What can ArenaNet offer me, a consumer, in terms of an enjoyable experience?

Keep in mind they could make the xp tables different. Such as making the process of getting from level 1 to 2 take the same amount of time as getting from level 1 to 3. Basically they could just lower the amount of xp needed to level up, but increase the level cap by a lot too.

I'm not asking for an incredibly long grinding time for leveling, I just think we could spend more time leveling. I mean if some people here have been playing their characters here for 2 years, it wouldn't be ridiculous to increase the level grinding time to get to max level in 6 - 8 months, would it?

Level 20 sounds like a 1 to 2 month training session.

I might as well add some input here since I as well went from WoW to Guild Wars.

The reason I stopped playing WoW was because of boredom. I got to about level 43 and didn't have any interest in continuing playing. All in all it was a fantastic experience until I got tired of the routine of grind leveling. The game just turned into pulling mobs in a similar fashion every time, casting the same exact routing over and over, without hardly any difference in the quests except mind numbing collect x items or kill x mobs. I may have enjoyed end game content, but the crap you got to go through to get there isn't worth the time IMO.

This is one of the advantages Guild Wars has. A lot of the quests are a lot of fun to read and are really well done. A lot of people like to skip cut sequences or don't read the quest text, but Guild Wars is one of those games where you do NOT want to miss out on that part of the game. You will notice that most people opt to skip cut sequences. If you're in a hurry to level up like I was, skip the sequences and read through quests quickly. However you will be missing a lot of well done interesting side quests and main storyline. Your first character you will be inclined to progress, and when you progress a lot of things will change to give you a fresh experience. The grinding in Guild Wars doesn't start until you are going for titles, which isn't manditory to play the game, more of a way of saying "respect me, I'm very important" or whatever. However this has changed a bit with the addition of the Hall of Monuments.

Another plus is the way you can get into teams with other people, and PvP. When you progress in Guild Wars, you have a selection of henchmen and heroes, heroes which you can equip weapons and skills with to choose from to either fill in the gaps or form an entire team out of. This way you can easily accomplish most quests in the game (some near the end can get particularly difficult though). This allows for a game which requires teamplay no matter what you're doing, but you can still either play alone or in a group.

You then have the mission layout in which it seems like just another outpost, but with people actually looking to join up and fight cooperatively. This way you end up meeting tons of people randomly, in a more structured format, and accomplish the same goal with each other. I found myself playing cooperatively much more often with Guild Wars, it is really easy to meet up with people and just do whatever.

PvE has a lot to offer, a lot more positives and negatives that I can point out in a post. About the economy, this game isn't really reliant on economy to be successful, it's has it's up and downs like any economy, and it does change a lot. If you grind for expensive items, buy weapons that are rare and prestige, you got to remember don't pull your hair out trying to obtain them because the price may drop drastically for one reason or another. There are always new things added to the game which will be the new flavor, so just sit back and don't worry about trying to achieve prosperity for the reason of buying expensive rare items.

The things you have to worry about in this game aren't really relevant until you have played around 1200+ hours. Even then, the problems with the games economy, are not relevant to your enjoyment or success in the game. Since you can get greens for real cheap now, you have a large selection of weapons to select from when can invest 9 attribute points and also have access to one of the main cities.

You also get a completely different kind of art style in this game. Prophesy is the old school medieval/fantasy campaign, Factions the asian dynasty/fantasy campaign, and Nightfall the Persian/fantasy campaign, all tied in with some greek mythology type stuff. Then Eye of the North is a much more drastic experience, which is similar to Prophesy but with more extreme fantasy than medieval.

nothing

121212121212

^^^

Same here, infact I think I owe them, all those hundreds of hours of gameplay with no monthly fees, geez and thats just prophecies and eotn, cantwait to try the rest.

Which reminds me, does anyone know If the 2 for 1 bundled versions have 2 seperate keys? I want to add Factions to my existing account but I can only find Factions bundled with Prophecies which isnt a problem since its still cheap except I need to know if it will let me add factions to my original prophecies account? Anyone whos bought one of these bundled version Id appreciate any info.

PvP IS the endgame to guildwars - it was designed and balanced around rich full PvP ... you can't complain there is no endgame when you just aren't doing it.... you are missing fully half of the game...

There is only one thing I can say to this:

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

A LOT TO OFFER!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PvE has been reduced to a pointless grindfest inhabited by elitist pricks and morons. You don't have to worry about using the hundreds of skills - once you realize what this game is all about, you'll be using one skill. [skill]Ursan Blessing[/skill] Just like everyone else.

Anet can offer about a 1 month length of enjoyment, after that, you pretty much have nothing else to do but POINTLESS grind.

In WoW, grind is actually worth it, as your character would get stronger. Many people don't like the grind in WoW because you actually PAY for your playing time, and don't wanna waste your playing time on grind. On the other hand, GW is free, it should be okay to have a higher level cap that allows players to play towards something more benefitial, rather than just a random title under their name.

PvE is where i see most lacking. Granted, this game isn't meant for PvE. However, the days of marketing this game for PvP is over. I think we all know and realize that the majority of the people, including long time players and noobs, spend the majority of the time playing PvE. Anet needs to cater to the majority, and start improving the PvE part. I say screw the balancing part (not saying URSAN is ok). Make the level cap be ~60. Let character level MATTER.

IIRC, the devs said that there would be a "plateau" effect applied to leveling. Meaning, I assume, that after a certain level your improvements are minuscule to nothing. I envision this as it is now. After you "level" up from 20 (in GW1) you get a skill point that can be used for more skills, consumables, etc. I imagine the same will be for GW2. A level 280 E/Me wouldn't be that much more powerful than a level 75 E/Me stat-wise, but you would be able to instantly tell that the level 280 has much more playtime experience and, therefore, is a more serious and potentially skilled player. (notice I said "potentially." I've seen many dedicated players that are just as bad or worse than some casual players)

So, it's a bit premature to jump to the conclusion that higher levels means continued stat-climbing like in WoW. We simply have to wait until more information is available and are left to merely speculate on what the devs are striving for.

-edit-

The problem with "making the character level matter" is that you immediately create a huge disconnect. Currently, GW is (for better or for worse) partly to heavily geared towards casual players. Hence the "no monthly fee" approach. If you make it like WoW, where the level matters more than the equipped skills and knowledge of the player, you are shooting the entire premise that GW was based on in the foot. In essence, it ceases to be GW and becomes another WoW clone. I think level should matter, but it should not be such a barrier that it disenfranchises new and casual players, which I would be willing to bet comprises of the vast majority of GW's playerbase.

Anet's model was designed to be different .. it was more like:

"Hey .. everyone knows that increasing level is a facade of progress. You get more hitpoints and damage .. the monsters get more hitpoints and damage. Wheres the progress? Instead, we will measure progress by coming up with innovative builds, strategies and combinations. Defeating other players with the same capabilities in a skill>time competition. We know our players are too smart to be suckered into the 'me get more hitpoints = me stronger' mentality".

Then again maybe not. That's where Anet failed.

the fun starts when your 20...

In response to the subject title:

Hundreds of hours of enjoyable gameplay.

To me it sounds like GW is too hot for you to handle in this aspect. This is one of things where it sets GW apart from other games. I've played other traditional MMOs, and let me tell you, you cannot do HALF the shit in those that you can GW. It takes pure ingenuity to come up with some of the incredible things people have done in guild wars, and large part of that is because of skill diversity and combinations.

Despite the introductions of some skills and a couple other failures on aNet's part, this game was, and still is to some degree, based more on skill, thought processing and adaptation than most other games.

GW is not like other MMOs and I don't want it to be, so go away . There's other mindless games where you can grind to level 1000000 with 15 skills and be 1337.

If you're coming from WoW to GW and you liked WoW, you won't like GW. The exact same can be said of going from GW to WoW.

I wouldn't say GW having too many skills is "too hot to handle" as much as it is intimidating. Couple that with the fact that most of them suck and it can be a bit hard to chew for your average player.

One last thing: GW lacking endgame isn't a "flaw". It's not an MMO.

With every GW box comes free with a licence to QQ. What more could you ask for?

IMO, you are missing out OP, Guild Wars is so unique compare to other Online games out there.

If it's that bad, the lvl 20 cap thing, this many players will already stop to play a long time ago. In reality, I think almost at least 1 or 2 new players are starting fresh per day.

Also one thing need to be noted.. "No grind" is quite attainable in Guild Wars, because what you need to do to get a perfect weapon stat is easy, and many many solutions. For example, instead of crafting weapons or buy from other player, you can just get the collector version which cost nothing, just need certain items to be traded. Same with armor, you get max armor, you done, you are as good equipped as the other players. Weapons and elite armor arts in GW, puts the word "pure vanity" correctly.

Just get it if it's bad for your taste (which I think no) think of it like just buying another crappy games for your consoles which I am sure some of you have done this ^^ With no monthly fee, you can play and come back anytime and not only that, but when you come back, everything will be the same, gamplay wise, so you can just try to remember and that's it, back in the game already

Anyway just my 2 cents..

-tora-

Never played World of Warcraft. And by that I mean creating an account and playing it for myself. Occasionally my sister will invite me to play a PvP game on WoW while she goes to get a snack/drink. Other than pressing random buttons on the keyboard from 1 - 10, I didn't know what the hell I was doing or what any individual skill was used for.

I'm also getting the impression that I'm being flamed for presenting an argument that I've only had about a week to analyze... I don't think that's very right. If I got something wrong, point it out to me and explain how you see the game from your perspective.

Flaming or trolling a guy who doesn't even have the experience of creating a character is taking things a bit too far, considering the only thing I've done is analyze some common complaints on the boards about GW.

That is something they can't offer me asI want one set atleast after playing by the rules all this time.I didn't want it at first but now I do and as favour dwindles down there isn't much of a chance of me getting this even though ecto price is going down.I wouldn't mind getting some of my own but I am not a power farmer.

It would be nice if there was an alternative to FoW that looked similar without using ecto and shards just other types of crafting materials although with slighly different look.

Here is what your analysis misses ... GuildWars was not designed to be another typical MMO. It was designed to be totally different .. with two premises in mind:
1. Balanced PvP - where skill determines the outcome (not who has the leet-est gear)
2. Balanced PvE - where you don't have to grind for 5000 hours just to be able to do the end areas ... but you have to be skilled to complete them

(this isn't necesarily how the game turned out .. but this was the initial design premise)

Once you understand this premise you will understand why your comlaints are off-base. There are no super weapons or high levels .. by specific design .. they were trying to achieve the exact opposite goal .. a game that DIDN'T require you to grind for all of that stuff. A game where skill > time played.

Regarding your specific points:

1. PvP is the endgame .. if you aren't doing it you are missing 50% of the game.
2. There are many areas and many game modes (across pvp and pve) most akills that seem useless are actually quite useful somewhere (well except tease...)
3. The game wasnt even supposed to have an economy ... thats why there is no auction house ... it only has an economy because people are bored. You can get all the max gear you want from collectors for minimal cost. But people are bored and have cash, so an economy for 'pretty' items has evolved.

Lol, you are basically saying you want free WoW...

Many of your questions are going to depend on what you are looking for in a game and you also seem to have some misconceptions about GW too. First off it is not a traditional MMO so forget nearly everything you "know".

You see, I view it as the opposite. In other MMO's there is no content - there is grind. Playing the same dungeon 10,000 to get you armor isn't "content". GW has almost none of that and what little there is isn't a game breaker if you do not do it. However they have many end-game areas that are intended to be played, not farmed, and they also tend to want you to PvP as end game.

If your end game is farming and grind (and it seems it may be) then GW is going to royally suck. If you consider end-game content stuff to play through after beating the game then GW has quite a bit.

In PvE the game slowly introduces you to those skills and you should pay attention to what enemies are using. It's not really that hard to do, it sounds worse than it is. Really the PvE game is more about effective teamwork and knowledge of what you are facing - making sure you have a really effective build isn't that big until you either start trying for titles or PvP - and that is intended for end game players

Yes, I do agree with this one - GW lacks a good amount of customization that other online games has. But then that's never really been something I cared much about anyway - just something to goof off with.

This one also depends on what you mean by a "good economy". To me a good in game economy is that any player can reasonably expect to purchase top end equipment. GW is that way, cost is in skins and looks. IMO this is the best economy of any online game I have ever played - I can go play the game and not have to grind for hours just to get something I need to go to the next area.

The trade system is still borked and appears as if it will always be (until GW2). But then max level armor and max weapons are cheap and easy to come by - you have no need to waste time selling loot so you can buy armor to further your ability to explore new dungeons as max level armor is cheap and easy to obtain. It may not be the skin or color you want, but that doesn't stop you from playing the game.

If you want a grind based game where there are haves and have nots then I have every bit of faith that Anet will not satisfy you. Even with things like the advertised no level caps they also expressed that at a fairly quick point that you will quit gaining power and it will be cosmetic.

As of right now Prophecies is quit cheap - I think that GW2 will still be GW and the core design philosophies will not change. They will only have a different implementation. Many are currently reading only the parts they like of what Anet says and ignoring the rest (for instance many are ignoring the part where you quit gaining power quickly and instead focus on the "no level cap" - they will be highly disappointed and claim Anet lied to them). I would say it would be best to just buy it and play for a bit - cheaper to find out now that you really do not like a fairly level playing field with a cheap game than wait until GW2 comes out.