Curse

draxynnic · Jan 13, 2009, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Do you have a source for that figure?

Nightfall was released in October 2006, and the announcement that they would be making EOTN and GW2 instead of Utopia came in early 2007. Now, with the original plan of staggered releases, the even-numbers team would have started work on Utopia at or around April 2006 at the earliest. Even if they'd decided to switch to GW2 almost immediately, that still wouldn't have put them at 3 years of development now, and it would only have been half the companies development team until after the release of Nightfall.

I'd consider it more likely that they didn't make the switch until sometime after Nightfall's release - after all, a lot of the completely new content in EOTN was corralled from Utopia (and the rest is preparation for GW2). I'd probably guesstimate that GW2 started serious work around now-ish 2007 or late 2006, giving it about two years of development. And as Eagle has stated, companies generally don't announce things until they've been developing them for a while... however, ANet was essentially forced into announcing early to explain why they weren't releasing other things (even then they may have held off until the questions about why we weren't hearing about Chp4 started getting too loud).

That said, I would be expecting to hear more about it this year.

slowerpoke · Jan 13, 2009, 03:53 AM // 03:53

GW2 isnt being built totally from scratch. they are using a modified gw1 engine, and no doubt many current features and code as well.

considering what they were able to produce in a year with the expansions, which rival the original game in terms of size, maybe they are further ahead with things than we think. or should be.

also consider the full anet team (100+) are working on it (minus 2 for the live team) when expansions only had 50%.

they need to start building anticipation of the new title, release regular updates and possibly hire a community manager who interacts with the players.

Nightow · Jan 13, 2009, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

they need to start building anticipation of the new title, release regular updates and possibly hire a community manager who interacts with the players.

I nominate Gaile Gray for that position and would like to add that the community should really wait until at least april for some possible GW2 news.

Nomme Moon · Jan 13, 2009, 05:11 AM // 05:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightow

I nominate Gaile Gray for that position and would like to add that the community should really wait until at least april for some possible GW2 news.

Wait, GW has a CM? I wouldn't have ever guessed.

As much as I really, REALLY hate to get my own hopes up, I believe the Asura tonic is a sign of good things to come. I kinda believe that we'll see a Charr tonic, then perhaps a dwarven tonic, and in April I wouldn't be surprised if we get GW2 details with a Sylvari tonic.

Rehnahvah Gahro · Jan 13, 2009, 08:50 AM // 08:50

If the next tonic is a charr or dwarf then I'd be really excited. That would be the only hope that things are slowly coming to a close. I expect at least some information by the time of April, 4th Birthday Celebration.
Otherwise I have no hopes of GW2 being released in '09.

Gun Pierson · Jan 13, 2009, 09:57 AM // 09:57

To be honest, I think 3 years is still a short amount of time to develop a game like gw2. Sure they will use existing code. Yet this isn't packman we're talking about. Check out some of the devs forums out there and you'll discover that games became really complex these days and many unforseen problems can arise.

I wouldn't be surprised if we had to wait another two years, until then the tonics will prolly repeat like they stated.

Lycan Nibbler · Jan 13, 2009, 12:08 PM // 12:08

To quote Regina from her journal page on wiki (a post dated 9th Jan 2009)
"We're going to be releasing some news to give you an idea of what we have in store for GW1 this year. Look for that soon. I think people will be very excited about what we're working on..."
So to use a poplar saying "the news(truth) is out there"... just got to wait a few more days

R.Shayne · Jan 13, 2009, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Actually GW2 could have been in development well before Nightfall was released. Otherwise they have a bunch of people being paid to do nothing; concept artist, story developers, etc... It all depends on how far into the planing phase before they decided to bastardize Utopia and switch to GW2.

I am not even going to guess when GW2 will come out but I have to agree with Orange the longer in closed/open beta the better chance we have at a good game (depending on if they listen to the beta testers).

Arduin · Jan 13, 2009, 01:43 PM // 13:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miss Drops Az

To quote Regina from her journal page on wiki (a post dated 9th Jan 2009)
"We're going to be releasing some news to give you an idea of what we have in store for GW1 this year. Look for that soon. I think people will be very excited about what we're working on..."
So to use a poplar saying "the news(truth) is out there"... just got to wait a few more days

Reminds me of Gaile's December 2007 quote about all the exciting stuff concerning GW2 that would be disclosed in 2008, and which never happened.

Oh, and of course the major GW.com overhaul, which also didn't happen.

Lycan Nibbler · Jan 13, 2009, 01:44 PM // 13:44

I think you'll find theyve been doing a little testing on the QT anyway - anyone remember the (excuse the bad description) card dealt skillset 2v2 at the event anet attended last summer? I am pretty sure they were testing out that concept for GW2.

Like Shayne, I am not going to guess either - Im still happy messing around in GW1 ... I think next time though I'll go into pvp straight away to avoid the catch up.

draxynnic · Jan 13, 2009, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.Shayne

Actually GW2 could have been in development well before Nightfall was released. Otherwise they have a bunch of people being paid to do nothing; concept artist, story developers, etc... It all depends on how far into the planing phase before they decided to bastardize Utopia and switch to GW2.

I would guess, though, that they probably made the decision after Nightfall's release - and either way they still shifted

Either way, though, they couldn't have started earlier than April '06, which was less than three years ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

considering what they were able to produce in a year with the expansions, which rival the original game in terms of size, maybe they are further ahead with things than we think. or should be.

Those made few if any alterations to the engine, though. The impression I get is that while they may borrow some from GW1, the engine is intended to have considerably greater capabilities. (I believe jumping and swimming were mentioned, for instance. Plus this system by which the same skill may have a variety of effects depending on how it's used...)

Smurf Minions · Jan 13, 2009, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arduinna

Reminds me of Gaile's December 2007 quote about all the exciting stuff concerning GW2 that would be disclosed in 2008, and which never happened.

Oh, and of course the major GW.com overhaul, which also didn't happen.

only regina's stuff usually turns out to be true, as regina is more straight to the point.

for my feeling we're going to get some news in atleast something like april, and maybe beta in like the summer holidays or something

Stupid Shizno · Jan 13, 2009, 03:18 PM // 15:18

gw2 is just a hoax to keep players playing gw1

whoops, now anet is going to kill me

Lord of kryta · Jan 14, 2009, 01:46 AM // 01:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupid Shizno

gw2 is just a hoax to keep players playing gw1

Oh yes, ncsoft west is hiring people to do nothing all day?

shoyon456 · Jan 14, 2009, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regina Buenaobra

Hi Shoyon:

I am sorry that cannot respond to your questions regarding GW2 with information, because we are not permitted to talk about it at this time.

Development on GW2 is continuing. ...*snip*...

I will convey your desire to see GW2 information to our team. The entire community team has been pushing for them to release information for months now, but our strategy is to make a "big splash" to really impress people.

I'm sorry that this doesn't give you anything to go on, but I will definitely let the developers know how you feel.

Regards,

Regina

Somewhat reassured by this. I can rest a lil' easier.

Black Metal · Jan 14, 2009, 05:24 AM // 05:24

good work, shoyon.

also thanks to arduinna, wish those juicy dev tidbits were more accessible. I can't wait to hear what they have in store for GW1 this year. They really need to keep interest up until the big GW2 'splash', though I really hope it's not another BMP-type thing that's play once and forget about.

Konig Des Todes · Jan 14, 2009, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missmelady

I believe the post 2 above has it put best. Since this months was a Asuran I figure febuary's tonic will be a dwarf marches tonic to be a charr then aprils to be a sylvarie

I highly doubt that Anet will include sylvari, simply because the tonics are using already made models with the emotes that are already existant. The only thing they are doing is putting them into tonic form. Nothing added.

As such, I believe/hope that it will be more along the lines of:
Charr
Tengu
Mursaat

Those are probably the overall most wanted tonics, and the Charr would finish the race scheme where models already exist. Tengu are highly liked as are Mursaat (Mursaat even have their own annual community made event afterall).

I won't bother guessing when GW2 will be out, but I'm 99.9% possitive it is not "vaporware" - due to both the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) that just about every gaming company goes under and that it is highly possible that they started working on it around the release of Nightfall, as both R.Shayne and draxynnic have said.

It really depends on how thorough they are and how easy the programming goes. Fewer bugs in the beginning means sooner it comes out, obviously. If there are minimal bugs, it can come out (not just beta, the actual game) in 09 for sure, with many bugs, it may take until 2015.

Ravious · Jan 14, 2009, 11:07 AM // 11:07

I remember one of the founders commented that their biggest fear was trying to get persistence using the Guild Wars engine, but it actually turned out far easier than they thought. This was near the beginning...

Lycan Nibbler · Jan 14, 2009, 12:16 PM // 12:16

Quote "but our strategy is to make a "big splash" to really impress people." <-- This

You dont see music stars or file stars pushing a new song/film until just before its release, same should go for a game. Little to nothing is gained by pushing and marketing a game a year before its actual release, the attention span of the world is much less these days.

This is why I am happy with no info about GW2, because I know when it does come out, it will be close to being in my hands and playing

daraaksii · Jan 14, 2009, 12:42 PM // 12:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord of kryta

Oh yes, ncsoft west is hiring people to do nothing all day?

They have Izzy to BALANCE the game and put in so frickin' good events like this week's! Yeah!

Also they have some men who presses "Reset" if something goes really wrong at the servers.