Six character slots confirmed

Having two additional slots gives a signifigant advantage how?
We don't have to delete our characters to play another class. We're not trying to argue that there should be a uberhax god mode, and two char slots would give us that.
I can see much more potential abuse with two accounts than I can see with two adidional character slots. One account holds 1.4M gold, two accounts hold 2.8M gold, and one account with six slots would hold 1.6M gold. Two accounts can run eachother places, and they can hold more items
100+100=225? No, I think we're asking for 100+100=200. I'm still not sure where the abuse is.

If by headaches you mean more happy customers, then sure.
Nono, I belive you have it backwards. See, that is what is happening now, with no linking. Some people buy another copy, some leave, and others just won't buy factions. I no longer see it as a cheap option, because I have to buy two copies to get the full game. I don't remember who said this first, but it's like buying a NHL game, getting all the teams, but only being able to play two thirds of them.

Again, the my complain is not that we'd have to pay for slots, but that a second account is just such a bad option. Sell slots, let me link accounts, but a seperate account isn't good enough.

If that was true, it would be a pretty stupid move. After all you would try to reach a braoder base of customers, wouldn't you?

Unlocking all skills and giving two more character slots are completely different things.

Which is a balance decision. Having more characters available can not change the balance because you can always only play one.

Actually there is a compromise: There are rare, neat items, but those don't give you an unfair advantage.

This is an additional feature that would change the game on a wide scale.

So you think they are actually trying to get rid of people that are interested in playing all the classes available?

There you go again with the books. I have books too, and I'll top you by saying that I even have several brushes and paint!
This is not about your books and nobody can tell me ANets business goal is to get people interested in reading. Or whatever it is you are trying to say. Also, I suppose the reading crowd will get FOW armour by answering a quiz about Robinson Crusoe?
Seriously, I don't get what you are trying to say.

That's nice, but I fail to see the relevance towards the current discussion.

hehe..im still here, and im a hardcore crafting person ^^
and i got books...and paints, and BEADS :P bet taht mosch (jk)

i dont think they are trying to force players to leave, nor to purchase extra accounts, though i think that might be something they hope most of us do...i for one, only ever considered it for a few secconds, if i wasnt able to buy the keys as a stand alone item so i dont have 2 copies of the box, the cd and all the rest of the junk that comes in the box (as aposed to downloading when i already have a game cd)

i think its more about the fact that it seems...well, like they have changed thier minds and are now saying,
'oh, i didnt mean to give you 4 slots, so heres the deal, you can give me back two, and have 6 slots on a linked account and get all the classess and all the areas, or you can keep the 4 i just gave you, but only get half on each.'

(and i think *point of acension* and accended are two different things....sure, SF is for lvl 20 as such, but unless you GET accended, or get run to droks, it dosent matter...since, and thins is not from personal experiance, im told you go to droks after you do the sccention trip)

i will see your beads and confess to raising the occasional orchid and loving cats

they are not trying to force people to leave but simply to define a new game type.

since you cant please everybody Anet has to reach as broad a base as they can within the plan they have for the game.

each of the catagories i mentioned have a large portion who (to varying degrees) will accept that what Anet is offering is fun and worth it.

there will be a small portion of that catagory who say give us this and all of this or we walk no other option will suffice (those will leave)

that is what i mean by shaking out

the extreames of all sorts leave and leave as broad a base as possible to build on

yeah, but if they follow that thread, it ends up with a few folks running tur pve and everyone else doing pvp...

i alread know somone that left because all the skill rebalances were for pvp players and did affect pve
(in that the way you play can be altered simply by a few skills changing. feel pity for the pve ele that just comes out of pre searing, only to find everything else running from their firestorms, where as pre critters didnt run)

and HE was the casual gamer..if he wanted to het hardcore, he used to hunker down in bed and play hs consoles for hours, like me.

personaly, i prefer a game company to not just try to be the best for the broadest group (ie, the casual, ill pick it up for a week then toss it out if it take up to much time, and i will buy any game that is a licence game like a harry potter or a catwoman type carbon copy game)
i prefer them to make a good game that will apeal to many types of players without worrying that they need to be mass market to make it good...

we know its good, but its just getting too close to a kind of game that everyone had for a month or two, then traded in..oh, wait, we cant trade it in...*rolls eyes*
(using the had for a month then traded to mean a generic type game...the equivelent of gameing cannon fodder, and not half as good as that game was ether....)

and its 100% certain that you cant plese all of the people all of the time, unless you live in a totalitarian state that uses mind controle and drugs to make everyone the same...*shrugs*

first note i am pvE only and do miss all the little monsters crowding into a small area and waiting patiently while i hit them with firestorm,searing heat repeatedly until dead.

that had no bearing on PVP for the simple reason a pvp real person will step to the right (or left) 2 steps and go nice firestorm.

so pvp had no effect on making the enemy more realistic.

do you think there will be screams if they fix the AI so a group of enemy follows you around a corner instead of trying to shoot through it?

picture 6 skeleton rangers shooting poison at you as you run around a corner and start laughing at them while you regain your health and energy like usual........................

but this time they follow you around the corner and keep shooting

got to go as my little master wants to be patted a bit.

um, been there, done that, but in elona...maybe the magic goes right thru the stone..it muct be made from the same stuff Alesia is made from, since she regularly warps thru walls with me ^^

and last rime i tried to get to ToA without sneaking around thru the swamp, they followd we me everywhere...i was just glad the DP dosent go past 60%, or i would have had to be on life support monk, with -10 hp constanltly

hope you gave the little guy/gal a pat for me, since we kept ya talking/typingin hehe

Few more points, there seems to be two arguments here: one about linking accounts one about having more faction slots. Let me briefly explain the advantage:
1)Some pvp significant armor and weapons are available only through pve, holding more pvp slots increases your likelihood of getting those.
2)As it stands, hardcore pvpers all use pvp characters so they have more weapons/armor options which can be adjusted in match.
3)8 characters means that you really must have 8 fully prepped characters for high end PvP, which is a barrier.
4)Trend conformity: if you don't have a class you can't conform so you might as well build something else. Helps keep the pvp population a bit balanced. Prophets path is a great example of a change in trend and resulting frictions.
5)f(x,y)>x+y with six slots as oppose to 2 unlinked four slot accounts. If they had a prophecy+prophecy linking option it will definitely be less the two independent (if it is abuse proof).

The game is not targeted at you, but at casual gamers. This means you will not like everything and not everything will conform to what you want, but you can still have fun.

1. So I have a War, Ele, Monk, Nec. Being able to play a ranger and mesmer would make me more likely to get an item how?

2. Oh, but that dosn't matter, as you said, the game was not designed for hardcore players. If that matters, well then we can claim A.Net is limiting PvE for PvP's sake.

3. Having to have high end gear is not a barrier for PvP. A PvP only char works fine. With the HoD helm on the PvP-only menu now, no class gains a signifigant advantage by being PvE. You seem to be under the assumption that every PvE player will equip their chars with perfect PvP gear. Do I have that right? That maybe they'll do nothing else untill they reach their goal? Is that true? Is that a barrier?

4. How does acess to PvE areas with a class relate in any way to PvP balance? Remember, PvP chars can use storage too. That means they can get any item a PvP-only char can. PvE warriors and ragners may indeed have better options, but hey, they're only two classes.

5. What? I'm not sure what you're saying, but I still hold that 100+100=200

If adding something would please the 'hardcore' players, and have little effect on 'casual' players, I don't see why it would be avoided. Ask a casual player "Would you leave if players had the option to add two character slots to their account?" When you get "Yes, I would leave, I do not want players to have more character slots." as a response, come back here. Now, when you get a few hundred responses like than, then I might belive that it is indeed in A.Nets best intrest not to add slots.

(Note: I said option to add slots. Again, I'm not saying I nessacarly want them to be free. The only current option, buying a second account is not a good option.)

So this is a game for casual PvE players but hardcore PvPers then? That makes me feel better about leaving, thanks for the heads up.

4+4=6?

ANET needs to go back to school

ummm no

i said that the ultra hardcore pvp crowd that considered any preparation (even pvp faction) was too much work before they could do serious pvp gaming were the ones shaken out.

sort of like the i MUST have one of each primary (plus a pvp) slot or suddenly after all this fun time spent it suddenly is a rip off instead of fun so i quit.

did you ever have to sit through Swan Lake?

just when you thought she was gone .........there she goes again.....one more time..........and again

Ah, but it wasn't like that Lovitar. We didn't go from being perfectly fine, to fliping out when we hard that announcment. Not quite. All (Or most) the people arguing in favor of additional slots, have been doing so for months. This is not a new issue, people have been bothered by this for months, and like all problems, it will not go away on it's own.

Was typing quickly earlier so I'll clarify.
1)If you have fully equipped (multiple armor, helms, weapons) characters with all 6(soon to be 8) professions, this gives you a significant PvP advantage. As it stands now, top pvp players are fully equipped in half of the professions.

2)The game is targeted to sell primarily to casual gamers because it has a high end balanced PvP. Most Magic players are casual, but the game is good enough to be interesting at a high level and is balanced for that level of play. The game isn't really balanced for high end pve; I know how much time was spent testing each, and high end PvEing got much less attention. This philosophy may change a bit next expansion, but generally the game was balanced for tombs and GvG and individual PvE areas were adjusted to fit around PvP (from a skill/item balance point of view). More than half of the high end PvE content was released late (Shadow's furnace, PvE tombs).

3)Look at all the high end characters(iQ,WM,EvIL), notably warriors and monks. Most of them are PvE. I know for a fact that iQ did a ton of farming at one point. Top guilds will equip with perfect gear. There are a variety weapons that are extemely pvp useful that are not available through PvE. Negative energy shields, low requirement weapons, shields, etc, candy cane gear. Most important would be the abilty to adjust armor to the needs of the match. PvP characters are good, but to play at a top level you really need a PvE character (warriors especially). Some teams don't even set attributes until they see their opponents build... gear comes in handy with such approaches.

4)You can transfer most anything, but there is no way to customize weapons, armor etc. Rangers and Warriors obviously get the biggest PvE boost, but it matters for monks as well.

5)I was just explaining that in a general sense of my statement. Take three options: A)For the current anet option. B) for linking current Anet accounts. C)For the purposed 8 slot plan. Let U be the utility for hardcore PvEers:
U(C)>U(B)>U(A)
I argue that casual gamers will look a bit more like this:
U(C)~U(A)>U(B)
And finally utility for hardcore PvP crowd (anti grind group):
U(A)>U(C)>U(B)

I'm just trying to formalize how I feel things are in quasi-utility terms. I keep noting that the game was not made for hardcore PvEers. Anet is obviously glad you are around, but they really didn't expect that attention from that group of players. They actually came out and said as much in an interview once. The "plan" was always to use PvE as a short RPG which opens up a rich PvP game. That generally hasn't changed, but they have already changed Factions so that in integrates more high level PvE and interactions between PvE and PvP.

There has been and will continue to be better options for high end PvE type play. This type of discussion has gone on forever. In a way Guild Wars is trying to support too many types of play. I feel that factions will be another stab at the delicate balance. Hopefully you won't have to play the game through 5 times in order to have a fulfilling experience (ie, there should be hundreds of hours of unique play without ever starting a new character).

If I read this right...you're actually asking for sixteen slots now?

If the continent-specific tutorials count as vital content, then you'd need one character of each class to go through each tutorial. And when Chapter 3 hits, and if it holds to two new professions...you'd need thirty slots, so as to put ten professions apiece through each continent's tutorial?

Or you could spend an afternoon or two going through each tutorial in the same single slot, deleting characters once they get past that stage. Given that it takes maybe four hours tops to get through the tutorials, even with sixteen tutorials to go you'd be able to do it reasonably quickly. And I doubt you'd get fixatedly attached to a tutorial character in four hours. I've gone through the tutorial with every class save Mesmer, and yet I only have two characters that actually stuck it out afterwards.

Problem solved, argument countered.

As for the people still claiming that ArenaNet is stealing two slots from them...you realize that you're fueling the argument claiming a required minimum of four slots a chapter, right? After all, if they're stealing them from you now, then they're stealing them from you in every expansion, whether you've actually got the number of slots you're arguing for or not. 100 + 100 may equal 200, but what if you only need the 175? Because if you get your 100 + 100 = 200 now, you'll never, ever accept that 200 + 100 = 275, even though you only need the 275. So on and so forth.

All I'm asking is that, instead of bedeviling Anet for every reason one can find, people show appreciation for what has been done. People claiming to love the game and to be perfectly willing to play it given the slots are also the ones sniping at Guild Wars and Anet without remorse. Whatever your odd math, whatever your frustration, quit blaming it exclusively on Anet. Perhaps some of the reason you're all so pissed off is that, perhaps, your demands aren't quite as reasonable as you keep stating? After all, I really don't think anyone here needs sixteen slots on one account.

So if I get all that right, the lack of slots is a balance feature. It balances high-end PvP by forcing them to grind if they want to be flexable? Am I getting that right?

Didn't Anet announce merchants will be available in guild halls? If I'm correct weaponsmiths are among them. Weaponsmiths customize weapons. Since PvP characters can go to halls and can easily grab 10g from storage, how is customization not going to be a future option for them?

No - there are specific quests that can only be done by the primes of each profession. In order to do all prime only quests, you need enough primes to do them - in the case of C1+C2, eight characters - one of each prime.

That would be correct if the explorable tutorial and those related quests were the only included definitions of content. Again, my def of content is:
1) Explorable areas
2) Quests & Missions
3) Usable items (armor and weapons)
4) Character Stats & Skills
5) Game Play Strategy

Even by doing as you claim, I am missing out on #'s 3-5 in the whole of the Post-Searing world of C1, and its equivalent in C2. As such, I still am not able to play 100% of either chapter without having to run through the entire game, then delete all that time as if it meant nothing.

The people you are referring to are a minority, and incorrect. What the majority of us are asking for is to bring the number of character slots in line with the number of primary professions. We would like to have 8 slots with a linked C1 & C2 account. If C3 introduces two more primes, then yes, we want an additional two slots on top of the then current eight. If C4 introduces no new primes, or only one, then we do not need nor want an additional slot, or we just want the one in order to create a character with the new prime. That's all we're asking for, nothing more and nothing less.

Didn't ask for sixteen and won't ask for sixteen until there are sixteen prime professions. It would be nice to be able to take new characters through both tutorial worlds, and current characters through the new toot, but that really is as unreasonable as asking for enough slots to cover every prime/secondary combo, and that's something that no one has asked for.

We do show appreciation. I have stated many times that Anet has done a fantastic job and I applaud them for their insight and ingenuity. However, that doesn't mean they haven't made mistakes, and it's better to "complain" about it now and get them fixed than it is to wait until the time another dev making a Fantasy based COORPG does offer what many players of GW want, and if they do so along with making a playing experience that matches or beats GW, then Anet will be sunk, and it will be everyone else who starts complaining when they try to log in to their accounts only to find the servers have been removed. SW Galaxies is the perfect example of a dev neglecting to fix a very bad design, until too late, and now things are even worse. I'm willing to bet that Galaxies will be gone within the next couple of years. I just don't want the same to happen to GW.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

Hope so Raven. Something along those lines would be helpful. If they put a weapons smith and an armorer in the guild halls all of this will be solved.

Lack of slots is balance, grind reduction and a profit thing for A-net. Second accounts are readily available for those who want more grind (that or delete a character). The balance argument was simply responding to those who wanted to know why it is a significant balance advantage. I hope that kind of explains. At the moment a top PvPer will likely have a PvE warrior and 2 other fully characters outfitted, even casual gvgers are beginning to have 3 fully outfitted PvP characters after 9 months.

Really Prophecies was a first shot at the game, not a perfection. In a perfect game you really won't want to have time to go through the entire game with each character type in order to keep entertained with the PvP content. Think of Elder Scrolls: Morrowind was a long game if you did all the content. You may want to play it as a different class/race to get a different experience, but how many of you completely finished Morrowwind twice? The expansions provided some upper level stuff that was actually fairly challenging at times (I found it much more interesting than repeating the intial story). Maybe you create a character to become a vampire or something, but did you really play the game through the 10+ times to really experience it?

Difference between Morrowind and GW:Prophecies, Morrowind was designed as a top flight RPG and GW is a kind of combo mix game that was weak on the RPG side. GW also did a fairly bad job of combining its combo. PvP was independent except for the fact that you had to grind a bunch first. High end PvE really had nothing to do with anything except getting cool looking stuff...face it, half the greens are PvP useless. Faction is trying to resolve this by making PvE guild dependent and bringing the design focus away from early levelling. More relevant decisions in PvE and more interesting areas.

How is this relevant to player slots? Factions should gain its replayablity not from replaying the same linear mission, but from a great content richness at the higher level. Basically the only way to get replayablity out of Prophecy was starting over with a different class, if Factions is the same way Anet hasn't learned much. 4 interesting high end areas and a handful of quests really isn't enough.

Sorry Thom, but not everyone percieves GW PvE this way. GW's game mechanics encouraging teamwork-and-strategy-oriented play makes for a much more rich PvE experience than many other PC RPGs, which is the reason I and a significant number of others purchased it in the first place. ArenaNet may or may not have intended it to be likeable for these reasons, but it is. Limiting our slots as a shortcut to balance unforseen PvP drawbacks seems unjustified.

There are surely better ways of making the game better for PvP-only enthusiasts. Making it worse for PvE enthusiasts won't fix these problems. People who've made Uber PvP builds out of their PvE glory probably stick to a tight number of builds that work for their play style. Limiting slots will never remove their already established advantage.

I can't tell ArenaNet what to do, but their decision on the number of slots is, in my opinion, a mistake. I say this again based on my arguments back on my first post on page 14, which I have yet to see anyone counter solidly. Feel free to do so, btw.

Awwwwwwwwwesome. Glad to hear it.

Lack of slots is grind reduction!? Come again? How? Where? What? I hold that is grind inducing. I'm making a mesmer right now in PvE. It's not my first PvE mesmer, and after all the characters I've made, I've come to see the storyline as grind, purely because I have played it so much. I've played it so much because I was forced to delete characters. You said it yourself, the characters slots prevent people from reacting new trends. Sure, they can delete a chacter and still react to the new trend, but they have to remake the caracter. What is that if not grind? Balance? If so, then it's balance via grind.

Is that what GW:P promotes? Balance via grind? Ick. No, for me it's not playing the missions that I want to be able to do with every class. I want to be flexable. When I need to change from axe to sword, from heal to prot, from W/Mo to W/Me, I can do all that. But when my guild asks if any rangers can help out on a mission or in FoW, I can't help them. Balance via grind limits options, reduces varity, and increases reward for time spent. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what GW isn't susposed to be.

GW:P wasn't perfect, I'll agree. Refund points were removed to reduce grind that was sometimes needed to change builds. But when they refused to add enough character slots, I wonder, is it balance, or profit seeking? Again, I have nothing against paying for slots. But seperate accounts are just too awkward, and far too problematic.

Look, where does paying for slots cause a problem? You gain the ability to trade between characters, you only take up one slot in your guild roster and friend's lists. On the other end, you'd have less storage space than if you had a seperate account, so you could hold signifigantly less gold. If you think too many slots on an account could be a problem, then perhaps there could be a max of two aditional slots. It's an advantage that you paid for, sure, but then again, you can get nearly the same results by buying a second account.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but all the PvP balance issues with slot numbers is pretty moot. As Raven said, I would think most competative guilds would stick to a couple of full builds per member so that they can achieve a well rounded party for battle. The fact remains, though, that anyone can purchase more accounts so it throws the whole PvP balance issue out the window - PvPers can still maintain whatever advantage Thom is talking about if merged accounts were given 8 slots simply by buying another account and outfitting four more characters. That leaves those who choose to only buy one account at a disadvantage as the situation currently stands, it seems to me.

It doesn't really matter who the game was designed for and/or the number of hours spent playing it. We know GW was designed with the casual gamer in mind, not only from the repetative statements from Anet, but from the simple fact that it is subscription free. But since Anet didn't put a daily/weekly/monthly time limit on accounts, would mean that the middle of the road PvEers (such as myself) and the hard-core PvPers are just as welcome to play the game with the same $50 we paid as did the casual player.

I'll hazard a guess that the top PvPers have put in as much, if not more time, in GW than the hardest core PvEer. The fact that Anet has set a precedent by improving PvP only play, and looks to expand it in Factions would make it seem that they are trying to placate that portion of the gaming audience. Thus far, it looks like the two ends of the spectrum have been catered to more so than the middle of the road crowd, which I suspect, makes up the bulk of the gamers out there. I really have yet to see any viable excuse for why us middle of the roaders have been given the short shrift up to this point.

BTW, I continue to re-play Morrowind as oftern as I can. I have sort of left it by the wayside temporarily in favor of exploring GW, and replaying the original Wizardry games - still on the good old 5.25" floppy disk, no less!

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

PS:
Thinking more upon it, I might be missing something fundamental, but it seems that the current situation would encourage abuse and unbalance simply from the fact that players are free to purchase as many accounts as they want. With two accounts, players can have an increased amount of storage and characters over those who have only one account, wheither they merge the two chapters or not. They can also put the time in to unlock all skills, mods, etc. on both accounts, so end up with 8 fully decked out characters. I don't think any of us arguing this point is looking to cheat or purposefully unbalance the game, but those that are, can do so freely, leaving the rest of us with the choice of either being at a disadvantage, or buying an additional account to do the same thing.

In my mind, that makes Anet hypocritical - on the one hand, we are denied certain things based on the excuse of balance of game play, yet there's nothing stopping us from paying to get around that limitation. In effect Anet is saying - "As long as you pay for the priviledge, you can get all the advantage over the other players that you want."

That kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I for one would be much happier with the same number of slots as there are primarys, I've felt restricted by 4 slots and 6 primes for a long time now. I simply will not buy a second account though, I only have so much money to spend on this.

So I hope Anet reconsiders their decision to have fewer slots then primary classes.

I suspect that the real reason for limiting the slots is to make GW less desirable for account sharring, which goes on to much now anyway.

couldn't have said it better.

I don't get why ppl are complaining because we want more character slots. Well if you got enough character slots because you play not as much as us or enjoy the game different then us so be it.
I pay 50 euros for prophecies, 50 euros for factions, I do want a game where I can play the full 100% of this and imo that means that I can play all professions, not 4/6 not 6/8 I want to play 8/8 without deleting a single one.

Buying another account is just ridiculous... cmn since when do you need to buy 2 accounts, just so you can play the game a 100%.

About those balancing issues Thom, there is alot of BS in your post, but I am not going to start discussing all those points.

I love GuildWars and I will buy factions no doubt about that, BUT that doesn't mean I can't complain about things wich I want to see changed in the game (and I am not the only one here)

If they add slots so you got for every profession 1, then everybody is happy no? Why would any of you not like it to have 8 slots????

i can understand that sharing accounts between people that are just mates and dont constitute as a household is bad...i mean, if you have 2 mates, one that works days, and one thats on the nightshift, i can se a set of characters being on almost 24/7 ish if they swapped around who was using them ect (saw it on Soma, they called them Multis, as in multi user chars)

but how can a family sharing one character per person be seen as bad? i mean, so long as theres only one pc in the house that has the copy of GW installed on it, since only one person can be using an account at a time, why would that be bad?

as to the topic at hand...
yes, i have noticed that 99% of the patches ect seem to be about balance issues just for the pvp side, leaving out sorrows furnace and the holiday temporary updates, i dont recall many skills that were being balanced bacause they were busted in PvE, only when busted in pvp...
i say again, SURELY there MUST be a way to simply balance these skills in ONLY the pvp environment!

most people would consider me a casual gamer, simply because i do not play the same game every day...sometimes, i dont even play once a week on a game, this is the main reason i like GW, that i can just trot back to it and not be slapped with a *your account has run out of subscription time, please purchase some more* sigh when i enter the game...it dosent matter if bugge off for a week or month and then come back, its almost the same as i left it, barring patches.

i want them to continue to update and expand the game, be it with these stand alone games or simple add on packs..even the trick of linking accounts is not that big a problem...
but limiting the slots to 6 on linked accounts when there are 8 proffesions to play is not, on the whole, a sensible thing to do.
by giving the public, no the CUSTOMER what they want in this one instance, they will build an even larger loyal fan base...
'whoa, look, the LISTENED!'

i want the game to be the best it can be, as itself...
not the best it can be to ALL people...which means it is trying to be like somehtng else...

Just be yourself, GuildWars, and some of us will love you just the way you are...

This is ridiculous that they are having 6 character slots when you install the original and the expansion together, but if you install them separately there are 8 slots. I'll probably be one of the people who will install them separately. Tis better to have the 8 slots than be able to move your (fewer) characters between worlds.

i think it would make more sense to have one char slot for each kind or char so you can have one of each primary so 6 in total and 8 when factions comes out.....not that it matters much for me since i still got 2 slots left over n' prolly wont make nething with um for a while

I'll repeat what I said earlier:

I can only guess that the limitation of 6 linked slots is a design issue.

Whether it's for game balance, as some suggested, or to encourage people to choose professions carefully, I can only guess.

One thing for sure, though:

I've read arguments that suggest this move will encourage people to make Assassin and Ritualist characters. I suggest the opposite: People who decide to link accounts must choose to either pick a new class, or try one of the old ones. So, my guess is this move will result in less assassin and ritualist primaries, not more.

For example, I'll be making an Assassin Secondary but not primary, because I still want to make a Ranger and Necro primary.

In the end, only time will tell if this was a wise decision for Anet or not.

*sigh*

IMHO if (and it is a very big if) Anet wanted to correct the slots vs primary discrepancy - which a lot of your were seeming to hope for in Factions - they wouldn't do it with an expansion/new chapter. Why? Precident. If they gave us four now, we would expect four later and they WOULD loose customers over this.

I really don't want to counter anyones arguments, but I've seen people again and again say that there is "no reason" for slot limitation. I have laid out several related arguments for why this could be (please search this thread of details). This is my general feeling from reading the testing forums during development and my time in the community (on the Guild Hall and now here since Feb 2004). I'm not speaking for anyone, but providing a point of view. You may think the reasons are stupid, but they are the best I can come up with.

1) We agree that there is no real cost to supplying more spots. This doesn't mean that there isn't financial incentive. Cost is only half of what determines profit, revenue being the other half.

2)I really don't buy any "experiencing levelling" arguments. Levelling is incredibly boring. One of the flaws of prophecies design is that they implimented the pre-sear last (as far as I know), so the level design and art is much better in pre searing than many other parts of the game. If they can focus more content at the back of the game, we won't feel the need to level 5 characters through pre searing equivalent.

3)Many of your very casual players still have professions to unlock. You will get a bit of Assassin swamping, but it should be no worse than the uneveness of distribution currently in gw. Everyone will want to unlock the extra skills for existing characters as much or more than the new classes. My monk will likely finish getting skills before I seriously start my ritualist (because for PvP have the monk fully unlocked is priority). We all need to unlock 300 skills and only slightly half of them are As or Ri. There will be imbalancance but you overstate the problem. It will be self correcting if one class is in demand (monks, wars, eles, necros).

Obviously slots are limiting. I feel that it is intentional and calculated, but doesn't largely reduce the enjoyment of the game for you casual gamers.

"Balance" the advantages and disadvantages of linking or not linking the accounts?

What is this a homework assignment, now?

Before I start, this is my opinion. Don't be offended.
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Considering Ranger males look like they need serious hair trimming, ritualists look like they got armor from a jewelry trash can, and mesmer males look like riverdancing ballroom dancers, 6 slots isn't such a big deal since I won't be using 3 of the 8 professions as primaries. The only reason why monk is good is because of divine favor, or ritualists would outheal them. The only reason t play warrior is because of armor and absorption. Their skills are basically +damage and some conditions/buffs. Not much tactics there (ironic isn't it).

BESIDES, who play all 6 professions as primary and has enough time to devote to them (unless you play about 8 hours a day). It is better to have 2 or 3 primaries with all secondaries to have all primaries with only half the skills you need.

I would only bother playing E, N, Mo, A, W.

On a side note, I'm glad it is 6. I thought it was 5 originally beause they need to maintain data storage and server bandwidth. Finally get to make a MONK.

I HAVE AN ACTUAL ANSWER

Anet/NCsoft has a financial reason for doing it this way and it involves a cost to them that they are not willing to assume at this time.

since they have not published this little fact you may wonder how i know it.

THINK ABOUT IT

if they could make everybody complaining about not getting 4 slots plus a pvp template gallery slot happy by doing it without any additional (or insignificant) cost to them and make more sales they would be fools not to do it.

THEY HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF NOT BEING FOOLS

they have not posted the problems involved because they dont pass that internal finincial information out where the competitors can review it but there is a cost which we are not seeing that they (Anet/NCsoft) do see

actually, its 6x100, and 8x50 but if we bought both games....and linked, we should get the bonus of 8x100....this makes me very mad.

well obviously....if they restrict our character space, we have to buy more accounts....which is more money for them....which is greed, but i can condradict myself...

This is one of the only MMO that has NO monthy fee....Take into considerations....

People playing WoW pay 15$ a month....we pay 0. After about 4 months of WoW, thats 60$....thats enough for an account. And i dont know about you, but ive been playing GW for well more than 4 months...but i havent bought more than account, Although with the money that i have saved by not playing WoW, i could afford to buy a new GW account, thus Anet is trying to make up for what could have been a monthy fee.

He said it.


Sorry, but if I'm paying the same amount for a game as I did for it's prequel (part of the same whole, in your own words ANet), it should stand to reason that I should get the same amount of slots, regardless of any option to merge the accounts! You're cheating us out of two slots by having us pay them as homage to being able to access the rest of the whole of our game. If Guild Wars is a giant single story, then all characters should be able to access all parts. This pennance for being able to use former characters and already unlocked skills is rediculous and appauling.

Someone else before me in the thread said the #1 rule for marketing is to keep your existing customers happy.
And I tell you, I'm not happy to be shorthanded half an account. Yes, it's half an account, I may as well give you guys $25.00 instead of $50.00 for all the gameplay I'll miss out on.

ArenaNet makes up for the lack of fees because GW is, in their words, NOT an MMORPG. As such, GW is much cheaper to maintain. The insular combat instances take much less server load (and I'll bet a lot of the data transfer is peer-to-peer) than one seamless world with thousands of player charcaters. There are no salaried GMs milling about helping people. The only areas with dozens of players are towns and outposts, and they are relatively small, and are thus essntially as 3D lobbies with shopping/trading.

ArenaNet designed it this way and that is why GW is affordable to maintain with no fees. This is why Blizzard's BattleNet is free for users. Thankfully, this design comes with advantages: no server entry queues, no waiting in line for quests, fewer leech players, etc. Players have the choice to buy 2nd accounts, they should not feel pressured to do so by making them feel jipped by having fewer character slots.

Sigh. Factions is not "cheating" you out of anything. Factions offers 2 slots (if merged) and two professions. You want 4 slots for 2 professions? You want something extra.

If you were "cheated" at all, it was by the first Guild Wars (4 slots, 8 professions!). But with all the free updates, new quests, green items, etc., I can't see how anyone was "cheated" at all.

For the people who won't buy Factions because they want more slots, I'd like to hear how you plan on taking 4 characters, unlocking all their skills, getting all their items, and generally feel satisfied you have fullfilled the game... in six months (the time before the next Chapter).

Buy (or don't buy) Factions based on Factions. But don't blame Factions for your perceived failure of Prophecy.