Deletion of Characters

I heard a rumor/info. from a friend that after beta ends that our characters will be deleted.

1. Why is it only weekend beta, once a month....
2. Why delete characters? I might be stupid for getting far on the missions and such b/c my char. is just going to be deleted but its going to be a ***** to get all the way back to where i am now.
3. i hear lvl 20 is cap in the whole game. i got to lvl 12 by doing missions/quests. yes its fun but... they better cap it at lvl 40 when they release it cuz if i just did a little more than half the missions then its too small of a game. great story line too by the way.

its hell enuf knowing that its a once a month/weekend thing. screwing us both ways. wuts the point of beta. all i am saying is not to delete. but with all these people playing i guess you HAVE to. but still... grr haha


well... just putting in my thoughts

ciao

1. Why is it only weekend beta, once a month....

They are still working on adding things and making changes to the game. ArenaNet feels that this is far more easily done with a small number of testers to give a reasonable amount of feedback that can be easily looked through and fixed. During the beta weekends, the number of people playing makes it much harder to get specific feedback, and not several hundred reports of the same problem with little in the way of details. The beta weekends are a time that they take off from the actual development of the game to show the game off to those who pre-ordered- if there were more beta weekends, there'd be less progress made on the game in general.

2. Why delete characters? I might be stupid for getting far on the missions and such b/c my char. is just going to be deleted but its going to be a ***** to get all the way back to where i am now.

They have said that they aren't planning on deleting/wiping characters until the game is released. When the game is released, they'll wipe all characters back to level 1 with starter skills and equipment. This is so that people who pre-ordered the game(and alpha testers) don't get advantages over people who weren't able to pre-order. It's much more fun to start a new game when everyone else is at the same level and the same equipment as you- but how would you like to try competing in PvP with a new character versus people who had spent months farming to get every skill and top equipment?

3. i hear lvl 20 is cap in the whole game. i got to lvl 12 by doing missions/quests. yes its fun but... they better cap it at lvl 40 when they release it cuz if i just did a little more than half the missions then its too small of a game. great story line too by the way.

The maximum level that your character will reach is level 20. However, reaching level 20 does not signify the end of the game. A large number of the missions in the game are going to be balanced for groups of level 20 characters- level 20 is where you stop gaining health and attribute points, but it's definately not the end of the game. Rather than basing the game about grinding for the next level, GW is based around having an easy time reaching the max level, but having fun with your character once you're there.

One of the problems I have with most RPG's is that once you've leveled past the intended range for an area, it loses all value- there's really no challenge going to a level 5 area when you're level 10, etc. That means that for high-level characters, once you've finished building them the way you want, there's only a tiny fraction of the game that poses any challenge to you. GW is going the other direction where the amount of the game that is designed for lower and mid-level characters is relatively small so that once you've finished leveling your character, you've got a large portion of the game that is challenging and fun.

Hi there,

Well, I have read just about everypost on the boards here now and I just want to say thanks to Freyas for being so compitent and indepth with the answers provided.

I question that lvl 20 max for the released game... mainly because even though I was getting 0 exp on 90% of the kills made with the level 20 character, I was able to get exp and more health in other ways. Finishing mission or killing higher level monsters. I was only 300 exp away from lvl 21. so I can't say for sure... But it seemed that it was possible, Even with 0 exp on 90% of your kills.

And the reset to lvl 1 at the release is not really that bad if you think about it. But considering the economy in Guildwars... it would be nice to keep our bags, belt, and backpack... As a small bonus for helping out with the betas. This would allow us to start higher level questing early in the game. Which will be expected when we know the layout of the land better because of playing it early. I mean it would not be very nice to have to go a do all the trainning quests just to get clothing and the belt again. When you've been through all that before.

Also I am anxious to see how we get our special preorder items promised from the vendors after the wipe... I mean how are they going to distribute that?

And what about guilds from the beta period??? Are we getting kicked out of those too and having to reform them again?

Interesting questions ... no?

Ingram of Haz

when your experience bar fills and you "ding", you will not actually gain a level -- you still will be level 20. that means that your health does not increase, your energy pool does not increase, you do not get any more attribute points, and you do not do more damage. however, you do get a skill point and it will be harder to fill your experience bar again, as if you did actually gain a level. there are NO plans at the moment to raise the cap above 20 and it is pretty much set in stone for retail.

you have a whole day to get all that stuff done before people who haven't preordered.

it is most likely that the preorder keys were tagged specifically to the stores with unique preorder items. they will either be available when you create your character the day before retail, (which may or may not be a problem if some preorders do not login that day), or when you upgrade your account to the retail key.

the previous wipe caused everyone to have to reform the guilds. this is likely to occur with the next wipe.

Gee u got to lvl 12 i only got to lvl 7 because it spent me 90% of the time downloading all the updates...especially after entering a new mission with a party it would take me 10 minutes to download something that normally would take people and instant to download, then when i get outside...i find...they left me to die and roam the wilderness for myself...so u think ur unlucky at getting to lvl 12 i Only got to lvl 7 with a downloading ration of 2kb/sec ....