Curse

Skuld · Dec 17, 2006, 12:31 PM // 12:31

Pity the wiki was down for a week once they took that step, bad planning on our part ftl ;p

Deacon Roswell · Dec 17, 2006, 04:39 PM // 16:39

The map alone was worth the guide. It was pretty crappy that this info was not released BEFORE players bought the game. I for one would have bought a collectors edition if I had known there was no guide. I usually buy one collectors edition and one regular but with my Factions collector edition over a month late due to piss poor planning by Anet/NCsoft, I wasn't going to make the same mistake again.
From day 1 the guides couldn't be accurate due to the constant change of the game. This never stopped them from making them for the previous editions and it never stopped tons of people from buying them. I think Anet/NCsoft want to sell more collector editions and this is there way of ensuring that in future editions.
I don't think alot of this would have been a big deal to most people if someone would have announced this prior to the game release. Instead, the Prima Guide was advertised "for sale" all over and even took pre-orders.
For all of you that are spamming "go to guildwiki": you must have forgotten that the site was unusuable for weeks when the game first came out, which is when some people really needed the guide. Now don't get me wrong, I love guildwiki. It has way more information than any printed guide could ever have, and it can be updated daily but you need to minimize your game to get to it and like people have already stated, you can't easily take it with you. I can't even get to the site from work anymore after the update several months ago because now it trips our firewall. More sites need to code like Spike TV to purposely avoid websense firewalls so gamers like me can waste away the work day

Cataclysm · Dec 17, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

I think it makes sense, since it would be outdated the instant GW was updated for the first time.

Guildmaster Cain · Dec 17, 2006, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Why need a guide if u can read more up-to-date info online?
I think Anet just doesnt want to write a full guide for those occasionally stupid enough to not being able to find stuff online.

If you feel insulted, please visit www.google.com or wikipedia.org. Have fun exploring the web.

Guildmaster Cain · Dec 17, 2006, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Oh... and by the way, if u bought the CE version of Nightfall, you would get the map anyway.

kazjun · Dec 18, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Never bought a guide. Finished all three chapters. Just use the wiki, or actually talk to people ingame. And checking up on skills? Cmon, the skills get balanced so often that if you made a build from a book it'd fail so badly you'd mail anet complaining how all the skills are haxxored. Honestly, about the only thing I could think that you might want is the maps and the pictures. Maybe anet could release an artbook. Oh wait, they had that in the collectors, with a map too. Fancy that.

Myria · Dec 18, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildmaster Cain

I think Anet just doesnt want to write a full guide for those occasionally stupid enough to not being able to find stuff online.

Huh, ya' know I never thought about it that way. Why would Anet and Prima want to waste their time selling books to people willing to buy them? It makes no sense at all for a company to do that, especially when it's so much more profitable to sit back and call everyone stupid.

Makes perfect sense.

Well, if you're brain damaged it might.

kazjun · Dec 18, 2006, 12:32 AM // 00:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myria

Huh, ya' know I never thought about it that way. Why would Anet and Prima want to waste their time selling books to people willing to buy them? It makes no sense at all for a company to do that, especially when it's so much more profitable to sit back and call everyone stupid.

Makes perfect sense.

Well, if you're brain damaged it might.

I think you'll find that the whole point is that not ENOUGH people were buying them to justify the cost of making them. Maybe you could start a petition about how many people would actually buy the guide. If you can get enough maybe prima will make one. Personally, I think you'd have no hope. I know for sure I wouldn't buy one, and I can't think of a single guildie who ever has. Or maybe they just never mentioned it cause it was so outdated as to be useless. Or at least the factions one was when I looked through it at EB.

Deleet · Dec 18, 2006, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Myria,

You're only right if Anet's only reason to selling GW is money alone.

Else, you're probably wrong.

Eclair · Dec 18, 2006, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Kazjun probably has the closest answer to why there's no guide. They probably felt that they wouldn't make any profit by selling them, so there's no point in putting them out if they're just going to lose money.

Myria · Dec 18, 2006, 02:14 AM // 02:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by kazjun

I think you'll find that the whole point is that not ENOUGH people were buying them to justify the cost of making them.

According to Prima "The guides for the original campaign, as well as Factions, were amazing sellers.".

Priest Of Sin · Dec 18, 2006, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Dude, ALL of the paragon skills would be incorrect. As would MANY others. Plus the guide doesn't offer skill cap locations, so I wouldn't buy it xD

kazjun · Dec 18, 2006, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myria

According to Prima "The guides for the original campaign, as well as Factions, were amazing sellers.".

Ah, you do realise that that was answered by a prima PR rep, right? And that no facts or figures were given. You got to take that with a grain of salt. There's also the fact that the use of the wiki and such is much higher now than when chapter 1 first came out.

But all you need to know about how many copies prima thinks it can sell is that they aren't making a nightfall one. Sure its inaccurate, but do you really think they wouldn't make one if they thought there was a killing to be made? How many games do they make guides for? And they drop just this one? Trust me, they'd be churning this out if they thought they could make money on it.

erfweiss · Dec 18, 2006, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Take this as a grain of salt: Yes, the guides sometimes get out of date with skill changes. However, I read them as bathroom reading, gave me ideas while predisposed. Some people have magazines, I used the guides from Prophecies and Factions.

(sorry for the TMI there)

Myria · Dec 18, 2006, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by kazjun

Ah, you do realise that that was answered by a prima PR rep, right? And that no facts or figures were given. You got to take that with a grain of salt.

To be sure, but I take it with a far smaller grain of salt than I take random speculation by people here that the first two guides didn't sell well.

Quote:

But all you need to know about how many copies prima thinks it can sell is that they aren't making a nightfall one. Sure its inaccurate, but do you really think they wouldn't make one if they thought there was a killing to be made?

Ummm... To release or not release a Nightfall guide wasn't entirely up to Prima. Anet would have final say as they (and/or NCSoft) hold the copyrights to the Guild Wars universe.

As has been speculated many times on these boards before, if, as was the case in the Nightfall manual itself to a certain extent, the guide included detailed info on Razah, DoA, reconnect features, an LFG system, or any other feature or area that was not in the release version of the game, that would be embarassing to Anet and it would be in their best interest to pull the plug no matter how much or little Prima wanted to come out with a guide at launch.

Quid Pro Quo · Dec 18, 2006, 05:12 PM // 17:12

They probably didn't go through with it because they weren't sure what Razah was going to be, where all the skill capping locations would appear, and on top of that a lot of Paragon skills got nerfed. Also there were a few quests added and a lot of quests altered.

Do you really want a guide with that much info wrong? Seems to defeat the whole reason for making it in the first place.

Inde · Dec 18, 2006, 06:15 PM // 18:15

All right, I think this has been answered by all the good members of the community (some a bit sarcastic or rude! stop that) but this has been brought up before and we have the answer from ArenaNet and the overall opinion of the playerbase as well.