Curse

freekedoutfish · Jan 12, 2007, 03:05 PM // 15:05

Two choices are either;

1) Future expansion continue the trend of being independant and not requiring any previous campaigns to run.

2) Future expansions are just that. Their expansions which require you to own atleast one of the previous campaigns to enter them.

Obviously continuing the trend of making them independant will keep new players happy, because they wont have to spend more money purchasing previous campaigns.

But for existing players and campaigns it has downsides. Now im not suggesting that GWs is at risk of loosing players. Its not. But logically the more independant campaigns they release, the thinner the players are spread accross each campaign. Anet cant realistically expect sales to replenish the population 100% each time.

You will eventually have fewer and fewer players in older campaigns as the new and existing players rush to new campaigns. Obviously this will be a long way down the line. I expect GWs and Anet still have a good few years left in them. Im not suggesting the game is dying at all.

This is why I ask which option you see as the best for GWs future.

If future campaigns were to be made dependant upon owning atleast one previous game, it will incourage people to atleast play through one of them. It will keep them alive.

Obviously its not a perfect plan, because once you add a new campaign, most people will still rush to it. But if new players have to play through tyria, cantha or elona first, then atleast those games will be kept active to get there.

Notice im not suggesting we make then play through a specific campaign. Some might have expected me to say prophercies to be the required starting game. But I believe that prophercies, factions and nightfall are all unique games with unique good-sides and bad and all 3 are good starting points.

Plus they are all connected and the main games. So the new player can enter the game with a choice of playing style.

Through a good story-line, through fast action, or through a happy medium.

I realise this is like a double edged sword. It would help keep previous campaigns alive, but it might also hurt sales of new campaigns.

The question is, which is more important or can both benefit.

[update]

My view on adding new content to old campaigns, is that its a great idea and I would love to see it. But it would detract from development time and effort on new campaigns. If you imagine that everytime they released a new campaign, they added new content to each old one, it would multiply the work load alot every time.

It would get progressively harder and more expensive to do. I think its right to eventually leave the older campaigns alone because they pretty much perfect now. Factions could use some work, but only the odd thing. Tyria is perfect.

Plus if "adding new content" means adding new map areas to a previous campaign, then I am completely against that idea as it would devalue and invalidate the grandmaster cartographer title. You would either loose % on exploration from adding new areas, or you would keep your 100% but have unexplored sections. You could loose your title or it would make no sense.

If new content is to be added instead, then it needs to either be inside instances like SF, FOW or UW, where the uncovered map doesnt count to exploration. Or it needs to be added to existing areas.

Dev121 · Jan 12, 2007, 03:11 PM // 15:11

I thinck updating the past campaigns would be MUCH better , discounted aswell because we already own the base ......... a series of quests/missions that put you against a particular foe : Example :
Kryta series (UNDEAD)
You gain about 10 new intresting rewarding quests and then about 4 mission's , you then fight a undead leader (similar to rotscale) and you get a title for this , this could be incoparted all over but well a undead free update would be cool

.
BRING BACK PROPHICIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9th Requiem · Jan 12, 2007, 03:11 PM // 15:11

No, I prefer the current strategy. It lets you pick up exactly which chapters you want / prefer, and keeps things nicely independant. I can't really see all that much advantage in your method tbh, and you lose flexibility.

Xenex Xclame · Jan 12, 2007, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

Obviously its not a perfect plan, because once you add a new campaign, most people will still rush to it. But if new players have to play through tyria, cantha or elona first, then atleast those games will be kept active to get there.

This is exactly 2 reasons why it should stay how it is.
1) it doesnt solve anything, people will still go to the new area, because its new.
2) You dont want to force players to play something they dont want to ,if they want to play chapter 4 they shoudnt be forced to play tru chapter 1,2 or 3 ( or all of them) before they can get to 4, which is where they want to be.

They should just add new areas to older chapters using new chapters.
So chapter 4 will have a new town and explorable area ( kind like sorros furnace) for Phrophecies, this way they add new stuff to old chapter yet still get paid for theyr work. ( This idea just poped in my head didnt even think of it before, i like it so much all go add it in sardelac suggestions)

Phenick · Jan 12, 2007, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenex Xclame

This is exactly 2 reasons why it should stay how it is.
1) it doesnt solve anything, people will still go to the new area, because its new.
2) You dont want to force players to play something they dont want to ,if they want to play chapter 4 they shoudnt be forced to play tru chapter 1,2 or 3 ( or all of them) before they can get to 4, which is where they want to be.

They should just add new areas to older chapters using new chapters.
So chapter 4 will have a new town and explorable area ( kind like sorros furnace) for Phrophecies, this way they add new stuff to old chapter yet still get paid for theyr work. ( This idea just poped in my head didnt even think of it before, i like it so much all go add it in sardelac suggestions)

MOST CONSTRUCTIVE IDEA IVE EVER HEARD...ELEMENTARY AND SIMPLE..... That would just make everyone happier... they say 6 to 9 months so they should do it like they release 3 campaigns and then release another one wihch is less of its own game while still being its own game which is a 9mo project that adds to all the others a little bit too

Ninna · Jan 12, 2007, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Independent

people new to GW should be able to play GW *soley* with Chapter 4

Kelsey Cain · Jan 12, 2007, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Guild wars has to encourage new players to purchase new products in order to survive - If you just aim at the existing player base your numbers will inevetibly dwindle, that's why other (more traditional) MMORPG update packs usually include all previous expansions.

Guild wars is unique in this respect and as a result, the older areas of the game are becoming less populated. One thing we may see with future releases (as A-net seems not be promoting previous campigns) is free giveways of older campains (without additional character slots) when new campaigns are purchased - That is certainly what I would be looking to do if I was marketing the game. Would anyone have any objections to prophecies content being bundled free to new purchasers of the next chapter?

Silly Warrior · Jan 12, 2007, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Well...I hate right now how the world seemed all fragmented....it doesn't even seem like a real place. Other MMO's have got their mapping all worked out, guild wars doesn't.

New campaigns would be good, because I would get bored....but new gameplay is needed in CH4 for me to continue playing the game. Because all you do in this game is kill stuff...you don't do anything else....starting to get boring....anything else please.....

As far as updating with expansions....this might work if the put all of the maps together, and made it seem like a living breathing place....

I personally think 1 team should be making expansions, and the other new games. That way we get new updates and totally new worlds every year...but it might be too slow :O.

Whatever.....I dunno what to think, it would work but I doubt Anet actually doing this.

Necromonger · Jan 12, 2007, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Their basic model is set

Chapter 4 will be independant as were the first 3.

The question is, would it be worth their while to have, as suggested a development team work on small, traditional style expansion packs for previous games?

Anet might be able to see they have x number of players still actively playing prophecies, hence a $19 expansion pack could possible create some extra revenue.

Depends on how aggressive they want to be with milking the GW franchise.

TheRaven · Jan 12, 2007, 08:30 PM // 20:30

I think the events are a good way to bring players back to the older games. I don't know how practical it is since we aren't playing a monthly fee, but here's an idea.

How about a monthly or weekly contest that would be based in 1 continent. Post a "goal" on the main guild wars site and any player that completes the goal in the allotted timeframe receives a prize. The prize could a new unique weapon, a hat, gold, medals for your armor or a title. Anything really.

The goals could be diverse. Here are a few ideas.....
- Complete 5 missions in Cantha this week. Must obtain masters on at least 4 of them.
- Collect at least 10 dye drops from monsters this week. (Must be drops. Dyes bought from players or NPC's do not count)
- Complete at least 1 quest in fow this week.
- Deposit 50k into your storage account this week.
- Kill every monster in The Undercity this week.

Some of these goals could be extremely difficult and others easy and others based on pure chance. Mix it up.

I also play on www.pogo.com and this concept is similiar to their "weekly badges" concept. It keeps the games on Pogo fresh and interesting when you're working towards a specific goal each week.

EDIT: This could also become a purchased add on. Pogo charges $35 per year for the ability to access the weekly badge goals (as well as other content and perks). A-Net could implement a similiar small fee that would unlock these "premium quests".

MegaMouse · Jan 13, 2007, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Making it so that you have to play through one chapter to get to another is not realy a good idea. This creates a problem where not many new players will want to buy 2 chapters just to play one. Setting it so that to get to certian content in the new chapter you will need to complete certian goals within the previous chapters might be doable though. Say to get to a new Elite ission in the new chapter you will need to complete several missions within the prevoius chapters (lets not get ridiculous about this now just thinking that completeing only those missions when you arrive in the previous chapter should do it). Have it set up so that each seperate chapter opens up a new Elite mission. Doing this could get players interested in the old chapters without requireing them to buy them if they do not want too. Also the next chapter should not include all the original professions, doing this also will give incentive to get the previous chapters. Say take out the Necromancer or Mesmer in the new chapter for example (I am not saying do away with them completely just do not include them in the new chapter).

Mega Mouse

Dmc1281 · Jan 14, 2007, 01:09 AM // 01:09

I would personally like to see, not expansions like you would purchase in the store, but upgrades to current expansions.

Something that would add some more depth and bring people back into the other chapters.

Think of "Storylinne #2" for propocies that deals with what happened to gwen, in which you had to have missions fromalready established outposts. Doing this will make it so that you have players playing through a new story with new things to do.

In addition to that have the stand alone chapters where if you have the others great, but if not that is cool as well.

-LiamB · Jan 14, 2007, 11:09 AM // 11:09

1) Future expansion continue the trend of being independant and not requiring any previous campaigns to run.

Griff Mon · Jan 14, 2007, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Actually they are being pretty clever about it.

1- They make an expansion stand alone to bring new players into the game. They include things that will work in all versions such as expanded storage, heros, etc., that you can use in the earler version to encourage owners of the previous game to buy the new version.

I think these things make people who are sitting on the fence make the decision to buy the expansion.

greyf0x_f0x · Jan 14, 2007, 07:05 PM // 19:05

I'll start off by saying I'm sure the folks in charge at ANet are aware of all these issues, in fact I'm sure their insight into their business model, and it's possible strengths and weaknesses are far greater than ours. Having said all that, here's a thought.

I know that the current dev team setup, is to have 2 teams working on overlapping schedules, but what if they were subdivided further. Say we had another team (maybe more than one...) who worked on "Episodic" content. This would be content designed for existing campaigns, most likely available in the GW Store. These new "episodes" would not contain the same amount of content available in a full new campaign, but instead would offer additional areas explore, new creatures to defeat and rare treasures to unearth. I'm thinking an update on par with Sorrow's Furnace, around that size, and appropriately priced. I'd imagine that these episodes could be released with far greater regularity than a full campaign, and would be completely optional upgrades.

Now, how all this would fit into PvP, I'm not sure. I'm not sure the PvP community would like the idea of having a constant influx of new skills every few months, and the thought of new professions with each episode isn't appealing to me as a PvPer. However, marketing these episodes purely as PvE content seems to go against the GW ethos. One possible solution, is to include new PvP Arena's / Modes with each episode. However, this too could be problematic, as unlike PvE, PvP is reliant on having a constant pool of players competing (just take a look at jade quarry for an example of what happens if you have a PvP mode without enough player support).

freekedoutfish · Jan 14, 2007, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by greyf0x_f0x

I'll start off by saying I'm sure the folks in charge at ANet are aware of all these issues, in fact I'm sure their insight into their business model, and it's possible strengths and weaknesses are far greater than ours. Having said all that, here's a thought.

I know that the current dev team setup, is to have 2 teams working on overlapping schedules, but what if they were subdivided further. Say we had another team (maybe more than one...) who worked on "Episodic" content. This would be content designed for existing campaigns, most likely available in the GW Store. These new "episodes" would not contain the same amount of content available in a full new campaign, but instead would offer additional areas explore, new creatures to defeat and rare treasures to unearth. I'm thinking an update on par with Sorrow's Furnace, around that size, and appropriately priced. I'd imagine that these episodes could be released with far greater regularity than a full campaign, and would be completely optional upgrades.

Now, how all this would fit into PvP, I'm not sure. I'm not sure the PvP community would like the idea of having a constant influx of new skills every few months, and the thought of new professions with each episode isn't appealing to me as a PvPer. However, marketing these episodes purely as PvE content seems to go against the GW ethos. One possible solution, is to include new PvP Arena's / Modes with each episode. However, this too could be problematic, as unlike PvE, PvP is reliant on having a constant pool of players competing (just take a look at jade quarry for an example of what happens if you have a PvP mode without enough player support).

If adding new content to old campaigns includes adding new map areas, then thats an impossibility as it would invalidate the grandmaster cartographer title.

If new content just includes quests then I wouldnt complain.

But having 100% on all 3 campaigns, I wouldnt be impressed if they added new map areas to each campaign.

actionjack · Jan 14, 2007, 07:22 PM // 19:22

I see sorta flaw in your logic.

It is the spread of locations and missions, and not the stand alone aspect of that thins out the player.

The idea would be to make it fun enough that people are willing to buy the older chapter as well as the future new one (I would label it "retro marketing"). And having it depend of a previous chapter I think would have serious disadvantage in attraching new player, while still thinning out the old (As mostlikly that just mean more locations for player to spread to)

Now, they could do an add-on expansion packs, that give the old area more contents (such as Ascalon heros, or advance of story plots), or mini-chapter, but all those things I think could still be done with out need to own a another game.

If they want to do some clever marketing.. they could come up with an add-on mini chapter (say add 4-5 more mmissions and exploration area onto Ascalon, the 1st chapter, as well as adding many updates to it), and sell it in 2 form... 1) As a pack you can buy in the online store, that would require you already own ch1 AND 2) resell and repack the chapter 1 game onto the store as a "special edition", with the mini-chapter alredy add on.

Thus we who already own it can choose to buy this add on or not, while the new player would be temp to try the GW with the lure or extra content... all in all... to sell more games.

BahamutKaiser · Jan 14, 2007, 09:48 PM // 21:48

I would perfer new chapters and expansions, but reguardless of which means they choose to expand, I am more concerned about the originality and inventiveness of each, otherwise it woln't matter if they add Chapters, Expansions, Sequels or Free Updates.

Loviatar · Jan 14, 2007, 10:06 PM // 22:06

*A NEW BUILD IS AVAILABLE. PLEASE LOG OUT AND LOG BACK IN*

how many times have we all seen that message?

ONE build

NOT
build A with these added quests
not build B with these extra areas.

they have already said officially that new content will come in new chapters and be paid for by purchasing the new chapter.

greyf0x_f0x · Jan 14, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

But having 100% on all 3 campaigns, I wouldnt be impressed if they added new map areas to each campaign.

by that logic, neither sorrows furnace, nor DoA would have been released.