After Factions Preview - Combine with Prophecies or Not?

Coming into the preview weekend, I was absolutely convinced that I would join my Prophecies account with the Factions account when it was released. After this weekend, I am leaning to NOT combining the two chapters.

First, I recognize that the premise of Factions involves committing to one side or another. While I wanted to maintain neutrality and explore so that I could make a more reasonable decision, I found that Factions, given its premise, to be very limiting. If you had a "neutral factions account (that is Luxon=Kurzick amounts), it was impossible to do any business in either groups' towns & outposts. You could only engage some merchants outside of the towns and collectors.

Since there are three nations on the Canthan Continent, why could there not have been an option for a character to to be a Canthan rather than being forced to commit to being a Luxon or Kurzick?

Second, I was also really interested in exploring the abilities of the ritualist and the assassin. Because of the level of the game and the limitations requiring the choosing of sides in the preview weekend, I found it really difficult to do this. I really would have liked to have taken more time in learning how to play the characters and use the diverse skills that each offered.

Lastly, my Prophecies account already has 3 PvE (Wa/Mo, E/N, & R/Me) characters in development. Having played GW for some time now, I would like to explore the development of other characters and primary and secondary professions. That said, I am now thinking that I am not going to combine accounts just because I would like to get more out of the game rather than take developed characters on plundering runs for items to resell to other players. To each his/her own I guess

Has this weekend affected your views on combining Prophecies and Factions?

Im deffinelty merging. More fun, and I want new skills for my current characters, new armor, new items. I hate farming and such, but I can assure myself I'll have whatever I need. Esspec if the collectors stay the same.

As for the side choosing, well, its a good, if not great idea imho. In war you have to choose sides, and its only natural ofr it to be like this.

All in all, I had lotsa fun in the pe, and Im sure more is coming if I'll merge my accounts. Imagin the possibilities.

That's how I am looking at it. I set up a temp account for this weekend just so I could experiment with the new professions as well as trying the new professions as secondary with my two favorite professions (Ranger and Mesmer.) The whole time I kept thinking...I WANT MY CHAPTER 1 SKILL SET!!

I also learned that primary assassin wasn't going to be for me.

Our whole guild was energized seeing the new content. We can't wait to take our high lvl characters into Cantha.

Ditto, everyone is very excoted about exploring new lands....

Also don't forget: coming over as a level 20 with more skills and such will make it easier to get those items, armors, and skills you want.

I can feel your pain ...I deleted two charcaters to participate in the preveiw, but looking back it was a good thing. They were just collecting dust. The only reason I kept them was I had spent so much time on them.

Getting rid of them for something new was refreshing and liberating. And I can create them as PvP's again pretty much so...meh...no big loss

I am merging. I want to bring my Prophecies chars. over and see how they do there

I still definatly will.. I completly understand you reasons for not.

see, its just the variety I like the idea of... mixing and matching different looks from different continents, taking faction characters to tyria and vice versa..

also there is my collectors edition Divine Aura, even though the fem assasin one is either bugged or completly sh*t..

For your reasons above however I would simply buy a second copy.

Yeah, its all a matter of choice, no problem if you dont combine them.

I personally will be though. Might not see an incentive to do so, but just think of what it will be like in the long run if you do combine them.

If you did combine them , lets say in another year, you would 10 or so character slots. You'll have access to 4 different maps, on any single character. Aside of two slots, you wont loose anything by combining. And you wont be working on those other PVE characters forever right?

As for the factions, I dont think its too much of a big deal. Just there to have fun, not complicate your life. After experiencing Aliiance Battles, and the competitive objective missions, I've never had more fun with any form of pvp in just those three days compared to the whole year on prophecies. I happen to be Kurzick atm, but then after the ID1 dance in Cavalon, it kind of made me wanted to change, and changing is easy to do, which makes it nice =-).

There is no question here, everyone in their right mind is going to join the accounts.
Why would you leave 4 characters with hard work put into them with good armor, nice weapons all skills unlocked just sitting in Tyria.

To the OP, you know you can still trade with both sides?

The way to do it, is pick a side and do all the quests for it, get all the faction you want. Get all the armor and weapons and trading you want for that side. Spend the faction with them.

Once done then go to the other side and do the same.

I'm sure if you do this with a couple of characters then by the time you are done Ch3 would be on its way.

I think you got it all wrong, you can totally interract with both sides.

I know that i am merging. I just got my MM ascended, and he is way to powerful to waist. Plus, veretas sac. is not on the core skill set, so i dont think that I could be an MM without merging.

Really? Any time my faction was either even, or balanced to one side or the other, i was not able to trade with both sides.

If balanced, neither would trade with me, if to kurzick, the luxons wouldnt trade, if to luxon, the kurzicks wouldn't trade.. Was a really stupid ffs pos mess.

Well, I for one am gonna merge my accounts... well, at least the primary. No idea on the mule account though. One thing I was thinking about is allowing faction to be something that is liked specifically to each character rather than the whole account.

I ran into the same problem of being unable to trade with folks, but considering that you can simply teleport to the Marketplace, I didn't see too much problem.

As for playing the neutral factions... ummm, why... this is technically Guild Wars, not Guild Geopoliticking. We should be here to kill stuff, other characters, and especially the Luxies or Kurzi's.

Think about other video game neutrals... Pac Man for example: you have the evil ghosts, and Pac Man. Most people don't think much about the walls or little dots Pac Man ate.

/merging

See most of above.

When you redeem faction with one side then you will lose faction from the other side.

So lets say you have 2k Kurzick and 2k Luxon.
You go get 2 amber from the Kurz, that will make you lose your 2k from the Luxon.

So the best thing to do, is just do all one side first. This way you won't lose any earned faction from the other side if you are doing quests from both at the same time.

One thought: Which way do I get to play through the Factions equivalent of pre-searing? (Hopefully any new character will have that option...)

Ahhh, thank you. I was hoping someone tried this...

Merging. Without a doubt.

After going through all the quests that were available in the PE, I know I'm merging.

1) I want to see how good of a MM or SS Necro mine really is there.
2) After running through Cantha with a short R/Mo build, it made me want to bring my Emerald Maiden there and Barrage the foes there with her Drago Flatbow.
3) I think my Mesmer will look hot in the Canthan outfits, even though she's already hot in her 15k Noble attire.

I know I won't go primary assassin now since they die alot, but I find some promising offensive/defensive abilities with Ritualists, even if there is a possibility of the old "healer v. smiter" debate all over again.

I am going to merge with 100% certainty. My Prophecies characters are already looking forward to explore strange new worlds...

No, the weekend did not play any role in that decision.

I'm gonna merge, I miss doylaks signet and flurry too much

I'm going to merge, don't want to unlock my pvp builds again for alliance battles.

Yes, nearly everyone will merge so all characters can use all skills.

By pushing you to take a side, and forcing your whole account to be aligned with that side, Anet is definitely making a play to sell multiple copies of the game, so people will buy one account for Luxons and one for Kurzicks.

Or, just making it so you spend Faction and not horde it...

Merging babe.

create a new character and choose Cantha at the place where that character will start and you will start out in the Cantha equivalent of presear.

merging for sure

I was disappointed in the level of those leaving and grief players though, and I wonder if there are plans to resolve. Easy change makes the game much more enjoyable, but that much more griefable too. Had an idiot necro killing himself giving points to the other team - loss of a player and a regular point upon his auto-rez. Little @(#*s like that make it less than enjoyable.

Also I was suprised the lack of reward - simple quests might be 1k but we get NO Baltzaar faction throughout the fight and then might win only 200 or 300 Luxon or Kurzik after some (IMO) pretty long fights.

That's part of the problem of having such big scale fights random too - easier access but get odd matchups and more likely for some idiots to pop in.