Q&A: Guild Wars' Jeff Strain

Nice interview......


http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/guild...11&mode=recent

GSUK: What are your figures for how many people are currently playing?

JS: That's not a number we announce publicly, but like I said, we've sold three and a half million copies as of April.

:O?
*cough* lol.

GSUK: So, any plans to bring the Guild Wars series to the PS3?

JS: There are no definitive plans at this point. We are still evaluating our options. But we certainly have a lot of console fans...

:O?!??!??!!?

other stuff its nifty info too

GW on PS3.....that would be interesting....

JS: One of the things I'm excited about Tabula Rasa is that its new, it's innovative.

I remember reading something somewhere about how Richard Garriott hates GW and the non-subscription model. At least Jeff doesn't hold it against him.

If Guild Wars total sales are at 3.5 million, I'm guessing, between repeat buyers, both for multiple accounts, and for upgrading their own accounts, the actual amount of players who purchased games is somewhere between 0.9 million, and 1.2 million.
Assuming those numbers are about accurate, I'd guess 0.4 million 'currently active' players, with another 0.1 million to 0.2 million people who log in infrequently, but still do. (Not including gold farm bot and distribution accounts here.)
Not intended as an insult or a downer, as I doubt World of Warcraft's actual currently active subscribers are more than 3-6x that amount worldwide, which is pretty darn big too.
These are just ballpark figures, though, so don't take them as fact. It's not really that important to me, either. Past a specific point, I think it doesn't really matter how big the community is. You won't meet more people than on a given server you play on, or servers, be that the case, and you won't even usually meet all the people there, with games like WoW, and you probably wouldn't even be able to tell the same person apart on different characters in Guild Wars unless they're a personal friend. While you need a certain amount of players beyond your friends for a thriving server, the rest are largely impersonal, and it doesn't matter whether there are 100,000 more of them, or 1,000,000.
In short, it's just for the fun of doing it that I'm making these guesses. Not to prove a point.

A lot of the article, I'm not sure why there's so much stress on. Guild Wars is by no means the first major online RPG that supports many players, especially not in instances, for free. It's not the first no-subscription MMORPG, of which there is probably a glut of, at this point. The standalone-and-expansion-in-one is probably the only unique twist I've seen on the business model.
Mind you, I'm not belittling the accomplishment. What ArenaNet has done is still a great achievement. For accounts sold and active players, Guild Wars is a real contender, and probably among the best of non-subscription MMORPG's, and is a good game in its own right.

I relate to the portion on the 2-player audience, though I'd say a 3-person group can be about as intimate. The 2-player experience really makes or breaks a game for me. I like being able to play in different sizes occasionally, especially not being dependent on other people at times, but at its core, I've always been a small group social gamer.

I wouldn't be surprised if a future ArenaNet game were released on the PS3, even Guild Wars, or some other console, especially concurrently with a PC release. Guild Wars 2 is touted as giving more freedom of movement and exploration, and that's the kind of thing the controls of a console tend to do better than a keyboard and mouse. Maybe Guild Wars 3?

Nothing all that new or surprising in the article, but it's nice to see they're alive and kicking.

JS: And so what happens is that gamers like you and me, who just want to play the game as the designers intended it to be played and have fun with it, can't afford to purchase anything.

...

GSUK: How else do you feel MMOs should evolve from here?

JS: The entire development team are very focused on creating a player-directed experience; rather than us telling a story and leading them through the story, it's giving players the tools and setting up the environment so that players can create stories on their own.

...

JS: I think that's something that has really been a strength of Guild Wars, that we allow you to play the way you want to play today.

---

heh, bullshit. They don't like you doing very much outside of the way they intended it. In order to do this they created stuff like locked gates that you can't go through unless you follow their story and quests. If people found another way to do something and it was popular they tried their best to nerf it. He's just bs'ing the public there.

He also seems to contradict himself, but that's just me I guess. As long as you create a story that follows their story (and opens gates, goes the normal route to new areas, etc) then yeah I guess he's right. :-(

The rest of it is pretty neat though.

also a bit contradictory when he says the guildwars model is successful and profitable, yet the whole reason for canceling chapter 4 is they thought the model wasn't working.... meh

Well I think what he means by it is that it was completely successful for 2 years. Not to mention it was something that was a big risk and they have been around for 2 years without a problem, maybe it's just me but I think that that counts as success.

Just MHO but an MMORPG directed solely at a casual audience is contradictory and in the end just stupid...

This quote bothers me, if they only rely on their new content to keep you coming back... Most of their "new stuff" have been poorly implemented and have in some instances cause worse problems... I think the old content should be what really keeps you around (because its actually good) and the new stuff is just a bonus.

Oh well, guess they havent learned much...

Actions > Words

That statement appeared in a magazine article, but Richard Garriott has stated that it was incorrect or out of context or something like that.

The current model doesn't work because it is impossible to maintain PvP balance while adding hundreds of new skills and new professions every 6 months, the GW team have to waste time and content adding tutorial areas to every chapter, the game gets more and more complex with each chapter as new mechanics are introduced, and so on.

That is to say, it is the model used to produce new content, not to sell it, that has failed.

EoN IS chapter 4 but without the newbie area and new classes.

The model they referred to with Ch 4 was making another new chapter with another newbie area and sub lv 20 content and make it a standalone game, the business model hasnt changed or failed, which is no subscription fee online gaming.

never know...

from a *different* Jeff Strain interview
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=14931

Sony being “innovative;” that sentimental idea made me laugh like no tomorrow. I mean the PS3 did nothing in invention but upped their graphics yet again. Furthermore they half-baked their product, by entering in some of the competition ideas to their own in a small minimum degree; like the Wii motion control stuff and Xbox Live feature. After they had constantly snubbed the competition saying “their ideas would never work.” Finally stating at the end that, “it was all our idea and how original it was.” Geez.

Not to mention it was them (and a few others, like EA games) who got ticked off at all the attention at Nintendo’s Wii last year E3 conference, so they advocated for the new version this year. It was so bad that they even snubbed the press and their own fans that supposedly “did not pay any attention to them.” It just makes me feel sorry for what happens to all the developers who have to deal with SOE.

I have this feeling though that Jeff is trying to be cautious around the NC Soft and Sony alliance though. I guess when there is a merger in the air; you have to cautious to the new heads leading the company.

Anyways going on about what he said about Guild Wars itself, its rising popularity, and taking risks was a good thing. I really do believe that it takes certain minds to come up with something that really brings in people by the masses, but does not force them to do one thing. Jeff is right that some developers can get away with the “pay as you play” business model and others can’t. Most of the MMO market is flooded with some very bad and lousy static ideas about how a MMO should be; that is for every one or two good ones that come out.

I was about to laught at that "Sony is innovative" statement, but Sindex pretty much nailed it. Just look at the PS3 controller, it took the standard dual shock that they've been using since the PSOne and took features from the Wii and Xbox to spruce it up. They have the arrogance to call that innovative?

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing GW on a console, but I don't see a free MMO like Guild Wars working on the PS3. The PS3's online service is a shambles, and it would cost them a lot to keep it up and running. I guess it could happen if they thought it would be popular enough, but either the Wii or the 360 would be a far better choice for the game. Hopefully Sony's deal to have exclusive NCSoft games doesn't cover Guild Wars.

I really hope that's GW2 he's talking about.

C'mon ... Xbox360 comes with a fee for online play. How would Arenanet's subscribtion-free model be compatible with that?

Hold on, the fact that Sony's online offering is subpar at the moment doesnt mean it will stay that way, I'd also think that there's the possibility that Sony would supply the servers considering its their propietary technology in the PS3.

Whether this would be a good development or not is an althogether different question, it would certainly raise the profile of GW among a group of gamers that dont know it yet and could give GW a nice edge and a large influx of new gamers which wouldnt be such a bad thing.

Personally, I dont see it happening anytime soon but nothing is impossible especially given the collaboration between NCSoft and Sony.

You're paying for the Xbox Live service though, not Guild Wars itself. Games like Phantasy Star Online, for example have a completely seperate fee for playing online. And $50 a year isn't exactly much to ask, considering it's a pretty neat service. I don't mean to turn this into a console war argument, but it does vastly out do either Nintendo or Sony's free online service, and it's even better than playing most PC games online, as everything you play is all tied into one account. Options, friends list, achievements, etc.

The point being, you're paying for the Live service. Guild Wars itself would still be free to play.

The business model is still the same. The game is free for life once you own it. When did that change?

The only thing thats changed is whats in the box, that being no longer a standalone but a full fledged expansion.

And that change was brought about not because of failure in the business end, but rather that they felt like the game was getting too complicated with addition of new classes per chapter and that newbie areas have to be rehashed and reinvented each time, when the installed fanbase will just SKIP IT anyway.

So why make content that the fanbase will skip over, why make newbie areas each and every single time? Thats a waste of time.

Why not take that wasted time and resource and actually make high end areas for players with lvl 20 characters already so they can actually play it?

Voila, GW:EN.

Reading comprehension my friend. You took the question and answer completely out of context.

The question was "How else do you feel MMOs should evolve from here?.

His answer is in referral not even to Guild Wars. EVOLVE FROM HERE. Here meaning now. He's looking into the FUTURE, not into the past.

You quoting "Play the game as the designer intended" is referring to things you have to do to have fun in the game after botting has ruined it. In other words, Jeff Strain doesnt want players to spend hours and hours and hours farming for gold just to get decent stuff, because the market has crapped out thanks to the gold flooding. Thats not how the game was designed. Its designed so that even casual players can enjoy it.

You quoting "Play the way you want to play" is in referal to being FORCED TO PARTY vs having Henchmen/Heroes if you want to Solo. Thats how the game was designed.

Jeff Strain is consistent in his mindset and philosophy and applies it to the game.

Personally, the best thing I saw in this interview was Jeff's focus on the future. It is good to see a game company not just focused on making a big selling game, but actually trying to bring innovation to the industry. And from all accounts, Guild Wars managed to do both.

Some of Jeffs visions for the future sounded really exciting (combining the "player focus" of traditional RPGs with the persistant world of most MMO's). Here is hoping they can pull some of that off with GW2.

Cheers Anet.

i wanna kill console noobs!

Good article I say. Now if we can only get some good info on GW2....

what I understood is GW2 is what was once going to be chapter4 and GWEN is an attempt at giving reason for the shift in-lore...

Cheers to the OP for posting this. I found it a very good read. Some thoughts:

1) His discussion about duo gaming cemented the notion that single-player, full-hero parties will NEVER be part of Guild Wars. You can solo if you like, but the Duo gameplay (e.g., husband and wife) is really encouraged. I think this is also a hint of the design direction of GW 2, i.e., sidekicks.

2) While WOW is the 800 lb gorilla, GW is the 250 lb Gorilla. It's really the number 2 online RPG out there. Living in the shadow of WOW as Guild Wars players all do can make you forget how long a shadow Guild Wars actually casts. You see this if you visit forums of other MMO's where there is fairly equal bashing of both WOW and GW.

3) GW and GW2 will never have a lot of in-game mods. Heavy moderation, Jeff suggests, is an ongoing expense a non-fee-based game can't afford. This means GW will continue to have more of an anything-goes, wild west atmosphere compared to the fee-based MMO's. If that's really troublesome to you, don't expect it to change in GW2.

4) Jeff think's the evolution of MMO's lead to worlds where changes a player makes in a game don't always reset. I find that very interesting, and I have no idea how that could work. Perhaps things will reset, but just on a much longer time-scale with a series of branching choices depending upon player actions. Perhaps he means something else, but it's interesting to contemplate.

I think the ~1 million mark is about right for number of accounts with all three campaigns. Lets, for the sake of argument, say the the .4 million active players is correct, that would make GW the one of the most populous MMOs. WoW advertises 9 million active acounts (down at the bottom it states what counts towards that number) and, even though I don't have a link, Final Fantasy 11 has 700,000 subscribers I believe. Other than that I don't know about numbers but I'm pretty sure none have more than those two and with the other people that Mercy Angel mentioned, the 100,000-200,000 who might log on once a month, GW is very strong right now. I think it said in the PC Gamer issue for GW that is things would reset once a week. That every week we would try to figure out what would make a dragon come down and destroy a bridge and to defend the builders of the bridge from bandits etc.

As is typical the absolute first person to do any one thing gets no real credit, the first to do it *successfully* does. Not only that but the first to do all of them together also means something. I mean, people had been running, hitting balls with sticks, and catching/throwing balls for thousands upon thousands of years - they still weren't playing baseball

As far as I know there is no real competition to GW, nothing that puts all of those things into one package, let alone do so with a successful business model. I do agree that the statement was a little over the top, but it is more accurate than not and not too bad for what is essentially and advertisement (ass all such interviews are).

That was the number one feature/fix request for the year that Prophecies was the only game. There were quite a few of us that said it would actually suck to have that happen but, alas, we were drowned out. I will blame Anet for not realizing how much the idea sucked, but it was actually doing one of the most heavily requested "features" by the fan base and was an example of them listening. Can't really blame them for not listening to the fan base on this one, heck even today you still occasionally see someone rant about people getting runs (and more often than not also complain about Anet blocking runs in the same post). You either allow them or you do not.

I'm too lazy to look it up, but they have pretty much said this straight out several times before on this and other boards. Three heroes per person is a compromise - good enough for the single player but encourages at least some grouping. It means a decent/dedicated hench player can complete bonus on any mission but less skilled players will still need/want to group. Being an almost total single person player I would *love* to see 7 heroes and the diversity of team builds I could experiment with, but as long as their idea is the above it isn't going to happen. In fact, pointing out how we would use the heroes pretty much re-enforces their decision as it shows they hit that fine line (kinda like the vast majority of loot-scale complaints only re-enforce their implementation).

No kidding ...
So you pay a fee, not to Arenanet, but to Microsoft, which in the end is still a fee. Do you really think most players care who they pay to?
Also, this would move the in a business model that Arenanet tries to avoid, i.e. pay to play (stop paying for Xbox Live = no more playing GW2 on Xbox).

To a large extent this is no different than having to pay for an internet connection - from that sense you *are* paying a monthly fee to play GW. However, being a general access fee most do not see it so.

But then, the XBOX live fee isn't exactly like an internet connection as it is not general purpose - partially it would depend on how many online games you play. If GW was/is the only one then it is almost exactly a monthly fee for GW, if you would have it anyway then it is not.

Basically do you see XBOX live as a general purpose connection (such as the monthly fee for your internet connection) or do you see it as your fee to play GW. That will mostly depend on the user - from GW's point of view they aren't charging anything and your stuff isn't deleted if you quit playing. Personally I would side with the "infrastructure" argument as Anet isn't charging you anything to play - it is up to Microsoft to decide if they want you to pay to use their service. However I also rather suspect that the monthly fee for XBOX live turns them off on the idea too (it would were I one of the developers even though I do not think it is the same as a monthly pay to play fee). I would also suppose that if they made a working console version the decision would more hinge on demand than anything.

wow, look at you people quoting stuff way out of context. check your agendas at the door.

i really hope this mention of a sony / anet partnership has nothing to do with soe. what a huge lump of chodes that is. anyone who used to play swg knows what i'm saying. i played that game from beta to the cu and know how soe can turn a great game to crap. the only other things they've put out that i've played were planetside (really fun game but too fps'y to require a monthly fee) and everquest (why do people actually play those games? they left me nothing positive to say about them...maybe fun for mud-players who like to watch their fish swim at the same time?)

soe is the mark of death...avoid them at all costs!

at least they're not blizzard.

Again, people are getting this wrong

NCSoft's deal was made with Sony Entertainment (that makes the PS3 and PSP) and not Sony Online entertainment (the ones that ballsed up matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies), they are both Subsidiories of Sony Enterprises, just as ANet is a subsidiory of NCSoft

3½ million of all chapters. Me, I own 2 Prophecies, 2 Factions and 1 Nightfall and would count as 5 copies. Or actually 5 players as the GW staff would have us believe (there was a post at GWO where Andrew Patrick told us there was 3½ million players).

As of how many plays, I never seen it before but found a figure.
http://gigaom.com/2006/10/26/guild-wars/

nice find on GW numbers - thanks for link

Silver account = Free, as i understand. I think access to the online store.

Gold account = Paid for, lets you pay to play games with other xbox users by hosting it on your own machines (i don't understand this either).


So, you pay nothing for a silver account to connect to Xbox Live and pay whatever Anet wants you to pay to play Guild Wars. Of course there's no reason they couldn't demand a gold account to play GW given that they demand it to let you host your own games anyway, but they could easily allow silver access all the same.

Not that GW should ever appear on a console, mind you. Oblivion should have set an example for all.

I think this might be related to the World Vs World PvP in GW2. The idea I get of it, is being like a fairly large sized place in the mists. Maybe around UW or FoW size. Obviously, one "world" vs another "world". There could be bridges, World A could destroy a bridge. This bridge wouldn't be fixed unless either A) World B repairs it, or B) The weekly reset of changing worlds. Might make sense, might not. Posted at 7AM so I don't have much faith in it.