User:Xaundaras/GW2 stuff

Suggestions for Guild Wars 2
Playing area

As mentioned here, there will be a persistent world, where players can interact with eachother like now in towns, and will be able to change servers like districts. My suggestion will be to make some special districts, not just "server1,server2", add these to the list:


 * Party instance: Only the player and his/her party will be present, much like the explorable areas in GW1,
 * Guild/Alliance: Only the members of the Guild/Alliance will be able to use it, like Guild Halls in GW1,
 * War instance: Guild/Alliance leaders could form these by inviting other Guilds/Alliances, so they can organise mass wars or events.
 * There sould be some options when creating these instances, like pve, when monsters spawn, or pvp, where teams could be set, and only players appear in the instance.

To the above servers only players with the required permissions could go, but the following would be for all players:


 * General server: The main explorable area, default to every player. This would be the general meeting place for players, acting like servers for other MMO's, with monsters respawning after time or if noone is nearby.
 * There sould be a way to change servers, like "Europe general - 1" or "America general - 3"
 * Players could not fight, except if both parties want to fight
 * Alliance server: This would be like the general, but with a more focus on PvP: Every player could be attacked, by members of the other alliance, and areas should be influenced by stronger Guilds/Alliances, like on chanta the luxons/kurzics.
 * The borders of influence should be marked on the map like the kurzick/luxon border, while the center of influence could be the towns. The towns could be attacked/sieged/occupied, resulting in a greater shift of influence.
 * To prevent rush wars, towns should be only attacked when a side's influence border reaches the town. Influance could be calculated based on the amount of currency/faction spent by the alliance members on attack/defense in the towns nearby (in the form of npc fighters, etc.), and won/lost battles between the sides (started by a quest like event 12/24 hours prior, to let doth sides prepare, eg. scouting,attack on supply routes, etc) and automated battles of NPCs aided by players.
 * General PvP: Free for all, where Alliances or Guilds does not count. Like RA or TA in GW1.

Towns still need to be separated from the other areas, as these would be the only place where skills could be modified. Of course, map travel have to stay. To counter some extra travels (like from Gate of Madness to Thunderhead Keep), map travel could be simplified by using categories: Tyria>South Shiverpeaks>Thunderhead Keep, each category in a separate dropdown-box, depending on the previous one. Shifting between the servers could be preformed even in the middle of an area, placing the players in the same spot in PvE servers like Party instance, Guild instance, General area, and in garrisons or military camps in pvp servers, to prevent sneak attacking.

Why would a system like this be good?


 * Would help GW2 keep some of GW1's uniqe aspects,
 * Would help with the story, quests, events,
 * Would help separate the casual and hardcore gamers, while still offering both of them the whole game
 * Casual or PvE players would play in the General instance, doing quests, fighting mobs,completing the storyline, while hardcore/PvP players would fight eachother and mobs in the Alliance server, making the whole game area a sandbox to play in Alliance Wars, after completing their goals in PvE.
 * The giant, completly player-dependent battleground are a sure player-magnet.
 * Would make space for Hard Mode in Party and Guild instances,PvP and PvE only skills,
 * Would be FUN.

More to come

What is the downside of this?
 * Even longer development time - well, some parts could be introduced in smaller expansions later
 * May rename the game to Alliance Wars - just joking, but some extra designer work would solve this with guilds and alliances.
 * May look too complicated - at first
 * The Alliance server would be a giant battleground, difficult to maintain, also, a single giant overpowered alliance can distrupt the ballance, making it impossible to smaller guilds to gain even a small area - regular events and skill ballances are required to both make neutral areas (eg. Attack of a Dragon's army may distrupt or even completly destroy influance zones, creating opportunity for smaller alliances to take control of smaller towns) and make things more interesting
 * Heavy load on servers - A huge playerbase and a shop system similar to GW1 are required in order to maintain lagfree gaming experience.

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