Curse

Darigaaz87 · Mar 05, 2015, 06:35 PM // 18:35

This is a list of ideas I was thinking about on these days.

The core of the project revolves around re-creating a strong and present community both in- and off-game, mostly through the use of modern social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) which maybe weren't so common back in the old days. This has been partially taken care by many fb groups, which are growing faster and bigger every day.
When the community will be back to a state which will grant GW players a minimum of "people's power", we can organize a serious petition to ask ANet for some improvements to their game. Obviously we will ask for little tweaks first, something a very little group of people can do with very little work, allowing ANet to keep their focus on GW2. But if this works out well, with some time we will be able to ask for something more, like an Elonian chapter for Beyond, for example.

Here's my plan, divided in three parts.

1) 10th Anniversary Editions
Selling in the online store cd-keys for new editions of the games, which will include access to the selected campaign/expansion, 2 character slots, unlock the anniversary storage panel, all the /bonus items from the pre-order editions and the Fire Imp. For those which already have all the games, creating some "10th Anniversary Update Packs" with just the /bonus items for the selected campaign/expansion would be a nice idea. The prices should be around 20€/$ for the games, or 5€/$ for the upgrades.
This way both the players and ANet get something they want: the first get new items for their characters (if they didn't had them already), and the latter gets more money in their bags selling something they don't even have to work (too much) on. This may also lead to a new wave of players coming to the game, some from GW2 maybe, or from other games, with a good use of strategic offers from ANet's marketing division.

2) More clarity from ANet/NCSoft
In the last couple of months we witnessed a huge ban wave, mostly done for expelling botters and real money sellers from the game. That's a very good thing, but ANet's Ban Hammer went rampant mad and banned some innocent people along with the scoundrels. Now, accidents happen every time, but what really upsets me is the lack of communication from ANet. No apologies, no explanations, no nothing. Lucky for me I wasn't part of the ban wave, but this way of relating with their public really grinded my gears. If we start to act as a strong community we may be able to reason with the Big Bosses in a more "face-to-face" way. We don't need to start an uprising, but just to act like a consumer's committee, or whatever you call it in your country.

3) Little improvements
As I've said above, if we manage to get new life in the community we can also dare asking ANet for some tweaks in the game. Here is a list of the little things I think they can very easily work on for us:
-Work on some old big bugs (see "Gwen's Flute" for an example)
-Enhance the Alliance section of the Guild panel (see which members of other guilds in the alliance are online)
-Add an "Undo" options in the Buy/Sell window
Those are just the ones that come to my mind at this time, but the main concept is: nothing new to add, just working on what we already have.

4) Further plans
If the game becomes more active on the long run we can also hope (or ask) for more serious improvements, like the Elonian chapter of Beyond, new armor sets (like Tyrian for Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon, and Dervish, and Canthan for Paragon and Dervish), 3-4 meta updates per year (just to change periodically both PvE and PvP meta), and so on. As I said, this would be something to look to in the far future, maybe next year, providing that the community becomes stronger than now and decide to act as a union to get some power in dealing with ANet/NCSoft.

This is my idea. The best way to achieve these goals is through online petitions. With enough participants we can try getting some life in this game again, but we need to work together for this.

The Mr Crow · Mar 05, 2015, 07:10 PM // 19:10

I agree and like everything you said, but could you please Edit out the Facebook group, I don't want Anet to come under the impression that we're trying to be pests or that we're attacking them

and if Anet doesn't have time for GW1 anymore how about giving someone else the reigns and take over that project? I got 11 years experience in game designing sure that qualifies for something....

Lord Asakurra · Mar 05, 2015, 08:05 PM // 20:05

I like this idea, however a few things I saw I felt I should point out:

Profession "balance" takes at least a year if not more once you consider every aspect of the game you will be rewriting in order to accommodate all changes that would be required. Skills don't just affect a particular area, they affect everything because npcs use a good majority of them as well and that is time ArenaNet wouldn't even consider, unfortunately.

Converting all drops in campaigns to be more like EotN drops is a bad idea. You're going to see most of the collectors who still play the game rage quit after an update like that and there goes 99% of the money in the guild wars economy (I myself am not a collector in case someone might think this is bias). I think I speak for everyone when I say I wouldn't want to farm ecto another 10 years to get the economy back to what it is now.

Everything else was spot on, would LOVE to see a Beyond chapter for NF and even EotN if at all possible.

On Mr. Crows note, I wonder how much it would cost to purchase the rights for Guild Wars from ArenaNet? If I was a multi-millionaire I would definitely be thinking about the possibility of purchasing the rights and setting up my own servers with everybody's stuff on it, hiring people to support/code, etc, if only I were a millionaire :/

Darigaaz87 · Mar 05, 2015, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Asakurra

Profession "balance" takes at least a year if not more once you consider every aspect of the game you will be rewriting in order to accommodate all changes that would be required. Skills don't just affect a particular area, they affect everything because npcs use a good majority of them as well and that is time ArenaNet wouldn't even consider, unfortunately.

Converting all drops in campaigns to be more like EotN drops is a bad idea. You're going to see most of the collectors who still play the game rage quit after an update like that and there goes 99% of the money in the guild wars economy (I myself am not a collector in case someone might think this is bias). I think I speak for everyone when I say I wouldn't want to farm ecto another 10 years to get the economy back to what it is now.

Edited to take off those points.

TheFrogMan · Mar 05, 2015, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darigaaz87

-Add an "Undo" options in the Buy/Sell window

I'm not sure if you're referring to the trade window but if you are then this is already possible. Before you click "submit offer" you can double click an item to remove it from the trade. If you already submitted your offer you can click "change offer" and then double click the item to remove it. I've seen some people who cancel the entire trade rather than removing an item so I assume that's what you're referring to.

K A O S Theory · Mar 05, 2015, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheFrogMan

I'm not sure if you're referring to the trade window but if you are then this is already possible. Before you click "submit offer" you can double click an item to remove it from the trade. If you already submitted your offer you can click "change offer" and then double click the item to remove it. I've seen some people who cancel the entire trade rather than removing an item so I assume that's what you're referring to.

I think he is referring to the merchant windows, something like the "Buy Back" feature in GW2 and most other MMO's

TheFrogMan · Mar 05, 2015, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by K A O S Theory

I think he is referring to the merchant windows, something like the "Buy Back" feature in GW2 and most other MMO's

Ah ok, that would be handy. I'd still have a Q9 Eaglecrest Axe I sold to the merchant a while back if that was already implemented lol. I'd be curious to see some of the things people accidentally sold to the merchant before.

I like the thread idea though, I'll support this.

Darigaaz87 · Mar 05, 2015, 11:18 PM // 23:18

The core idea is to go through stages with our requests to ANet. We can't expect them to get a full new team on this game, but we can ask for small things like minor tweaks, at least to make the game as it is now the best we can have. Then, with the time and a new, growing community, we could even dare ask for more serious things, like new Beyond chapters or profession rebalance. Hell, if we really grow strong enough we could even expect for a new Beyond chapter per year!

About the user created material, I'm strongly against that. Something like Neverwinter's Foundry would require a large amount of work from developers to be implemented, as well as a constant team which surveys the new material. Without this bases it will just be a Deluxe RPG Maker where every idiot could make whatever he wants and fill the servers with low quality material. No, this is not a sandbox game, and ANet is not Valve. This game is wonderful because has been made by people proficient in their jobs, not by amateurs.

Smoke Nightvogue · Mar 06, 2015, 09:49 AM // 09:49

Reading this with big interest, there are a lot of captivating ideas, though, almost half of them are based on "if only I were", "if only I had" and other not even semi-professional assumptions, as if you actually were, you'd already had your own game, with poetesses and préférence.

It doesn't mean these suggestions aren't good, it only implies that the actual model of turning them into reality is much more complicated than outlined here.

According to Mike O'Brien, there are no dedicated Guild Wars 1 developers allocated within ArenaNet's staff these days, though they do have a small on-going support team consisting of a few devs, one of whom is Joe Kimmes, the Live Team's data-upkeep programmer.

Skipping immersion into the details of every exact suggestion, I'll simply point that the existing Guild Wars Live Team is not able to develop the new content or perform major tweaks of existing features, like what's called "3-4 meta updates per year" by the starter of this thread.

You're all very welcome to propose new ideas or suggestions on Joe's wiki talk page, but please, do understand that one person is not actually able to code 80% of what's been suggested here.

Darigaaz87 · Mar 06, 2015, 07:19 PM // 19:19

I know that as of now the team working behind GW is very, very small, and that's why I say that we need more "power" to convince ANet to bring back a decent number of people to work on the game. Obviously we can't ask for such a thing right now, or in the near future, that's why I'm proposing a project that should be developed in phases, starting from the rebuilt of a living community in- and off-game, then asking through petitions for small tweaks (I actually don't know the load of work each of my suggestions require, a technical help about this would be appreciated), then proceeding with more serious requests. But I don't expect this project to become reality soon, I think it will take maybe even 2-3 years to get to the point where we can expect brand new contents for the game.

ske · Mar 18, 2015, 06:50 AM // 06:50

How about we start a kickstarter to fund improvements?

Darigaaz87 · Mar 18, 2015, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by ske

How about we start a kickstarter to fund improvements?

That's a good idea, but before rising fund we need to see how many are really interested in this, we need to see if ANet/NCSoft will approve something like this. It's not just about getting some money and throw them in ANet's office, we need to plan this thoroughly and with the help of those who work on this.