So are some of us going to miss out on some of the game?

That's a false dilemma, as the answers are preordained. It will be rushed and not working right from the beginning. This is how it is with any piece of software -- and that's OK! Users will generally cut a company a lot of slack if the product is cool enough.

It should be mentioned that implementing an auction house is not rocket science. It is not even hard. Making the original Guild Wars backend was about a hundred times harder than writing an auction system.

What it requires, however, is coders. And to have coders assigned to a task, that task needs to have a high priority. We can safely say that implenting the auction house is not high enough in the priority queue at Anet.

My guess is that the chapter 2 team has been in feature freeze for the last several weeks in preparation for Factions, and the chapter 3 team is categorically prevented from working on anything but chapter 3 content.

The auction house becomes a priority once chapter 2 is released and some of the coders from that team can be reassigned to other projects.

That's if it ever gets a priority. Anet want's 6mos releases, that means the Factions team will no doubt be redistributed to other projects very soon. And since we are atleast 2 weeks away from release, there is no doubt in my mind that most of them have already been distributed with a small team dedicated to fixing factions bugs.

I'm pretty sure the places vital to RP players will always be open to anyone, Anet wouldn't block those areas off. Personally I hope they don't block off the 15k forges, I didn't take note if they were controled or not.

What is there to gain besides Elite Missions though, will each little outpost have a crafter with a different style of armor or something?

Due to recent threads around the forum, I have come to the conclusion that this new style of doing things is not entirely A.Net's choice. I think NcSoft is sending orders down to make the game more competitive and grind based, but also giving the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" for A.Net not to say anything.

For those asking WHY. The Korean player base pays small subscription fees to play, I think in the manner of some form of "time cards." So NcSoft wants to increase the amount of TIME to do things....

I mean seriously, can we honestly believe A.Net, who brought us probably the best grind-free game there is right now and has kept us updated diligently, would willingly throw a winning strategy out the window and suddenly become very vague in their answers?

I don't, maybe it's just me going conspirosy (sp?) theory on myself, but this stinks of top level corporate execs.

The short answer is NO.

The Long answer is also Not Likely. NC Soft right now is on an upward spiral. They have announced a number of new things, even starting into Console Gaming. And I'm pretty sure they will have more than Factions to show off at E3. Anet has had a hit game "Guild Wars" come into the light. They will "allow" them to continue to shape "Guild Wars" UNLESS Factions kills over. When/if Factions is labeled as subpar or underperforming, then the bots at NC Soft will step in and "suggest" things. Assuming that they are not EA of course, in that case NC Soft would be breathing down their necks every step of the way.

Yeah, I have to agree with Omega. NCSoft has been phenomenally successful with their ventures recently, and Guild Wars is by the available evidence a solid product, so I don't see them interfering with Anet's design team too much.

While it is pretty likely that NCSoft has some influence in the decisions Anet makes, I find it hard to believe that Anet is the kind of company that would roll over and allow their basic philosophies to be messed with. This is, after all, a company started by mavericks, who have created an extremely atypical MMOG.

(standard caveat: the above is all speculation)

i just hope that all problems like this get worked out. i would hate to see guildwars die because of some stupid thing like this. i have spent alot of time on guildwars and if they take guildwars away i have no other mmog. and that would suck. my dad doesnt like the whole pay every month type thing....but then again i am moving out soon sooooo i will be ok. but guildwars is great i personally dont see it dying but you never know.......

well i guess i'm alone here, but from what i've seen i'm pretty psyched about the way this is being implimented.

1) PvE players finally can effect the map by doing repeatable quests.
2) I can see a lot of smaller guilds that are pretty much enlarged PuGs dissappearing, and honestly isnt the recruitment chat as annoying as the trade chat sometimes? (Insert plea for an auction system here.)
3) I never liked the favor system being something out of reach. This is tangible and CAN be worked for. It is nothing like the favor system of "Is it raining, is it snowing, is a hurricane ablowing?"
4) While it may make smaller guilds of actual friends join up with other guilds, it is more likely that the other guilds they end up allying with will be of the same ilk.
5) With space at a premium, I can see a lot of the dross being cut from productive guilds. I can finally say goodbye to that dude who has been afg for three weeks.

All in all, GG A-Net!

I'm still not sure about the whole small guild / large guild thing when factions is in flow.


- How will operate when half the guild has factions and the other doesn't ?
I'm part of a guild where some people just won't be able to get Factions for x weeks maybe months and some probably just won't get it. Also a few others (new members) have only just gotten GW.

- How will operate with a not full on guild ?
The guild USED to have a very active PvE list and getting a guild team for anything (ROF, HP etc ) wasn't a problem the number of non guild people who wanted to join in the mission was scrollable, there just wasn't the space for them when the rest of the guild (on a first come basis) turned up.

Now though (within the last 2 months) the guild has changed, with a few leaving just to get back to real life and a few others leaving wanting to progress more on the PvP side. Maybe they saw the light (what factions was going to mean). New people (new GW purchases) have joined the guild so it's nice to spend time helping them thru it again.


Is factions going to destory guilds/peoples perception of teaming for particular locations ? I can't see that Anet wanting to do that.

- How can it handle continual abusive language or repeat scammers with in the guild alliance ?
If we join an alliance with another guild that displays abusive language or is a scamming guild itself within the alliance then why should we put up with it ? Currently I can/do kick, how's that going to work.