Let me start off by saying that I originally bought Guild Wars for it's PvE aspect. When I first got the game, the option of having multiple slots for characters didn't concern me, because I thought I would never actually use all of them. For awhile, I was happy with my one W/E, but after playing PvP and enjoying it, I decided that I wanted to explore some of the other classes and then take them to PvP after I had learned the ropes.
So, slowly but surely, I started creating multiple PvE characters so I could go through the game, learn how to the play a different class, and then take my character with everything I earned into PvP. I later found that each character had it's own purpose in both PvE and PvP, and couldn't bring myself to delete them after I had maxed it out (level, weapons, runes). This didn't matter much at the time, because there was no viable reason to create PvP only characters if you already had an existing maxed out PvE of the same class.
That, of course, was before the faction update.
With the fairly recent implementation of faction, I found that there was now an aspect of the game that I could not access, due to this character limit. Had I known that such a system would have been created, I would have intentionally left a slot open to take advantage of it. Now it's too late, and in order for me to make any use of faction, I am forced to remove one of my hard earned PvE characters.
Personally, this is something I'd rather not have to do.
On the flipside, I understand the need for a limit on characters. Afterall, this is a game without monthly fees, and there has to be something in place to detract the use of account sharing and other lame activities.
So my proposal is this: why not increase the limit of the characters to 5, but force the 5th character to be PvP only. This will allow players to access nearly all aspects of the game, both PvE and PvP, without having to be hindered by forced deletions or having no alternative but to ignore faction altogether. This way, people will have the freedom to explore all facets of GW gameplay, with no real hindrances to the player or to Guild Wars itself.
I know this account problem doesn't affect everyone, and, in fact, I imagine it affects only a small minority. Still, it's something I think could work without disrupting ArenaNet's plans for account creation and limitation, and would greatly assist me with the dilemma that I currently face.
What does everybody else think?
T
