« Ackadia's Guide to Guild Wars… Development suggestions for NCSoft »

Game development ideas

I've sent a number of ideas (Submitted around April to May 2006 onwards) to NCSoft to improve the Guild Wars game, at least one, perhaps two of which have been implemented within a week or so…

The change for +2 runes to only have -35 health was one of mine and given the immediate change is prices for these (for certain classes initially) it is one that went down well with players.

I also send suggestions regarding henchman resurrection rules which has also been added. I like to think it was a result of the screen saves and suggestions I sent.

Either co-incidentally or following a suggestion from yours truly (no, really), they are going to enhance the Storage facility to allow you to hoard your common and rare craft materials. (Needed a Factions account originally). You can read the storage FAQ on the GuildWars site. Works for me, all my characters are full of junk!


Yes, I am aware of the legal notice with regard to idea submissions…
Legal - NCSoft's unsolicited idea submission policy
Basically they ask you not to send them, to avoid later copyright issues. If you send them anyway you waive all rights, royalties and copyright, yadda yadda. I send my ideas to them with the sole intention of improving the Guild Wars game, if they use them, kudos to me. I seek no compensation for improving a game I enjoy.

Storage and Equipment ideas

Armor preview (March 2006)
Seeing a set of armour on another player or even screen grabs on a fan site is a world apart from seeing what it looks like on you. At present there is no way to tell if you'll actually like effect until you have parted with the money. I am quite sure that, in a similar way to how dye preview works, it should be possible for you to preview a set of armour.

Here's an example of how I think it would and should look like in use: Armour preview suggestion

Naturally the preview effect would be applied as a set of that armour, rather than a piecemeal approach. Like the dye preview you should be able to zoom in and out and rotate the model.


Dyes and storage (March 2006)
I think it would be great if, in the same way materials now work, storage specifically allowed for dyes. My thinking for this is twofold. Firstly, there are people that trade dyes, this would allow a convenient storage point; secondly and more importantly, players could store one or more of each colour and take them out when they want to try dyeing their armour. Once they are happy with the effect they can put the reference colours back in account storage and buy the requisite vials.


Further enhancement to Storage (February 2006)
After spending yet another hour shuffling items from character to character and equipping all the heroes with everything else - just to have a relatively empty inventory on my main characters - it occured to me what the most useful compromise would be to give everyone a boost to storage: … Personal storage space!

Basically, you have your existing 'storage account' for swapping items between characters and you have (the option of) a 'personal storage' for changes of armour and customised weapons.

Most experienced players will have different equipment for different builds… Armour for energy, vs elemental, better armour. Similarly, if your build is for a fire elementalist you don't want to be carrying air, earth and water weapons.

The upgrade would ONLY allow customized items to be stored. Armour sets are automatically personalised for the characters. Whether you wanted to individualise weapons is your choice. The obvious advantage is 20% extra damage, the offset being you can't sell it on at a later date. That said, your heroes can use and get the benefit of your customised weapons.

General suggestions and recommendations to improve the game

Spell ideas (February 2006)
There is, I expect, a new campaign due out towards the end of April… here's a few spells I'd like to see implimented:

Necromancer Elite spell: Dragon Minion
Basically the same as Ghial's 'Animated Flesh Golem' but looks far better, I think. Yes it's duplicating an Elite, but it wouldn't be the first time, and the having the option is always good.


Monk (?) Elite Divine Armor (enchantment)
For (duration) or while maintained the target (other) has +4 to +16 armor (+20 with 16 for Divine)
Obviously it would be a Divine spell meaning anyone not a monk would get negligible benefit from it.
It could, of course just as easily be a Paragon leadership skill.


Monk (?) standard Divine (damage type) Protection (enchantment)
Similar to above, but only granting specific cover, either vs Elemental or vs Physical
or even limiting it to per type. That could be a nuisance as there are 8 main types of damage, but no different really than say the Mesmers having Mantras.

Drunkard Title Track (December 2006)
It would be really helpful if they had an icon for the 'effects monitor' to show if you under still under the influence of Spiked Eggnog etc. Festive freebies aside, beer is really expensive (you are talking millions to max the title) and added to that watching the flowing screen effect for any length of time, waiting for the effects wear off does wonders if you get vertigo.

Just needs a simple image that flickers when it's start to fail - in the same way enchantments like Monk's 'Protective Spirit' do.



Booting leeches from groups (Plus rant)
I am thinking here of the times when you form a team and player(s) join with the express intention of doing nothing. There's nothing more frustrating that struggling through a quest, all the time angry and frustrated by the fact someone's character is still at the start, confident in the knowledge that you can earn them the win while they watch TV or go shopping. And if you fail, no matter, there's always the next group to leech from.

I'm not sure of how to code this but there should be a fair mechanism to disconnect absent or abusive player(s) from a team, sending them back to the nearest town or portal. Best solution I have so far is based on the targetting system. Either that or a command something like the following:

/kick player# (where # is the players position in the Party Formation)*

(echo) You have voted to kick (playername)
(gecho) (playername) / A player has voted to kick (playername)
…
(gecho) (playername) has been kicked/disconnected by majority vote.

* Using /kick playername wouldn't work due to the universal nature of the game and all the languages/character sets involved.

The game registers the first vote, echoing it to everyone, sums up the players in the party and, within a short timeframe of say 60 seconds, tots up the rest. If more than half the team vote, then the person goes.
Yes, it is open to abuse by disgruntled individuals, but the short window of opportunity and the need for group agreement should counteract that. To stop spamming and limit troublemaking it could also be limited by only permiting one vote per session.

This entire line of thought was primarily brought on by the (2006/7) debacle of the Grenth vs Dwayna pvp snowball battles and the huge number of players using macro loaders to 'play' for them while the real person was away somewhere!
Some of the hundreds, even thousands of cheats, characters like The Punisheuse, Wave Victory, Secsi Smile, Decorus Talus etc, etc, used a third party program to load a 'bot' into the match. In many cases they were runnning 24 hours a day for the entire festive season, crippling about 360 parties a day each. If, no WHEN, you got these on your team you were instantly at a disadvange as they did nothing. A decent team with four real players would 'own' you every time.

Towards the end of the third week it got to the point were you had to try at least 5 times just to join a team without these parasites, having two in your group was a regular occurance and even getting 3 players AFK at once on both teams was not unknown! I even put forth the idea that somewhere on the server, running for hundreds of hours, two teams of these bots battled away, blissfully unaware of the present spawning every 15 seconds nearby.

Weapons Trader upgrade suggestion

(Submitted around April/May 2006)

Another development idea which I sent and would dearly like to see implemented is weapon merchants buying and selling upgrades like pommels and wrappings. When I fix the forum I'll get the original posts I sent back… Blast, not there. Have to find the text!

The idea revolves around dye and runes. At present you can use them yourself, trade them over the channels, or sell them to merchants - Dye Traders and Rune Traders respectively. I don't see why the same code can't be applied to weapon upgrades so you can sell to and/or buy them from Weapon traders. At present traders will buy them now, they just won't sell them again. To avoid an endlessly scrolling list they (NCSoft) would want filtering - for example the merchant will buy an 'Axe Grip of Axe Mastery (17%)' for the nominal 25g, but only offer for sale those with 18% or better.

A similar option for trading the 'unique' green weapons would be nice too, though there's the probability that farming would unbalance the game. That said you can log into supposedly starter town like Ascalon, Kamadon and Shing Jea any time of the day and find people spamming such sales…

Perhaps a little cramped, but here's a mock up of how it might look:

Bard Class suggestion

(Submitted around June 2006)

The primary role of a Bard in a party would be inspirational, with the dress and armour being a more flamboyant version of Mesmer clothing. The weapons would naturally take the form of musical instruments, a harp or long horn being the two handed equivalent of a staff, a fiddle and bow being like a wand and focus item.

The profession could also introduce Sonic (Air) damage. The vibration effect could cause greatest damage to Warriors and especially Water foes like Ice Elementals due to vibration and the least damage to caster classes due to the dampening effect of cloth. If you wanted to be nasty you have it do minimal damage - or even healing - for Fire Elementals (bellows on a forge effect).

Often, in Role playing games, Bards are seen as the jack of all trades, master of none. They can cast spells, but never as a mage, they can use a sword, but never as good as a Warrior, and so forth, Skill, many people find the versatility of this 'mediocre' class appealing - especially if they have a musical interest themselves. (I don't, incidentally).

Merchant Class suggestion

Still playing around with this idea, formulating it in such a way as so make it an interesting option without being open to cheats, or unbalancing the game in anyway. Features I've come up with so far include a crossbow and/or cudgel as the primary weapon(s), with toughened leather or hide for the 'armour'. Think of it more as the Role Playing equivalent of a Thief or Rogue, tailored for Guild Wars.

Enhanced Chat channel divisions suggestion

(Submitted 8th July, 2006)

Idea for improving the Chat in Guild Wars:
I have mocked up a new chat channel screen for your consideration. Basically with very little coding or design you can divide chat into:

• 'Chat Channel' covering general chat, emotes and team talk.
  
  
• 'Trade Channel' breaking it up into Want to Buy, Want to Sell and Want to Trade
  
  
• 'Guild Channel' covering Guild chat, Alliance talk and Recruiting.
  
  

Groups of three seems for be best from a usability point of view. Hopefully people would start to use channels as intended if the divisions are clearer - also it should cut down traffic.

As an example, people to want to buy a specific item can announce it where it won't be drowned out by all the WTS trades. People should pay attention to this and watch for someone needing what they have - effectively reducing the Spam in other channels.

Having a specific channel for Recruiting seems like a good idea as Local chat is constantly flooded with people hawking their guild. The idea being if you want to join or move guilds, you toggle this channel accordingly…

I have also implemented the idea for a context box for the channel. Hovering the mouse over 'Chat Channels' gives one message, over 'Trade Channels' another and so forth. Whether to limit the context box to the main channels, or include boxes for the individual divisions (WTS, WTB, WTT for instance) in another matter for consideration.

I understand you have to walk a fine line between customer satisfaction and weeding out the junk and perhaps a subtle guide like this is the way forward.

I can't say if this will work, but I believe it is worth looking into at the levels of junk, trade and recruiting Spam in Local Chat is spiraling out of control - and often by those who do know better, but don't care.

See attached image for an example.

Regards ~ Paul

Addenda:
In October of 2006 they introduced the 'Party Search' windows (press 'p' in towns). Personally I think it's great though nowhere near enough people use it. I like to feel I help influence it mind. The window allows for trade sales, guild recruiting and party forming. Try it yourself, encourage others too.