Nice one, going to listen to it in a moment.

Posted by Brutus at March 20, 2006 12:09 PM

Steve, very good questions! You brought up topics that I've been wondering about myself... and I've been heavily involved in the Guild Wars community for almost 2 1/2 years. I don't know if I agree with your theme song. You know, about you being the hardest working man in the gaming industry... ha ha. Although, I totally respect the hard work that went into this interview. You have an excellent understanding of the gaming industry.

Posted by Michael Garofalo at March 20, 2006 12:49 PM

Great show. I totally agree with you that the Guild Wars model is definitely the best MMORPG model, or even best MMO model, period. I noticed that you mentioned "3 major models", but left out one I see used in a lot of games now days.

The model I'm referring to involves playing the game for free, but buying extra equipment, clothing, and other virtual assets - that're only available directly from the game publisher/developer - with real money. A game like Maple Story is a good example of this. They have a "cash shop" where you can buy extra outfits and gear for your character.

Posted by Jomdom at March 20, 2006 02:58 PM

Great interview. Jeff really went into a lot of detail, which was very informative. I loved all the questions and I am even more excited for the upcoming campaign now. Can't wait to hear more from GDC!

Posted by Heatha at March 20, 2006 03:28 PM

Does this mean you are gonna finish the Proficies campain before Factions will come out Steve? I miss palling around with you in the jungle.

Posted by Nin of Tendo at March 20, 2006 04:36 PM

Really nice interview (the best i have seen sofar),the first that allow us to fully understand the factions Game Mechanisms.

one or two comments that said.
x I'm not sure that UO shard is a good example of "piracy" neither an exemple of how private servers have an negative impact on commercial servers :)

x I'm kind of puzzled that Jeff find "runner", prof off an healthy game environment. To me the fact that player are willing to bypass full trunk of game contents, is rather a proof of broken game mechanisms. :(

x Regarding the $$ appeal driving the GWC, I have to disagree with Jeff analysis.
First of all there wasn't such an excitement about the GWC the number of GvG played during the playoff was rather low. many players felt out of the loop due to top team smurfing the competition and waited for it to be done to gvg again.
Second of all, even in the competitive team the $$ was not such an appeal , a large majority played the competition for casual fun , the 100 000$ was no incent for them at all (100 000$ did not convinced them to get 50$ passport).
All of this lead A.net to scale down the GWC. So, the first GWC showed quite obviously that A.net did not had a good idea of its user base was. I'm certain that if A.net did the same low key incent in Europe and USA as the one they did in Korea, the interest of the user base would have been greater. :)

Posted by Ynot at March 21, 2006 05:29 AM

Running is used in the main and should be used in the main to assist multi character players who have completed the whole game (From ascalon city to the end of Ring of fire) many times and are realy running the character for the benefits to PvP so for instance may wish to have a prior character pay for the highest armour in the game Sometimes known as Droks armour) so want a run to Droknars Forge (Droks) or to the quest free areas for the super expencive armour the 15k armour so get run to Marnams Grotto or the other 15k positioin I cannot remember for now.

the one area of running that was broken but now has been fixed to a degree was cheeky scamps getting run to Droks from the start getting max deffence armour and a max dmg weapon then as they were still low level hitting the first PvP arena and ruling against people with local equiptment.

that is my reply in defence of Running in guild wars (I am a Nec/Monk so I am not personaly a runner

Posted by Richard Bacon at March 21, 2006 10:59 AM

Ynot,

I'm not so sure I agree with this statement...
>> All of this lead A.net to scale down the GWC.

If ArenaNet is scaling down the event, why are they offering another $100,000 for the Guild Wars Factions World Championship series?

...as far as Runners, they're not that bad for the ecconomy.

Even if someone does the Lornar's Pass run for you, that doesn't help you. There are maps that you simply cannot by-pass. Running is like powerleveling in other MMORPGs. It's not a good idea to powerlevel your first EQ toon, but can you really be bothered with level grinding the second time around? It's the same with Guild Wars. The missions are OK the first time around. The second time around, I can see why you would want to get through it as fast as possible. That's why ArenaNet should keep running in the game.

Also, I did find Jeff Strain's comments toward Hacking unusual. It's almost like he's inviting someone to reverse engineer his game. Never tell a hacker it can't be done. THEY LIVE FOR THAT STUFF!

I don't know why Jeff Strain doesn't see the value in cracking Guild Wars. What about cheating? Doesn't that bother him, knowing that Factions game data is resting on desktops everywhere? Oh well... I suppose when you have public alphas and betas, maybe not. Yet... you can't tell me that there isn't something of value in the Gw.dat file. Mine is nearly two gigs. Surely there is something of value in there.

Anyhoo... this interview was great. Even though I run Photics.com, I wasn't looking forward to Factions. That changed with three words... RED vs BLUE! The idea behind the Luxons vs Kurzicks sounds very exciting. I like how the global conflict does not depend on direct PvP combat, but indirect PvP.

Fun stuff!

Posted by Michael Garofalo at March 21, 2006 02:53 PM

Hi Michael
My comment regarding the down scaling was not referring to the show in Taipei or the money. But to the competition it self:
(very few gvg played to qualify to the play-off, massive smurfing).
And the number of playing team in the play off scaled down, from a top 12 meaning full bracket to a 10 empty seats bracket.More over, A.net had to dig down to top 100 to find guilds meeting the requirements. Not to mention Korea were with a top 6 bracket (with 2 drive by), not playing a 2 best out of 3 but a direct elimination..
This among other thing reflect the "not so great" interest for the event (and imho A.net miss understanding of its user base)

As far as the runners are concerned, my comment wasn't about economy, if player are running, it's because the game mechanics are broken, as a desiner Jeff will have to assess whether the way player are playing is more or less fun than what he had hoped, and get if does not affect the enjoyment of others.

Concerning hacking, UO Sharding was allowed by EA so it wasn't such a good example that's all :p

Posted by Ynot at March 23, 2006 09:54 AM

Jeff Strain really does a great job marketing this game in one sentence for the nay-sayers about the price and the "expansion". Guild Wars is no monthly subscription fee, and look of the year you played for free, your going rate is $15 per month. So $50 factions game is very inexpensive compared to head runners of other MMO's.
Great Interview.
(Add this is my first time listening, and now subscribing, great job steve)

Posted by Thetyrant at March 29, 2006 04:26 PM

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