Curse

bookworm438 · Jul 30, 2008, 07:33 PM // 19:33

The date of the release for beta will depend on if Anet feels the game is ready for beta. Just because they say 2009, doesn't mean Beta will be in 2009 for sure. They can still push it back. Beta will be released when it's ready. You can't always go by the year a gaming company gives you for the release of a game, whether in beta or final. It'll be released when it's ready, not sooner, not later.

Also of course Anet is going to put most of their resources into GW2. With not as many sales going for GW1, they need to get GW2 out as soon as possible. But not fast enough to where it's buggy as hell and not fun. By putting most of their resources and team on GW2, it means it'll get "done" faster. Even if that means they have to work less on GW1. I think that when GW2 is to a point where it doesn't need as many developers, you'll be getting more on GW1.

Omega X · Jul 30, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaje vhanli

StarCraft came out years ago and StarCraft 2 will clearly not fail.

GuildWars 2 will be fine.

But Guild Wars isn't Starcraft. And failing is always a possibility.

Seffapotamus · Jul 30, 2008, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Keep in mind that in 2003 anet predicted prophecies to come out in the second half of that year. Don't be too preoccupied about the release. Get some new hobbies (ie. collecting stamps, assembling model ships inside glass bottles, underwater basket-weaving)

Abedeus · Jul 30, 2008, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tender Wolf

Why is everyone saying/thinking that the beta and release won't be until 2010 or even later? They said next year, which is 2009. Did I miss something?

I hope they don't wait that long, I'll die of boredom...

Whur? I only know that usually beta announced ,,a year before'' is always delayed.

Tender Wolf · Jul 30, 2008, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Ah, okay. Well the reason I asked was because this is the only online game I've ever played, and I didn't know about it or get into it until a few months before the release of Nightfall. So I've never participated in any betas so I didn't quite understand how they worked. It makes more sense now, thank you.

Kanyatta · Jul 30, 2008, 09:39 PM // 21:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

You do realize that BETA or even ALPHA is probably not coming in March 2009? More like March 2010.

The game is already in ALPHA, so there goes that part of your post.

Beta is rumored to be spring '09 though. We probably won't see the actual game until holiday season '09.

It's a long wait, and my interest is going to be more towards Diablo 3, especially since the general lack of interest ANet has shown through they're actions as of late.

Abedeus · Jul 30, 2008, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

The game is already in ALPHA, so there goes that part of your post.

Again, who told you. Dr. Hobo or Pantsman?

Quote:

the only online game I've ever played

Shows.

JR · Jul 30, 2008, 09:54 PM // 21:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyberjanet

I'm just wondering whether GW can sustain itself until GW2 comes out, and if GW2 will still have a market when it finally does come out.

The idea that Guild Wars 2 needs a happy Guild Wars 1 community to be a success is ridiculously flawed. Guild Wars had no prequel to build a fan base around it, and it still did perfectly well post release, why would it be any different for GW2?

ArenaNet could release GW2 in 4 years time when Guild Wars is dead and gone, and still do well. Like every other launch in history they will advertise the game, get positive reviews, demo it at conventions and attract attention.

ArenaNet clearly knows this, as they are doing the bare bones minimum for the Guild Wars community at the moment. Enough to be passable and not really generate any negativity, and only requiring a very minimal level of commitment and effort on their part. They are throwing all of their eggs in the Guild Wars 2 basket right now which provided they get it right, is fine with me.

It's a little naive to get your panties in a bunch about lack of attention right now. Regina is obviously leaning further on the cold professional side, rather than the fluffy bunny rainbow friendship club shenanigans we had previously from Gaile. Don't expect her to go out of her way to keep the community happy when her bosses aren't pushing her to do so.

If she is spending her time working on feedback processes and designing community oriented website/in game functions for Guild Wars 2 then I am definately looking forward to seeing it. Having community involved in the design process so early would be unusual but definately to the benefit of the game. However, if that isn't the case I really don't have a clue how she is spending her time, as we all know it certainly isn't on this community.

Billiard · Jul 30, 2008, 10:23 PM // 22:23

GW1 was roughly 5 years in development. When GW2 was announced it was already in the works for sometime, though a lot of resources were not devoted to it like now. GW2 is going to have at least 10 times the depth of GW1, and this in part is what has caused some delays. Not only has ArenaNet been focusing their efforts on GW2, but they have expanded their studio by around 50% and have been on a non-stop hiring spree for the past year and a half. It's pretty clear that they have received substantial backing for GW2 from NCSoft after proving the GW1 model was a good one.

I expect GW2 to be optimized for multi-core processors, yet be efficient and light enough for even older machines to run well enough - unlike Fury and AoC. This helps broaden the player base considerably as people don't have to be powergamers just to run the game.

When GW1 came out, ArenaNet didn't even have any marketers on their staff. Now they have a team that is retooling things for a what I suspect will be a big GW2 launch. Many of the folks at ArenaNet played AoC to study it and how Funcom did that launch, and I can guarantee you that they don't want to make the same mistake of sending out an unfinished product. GW2 will be a huge launch and everyone will know about the product when it hits the market. While many non-gamers might know of WoW and not GW now, I don't think that will be the case with GW2.

Blizzard has been rumored to be setting up a new pay structure for Diablo III, WoW, and SCII - basically you have to pay an overall fee to use BNet for any/all of them. This is a good strategy on their part as it will tend to keep players in their family of games as they get bored with one or another. While it won't be free to play, as long as you are not tired of all three you'll probably keep your BNet account active, and this keeps money coming in for Blizzard.

Also, GW2 is not the end of the cycle for ArenaNet - they are already working on the next project as well - whatever it is. So given a 5 year development cycle, expect the next thing (GW3?) to be announced a couple years after GW2 comes out.

Anyway, ArenaNet is a business and a very successful one regardless of what anyone seems to think. They are respected in the dev community and have forced other companies to take a hard look at their own business models. They know better than to go head to head with big successful MMOs like WoW, and instead will continue to blaze their own path, probably with bigger and better PvP systems integrated with an interesting and in depth PvE back story. When you consider all of the improvements that ArenaNet has made to GW since it was released over 3 years ago, it really stands out. How many other games have lasted as long with such a large and active player base?

Tender Wolf · Jul 30, 2008, 10:35 PM // 22:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

Shows.

What's that supposed to mean?

Do people just make a hobby out of flaming me because I have a life outside of computer games and don't play hundreds of them, or just for the hell of it? Jesus...

Fril Estelin · Jul 30, 2008, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

The idea that Guild Wars 2 needs a happy Guild Wars 1 community to be a success is ridiculously flawed. Guild Wars had no prequel to build a fan base around it, and it still did perfectly well post release, why would it be any different for GW2?

ArenaNet could release GW2 in 4 years time when Guild Wars is dead and gone, and still do well. Like every other launch in history they will advertise the game, get positive reviews, demo it at conventions and attract attention.

Since GW1 was released, two major things changed the market and what Anet can achieve:

1) the history of GW1, they're no longer starting from nothing; I'm sure people not too involved with the community (including game reviewers) will see the technical feats first and will praise GW2 for its beauty, originality and business model (as for GW1); people in the community know now it's not so pretty and we have to pay the price of the no-monthly-fee with dodgy support and failed expectations (we still have a great game IMHO but after a while people can get fed up of the lack of new things to do or the unwillingness to grind their way to GWAMM or full HoM);

2) the competition is tremendous; Blizzard is now Blizzard Activision, a mammoth that's about to unleash SC2 and D3; other great MMOs are on the way (AoC was the first one to be hit massively by its mistakes, that other people won't make now...); I don't think that the no-monthly-fee of GW2 will put it in a niche market, because people who can buy monthly-fee'd games can of course pay once for GW2, but on the other hand I'm not sure that people will want to play it given how attractive other projects can be (Stargate and Startrek have a headstart due to the enormous attraction power of the franchise, similarly to warhammer but to a lesser extent) and give how much time these online games/MMOs take.

Toxage · Jul 30, 2008, 11:13 PM // 23:13

I would agree that most players are growing bored... Honestly who doesn't have GWAMM now? Everyone in my guild has it, and in every town it's all I see

JR · Jul 30, 2008, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Developers are smarter, games are better, competition is fiercer. Nothing new, and Anet has obviously taken that into account given the scope of GW2.

BladeWind · Jul 31, 2008, 05:33 AM // 05:33

I have to agree with Billiard.

My personal opinion is thus,on topic "will GW2 come to late".No, it will never come to late, infact the longer the better.Give them time to knock out the bugs and make our next step up from the Guild Wars franchise a greater success then its predessors.They will have learned on what worked and what didnt and will most likley play to the strenghts GW1 brought to us, plus a higher quality of game play on all levels, Graphics, PvE, PvP and the like.

Give them time. "Those that are patient shall recieve"

Regards

~Frozenwind

FoxBat · Jul 31, 2008, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Billiard

Blizzard has been rumored to be setting up a new pay structure for Diablo III, WoW, and SCII - basically you have to pay an overall fee to use BNet for any/all of them.

Hard for me to believe, given:

- When asked, Bill Roper said that this would probably be a boxed retail model, aka no fees.
- Dev Panel didn't seem to have online content planned for D3.
- Don't see how they could make that work for Starcraft II.

If they were to charge fees, then yeah, combined access is something SOE's already been doing and would make perfect sense. But other signs don't seem to point to them having fees competing for WoW just yet. They do have a next-gen MMO in the works and I can see it showing up then.

MrSlayer · Jul 31, 2008, 12:33 PM // 12:33

I made pretty much this exact thread a while back. But mine got moved to some useless crappy forum area that nobody reads (lern2mods).

I've now moved on to WoW...GW is a dead game. My alliance, previously 40+ on at all time, is now lucky to see more than 6 active people. Lineage 2, WoW, ScrabbleOnline...everybody has got bored and moved to them.

aaje vhanli · Jul 31, 2008, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

But Guild Wars isn't Starcraft. And failing is always a possibility.

I didn't say Guild Wars is Starcraft. I was creating a parallel with two separate properties in a similar situation.

And, I didn't say it wasn't possible to fail. I said that Starcraft 2 clearly won't and that GW2 will also be fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrSlayer

I've now moved on to WoW...GW is a dead game. My alliance, previously 40+ on at all time, is now lucky to see more than 6 active people [...] everybody has got bored and moved

Funny, I left WoW because of the same reason...

SpiritThief · Jul 31, 2008, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Guild wars is gonna die if 2 doesn't come. Look at just the lineup NcSoft has going. A bunch of new stuff coming up and thats them alone.

Blade and Soul has me on edge, I only hope it doesn't have fees.
http://feature.mmosite.com/content/2...136040,1.shtml

They really need to give us something, or at least start throwing us some sceenies.

Diablo 3 is going to be the same as the other Diablo's before it. No fees, not even a question. They wouldn't do that with SC2 either since it would be stupid. Besides Mircosoft just failed with its Games for windows Live crap with their fees, which is now free. Blizzard doesn't need to turn Diablo into another MMO. They want people still paying and playing WoW and also make sure they buy up the rest of their library.

sixacsix · Jul 31, 2008, 05:55 PM // 17:55

In my opinion it is coming out way to late. this game has been going down hill since after factions. ive been playing since release week and in game content in my opinion is really sh*t for a game that's been out for 3 years like wth.
the game has very low replay value and to be honest sh*t story line after prophecies.. like come on the emperors bodyguard turned bad and so weird bitch is trying to destroy the world... i do admit as a fan of the original proph game i enjoyed EoTn a lot but the game play was crappy and the AI was no more promising. they have really given up on guild wars and i cant blame them we don't pay for use therefore if they don't make new game such as factions, nf eotn . etc they don't make any money so you cant sit and complain when its very logical why they don't care unfortunately that's the way things are. as for the new cm i have no respect for that woman at all if the game devs don't want to do work on there game then why not use player suggestions there is a lot of people with good ideas for example on this site... (also a lot with crap ideas) but still player added content could and would be huge for a mmo. in the game unreal tournament although a shooter they give a terrain and map editor with the game let the players do the work and if you like it use it re balance it whatever but it will keep this game alive till gw2 this is only my opinion

Aera Lure · Jul 31, 2008, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Too late for what?

Too late to keep GW going? That's likely. GW will dwindle to near expiration before GW2 comes out. People will simply come back in the months leading up to GW2, but its hard to think people will stay in GW given its current state and the long wait until GW2.

Too late to be successful? That's not really possible. The longer the development cycle, the better the chance that GW2 will be a step up from its competition. A rushed game is the thing to fear. When it does hit beta, we'll know if its something we wish to switch to if we have started playing something else by then, which is reasonably likely. If GW2 looks really good, most will switch back. We all had long stints of good times in GW despite many of us also having some issues here or there with direction.

Too late for the forums? Now that's almost certain. Cant discuss anything objectively here anymore without cries of "QQ!" and Anet isnt here to lend an ear, making raising valid concerns somewhat Quioxtic.