Gating

This has probably been posted a million times, but i couldnt find it. Anybody know why they gated factions? I hate it. I liked bein able to run around the whole world in prophecies, it gave it an open-endedness. I admit, level 3's tryin to do Thunderhead Keep is annoying, but I thought it was better open instead of gated. Sorry cuz this is most likely a huge repeater.

i think they gated it just for that reason, they wanted people to slow down and see the story line i believe

but i was a consistent explorer in prophecies and i managed all of the quests and missions when i realised it would be quicker to just do the missions. its all about how you design the maps.

if someone wanted to get from one end of london to the other to see the tate art gallery, even though they have a job right next to their house, why stop them? they aren't going anywhere as they need to work more at their current job to get a pay-rise/promotion.

I liked the gates myself.

Also remember that Factions is a lot smaller than Prophecies. In prophecies they could toss huge mobs in the way to 'discourage' lower level characters to say, go down the shiverpeaks. At the same time, you still had interesting and varied terrain on the long way(to keep you interested).

In Cantha there isn't room for huge mobs, because if you put huge mobs in you might make it too difficult for someone trying to fight through the area for a quest or something, not just someone trying to get run places. In the Shiverpeaks run area, for example, there are no quests(that I recall) on the norther two areas. Therefore no reason for a player to go down there until they are ready to cap.

On a personal level, I don't like gates. I understand why they're there(specifically the running aspect), but I don't like the constricted feel they give the game.

But thats just my two cents

/edit Its also real annoying when I'm trying to do part of a quest just outside a mission gate, but I have to go to the end of the mission (the next city) and work my way back. But at least they stuck explorable versions in the game. Its a partial (in my mind) compensation for that portion of the locked gate idea.

I can't help but notice you do not explain WHY you like them, but I think that's pretty obvious... because it would show the petty obsesssion so many of you have with enforcing everyone to play the game the way YOU think it should be played, rather than how they want to play for themselves. Or else you are simply jealous of runners and are glad to see them get shafted. There is no real "good" reason for the average joe to be all for the gates.

ANET is of course right to want people to play the game the way they want. It's their game. And if they want people to have to play that way, so be it, I can't (and won't) argue against them. But I can't help but wonder why so many of you regular players have a big bug up your butt about runners and people who want to explore freely. It simply does not affect you at all. It's just like so many other things in online games these days, envy and jealousy cause people to become brain dead and stop *thinking*, and instead start *feeling*. Feeling jealous, rage, envy, angst, the whole works.

Ever since I got my first Survivor char I have been the victim of it. Every town I go to, at least one person will go out of there way to tell me how it's a weak ass title and it's worthless and blah blah blah. Just like the fools who think anyone who has FOW armor are all EBAYers. It's illogical to assume that everyone who has X did Y to get it. It's clear that the real, underlying motivation for such insults is jealous and envy, but people disguise it (ie rationalize it) with their complaints about how it just shows someone was farming, or that they ebayed, or that they got run somewhere, etc, etc, etc.

Your hypocrisy makes me sad.

On topic:

I liked the gates. I think Factions had TOO MANY gates, but i think gates in general are fine.

Prophecies had 3 gates: Sanctum Cay, Desert Ascension and Thunderhead Keep.

More of those style of gates (seperating areas to explore, and requiring a mission, NOT a quest) are better than Faction's gates.

Instead of just the whole lot of closed gates, they should just give runners a VERY hard time... I really hate the first Canthan missions right now, even more than i hate the northern shiverpeaks missions (which were boring and easy, hence me runing 3 characters through them)... and now i have to do Arborstone again, with a glitching Danika and stuff..; GAH, why can't i just run to zu Heltzer >.>

Maybe the gates should open automatically if you've completed PvE at least once with a PvE char, for all other characters (to make the doors being open/closed account-based) would help >.>

I simply like the idea and implementation of gates as done in Factions.

Man, preferences and opinions are crazy, huh?

imagine frodo just hiring a runner to mount doom, the 3 books would be over in 10 pages.

I look on rpgs and lord of the rings and other smilar books, heros follow their quest not just run from their home to end.

Anet probably gated Factions because they didn't think lv 2's should have max armor. And to those who say, the end is nigh because you can't play in the way you choose (ie skipping the whole game by being run), Anet is the decider of how you play your game whether you like that or not.

And unfortuanately, individuals doing this, capping an elite or two, and returning to the Ascalon arena, do have an impact on others. One reason, among many, that the Ascalon arena is a joke.

On another note, I noticed that in general, people who get run tend to be subpar with their new class. They played another character for x amount of time which they believe makes them good at all classes. Now the new player actually experiments with his skills as he gets them and comes up with better stuff than the older guy who uses the one cookie cutter build for his class and doesn't have a grasp of how his class really works.

I liked the gates. It is nice to get away from the "RUNNING TO ________" spam in the prophecy locations.

I liked "some" gates, but not the "do a quest to move forwards a half inch" approach of factions. Yes, I do like to do the storyline quests, but its a pain in the a-- when Im already a lvl 20, and needing to do 10 more coop missions to get to an area where I can cap that elite I want...Yes, they do have some elites early on, but the vast majority of the worthwhile elites in factions are very far in the game, and in proph, I could get a run down to whatever (usually rankor, it seemed...), cap my elite, and go back to haveing fun. In proph, I felt that haveing 2 or so "stopgaps" (sanctum cay, THK) was a bit low, but I liked the idea of the game comeing more in "sections" then in jerky little fragments. Honestly, if factions was divided into "West Kaineng", "East Kaineng", "Echovald", and "Jade Sea", it would have been much more enjoyable for me. Yes, il admit, I do like being run through some stuff, and il also admit that running is a sorta cheap way through the game...BUT, a game just isnt fun when I have to essentially spend a week (as in, where I still do my homework, have a life, ect), before I even SEE the first elite worth capping for my char. To me, it felt like all the gates were just a way of prolonging factions longer then it needed to be. /signed for less gates.

I like having some gates. I guess we need fewer gates, and way fewer gates threads.

They need to balance "gating" and prophecies style open ended-ness.

Nightfall = 3rd times the charm

I liked the “gates” myself. I think that is helps eliminate “weaker” players and forces players to “step up” their game play.

the gates were fun, they made it easy for me to understand the storyline and also I knew where to go how to get there.

The PVE story is linear. Being able to run anywhere and skip anything is non-linear. Thus they bottlenecked you into following the story.

One of my biggest pet peeves in Prophecies was being allowed to run past everything and get skills your character had no business getting at low levels.