GW Expansion

[Green_Gloom]

The only other thing I can come up with, that I have no idea whether it's possible, is to have at least an option to make RP a one-way trip - in other words, you have to progress through the story arc as it was meant to be. Once you've hit Yak's Bend, there's no going back to Ascalon City; this would force players to do all of the quests that they wanted in a given "act" the first time around - no waiting until you're really high level to go back and either finish off stuff, or tow a low-level character through the game (which makes it far too easy on the low-level character). And maybe have certain quests only become available if you've finished all of the quests in an area? Dunno whether any of you like that idea; it's the way I usually play, so of course it's what I like...

That would eliminate anyone who has reached Yak's Bend from helping their guild members with quests/missions in the Ascalon region. At least with that character.

It would also invalidate the "save the world from the titans" quests from Glint.

As such I'd guess that the option would be extremely rarely used by anyone who was mildly informed. Locking yourself out of content seems counter productive to me. One of the interviews or fansite fridays talked about more of this style of quest to come.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Should a character be able to use runes from any other professions to customize (I dont imagine it would require much work to make this happen except taking a good look at balance), or invent new runes for the purpose?

I would highly disagree with that one since it's one of the major balances to professions. There are a lot of skills that have an attribute bonus at 13. Giving non-primaries the ability to tap into that would definitely cause problems in PvP, which is where the game is theoretically based.

For instance, I could imagine a Warrior/Monk opting for an armor that might give them more pips of energy regen, at the expense of armor rating.

That would imbalance PvP greatly. As it stands, PvP warriors are the last to be targeted, so their armor isn't really all that much of an issue. Giving them the energy and regen of a caster would imbalance things quite a lot. Besides, a warrior that can use magic as well as an elementalist is a bit counter-intuitive and doesn't fit with the whole "ME BASH!!!" vs. "ZAP!!!" concept.

While we're on the topic of runes, etc. it might be neat to have a "minor rune of everything" which raised all attributes of your primary by 1, but at a cost of 50 health or something like that. The bonus wouldn't stack with other minors or superiors (i.e. adding a superior would still just give +3), so it would just be a way to replace having to have a minor rune in every armor piece that isn't your superior. Something like a "Rune of [profession] Spirit."

[Xyngynkynyn]

1. Global Team Search

Recently, the design of outposts and districts became somewhat inadequate if not outright counter-productive when it came to finding team members from the general public. The Temple of Ages was the only outpost with this problem but the introduction of Sorrow's Furnace and the Titan quests exacerbated this problem.

It's now harder to find a pick-up group in Sorrow's Furnace for example because not everyone in your War Camp district wants to do what you want to do at the moment because they have their own agenda at the camp. Many people there nowadays want to go on 5 man farming runs for instance. Those seeking to do the Final Assault quest may typically be unable to find enough people to form a balanced team in one district. This leads to people doing re-zones (i.e. leaving the outpost as a team and then going back in immediately with the hopes that they'll be put in another district where they can find more members). It's a big nuisance. The same thing goes for those doing Orozar and Alkar quests. The reason why the War Camp outpost is different from the other mission outposts is because there are multiple quests/missions associated with it. It's for this reason that the district model hinders team formation. The Temple of Ages is pretty much like that as well but to a lesser degree.

The Titan quests added another complication to the outpost/district model. People doing Last Day Dawns for instance typically meet at the Frontier Gate but because of the difficulty of the mission, some opt to form teams at Yak's Bend and run all the way to the Frontier Gate so that they can start with a team of 6 instead of 4. Whether that's against the mission design or not is irrelevant to this discussion. The point is that people looking to do this mission are now split into 2 different outposts and possibly districts as well. That's a lot of area to search for people willing to do this quest. The same can be said with the Defend North Kryta quest where people start at either Lion's Arch or Temple of Ages.

Basically searching for people to do these specific quests became a time consuming burden which I eventually gave up on. I spend most of my time at the Random Arena but if I knew at any moment that a team was forming for Final Assault or any of the Titan quests at that moment (and could be filled with people at a reasonable amount of time), I would go help fill up the ranks.

So what I'm hoping they'll put in is a global team search. It's basically a window with two tabs available at the push of a button.

The first tab would show a page that displays a list of players "looking for game". It'll show the players' name, professions, level, location, and brief description of what activity they want to do (ex. Last Day Dawn quest, Dragon's Lair bonus, 5-man Sorrow's Furnace farm run, etc.). A button next to each player's name will allow the user to whisper that player. And at the bottom of the page will be a check box labeled "Looking for Game" which when checked will add your name and stats to that list. The check box will automatically uncheck (and subsequently remove your name from the list) when you join/form a team.

Next to that will be a text box where you can put in a description of what it is you want to do.

The second tab would show a page that displays a list of teams looking for specific people. For example, a team may be 1 monk short for a mission (typical) and may need to advertise that their looking for a healing monk. Another team may be looking for 3 warrior/rangers with IWAY and pets for a test run in Tombs (not hard yeah but this is just an example). The page will show team leaders' name, professions, level, number of members in the team, and a text description explaining the particulars of what the team will do and what they need. This may be longer than what the window can display in a line so truncate where appropriate and show whole message as a tooltip when the cursor is over the truncated text. A whisper button will appear next to the team leader's name for a convenient 1-click chat with that player. The names, professions, and levels of the other team members can appear as a tooltip of the team leader's name.

Below the list will be a check box that's available only to the team leader labeled "Looking for players" which when checked will add the team leader's information to the list. The check box will automatically uncheck (and subsequently remove the team's listing) when the team zones. Next to that will be text box where the team leader can put in the particulars of the team.

To ease up on the bandwidth requirements this feature will demand, the list will load all current information available when the window is first opened but will not keep a real time update of any new information/status changes. The player will have to push a "Refresh" button to get the latest listing similar to the "Request Quote" button of Rune Traders.

The listings can also have filters though the only one I can think of at the moment is Home Districts only instead of International.

Hopefully this system will streamline the formation of teams for those activities that have no outposts or share it with other quests.


2. Skinnable Use Interface

Allow the users to skin the interface of Guild Wars to their liking. A simple system would be an XML file and JPG or better yet, PNG (for it's alpha channel support) images in a Guild Wars subdirectory. The XML file will direct which image replaces what and maybe define font type, size and colors as well. If the game detects the existence of the sub-directory and the appropriate files, it will attempt to load what it can interpret correctly. It should be able to handle faulty XML scripting and bad or missing images as gracefully as browsers handle faulty HTML files (ex. replacing those defective elements with the default equivalents).

3. Unranked Tombs and Guild Battles

We need an "area" where newbies can practice how to play Tombs and Guild Hall Battles if only to learn the ropes. Entering Tombs and Guild Halls right now is like thrusting rookies into the majors at the start. I don't have an idea of how Tombs works at this point because too many people are reluctant to include newbies on their team. Unranked Tombs and Guild Hall battles may help ensure that those in these "areas" are there strictly there to learn the ropes, practice and/or test new builds. This might also mitigate the need to form smurf guilds but I'm not entirely sure it will.

Being unranked, there will be no penalties for the losers but the winners shouldn't get anything either (no Xp, factions, fame or rank). As I said, it's a place to practice so hopefully, these conditions will ensure that only those who go there are there for practice purposes only. I'd also like the option to go against computer controlled teams. I know it'll never be as challenging as a real team but this is just practice and it'll be a learning tool for players new to the Tombs and Guild Hall Battles. At the very least, they can get some inkling of what needs to be done in each map.

4. Option to merge multiple accounts.

Okay a lot of us have bought 2 or more copies of Guild Wars to circumvent the ill-conceived 4 character limitation. Before Chapter 2 comes, I'd like the option to merge the 2 accounts so I don't have to buy 2 copies of Chapter 2.

That's all I got for now.

[KingOfPain]

I am going to wait a week or 2 to forward our ideas lump sum, at which time when and if the ideas are discussed, they (the responses and details) are technically NDA material (to me). Just as I am not commenting if any of our suggestions is already being looked at.

It will help greatly, if you will, supply as much detail as possible such as Xyngy's proposal for team search.

Thanks

KoP

[Green_Gloom]

1. Global Team Search

Just be aware of the dark side of a global search.

Some people will expect you to be available and willing to serve their needs just because they can find your name in such a list. Even if they are preparing for a lowbie quest in Ascalon and you're doing Ring of Fire. Regardless of what you have in your comment field, any level difference and whether you're flagged for PvP, Missions, Quests, Farming or whatever.

Those who have played monks in the later missions know how many invites you can get from just entering a popular/hard mission. Any monk setting his/her looking for group flag should expect a storm of tells/invites.

CoH implemented a similar system after a period with a zone search only. The devs made the mistake (IMO) of letting you search for people not LFG in addition to those LFG and setting that as the default behaviour. Restricting this version to only show those who actively flag them selves should help some.

[KingOfPain]

I think allowing the user to input text would be a very bad idea. It will be abused with non-LFG advertisements, obscene suggestions and whatnot. I am thinking the objectives would have to be a list of choices one can choose from a drop down menu or similar UI.

So the question is, what are the bare minimal options to include so one does not have to scroll pages of choices to pick one?

KoP

[Hawkmoon]

I think allowing the user to input text would be a very bad idea. It will be abused with non-LFG advertisements, obscene suggestions and whatnot. I am thinking the objectives would have to be a list of choices one can choose from a drop down menu or similar UI.
So the question is, what are the bare minimal options to include so one does not have to scroll pages of choices to pick one?
KoP

I think the idea of restricting players to a drop-down menu is a very good one.
It could be based on the player's currently active quest log - anything that is active in the quest log (plus the current mission, along with any other mission that the character doesn't have the bonus for) shows up in the drop-down menu. The game already keeps track of that information, so that's not too difficult. The more difficult thing might be farming, especially if the character has already completed all of the SF quests. Maybe have an additional "Explore area outside this outpost" option, in addition to the quest listings?

Regarding my earlier suggestion about a one-way trip for role-playing characters, I had forgotten about the Save Tyria quests... D'OH!!! So nix that, it was a dumb suggestion.

In addition to a global team-finding system, I really, really, really wish that the following information would be added to both the Friends and Guild screen: when you hover over a character's name, it would tell you the profession of the character, his/her current level, and where they are in the game world. It is a nuisance to have to go through an extended conversation with your guildmate to find out what they're doing so that you can decide which of your characters to bring along. My ultimate wish would be for you to be able to see this information before you selected a character, so less time logging in/logging out/logging back in is wasted. I could envision a system in which you logged into the GW server, and were brought to the character selection screen, but here you'd also be able to bring up the Guild and Friends windows, and the Chat window as well. You could find out what was going on before you chose a character. This would also make it possible for you to switch characters without having to log out/log back in with your password (which is a nuisance), if there were a global account log-in step.

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[WarBlade]

I also think it would be neat if the armors could be customized to the secondary as well as the primary profession - though with a trade-off. For instance, I could imagine a Warrior/Monk opting for an armor that might give them more pips of energy regen, at the expense of armor rating.

I'd question that. There are a couple of problems to get around:
1.) Switchable secondaries. With no restrictions on secondary professions after some certain quests you could concievably whack pretty much any rune in in a suit of armour. Then you'd be getting into extra kinks in the code to ensure that any non-equipped secondary professions aren't amping a character with multi-class rune enhancements. Imagine a Necromancer with Fast Cast and Absorption in the background.

2.) Which touches on an other point. The Primary-only attributes. Would these already be in a disabled state or would they need further disabling? Could a Warrior put Strength and Expertise together? Could the aforementioned Necromancer put together Fast Cast and Energy Storage as well as his own unique attribute?

As much as I'd like to beef up Kronin with some Mesmer skill bonuses I can also see a whole lot of Secondary-played-as-Absorption-placeholder problems or similar. More kinks in the code. More imbalances.

I don't necessarily agree with it myself, but I believe there's actually a reasoning behind the limited character customization. For example, why didn't they go with just-about-any-modern-RPG style where graphic model is not associated with character class? Why stick to the antiquated sprite-based a la D2ish method of making every class look in some sterotypically similar fashion?

I believe it is to facilitate easier recognition in PvP. You know when you see two heavy guys coming in with plate armor that you are in for a beatdown. You know when you see those fluffy victorian clothes that you're about to lose all your energy and adrenaline. You know where all those pesky heals are coming from when you see the baldy quasi-oriental guy. etc. and so on.

I don't think recognition in PVP is the answer. I get away with murder . . . well assisted suicide really . . . when playing Kronin Thistleknott in PvP and I know I'm not alone in reversing the primary and secondary classes for gameplay and aesthetic reasons.

I suspect the limited customizability might have a little to do with the workload involved in creating all the options and possibly a lot to do with how many models a PC can handle before graphic lag starts having an impact. At the moment a run through a busy town district will have your system tracking more than 6 x 6 x 5 armour pieces with animations, plus everything else you can see on screen and many duplicates running all over town. I can envisage the complaints increasing with extra models to keep track off graphically . . .

Ugh! Morrowind flashback of piles of weapons armour and books clogging up recall points. Now that was graphic lag and a half!

[Havral]

At the moment a run through a busy town district will have your system tracking more than 6 x 6 x 5 armour pieces with animations, plus everything else you can see on screen and many duplicates running all over town.

I suspect that there's a x 2 multiplier in there somewhere

That said, in the last three mission outposts I've visited (Moladune, Thunderhead, and Ring of Fire) about 80% of the players in play have been warriors, male, wearing Ascalon/Knight/Platemail armour, so it isn't that hard to track.

1. Global Team Search

I play a MUD... Awright, I'm currently idling on a MUD waiting for rent to come in from my castle tenants to buy some decent equipment, since my profession choice is 'paper tank'. Anyway, this MUD has a global seek option.

You set your details (Profession, goals, and party placement - front, middle, back) that goes with the details automatically set (Name, level), then whenever you want to set yourself as LFG you just enter in 'seek add'. This puts you on the list that can be checked with 'seek search'. Goals are chosen from a list, and you can set one. Typical goals are 'gold', 'exp', 'dues' (For profession progression, as well as guild championship), 'explore' (Bards get dues and ability points through explore, as well as levelling requirements that they must have explored x% of the explorable game world before levelling), 'eq' (equipment) and 'fun'.

It works as well as can be expected. For serious epic quests plans and parties are often made weeks in advance, and you can't spontaneously pick up a party for the grand epic "death to all highbies" quest that's the ultimate challenge since the events leading up to that quest being 'opened' takes place over several weeks, but for small and spontaneous parties it works.

[Mephista]

(am really happy I gave my invite to KoP)

(Hopefully he will be able to make it to all calls and start earning invites too...)

(If there is someone who can definately make both all calls (Weds/Fri 10PM EST-midnightish), you should tell me so I can send you an invite...)