4 Simple Suggestions for an Already Great Game

Let me start by saying that I am very happy with GuildWars – I have had the pleasure of playing every Beta weekend and am very impressed by what I see. Here are three suggestions that I have to make, which I believe should be easy to implement and useful.

1) Some form of identification for Guild members on the minimap. This can be as simple as coloring all guild members with the same color, similar to what happens with team members. For example guild members could be purple and be treated just like team members and quests (with arrows pointing to them when outside of the minimap). It would make it easy to spot guild members in the same instance (e.g. town) and meet them. Should be very easy to implement. Might be good to have it as an on/off option, in case the minimap gets overcrowded with information.
2) Some way to exclude some players from random PvP teams (such as the Gladiator's Arena). This would be similar to the /ignore command for chat, but would prevent the excluded players from being selected for your random PvP team. Unfortunately at times one meets players that one would rather forget. This would lead over time to greater satisfaction with random PvP teams by a process of natural selection.
3) This next suggestion I am not 100% sure it's a good one, and would like some feedback. A "pledge" system for team PvP. Let me explain – one of the most annoying things is to have people quit halfway through a match. It leaves one team short and gimped for the rest of the match. While I see the benefits of having the flexibility to quit at will (some things in RL might require it, there might be requests from the guild to be somewhere else all of a sudden, etc., etc.) it would be nice to have the option to "pledge" to stay and voluntarily commit oneself to stay till the end of the match. Why a mechanism for that instead of simple chat? Well, for example for the random PvP team matches (e.g., Gladiator Arena) where one cannot choose the team in advance or discuss. Also, to provide a greater level of certainty (easy to break promises among semi-anonymous strangers). How would the system work? Well, you would have the option to select a "pledge" switch, and it would ensure three things: 1) It would flag you as "loyal"; 2) you would only be paired up with others with the "pledge" switch on in random teams; and 3) it would disable use of the map, logoff, or exit button for the time of the match. Abuses of the system (e.g., by shutting off the program from desktop) would deactivate the "pledge" option in future, so that you could not disguise yourself as a "loyal" player in future.
4) Another suggestion for which I am not 100% sure, feedback welcome. A way to voluntarily allow others to "inspect" one's loadout (armor, weapons, possibly even skills). While this could give advantages to enemies in PvP, if it's made as an option that can be selectively switched on for specific players it could be a great way to show team members or guild members the latest items found and used, to strategize about loadouts prior to a mission or battle, to facilitate pre-trading activity, etc… Plus, some people like to show off and some people like to see new stuff. For example, so many times I have seen a warrior with a nice flaming sword and wondered what model that sword was.
Well, here are the four suggestions, fairly easy to implement and adding those finishing touches to a fine game. I believe that they are important suggestion of relatively easy implementation (codewise and playerwise).

Adavek Trejia

point number 3, perhaps a better (simpler) idea is a replacement AI henchman, identical in skills and level etc, for when a player drops?

so do people just ignore the suggestion thread all together now?

Well, as of now, I've found it fairly easy to find my Guild members without resorting to the Minimap; our Cape is the only design of its sort I've seen, so we've been lucky so far in knowing exactly where people are if we're in a crowded area like Lion's Arch. Besides that, there's always the option of holding down Ctrl while you're in a town and looking at the ends of peoples names to see what the Guild tags are. Certainly not the most screen-friendly way to see your members, but it works, and requires no further additions to the game. I would agree though, in saying that a way to easily spot Guild members on the minimap would be nice. The members wouldn't necessarily have to be purple; I'd suggest that as you switch over to the Guild Chat channel that the members simply turn to the party-member green.


The point of the random PvP teams is that they're random, meaning that you have to be able to work with people no matter what type of player they are/how friendly they are. If people were allowed to ignore players they didn't want on there, the obvious abuse would be that some players would continue to ignore players until they finally meet up with the people they wanted to play with, and then start the arena battle with a team build planned in advance. Basically, "ignore" option = not truely random teams.

An interesting idea, yes, but it doesn't seem all that practical. While it would be nice to know that everybody who is on your team is going to stay for the duration of the match (and believe me, I've had more than my fair share of people dropping matches/missions), it would seem hard to implement. I can see the disabling of the map and logoff button, yes, but would they really be able to prevent you from closing out the program entirely? And what if people just decided to not accept the "pledge" when entering battles? Does that mean they would have to sit around and wait until they finally found a team full of "disloyal" members to play with? Like I said, interesting idea, needs some work, but lets see what others say as well.


If you want to know about what the specs of somebody's weapons/armor, the options you have there are:
1. Start a trade session with them, and have them put the item in question into the trade window. Take a look at it, and find out what you need. OR....
For weapons/armors/skills:
2. Ask them. More often than not, somebody will be more than happy to tell you about their weapons/armor/build if you just send them a whisper.
Just doesn't seem like there would be a need to add a whole new menu to the game to be able to show people what you're running when you can use the chat box to ask (though I'll say that it is somewhat painful having to type out all of the attributes of a rare sword you have, but then again, that's where utilizing the trade box would come in).

IF something like that were to be added though, I'd think it would work best if you did work it out like they have with the trading system right now, where you can add the weapon to the Trading Box, click Submit Offer, and people can see what the weapon is and it's specs are. I'm all ears for more suggestions though.

i am completely against number 4. gear should be shown at will, and not viewed by other players randomly.

I think most people are getting that idea from the map-hack from diablo 2. While useful in PvP, knowing anothers gear, it also ruins the element of suprise the other player may have in store for you. for example, their name may be "Lightning sorce 1" and you put on all of your lightning gear, but he is fire. If you could view his gear, it would simply ruin the element of suprise for him.

And i hate feeling like people are constantly looking at my shit.

Nothing against YOU or your idea, i've just seen way too much B.S. coming from maphacks in diablo 2.

I like the 4th idea I can't tell you how many time I have had to try and explain an item , now you could just show it to a person. Plus you could link this to the trade system which needs work anyway. I have played other game where trade was handled that way and it was sooooo much easier. Two pepole who want to trade show each other their stuff. and you can just click and drag. Both players would have to click agree to finish and to prevent people from stealing your good stuff.

Ren

If you noticed Allah_Mode, he did state in his post that the viewing system would be voluntary, meaning that people would not be able to view your inventory randomly, and that it would only be shown if you allowed them to.

I'm not necessarily in agreement with the concept behind it, since it does remove an element of the unknown when you enter the arena and wonder what people are capable of, but unless I totally misunderstood your statement, you posted exactly what he had suggested in the inventory being shown of their own free will...

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's how our trading system works right now...

You open the trade box, open your inventory, click and drag the items in question into the box, click "Submit Offer," wait for the other person to follow suit, check out what the item is really like, and you only click "Accept" if you agree to the trade. Unless you click "Accept," stealing is not possible.

sry william of egoage, but i skim read, i read the basic concept and inserted my concept. the whole statement of the viewing being volutary does change my mind a bit. I'm okay with it, but maybe a window should pop up on your screen that says, "So and so would like to view your gear, do you accept?" Yes/No

Hey, suggestion number four reminds me of Diablo 2 trading....

I was thinking of Diablo 2. You could click "o" with your pointer on the person to see their gear, but it wasn't implimented in the game, it was part of MapHack...