Six character slots confirmed

your calculations are faulty from my perspective.

Factions is a full complete stand alone game with new territory game mechanics and things to do

think Baldurs Gate 1/2 where you could carry on your character or start fresh

a full new game with 4 slots to play it.

if you merge it you have 6 slots to play the new game and what you do with them is up to you.

you might carry over 4 2 or none of your characters and start fresh.

you can carry over 4 characters that you have lovingly nurtured for hundreds of hours into new adventures without losing a gold piece or item.

you have 2 additional slots to either try out the new professions or fill out the 6 core professions and look over chapter 3 introductions and take the 2 you most want from those to play. (8 slots by then)

if 2 slots is a deal breaker for you so be it and i honestly wish you would come back and let us know if you find the perfect (in your opinion) game

i will get OBLIVION as well as chapter 2 , and i have books on preorder as well (and not game guides)

Katari - excellent points, finally someone else besides myself has posted the actual math of the equation. However, the actual percentage for linked accounts may be lower depending on the amount of content that cannot be accessed from old characters vs. new.

A big example are the tutorial worlds for each chapter. With newly created characters on a linked account, we will be able to only play one of the tutorial worlds, so we're missing out on a whole bunch of quests and content based on what professions we create and which tutorial we have them start in.

Accurax and TSGold, you guys a little off in your figuring. I went through a several post debate a few pages ago with another poster who thinks that Anet is giving us gifts. Let's remember that we are paying for everything we have thus far gotten in GW - it was built into the price of the game. Just because we don't have to pay a monthly fee, does not make any of the updates or added content a "gift" or any other word you want to ascribe to it. All of this content was promised to us as part of the purchase price of the game, therefore we are entitled to it.

What wasn't included with the purchase price were six character slots. Though Anet said that they would consider upping the number of slots in a future update (not a future chapter, but an update), it was not a definate thing to be counted on, and not included with the purchase price. However, that did limit the amount of content from the game we could play. As Katari stated, and I have previously posted in this forum and a few others, we actually only got to play 67% of the game we paid for with Chapter One. If we keep Chapter Two separate, we will only be able to play 50% of the content. If we link Chapters, the max amount of content we can play is 75%, although this figure may actually be smaller, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

All we are asking of Anet is the ability to play 100% of the game that we paid for, and the opportunity to play 100% of Factions and all future chapters by increasing the number of character slots to match the number of primary professions they have created, and will create in the future. There is nothing unreasonable about that, nor are we asking for anything less than we deserve as paying, loyal customers.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

I, frankly, cannot think of one. The profits made on each copy sold should easily be able to cover the overhead of storing 4 characters on the servers. Joined accounts should benefit from 4 extra slots and not 2 because financing the required overhead is easily achieved. Moreover, the overhead of storing the bulk of core account info (email, key, password, unlocked features common to both chapters) has already been stored when we bought the first GW chapter. So there's no electronic or financial reason for them to only give us 2.

Also, consider that non-core class PvE characters (Assasins and Ritualists) can only be made *only* as Factions-born characters. We will not be able to make them in Prophecies or any further expansion. This means that, short of paying for new accounts, if we want to enjoy trying PvE with the distinct flavours of a primary Assassin, a secondary one, a primary Ritualist and a secondary one, we'll need to scrap some of our old PvE characters to do so. This cycle will only get worse as we buy and link new expansions with 2 new exclusive classes and only 2 extra slots each.

Finally the restriction to 2 slots will probably guarantee that we will be playing alongside a horde of players with either Assassin or Ritualist as a (most likely primary) class, if not both. This will lead to a serious lack of variety in parties formed, as linkers will not likely be playing the early parts of Factions with fresh, low-level characters that just have core classes. I suppose it's a good thing ritualists can heal, because the much-coveted monk primaries will be all the more scarce. Unfortunately, with the variety of play styles presented by the Ritualist, healing might not appeal to a significant number of players, so accessible health recovery could become a problem. Personally, having played a healer Monk, I'll be making a minion-centric Ritualist/Necromancer with one of my precious slots. No more healing for you! Come back one chapter!

Based on these points, I cannot view the denial of the full 4 slots to players who link both as anything but a slap in the face.

And to the private school bus user, no I am not Amercian, eh - not that there's anything wrong with that.

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They want money. They're a BUSINESS. That's what they DO.

well I already pointed out my point of view but I am still waiting for some1 of A.net to say something about this.

I am 100% sure they will lose atleast 10% of the customers just because they didn't give enough slots. (Couple of my friends won't buy it because of this)

and make the calculation: 0.1 * 1 million = 100.000 customers they lose just because they only gave us 2 slots.

100.000 * 50 euros = 5 million euros they lose (its an easy calculation i know they have alot more expenses etc... its just to point something out)

I will buy the game, just because I darn love it, but there are alot ppl who won't buy it anymore just because they can't play 100% of the game.

I want to play the game with every character without deleting 1, I already had to delete my ele

and buying another account... wtf ... thats ridiculous, I am in university its not that I am swimming in gold, and I don't got parents who pay everything for me either.

Maybe this is the time to show what you are made of A.net ppl who listen to their customers, or just plain simple ppl like the makers of other games.

Sure, I wanted more, but doesn't everyone?

It's all fine and good to pretend you don't, though. I won't mind.

If you care that much about how many character slots you get, look at it this way:

When we head six classes, we had four slots. That let us cover 67% of the game, if you judge it by class - that is, each pass through the game with a different character counts for as much as your first time. To me, that reasoning is a little questionable - if you don't agree, take a little trip to Beacon's Perch. Playing as a different class certainly adds something, but it doesn't double your game. Would you care to argue that GW:P was four games, since you could play it four times?

When we get Factions, we'll have six slots to pick and choose from eight professions. That's 75% if you keep the same reasoning. And you'd have to be really asinine not to.

I'm no mathologist, but my calculator says that 75% > 67%. I'd call that an improvement, no? People always want more, it's just human nature. But can't we be at least partially satisfied by getting SOMETHING?

i make note of small details here and there and as Alex said certain things are ambigious to keep people guessing.

in a frog/Gaile talk she made a specific statement on joined accounts.

if a warrior can be born either place there was no restriction mentioned on the new professions.

since i dont really want a mesmer i may try an assassin in presear ascalon.

remember the presear animosity is with Kryta not Cantha so just because we havent seen assassins/ritualists yet in presear doesnt mean they wont show up later.

same for Cantha featured asian e/w/r/mo/n/me characters as well

add a few a/rit quests in presear/post sear for a whole new experience

People clearly missed or ignored my posts that attempted to explain things. So here is a summary for all those saying "anet has no reason":

1)Guild Wars is targeted at casual gamers. 100 hours of pve is sufficient for most casual gamers.

2)Anet makes its profit from keeping the game interesting for casual gamers, so anything that gives a huge advantage to the 300+ hour crowd will never be good for guild wars business.

3)Having 8 character slots as the norm is going to give a significant advantage to people with the time to build 8 characters. This is due to several things (space, more weapons access, easier trend conformity...), but it is enough to say if we are arguing this passionately about it, there must be some advantage.

4)Linking will be open to abuse. Abuse kills MMO's.

5)Any abuse proof linking will be of the 100+100=175 form, not 100+100=225. You won't like it if they allow it.

6)Linking abuse will cause headaches for the consumer side of things. Which is more costs for NC.

7)Linking won't necessarily be all positive for Anet. You will get many people buying another copy and many quitting guild wars because they no longer see it as a cheap/casual gaming option.

--I'm not 100% all decisions, but people keep asking for an explanation so I keep typing mine. Guild wars isn't a hardcore MMORPG. It is a fun diversion for hardcore gamers and a solid PvP environment. I for one am here to avoid Evercrack, but there are more PvE friendly games for those wanting greater content and options.

EDIT:
8)Of course this is about making money. Anet wants a bit more from high usage costumer for obvious reasons, so 2 accounts will always be needed for "full" access. Casual players will always have access to PvP relevant content using the alotted number of slots (that is skills and quests).

Couldn't have said it better myself.

If they fully support the Assassin and Ritualist classes in Prophecies and future campaigns, then that'll be fantastic and we can gripe a little less. Unfortunatley most ArenaNet announcements seem to imply against that, what with their declarations that these classes will be exclusive to purchasing Factions, as well as their statements that all 6 core classes will be featured in each new campaign. Supporting all prefessions in all campaigns will require a lot of designer overhead and It'll take a full complement of skill-providing quests to support a new class in equal proportion to the core ones, not just "a few". I'm not saying it's not going to happen, it just that it won't come cheap for ArenaNet developers.

Raven, are you looking for a give away? Freeware is all over the net.

Please do not misunderstand. I do not expect ArenaNet to give us Assassin or Ritualist content in all campaigns. As I said in the above post, it would be a huge, expensive overhead to finance. It would we a cool offset to the lack of slots, that's all.

I go back to my point in my original post that this wouldn't be an issue if a linked account had all 8 slots.

here is the hopeful part.

even though you have to purchase Factions to get access to A/Rit it says that the characters will have full access to both worlds

surely they will have things for your Assasin to do otherwise all they could do is run around.

which goes with the statement that people who own both will be able to choose where the character they create will be born.

i can at least dream cant i

if it comes true i gain and if it doesnt i havent actually lost anything i expected to get

i would be pleased with 4 + 2 = 6 PvE slots (as it in currently) then perhaps a lil icon in the korner thats ONLY FOR PVP CHARATER. which you ONLY get 1.


[edit]
and i am more for more storage space than for more character slots, saying i have two gw's already. but im still contemplating if i should go purchase myself two expansions or just have one account with it. :|

You're trying to tell me the primary goal of any business is denying the customer services he wants? You know, here in Germany businesses often try to adapt to the customers to make them come back, so I am kinda used to that

I agree completely with what you ahve written. Now, however, the thing that bothers me starts:

Yes. I get 2 additional slots by installing a game that offers 4. Not going further into that, just try to understand my POV, please

Planescape: Torment was (to my mind) near perfect. I urge everyone to play this game because I utterly love it to bits. Only thing missing is a Multiplayer. Also Master of Orion 2 had no part that bugged me.

That is no reason. Telling me that playing the game for x hours is nothing at all, not even an excuse...

OK, I can kind of follow you there. But how can it be an advantage to somebody if everybody had 2 more character slots? The playing field is still level, right?

Any character out of Pre can be used as a mule, so your space argument is void. More weapons access? Like, uh, how? Everybody can tachnically find the same weapons. Trend conformity - can't accept that one either. Who cares what I play in PVE and PVP characters can be redone whenever you like because they are ready "out of the box".

I suppose you're talking about linking two Prophecies accounts, not Prophecies and Factions. OK, I agree. It's no reason not to add slots though.

I don't actually get what you're trying to tell me, but after years of study I can confirm that 100+100 equals 200.

OK, no linking. I see your argument.

"I have the option to add another account, I better quit"? I severely doubt that.

I have the feeling that your argument is "The game was not programmed for you".

If that was the reason ANet would probably allow you to add serials to your existing account. Two accounts have severe and obvious drawbacks that have already been explained by FrogDevourer.

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The primary goal of any business is to MAKE MONEY. I totally just said that.

Arenanet is accomplishing this by giving us more character slots, but not -quite- the amount that most people would like to have--thereby creating an incentive for people to buy more accounts. This is a gamble, because Anet is hoping that the majority of people will follow this path--though I'm sure they're well aware that not everyone is going to do so, and not buy Factions at all. Odds are, however, that the majority will indeed follow the former path.

I have two Prophecies accounts. I fully intend on purchasing two copies of Factions to link with each of them, the day the game is released.

Yes, I know. But I still do not like the product they are offering. Also they make it unnecessarily hard to get more character slots.

Well, I'm not going to repeat myself again.

... It's like parts of my posts are invisible recently. What the hell.

Kakumei, we`re trying to say the same thing. If I may be allowed to quote myself:

The problem with people having a problem with this math (which includes Anet's fuzzy reasoning) is that it appears opponents to it count content as the explorable area of the game only. When I use the above math, my definition of content includes:
1) Explorable areas
2) Quests & Missions
3) Usable items (armor and weapons)
4) Character Stats & Skills
5) Game Play Strategy

The only thing that we get 100% of with four slots is the explorable area. Everything else has primary profession limits, therefore limiting the number of primary professions we can play (unless we delete the precious time we spent on previous professions), does not equate to 100% of the content being playable. None of my characters from Chapter One will be able to explore the tutorial world in Chap Two - a whole bunch of content I am missing, and will only have two chances to play with the two new slots. Using those two slots for Factions characters will not allow those characters to explore the tutorial of Chap One. So either way, there is even more content being missed, which in effect lowers that 75% for linked accounts back down to 67%, if not lower.

I've said before, I don't begrudge Anet their money, and in the short term, the business model makes sense if you break down the cost of an account into a montly cycle, we are saving money, even with two accounts. but referring to one of my earlier posts in this thread, Anet will now have to raise the standards bar with every chapter they release because consumer expectations with be higher with each chapter. If they want to continue to succeed in this market, they will at some point, have to give us enough character slots to match the number of primary professions.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace