The root of all evil (true reason for Factions hate)

A role-playing game: A game in which players assume the roles of characters and act out fantastical adventures, the outcomes of which are partially determined by chance, as by the roll of dice.

http://dictionary.reference.com/sear...playing%20game

Metroid... an RPG
Half-Life... an RPG
Guild Wars... an RPG

Anyways, Factions has been a disappointment for some, mediocre for others, and a blessing for others. The PvE content is a bit monotonous, run here do that, run there do that, run over here kill this guy, run back over here talk to him, and than go drop off these cough drops to that guy over in the slums...

Oh well, I think people are missing the point of the game, of the PvE content at least. People who like PvE should be somewhat along the lines of, "I enjoy the system, eye-candy, and combat system enough to want to play through encounters, grab some more loot, than go kill some more stuff." I'm not exactly sure what else there is supposed to be... why are you complaining if you are having to rezone and than fight through monsters you have just slain, I thought that was the big PvE factor. Do quest, kill monster, finished quest... kill more monsters and more shinies to my pouch.

The storyline is a bit smaller than the original prophecies storyline in the terms of missions but considering how difficult at least four of the missions are to achieve a Master level victory, that should keep most people plugging away at those.

Than add in the elite missions, and the plethora of additional Level 20 quests, and must say it seems that the PvE world got a decent shot in the arm...

I am a 20% PvP/80% PvE player, so I feel some of the pain; Factions was a good expansion, not sure if its a stand-alone game, simply because of the skills from Prophecies.

I'm not sure what some people are expecting... many people complained that GW:P moved too slow and lacked Post-Ascension content... ANet gave us a quicker advancement and more Level 20 quests. Many folks complained that there were not enough high-end drops, ANet revamped the drop rates, gave us additional (much better) Greens, and so forth. Many people complained that the monsters were too easy, so ANet upped the difficulty. I'm playing 1 Factions character through currently (still on the island), and have taken 2 Prophecy characters to the endgame. I may have rushed a bit trying to get the first character through, but now I have slowed down a bit and realized that I got what the community asked for.

I'm not overly impressed with Factions, nothing made me go, "Gosh darn, I gotta get me 2 of these, and tell all my friends." But it certainly didn't make me say, "This is a complete waste of money." Though the Arborstone glitch got me close to that. Good expansion, mediocre stand-alone, not a waste of money or anything like that.

WEll.. I have not got the game yet.. so can really only judge by what other say, and by my time with the head start...

Once thing I am concerned (which stop me from handing my money to NC soft) is the end game. Already we see that the Prophecies's excuses for End-game (atleast for the PvE part) is Farming. Farming and more farming, with the illusion that you are getting alot, yet really not. Somehow.... Faction seems like it will follow the same path.. but only fall faster and harder.

"Fancy Graphic is nice, but the true game play is the key"

Wha? EQ, we can all agree with, but WoW doesn't even have any expansions. They're just now creating their first one, and it's been what, around 1 1/2 years?

Anyways, I don't have Factions, but looking at the content that it does introduce, I do not feel it is worth my $50. When the only things that excite me are the new character/weapon/armor skins, something's wrong.

lol all this fuss over something that is sposed to be fun. Just go and enjoy factions!

'supposed'...

I like how you bold lots of words. Makes your rant sound professional.

its called "slang" lol i love nit pickers (they're so fun to laugh at) *laughs*

I must admit I have given myself to Factions hate a bit, when I was still in the northern slums. Though not particularly appealing to me, I must say I swinged opinions.

Sure, the slums might not look appealing and beautiful. It's because your mindset is still somewhere in Tyria screaming for a Tyria clone.

Lower layers of the city, like sewers, are grand indeed, but with a different twist - something you can't connect with Tyria and classic fantasy cliches. So many people just scream "OMG UGLY" without bothering to even look.
Sure, it's a point of view, but I must admit I like it more and more.

Now that I finally made it to my Kurzick brethren, pledging loyalty to them, I'm finding some parts of the game really stunningly beautiful, like Hose zu Helzer, it's sorrounding Echovald forest and it's maps, along with cathedral interiors.

And I wouldn't necessarily say that game is shorter because map is smaller - I'm finding a lot of content. Sure, classic farming may be dead in Cantha (and it may not be, too early to tell), but now you can farm factions -not for your alliance, but for amber, etc. So I think some different playstyles will develop, but, hey, give it time, will ya?

yeh wel dis iz slang 2 u no

Half Life 2, full game price. Completed in ~15 hours.
Max Payne, full game price. Completed in ~8 hours.
FEAR, full game price. Completed in ~20 hours.
Fable, full game price. Completed in some 20 hours.

There really isn't games that don't take you more than 20ish hours to complete. Sure there are some, but they are quite rare. MMOs aren't really a difference, even if they take you more than 20 hours, it's full of repeating the grind, killing the same mob over and over again, doing the same raid over and over again, actual "content" is far below that 20 hours.

Besides, you can complete Factions several times without trouble, different classes have different gameplay enough to keep it interesting going the game through multiple times, plus there still are stuff to do above that 20 hours. PvP in various forms, you can sink hours upon hours at that, collecting stuff to get that phat 15k armor, capping elites, trying to get Master's on each mission etc etc.


VVV- So you are saying Anet released an unfinished product? MONAY BACK PLZ.

Think Of Factions as a big cake and analysing and nit picking as in eating it. Do you take out the cake when it is still developing and say THIS CAKE TASTES WRONG?? NO you dont, you let the cake bake and wait till its ready b4 eating it. then if your lucky you may get a few sprinkles on top eg SF.

Lol rant me if you want, I can take it. *braces Self*

No you can't.

sekkira i actually was on ur side, believe or not. I was amazed at your posts but now you kinda let me down

a.net promised the same amount of content in factions and repeated that claim after the fpe when people started commenting on the map size,they failed to deliver.to compare the 2,my first char (an assassin) took me 2 days to finish,from training to celebration area + going back and doing the luxon quests and missions + all internal and external quests,minus time for sleep/food and time with the kids i would say that is short.also there are half as many missions which is clearly stated in your titles list,that to me states half as much content as the first not the same(and this in the main element of the pve section).another of my big disapointments with the pve is that even with all the cries for them to fix the broken up story in prophthey did an even worse job on this game as it basicaly makes no sence at all:-

1)did the fortune teller have an ultirior motive for brainwashing shiro?
2)was the emporer about to have shiro killed or not?
3)why did shiro become an envoy?
4)whats the deal with the absorbing s**t from his kills in the harvest temple?
5)where was the switch from local hero to kick ass evil dude?
6)whats the deal with the death wail,and where can i cap that skill(must be an elite)?
7)what is the link between shiro and the afflicted and why does everyone but us know that inflicted=shiro's returned yet none of them have any info on why they think this?

many more breaks in the story but i'm bored listing them.any experianced players want to test the content length make a new char and play through proph then make a new char and play through factions,do all quests and missions and see for your self the huge difference.also i think the map of cantha works on multiple levels to hide the fact that there is nowhere near the same content map wise,same again make 2 new chars and go for full exploration.

and another huge issue is the extreme limitations set on end-game content.the old statement of skill>time spent now changes to extreme farming>skill.serious who in the right mind would see all the complaints about the favor system(from both sides of the game)and then create 1 10x worse.at least with favor you had a chance of getting to the end game areas in time but no such hope in this game unless you stop enjoying the game your way and play by there ideal of how you should play.where are the choices gaile likes to speak of so often,play your way and miss out or get swallowed up in a huge alliance and grind your life away to get access(BS).then the point of weapons/items that you can't find anywhere else and you have an advantage on cash gain over the more casual or friend playing players,yet another a.net contradiction.hope you can still survive to ch4 but after many people i know and have met in-game skipping factions i know many more who have quickly binned gw after wasting their money(ito)on factions.their are many things i like about factions but overall it is a huge let down,i did have high expectations after falling in love with proph for a year.but oh well at least i gave them a chance to prove my friends right,time to switch my attention back to sony i think what with the upcoming release of the next gen.

sorry for the long post,i must have lost myself there.

And I wasn't even ranting.

I know what you mean about the backtracking. I did it on one character I plan not to ever do it again. I hate the city so much, the enemies are hard (which is nice once) and then having to fight them again with henchies is such a chore.

Bear in mind Prophecies probably had a lot more development time put into it (and more time for everything else too). Future chapters will be 6 months or so if Anet stays true to their goals, not including the time spent fixing up the previous chapters and adding in more content for those ones (e.g. Sorrow's Furnace)

When Prophecy comed out, just after a week I can remember threads on this boards with titles like:

"I have beaten the game twice, now what??"
"This game is too short"
"What am I supposed to do now?"

and here they are again..

Why I'm enjoing faction?
I remember myself 2 weeks ago loggin in GW and go HoH, directly, or GvG with my guild.
Now I log in and ask myself, "omg, what to do now? There are so many options..I can't choose.." and, know what?...I like it

Dude STFU, you don't like it you know what? I DON'T CARE. I'm tired of everyone saying "well people say factions suck" know what? I LOVE THE GAME everyone in my guild loves the game. as far as the OP goes, you know nothing of Medal of Honor or Metroid, that tells me that you are not a gamer, thus GW was probably your 1st game, thus you don't know that some sequls are nothing more than rehashes of previous releases, while some are completely new. You think people don't like Factions cause some morons post they don't like it? Wanna know why I haven't posted that I love Factions? cause when I'm home I'm playing the game until bed time that's why. I can't pull myself away I love it. what do I think of the backtracking? I don't mind, I like exploring new ways to my goals, and guess what, I found ways around ALL enemies if I so choose to. (sometimes I don't) And the OP says that Factions can't be called Guild Wars cause it's not about Guilds fighting, then says he's PvE... if your PvE why would you care about GvG? or PvP? There are people that rushed through and beat Factions the day it came out, I wasn't one of them, I'm taking my time, I'm enjoying myself, as are everyone in my guild, as are tens of thousands of others around the world. If you don't like the game, do us all a favor, STFU AND QUIT PLAYING IT THEN!!!!!

You mean Arenanet will refund the game if you don't like it? Didn't think so.
Dude, we PAYED for this game, that gives us the right to complain about it.We wished Factions to be as good or even better than Prophecies.

I think there are a lot of reasons Factions seems short and a bit boring. The PvE content is much lesser, there aren't that many new skills to learn and most of us already know the game engine so it's not a challenge like Prophecies.

There are things in Factions I find much much better than in Prophecies, the Fort Aspenwood/Jade Quarry mix of PvE&PvP is among them. Never played PvP in Prophecies, never will (except for the snowballfights)

Grow up kid. And learn some manners.

No, I'm an asshole and you're an idiot.

Factions is a small cake, good tasting but soon devoured. And no sprinklings planned according to Gaile IIRC.

@ Kaguya: All those games you mention... suck. I guess Im old school, or maybe just old, but I like my games with a little content not a bunch of stupid cut scenes and fancy graphics. Ill trade graphics and movie scenes for longer gameplay any day. Im not alone on this. In the day, games were 60+ hours long, thats if you didnt do all the little things. Now game makers struggle to provide us with 20+ hours. Thats crap. With all the technology at our grasp, we should be getting 100+ hours and great graphics. ANET let me down, and many others... and not because its a rehash, its actually worse than the first, and shorter. That reminds me of all the sequals to the original Batman... after the first they all got worse.

LMAO

That is bullshit and you know it.

Eh?
How old are you man?
Computer games existed before mid-90s you know?

Pacman took hardly 20 hours to play through. Bubble Bobble took hardly 20 hours to play through. 1942 took hardly 20 hours to play though. Impossible Mission took hardly 20 hours to play through. They Stole a Million took hardly 20 hours to play through. The Great Escape didn't take 20 hours to complete. In fact, they took like.. hour or two. Just getting the required skill to complete the game took some time

Just name one game that took over 20 hours to complete back in the day.

There were true gems such as Ultima series, and that came spread over on 4 floppies and lot of disk swapping, but mostly the games back in the day were quick arcade games that were very quick once you became skilled enough. Tho there are similar gems still, that take more than 'standard' hours to complete, but they are spread far and apart like they were back in the old day. Then again, those games could be rushed through in the same way any new game can

Why shoot a response if you truly don't care?

So? We have our right to free speech, don't like to read our posts? Leave these forums and never come back again.

I bow down to your godly knowledge of games, and no, I don't know what Medel of Honour is or Metroid is, nor do I want to know.

So? Get a life dude.

So.. why can't GW be the latter?

I thought you said you don't care?

Do you think we care?

Woah, woah, woah! Under 20 hours?! Then what the HELL was I doing wrong?

Well from a console point of view, there is no way in hell you completed games like FF and Dragon warrior in 20 hours or less. Im sure you didnt finish any of the Wizardry titles in under 20 hours either. Did you beat Diablo with the expansion in less than 20 hours? Morrowind? Come on now, games from 10 years ago didnt boast great graphics, but the gameplay was there and more than made up for it.
Sekkira... What part of what i said dont you like... the part of games are 20 hours or less part or the fact that games used to be 60+. Both things are true to my playing knowledge. I dont blame the game makers for cranking out title after title, its money I understand. However, ripping off people time and again, boasting things that are not true and releasing unfinished products is just not right.

Easy, the game isn't that large. Hack, hack, rush, find stairs, hack, hack. Rinse and repeat.

Besides, it is true, lot of games had the kickass gameplay and the originality that few games reach these days. Why is that? They just don't sell.

Kids just want their generic CounterStrike and NHL clones from every tube, preferably with girls with big boobs and miniskirts.

The games that dare to be different, like Jagged Alliance-series and System Shock-series to name the couple I can think straight away were excellent in pretty much every way, but the developer companies went bankrupt soon because the titles didn't attract the large audience, even if they had a large group of diehard fans. Rest in piece, Sirtech and Looking Glass Fallout-series almost joined the group, but luckily Bethesda picked the Fallout3 project up again, high hopes on that particular game.

And since almost every game these days is the generic doodoo, one can hardly blame Anet from pushing out a game "that can be completed in 20 hours.". Every game these days can, but not every game have the replay value that Factions for example has. Most of the games are just play through and be done with it.

Another long pointless rant which doesnt actually mean anything.

I love having a reason to go back to places that I have already traversed in Guildwars, especially Factions! the graphics are beautifull and stunning, the artwork is rich and full of culture, the landscapes and monsters that populate them are unique and always interesting to see again and again!

Compare this to ANY other MMO where you are repetativly taken through the exact same places over and over again... give me factions ANY day!

I don't own GW:Factions yet, so I will try to keep my comments somewhat neutral. I've been reading through the forums and talking to my guildmates about wether it is worthwhile for me to get the expansion.

With my crap statistics I can probably say that 70% like it and 30% don't like it.

But when you think of it, 30% is actually a lot of people who are disappointed. Again, I might not be correct. :P

I've been reading throught the posts and from what I have read is that some players feel that they have been cheated and lied to by Anet, because they have been promised better gameplay. I can say for myself that I had gone to the preview event and the game was barely finished. Some weapons had not even been rendered yet.

But everyone has to understand that Anet has painted themselves into a corner. They made the mistake of announcing that they will churn out expansions every 6 months. Compared to other games like Halo 2 and Halo 3 which took at least 1.5 years each to complete, but Anet had to keep up with their promise that they will provide everyone with new content every 6 months.

If they delayed the release date of Factions, people will complain. If they released a rushed game on schedule, people will still complain. Either way Anet is screwed by the fans. I still give them credit for trying to keep to their promises and providing us with updates. However, the price tag of $50 is unjustified for a relatively 'unfinished' game.

We still can't blame Anet because it's impossible to make 'uber' great games under 6 months. 6 months is barely enough time for Westwood to design Red Alert. The reason why Prophecies was such a great game was because Anet had planned for it for almost a year. However, Anet *is* at fault for being too ambitious and announced that expansions will be released every 6 months.

My conclusion is that Anet is innocent and at the same time, guilty for the current condition of the expansion. Anet is a young gaming company. If the game is truly as horrible as what the critics said, then give Anet a chance and hopefully they will get better with age.

Factions was in development for about a year I think. They have two teams each working on different chapters with overlapping release / dev cycles.

I still love factions, doing alliance battles and fun missions are awesome with friends Now I do not think Factions was released solely for pve, it has added tons of stuff to pvp and that's what most people move to when they have beaten the game a few times, I can't wait for summer i'll do Heroes ascent all the time

Totally agree with the OP (and have said similar) - definately feel short-changed over factions - it feels more like an expansion than a stand-alone game and yes it is fair to compare it it to chap 1 as chap 2 cost the same but has a lot less content. Chap 1 took me 2 month's to finish and I played a lot, and the missions/quests were plentiful enough to keep me wanting to play more and take other professions through it yet I've completed Chap 2 in 2 weeks even without rushing or playing as much as chap 1, and tbh with all the back-tracking involved just to pad things out I just can't be arsed to take anymore characters through the tedium. Another problem is the missions/quests themselves - apart from the already mentioned backtracking, they're too easy and there's hardly any challange - nearly all can be completed solo with henchies (unforgivable in a multi-player game) and quiet a few can be run with no henchies at all.

Remember not everyone likes PvP and it's the PvE side thats severly lacking in Factions, yes there's no monthly fee (the main selling point for me - an rpg I can play with mates with no monthly subs), but there's also very little content.

Really? My first game was FF7 and that's the best game ever. I can't beleive there were any decent games before it, I mean their graphics must have SUCKED.

Factions make the PvP player and the PvE player shake their hands, that's another reasone becouse I like it.

Meh. the first GW took 3 years of developement to get to where it is. Factions is smaller. But, its still a good game.

Apart from that, i would say factions pre-searinf does end when u leave the island. Technically, in relation to prophecies this is not true, but the real end of searing is when the game opens up, not when u stop fighting lvl 10s or get ur secondary proffesion. I like the way they made getting to lvl 20 so much easier. the level a character is at was never of any consequence to me, its not important for a GW title. If anything it reinforces the point that the game is about skill.

Factions for me, is all about how it will change the metagame. New skills and proffesions mean new tactics, and it is very much a clean slate. I cant wait to come up with a killer build, and make some decent progress up the ladder.

Are you talking about the city? The most repetitive place ever and it covers half the game. Full of not so unique assasins, jade brotherhood and afflicted. The only monsters that werent everywhere are vermin.