Will GW be spread too thin?

I have been thinking about the news of 2 expansions per year, and it makes me wonder. If a couple years from now how spread out the GW players will be. Its hard enough finding a good group on certain missions, but if there were 8 different continents would people even still play the original content? Would I go to Hells Precepie and would anyone even be there?

What do you guys think? Anything that you can forsee happening this far in advance?

I think people would still play in Tyria and i dont know bout hells precepie.. rly hard to find a group especially monks but ive done it with henchies + 1 death necro who joined

people will each find an area (chapter)they really like and spend spare time there.

i have permanent characters in presear because i like it there.

same for other people in other chapters.

not to mention a hopefully growing population as well

i actually like the idea ... makes individuality (sp?) more feasable

This is an interesting question actually. EverQuest had this thing going rather early on, where some areas were simply not populated. Finding a group to do a quest there involved picking up people somewhare else and going there together.

I can certainly envision that previous chapters will grow continously more sparsely populated. On the other hand, this might not actually be a problem, as nothing in those areas are actually needed to play the game. In the long run, I suspect that the only way to be reasonably certain of a full group of human players in the old chapters is to do it "raid style" with your guild or a PUG assembled in some central location with the express purpose of doing old missions (some form of party formation assistance will be necessary).

As for the continuing support for "Prophecies", my guess is that eventually ANet/NCSoft will be phasing out the early chapters of the game from the stores, as a single game can only get so much shelf space - Some form of online purchase might be possible to pull off though.

Also, I think that the interest for the really old chapters might wane with time. The artistic style will begin to look dated, the skills will all have been reintroduced in later chapters and the newer missions will look a lot sharper when it comes to storyline and what you can do in them. All this will compound the population decrease problem. On the other hand - Who will still want to play "Prophecies" in two years time?

Yes I do think that GW could get 'spread too thin'. Two 'upgrades' a year, of different continents could create a world where people can't find anyone but Guild Members for just a bout anything old.

Worse yet, what if GW1 goes like many software packages go: hard to find, or not able to buy. Then yes, doing that mission in Hell's Precipice will only be able to be done with Guildies or Hench.

I do think that GW has the potential to become sustained with 3 continents only: Tyria, Cantha, and one yet to be named. I think that ArenaNet has TREMENDOUS potential in developing content for areas already included in GW1, and to be there in GW2 and GW3. They did this with Sorrow's Furnace (they found a small spot on the current map...and went underground) and Grenth's Footprint.

Some ideas for future 'upgrades' would be:
- entrances to a forgotten land 'under' the Crystal Desert
...they have those 'fake' entrances already in place
...the story can be made up any way they want (the lands that fell into teh sea could be accessed fromhere, etc...)
- I'm sure there will be more places with potential in GW2 and 3

The point is NOT to spread out, but force players to access content through current content, that way people will runinto people. (ie...invade the Charr Lands through a small Pass traveling NE from Yak's Bend).

I would rather see 1 BIG Upgrade per year, with maybe 2 Sorrow's Furnace type updates between Upgrades.

you also have to remember that new people come into the game all the time... I would expect you will be fine finding a pug... Posibily even easier then before cause you will not have as many Picky build party leaders by that time, they will have moved on... I for one still plan on playing Chapter 1 regularly... Mostly for recuiting purposes...

more chapters? 2 chapters per year? NICE

anyway i would welcome the many chapters caus dont know about u but i hav played gw to death, completed all mission (numerous amount of times each) and ATM all i do is farm and hav fun with my mates(not pirticulary a bad thing i may add).

i also agree with the above post, i think anet will mabey stop producing GW that we play the now, but only when like a 3rd chapter comes out, remember all the ELITE skill junkies out there they need them all

but remember there r some GUILDS out there devoted to doin quests so if u find a guild (or make) one like that im sure u can still do quests,

im just more concerned about the way Anet r gonna do the lvl system r we all gonna be lvl 1 again with like FoW armour imagine it wat a laugh

I suppose it'd depend on whether if you only can acquire 'Chapter 1' skills in Prophecies. If that's the case, my new characters definitely will go through Chapter One in order to acquire those skills.

id doubt that assassin and ritualist skills will b in the GW version we play the now, caus that would mean there "forcing" new players with chapter 2 to go buy it (something id think Anet r against caus of the no monthly fee and all the updates etc) and imagine the download time on it it would take a month, i bought GW about 4 months ago and it took like a bit of time to download updates (i got 2 meg broadband so i wasnt sitting waiting for long).

the only reason i could think that Anet would incorporate new profession skills is IF they had to many bosses in chapter 2 caus of the old proffessions getting new elites, could overflow with bosses (but thats stratvhing the imagination a bit)

Hard to say with a majority of people who already complete chapter one with numerous characters they will want to cross them over just to do all the content.

This is a very real possibility. PUGs will suffer, but it also increases the importance of guilds outside GvG, which can only be a good thing IMO

A.Net has already stated they plan to keep "core" classes in every release of the game.

One can infer they keep the skills located somewhere in each release also.

As for shelf life of GW1. Easy answer, do what Diablo II did, release the new expansion/standalones, wait a while, then when they're cheap, package them. Get GW 1,2 and 3 for 50 bucks! Great way to get later customers into the universe of GW without feeling left behind.

I'm sure A.Net has planned ahead for this sorta thing.

I am sure people will still play in chapter one, And there will always be new people, I'd say some people who get chapter two will end up getting chapter 1 as well. I know I plan to get them all and continue to play in all areas

They also stated that not every skill will cross over, so if you don't buy ch1 but buy ch2, certain skills will not be available to you, just as those who don't buy ch2, won't get the new skills (mmmm, broadhead arrow )

I doubt gw will get too spread because with the new expansions comming, it means more marketing and more new players being brought in, in addition to the old players.

Well I plan on getting chapter 2... but I have to wonder if it its pve areas are going to be like droknar and up as far as difficulty... or will they start out beginner areas... ascalon like as far as difficulty and what not and progress from there? Either way. I'll buy chapter 2 and play it. However if it starts of with the difficulty chapter 1 ends in... I probably will end up spending more time in chapter 1...

It could depending on how Anet handles things. If they start giving away / making older chapters dirt cheap say on chapter 3 or 4, then I don't see this being a problem. If they keep "pumping" new games twice a year w/o going back I could see it getting thin.

I also don't see them doing a new "huge massive area" each game. I could see expansion down the road being of say C1 but 10 years latter or pre Orr explosion (and you can warp back between) the lands.

All I say it could happen but Anet has some options open to it to prevent it. It could be that you only have to buy the most current "2" expansion but anything past is free.

Maybe I misread things, but I didn't think that the 2 new per year equated to full expansions. I thought it was more along the Lines of:
April 06 - Factions released
Oct 06 - New area such as UW/SF/Tombs/FoW released
April 07 - New Full expansion released

Two full expansions a year is extremely aggresive and I think counter productive. I think that if they tried to do that, not only would the quality of each full expansion wane trying to meet a deadline, but people will not want to have to continually pay (6 months at $50 is just about the same as $10 a month of WoW, n'est-ce pas?, not even considering if you get the collector's edition instead of standard)

I don't like the idea and would rather get a new full expansion every year. You get more time to really become familiar with the new characters and terrain and their abilities and combos. More than that seems like desperation to keep people in the game. You shouldn't try to fend off competition by making more of a crappy product rather than a good amount of a quality product.

Factions is not an expansion it's a full stand alone game.

And yes they will release two new stand alone games a year.