what will become of factions?

as it stands right now, guild wars factions is only played for alliance battles and maybe some farming. within a few months, the whole faction system will be dead. my question is--will a-net ever introduce new alliance battle maps? AB is the only thing keeping factions alive, and the same 5 maps are getting old. i would love it if 1 or 2 new maps were introduced. it will bring more people back to factions.

That is your interpretation of what is happening to factions. As a matter of fact, I've decided to start a new mesmer character in Factions (as opposed to Prophecies or Nightfall)

Reintroduce the npc into urgoz and deep too while you're at it... I'd do them any time over DoA

I'm not sure if it would bring more folks back to Factions, but I'd like to see one or two new maps as well. AB is still a lot of fun, if you get the right folks on the map - the trash talk alone brightens my day, usually - but when I go to bump around everywhere else in Cantha the number of people seems to be much more sparse than it used to be.

What sort of maps did you feel could be introduced?

I was actually thinking of a truly multilevel map - there are a few which incorporate raised platforms and fort-like combat, but a somewhat open 4+ level area would be snazzy. Talk about all of the options there; the open-ness of most of the fields is something that I think Anet could branch away from if they were to introduce a new area or two. As it is, AB is just a huge free for all; a teensy bit more strategy would be interesting. Force folks around nasty corners, into narrower areas, etc.

Just my two cents.

They have been saying they are going to open it up to everyone, since last summer

actually, about a month after nightfall came out, i had already beaten it and got my protector title with my new ranger. i got bored and decided to make a new assassin. the going was pretty easy finding groups for missions up until i hit the luxon/kurzick territory. from there on in, most of the missions were dead, with only a few people in the district. im actually still up to unwaking waters mission and cant get any farther because there is literaly no one there to make a group....im not too sure what its like in any missions in prophecies before the shiverpeaks, but its probably just as bad.

It's very hard to get a character through factions without using any NPC's nowadays because of the lack of people playing the missions without them. That's partially due to the ever-expanding Guild Wars universe, but it's also partially due to the introduction of heroes.

The short answer is that Factions is and will be there for you to play, but you probably will be doing so in single-player mode. ;(

Not even close, Prophecies is packed, its an awesome game why wouldnt it be ? In fact Im ussually shocked by the number of people playing, not too say the Maguma Jungle area aint a little dead but it always has been.

Factions characters get lots of love.
However Faction map/quests don't over prophecies and nightfall ;x

Exactly, it's info like this that makes doom threads like these pointless.
People use Factions for many reasons, and I happen to know a few who are planning on getting Factions to continue exploring and enjoying the world of Guild Wars
Well said Bale. :nod:

I have a friend who just added Factions to their Prophecies and started up an assassin.

I took my Tyrian elementalist through Vizunah and Nahpui this past week. I beat them both with heroes and henchies though, I had no desire to PUG either one and was happy when the Viz local team was all henchies.

I have a good guild though so if I need help on a mission can get others to join.

As far as AB's go, I don't really care about them, been there, done that, they are OK but I have plenty of other PvE things to do.

I'd say that Factions is still going OK.

That seems to be the blame all for the Nightfall era. I wonder what the next blame all will be.

Umm your correct, Factions is single player atm.GWP on the other hand has more people in it now then it did 14 months ago. at least at night in the US it does..

Carnies.

Factions is kinda dead. A lot of people say, "That's just what YOU think, n00b learn2play," but the fact of the matter is, that's the truth. It's possible (but improbable) to get groups up until you hit Maatu Keep. Once there, you better have Heroes. Or a good sense of how to control Henchies with mind control powers similar to that of Aaron Sorkin. If not, then you wasted your money on Factions. Sucks to be you.

Also, people spew crap like "Cantha doesn't have Winter's Day because it's oriental, n00b," but the fact of the matter is, Elona is Africa/Arabic based and it still had the freaking festival. ANet does not base the holidays in Guild Wars around the cultures. It bases it around where they're making the most profit. You'll be lucky if you get the Dragon Festival again. As for the Day of the Tengu... Don't hold your breath.

Dunno, i played Eternal Grove today and found group very fast, masters one.

What use is that? How bout for start they make Fort Aspenwood playable, fix it, and ban leechers.

I know I'm still digging Factions. I just made a geomancer in Factions and I'm finding out that Exhaustion...not so bad. LoL. It's a fun game, quick play and nice rewards for beating it. At this point though I'm usually turning around and selling or giving away the end game greens to poor unsuspecting noobies in Prophecies. It tickles me. I'll keep playing factions for that if nothing else, just so I can continue my charity work. Between Tombs and Factions I've been giving away or cheap selling useful greens to inexperienced players round the clock.

I don't play Factions much anymore, I just didn't really enjoy the PVE aspect of the game. The only thing I would go to Factions for is the AB - but the last few times I've been there I had to wait over 20 minutes to even get into a battle. I guess that alone has really turned me away from the only thing I enjoyed in Factions.

Also, as mentioned posts above me, the amount of leechers in Fort Aspenwood has turned me away as well.

Factions are dead for a good reason:

- Past Maatu, the storyline splits into two, the next hurdle is 10k faction limit. That completely dillutes the population
- Henchies are horrible. Sister Tai just loves to use sig of devotion to counter spike damage, lack of protection, henchies change in just about every area
- Faction related aspects apeal to grinders. Not farming style grinders, but WoW style grinders.
- Gated content. Enough said.
- Past Cavalon/HzH, there's insane ammount of territory that serves no real purpose, except skill capping. No reason for anyone to be there. And those that are, only push far enough to get the armor.
- No loot. Items aren't inscribable.
- Fort Aspenwood. A decent casual pvp area destroyed by leechers and bugs.
- JQ. Dead on arrival due to PvE requirements, by the time PvP characters could get there it was forgotten already.
- No rewards. Amulets are worthless, so are most of the greens. Those that aren't, are solo farmed.
- AB. Too many issues, to high requirements for team play, too exploitable by solo builds. Those two conflict each other. Also, being put in with 2 other teams you have no control makes team play a lesson in futility.
- Useless skills. For most part, factions skills just aren't worth it. There's some exceptions for PvP, but for PvE you can do without, especially in light of NF skills which simply wipe the floor.
- Timed missions. Yea, let's rush through the content. That will help with grouping.
- Jade and amber are Factions specific materials. So unlike ectos, they are forgotten.

And last thing is simply, Factions require much greater population that GW has. Between casual Prophecies, and somewhat balanced NF (PvE-wise), Factions simply doesn't offer anything.

Factions works somewhat better with heroes, but even then henchies you need to fill in are mostly useless. There simply is nothing there that would warrant all the hassle, and pvp is too closely tied to faction grind.

On another note, recently I went to cap shadow form in Vizunah square, and I had to do it 4 or 5 times in order to get the boss to spawn. The only time I got masters was when other team full hench. In all other cases, I missed it by several minutes easily.

Staying alive is your own responsibility. It's not the monk's fault that you're dead, npc or player. Sister Tai works fine with me.

This just make good Zodiac weapons more valuable, and the wielder more leet.

Check gwg auctions. Amulet worth the same as Book.

I've beaten all the difficult NF missions with Factions Elite skills

FYI, I'm playing through factions on my ele right now, and there are tons of people around. Everytime I get to a new mission (with the benefiet of heroes) I see lots of people pugging and doing missions, so this whole "factions is dead' notion is nothing but B.S...

Factions is a great game, and once the "elite" around here find something new to hate on, people will start to see that.