Realms of the Gods instead of dungeons would have doubled the game's lifespan

Eye of the North was a good expansion, especially for the more casual player. I'm also very grateful for the Bonus Mission Pack which offered us a couple of quirky solo quests and some shiny stuff to boot.

But all this said and done, I can't see myself playing the GWEN dungeons or BMP a year from now.



Which leads me to my point: ArenaNet has some exceptionally talented people making this game, but they seem to be completely off the content-to-play ratio.

That is: time ArenaNet spent on making content and time that people will spend playing said content.



Look at UW and FoW. Those places are nearly three years old now and still booming with activity. They have centralised party formation outposts (accessible to every campaign), a high but still accessible level of difficulty, arguably offer the rarest loot (Eternal Blade, anyone?) and definitely offer the most prestigious (read: expensive) armor in the game.

If we look at GWEN dungeons, the best you can say is that there's a lot of them.



Now let's assume that ArenaNet had added the remaining Realms of the Gods (Melandru, Dwayna and Lyssa) as high-end content instead of dungeons. That's three areas the size of UW/FoW.

Let's also assume that these three areas would drop three new rare crafting materials (one in each, comparable to Ecto and Shards) and a single armor crafter in one of those three domains, requiring (*drum roll*) 120 (or 105) of each of these rare crafting materials.

That's 3x 105 of those new crafting materials, with the obvious 15k crafting cost. And that's it. Most expensive armor in the game, meaning most wanted, meaning everyone and his dog would go questing and farming for it, for a long, long time.



So why didn't the remaining Realms of the Gods happen?

• We needed something new, besides, MOAR = BETTOR
  
  All I can say is: never change a winning team. FoW and UW have always been the most popular high-end areas in the game, eclipsed only briefly by The Deep and DoA when they were still new. Dungeons will go down the same road as the latter. The fact that there's so many of them won't change this in the least, as they're all pretty much copies of each other.

• It would have taken too much time to make
  
  Time otherwise spent on making what? Dungeons? The Bonus Mission Pack? I'd have gladly skipped those for content that would have kept me busy for another year or two, until, say, the release of GW2.

• It wouldn't have been accessible enough to casual players
  
  If anything, it would have been more accessible than most dungeons, at least geographically and numerically. And much easier for them to find a human team for. But no, it's true, playing with people is so 2005.
  
  As for difficulty, well, what can I say. Ursan Blessing?

• More-expensive-than-Obsidian Armor would have been difficult to make and too inaccessible
  
  Dwarven Armor could have easily posed for that, especially since it already features Chaos Gloves. But honestly, an Obsidian reskin would have been enough. In the end, end-game armor is not about how fancy it looks, it's about how expensive it is and how long you had to farm for it. It's a "title" that other people can't possibly miss when they look at you.
  
  As for the more casual players, there would still be the whole range of Norn/Asura/Ebon armors, that are already hard enough to get. If anything, they should have been made more accessible in the first place.

• Well, I'm glad you were able to vent that. Will you please stop whining about Realms of the Gods now?
  
  Yes, thank you, I will.

New rare materials to be dropped in the dungeons... hmm... Onyx Gemstones anyone?

There is also plenty of new armor because of the new characters added to the story line.

I see alot of people forming groups for Duncan HM all the time, which is considered the "Elite" area of GWEN. So all the elite areas of all the campaigns are usually in use and busy.

/signed and /not signed.........not sure what you want here... I am not sure that introducing another 3 "rare" materials would be a good idea...then the price of things would vary too much and people would bitch and moan about it even more. havning more elite areas...again don't think this would be a good idea...since UW and FOW are really the only elite areas that are used to any extent...as far as i can see.

Lagg,

any well designed dungeon or well designed gold realm, which would not be so vastly different, would have been better.

Most dungeons are just not exciting, too much copy and paste. How would you rate Duncan, I think it is not bad, still... I cannot help, actually the dungeons we have sound quite nice on paper, but somehow I do not love them.

I planned to do the Ooze Pit completely, e.g. not only the quest relevant part, and hope for some good drops and dwarven faction. Still did not do it.


You basically want some kind of Sorrow's Furnace, but like FoW and UW having a longer quest chain or quests starting in there.

This is basically a beefed up dungeon. And I agree, I would like that, too.

I don't see how you can compare Onyx (and Diamonds) to Ecto and Shards. To begin with: you need quite a bit less of them and they serve a completely different purpose.


Yes, there is new Armor, but is there really something there that would convince someone with Obsidian Armor to switch to GWEN Armor, other than the fact that it's new (or that, Balthazar forbid, he likes how it looks)?

And for the record: I don't even own a single Obsidian Armor.


GWEN is still relatively new. Compare this to The Deep. You'll find almost no one there. DoA is having a bit of a revival thanks to Ursan Blessing, but how long will that last?

Now compare those three to Temple of the Ages.

The Realms are considered core content, available to anyone who owns any chapter. So if they add a realm, they don't sell any new games. If they add a big new area to Nightfall (or whatever) instead, it creates some buzz, and maybe some people who are missing that particular chapter go and buy it.

Ever since they decided to make the realms part of Factions, I figured we'd never see another one.

And of course, they'd rather be working on GW2 now, anyways.

Great idea. If they would only make one more update to GW1 before abandoning the ship, pretty please make a new Realm of Dwayna/Lyssa/Melandru. The FoW and UW are still attractive places to go for either money makers, casual players or quest fanatics. Another realm? I would love it.

ANet is always popping surprises on us un-suspecting gamers....you never know what might be added to the content (even BEFORE GW2 is released.)
Remember, GW2 is still up to 2 years away....they have new designers and developers that want to experiment with some of the design/mechanics that maybe coming our way!
Enjoy the game, and see what might be offered in the future..
EDIT: *enjoy...2 3 4

If you're talking about adding them now (I was under the impression that GWEN/BMP would be the last ever content update), it would still be easy enough to limit access to them (You have members in your party who cannot enter this area).

However, that doesn't mean it will actually happen.



If it would somehow still be released, it could be:

• Accessible to everyone who owns at least a single campaign (unlikely, even though it would be an awesome marketing stunt which would probably entice players who quit the game long ago to try out these new areas)

• Accessible to everyone who bought GWEN (unlikely, we already got the BMP)

• A full-blown expansion (unlikely, especially for this little content)

• An Online Store-only expansion (possible but still rather unlikely, as it's guaranteed to create a riot amongst those who can't access the Store)

To sum it up, my Magic 8-ball says "Maybe".


My hopes are here. Maybe the Realms will return (with reinforcements) in Episode 2.

If Guild Wars is like Magic, then we need new booster packs.

Yeah... like Ursan Blessing.

I don't know why we bother arguing with you, you are dead set on being right and nothing we say can change your mind.

As pointed out before UW and FoW are core areas, anyone with any campaign can reach them. Thus making them more popular. Yes the Deep and other elite areas are not as active as UW and FoW but that could be due to how long it takes to complete each area. 3 hours for most groups to complete Urgoz, Deep, or DoA is a big chunk of time. Most groups don't go clear UW or FoW, for UW they simply go for Smite runs normally to get ecto. FoW is easier to clear but most people are just doing Forgemaster runs. Yes GWEN is new, which is a good reason why Duncan's is still popular.

I don't have any part of obsidian either, nor do I have armor from GWEN. IMO you should never get a campaign just for the armor. It is a nice added bonus and some of it looks good. But it should never be a main reason to get another campaign.

Onyx gemstones are actually more expensive then Shards by 2k and Diamonds are not new, though it found a use in GWEN. What they are used for does not matter as much as price imo. Onyx Gemstones are still wanted by the community to craft weapons, Weapons should NOT require as much materials as armor as it is only one piece and armor you have to get 5 pieces to get the full armor. Yes you don't need as many of them but you need 15 of both Ecto and Shards to get the Obsidian Helm/Gloves/Boot. One piece of armor should be more expensive then a single weapon as you have to craft armor or get collectors, you don't get it in drops.

I guess the question is...

would you pay for new realm of gods?

I really don't see why they left out some of the Gods' realms in the first place. It kinda seems like it was missed out, rushed (oh, sounds like GW:EN).

But anywho, as there are more dungeons i suppose they should offer more re playability, but to me there is something unique that FoW/UW have to offer - whereas the dungeons all feel the same.

Life story over - i'd have been much happier with new realms of the Gods instead of dungeons. Just hope they will be implemented soon - though i highly doubt it.

/signed
i agree totally there is nothing too do in GW really after you done campaigns except GRIND but with 3 new areas i would be there all day long seeing whats new i would mud wrestle my dad for this in-game.

I would p2p for Guild Wars, so ya.

Not saying they should add anything at this stage. But count me as /signed on they should have finished the realms of the Gods.

I agree that the remaining Realms of the Gods should be added. They would provide a lot more entertainement and replayable content than 90% of the GWEN dungeons imo.

However, I disagree with the addition of new armor sets. What they should do is add ONE crafting material (with the drop rate of ecto.. more or less) that would drop in all the realms. A semi-large amount of this new material would be needed to craft a whole new line of weapons. The crafter would be in one of the realms, like the Eternal Forgemaster and for a large sum of cash and materials he would craft weapons. The obsidian armor equivalent in weapons..

Ya.. anyway that is what I believe they should do and I am not getting my hopes up. Chances are nothing will change.

5 Gods = 5 Realms

/signed all the way.
I'm pretty sure if we hammer enough they can add it as a new content any time.
It's not as if they're actively going to add some new content so it's going to be iffy at best but you never know.

- Quality over quantity, anyone? I personally don't give a crap about 18 new dungeons with recycled layouts and useless random greens at the end. At least Diablo II created new layout every time you started game...

So what makes UW and FoW so good places?
- Every campaign has access to them
- There's arguably the coolest armors for all classes to get
- Items not found elsewhere
- Many quests and different areas inside

Urgoz's Warren and The Deep would be cool places too if it didn't cost gold just to go stare at empty lobby and if the end rewards were useful for professions besides Warriors and Rangers too. Small things to fix, but requires some effort. Apparently ANET is so set to restrict access for endgame areas in Guild Wars for reasons I'll never understand. It isn't any kind of reward to be able to play.