Curse

Winstar · Oct 28, 2008, 10:04 PM // 22:04

IMO there are 2 major reasons why the game is delayed; rising expectations of the MMO consumer for the polish of the product and a flood of titles released into the market.

Anyone who has been trying any of the more recent releases into the mmo market such as Fury, Hellgate, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, will notice that expectations of the consumer high for these products. Fury and Hellgate are done for. AOC nose dived as it was released in far too unpolished a state. WAR is currently settling in after release but people are really hounding the developers on a number of issues after what was a pretty decent release. To cut the chase, I think its clear that Guildwars needs an extremely clean release to satisfy the demand of the player base. There are no excuses anymore. People won't accept 'well you have to expect it its an mmo'.

Again, a number of games released not to mention the announcement and release of information about SC2 and D3. We're being flooded with variety of interesting features options for our money and GW2 is facing increased competition. When something is announced it HAS to stand out from the crowd. Its possible the game just isn't in a state right now to show anything that will fully satisfy. A lot of work might be done, but it might not be the kind of flashy cinematics or game footage that will make players ooo and ahhh.

SerenitySilverstar · Oct 28, 2008, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

"we're working hard and are progressing steadily"

I pretty take much that as writ - I don't need anyone to hold my hand and say "We're doing our job. That's pretty much all I can tell you." I pretty much expect them to be doing it, not coming up for air every time the community gets on a QQ spree. Creating a game from scratch takes years and if you want it to be good, you have to be patient.

Chocobo1 · Oct 29, 2008, 07:09 AM // 07:09

Just to keep us hooked? Some concept art, characters that will be shown, anything! Yeah I already know the whole RAWR THEY DONT WANT US BITCHING ABOUT STUFF but uh GW1 is getting zero attention, and we have heard nothing about the game that is requiring all there resources. It's not adding some thrill of suspence, It's making us all look at Diablo 3 and they info we are getting from that. I really just don't understand how D3 can be announced later and it seems like Diablo 3 has developed much futher than GW2 has.

4thVariety · Oct 29, 2008, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Lack of brand confidence?

Maybe Jeff Strain does not want to become the next Dennis Dyack, Peter Molyneux, or Richard Garriott. I doubt Anet really wants to make an appearance on the next Developers who need to shut up list.. So for better or worse, Arenanet will show us something when they feel it's ready.

The comparison with Blizzard is also not that fair. Blizzard has a totally unique way of promoting their products. They know they got the press by the balls in terms of their brand as a developer and they use it every step of the way. Other companies will try to release huge chunks of information, preferably exclusive to get media attention. Not Blizzard. Blizzard will break the information down into tiny segments and ship them off to print and internet. They want the constant awareness to be there for their product, each month at least a page for every product in every magazine seems to be their goal.

Each patch for WoW will at least get two pages of preview AND two pages of review after release. No other company can pull that off, neither Lotro, nor GW, nor any other MMO can provide patch information early and comprehensive enough to get print (!) previews for their patches! Not that those patches were really that big in comparison to regular MMO content patches. They are simply marketed ten times better.

That assault of information focused on the games themselves (not shooting devs into space [Garriott], or taking bets with customers on NeoGaf [Dyack], or challenging critics to boxing matches [Boll]) is really unique to Blizzard and it really hurts their competitors. In terms of awareness in Podcasts and printing magazines the competitors of Blizzard are falling behind. The NCsoft franchises really struggle to get even mentioned in bad WoW comparisons these days.

Part of the Blizzard trick seems to be that customers want to get early information on the game and discuss it. It's part of the game experience itself. It's not enough playing a game, there is a forum filled with people for which discussing the game is as much "playing" the game as the actual playing of the game.

So if you buy Red Alert 3 this week and try to talk about it with a friend, chances are that Blizzard has already provided your friend with five major discussion points on why SC2 is better than Red Alert 3. That is the competitive advantage of Blizzard compared to anybody else.

It will take a bit more than a few concept art shots and tidbits from ArenaNet to compete with that. It will need a totally new way of approaching promotion. Not the most likely thing I see happening right now, although the announcements to release GW books is a tiny step into that direction.

The Little Viking · Oct 29, 2008, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Yea, I know how you feel. Im at the point where I almost don't believe GW2 is ever going to be reality...(not reality and in real world, but reality as in a real game). Your 100% correct when you ask for a bit of concept art, i fully agree with you. Show us something that will make us believe once again that GW2 will actually come to be. As for people bitching about stuff before the game is even out..well they do that already (this thread is a perfect example, but with a good reason). A majority of the people NEED something to complain about or they do feel important, and that's where the bitching comes in. It doesn't matter the topic, people everywhere are not happy (for the most part) unless they are complaining about something. I say let them bitch...but give us something to base our hopes on Please!

NiukNiuk · Oct 29, 2008, 08:35 AM // 08:35

NCSoft is focusing on Aion.
Expect no gw2 news until Aion comes out.

xanarot · Oct 29, 2008, 08:58 AM // 08:58

You wont get anything till the very last moment.

Blizzard: World of Warcraft, also has a new brand for MMORPG in the making (they only say new mmorpg not related to any other brand they have, also keeping everything secret).

EA (?); The next "KOTOR" also becomes MMORPG style.

Thats the 2 largest competitors who should be comming with a new game arround the same time as GW2, seeing the age of the first rumors on both of them. So the more info GW2 releases, the easier it will be for them to copy it (WoW starting to use titles on end-BC and WotLK ringing a bell?).

Not to mention that the 'game of the year' and all that BS they used to advertise Tabula Rasa with (even got some very famous names from other MMORPG to help in the design) turned out so bad players in beta ignored the NDA and started warning people to cancel their pre-order. By the time the game was released, loads soon followed as it really was that bad.
This Tabula Rasa was NCSOFT based, which is also a good reason for them not to advertise the game to much from the start.

fenix · Oct 29, 2008, 09:38 AM // 09:38

The real question is, do ANet really think they can compete with SC2 and D3? Because I know for a fact that they can't.

Shadowspawn X · Oct 29, 2008, 09:42 AM // 09:42

I don't get these threads at all. They have told us the new races, the storyline , lore, mechanics such as sidekicks and guild homes already. Just give them time to make the product. WTF do you wanna know? Also hold in mind the more specifics they put out in the public , the more their competitors will steal from them.

fenix · Oct 29, 2008, 09:45 AM // 09:45

What we would like to know, is even the smallest bit of what is going to be in the game. So far it has just been your standard MMO stuff, they haven't actually SHOWN anything (concept art, early areas/monsters) to prove that they're even making a game.

SirSausage · Oct 29, 2008, 10:01 AM // 10:01

My patience is running out.
Anet should release ANY info if they want to keep us interested in the game.
Its as if GW2 doesnt even exist.

Numa Pompilius · Oct 29, 2008, 10:07 AM // 10:07

The name of the game for computer games is "hype".
The hype starts a couple of months before the release of the game - if you start later the buzz does not have time to build, if you start earlier people get bored before the game is out.
Companies like Nintendo with bottomless pockets can literally spend hundreds of millions of dollars building hype around their products, but most companies are pretty much limited to the cheapest and simplest way to build hype around a game: to release info about it, thereby getting people talking about it, posting links about it, and sites/magazines to write articles about it.

As GW2 is still at least a year from release, it's still too soon to start building hype.

komma · Oct 29, 2008, 10:09 AM // 10:09

i believe the "hype" was started upon announcement of gw2....i/e pc gamer from way back when.

Sirius-NZ · Oct 29, 2008, 10:12 AM // 10:12

It seems more than a little strange to me that people are actually questioning whether GW2 is in development...

...well, if it isn't, what do you think they're doing?

I should also note that Diablo 3 had been in development for something like 4-5 years before it was even announced. Blizzard didn't even do that until they'd nailed down what the game was going to be.

GW2 wasn't in the same situation. All we heard were vague ideas; who knows how much has changed since.

Chocobo1 · Oct 29, 2008, 10:18 AM // 10:18

To me it was pretty much like they announced they are making GW2 and that was it. The only real change I saw was a huge lack of any decent updates in GW1 (Inb4 RAWR MOX WAS AWSUMZ). I'm not asking for them to reveal the entire game but anything would be good just to let us know where they are at or a character class that we can drool over for awhile. Even something like what each race may be good at would be great at this point.

4thVariety · Oct 29, 2008, 12:08 PM // 12:08

Hype is required when your first week sales are astronomical and then fall to the bottomless pit after that. Hype is for Hollywood movies who need to force their customers into the cinema during the first two weeks because they can't sustain the advertisement campaign required for longer than short periods of time. Hype is for games that look good for 4-5h but then go sour towards the end.

The last thing on Earth ArenaNet should want is old-fashioned hype.

Again, compare to Blizzard, they do not aim to sell for one week only. They build their promotion from the ground to be able to resist a pounding. For every flame you create, for every small annoyance you write about, 1000 fanboys will descend from the trees and defend the design decision as the work of god. And that's what you see is happening with StarCraft and Diablo right now. Nobody will attack the color palette on release, nobody will moan about the Terran only campaign. Blizzard will try to build their promotion in a way that it can defend itself.

The Blizzard way is to slowly easy the product into the mind of the customer as something positive. Only when cunstomers like it will Blizzard proceed. By the time the game is released, the customer has already fallen in love with it and will defend it to his grave, even if it's not setting the world on fire by any stretch of the imagination. The Blizzard customers, much like the Nintendo goon squad, is using peer pressure to eliminate any negativity.

If a Blizzard game fails to catch the press and community however, then they pull a Starcraft:Ghost. Which means that a fully completed game gets scrapped instead of released. By comparison ArenaNet simply throws out the facts. Love them or hate them, nobody is forcing you to buy the game anyway.

Fril Estelin · Oct 29, 2008, 02:17 PM // 14:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

where they are at or a character class that we can drool over for awhile.

It's part of the picture of this thread, people want to drool over something. Or they're afraid (not necessarily in the sense of "fear" or "regret", but also empathising with others who may start feeling that way) that there'll be no GW2 (vaporware rumors) or it'll be "beaten" by competitors. Yet GW1 wasn't "beaten" by WoW, because it's not in the category "you have to pay to play", and that's a huge selling point.

When I look at future games (Aion, TCOS, D3, SC2) and read that they may have monthly fees, Anet's decision to release a no-monthly-fee game (a position they held from the very start, without changing) is important for me (and quite a lot of people looking at how much they sold).

4thVariety's post on marketing made a lot of sense to me. You can't fight against Blizzard Activision (never forget to put the last "Activision" bit, they're now a bigger mammoth than before!). I surely hope that GW2 will have a much better community and Anet will deal with its community in a better way than with GW1 (and please, ten times please, do NOT use the wiki as a forum!)

Edit: 4thVariety's 2nd post is again spot on IMO. Blizzard Activision is as much an MMO company, as a social engineering company via its viral marketing (Mr. T and Shatner on TV for that game? political virtual march by Ron Paul?). Well, not that it's a bad thing, a nice social communtiy is important to any game, but so many fanboys, and that kind (virtual) of social interaction costs $13, so no thank you...

Numa Pompilius · Oct 29, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thVariety

The last thing on Earth ArenaNet should want is old-fashioned hype.

Tell that to Nintendo who spent some 200 million dollars building the comically hysterical hype preceding the release of the Wii.
Hype works. Hype sells.

If you don't like the negative connotations of the word hype, call it "buzz" then - it's the same thing but with positive connotations. You start building buzz to early and people get bored with your product before it's even on sale, you need to time the release of info so peoples interest peaks at release.

After that the product sells (or not) on its own virtues. That the present hollywood blockbuster movies are computer-animated crap is besides the point.

EDIT: And wth are you talking about - WoW was preceded by IMMENSE hype!

Esan · Oct 29, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

When I look at future games ([...] D3, SC2) and read that they may have monthly fees

[citation needed]

Arduin · Oct 29, 2008, 03:08 PM // 15:08

I, for one, will play Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and any other major game right alongside GuildWars 2. That is, if they are free to play.

I'm doing the same at the moment. Bit of GW, bit of Team Fortress 2, bit of any other reasonably intelligent game. That's the major advantage of free to play games. You can drop them if you want.

That's also the main reason why I'm not concerned whether GW2 launches in 2009 or 2011, and whatever game will be launched right beside GW2. Anet got the money and dedication to deliver a nifty new game. Players will buy GW2 just as they bought GW1, for some cheap fun, without having to pay $10 each month even when you are not playing.