Curse

Gigashadow · Aug 15, 2009, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Yeah I agree, I think it will have multiple starting areas. Having every new character have to do exactly the same thing, as they do in Aion, is extremely tiresome.

Konig Des Todes · Aug 15, 2009, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martacus Grognoggin

While extremely nerdy, that is a pretty cool idea for a guild.

If outposts in GW2 can become controllable by guilds and alliances a la Factions, you guys should look into taking the Durmand Priory.

Nerdy, sure. But who on this forum, or who plays online games more than casually, isn't a nerd? By all rights and standards, just by how you've discussed this topic so, you're just as much of a "nerd" as I am.

And yeah, taking up the Durmand Priory was talked about. (Even if we cannot take towns by guilds/alliances, if characters don't go through each other, we can still take it with enough people *_*).

As for the multiple starting area thing, I do think that will be the case. But I wouldn't be surprised if the "starting areas" only go along the primary storyline and a couple areas (meaning, compared to GW1, say half of Ascalon) would be medium level areas - in order to compensate for the amount of land lost due to starter areas. Then again, with it being a persistence and not instance for areas, it is highly possible we will have a majority, if not all, of what we currently have for a map (maybe even a bigger map than what we have now) to explore in (which would mean over twice of the Prophecies/EN map combined).

draxynnic · Aug 16, 2009, 07:51 AM // 07:51

And if towns are claimed similar to how they are in Factions, you'd probably also need fairly careful calibration of your total "faction" to hold one specific location...

4thVariety · Aug 16, 2009, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeHoMaR

Actually, I bet it will.

I can't imagine a starting area where all 5 races start at level 1, in the same place, with the same story line? come on! that's ridiculous. That make different races unneeded.

Then I bet you there will be only one starting area. ArenaNet developers themselves complained in the past on how designing another starter area with each chapter was one of the more annoying parts of GW. They were happy to skip that in EotN.

The lore part of GW is already setup. We have heroes of the four races in EotN, so THEIR spiritual heirs and students will start GW2 by coming together and commemorating the Big Destroyer event or something like that. That gives Anet the ability to really pour effort in the storyline and not waste time on five different ways to set up the story.

From a stroytelling perspective you do not make five versions of the first 100 pages of a book and keep the ending. If anything, you keep the beginning and iterate on the 100 pages that conclude the story.

For me it makes sense, the Eye of the North is setup so that almost every player will reap some of the rewards. That is strongly indicating GW2 starting in the vicinity of the eye, in order for a maximum of players being able to collect their gw1->gw2 transitional rewards.

There is also the issue of established guild structure moving over to GW2 and there is really no reason to scatter real life social networks interested in GW2 by forcibly scattering them due to their choice of race. Sure I want to play with my friends and sure I want me and my friends make ANY choice regarding the race we want to play.

That is, in a nutshell, the writing on the wall as far as I dare to conjecture it.

TottWriter · Aug 16, 2009, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

...From a stroytelling perspective you do not make five versions of the first 100 pages of a book and keep the ending. If anything, you keep the beginning and iterate on the 100 pages that conclude the story.

For me it makes sense, the Eye of the North is setup so that almost every player will reap some of the rewards. That is strongly indicating GW2 starting in the vicinity of the eye, in order for a maximum of players being able to collect their gw1->gw2 transitional rewards...

This is very true. I can see them maybe offering different quests for the different races - maybe from racial trainers - but to be honest, that's pretty much exactly the same as the different classes in GW now. Designing (at least) five areas to start from is a huge waste of the devs time, especially as experience should have shown them that a GW demographic tend to want to get out of them as quickly as possible and onto the meat of the story.

Which, again, puts another nail in the coffin of the Good v. Evil idea.

I fervently hope...

Konig Des Todes · Aug 16, 2009, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

The lore part of GW is already setup. We have heroes of the four races in EotN, so THEIR spiritual heirs and students will start GW2 by coming together and commemorating the Big Destroyer event or something like that.

With the Charr's relationship with other races, I doubt this. Even most of the Norn dislike the Humans due to their "weak" government. Though for just individuals, an Asura and Norn would meet with Humans. But Charr? Far from likely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

From a stroytelling perspective you do not make five versions of the first 100 pages of a book and keep the ending. If anything, you keep the beginning and iterate on the 100 pages that conclude the story.

In a book, instead you make the first 100 pages or so split with different beginnings. You know, where one part is following one main character, then another part of the beginning follows another main character - which shows their beginning. However, a game is not a book, and as such, the beginning of the story for each character (or group of characters) can be done at once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

For me it makes sense, the Eye of the North is setup so that almost every player will reap some of the rewards. That is strongly indicating GW2 starting in the vicinity of the eye, in order for a maximum of players being able to collect their gw1->gw2 transitional rewards.

You forget that "Drakkar" - or the Dragon of Ice and Snow - has control over the Far Shiverpeaks.

IF there is one starter location for all races, it would be the PvP central of Lion's Arch - where all races meet up to fight in competitions. Of the whole game, this is probably the singular area with all the races allied in a single spot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

There is also the issue of established guild structure moving over to GW2 and there is really no reason to scatter real life social networks interested in GW2 by forcibly scattering them due to their choice of race. Sure I want to play with my friends and sure I want me and my friends make ANY choice regarding the race we want to play.

This would be the same as one person in a guild wanting to start in Prophecies, while another wants to start in Nightfall. I think most people will create multiple characters anyways, as most seem to have multiple characters in GW1 (with one "main" character).

4thVariety · Aug 16, 2009, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

With the Charr's relationship with other races, I doubt this. Even most of the Norn dislike the Humans due to their "weak" government. Though for just individuals, an Asura and Norn would meet with Humans. But Charr? Far from likely.

There has always been a disconnect between what the NSCs do and what the players do. While the NSCs usually are medieval, totalitarian and religious pricks, the players were always radically different in what they did. I expect to be a rather hostile status quo in the world, with the players being the peace-nick exceptions. EotN took the same approach.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

In a book, instead you make the first 100 pages or so split with different beginnings. You know, where one part is following one main character, then another part of the beginning follows another main character - which shows their beginning. However, a game is not a book, and as such, the beginning of the story for each character (or group of characters) can be done at once.

Don't mistake internal narrative structure with the outside appearance of a book. Even if a plot has multiple angles, the reader takes them in all at once before moving to the end. In a game the "reader" would just revisit an alternate beginning he missed the first time. Would you play the entirety of Nightfall with the only difference being another tutorial island? You might play that tutorial island, but after that you'd stop, since you know the rest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

You forget that "Drakkar" - or the Dragon of Ice and Snow - has control over the Far Shiverpeaks.

I am sure his corpse will make a good level10 trophy. Your enthusiasm about his danger level in all honor, but in the end he will go down just like any other monster in every other game. All big entry, cheats on his life and energy and dead at my feet before midnight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

IF there is one starter location for all races, it would be the PvP central of Lion's Arch - where all races meet up to fight in competitions. Of the whole game, this is probably the singular area with all the races allied in a single spot.

which is why players will reach Lion's Arch AFTER they have grown to statistical maximum. Can you imagine mixing people trying to set up PvP with newbies connecting to the story for the first time? Recipe for disaster!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Des Todes

This would be the same as one person in a guild wanting to start in Prophecies, while another wants to start in Nightfall. I think most people will create multiple characters anyways, as most seem to have multiple characters in GW1 (with one "main" character).

Factions was bad enough splitting befriended guilds into two camps without the luxury of a common group chat. Splitting existing guilds five ways as standard operating procedure is just insanity. You buy the game, you put it in, you start playing with your friends, that is the way it should be. Why force friends to share the same race, or have them go separate ways in the crucial first few hours of the game? Lone buyer syndrome is a thing of the past.

Also try to ask yourself that question: would you like to have four more lowlevel bore yourself to death areas? Or would you rather have four more high end areas? How many characters will people play anyway? Two at best, so at least three tutorials would have been developed for the dust bin.

Konig Des Todes · Aug 16, 2009, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

There has always been a disconnect between what the NSCs do and what the players do. While the NSCs usually are medieval, totalitarian and religious pricks, the players were always radically different in what they did. I expect to be a rather hostile status quo in the world, with the players being the peace-nick exceptions. EotN took the same approach.

But to expect the characters to be such from the get-go is silly and was never even shown as the case from the get go in GW1 - for instance, the characters were all "kill the Charr" in Prophecies, then "help the Charr rebellion" in Eye of the North, same goes with Tengu in Prophecies/Factions, and Centaurs in Prophecies/Nightfall). In Prophecies, it was pretty much "All other races are our enemies" (with the race exceptions of Ventari, some few Forgotten, and about half the Dredge, and of course the Deldrimor Dwarves).

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

Don't mistake internal narrative structure with the outside appearance of a book. Even if a plot has multiple angles, the reader takes them in all at once before moving to the end. In a game the "reader" would just revisit an alternate beginning he missed the first time. Would you play the entirety of Nightfall with the only difference being another tutorial island? You might play that tutorial island, but after that you'd stop, since you know the rest.

Actually, I would. And, in fact, people do, for all three campaigns. There is the "native" and the "foreign" beginnings to each campaign. Well, not really for Prophecies, but for Factions and Nightfall there is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

I am sure his corpse will make a good level10 trophy. Your enthusiasm about his danger level in all honor, but in the end he will go down just like any other monster in every other game. All big entry, cheats on his life and energy and dead at my feet before midnight.

...

Ok, some people will be able to beat the game in twenty four hours or less, those who are far more than casual gamers of course, but the point is the location you proposed for the beginning of the game is controlled by one of the five main antagonists. An antagonist never falls at the beginning of the story, let alone have the characters start in the antagonists' territory when they could be started elsewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

which is why players will reach Lion's Arch AFTER they have grown to statistical maximum. Can you imagine mixing people trying to set up PvP with newbies connecting to the story for the first time? Recipe for disaster!

Storyline wise, that was my point! That will mess up the storyline if all the races are together in any location. Besides, Anet said all features (armor levels etc I believe) will be equal in PvP (or was it just World PvP?) so that people can play PvP at any level.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

Factions was bad enough splitting befriended guilds into two camps without the luxury of a common group chat. Splitting existing guilds five ways as standard operating procedure is just insanity.

Uhhh... Anet said that guilds won't be subject to race on a game mechanic level. Even in lore this is said... The Movement of the World says how even Charr and Norn join guilds (and for Charr, they act like a multi-racial version of Warbands). As far as we know, there won't be any kind of "faction alliances" in GW2. Personally, I hope this will be the case. The Kurzick/Luxon thing was silly (but not the storyline splitting, mind you).

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

You buy the game, you put it in, you start playing with your friends, that is the way it should be. Why force friends to share the same race, or have them go separate ways in the crucial first few hours of the game? Lone buyer syndrome is a thing of the past.

Like I said before, it would just be like one person starting from Prophecies, another starting from Factions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

Also try to ask yourself that question: would you like to have four more lowlevel bore yourself to death areas? Or would you rather have four more high end areas? How many characters will people play anyway? Two at best, so at least three tutorials would have been developed for the dust bin.

Two at best? I know people who have 20 characters in GW1 (one per profession per gender). I wouldn't be surprised if people have one per profession per race, to be honest. On average though, I'd suspect people will fill up half to all of the character slots (which will probably start at 4 if Anet continues GW1's character slot system).

draxynnic · Aug 17, 2009, 04:08 AM // 04:08

There are a couple of considerations that are being missed here. First is the high level cap. Personally, I'd be happy with no leveling at all, but this indicates it's not going to be a simple case of getting to level 20 and out of your tutorial area and you're done like in Factions and Nightfall - there will almost certainly be areas of different levels once you get out of the tutorial zones.

Second, unless the plan has changed the storyline isn't intended to be as linear in GW2 - instead of one overarching story like you had in the campaigns, it's apparently going to be a world filled with lots of little stories that you can get involved in. Each of those is presumably going to have its own difficulty progression - if there was a sequence of 'you have to do this story to be high enough level to get into this other story', then it might as well be linear.

Put these together, and you're probably going to have quite a few zones of about the same difficulty that aren't necessarily aimed at players at the top level. Starting with up to five zones aimed at lower-level players doesn't seem so unreasonable in this context (certainly more reasonable than mixing Charr and humans in a starting zone, unless ANet plays the "All Charr PCs are renegedes" card, and that doesn't seem to be what they're aiming towards). The tutorial issue could be resolved by having a single optional 'this is how you play the game' tutorial section either in Lion's Arch or outside of the general continuity, after which the racial starting areas are simply just a group of low-level areas, possibly with quests to teach racial abilities.

Idly, regarding the Nightfall with a different starting island question: I've completed Nightfall ten times with different characters.

Close to an 11th time, really - I'm a Zaishen Mission on Pogahn Passage away from a Legendary Guardian.

pumpkin pie · Aug 17, 2009, 04:27 AM // 04:27

first of all, there is no need for 5 starting point if there are 5 different alignments.

2) the alignment i put out here is an example, it could be: evil, cunning,
charming, get angry easily, good, polite, whatever it is. there's no need for different starting points.

3) you probably don't have to choose what type of alignment your character started out as either. Why, because the quests you do and the paths you choose will form your character. See the interesting point in this? say you have 10 different alignments, and 5 different professions. how you choose to do your quests will determine the final outcome of your character.

4) think of the vast variety of characters you can create and play over and over and over again to get the perfectly aligned character you want.

5) even if the players get to choose their alignment at the beginning of the game, it still doesn't need to have many different starting points. Quests and missions for each alignment can be put in the game (think Faction). Again think of the replayability of the game from this. I am pretty sure I want to have one of each alignment in my game.

6) at max level, your character changes its characteristic/alignment, depending on what they do in the game. if they help out defending a city from dragons and invasion, their Heroic points (again, an example) will become higher (yeah i know you guys gonna say grind) but, there could be a lot more other stuffs to work on for us, (think of future update quests and expansion packs) the players to do, to form our characters, other then simply putting on different face/armor/hairstyles.

draxynnic · Aug 17, 2009, 05:08 AM // 05:08

The conversation has drifted a bit - the different starting areas come about because there are different races that don't get along rather than different alignments.