Balthazar Faction & Shards & Platinium Bars ~ Grenth Faction & Ectos

Ya, I like that idea

Still sounds too low for me

But the values are based off the current market values aye ~

Values might be a bit off since this screen shot is taken yesterday, but it is around there.

Amber / Jadite ~ 2,000
Obsidian Shard ~ 4,000
Glob of Ectoplasm ~ 8,000

We require 1,000 Kurzick / Luxon faction to redeem one piece of Amber / Jadite

So I just did some simple mathematical calculations and got the figures 2,000 for Balthazar's Faction and 4,000 for Grenth's Faction.

Plus, you need to venture forth into their respective domains in order to redeem the Obsidian Shards or Globs of Ectoplasm.

I believe this feature would somewhat bridge the gap between the PvE and PvP.

Why? Balthazar's Faction can be earned in PvP battles, but in order to redeem any Obsidian Shards, the player would have to travel into the Fissure of Woe.

Given the faction limit of 10,000 and the price of redeeming one piece of Obsidian Shard to be 4,000 Balthazar's Faction, the character can only redeem 2 pieces of Obsidian Shards per visit.

I believe this feature would promote players to venture forth into The Underworld as a somewhat balanced team to do the various quests in there, instead of the 2 man farming team we have now.


Discuss.

/yes to the title ones
/no to gaining bal faction in pve
but /yes to the guys idea to rename pvp faction to hero faction so we can have more faction in pve, to do diffrent things with.

But I don't think it is a great idea to be able to pvp all day and buy ecto with that time spent.

I got an idea for the grenths "cool title".

Pretty easy!

Grenth's R e A p E r!!!


btw, yes to all 5. Something that doesn't kill you, is going to strengthen you.

Again, a fine example of individuals who are unable to read and understand properly.

It is suggested in the first post of this thread, that Balthazar's Faction be used to redeem Obsidian Shards, not Globs of Ectoplasm.

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I removed the 5th idea since it generates confusion for those people who are unable to read and understand properly, plus it is not my own idea, and I did not agree with it.

==============


This image was taken today, as shown, the prices for the materials mentioned in this thread are still around those prices as mentioned before.

Glob of Ectoplasm - 8,000
Obsidian Shard - 4,000

Hence, I still believe that a fair amount of Balthazar's Faction to redeem Obsidian Shards would be 2,000 Balthazar's Faction, while 4,000 Grenth's Faction to redeem Globs of Ectoplasm.

Plus, the player will have to venture forth into either Fissure of Fow or The Underworld in order to redeem them.

At most, a player can redeem 5 Obsidian Shards per Fissure of Woe visit or 2 Globs of Ectoplasm per Underworld visit.

Discuss.

ugh, I want a moderator to deal with this, NOW.

Mate, my thread was here before yours, and the idea that you suggested was already covered in this thread.

Regarding forum rules, you made a thread about an idea which has been suggested before, and you should use the "Report Bad Post" button if you wish to report this thread.

Removed the idea
"Balthazar's Faction offered as quest rewards in Fissure of Woe"
Because, I believe that Balthazar's Faction is way better off as a measurement of a player's experience in PvP combat.

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Remove the idea "Jadite and Amber collection titles" since it is irrelevant to this topic.

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Updated the first post to include a new suggestion:
Those players who do not wish to venture forth into the Fissure of Woe to redeem Obsidian Shards, can instead redeem a "Balthazar's Platinium Bar" which can be sold to any merchant for 1,000 gold.

"Balthazar's Platinium Bar" can be stacked like other stackable items, to a maximum of 250 per stack.

Discuss.

/Signed on all. I was maxed out in Propehcies for quite a while and probably lost upwards of 300,000 balthazar faction

What I would like to see is a comment from Dear Gaile telling us this is something that is not stupid or is stupid

I think if This option was implemented in some form - that you could exchange balthazar faction for shards/ectos when you are maxed out and cant unlock anymore I would personally send Gaile some chocolates.

Sam

I got to thinking when I was uas before prophecies came out, and am thinking again now that I am 12k away from uas...What am I gonna do with my balth faction for the next X months until nightfall comes out?

Since many many people will be UAS long before chapter 3 is released, how can we get to spend our earned faction? Here are some of my ideas.

5K (3k might be a little more reasonable) faction buys you 1 fame. It's not much, but if you do enough of ANY arena, you're bound to get famous anyway, so it makes sense that you can buy fame by killing large amounts of people.

1k buys you ale or other "trinket" items. Same way that kurz/lux faction gets you rare materials, balth faction can get you drunk!!!

Thats all I really have for now. I would like to get a little extra fame in the 6 months that I will be locked at 10k faction.

Yes, I would like that too. But I believe she would not post replies in suggestion topics, only those discussion topics in The Riverside Inn.

Added Balthazar's Diamond Bars as a redeemable item for 10,000 Balthazar's Faction.

i like the majority of the ideas in this thread, it could open up pvp to more rper's, which is exactly what ANET tried to do in factions.
1a. yes, but be comparable to current market prices, meaning the amount of faction required fluxes to meet market demand.
1b. yes, but faction can be gained alot easier than gold, so this would replace farming in almost every way. ill sign this part if the rewards cost alittle more faction ie. 10k faction buys you 5k gold.
2. sure why not, we have friends of the luxons/ kurzicks, why not this?
3. if the others are to be implemented then this should be to.

i think these are all great ideas on paper, but might be impracticle to the games economy. hopefully ANET can find a way to implement these ideas into the game.

Thought The Zaishen was good at HA as it is....

I think some little "trinket" would be cool. Get some ale or an ID kit or salvage kit.

Maybe each 1k faction gets you a "Hero's pin". If you get 3 pins you can exchange it for something like how imperial commendations and the such work.

I am fine fame wise. I'm just concerned that many players, including myself, will not be able to get faction because they have already unlocked everything. I was uas for close to 2 months before the factions preview events and I hated it. It doesn't have to be fame, it could be the hero pins that someone mentioned, or ale or other redeemable things. You could even have a title for balth faction that you trade in to a different priest or something. I really have no clue what they could add, that's why the thread is open. Post suggestions, I just dont want to be uas (in case you don't know, that means unlocked all skills) for half a year until nightfall comes out.

I disagree.

Let us take a look at Random Arenas:

Winning a battle will net you 125 Balthazar's Faction, provided that your team killed all 4 members of the opposing team, and that they did not quit or drop before your team kills them.

If we are talking about 1 : 1 conversion of Balthazar's Faction into gold, that would be 125 gold, or 150 gold (if flawless victory) per battle won.

How long would a battle in Random Arenas last?

First, we have a 20 seconds "get ready" time before the battle starts.
When the battle has concluded, there is another waiting time for the next battle to commence.

We haven't discuss the length of each PvP battle in the Random Arenas.
If it is short, the battle could be over in less than a minute.
However, if it is a long fight, the battle could drag on for quite some time.

Let us say we take an average of 5 minutes per each battle Random Arenas PvP battle, including the starting get ready time and ending waiting time.

In those 5 minutes, what could we do in PvE to earn gold?
There be many choices, many places to farm, and in those 5 minutes, we can earn much more than just a mere 125 or 150 gold.

For example, the minotaurs in Elona's Reach would take way less than 5 minutes to complete, and the gold achieved from each run is much much more than 125 or 150 gold.

Plus, in PvP, we do not always win, for PvE, it is almost a 100% win, unless you got hit by a serious lag spike and is frozen for many seconds.

I say leave the ratio at 1 : 1, PvPers deserved it.

1,000 Balthazar's faction for one (1) Balthazar's Platinium Bar worth 1,000 gold
10,000 Balthazar's faction for one (1) Balthazar's Diamond Bar worth 10,000 gold

Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea.

Yes on ALL!

I think its a good way for people who have capped outt of baltahzar faction to get some from it.

Maybe make these "trade-ins" only available if you have unlocked all?

I dont see much problems, EXCEPT for this:

The plantinum and diamond bars having fixed values at merchants: This would mean that they will replace ectos in the market for 100k+ items. Currently ppl are using these ectos as currency for expensive items. But if there is some STABLE high priced item available, everyone would want to sell ectos at that time, because they become totally USELESS. The economy of ectos would be crippled, I suspect about 90% of the ectos around are used for trading atm, and only the rest will be used for making armor. These bars make the 90% trade-ectos become available for sale, which will lower the ecto price to around 1.5k.

So thats a big NO, if you ask me.

Personally, I would prefer these "trade-ins" to be available right at the start.

That is possible.

Not entirely true.
People would still collect or buy Globs of Ectoplasm for purpose of crafting Obsidian Armor.

Do you have any solid evidence to back up this claim?

Having these Platinium & Diamond Bars does not means that these so-called 90% Trade-Ectos would become available for sale.

If you could, please explain to us in detail just how the prices of Globs of Ectoplasm would end up from 10,000+ to 1,500+.


Should these Balthazar's Platinium & Diamond Bars be implemented, and eventually replace Globs of Ectoplasm as a form of trading currency for items valued 100K and above, I would say this is for the better, since Balthazar's Faction can be earned by anyone who PvPs.

Perhaps you can purchase from other players for 10,000 gold per piece?

It would not seem right to sell or buy them at other prices given that they have a fixed value when sold to any NPC merchant.

I like the Diamond Bar idea, although can you use your gold to redeem it also? Seems reasonable enough to me instead of us rich peeps using ectos.

1a) Interesting idea, signed as long as those who don't like PvP can still gain those items they seek via PvE (drops or something). It sounds like you are offering up an alternative method, so it sounds good.

1b) I'm clueless here. How fast does one gain Balthazar's faction? Would those amounts be in line for the gain to play ratio in PvE?

2) Titles hurt nothing either way. /signed

3) This one I can only sign if we Anet ever gets rid of that stupid favor system. If the idea presented here is to promote grouping and gatherings for adventure and questing, then we need to be able to plan with friends (or those whose company we enjoy) on one day to be able to go there the next without wondering if favor is ours. In other words, my guild descides on Wednesday to go to UW on Friday night, we all log in (after putting the kids to bed) and find we don't have favor. This has actually happened a dozen or so times and we have now given up on bothering with the zone. Favor has nothing to do with PvE, yet it restricts end game content.

1a, 1b, 2 - signed

3 (Grenth) - The Balthazar faction helps address something in the game already--that is, useless Balth faction. This one adds a new element to the game, and frankly I don't think it's one we need

BTW, in order to preserve the economy, think something more like 10,000 Grenth --> 1 ecto.

Hmm I can explain the basics perhaps, but it might be easier to follow the course Predictive Modelling at my university. It explains extensively how to calculate estimated guesses on a wide variety of experiments. The calulation is still based on the 90% estimate, but considering that there are people walking around with over 500 ectos, just for the purpose of buying high end things like Bone dragons etc, and only a small number of people having them because of they want to craft armor (after you craft it, the ecto is gone/ after you trade an ecto, the ecto is still there, but in another purse), that is probably a good, maybe slightly high guess.

Watching the market of guild wars make you able to predict a lot of things. For instance when Factions was released, I had a big load of crafting materials, talking about things in the order of 2000-5000. I also knew the price of superior runes would go even higher, because of all the people crafting new armors. Ofcourse it still remains a calculated guess and there was a risk to take. But selling steel for 500g makes that all up.

Anyway this whole issue is about PvPers that have unlocked everything and you want to give them a stimulance to continue PvP? I don't really see why you need to close the gap between PvP and PvE then, because they are PvP anyway and dont really care. I dont mind it that you guys can trade it in for gold, but I hate to see a stable priced stackable item tearing a hole in the market. I guess I will be selling all my ectos when Anet anounces in a update.

U play Settlers a lot?

Due to the recent update which increased the factions reward, the prices for Amber Chunks and Jadites have dropped. Let us look at the market prices again:

1,000 Gold ~ Amber Chunks / Jadite Shards
4,000 Gold ~ Obsidian Shards
9,000 Gold ~ Globs of Ectoplasm

Revised Faction costs to redeem Obsidian Shards & Globs of Ectoplasm be:
4,000 Balthazar's Faction for one (1) piece of Obsidian Shard
8,000 Grenth's Faction for one (1) Glob of Ectoplasm

Yes, Obsidian Shards are still obtainable as drops from monsters in the Fissure of Woe.

Yes, this is an alternative method, not a replacement.

If one (1) Balthazar's Faction is equal to one (1) gold

Then I would say, farming for gold in PvE is definitely faster than farming for gold in PvP.

There is a lot of waiting time involved in the various PvP matches, as for PvE farming trips, there is very little waiting time involved if you solo farm.

Unfortunately, I think this will not happen any time soon.
Though I would very much like it if we are able to enter the Under World and the Fissure of Woe whether or not our region is holding favour.

Perhaps they could make it such that, if our region does not has favour and we enter these realms, we start off with 60% Death Penalty instead.

How would this be adding a "new element" to the game?
There are already quite a number of quests in the Under World, we only need to add Grenth's Faction as one of the quest rewards to all those quests, and then add in a NPC that will hand out Globs of Ectoplasm if the player has sufficient Grenth's Faction.

Given if the exchange rate is 8,000 Grenth's Faction for one (1) Glob of Ectoplasm, each player can only redeem one (1) Glob of Ectoplasm per visit into the Under World.

How would 8,000 Grenth's Faction for one (1) Glob of Ectoplasm sound?

This topic is not about that, it is about the players who does PvP using their RPG characters, these players do not create PvP-only characters and these PvEvPers will have not much usage for these Balthazar's Faction.

Except to unlock a few new Factions skills which cannot be learnt from any skill trainers in Cantha unless first unlocked through the Priest of Balthazar using Balthazar's Faction.

That is but only your opinion regarding this matter.
ANET has been trying hard to unify these 2 groups, PvE and PvP.
Pure PvPers might not really care, but those players who PvP with thieir RPG characters, aka PvEvPers, they might appreciate this new feature.

We will have to wait and see if this will happen, though I believe this would happen and this change is a good and welcomed change. However, I believe this change would not be welcomed by those minority player base who hordes a lot of Globs of Ectoplasm.

I am certain there will be a lot of willing buyers when that happens. There are still a number of players who wishes to craft Obsidian Armors for their characters, hence Globs of Ectoplasm will never be obsolete.

Nope. I find myself spending more time on Guild Wars at the moment, and on Hitman : Blood Money when I feel like I have the urge to murder someone. I am more of a RPG player myself, am waiting for the release of Titan's Quest.

Thank you all for the feedback you have provided.
Much appreciated.

Cheers.

I think some of those are very good ideas, except for the fact that Balthazar's Faction can only be obtained in PvP, and it would be given a PvE use. If it were to be given a PvE use, there should be a way to obtain it through PvE like Grenth's Faction would have by doing UW quests. Or there could be 2 kinds of Balthazars Faction - PvE and PvP. And have some kind of way to turn one into the other at a certain "exchange rate" to ensure that it would be fair for both PvP and PvE players and not give an advantage to one side. So thats a yeah to all of them although some could do with a little improvement. Good ideas.

I agree with all.

I cannot see a reason to change the current system. Giving PVE rewards for PVP play does not seem appropriate to me at all.

Umm, no, PVP only stuff shouldn't have a direct correlation to PVE valuables. It would destroy the market unlike the storage increase. Why? quite simple, PVP hard enough and you'll have access to unlimited riches. Basically, joe noob can just start pvping and get fow armor.... so what happens when all the joe noobs have barrels of money? yep... you guessed it. 10k faction ain't all that hard to get either, so

/not signed.

Don't get me wrong, its a novel idea, infact it sounds wonderful, but the repercussions are too great, yes I agree that excess factions should be redeemable, but not for anything that has direct correlation to the market the way amber and jadeite have, infact, I will use those 2 as an example. Just look how much they were at release(note that trader have always sold them for much lower than people were selling when they were available.) and how much they are now. Doing that to ecto and shards would be disastrous.

The only thing I could think of having the factions be useable is for novel features, like first person(w/ weapons showing) mode or stuff like that. Something you don't need to have but very cool thing to have while having to earn it.

If your argument is the fact that earning factions is much slower, then consider this, farming code does not kick in for killing people over and over again in PVP. Also, at top level pvp(tombs, gvg) factions kick in very quickly. While pve people usually solo farm in either hard areas where farm code frequently kick in or in FOW or UW where ecto/shard drops are sparse. Thing is, on an experience pvp guild, organizing can take a very short time and faction farming.....

Also, to give another example of how items can fall down in price very quickly. Take a look at Monster eyeballs. Pre factions = almost 2k per, post mid factions = 150g each and thats trader selling, he buys back for 50g each. Those of us from the trading business have a little more insight on market dealings, and I say this is a bad bad form of reward, as it will literally turn the economy upside down.

Wanna get rich? pvp! And those ever rediculous "burrow of money for a loaf of bread" arguments would actually apply here. You might think that this wont happen, and it will not be as pronounced in earlier time, but give it a month or 2 and watch things burn ablaze. Top pvp guilds would have stacks of these diamond bars and everyone having FOW armor and ecto and shards mirroring jades and amber.

everything - NOnononoo!
exept for number 2 - hell yeah

1a. Able to use Balthazar's Faction to redeem Obsedian Shards
Yes, but make the redeemer guy a good ways into the FoW. Making him at least semi-hard to get to.

1b. Balthazar's Faction & Balthazar's Platinium Bars
Yes, but make the faction to gold ratio lower. Maybe 10 faction for 1 gold?

2. Earn titles based on amount of Balthazar's & Grenth's Faction redeemed
Yes

3. Addition of Grenth's Faction
No. Don't see the point. Just more rewards for doing UW quests?

yes to all!

/no to grenth faction.

/signed for diamond/platinum bars
1 gold per faction point means I would have well over a million gold right now, as would many other pvpers. Reduce it. Maybe every 3000 balth faction gets you 1k gold.

/not signed for getting shards from the balth priest. It would ruin the economy VERY quickly.

Oh lord yes put medown for yes yes yes yes yes and did I forget YES!!!! To all of em, I am a hardcore PvE'er that PvP's very well with his PvE chars but I do not farm worth a living crap so ima poor boy so this is a DEFINITIVE yes for me and would help me SOOOOOO much monetarily. GREAT IDEA!!!

Thank you all for replying to this thread.
The feedback provided is invaluable and is much appreciated.

There was such an idea proposed in this thread earlier, but I decided that it is much better off to leave Balthazar's Faction as a measure of PvP experience.

This was also suggested earlier, by Dougal Kronik.
The idea caused much confusion to a forum member of GuildWarsGuru.com, plus I did not favour that idea much, hence I discarded that idea.

Personally, I think that having just one Balthazar's Faction is enough. Both PvP-only and RPG characters are capable of doing PvP battles, and RPG characters actually have some advantage over PvP-only characters.

Thanks for the support, could you specifiy which ideas would need some improvement?

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If the change is for the better, why not?Why would not it be appropriate? RPG characters are very well capable of performing well in PvP battles.

Why cannot RPG characters who do PvP battles be rewarded for their time spent in PvP battles?

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Why not? Winning team of the Heroes Ascent get rewarded with 3 Celestial Sigils and 1 Gold Item.

Players already have access to unlimited riches, by farming or just by simply playing the game.

"joe" would still need time to collect the required amount of Balthazar's Faction, plus travel down into the Fissure of Woe in order to find the NPC which hands out Obsidian Shards provided "joe" has sufficient amount of Balthazar's Faction on hand.

If "joe" is indeed "noob", then I believe "joe" would require quite some time to acquire the amount of Balthazar's Faction. To sum it up, "joe noob" would not get his fow armor in any time soon.

Kurzick / Luxon Faction can be acquired much faster compared to Balthazar's & Grenth's Faction, plus the exchange rate is 1,000 Kurzick / Luxon Faction per 1 Amber / Jadite.

Here, we are talking about 4,000 Balthazar's Faction per Obsidian Shard, and 8,000 Grenth's Faction per Glob of Ectoplasm, plus you have to travel down into the Fissure of Woe or the Under World in order to redeem the Shards or Ectos.

This will not be an issue.

There are only a few ways to earn Balthazar's Faction:
- Random Arenas
- Team Arenas
- Heroes Ascent
- Guild vs Guild
- Aliance Battles
- Competitive Missions (Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry)

Where as, for farming in PvE, you have a lot of places to farm.
Regarding the farming code, you can always rotate your farming areas to avoid the farming code from kicking in.

Balthazar's Factions max out at 10,000, plus there is a lot of waiting time involved before a match is even started. There is little to no waiting time involved in PvE farming.

That is called "Supply & Demand", and what is a bad bad form of reward?

Farmers can get rich by just doing mindless farming, why can't PvPers get rich by doing PvP Battles?

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Agreed.

I disagree. That is way too little.
10,000 Balthazar's Faction for 1,000 gold? I can get faster and better results in PvE, in less than 10 minutes in PvE I can acquire that much gold, even more if lucky.
Can anyone acquire 10,000 Balthazar's Faction in less than 10 minutes?

The point is that, it will serve as a new form of motivation for players to form groups into the Under World to complete the various quests offered down there in order to acquire Grenth's Faction, and ultimately redeem their one (1) Glob of Ectoplasm when they have acquired 8,000 Grenth's Faction.

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Care to share your opinions regarding this?

PvP is harder than PvE, why cannot PvPers be rewarded for doing what they like to do? And if the rewards for PvP are greater than PvE, this would motivate players to try up PvPing.




The exchange rate is 4,000 Balthazar's Faction per one piece of Obsidian Shard, plus the NPC which hands out the Obsidian Shard will be located deep within the Fissure of Woe, preferably beside the Eternal Forge Master and will only appear when the temple has been cleared.

With the 10,000 Balthazar's Faction limit, a character can only redeem 2 pieces of Obsidian Shards per visit into the Fissure of Woe, provided that their team is successful and their region has favour.

Please explain how this would "ruin the economy VERY quickly"?

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Anyway, again I must thank you all for replying to this topic, the feedback provided is very useful.

I believed I overlooked a potentially serious issue when I proposed this suggestion of able to "convert Balthazar's Faction" into gold.

With such an implementation, this would give botters / sweat shop farmers more reason to leech Balthazar's Faction in Random Arenas, ruining Random Arenas ultimately.

For the welfare of the players in Random Arenas, I think I better lay off the idea of being able to directly "convert Balthazar's Faction" into gold.

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But as for Grenth's Faction, I do not see any reason to deny this. The only method to acquire the proposed Grenth's Faction is to venture deep into the Under World as a team, and attempt to complete the many quests offered down there.

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Due to the potential serious problem that would arise from this, I believe we can scrap the idea of directly converting Balthazar's Faction into gold, and move on to other ideas.

Here's a new suggestion to add to this topic:

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Balthazar's "Tokens"
- redeem one (1) "Token" with every 1,000 Balthazar's Faction
- "Tokens" are "Quest Items"

Balthazar's "Quarter Masters"
- located in the Temple of Balthazar

Services Offered:
- craft Balthazar's Armor
- craft Customized Weapons with prefix and suffix of your choice

Suggested "Token" Prices:
- 2 "Tokens" per "1.5k Balthazar's Armor Piece, 20 "Tokens" per "15k" Balthazar's Armor piece
- 10 "Tokens" per Cuztomized Weapons with prefix and suffix of your choice

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What say the rest of ya regarding this idea?
Discuss.

This is quite a lengthy thread and so forgive me for not reading all of it and saying somethign mihgt have already been said.

I personally love the ideas.This has clearly been well thought out. I used to hear complaints(before factions came out) of hardcore pve'ers because they would max out at 10k faction(my guild leader requires a certain amount of faction to join the guild) and cant redeem it. But with this new idea in play they can always have something to redeem it for and not have to be limited by the amount of faction they have.
But as Im positive this might help some A.) Poor pvpers and B) People I mentioned above, Im sure that the pve'ers wont really care, except for the money they'll be making doing something different.
My vote: Yes on all.

>>I think that there is also one flaw in your whole idea. You see since they made factions they're going to be working on that for at least while, and since they are doing that I would think that they're done with the prophecies campaign excluding the minor tweaks that are in the updates. And by the time Anet's finished with Factions they will be on to the next GWs. So I really dont see much hope for your idea considering how much that it would take to do this,no matter how good of an idea it is.

Edit:On the new idea I would prefer to learn more about the tokens. I like the idea of making customized weapons with any mods you want (By the way: Im also going to read through most of the forum before replying again)

"Signet of Massive Approval"

Only a signet that big would cover all the suggestions ^_^.

1a yes
1b /
2a&b yes if more titles
3 yes