Six character slots confirmed

Even though most of the posts were retard flames and bitching between people, it should be obvious to Anet that people generally AREN'T HAPPY getting 6 when they link. Polls aren't very accurate because of course people are excited about factions, but if anet takes a poll once factions has been out for a while and sees how many people feel they got screwed out of 2 slots, they'd know to be more careful when they release the 3rd chapter.

1. You're not being screwed out of any slots. See above post.

2. You're spending $50 on a game with only 2 professions, when the original had 8. Logically, shouldn't that be a bigger complaint?

Hmmm...I find this very troubling news...
6 combined character slots...well...
**Let's forget about our access to new professions for second.**
If following assumption is true, then I'm really worried.

Assumption: People who only purchased standalone factions may have access to core profession skills, but not core professions.
Which means...for example, you can have monk skill like orison of healing...but you cannot become a "primary monk".

If we think of our ""storage space""...this is very troubling.
People who only purchased the faction will have one full storage space per area.
But for people who are combining will have half storage space per area
Area meaning new explorable area.

For easier understanding, I'll lay out few troubling examples.
-Faction only people: Plays faction area, and found a good looking armour(expansive). S/he decides to purchase one. That's cool. 4 storage space used to store faction armour(s).

-Combined people: Invested alot of time and gold to purchase armours in core area. Plus, upgraded his/her armour with expansive runes. Furthermore s/he has two sets of armours to meet different needs(like going full protection runes or full healing runes). 8 storage space used. Plays faction area and want to purchase exotic armour. 4 storage space used. Totals 12 storage slots just for armour alone...
I'm pretty sure casual players simply don't want to delete 15k armour and other expansive stuff from core area just to accomomdate new ones.
Then what was the value of his/her time to earn 15k gold(in armour alone)?

So to wrap this up..
Faction = 1 full storage/area
Combine(core+faction) = 0.5 storage/area
Storage availability will continue to decrease as new expansions come out.

I may be ok with 6 professions for now...but I really hope to hear more detailed solution about players' storage availiability which I'm not ok with right now.
Just a thought.

Maybe the point is not to collect every piece of armor for every class...

just a thought.

You are missing the point...
Even you only purchase 1 armour set per expansion, someday, you will run out of storage space with further expansions. And remember, we are only considering armour for simplicity. With items and stuff...it is inevitable situation.

If you're serious about that assumption, then rest easy. ArenaNet was quite clear that the 6 core professions will be fully availble and fully suppported in all chapters. So yes, Factions-only owners can create characters with a primary profession of (E / Me / Mo / N / R / W). Nobody's stopping you from creating Factions PvE characters that have neither of the Factions-exclusive classes.

However, I suggest you do take at least one as a profession, since Factions may likely be the only campaign with full support for raising an Assassin or Ritualist. I don't see them tacking on an extra 2 professions' worth of skill-giving quests, weapons/foci, and bosses with capturable Elites. It would take forever to design and implement, dilute gameplay and make the exclusivity of these classes lose meaning. Again, damn the limit on extra slots! *grumble grumble*

2. No, the origonal had 6. The GW:P might as well have had four classes. Factions currently might as well add two, since both should add the same amount of game, I do see this as a problem. Since when has a game considered it something special to give your old characters acess to the expansion? I can't think of any that barred old characters from acess to the expansion. So why then, are we being forced to pay (loosing two slots) for a privilege that is universaly assumed?

If a game wants to be gimicky and require two purchases to get the full game (I can think of some gameboy games that did this) then I'd like to be told so in advance.

So many companies offer some sort of deal if you buy more from then. I find it oddly disturbing that GW is doing the inverse. 4+4=6?

Just think of it as supporing Arena.net, they could charge monthly fees, like many games do, but they don't, so they rely on their expansions for money to support the game.

first off,

@mordaki,

While I admire your pro Anet stance and how right they are about factions. And how we have truly got the wrong attiude, gosh, zowie, darn *holds out wrist to be slapped*. And just because we dont like the character slot limit.

oh wait. full game price for 2 character slots .. twitch..

sorry i feel a bit cheated regardless of all the arguing for free game etc etc. What about the people who invested in the original game, are we to be penalised with only 2 slots, oh and the argument of 'well dont link' doesnt cut it.
To be competitive and retain all the unlocked skills etc i need to merge the accounts. If i was offered 3 slots i'd be happy - covers the pvp, 1 slot for asn, 1 slot for rit. And it would show Anet had a bit more concern for its original pbase and not for all the new people.
Now i dont care how gung ho people are for 2 slots only, and how wonderful Anet is. Myself and many people feel let down by Anet and quite frankly the odd rant to let it all out is healthier than the usual carebear gushings.

perfect post

Chap 2 is interesting.

If you buy it alone, it is a stand alone game, because you have a fresh account with no data.

If you merge it, it becomes an expansion, because you are still using your old characters.

People are annoyed because they feel that they will be paying for those 4 new slots and being denied it and only given access to 2 new slots.

But in reality, if you merge it, you ALREADY used up your 4 new slots with your 4 existing characters (or 3 + 1 pvp with some of us).

Before everything was cleared up, this was the issue i worried about the most. Because of the whole "merging" and access to both contents idea, i assumed that existing accounts would get 1 new slot at most.

No, you're paying full game price (~$50) for either four/two character slots (depending on whether you link or not) and content equal to or greater than what was found in Prophecies.

Yep. You're getting screwed.

Whoops, my mistake on the 8 vs 6 Professions.

While my math was wrong, my point is still valid:

The slots in Factions is not the problem. The slots in the Orginal Guild Wars is.

For those not buying Factions b/c of the slots, obviously, that's your choice.

Just realize that logically, complaining about 2 slots for $50 seems trivial when Factions only has 1/3 the Professions of the original Guild Wars (2 profs. vs the original 6).

So, why isn't there any great outrage about that? Surely, that's a bigger "content" issue, is it not?

Also, does anyone here think they did not get their money's worth on the Original Guild Wars?

This is a strange way of looking at it. The four slots I have already paid for a suddenly new because I merged the Expansion with it?
I have bought GW which offers four slots. I buy the next chapter that has 4 slots and two new professions. However, if I want to actually use it as an expansion, I only get 2 slots.
So I get 2 slots while other people get 4 slots. There are no new 4 slots, there are not 6 slots, there are just 2 slots for the returning customer.

Right! And ANet blew their chance to remedy the problem and make a lot of people happy with the strange policy about slots on the expansion.

Because generally Factions is seen as an expansion, not a standalone game, despite what ANet tries to propagate.
By the way, Factions has 8 classes, the 6 core classes and the two new ones...

I think I did get my money's worth, no doubt. I had a lot of fun with the game and I thought the little quirks and problems I have with it would be corrected in the expansion. They won't so I won't buy any more.

There are 4 slots if you install separately, 2 if you merge. It's your choice.




Factions only has two new Professions. Period. That's less than Prophecy, yet no one is complaining about that. Why not? B/c, as you yourself say, it's considered an expansion by those merging accounts.

So, less Professions, less slots if you merge. It logically makes sense.


And that's your right.

i posted in the first month after release that i had already gotten my moneys worth of fun and that anything after that was icing on the cake.

lots and lots of icing as it turns out.

THIS IS IMPORTANT

to those saying greed is the cause step back for a moment and think.

WOW has possibly 60-75 MILLION DOLLARS coming in every month ON TOP of the purchase price of the game

we have no idea of what Anets actual expences are against sales income.

what poeple see as greed may in fact be the difference between profit and loss

until you have seen actually certified books for income taxes nobody (including me) knows if they are operating at a startup loss which will become profitable in the future or rolling in cash like uncle Scrooge

i can say that startup costs can be brutal

greed? or survival?

Actually, I read that WoW topped the 6 million subscriber mark.

If 6 million people are paying $15 a month, that's 90 million a month.

It's no wonder there are (at least) 67 MMORPGS either out or in development...

here is your mistake

it is not an expansion even though you (and others) keep treating it as one.

if i purchase Factions i get a full, complete game and have 4 slots to play it with.

no quick short change expansion but a full game of content

you are given the opportunity to do 2 things

continue the adventure you started by combining your accounts and having 6 slots or playing Factions as a separate stand alone game with 4 slots

if you combine them and have 4 long term treasured characters you can play them through the whole new games content PLUS start 2 new characters as well or you can delete as many as you want and have up to 6 new slots to play the game

there is no problem to remedy as that is how the game was set upfrom the start and after FIVE FULL YEARS of making the game they still decided on 4 slots

it was not a coin filp last minute decision

and that is your perception which is shown above to not be correct.

no expansion gives a full content stand along game.

Baldurs gate 2 had a full game but continued the story

it was not called an expansion and Factions giving a full standalone game is not an expansion either


i am glad you enjoyed chapter one and as for chapter two that is your right and i wish you good luck on your next game

Right! And I don't know why I should only get 2 slots if the game was definitely calculated with 4! That is the whole problem I have with it

Plese reread what I posted. I don't want four slots to make two As and two RIs. I was hoping for the expansion to remedy one of the biggest problems of the first game and have been disappointed.
(And by the way, you did not speak of new classes in your last post, so I assumed you thought there would only be two classes available )

Still, I would rather buy the new expansion.... if they made a little change to it


Loviatar, it would be incredibly stupid to calculate that way. If ANet needed to sell more than one copy of the game to each customer just to break even this business venture would never have started in the first place.

Argh, Loviatar ninja'd a post in! Editing right now

I can expand the game I have already I have already bought by adding Factions. You could call it Stand-Alone, Stand-Along or wibble, it won't change the fact that it [I]was programmed to expand the story of the first game.[/]

Let me reiterate it once again: I have paid for a game that offers four character slots. I only get two if I am a returning customer. WHY?
You don't need to tell me what I get and pretend it's an argument.

So, just because it was developed over the course of several years the game cannot be flawed? How come there are patches? Surely the skills are all great and dandy the way they were in 1.0, after all it has been developed for a long time?
(Also, think about how long Daikatana was in development - and what we finally got)



Expands the game therefore is an expansion. Or a wibble.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar no expansion gives a full content stand along game.

The Painkiller Expansion does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar it was not called an expansion and Factions giving a full standalone game is not an expansion either

If it is a standalone game, then why does it continue the story and can link to your first game?

You and I just disagree on this point: Factions, when merged, was not "calculated" to add 4 slots. If anything, there was talk of only having ONE extra slot for merged accounts, but that quickly was replaced with "not yet determined", and now this confirmation from Gaile that there will be two slots.

There might be technical reasons Anet decided Factions won't have 4 slots when merged, it could be a design decision only, it could be economic. Bottom line, we don't know the reasons.

Loviatar, it doesn't matter what you call it. Popular perception will decide what it really is. That's how the world works. If I publish a book, and tape a fork to the cover, I'm not going to be very succesful convincing people it's fork.

They want to sell a product that can be a stand-alone game, so they can sell it to new players. The catch is, one million existing costumers (minus a handful that for some reason choses to buy the fork that can be read as a book) look upon it as an expansion. They want to link their games and have a bigger single game. An expanded game. They're not buying a stand-alone game, they're buying an expansion, regardless of ANet's marketing people. If they're saying it's not an expansion, they're wrong about their own damn game.

Can we just agree that for people linking to Prophecy, Factions is an expansion, for those installing it by itself, Factions is a stand-alone game.

In other words, it's both, depending how you install it.

and does anybody realize how few people are going to skip Factions because of this?

take GWonline which makes this site look like a rabid fanboi site and even there most of the people will buy Factions according to multiple polls

fansites are visited by only a tiny fraction of the players as they are playing the game.

few of those who visit ever post.

even fewer of those will post regularly.

even on this thread you can cull out 80% of the posts as more than a single post and not all of them are complaints.

this thread is tiny compared to the UAS outburst and the number of leavers will be tiny compared to the leavers over UAS/MORE LEVELS people

The point has to be made though.

Im going with 6... you guys know there are new elites and new armors right? it would be dumb to have separate accounts if you already own gw

That whole post of yours is just a pointless observation. People post on forums to express their individual opinions. They're not less valuable because a silent majority is assumed to be apathetic to them. Post on! Let the criticisms flow, we need to speak up for the silent masses!

not so

the point has already beem made here and on other sites.

most people are ranging from very happy to get 1 slot for each new profession to i dont like it but the game is so good i will get (grudgingly) chapter 2.

there is no huge silent majority on this issue or a lot more would be posting on it.

a tiny fraction of 1 % would have flooded the forums (which it hasnt)

EHHHH? There's no silent majority because the majority is silent?

Only time will tell how this decision will effect sales.

If I had to guess, though, I would guess it will not effect sales much as all.

As I've said, if you're buying Factions as an expansion, you already expect less Professions than you got in Prophecy. Less slots is a logical extension of that.

I would aso guess that depending on the initial reaction to Factions will determine whether more people buy it or not. People currently planning on not buying it could change their minds, and vice versa.

But to put the numbers in perspective:

Over 1 million Guild Wars players. This site has 61,819 members.

That's around 6% of total Guild Wars players, not an insignificant amount, but by no means a majority!

The polls in various fan sites indicate that it is not an insignifigant percentage. Oh, this thread is tiny compaired to the outbursts following the Pront Bond nerf, and the AoE nerf. Do you think that makes them any more valid?

Oh, and if Factions did add four slots when merged, then it would in effect, add four new classes. One of the few ways A.Net has to tell when someone has purchased both GW:F and GW:P is by seeing what accounts get merged. In effect, they are penalizing us for doing so, buy reducing our character slots. Access to the 'expansion' areas is a trival feature, and one that in all cases that I can think of, is assumed to be a given.

Four slots with acess to each part.
Six slots to access to full game. Ok, so where did they go? Well, they were sacrificed so we could have acess to the full game with the rest.
But access to the expansion is a given?
Then they were removed for...?

Yes, I am considering it an expansion here, because thats what people who own GW:P consider it to be. It's not relevent if someone bought the games in the other order, because to a GW:F owner, GW:P would be viewed as an expansion.

Well, it's gotta be for fininacal reasons, and not the sort that will make players look favorably on A.Net. If there were some sort of crazy-hidden-cost, I feel A.Net would have said so. There is a lot of discontent here, and a simple post could difuse it. But no, I think the limitation is there to intice people to buy more than one account. I'd wadger the percent of players with two accounts is a tiny minority, and certainly very few of them are 'casual' players. If this is targeted at more 'hardcore' PvE players, why not sell character slots? They're the same sort of people who would be intersted in paying more for the game, so let them. I'd wadger theres a ton of people who want more slots, would pay for them, but consider a second account a poor option.

Again, I'm promoting the idea of selling slots, because I don't think it would be wise for A.Net to go back on what they promised for GW:F. It would not look good for them to change the product description when pre-orders are already out. So I don't feel they can safely go back on their word, but adding the option to buy slots would be another matter.

it only counts if people refuse to buy and that particular reason is the cause of not buying.

since this has been bounced back and forth i think we can see past each other until the cows come home.

what will actually decide things will be sales figures and all of us will have to wait to see how it turns out. (since my chrystal ball is foggy)
i will happily buy it and you will not buy it.

at least we agree on something

Yes, we should have got one slot for every primary profession.

Flawed logic. These are not scientific polls, and may or may not represent the views of the million plus Guild Wars players.

Technically, they are NOT reducing our slots, they are expanding them by two. There's no way to currently get more than 6 slots on a single account.

I do see your point that adding more slots would, in essence, give people more Professions.

Hmm. Well, that's possible, but it could also be a design decision or unknown technical reason. I agree a simple post on GW's website would certainly help clear the mystery.

Well, here, I'd have to disagree. If Anet, for whatever reason, suddenly gave us 4 character slots (BEFORE the game is released) even with linked accounts, I don't see why anybody would complain. I wouldn't complain about getting more slots, even though I probably wouldn't even use them... except maybe to store PvP templates or something.

Now if Anet gave people 4 slots for merging after some people already installed the game separately... well, that would piss those people off good and proper!

actually they would not.

why give the competition an advance look at a problem you have discovered.

also if the cost was negligable or zero they would simply dish out the slots to avoid all this

there is a cost that we dont know about and they are not willing to post it for the competition to read about.

or they are willing to risk return sales for no reason except they flipped a coin and said 2 merged slots.

Expanding them by two, but you paid for eight. Since each account seperatly has four. Being able to move characters between content is generaly considered a given, so why then do we loose two character slots for this 'advantage'?

Yeah, that would be bad, very bad. I wasn't suggesting that either. I was suggesting they start selling additional slots after Factions is out.

The 'cost' would be the loss of sales due to people buying fewer double copies. But an insignifigant amount of people do this anyway. Certainly not the 'casual' players.

Lovitar, the enter key does not replace periods. )

By this logic, Factions should have 8 new professions as well.

There's really two different products for sale:

One is Factions, the stand alone game. It has 8 Professions, and 4 slots.

The other is Factions, the expansion. It has 8 Professions, and 6 slots when linked.


What are you trying to say? That Anet will actually make more money by limiting the slots? How many people do you think will actually buy more versions for the slots alone (unlinked)?

If I was more into Conspiracies, I would say this all plays into the rumor that the CE will give a bonus slot. I don't believe the rumor, but it would be nice if it were true.

I read the majority of the posts, I see a lot of people feel they are getting cheated while others are ok with the idea of six slots for linking. Others are figuring cost vs storage on severs which is a small part of an over all cost. There are costs that everyone takes for granted.

For one dose Anet rent servers or do they buy their own, and they have to rent or buy extra storage because they need a redundancy back up just incase a drive fails all your stuff isn’t lost. Then you have bandwidth well if a T1 ling costs $1,500 (T1 - 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines) and an OC3 line can cost anywhere from $20,000-$45,000 a month, which I don’t think they will be running they would be running a OC192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s) for the mass amount of data which is a very large sum.

Then you have the cost of the building and everything that goes with it, computers to make the game and of course software. The people who make the game need to be paid plus there are a few other things too. All that to bring you a game for a one time cost of the game with no monthly fee to play. And you still feel you are not getting what you paid for.

There was no guarantee that you would get a total of eight slots for linking this was widely discussed, and all the while that everyone knew that it was going to be a stand-alone game. Chapter 3 will be the same you want twelve slots for linking all three games.

NO!!! yall dont realize how little space is used to store char data!!! Trust me i work in IT. --there is more data in this post.

Server/bandwidth money is a non issue! its about being able to play the game we pay for. the Box suggests that you can play over 30 diffrent char types however you only get 4 (and really there are only exactly 30 diffrent char types) -- im sorry but this is just sad. i have been hoping that this would improve... however it looks like this game will forever be short 3 char slots (1 for pvp + 2 for the other primary char classes)

man you as a minister, geez you should know it is a FULL game, GW:F isn't an expansion at all, it will cost 50 euros and I don't call that a price for an expansion !! Its a full new game.

actually the problem is not that 2 slots is not enough for GW:F the problem is that 4 slots isn't enough for having 6 professions, it isn't fair either that ppl who just buy the game as a standalone get 4 slots.

another time I want to play the game in MY way and thats playing all primary profesions, and I am not the only one... why would you argue against ppl who want more character slots... geez

If we had enough character slots, there would be less of a reason to buy another account. Much less of a reason, because thats what the majority of people buy a second account for. Yes that's what I'm saying. Untill they say otherwise I will continue to think it is a ploy to get people to buy more copies of GW.

The reason A.net is giving for 4+4=6 is that those six can access both GW:P and GW:F. So that means we loose two slots so we can gain full acess for the rest of out characters.

So it's 4+4=6+Full access. The issue I have with this logic is that full access is considered a given in almost every game. Those two slots are a 'fee' that you pay to get full access on all of your other characters. Why are we even paying a fee for full access in the first place?

[QUOTE=Mordakai]
As I've said, if you're buying Factions as an expansion, you already expect less Professions than you got in Prophecy. Less slots is a logical extension of that.[quote]
It is an expansion, but it's an expensive espansion that adds nearly as much as the full game did. If Factions cost the amount a normal expansion did, I could deal with it, maybe. But for $50USD I want a little more than the regular expansion offers. Less slots for less money, full price, full slots. Simple.

Factions only adds two new professions, yet if it offered four slots upon merging, it would still allow me to have four new characters, without repeating a class.