Curse

Indian · Oct 10, 2007, 07:54 PM // 19:54

ArenaNet's James Phinney talks about developing Guild Wars 2

Every great game starts with a simple question: What do we want to play next? If you aren't passionate about the game you're working on, it is already doomed to mediocrity. And the best way to make sure you're passionate? Make something you want to play.

For the team at ArenaNet, the idea of making Guild Wars 2 started with a single conversation about all the things we wanted to do in the next Guild Wars campaign. Very quickly it became clear that we could move the game forward by leaps and bounds... but only if we were willing to rebuild it from the ground up. Here's what we thought we could accomplish:

Give players immense freedom of movement. The underlying systems in Guild Wars allowed us to make a very responsive, yet hack-proof game, but they also prevented us from giving players the ability to jump and swim and explore their environment freely. We’ll still keep movement hack-proof, but we want players in Guild Wars 2 to simply enjoy moving around.
Allow players to encounter each other in common, persistent areas. The instancing of Guild Wars gave us a ton of story-telling and gameplay advantages over our competitors, but instanced areas and persistent areas each have their strengths and weaknesses. We want to give players the best of both worlds.
Let players choose from multiple playable races (including our own unique addition to the fantasy genre, the Charr). Our team takes a lot of pride in the look and feel of each of the professions in the game, but some of the early technical choices we made for them prevented us from even considering introducing playable races. Now we have a chance to make new choices that give players more options.
Give players deeper options for character advancement. We knew this would be the most controversial of our new goals. Could we do this without creating a game full of grind? As avid fans and players of RPGs, massively multiplayer or otherwise, we saw many untapped opportunities for making this work.
Make everything about Guild Wars better. When you look back honestly on a game you've made, there are always things you wish you could have done better. Could we create a stronger economy with better options for trading? Definitely. Could we address player concerns about the relationship between PvP and PvE? With a new system, yes. Could we give players more and better storage? Yes! The list goes on and on.

Beyond the sweeping gameplay improvements that we are introducing, we also know that any sequel worth its salt needs to show major graphical improvements. Let’s face it, a lot of people love this game because it is beautiful. We fully intend to stay true to the Guild Wars tradition of looking better than the competition while featuring surprisingly inclusive system specs. (And, as a designer, I’ve got some very talented and hard-working programmers and artists to thank for that!)

Even so, not having to worry about backward-compatibility with the original Guild Wars engine and tools gives us an abundance of opportunities to make Guild Wars 2 jaw-droppingly beautiful. At the same time, new budgets for textures and poly-counts, and a whole new bag of tricks from our in-house graphics gurus, mean that every environment, character, and effect we’re making truly looks like a whole new game.

Getting excited about new graphics and new gameplay ideas is only part of the equation for us, though. As some fans noted when Guild Wars 2 was announced, by adding persistent areas and extensive character advancement to Guild Wars, we risked creating another me-too MMO in the Everquest tradition. Plenty of those games already exist, though, and making yet another has never been our goal. Instead, from the start, we talked a lot about the core principles of Guild Wars.

Guild Wars isn't a hassle to play. Fundamentally, we made a choice to not build a game around time-sinks and inconvenience. Our streaming updates, instant map travel, character templates, account-wide storage, easily removed death penalty, and myriad of core features are all based on this principle. Although some details would need to change, we wanted the sequel to stay true to this tradition.
Guild Wars lets you play the way you want to play. We've had a few years now of observing our players and their tendencies and preferences. Whether their play-style focuses on exploration, story, wealth, collection, achievements, socializing, PvP, playing solo or with strangers or friends, our goal is to give them a rich and rewarding experience playing the game they want to play. With Guild Wars 2, we'd seek to diversify their options even further.
Guild Wars encourages skillful play. If you’re going to spend as much time playing a game as people spend playing their favorite online RPG, it had better engage you socially, viscerally, and, yes, intellectually. From the very foundation of the Guild Wars design, we’ve tried to create a game that rewards clever and active play. We’re confident we’ll do an even better job this time around.
Guild Wars tells a story. We've learned a lot over the years about running events in common areas, and how to get the best effect out of instances. Guild Wars 2 gives us an opportunity to take that knowledge and apply it in even better ways.
Guild Wars has no monthly fee. Let's face it: one of the reasons that Guild Wars has enjoyed so much success is that people like owning a game after they buy it. They like being able to take a break without a subscription continuing to drain their bank account. They like being able to buy and experience other games, too. Now we plan to bring that same model to a game with persistent areas, playable races, freedom of movement, incredible depth, spectacular graphics, and gameplay that builds on the best of Guild Wars while taking things to new heights.

Yowza. Looking back on what I’ve written, I’m a little surprised at how effusive I’ve been. Thing is . . . that’s just the sort of energy and enthusiasm we’re feeling around the office right now. I believe it’s because all of the guiding principles, lessons learned, and new ideas amount to one simple thing: we are moving forward, making the best Guild Wars we know how to make. And we can’t wait to play it.

James Phinney, Guild Wars Game Design Team Lead

Source: http://www.plaync.com/us/news/2007/1...rner_imag.html

A11Eur0 · Oct 10, 2007, 08:00 PM // 20:00

"Guild Wars isn't a hassle to play. Fundamentally, we made a choice to not build a game around time-sinks and inconvenience."

Too bad they went away from that in the "transition" expansion for GW2, and even earlier with SS/LB skills dependent on rank grinding.

Ork Pride · Oct 10, 2007, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Will Loot-scaling be in GW2?

Kay84 · Oct 10, 2007, 08:20 PM // 20:20

sounds promising.
Well.. at least we get to play the Charr!

lyra_song · Oct 10, 2007, 08:22 PM // 20:22

I wonder what he has in mind for character development without the level threadmill.

Gaining skills is limited.
Physical change is a possibility.

Theres no way to "power up" without a level threadmill.

Perhaps a classless system would work better for GW's character development?

Silly Warrior · Oct 10, 2007, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Cool imagination.

Lets see if they can actually make this happen.

zwei2stein · Oct 10, 2007, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I just dont see level threadmill and skillfull play as compatible.

Besides, what i understand from text is that they do want to add grind, but make it look like its not grind at all.

I jsut shudder what little details they want to change about tuff like map travel. brr.

Onarik Amrak · Oct 10, 2007, 08:51 PM // 20:51

There's always a gap from concept to reality.

It'll be interesting to see how wide it gets.

Yichi · Oct 10, 2007, 09:00 PM // 21:00

This will either be a storke of genious that will have great success, or it will fail epicly. Only time will tell.

quickmonty · Oct 10, 2007, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Sounds like they are trying to be something for everyone. That concept was one of the drawbacks of GW1

Age · Oct 10, 2007, 09:18 PM // 21:18

I won't spend a dime on this game untill everything in GW1 is been fixed and added.This is all the nerfs,titles grind it is endless and with no lvl cap more endless grind.GW is suppose to be a casual game no more bring it back to 2005.

Saphrium · Oct 10, 2007, 09:19 PM // 21:19

They are shifting towards PvE focused, content oriented MMO, which doesn't sound much more impressive than WoW.

Here is the thing: Anet needs to stop listening to who is the loudest.

There are so many fow armor wearing people who who never PvPed a single time and whines on fansite forums, and trying to get all their Runescape and WoW friends to help them yelling out what they want.

Vinraith · Oct 10, 2007, 09:27 PM // 21:27

It sounds like they have the right idea, for the most part, but I'm still deeply skeptical of persistent areas and lack of heroes/henchmen. Heroes provided greater depth of gameplay for solo players, even if the whole game can be played through by a character alone it's not as interesting as having to manage a party full of skill bars and actions. As to persistence, instancing brought me to GW, all you have to do is look at local chat (yes, turn it on for a few minutes, I know it's painful) to see why I'd rather not have those people intruding on my game experience.

Coraline Jones · Oct 10, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by A11Eur0

"Guild Wars isn't a hassle to play. Fundamentally, we made a choice to not build a game around time-sinks and inconvenience."

Too bad they went away from that in the "transition" expansion for GW2, and even earlier with SS/LB skills dependent on rank grinding.

I agree. In fact, I don't know how they can say that since most of the titles are tied to an immense amount of grind. You could argue that Protector is a title that accurately reflects the spirit of the game, and it certainly makes sense from a lore aspect. But just about any other title in the game is an extremely time-consuming event. Sunspear and Lightbringer are pretty easy to max out for titles, but a lot of the others are not.

I guess that it wouldn't bother me so much, but if you look at the Hall of Monuments, almost all of the displayable titles are focused around maxing something or another.

ParanoidDenny · Oct 10, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Unless they cut out the grind and stop nerfing for the sake of it then i won't be buying GW 2, the original vision circa 2005 was the best model possible IMO.

Bryant Again · Oct 10, 2007, 09:53 PM // 21:53

I really enjoyed reading that : ) Phinney ftw.

frojack · Oct 10, 2007, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by MistressYichi

This will either be a storke of genious that will have great success, or it will fail epicly. Only time will tell.

If anyone can make it happen, it's these guys. They really 'deserve' to be a success in my eyes... But then I've seen it so many times before.

The sad thing is I need to believe that these guys can actually do it, that someone 'can' and 'will' push the boundaries. Day by day I see more evidence to the contrary. This industry is truly full of so much shit...

I MP I · Oct 10, 2007, 10:02 PM // 22:02

A nice dreamy vision for a future mmo. Personally I predict (yes its too early to tell, just expressing my own thoughts) it'll be really awesome at first (like prophecies), then the nerfs will come. Then come new imba professions with chapters that have a less than exciting/interesting storyline. Then people rage quit. History has long been known to repeat itself. Maybe this game will indeed be different. I'll remain neutral till I've played the beta version.

HardWonFame · Oct 10, 2007, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Trying to please too many people has been the plague of Guild Wars. Too many people wanting too many different things and It all got messed up. I do hope they refine their ideas and stop listening to some people and make the best game they can.

I am for sure going to buy Guild Wars 2, no point in living in the past.

Clone · Oct 10, 2007, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Give players deeper options for character advancement. We knew this would be the most controversial of our new goals. Could we do this without creating a game full of grind? As avid fans and players of RPGs, massively multiplayer or otherwise, we saw many untapped opportunities for making this work.

Which they unfortunately must have ignored or gave up on. Every game has had more grind than its predecessor. I'm sorry, but GW:EN is a "game full of grind." And at this rate, and with the talk of possibly no level caps, I have no faith that GW2 will return to their original design of skill over time spent.