Holy crap, content!

One thing that bothered me with Prohpecies was that many areas were devoid of content: No quests, not even particulary interesting drops or mobs. They felt very, very unfinished. You could just see that there were supposed to be more quests (and there used to be in beta! Slay Rotscale, for example, used to be actual quest.) Just big areas that were there watiting to be mapped and vanquished and then never seen again. At best, player would traverse them once when going somewhere.

Underused was understatement. How different was this from factions or nightfall which made effort to use are reuse each area.

Not only that, game boasted that instacing will allow it to do much more with areas than other games do. But it did not really get used for anything ... interesting. Quests changed spawns, sure, but in the end it felt lackluster and when you were done with quests and storyline, everything was back to original state, nothign really changed. Status quo was the king.

Fast forward five years.

Old and empty area got repurporsed and finished storyline actually impacts its look and feel. It is no longer just token piece of land with some mobs.

Ongoing changes make game feel alive once again.

New and very insteresting mobs got added to rest of areas. Seriously, those monsters are fun to fight! Dual professions? Decentish bars? Weee!

Kudos!

Some people, myself to some degree, disagree with you. It was fun to just go out exploring and find yourself in some remote place. I remember in 2005 I started from ToA and explored my way through 4 areas and finally ended up in Fisherman's Haven. Factions and Nightfall don't give you this opportunity.

I'm perfectly happy for Prophecies to have a bunch of areas that have no particular significance. If anything, it's good to go to those places on vanquishes or obscure quests (Titan quests, for example) and get the feeling that no one ever seems to go there or generally care at all.

Lies, lies and slander! Thank God. I mean for Nightfall, Factions is the other extreme - can't progress further without the mission...
So you are happy that they wasted a lot of time on useless zones with little to no reason to exist just so there are 1-2 quests available there?

Yeaahh... because making new maps is really easy, compared to new armors or weapons.

Meh.

I don't think of it as "New content" they have simply changed the mobs in some areas and added some meaningless dialog here and there.

"New Content" would be if they opened up some more zones, there is plenty of blurry map out there to fill in.

Of course if they end up adding extra end game missions with the White Mantle, like Ring of Fire was once added, then maybe we'll have something. Until then I have better things to do then watch NPCs chit chat.

On a side note, it is sad that the Jungle can be bypassed. You can finnish the gtame with out ever setting foot on the western side of the map. Unless you go title hunting you don't need it. They added Totscale and the Totem Axe's to push people that way. That's why I liked Factions, you had to do everything to get tot he end, depending on your Kurz or Lux affiliation that is.

100% agree. While I DID enjoy the Cartographer/Vanquish titles even in the'useless' instances because I got to see what I never bothered to at all, it would have been more interesting with quests or some storyline.

While there are no quests out 'yet' for guild wars beyond, I enjoyed just going to all the areas where something new was, and watching them. Having peacekeepers ask for toll's only to be slaughtered/ran away from, etc etc. I enjoyed it very much. Granted I still long for some quests (even if the rewards are crap), but I will be happy either way.

I see "content" is loosely used here.

My quest log has yet to change, I see no new mission or area just some new random mobs and sometimes (really randomly I can't tell exactly how this happens) some dialogs pop up that don't require my intervention as a player at all. Oh and the two costumes.

I wouldn't call that "new content". Sorry. There is nothing to play with, just some new random mobs to kill that die same way to discord as all other mobs there.

Actual new explorable seems to be out of question due to manpower required to design, implement and test them, but ...

... they could open mission (and bmp) areas as explorables or as alternative missions (think of Gain Olias style mission that neatly reused Wilds mission map.)

i'll bet if Anet wasnt worried about giving us new professions or skills with every release they could of kept to their original plans of a new release every 6 months to 1 year range.

instead of making use of areas in the current games to start the merge to GW2, i think the thing to do would of been to do an EoTN style of release of how the 3 contents are say 125-150 years into the future as a build up to GW2. that way none of the current content has to be changed and the original story line of the game isnt affected.

I wish they would just make PvE HARDER
It pains me not being able to go all out with hero builds and micros and still struggling. Yes, you heard me, I want a challenge.

A challenge would be nice. Seems every update PVE is get easier and easier. Other than the Odd mission Here or there where live bodys make it faster Nothing is REally a challenge unless you are trying to solo Elite areas or something like that.

Perhaps change the thread title, it's a bit misleading. Especially with the 5th anniversary content coming this week. My heart sank a little.

On topic: agree with previous posters, Prophecies was fun to explore and just take a walk about in. The closed gates and doors that started in Factions were kinda annoying. "Oh yes!! I've finally got to an outpost after all those mobs and near-wipes with 60% DP....oh...wait.."

Prophecies is the best campaign ever.

So I get it you're a master of the new UW?

I agree completely. This is the reason I really loved prophecies and never liked the other campaigns very much. In prophecies not everything is a pointer, to really see some zones you had to just want to go out and explore.

I remember stumbling upon tears of the fallen and feeling like I had discovered something special. The sense of exploration and wonder is something really special about prophecies that the other campaigns didn't have.

Agree with this and to the previous post of the same tone. An RPG is about adventure, and the ultimate adventure has always been and will alwas be exploration. When i played my first character i walked the whole continent at the point that when the titles were releasded i already had over 90% explored. The freedom of just going anywhere without any particular reason is one of the main components of the prophecies campaign own magic.

The later expansions only took you from the nose into a one-way-only game, efficiently cutting off your wings to go exploring.

I actually wish the game had more explorable areas to go there without a reason except for the sake of knowing a new place.

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About challenges, well, play prophecies in a prophecies only character, play factions in a factions only character, and so on, and you will see that they can even be harder than they were in several aspects, but i have to agree that after NF, specially after the heroes addition, they've made the game too easy, particulary if you get one of those characters into the previos campaigns. Maybe one simple way to feel a bit better the older campaigns would be not using heroes there, these campaigns were never meant to be played with them after all.

Ring of Fire was added? I didn't start playing right when the game was released but a couple months later and I always remember Ring Of Fire being there. It wasn't there at the game's release?

Probably meant Titan Quests.

This.

I also liked the freedom of prophecies, that I could go wherever I wanted. Factions/NF felt more like a linear single player RPG than an open world.

Unless you are a title chaser, then Prophecies is the worst campaign ever. Factions is a lot better. It all depends on how you want to play.