to revitalize the state of enjoyment it once was. But then again, it could just be I got tired of playing the same quality of players over and over. That's something that can't be improved by anyone at this point.

The target system and instantaneous cast/usage of skills in GW is by far the best in these style of games.

Customizing your characters appearance is what I really wanted. After 3 years not having the chance to some how change the look of my character after beating all the campaigns and achieving so much...I figured my character would benefit from wearing the scars of battle/age. I am satisfied with armor content and weapon content (which has had its fair share of updates since I departed the scene) GW still remains one of my all time favorite games. Right there with Zelda 1.

Anet banned my favorite officer though, so I quit the game. I am not going to play a game that takes my favorite thing out of it =P

that would keep you playing, but not me, i hate AB, it's not pvp to me.

The game is dead. Personally, I can't even name 8 good guilds anymore. GvG is really the only thing that has ever held my interest in GW anyway. Everything else is just so...zzzzzz... boring.

[email protected] I'll say it till I'm blue in the face: it's WoW with a supercharger that kills all but the most elite systems. You need 4 gig of ram and an SLI set to keep the frame rate above 20! I could play GW on a 4 year-old computer with under a gig of ram and an Athlon xp...just fine. Considering how great the game still looks, that is an achievement.

You think WoW PvP servers are bad...child's play. They have guilds with characters created in Beta that Fun-cum allowed them to keep! Nice to start the game with a level 40 character the first day. The one thing I love about GW is the teamwork required to get through the game. Even the fail that is Ursan requires a TEAM of players working together to be effective. It was a concept encouraged from its inception. Even with H/H, you still have to work out what team with work with the best synergy of skills. Pvp is, of course, the best in the industry. Equal teams, with access to equal attributes and skill sets, fight from sizes as small as a guy and his heroes to the organized chaos of AB. Despite our rants, they have done a great job of paying attention to, and balancing,the skill sets out there.

This game still has enough legs, with its looks and the fact that it's FREE TO PLAY, that it will still be active when GW2 rolls along. I'm sure they might even see a spike in sales again, as people find out about the HoM after getting GW2. It may not have the numbers it did, but it will still be around.

Looking at it from a perspective of getting the most out of least, I would say that adding some really hard challanges(with great rewards!!!) would be the ideal way to run.


hard mode was a good idea, because it was an excuse the exhaust the content in the game.



this is why I am still a firm advocate for Hardcore mode. the people praising hardcore mode from Diablo 2 entrigues me to no end.

it would give players the abillity to want to exhaust the content yet again... and it would perhaps attract more people since, its serious... when you die its all over.
maybe some people will even buy more slots just reserved for hardcore characters...


i dont know what rewards should be. maybe if you die in hardcore you would be a ghost who would be able to chat in the last town you got to... so if you got to lions arc, but died before reaching the next outpost, your avatar turns into a gluie blue ghost and you can then run around in town and talk with people...

people who could beat the game in hardcore maybe could get some kind of status symbol. i dont know...

i think that would increase the lifespan alot. another thing would be to make many more items and loot and give players more stuff to buy. fluff or not.

Guild Wars is the best example of how developers can create a game completely "uncomplete" like a big Suisse Cheese filled with countless of holes and thats really sad ...
Holes being based either on lacking content, lacking gameplay balance, lacking needed gameplay features and and and ...

They made over 3 years so much heavy mistakes for the games gameplay, it's undescribeable.

- A 30 to 70% or 20 to 80% Scenario of our game World, that is explorable/unexplorable, where the much bigger part is just only stupid Filler

- Giving us a total bad concepted Hero-Feature and then only with a retarded Limitation of max 3 instead of 7 what would make alot more sense, also for casual gamers and it would allow anet to remove all the useless stupid Henchmen, when we would have only abbbeter Heroes and could have 7, because Heroes make Henchmen simple obsolete and not neccessary anymore.

- That the game had from the begin on not a Splitting between PvE and PvP Skill Versions, that would have Anet spared up alot of retarded Balancing Tryings

- The implemention of such Wannabe-Professions like the Paragon and the Dervish, which are only based on some QQ of some forums people -.- instead of bringing us profession,s that make really sense compared to the other 8 professions, like Hunter and a Dancer, what Dervishs are maybe with soem kind of Martial Arts combined, because that was kind of Anets own original concept for Dervishs - a Martial Artist Class

- Too much bad reskins, especially reskinned Dungeons were a complete disappointment.

- making all those grind shit that got implemented with factions not directly all account based endign up that it took anet way too long time to change now finalyl the HoM into an accoutn based feature, how the HoM makes only sense.

- Implementing into the game total unnesseccary Clone Skills that no one needs, instead of implementing more unique skills.

- Giving the game way too much skills under the old Attributes of classes, instead of just improving the classes with additional new attributes and giving the classes only for their new attributes new skills first to increase of all classes their gameplay variety so that it would become for warriors for example possible to wield in both hands weapons with a new dual wielding attribute they would receive.

- gamedesign catastrophes, like making for all continents an own map, instead of giving us a real complete world map - the reason why we must live now with such an ugly tyria map with these retarded black walls at the sides, because anet beign to lazy/unable to give us a real complete world map from the begin on.

Its in gamedesigning ever best to give a game from the start on a complete world map, that will not change anymore, because of all continents of the world being shown on it. Then can have also all players have the same world map, and those people of GW1 who would own just only 1 campaing, would be able just to explore their continent of their contient. But that would not change anything on the fact, tghat all should be able to see the complete world map. Therefore its called WORLD MAP and not Continent Map aka. Campaign Map >.>

- game design catastrophes, like making us players only possible to create tyrian characters with only tyrian face/hair styles, even if we own al campaigns and should be able through that to choose from all face/hairstyles of all the camapigns, regardless of where the character should start.

-game design catastrophes, like giving rangers no storage option for tamed pets and general gamedesign catastrophes around way too less Storage Space, especially for Armors & Minipets, the 2 main things players collect in GW besides trade items and materials, where for Minipets would exists such an easy solution in dedicated Minipet Reproduction like reproducing customized festival hats >.>

-game design catastrophes like implementing a Gamer Title and forcing then all players to waste their time waiting months for the next special holiday event, just to be able to make for some days some couple douzends to hundreds of gamer points maybe, instead of giving the Game good though out perma playable PvP-Minigames, where the players can work out their Gamer Title, whenever they want, like working on a PvP-Title, because nothign else is the Gamer Title !!!!!

What is so hard about it, to make such bad concept crap like Polymok finally PvP-playable or finally to make out of Rollerbeetle Racing a very interesting Racing-PvP-Minigame, that can have its own Tournaments, but just needs a bit of improvement in kind of just simple more content in form of more rancing tracks (18 tracks needed to give Rollerbeetle Racing a Formula 1 Format) plus also where the players have to race alot longer, than just only from point 1 to point 2 .

make the tracks round and give them in regard of the track size different amounts of LAPS, thats the players have to race on them and then the beetle skill bar really needs more balancing and better skills for such a minigame.

Implement then also some kind of Observer Mode for Rollerbeetle races where outside players can make bets on who will be the winner and if you bet right, you will win also something then., But bets must be made naturally before the race starts.

- game design catatrophes, like making Daggers for sins 2h weapons instead of using the Assasin class to implement a dual wieldign system and then making out of assasins some wannabes, that don't even use Kunais and/or Shurikens and also don't use Katars, what they should as real Assassins. giving them complete unbalanced shadowstep skills instead of stealth skills and as Wannabe-Ninjas they don't even have a Ninjutsu Attribute >.>

- game design catastrophes like giving the game a complete boring combat system, that looks like childs playign with toy soldiers, so less action and style has GW's CS, also due to way too bad skill and sound effects that give you ever the feelign of beign a complete weakling instead of a mighty hero, who saved the world 3x

- total game design catastrophes in general like completely lieing in kind of their so self proclaimed philosophy, that Guild Wars will never force a player to grind their asses off.

Quote from Guild Wars 2 FAQ:

never have laughed soooo loud before in my life. Anti-Grind Philosophy doesn't exist in the heads of these developers, since Factions anymore -.-

I could surely summarize more of anets crucial mistakes they did over the years, but thats enough I think.
Let us all just onl hope, that Anet will learn from their faults and won#t turn GW2 into a single meaning for the word "catastrophe" from the begin on.

Well, you should ask this in game. General rule: players who are happy play the game; players who are unhappy whine in the forums.

For me: I started playing GW shortly before the Nightfall release and spent more than 2000 hours (!) playing it. While I did all missions and went for many titles the game still interests me. So I can surely say this game provided (and still provides) a great experience for the money.

PvP doesn't need new maps, it needs a new skill balancer.

theres been so many ideas for new content (both pve and pvp) in Sardelac...

I wont go over that, look it up if you must.

the great thing about GW is that you can always drop it and come back to it later with no regrets....so ill be playing it like i play other great games :

until technology outspecs and makes them incompatible with my hardware/OS (and i cant find a fix).

so a good couple years at least, i mean i still play Diablo2 and thats pretty much the same situation (online, outdated).

The problem is players are supposed to be leaving a game feeling happy and finished with it. Too many people leave it because they're bored, because the lack of new content, and because the things to do are grinding that turns you into a human macro. It's a funny thing for the developers to leave the playerbase this way because I guarantee you there's a whole lot of "not going to return to a company that doesn't give a crap" sentiment going on.

What the heck does GWAMM stand for?

God walking amongst mere mortals.

Maybe you haven't heard, but game designer Linsey Murdock and a yet to be named programmer are being moved to work on GW1 exclusively.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Linsey_Murdock
http://guildwars.incgamers.com/showthread.php?t=479292

I stopped reading here. Normally when people says its not a rant thread, chances are, it is one.

Diablo II lasts today because there is a random part: Random maps, random items.

In GW, everything is quite fixed.

And the only random thing that could fit GW is Random quests.
Without random quests, many people will get tired of GW sooner or later.

A system to generate randomized quests from little pieces should be added to Gw.

It's funny how so many people are unhappy/unsatisfied with Guild Wars yet they are still playing it....

That's because WoW is just an un-fun incessant grind, EQ2 has been dead for years, D2 is ancient, and AoC is buggy beyond any game ever created. Those and GW are about the only choices for an MMORPG.

Its not that I'm "unsatisfied" or "unhappy" with Guild Wars, it's just that there's so many easy ways it could be fixed that aren't being done. I realize GW2 is probably at the forefront of Anet's mind, but GW still has quite a large community, and you have to keep them appeased if you want them to buy GW2.

What's your source on this? Or are you just making things up?

Wasn't there at one time when GW2 is announced, and Arena Net was advertising for to recruit new people to work on the GW2 project?

if that is the case, why are GW1 personal being "deploy" to work on GW2?

Just a thogut.

Presumably because, along with the new recruits, they'd like personnel with prior experience on the team as well.

I'd agree, but, when it was just my post it wasn't one, it's everyone else here that turned it into one, i simply looking for opinion and ideas, not Q_Qing that everyone has provided.

I really avoid QQing so w/e.

Guild Wars is something you wont regret since it is not a monthly fee game...

IMO.... GW has been gr8 in the 3 years i've spent regardless of all the dumb updates.

Lol

Thx for that laugh. As a person who played a lot of d2, there is nothing random about it. After a while, you don't even really think about the maps slightly changing and just go about your business. GW has 10 times the content of d2 and lots of different things to waste time with. d2 had diablo... cows... and baal... normal hc etc. The reason why d2 is still played is that it was/is a fun game with loot to find and weapons to craft. It is free. But mainly because you can make as many accounts on each key as you want, though only 1 can play at a time. This means people can share accounts and play anywhere d2 is installed. I had 2 - 3 accounts when I played and a 2nd key for transferring items.

GW could be as busy in 5 or 6+ years, except we all have single accounts. When we stop playing, we will have to give or lend or accounts to others or they won't be used. That for the most part isn't going to happen since most will value the account long after done playing gw1.

So even though it will be free to play, there won't be as many people playing since there will be d3 and gw2 to play instead. Maybe anet will sell all 4 games supercheap to infuse new blood into the game each year, but otherwise this place will be pretty empty about 2 years after gw2 drops.

This game is ok. I just picked it up again after having quit it for WoW back in 2006. I don't regret quitting it for WoW I had a lot of fun in WoW. When I tried to come back to guild wars in 2007 it didn't work out to well and I ended up going back to wow. Now im back this time im done with wow have my 3 70s with V-Glad Gear waiting for The next expansion. So I got untill Wrath of the litch king comes out to play guild wars and I do not think its dying. I see tons of people on all the time. Sure maybe not as many as before but still Its enough people to play most missions with and still find a team, Its enough people to enjoy pvp with. Plenty of clans are just starting up and I think guild wars still has a few more years of life left. Even after Guild wars 2 comes out, There will be a lot of people who will not like GW2 for whatever reason and will be loyal guild wars 1 players until the servers die. Just like in Everquest.