I have started a Guild last week for the players that are fed up with farming factions and internal feuds about who will or will not GvG. And dos and donts about the rank of the Guild.
The roster is filling slowly but surely.
My surprise was to find other guilds that were created for the same purpose and we created an alliance. An anti-Faction Alliance.

We do GvGs, HoHs, TAs, RAs, for the fun of the game and certainly not and forever not for the ladder.

I hope that ArenaNet will take note of this ... the way the Game is going with all those Championships and the ladder, it pulls out the worst out of people. I have seen best friends becoming ennemies for having or not being good or bad in a GvG.

I am fed up

Ursus
Leader Les Mousquetaires Legendaires

Hey there!

Welcome to the Photics Forums. Although, I will tell you this. You're preaching to the choir. Long have I been an advocate for more social objectives in Guild Wars. I think the game could benefit from more traditional MMORPG gameplay.

It took a long time to even get NPC merchants in the Guild Hall, but you can see how that helped. It certainly got The Crusaders psyched for Guild Wars: Factions. What if ArenaNet went further with that? What if there were trade skills, mini-games, cuddly pets, guild mascots, fishing and other non-aggressive things to do in the game?

Although... the game is called Guild Wars, strife is to be expected.

I was a bit surprised how intense the alliance battles became. There was spying, politics, trash talk and all sorts of other negativities that are associated with war. It was as close to real war as I want to get.

The problem with Guild Wars is that too much is focused around "winning". Yet, that's not very fun. Ladders are only fun if you can climb up. To climb the ladder, you have to step on someone else. Once you get to the top of the ladder, everyone and their grandmother wants to knock you off...

...or it just defaults to War Machine

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Well said.

I think GvG and FF'ing issues have probably taken down more guilds than anything else.

More immersive content is what I would like to see rather than more sources of conflict. Mike gave a good sampling of things to add like trade skills. What a great idea - why can't I get more skilled at crafting for example? I do have 5 mil exp on my ranger after all why doesn't that count for something? It would add a little extra for being a veteran.

GvG and FF isn't good unless it is for fun. Some people like to GvG, and if the guild isn't serious about rank they should be allowed to. Some people FF for the title, and some really like doing it.

If you get to serious GvG, most often your guild falls apart (I tried to run a GvG guild once), we did a bunch of GvG for fun, tried to raise our rank after a bit, and fell apart almost instantly.

FF is only a temporary time-pass. Most often it burns players out of Guild Wars after enough.

ArenaNet really needs to put more PvE content in, about a month ago (maybe a bit less) I've pretty much run out of content to go through and I know others in my guild feel the same way. The only thing left is the titles which are fairly boring. Some are fun though, I like skill capping so I'm going for all the elites.

Factions seems like a failed experiment to me. It could have been incredibly good but turned out not that good. If you want a town now I think you ahve to get 5,000,000 faction, and Cavalon is over 30,000,000 I think.

Nightfall looks far better and is being made by the Prophecise team. I hope whatever Chapter 4 is will be a lot better then Factions. I think it will be made by the Factions team, which isn't a good sign

I don't know... I thought Factions was better that Prophecies. What makes Chapter 1 is pre-searing. That's the best part of the game. With Chapter 2, the music is better... not counting the slums of Cantha, the graphics are better... and the PvP is better. Alliance Battles were the most fun... far better than Guild vs Guild or Heroes' Ascent. Claiming cities was very intense too!

I don't know why people think think there are two completely different camps at ArenaNet. There are plenty of developers that are focused on Guild Wars overall. When you look at PvE, it's basically the same in Chapter 1 & Chapter 2.

I think people gripe about Factions because it is more restrictive. There's no rushing through levels. Heh.

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Claiming cities was just time consuming. Takes all your time so you have no time to enjoy owning the city if you want to do anything other then FF. Last I checked, Cavalon is over 30,000,000. That doesn't look like a bunch of people having fun to me.

Factions may have had better graphics detail wise, but Prophcies just feels better to me, and seems more like a Guild Wars world then Factions. Pre-Searing is still the best part of all Guild Wars, but I don't think any part of Factions comes second. Yes the Jade Sea looks nice, yes the Petrified Forest is cool, but that only lasts for the first one or two times your there. After you have been in them for more then five minutes, they loose their appeal. Sometimes when I have been in Cantha for a while and come back to Tyria, I remember how fun all the zones were. When I Have been in Tyria for a while and go back to Cantha, I don't get that feeling.

Alliances Battles can be fun, but they take waaaay too long for such little reward, all except for the neutral map have advantages to one side or another, making the game not as fun. Also, with a 12v12 it is very hard to get anything orginized. If each team had a combined Party window, and if you could assemble a full team back at the town, then it would be fun. A 12v12 with everyone fighting in the same place would be extreamly fun and fast paced.


I'm almost positive ArenaNet said in an interview that it is two different teams. The only reason I'm not positive is because I do not have the interview in front of me right now.

I'm not sure by what you mean about PvE being basically the same. There are some things similiar, (Closer to the Stars, Ascending, The Deep, Dragon's Lair), but not very many. Closer to the Stars/Ascending seems to me something that is likely to be in every Guild Wars. You need something in the storyline to explain why you can kill all these godly creatures when other NPC's level 20 can't. The Deep/Dragon's Lair are similiar in the full zone effects, but the effects are so different I doubt they did more then used Dragon's Lair as a baseline.


I like leveling fast. It helps me stay attached to my characters :P

It took me over four months to make my first alternate character because I never could get attached to a character long enough to play it through the game. I always gave up on it, deleted it, and worked on my Elementalist more.

All games are time consuming. The trick is having fun

For a time, I enjoyed Faction Farming. There was a sense of togetherness, as The Crusaders alliance was focused on a common goal. In a sense, we were building something. That's the problem with almost all MMORPGs on the market today. Game Developers build a sandbox, but we can't really do anything with the sand. In other words, we can't build sandcastles. True, in Guild Wars, your guild can buy a Guild Hall. You get to choose your Guild Hall, but you can't build it brick by brick.

Imagine what would it be like if your Guild Hall looked stronger, based on contributions from your guild members? What if you could decorate your guild hall... add a water fountain, a chess table... whatever?

That's what I liked about Guild Wars: Factions. The Crusaders changed the gameplay of Guild Wars: Factions for everyone in the world. By opening Cavalon to the world, it was a different game. The developers said, "OK here's your sandbox." The Crusaders said, "No... we want to play this way."

When a Korean player (who can barely speak English) thanks you... cheers for your guild... what other game on the market can deliver that type of feeling... that type of online friendship? For a brief moment, Guild Wars: Factions went beyond normal video games. It was something epic. Then, yah... reality set in. Faction Farming can be boring.

It's a personal preference. No one can really tell you what you like. What would be more interesting to discuss are numbers... just how many copies of Guild Wars: Factions were sold? Was it more or less than Chapter 1? By how much?!

Both games hit #1 in PC sales... yes/no? There are strengths and weaknesses of both games. Yet, the true question is Chapter 3. Will it be more of the same, or will it be better than previous chapters?

This is very true. I've noticed this problem early on. Repeating a short Faction quest will yield more in-game rewards than winning an Alliance Battle. That's a huge problem, as it goes against one of the defining ideals for Guild Wars - eliminate repetition.

I'm fairly certain that ArenaNet is not divided down the middle. There may be ArenaNet employees who are more focused on one chapter over another, but it's not like there are two separate "factions" at ArenaNet. Check out the Guild Wars: Faction credits page. Look at all the names that are familiar...

http://guildwars.com/support/contact...onscredits.php

I think the story could be better...
...because I feel I could write a better storyline.

What I'm talking about is the feeling. Guild Wars PvE doesn't excite me like it used to. There's a hard cap on loot. There's no character advancement. It's more like a dress-up game... which set of armor do I want to wear today? Oh sure, I could go nuts to find ultra-rare gear, but it's not going to increase my character's power all that much. It's not going to increase my enjoyment of the game all that much.

With World of Warcraft, there's a feeling of accomplishment. Sometimes, I like to return to noobie zones. I'll one-shot enemies that used to be a real challenge. It feels good. There are some parts in Guild Wars where you can do this. Yet... the majority of the game is level 20 content. Chapter 3... Chapter 4... Chapter 5... is this always going to be level 20 content?

That's my concern about Chapter 3... new maps and pretty armor doesn't do it for me. I like new experiences in my video games. That's why I enjoyed Factions. It was a new experience for me. The Kurzick / Luxon struggle was something else. What do you see in Chapter 3 that fits the same description?

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

One of my favoriate things in Guild Wars is see how they have been planning everything from when Prophecies came out. I read about this one on Guild Wars Guru: in front of Ascalon City in post-searing, the tamer there says he has a wealthy patron in Cantha. When you are in Cantha and at Minister Cho's Estate, you fight large number of Tyrian pets, all inflicted with the plague. Togo mentions that Minister Cho enjoys collecting exotic animals.

Therefore, Minister Cho is the wealthy patron that the tamer mentioned back when the game came out. Funny how these things run together, isn't it?

Another thing I noticed and came up with on my own, is both in Pre and Post searing, there are statues of Titans made out of ash. Charr love fire, and Titans seem to be the summet of fire. Huge creatures made of lava and fire, who seem to have come out of the lava in the Ring of Fire.

I came up with this theory, and I want to know if it is true:

If you do not want to read parts of the Guild Wars: Prophecies storyline, please do not continue to read.

Charr worship fire, and that is how they got the power to knock down the Great Northern Wall.

Then if the Titans are intelligent (which is unknown):

The Titans could have ordered the Charr to attack Orr, thus triggering The Sundering. The Vizer blew up Orr and all the Charr, and became the Lich. Then the Flameseeker prophecies come in to play and you get Guild Wars: Prophecies.

And here I thought that I was the one odd-ball who thought that pre-searing was the coolest part of the game! Most players I spoke two wanted to get through pre-searing ASAP so that they could get run to Droknar's Forge. I never understood that mentality. Rush through the good part of the game so that you can get a run to the crappy parts?

The slums of Cantha comprise about half of Factions :lol:

Actually, if you do all the quests and Masters missions on Shing Jea Island, you come out of there at 17th or 18th level in less than a day's worth of play time. Once you hit the mainland it's a matter of a couple more hours to hit level 20. In contrast, it took me weeks to level up my first character to 20. If anything, my complaint with Factions was that they levelled me way too fast and then forced me trudge through those lousy slums fighting level 20 mobs that were still only giving level 15 drops (relative to Prophecies). The way they made us do those missions wouldn't have been as annoying if it didn't also involve lots of backtracking through those god-awful slums. I don't care if they make me do all the missions, but please don't make me guide Menhlo, Togo, and/or some clueless group of "guards" though the Shenzun Tunnels for the umpteenth time!

Pre-searing is still one of my favorite area's too. I just made a new character to check it out again.

As for factions, I didn't mind the locked gate system with my first character through. I took him through the island, then onto the mainland, and had no intention of rushing through stuff. The slums were getting a bit old toward the end, but I was quite glad when I reached Zu Heltzer and Cavalon. After finishing the chapter, I wanted to start moving my prophecies characters in to do the elites, jade quarry, etc. This is when I really started to despise the locked gates. You can only take going into Vizunah Square to find that the other team is composed of a level 12 assassin with henchmen before you loose your drive to do it anymore.

At any rate, its all good. I'm having fun going through pre again, doing some underworld if we have favor, or moving my factions characters further into prophecies.