new Jeff Strain Interview on mmog.onlinewelten.com

http://mmog.onlinewelten.com/index.p...e=3#contentbox

Good stuff in there, weaponsmiths for Guild Halls, etc.

I have a mixed feeling about Jeff confirming that not everybody will have access to alliance restricted content. On the one hand it's the feeling of missing out on something i have paid for, on the other hand it's the current stale pve that could be kept fresh by this 'raid like' battles. I just hope that no mega alliances will keep places occupied forever.

In addition, guilds will be able to buy services for their guild halls, including:
Xunlai Agent
Dye Trader
Crafting Material Trader
Rare Material Trader
Rune Trader
Scroll Trader
Skill Trainer
Priest of Balthazar
Merchant
Weaponsmith

Ah, perfect.

don't like that

that guild alliance thing rocks.. mabey we should get a confederation of Guild Wars Gruru Guilds... I CALL A SPOT FOR MY GUILD!!!!

Anyone here plays Lineage?

If u see, this kind of restrictions are applied on other games... NcSoft also distributes Lineage and in this game there's the "Seven Signs" war with 2 factions (Dawn and Dusk).

Whoever wins has access to special merchants, weapon upgrades, exclusive zones, etc.

If Dawn wins sun shines but if dusk wins the sky tints red O.0. Dawn-Dusk event cycles every week I believe.

On Lineage u have also 2 factions u can take side: Orcs or Silenos... u become fond with 1 of the factions by killing opposite side mobs and collecting medals from them... u then go to NPC of your faction and give them the medals of the enemies you hunted down, and they reward you for giving them a proof of allegiance to the cause and make you part of the Orc Faction (If u killed silenos) or Sileno Faction (If u killed orcs).

About the Guild Hall upgrades, it happens the same on Lineage: U have Guild Storage (Pretty sure they'll put it on), special crafters, etc.

Maybe Anet is using the same scheme here.... maybe they are "lineageizing" GW (Just a thought).

PS: U have nobility system and city garment on Lineage... maybe guilds with high rank will become "nobility" on GW?

To me, he is confirming that the elite areas are going to get held by the good players. But there are alot of good players, and theres only so many in a single alliance.

edit: but still, yea, no stuff for the other players

Skill trainer in Guild Hall does that mean we at lvl 3 in post seering can warp to guild hall and buy all skills?

Could someone please post some of the interview. I don't have access to the link here at work.

Thanks

This is exactly what most of the Guild Wars playerbase has been asking for though. A way to grind out something that not everyone can get. Part of this is that the better players will get access and deny you access if they can.

And boost farming and ebaying for items

LOL what does better players have to do with farming and ebaying? Nothing that's what.

So ... the leet, do nothing but play people will get more for their money and the casual players get .......?

here is the english version of our interview with jeff:

The release of Guild Wars: Factions will be in spring, can you tell us the exact date?
No i can´t, but what i can tell you is, that we will be locking that down very soon. People don´t have to wait to much longer to know exactly when this date is. The reason we say spring rather than september 16th is because it´s important for us to make sure that we are able to incoporate feedback. We have a big public event and a pvp-event we need time to incorporate any feedback that comes back out of that. We don´t announce a ship date until we are a 100% sure that we will meet it and are able to deliver the quality the gamers expect on the other side when we do announce a release date you can absolutly put it a bank.

Players will be able to enter Cantha, the world of "Guild Wars: Factions" in one of two ways: they may either start with a character that was "born" there and begins at level 1, or they may travel to the new continent with a mature, ascended character from the previous chapter. Both types of characters have very different needs concerning the difficulty of missions, quests, and explorable areas. How will this "conflict" in terms of varying strength between pre-ascension and post-ascension characters be solved?
Every campaigne will have a part that will satisfy the new charakters. So in Factions you can start a new character and that can be a ritualist or an assassine or it can be any of the original 6 professions from Guild Wars. If you create a new charakter in factions than you´ll go through the starter area in factions and this area is just for new charakters.

What, in general, is the relationship between alliances and factions - if there is any relationship at all? And, as to factions: will we be able to choose our side among Luxons and Kurzicks anew every time we start a mission, or is the faction a player belongs to determined by a single, one-time decision made at the beginning of a campaign?
You choose a faction by doing work for that faction, either the Kurzicks or the Luxons. As you do things for them you build up faction with that side. I think faction is a kind of favor, a measurement of favor and the more faction you build up with the one side, the less you get on the other. And at some point they will say hey you have been doing a great job you really worked hard do you want to join our side and you dont have to but you can.
If you change your mind and do it the other way and work for the other side, you are gonna have the difficulty because the other side doesn´t like you very much but you can do it.

Let us simulate the worst-case scenario: The best guilds of Guild Wars form an alliance with each other that is, undoubtedly, going to be very successful. Will members of other alliances have any chance at all to enter the areas controlled by such mega-alliances? Are there going to be any more disadvantages that members of the inferior alliances must expect to face?
You dont have to participate in that part of the game in order to fully enjoy all of the world playing content. The Factions and alliance speech is for players who wish to participate at that kind of level and I think that a lot of people really find that it is fun. People shouldn´t feel like if they don´t want to participate in that or if they are just a smaller guild who doesn´t want to join a larger guild to form a larger alliance than they are missing out any of the world content. That is not the case. It is true that the best alliance will have access to more cities but there is nothing in the elite missions that is going to finally put anybody into disadvantages. And you know, you have to have rewards and those people who work hard and win the rewards have to get benefits from them.
I certainly understand the statement I may not able to play on that level or not interesting in that and I think thats fine to but by the same token for those people who work hard and be competetive we have rewards.

What is the structure of an alliance going to be like? Will there be certain lead players or guilds?
An alliance takes on the name/emblem of its lead guild. Indeed, technically any guild not in an alliance is an alliance of one. The leader of the lead guild is the alliance leader. He can invite new guilds and kick out guilds that in the alliance. Guild leaders of member guilds can withdraw their guild from the alliance

What kind of faction rewards will players or guilds receive in the new PvP areas?
The biggest reward is the control of a city because controlling a city gives you access to the elite missions. That is the biggest reward for having high faction.

Will there be new tournament PvP types, too?
We are very actively adding support for new types of pvp-play and that will be refleted by new levels and tournaments but that is nothing I can comment right now. But what I can say is that the pvp aspect of the game is something on that is working right now and something that we are actively support through continue world championships, cash prices and also new play mechanics. I cannot put a time for that but it is coming...

"Factions" is going to introduce the new classes "Assassin" and "Ritualist". Will there be new henchmen as well, corresponding to these new classes?
Yes there will be new henchmen as ritualist and assassine.

What about the new guild halls and guild members who do not get faction. Will they be able to join the new guildhalls, too? Will non-faction guilds be able to upgrade their guildhalls?
There will be four new guildhalls available in Factions. These are available to all guilds, and access to them does not require participation in Alliance Battles or Competitive Missions.
In addition, guilds will be able to buy services for their guild halls, including:
Xunlai Agent
Dye Trader
Crafting Material Trader
Rare Material Trader
Rune Trader
Scroll Trader
Skill Trainer
Priest of Balthazar
Merchant
Weaponsmith

What do you think about MMOGs, are subscription fees the past of MMOGs?
In terms of the business models, you know at the time that we started development at guild wars all the major publishers were looking for ways to convert their games over to a subscription model. Everybody talked that will be the future and we can take subsciption fees for every game. Their were 80 MMOs in development at the time we start working on guild wars and everybody thought we would charge subscription fee and I think the reality of that its not the case that everybody is paying subscription fee for every game. Even if you are willing to pay subscription fee and I think a lot of people aren´t you can make it for one maybe two games even if you are a hardcore gamer.

When you look at Sony they charge you 30 US$ and you can play Everquest 1 & 2, SWG etc.
Right that´s what publisher do to start older games to fill up. When they come out with a brand new game you can bet thats not gonna go for it.
So the statement we made with guild wars was you do not have to charge a subscription fee to do
running a MMO. There are all options here. We think that a subscription fee is a big barrier for a lot of people and to us we want to make games that knock down barriers and not create new barriers.
You know everbody was waiting to see how guild wars did. That was a great experiment and fortunatly it was a huge success and I think a large part of that success was the fact that people decided that they can play an online roleplaying game and nobody was asking for their credit cards. That business model really work for gamers. I´m glad to see that. We wanted to shake up the gameing industry a little bit, I think we did that.

Do you think your gamers are less commitet to your game than to other games where they have to pay subscription fees because they can alway stop playing guild wars without loosing money? Isn´t this a disadvantage?
No, I don´t think so. I think it´s actually an advantage for us. If you are playing a subscription based game, you feel you have to justify that fee every month.
I think the beauty of a game that doesn´t aquire subsciption fee is that you can enjoy the game and than you can put it on the shelf and if you want to you can play it again that is exactly what we want. You dont have to make it a lifestyle you dont have to sign up your whole life for it.

How many players do you have at the moment?
We announcend in the last august we past a million and I can tell you that the sales have continued to be very strong and the usage numbers have continued on a similiar level.

Another question concerning ArenaNet. Guild Wars is a great success but do you plan any other new games?
Right now we are the guild wars company we put our time and energy to supporting guildwars. For as long as players are passioned for the game we will do it. But certainly the time will come...

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Alpharius - gwinfo

The version in the link and the above post are full of spelling mistakes.

charakter?
assassine?

It's translated from German/Dutch.

have you ever translate something for a German community?

Thanks you so much!

i think to prevent low lvl's from buyin high lvl skills, u prob can only get skills from vendors u've alrdy visited, or something like that

Remember that some high rank guilds are selling temporary memberships... farmers with tons of cash pay for them and get exclusive access to special content Faction-related.

/Edit: Maybe very top strongly-pvp based guilds consider PvE boring, but i can assure you many high ranked guild are still on PvE...

wonder if the skills guy in ember will have all the non-elite ass/rit skills available.. or they putting in another skills trader for those

LOL I feel ya bro! If you like I can send you a link so you CAN surf those sites! Guru is also banned at my work but I manage.

Maybe I missed it, but if you want a new guild hall do you have to dissban your guild?? How does this work? Will we have a "upgrade hall option?" Or do you just buy another sigil?

so jeff,casual players and those with small guilds are not going to lose any of the content their paying for but more than likely will never be able to visit some towns and will miss out on some of the leet missions.is it just me or is that a huge contradiction and does it not also contradict there old equality statement especialy the bit about casual players not being at a dissadvantage to hardcore players.

good interview...good questions and good answers.

too bad they didn't ask why exactly it is that we get only 2 character slots when merging Prophecies and Factions...I still really want that answered.

So we really don't know anything new about how badly non-PVP'ers are going to get shut out of elite PVE content. Jeff tells us that people not in big, successful alliances will have access to all of the "world content" but not the "elite missions".

So the question is, how much interesting, challenging PVE stuff is in the "world content" and how much is in the "elite missions"? Because I'm mostly buying Factions for more high-end PVE content, and I still don't want to touch PVP with a 10-foot pole.

I don't mind PVP'ers getting rewards, but access to PVE content is a really silly kind of reward to give. On the other hand PVE'ers who complete all missions, or complete all SF quests, or clear the UW, or whatever, are aching for some kind of recognition for their achievement. Wouldn't high-end PVE content as a reward for PVE achievement be a better model?

Maybe i'm wrong, but i believe that Anet underestimated the people wanting to stay on PvE when released GW. SF update wanted to fill the void, but even now there are PvE only guilds, even in a strongly PvP based game such as this.

Perhaps this change of direction reflects an attempt to "merge" PvP and PvE competition. That, in the future, to be a leet guild will be a sum of PvP and PvE milestones.

Maybe city control will award some guild rank up (Not now maybe, but in the future).

We will have 1 vs 1 challenges on Factions... maybe on the future an Olympiad? PvP 1vs1 Tournaments? Who knows ^^

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=63096

Thats what i was thinking

We can easily assume no skills will be located here that you cannot get via other means. No armors will be in these areas that you cannot get through other means (barring obsidian-like armors. These armors have no statistical advantage however). No "area-only" weapon mods will be here that you cannot get by some other means. How are you at a disadvantage again?

The people who are better at the game have access to areas that others do not. Wow, amazing. Luckily, those areas cannot have anything that will make these players somehow more powerful than you, so you can stop fretting. Like favor of the gods and fissure of woe, you may find times when you do not have access to everything in the game. But do you really think ANet will add things in these areas that give players with access some materialistic advantage?

it has been stated in a couple of interviews that the elite missions will have special loot as reward for the extra challenge of the mission.not sure what the special means but i can already see the e-bay account of the pro farmers drooling at the notion of some new rare stock to sell.and i'm a collector who is already p'd off with the fact that i can't finnish my ch1 sword collection because of the prices on crystalline's which yeah has something to do with rareness but is also inflated because of e-bay(imho).so i'm not realy looking forward to more items that i may or may not get access to that others have already stated will no doubt be poping up on e-bay very soon and hence will also have an over-priced tag on them in-game.

could,and hopefully am,be wrong in my fears of the alliance system on towns and elite missions(which i'm sure was originally going to be applied to faction and alliances would be made to earn that "favor" in the big pvp style battles)i'm just voicing my concern on how it sounds so far.but we shall see soon enough.

Better in the game? not even close, those that PvP and GvG will have that access, but not because they are better in the game. But those of us that excel in the game and really have no wish to PvP will be left out of some areas. As well as them sneaking in PvP content into the missions, but we'll wait and see, hopefully there will be enough PvE content for the majority of users that play the game.