Video Interview: Possible Chapter 4 Info - Aug. '07, Aztech/Mayans

My guess is the answer is "China". Presumably they expect to make a lot of money there -- Chairman Mao would be so proud! -- else they wouldn't be bothering. Almost certainly setting up a closed system is using a lot of their time and resources. Assuming their schedule has indeed changed, China may be the answer to both why and how they think they can afford to.

Why are you some of you still talking as though these rumours are true? Did you not see the post that Gaile said that nothing has been confirmed and in some cases not even known to themselves yet?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that someone else has pointed out a similar scenario that happened before wherein the leaked information was denied yet turned out to be 100% accurate?

I like budvar beer.

I thought Anet was American? How does this Dutch fella know so much about whats going on? Do they have a Dutch section?

She didn't confirm it, but she didn't deny it either.

if that is not a flat out denial of the release date part i am missing something only you see.

Hahaha, Agreed!



But 6 months is perfect... if you can't beat a game in 6 months then.. umm.. don't buy the next one when it is launched

Hi Gaile,

I am Dutch and watched the video.
There were some translations before but I still wanna give you my view of what he says too.

What the man says is following:
After 2:35min they talk about Chapter 4.

Interviewer asks:
Is er al iets bekend over een toekomistige uitbreiding?
Is there any known about future expansions?

Man says:
Jazeker, deel 4 zal in Augustus uitkomen
Yes, there will be released a chapter 4 next August.

Het is zo dat er tot nu toe het eerste jaar 1 deel is uitgekomen en het afgelopen jaar 2. En volgend jaar zal er weer 1 nieuw deel gaan uitkomen van GW. Dus geen 2 maar 1.
Till now there was one chapter released in the first year. 2 in the last year and next year there will be a new part of GW. Not 2, only 1!

Interviewer asks:
Is er al iets over bekend? Mag je er al iets over zeggen?
Is there something known yet? Can you talk about it?

Man antwortet:
Daar is wel al iets over bekend maar ik mag er eigenlijk niet zoveel over zeggen maar... uhm... dat ik misschien een klein tipje van de sluier kan oplichten is... dat misschien dit deel wat meer te maken kan hebben met het thema Azteken, Maya's en in die sfeer iets zal gaan afspelen.
Yes, there is information about it but actualy I'm not allowed to speak of it that much but... maybe I can reveal a top of the iceberg... it could be that it has more to do with the theme Azteke, Maya and that kind of scene.

After that the interviewer closes the interview.

The "misschien" translated as "could be/maybe" could imply that he doesn't know for sure and he guesses.

Mfg. Ate

Thanks Loviatar. Glad to see I'm not the only one who read what Gaile posted properly.

I see two ways to fill the revenue "gap":
1) Keep the sales for previous campaigns at high level, for example by expanding to new markets (China, etc.).
2) Make the upcoming campaign so much better than increased sales after release compensate for losses caused by the delay.
It's all a matter of interpreting the verb "to set". Is a "tentative" release date a "set" date? According to ANet's understanding ... probably not.

You really think ANet don't have a tentative date? Maybe not an exact date, but at least a month, or a quarter?

We're talking about professionals here, doing serious business, not some amatuer monkeys. It is pretty naive to believe that ArenaNet would undertake a multi-million dollar project without any time schedule. I'm willing to bet that somewhere in the ANet offices there is a big MS Project time schedule handing on some wall, or at least hidden in some PC. Of course the schedule is tentative, and dates can always slip, but to coordinate a project of this size, with this many people involved, you must have a plan, otherwise everything is total chaos.

ANet have said themselves openly many times that they plan to release the campaign staggered every 6 months. So of course there is a schedule. Anybody who can do some basic math can calculate the "tentative" release dates for all future campaigns.

I'm pretty amazed about ArenaNet's adherence to their schedule so far. Factions and Nightfall were exactly on time, released per schedule. That is most unusual in the gaming industry! I don't think I have seen that ever before. All the games that I've been following so far (and that's a lot) have been released with a more or less significant delay. I salute ANet for that performance! However, with Nightfall there were already some indications of delay. The Domain of Anguish with the elite mission and a few other minor features weren't finished on time. There may have been more things delayed that we don't even know about.

Actually, I would be happy if C4 was delayed. I was already seriously considering to skip the next campaign because I feel that I have so much "unfinished" stuff left to do in the previous campaigns that I'm not ready for a new campaign yet. I hate having to rush through the game in order to be "done" when the next campaign comes out. The other day I made the decision that I will take my time with Nightfall, and maybe even go back to Factions and Prophecies before I start a new campaign.

@ Loviatar, The Ernada, brokenmonkey:

If someone says 'we haven't announced x and y' this doesn't mean there aren't any plans about it. It just means the information about say the theme of the next chapter, the number of characters, costs and so on isn't yet to be revealed to the public. They might be focusing the chapter 4 on a Mayan theme, and as far as I am able to interpret Gaile's words, she didn't deny this, she just said they hadn't announced it. There's always a possibility of some internal leak or some publisher who is able to extract some information before anyone else could (if I may point to Feurin Longcastle's post). Moreover, because every GW chapter was given 1 year develop time, Chapter 4 programming has been well underway, so I bet some deatails are already known. I'm not saying Chapter 4 will feature a Mayan team, but the possibility of it has not been denied.

I kinda agree about the denial of the release date, although my post wasn't only about this particular subject. So if you are missing something only I see, you are right, because I wasn't just talking about the date.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to battle about every word Gaile has written, just pointing out some things can be interpreted in more than one way.

Cheers

I suppose there's no reason why NCSoft won't be willing to subsidize the existance of their money maker for a while if they feel it necessary.

Well, the game is free to play online at the moment, but they've made it perfectly clear that they may very well start charging a monthly fee sometime in the future if they need to. Who knows, they might start that in 2008 for all we know.

E

They stated that they would never have a monthly fee.

cheers back

GAILE stated he was flat out wrong on the release date as they dont have it yet.

no 2 ways to interpret that.

either Gaile is lying or the other person is wrong on that.

if he is wrong there it makes you wonder if the rest is bs also.

REASONS I THINK IT WILL BE ON TIME

FACT

ALEX WEEKES posted not long ago that chapter 4 was well in development and on schedule

FACT

ANET has made every release so far on time

FACT

this will be the second anniversary , the *second birthday* for the game and they will not pass up the chance to celebrate it.

that is why i say end of April 07 ON TIME, ON SCHEDULE

Thank you, Deleet. I'm glad that you posted this. We've said it since Day One, and we continue to say it, 6.5 years later. We will never require a subscription fee for Guild Wars.
Full Stop.
Period.
The End.
Thank you.

@ Loviatar

Mind reading my post again?

Note the 'not only about this subject', meaning the release date. Stop attacking me on this, I already said I agreed at the release date.

Note the 'some things', meaning any other thing than the release date. Gaile only denied the information about the release date, she didn't deny al the other information, she just said Anet has not announced it yet. So you surely can interpret this in more than one way.

Cheers mate

[QUOTE]if taken as a personal attack i apologize without reservation as it was not intended as such.


i was saying (possibly too strongly) if part of it was proven false (assuming Gaile not lying) it puts all his statements into a very doubtful status.

double cheers

Yeah, you are true about that. Who knows if this guy has just wanted to be a bit famous, and therefore invented all this. Best to wait for Anet to release some information. Then we will know for sure. Time will tell

I like the one per year thing to, Just one thing... push it from August to Septmeber :P Im away during july and August

Same here. I'd rather have them stretch it out. One every six months seems to be rushing it. Especially since the elite mission wasn't even ready for Nightfall before it was on sale. I'd like more time to go back and work on other things in the older campaigns, and would like to seem them clean them up, and not forget about them. But that is just my wishful thinking.

Now that I think about it, I enjoy it as well. I still have a lot of character I want to play more on/get through nightfall. It also gives the PvP metagame more time to settle down.

Also more skill nerfs to rant about. Lots of fun.

lol its gonna be stupid...Im gonna probably be the insane head priest who sacrafices people to the gods and removes their hearts...

Just a question, but why was the EULA change necessary then?

Whether the guy was right or not, I've been looking into some things and here are my assumptions....read that again....assumptions lol. These are based off facts either from Gaile, game literature, and in game information.

Cantha is located to the southwest of Tyria. Elona is located to the southeast. In the Nightfall Players handbook it says Cantha opens trade with the northern areas as well as Elona and Kryta. Northern areas, to me would mean Northwest and Northeast. According to lore, the Unseen Ones (Mursaat) protected Kryta from the Charr and have a hidden city deep in Maguuma. The Ferryman Old Jones (you talk to him in a quest for passage to dark river) talks about a shadow hanging over the Ullen River and it hides whats beyond its shores. Says its cast by something "unseen"

"With the help of the White Mantle, and the Divine Eye of Janthir, an artifact from a Mursaat settlement known as the Isle of Janthir, the Mursaat sacrificed humans known as "the Chosen" on the powerful and ancient Bloodstones. This was in order to charge the Soul Batteries keeping the Door of Komalie, and the Titans behind it"

Being that this is Northwest, I could see the Isle of Janthir as a new island for beginning a chapter. The Charr hit Ascalon (Northeast) and as evident from the flame temple full of Charr, they like Aztec architecture. If the guy was guessing, I could see where he got his answers since these are northern areas.

In a story about Saul D'Alessio, it speaks of how he came across the Mursaat and their architecture reaching to the sky in its magnificent glory. I can just imagine the nice scenery that that setting will give to players since the artwork so far as been exemplary from the designers. IMO we can expect more from the Mursaat and maybe more on the Seer's race as well as more from the Charr.

again, this is my conclusion only. Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!

Gaile, excellent game!