New Content For All

My one fear about the added content in the upcoming expansions is that the developers will make the mistake that most MMORPGs have made, and simply add it on the top-end side. That's frustrating for folks who are just starting into the game (and to have legs, GW will need a relatively steady stream of folks buying in as well as expansion-buyers).

Since content is streamed, adding new Skill-giving quests for new skills in areas like Old Ascalon would be wonderful, including encouraging higher-level characters to travel back and run some missions with newbies and adding to the interactive potential.

New content is being added to top-end of the game, afaik. Easier to make new content to players whose level is known. And there is lot of content for 'lowbies' in the game. Some have played for weeks, and still havent gotten to desert. Without getting bored for a minute.

And you can already get more than half of the skills from skillquests. Some more exp-quests would be nice, but not necessary.

And have you gone thru one of the earlier missions with your ascended character? You can solo at least Ascalon-missions, easily. And new players will get to mingle with the ascended ones, in due time. It is better that they learn the game on their own, than just watch as someone slaughters everything on their way, and not contribute anything to experience.

Sad thing is that I've seen lvl 17+ back at the "lowbie" areas sending out district wide messages saying "Level 17 Class/Class for hire for THIS mission". Its not wrong so to say, but it just robs that person that "hires" this high level the experience and fun of going through that mission without being babied.

ALL future content is for lev 20 characters. This has already been officially stated.
Level 1 - 19 are just to allow you to test and work out your character template.

Yep... and it makes sense too, i mean... if this was another sort of mmorpg(one that everyone's use to), it takes sometimes up to years just to get to top lvl... so the high end lvl crap is pointless for more then half of those that arent lifeless. The thing with this game... is it doesnt take that long to get to lvl 20, and all content after that point will be for Everyone... once you ascend is where the real game begins. I think they've done a Perfectionate job on this game. Most of the elite skills that are Bad ass, are in perdition rock/ last fire missions... and you cant "travel" there from exploring...

I think the reasoning for the whole game being fun, is truely the fact that you don't feel "Compelled" to play, just because you're paying monthly... you can actually play, and have Tons of fun, nor worrying about giving up your life. Not to mention, i havent seen any little "rats" or "weeds" that you have to fight... all the monsters are simply extraordinary...

Plus those who are new to the game are bound to come across tons of stuff that's new anyway. If I bought GW and GW2-The Guild Part and installed them both at the same time I would never know which content came from the core or the expansion since everything is new.

Granted they should add blanket content like new skills/spells/classes that are level irrelevent but there's no need to add new areas for level 5 adenturers. There is however great need to add new areas for level 20 adventurers.

the thing is once your lvl 20, thats suposed to be the norm

I've been wondering this, though:

Since lvl 20 is the absolute max, the cap, and there's no intention of changing it, but new areas (and obviously harder areas) are being added. In Ascalon and the group size is 4. In Kryta it 6.. From the desert and beyond (I believe) it is 8. And even with 8 players the last missions aren't that easy at all. So, we'll have new areas that will most likely be more difficult, no further levelling (with no extra attribute points) .. Then what? How are we going to beat those new monsters?

Are they going to be the same monsters but with different models? Or if they're stronger, are we going to get new equipment (80+ for Warrior, 70+ for Ranger etc..)? New skills to counter those monsters? Or are we going to have another increase in groupsize, namely, to 10 players per party (and then 12, 14, 16... ahum)?

They'll be weary of increasing party sizes just because of the little extra bandwidth it will take up.... though it does make me wonder what they plan to do for PvE enjoyment as far as progression is concerned past the endgame of the current GW. Or if they simply plan to expand content before that. :\

My own feeling is nothing keeps them from adding high-level missions to areas like Ascalon. Make a subterranean door visible only to certain levels/passable by certain levels, or a magic doorway, whatnot, and add more content behind it.

I like the sense of revisiting old areas, its one of my personal quirks. Tracing back, killing things with ease that used to be threatening before getting to new, higher content -- it provides a visible sense of character advancement and improvement. Always moving forward into higher level areas doesn't really provide that kind of contextual texture.

Now there's a creative idea. besides, they can only add so much "end game" content. but they want to continuosly add content (i suppose), and this would be an excellent way to do so

One of the positive side effects is that you end up beefing the mid and early game if you manage it neatly. The instance-nature of GW environs means that there's no real reason that nasties within a region can't auto-scale in some manner to the levels of those going in.

Doing this with the "extra content" missions in lower-level areas just makes sense. Can it be exploited? Undoubtedly. But the main reason to add it should be for story exploration and injecting newly concocted skills into the game.