Fansite Friday/Rage

Fansite:  Guild Wars Rage

Date:  11 March 2005

Number:  36

url:  http://www.gwrage.com/fanfriday36.php

Q&A
Question: During the January and February Beta Weekend Event, we all noticed the absence of the six Shiverpeak [Centaur bosses in the Borlis Pass mission. These bosses were there for the December BWE. How will the public be able to give suggestions and/or bug reports to the developers, for example, to suggest re-adding those bosses back to that specific mission, after Guild Wars is finally released? Will there be an official forum or web form that people can fill out to post suggestions and/or bugs?

Answer: At this time, we do not have plans to host our own official forums. We really are happy with the way the community has grown and flourished with the aid of fansites, large and small. And you know that we maintain an active presence on the fan forums, which is both fun and productive, given the amazing volume and quality of suggestions, feedback, and reports. You probably also know that we cull suggestions and bug reports from the fan forums and then turn around and share them with the whole team via our private alpha forums. This allows the team to see a condensed and focused version of the report and suggestions, and that really helps team members as they discuss design decisions and continue to work on bug smiting as well.

I believe that the /bug command may go away. But don't despair! We have a great way to report bugs that is available now and will grow to be even more powerful upon release. Our handy Support tab on the official site allows you to review the Knowledge Base to learn about what you are experiencing, to submit a bug report when necessary, and to get a response if you have questions related to the bug report.

So, in short, we'll accept bug reports via the Support tab on the official site and will continue to accept suggestions via our fan forums. Be assured that with both a Live Team and a Chapter 2 team active, we will be reading your thoughts and your input!

Question: I'll admit, I'm a very impatient PvE team leader. Organizing a team or four, six or eight for a mission is sometimes painful because there's usually one spot that no one wants to claim. The idea of grabbing a henchman isn't that appealing because of the lack of control/skill/etc. that they have. Sometimes you see multiple teams that only have one slot missing. How do you think this type of situation could be resolved for the average Joe? Perhaps have an "I'm Ready" button that places you in a random team automatically, similar to the "Start Mission" button you see in the Arena. That would be very useful and definitely a time saver.

Answer: I think there are a lot of ways to address the party-forming challenges that you have described. The ability to jump into a mission with a pickup team would certainly be one way to get people into the game quickly and painlessly. Being able automatically to enter a mission with a random group of players would ease the time crunch required for careful player selection, and the quickness of that function might make it a popular feature. I cannot speak for whether the designers will add such an option; it may be a possibility because after all, PvP in our Arena is exactly as you describe: You hit the “Enter Mission” button and you’re instantly part of a party in the center of the action.

On the other hand, most people heading out for PvE missions or quest runs in the Explorable Areas may be looking towards getting a party together that’s a bit more carefully configured. It would be sort of amusing to have a random party that consisted of 8 Mesmers, for instance. :) I also think that because PvE may lean even more towards the social aspects of the game than PvP does, most players may choose to select team members individually.

Perhaps the answer to your concern lies not necessarily in new options – although I think your “quick party” concept is interesting – but in making improvements to what is already a nifty in-game feature: The henchmen system. You mention that you feel that you cannot control the henchmen well enough, or that they lack skills. I don’t know what the plans are for henchies, but it’s my belief that they are only going to get better with time. If that is the case – if your control and skill concerns are addressed with programming changes and modifications to the basic henchmen system – then organizing a party with a mix of chosen players and with henchmen would make your role as team leader a lot easier. You wouldn’t hesitate in that case, because you could choose the party members you needed from players and from a group of robust hirelings.

Another thing that will help party formation will be a change in in-town messaging. We’ve received a lot of feedback about this subject, and I would imagine some sort of “Looking for Party” flag or notification (a party hat overhead? ;) ) will make it easy to get players into a group and headed out the gate.

Question: With the success of the World Preview Event in October of 2004, is there a remote possibility that the April BWE, which is only less then two weeks prior to the release of the game, could possibly become another WPE? Speculation is that ArenaNet's declaration that there will be no more contests for cd-keys might be because the last BWE will be open for everyone to play.

Answer: If that’s in the cards, they haven’t told me! No, seriously, let’s look at what we’ve done in the last year: We announced in April 2004 and within a month hosted a free world event that was attended by more than 200,000 gamers. In October, we rolled out another free world event, and we’ve been offering events monthly ever since. For the first several Beta Weekend Events, we made sure that literally tens of thousands of access keys were available, so that tons of gamers would have a chance – or another chance -- to experience the game. By the time that Guild Wars is released, we will have held eight separate events!

There are a couple of reasons that our April event won’t be a massive worldwide public event. One reason is that we want to show our appreciation to those who have supported Guild Wars by preordering the game. So we’re offering these final two Beta Weekend Events as a form of thanks for our preorder customers alone.

And another reason for not holding another event like the World Preview Event is because events of a global nature take a lot of planning and preparation. They can actually divert some of the development effort because of their magnitude. This is a very significant time in our game’s development, and now is the time to look towards release, spending every minute of every day concentrating on putting out the best possible game. So we’re focused on giving you the best possible long-term experience, beginning with Day One: April 28th.

Thanks, Guild Wars Rage, for the chance to talk a bit more about Guild Wars!