Six character slots confirmed

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.