Taking one for the community.

According to ArenaNets business plan it's one expansion pack every 6th month. We apparently only got factions so late because of more people were being needed on seperate teams.

So it also has been talked about that Factions was made by a bunch of new guys and a new team, and Chapter 3 is being made by the "core" GW team.


Wouldn't it be awesome if, after Chapter 3 was released by the end of this year, ArenaNet would dedicate one entire year to fixing the mediocre aspects of GW, Factions and chapter 3. 2007 Will offer tons of new technology like Vista and DirectX10.

Making a game with one year of development, is simply insane. Most good games take at least 3-4 years these days. Shouldn't ArenaNet slow down or change to a different business model, because I think GW needs more and better trading, end game content, loot, grouping and social mechanics.

Honestly I think they should go back and re-write the entire story. So many people think GW(from my own perspective) is a joke because it's being marked as an RPG and yet it has a story weaker than Pokemon:-D


Dont you think so? so instead of releasing small expenssive updates upon failure upon failure they should combine the factions and core GW team to sorely dedicate a year or something to fix the serious problems, and then go back and make GW.???

WRONG

we got Factions so late because they cant make one year of development in a shorter time.

the 6 month release is done by staggered teams.

Factions was started on release of GW and took 1 year with release on the 1 year anniversary.

chapter 3 was started oct/nov of 05 and will be out in oct/nov 06 WITH A FULL YEAR OF DEVELOPMENT.

with the release of Factions the other team has started work on chapter 4 with a 2nd anniversary release date of April 28 07 with 1 full year of work.

get it now?

The game doesnt take 3-4 years because the graphics engine, AI, animation, etc are already created.

All thats being made is new models/textures/quests/maps.

I dont think going back and rewriting the story is a smart thing to do.

It would effectively kill what story there is. You cant make a revision so easily on something you already built on top of. The best they can do is make expansions with better storylines.

They aren't making a game in a year - the core engine is already made. They are taking a year to add content, create new stories, quests, maps, skills etc. That seems perfectly doable in a year - however they probably need to call the expansions, because as a standalone game, Factions doesn't deliver the same quanity that Phrophices and really - its all high end content, which suggests the intent is that one has Phrophices as well.

That's not quite right either.

We got Factions late because they took time out to do Sorrow's Furnace.

We probably would have gotten Factions that Christmas.

anet should...
1: fire their skill designer from faction. They were 90% clueless.
2: remove politics from the PvE. let pvp fuel its own ego in other ways.
3: learn to put traders in place to regulate the market. ( ie mod merchants. )
4: fix all the aoe skills that are effected by trigger to be more a burst dmg effect or lower enegy cost. some skills are just a 25energy enemy run button.
(ie fire,and smites. )

5: nerf the ritualist. anything that can be a bonder, healer, heavy spiker and tank in one is to powerful. i have a ritualist and even playing as one I say they are to over powered.

they shouldslow down if all those games are gonna be like factions, cause then they get pretty boring, and quickly, so they should take their time and make a good one, that's for sure!

You sure? I had heard that the Sorrow's Furnace maps were done 6 months or so before they were actually released; but were delayed so they could tie in their release to DirectSong. Of course that could be incorrect info, but I've heard it from many people.

I agree with the OP that they should have one team combined, and take the time to make a game right. Obviously Factions has many more complaints attached to it than Chapter 1 did, because of the short development time of Factions.

sorry but wrong as SF had notning to do with it.

GAILE GRAY

I have to agree that going back and fixing some more core issues with the game should be more of a priority before, during, after ch. 3 (any issues with prophecies should not be ignored either.. storage, economy for example).. I really am dissapointed with several aspects of GW which could have been improved on, but are taking a very long time which MANY other games have solved without needing 2 expansions to get it done. Not that the game is bad, it's just that there is always room for improvement. Hopefully Anet will fix some issues that were even present in prophecies because the longer it takes, the less people will put up with waiting.

With 1 year of development, they can do a lot, but I think the factions team really should have been working with the prophecies team closer because it looks like factions dissapoints with bugs that should have already been avoided from prophecies bugs.

I agree with you on the need for more end-game content. There should be more areas specifically for experienced lvl 20 players. There should also be better drops in areas like that to actually encourage people to go there.

And the story lines are rather weak. The story lines are rather clumsy and there are some spots that seem like there was something left out. Sometimes it feels like I'm reading a sentence where the author forgot to include the verb; there are just some spots where it seems like something is missing.

Hopefully, Chapter 3 will be better since it will be developed by the same team that did Prophecies.

I think Arena Net should take as long on Campaign Three as is needed for it to be done. Don't feel obligated to deliver a game every six months. Us gamers are willing to cut a company a lot of slack for missed release dates as long as the end product is spectacular. What we are not so fond of is rushed games full of significant design and implementation problems. As you can see from the feedback on GWF, your standard to beat is not any other game like Oblivion or WoW. Your standard is Prophecies. That is the level of quality we have come to expect from Arena Net.

Every 6th months is needed to keep my attention, as well as the attention of most of the community.

If they took another year off to "Update" or whatever you are complaining about...I would probably get bored and quit playing....If I came back or not would depend on what I found to do with my time.

(And standard development time is more like 9 months, they hire so many people they can make a game much quicker now...unless you are talking about in-depth games or games with long betas [betas are usually reserved for games that will be recieving a lot of updates ie WoW or GW. These games usually work on a 2 year cycle...but 1 year with twice as many people would yield better results {Technology is still new by time the game is released}])

I don't believe they ever gave us a reason why it was 1 year before the second chapter.

But I know its been in their business plan ever since I can remember, 1 year until the second chapter, and then a new chapter every 6 months.

Prophecies held me for a year.
Factions is losing me after one month.
I doubt I'll be around for C3 simply because of all the bugs that will never be fixed.

In the meantime, I'll try to make the best of what I paid for.
My advice to A.Net?
Take your time.
Hire a writer.
Beta test and debug BEFORE you try to sell your game.
Add some simple yet overdue features that are essential before throwing new things at us.

<sarcasm>I so love the amount of programmers on these forums that know exactly what it takes to do things.</sarcasm>

Beat_Go_Stick: until you can do better writing, keep your opinion to yourself, beat testing and debugging was done, but there is only so much you can actually do, players are way more inventive and when you pack 100000 of them into a single game, I guarentee they'll do things the coders / testers never thought about. As for the features you speak of, they are being worked on even as I type this, storage improvements, henchmen/pet improvments, auction improvements, etc. None of these are tied to a specific version of the game as such EVERYONE will get them when they are done. As for not being around for Ch3, works for me. Personally, I'm really enjoying Factions, bugs included because I know just what programming is like, I do it for a living.

In case your too thick to realize, we're allowed to post our opinions here, so i dont see your reasoning for the personal attacks on him.
I guess the new forum rule according to dargon is
No stating your opinion unless your a programmer! because heck since we're not programmers our opinions dont count.

right?

That would be singularly stupid, 90% of player will not have DX10 graphics cards or Vista by next year.

Nonsense, most games do not develop their own engines anyway. The only other business model available would be a monthly subscription and in that case Anet will very likely lose a sizeable amount of players.
More and better trading of what? Uberitems? All that your suggestions will do is turn GW into a WoW clone.

Anet never claimed it was an RPG, rewriting the story...you are joking, I hope?

Basically, you want GW not to be GW but another game. A rather odd suggestion, if you ask me. I dont consider Factions very expensive compared to other games and what they call expansions nor do I consider it too small.

true true same here. i think ther should make more c3 like prophecies and make the game play so good that it holds over. also i think they should have a sering in c3 because i enjoyed the moa bird trick,jk jk, but i do think they shoul keep things legit and put out 1 proffesion per expanshion because proffesions will be hard to think of in the 6th or 7th chapter

I worry about six months being too quick. I was barely beginning to tire of Prophecies (played about a year) and worry that new chapters too soon will keep me from fully enjoying the old one.