Factions - 3 weeks to go

[Real]

Well here we are, less than a month from the release of Guild Wars Factions.

One word of advice to Anet - make it good.

Your constant meddling with the game does annoy a large part of the playerbase. You advertise it as a game for the casual player but how can it be when the casual player finds a different game every time s/he logs on? stop changing the rules/skills/areas and let people play.

I've put my order in for Factions and eagerly await it's arrival. Like a lot of players I've become a little bored over the past couple of months and need new content to spark some interest.

Bring on chapter 2 and make it a good one. Interesting note though - i paid 70AUD for Guild Wars and factions is retailing at 99.95AUD - how many people have seen an expansion cost more than the original game retail at release?

[Galazar]

An expansion that costs more than the game itself...interesting

so they brag about "omg we dont charge you monthly"
...but in reality, "omg, shh, keep it secret that we're gonna charge you a shit load for the expansions :/"

go aNet, you have a place in my heart...not.

[mort decametor]

Okay firstly... lets look at this from the commercial point of view and then the emotionally attached GW player's point of view

Whether or not you agree with ANET's tampering with the game.. the fact is that most online games only get the amount of updates/balances/nerfs that Guild Wars gets if there is a monthly fee. As there is no monthly fee with GW and only a finite number of copies will be/have been sold the company has to keep paying the staff it has to work on GW and other ANET projects somehow whilst making a profit for themselves and for the publishers NCSoft. There are some games out there with a monthly fee that don't get half the proactive work on them that GW gets.

Factions to us is an add-on. To others it is a stand-alone game and that is how it is being marketed. Call it a sequel you can also add on to your original game, which by definition is an expansion but I have to say however that I don't know how many expansions to games don't require you to own the orignal to play it.. I think it's none pretty much.

I paid £17.99 for the original and I'm paying £17.99 for the sequel/expansion/thingy so personally I'm not that bothered myself. I can see why Real would be a bit peturbed by the increase so to think from a commercial point of view I have to guess that they predict sales in Australia to not be strong enough and therefore wish to increase their margin in that market. In Europe and the US I think they have a vague idea that the game will sell enough for them to make a profit and keep the price the same.

Having read an interview with the dude in charge at ANET they have 2 parallel development teams working on different chapters to keep to their "new content every 6 months" promise.

They set a deadline of a year for each chapter and stagger development accordingly. So basically when Chapter 2 is released that team will start work on Chapter 4. Chapter 3 is already 6 months into it's development and will be in the shops (at probably 110 AUD) 6 months after the release of Chapter 2... etc etc etc.. into infinity or until they or the gaming public get bored and do something else.

A clever way of doing things but something I would think needs to be marketable to not have a monthly fee incurred on us players. Therefore they will make us pay full whack for each of the chapters and be fully within their rights and not at all unfair (IMO) to do so. If I start to not like it I won't buy the next chapter.

Having said all that I have to say a few other things more in line with how I feel about it as a GW player emotionally attached to a game I can honestly say I have loved and hated in equal measure.

Chapter 2 is going to be the same as Chapter 1 with different maps and slightly different enemies from a PVE point of view. There's only about 15 different ones in the original anyway. Graphically it will look the same in terms of the skills and characters. The spells will still look very unimpressive and not as flashy as those in say Dungeons and Dragons (which I hear looks really nice). So we're getting new content but it will be much the same thing again. Not new.. just a bit different.

It seems to me that owners of the original GW are being badly treated if rumours about the amount of slots etc are to be believed. I can see us basically getting 1 more slot.. perhaps 2 if we're really lucky.

Also if our old level 20's can get into the new areas.. will we not immediately have the old problem of running to the best places etc? The only way to get your money's worth is to play through the game with a newly created character.. otherwise 75% of it will be so easy for your level 20 that it becomes meaningless. I suspect that a lot of the people who play the game may not bother with this as well as us ending up with level 20 warriors and level 20 monks in PUG's making the game incredibly easy for those lower levelled players within the new content meaning more useless noob players with no idea how to really play their class in PVP. Good to face but not good to have in your guild.

In terms of PVP it will be the same except that now we will fight for a faction. Nothing in the actual gameplay will change due to that. You'll still be fighting the same sort of builds (with the odd addition of ritualists and assassins) but overall very much of a muchness.

If we're getting bored of the original then unless they have done something amazing that they haven't publicised yet we will be getting bored of Chapter 2 a lot quicker and may not even bother with chapter 3.. etc. The only saving grace for chap 2 is that we get two new classes. I can't see them introducing many more of them because there isn't much left unless you add seriously specialised ones.. ( I hear assassin already is pretty funky anyway).

So all in all. I want to get it but I know I will get tired of it much quicker than I did Prophecies. Whether I buy Chap 3 we will see. I understand the commercial reasons for the pricing etc.. I just think it's sort of slaps us dedicated GW players in the face a little and doesn't really pay respect to our loyalty to the game and time spent within it.

Shame really.

Still.. anyone played Act Of War yet? It's brilliant. Just bought it and loving it! Pee's all over command and conquer if you ask me.. and the cut scene acting is terrible.. just what you want from a RTS.

[Real]

Mort i understand commercial realities as well as the next bloke but i think they'll shoot themselves in the foot with the increased price. Btw, can you say where the game is available for 17.99 (sorry i cant find a pound key on my keyboard) as Kingy was saying he couldn't find it for less than 26.99

also, despite being told 31st March when placing the pre-order i then see that the Guildwars website has announced the end of April for the release so yet another month of waiting but we get to play a weekend of it!

I just personally find a couple of the things they've done with this game a little odd. I want a character for each profession therefore I need to run two accounts. On top of that I cannot after purchasing these accounts merge them to have all the characters under the same banner thereby having to unlock the same skills twice, build up faction, fame and rank on two accounts, then buy two copies of the expansion to continue to have two accounts. The only advantage that I can perceive is that one account is housed in America and the other Europe allowing me to follow favour if I was that way inclined.

[Avrilcloud]

Agree with Real way too many things in this "expansion" that just doesn't make much sence! see I'm from the old days when an "expansion" usuall either ment a continuation (using same players) or something COMPLETLY different. I really don't know if I can be bugged getting all the same skills again, old players should have been given the option to link expansion to old account and use their PVE lvl 20 players in the later stages of the game. (easy make up a quick storyline ect... been done in loadsa games before) For me personally I'd like some Lands I can explore with my fellow guildies I don't want more land for lvl 1-19s to piss around in, I think Factions should be for lvl 20s or increase Cap, starting form the beggining for me is boring expecially when most of the skills are ones you've used before.

But I think they are trying to cash in on Newbies, I.E Making the game playable for TOTALLY new players. Fair enough but I suggest catering to Loyal customers with a lvl 20 area for PVE AND a discount for those with Old Accounts.

Just what I think, to be honest prob won't have time to play this until the summer.

Av

[mort decametor]

Pre-order from Play.com. Advertised as 17.99 or it still is on my outstanding order form. It may be the price has increased for pre-order now but I ordered it the moment it appeared. Date for despatch listed as 28/04/06.

Agree they are totally Av aiming for first time GW players. But that's the commercial aspect of it.

It does stink of not giving a hoot about us dedicated GW players already involved. As with anything of this nature they assume that they will have us buying the next addition whether we stick with it or not.. basically they make their money that way whether they keep us happy or not. So why should they care. No one made money our of being sentimental and they are in the business of making games that make money. whether they say they want to "provide the customer with the ultimate gaming experience" is irrelevant as that is just spin for "we will make money and you fools will give it to us".

Definately a case of shooting themselves in the foot in the long run Real but as they have people expecting little profit graphs with upward facing lines they will achieve their objective and when the novelty wears out for us dedicated lot the next batch of 12 year olds will be on board or, as is more likely, they will come up with a totally new game that sells as well as this one.

I don't like it myself but short-term gain is most companies commercial objective these days as they have to make a return quickly or the plug gets pulled.


Such is the way of any business. People look at the short term rather than the long and in the case of game developers and publishers they know the next thing will come along and ursurp what they have done and therefore the short term gain is the law they live by. The world of gaming is a fast paced and nasty business. If you want to survive in it you have to continue to make money. Being innovative and new is nice but without commercial success you lose so it is not something most successful games companies dare to do.

In the games industry it is all about making as much money as you can from your product before something else comes along and replaces it. In some cases the developer/publisher is successful enough to add continuity to this and that is why EA etc continue to exist.. they work on short term goals and achieve them then move onto the next. How many version of FIFA do you need which just add one little trick to the already commercially successful engine. People still buy it no matter how crap it is. The moment that PES overtakes it in sales they pull their finger out and attempt to improve their franchise. when they do and achieve more sales than their rivals they stick to it until they need to make a change due to commercial necessity.

If we as the buying public don't like it we should speak with our wallets... but we just get replaced by the next lot of gamers who want a product, buy it and then get bored and move onto the next one. They know this and exploit it as any good business should to maximise profitabilty.

It's just commercial reality and if we kid ourselves that these people are at all loyal to us gamers or sentimental about us then we are fooling ourselves.

This is why the majority of PC games fit into one of a few genres. Ground breaking new ideas are commercial suicide to these companies and that is why there are very few new ideas out there. It's all FPS's, RTS, MMORPG or the same old shee-ite all the time.

Every so often you get something that breaks the mould and once it is a commercial success you get 100's and 100's of clones of it. If it isn't a success you never see it's like again. ( I use freelancer as an example.. brilliant game.. well moddable with good online community.. sells badly.. no plans for sequel to a game that the fans of which would love to see as there is not a commercial reason to do so). It's the same with movies, TV, books, music etc etc etc

I don't like it but to me that is the reality of the situation and the constant need for instant success that todays commercial entertainment industry relies on to survive. Gaming is part of this and as such the consumer is the one taken for a ride. Lotalty means nothing to these people as it means less $ in the bank for them than new business.

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