A little bit of Retro on the side

**I swore I'd never do it, I really did... the flesh is willing but the mind is weak, so here is my version of the ubiquitous GW2 thread**

With all the negativity flowing about so many things here at the moment, I thought a little pause and retro would be interesting. This goes back about 9 months, and I would like to say that I sincerely hope that the excited passion for Guild Wars 2 still burns as brightly today - that is has not been extinguished by the almost overwhelming flood of negative feedback and antagonism of the last while.

If these guys have not simply curled up and died in the face of the QQ from their community, then I would say that Guild Wars 2 is in the best hands possible and will simply be an amazing game designed by people who love their own game.

This was written by James Phinney in October 1007, and when I reread it, it reminds me of who exactly is in charge here, and I am thankful it's them and not us:

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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
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Does no-one else feel in the slightest confident that we will be blown away by Guild Wars 2?

**Disclaimer for the nay-sayers: Yes, there are stark issues with the situation as it stands with GW1 at the moment that desperately need to be addressed, but this is not about those issues, but simple confidence in our gaming future with Anet.

Wow GW2 is pretty late then D:

No doubt GW2 will be great, but they could have done a D3 style annoucement and gave us a small slice of the pie.

Blizzard didnt reveal everything about D3, just a few features and ofcourse the gameplay footage. We know theres still plenty of development time ahead and things will change/improve. However it still gave fans a taste of things to come and generated massive excitement; We know its coming and we can see potentially how great it will be.

However, im not a fan of how ANet 'manage expectations'. Showing us nothing and telling us to 'wait and see' is no good.

What confidence?

Diablo 3 announced, AoC having potential to be a great competitive game provided some issues that need to be worked out, New WoW expansion... ArenaNet better do something and do it fast...

lol, now that is a good one.

Most of the QQ, i believe, stems from anet witholding any and all info about GW2 so far. MAYBE, it hasn't fully been developed yet, and anet keeping it hush hush is a good idea to avoid more QQ. As it was said they want us to be amazed at first glance, thus no beta in '08.

However, with other games competing for players anet should play a few cards just to create some hype. It's anet though, so they'll probably keep it under wraps until THEY are ready to unveil anything.

ok fine maybe I exaggerated a little bit, but with all the current tubling downhill like a fat girl on rollerskates Anet is doing with GW1, even AoC could surpass it at this rate...

Hell probably half the PvP community we had left already moved, so did a good number of the PvE community too.

Hell look at Diablo 3. It was rumored and hinted at being in production for years. Blizzard said nothing until they could sufficiently devote the resources to the community to actually make the game the community was after, which judging by the popularity D2 had, will be Immense. (theorycrafting time. Since anet staff worked on D2, you think the sabatoge of their game was secretly a covert operation to finish d3? )

I have few concerns about the pvp balance but i think GW2 would be much more deeper in character progress than GW and with freedom of movement , half persistent/half instanced world and world pvp it have to be awesome. I truly believe theyll give us one of the greatest games well see

I really couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for posting this.

Sorry about the double post, but I couldn't help but crack up picturing a fat girl falling down a hill on rollerskates.

words are cheap. words from anet are even cheaper.

they need to show screenshots, gameplay videos... ANYTHING is better than nothing.

as of right now, i'm sticking with my opinion: that the anet devs are bickering back and forth in their drawing room. with no clear vision to guide the development, there's nothing they can show us. they lost that vision a long time ago.

this sounds like WoW under a different name. still something inside is burning though. Probably a beacon of hope, hope that im wrong.

i see no hills being falled down

Go play AoC. WoW with a storyline and break-your-system graphics. The systen that gives me 60+ FPS in GW gives less than 20 in AoC. Even if GW2 is a WoW clone, it will have better art and be free-to-play. That puts it ahead of the game.

i like big butts and i cannot lie

ps AoC is terribad

Well I have hope anf will continue to for GW2...well I had alot of hope from GW:EN and was ultimantly let down. Just hope GW2 will do better (and not have racial benefits that overly favor one class to another.)

I tried. That was the best I could do. It's hard to google image a fat girl on rollerskates and not throw up a little at what you come across...

I think I remember reading all of that in a magazine more than a year ago and feeling really good about GW2. I was also feeling great about GW2 just now, but then...

I lol'd.

If GW was still built on this image, they would have nerfed Ursan a long time ago, and they wouldn't have left other imba skills we have now go broken for so long.

well, ursan certainly isn't a hassle to play.

after all, even a rank 1 ursan is more powerful than a mending wammo.

I have no doubt that GW2 will be mindblowingly awesome. However I know a great number of people who will not be buying GW2 purely for Anet's marketing strategies in the past, even though they think the game will be wonderful. It's a conscious decision to not support a company who did not support them. While I myself will be buying GW2, I totally understand where they were coming from. I'm just not strong enough to resist the call of GW2.

Reading that, even though I'd read it before, kind of made me feel like a part of me which actually had hope for GW2 came back to life. I thank you for that, good sir.

Now you've gotten me tempted....

It was cool to read the devs vision about GW2. Yeah, it kind of kindles some hope, and an interest in buying it when it comes out!

But, given the current state of GW1, I'll likely wait and see. Read some reviews, check the sites and see what people are saying. It may be truly awesome, or it may be a disappointment. (Look at all the AoC comments now.)

But, Hope springs eternal!

Talk about setting the bar low. Even the girl with the booty on rollerskates up there is better than a mending wammo.

There is a term for those who think that way, it's called "cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Why are there so many players slamming GW1 anyway. Nothing is perfect.
I love the game, will always play it and plan on playing GW2, which, btw, will probably not be perfect either. Sheesh. Just enjoy the great game we have, in
spite of its imperfections.

- That's right. The problem is that the article really doesn't say anything relevant. Instances/persistent areas, so what? This reminds me of the dawn of first 3D games. Of course the developers were exited that they're creating something new, but the product quality was horrible. 2D sprite graphics were both cleaner and as an established standard, developers of 2D games could focus on the actual gameplay. That being said, those things the article mentions could fail like anything if the focus is wrong.

They sound very ambitions. I hope they don't chew more than they can swallow. One of the tragedies of first GW was that they tried to create too much with too short budget. Whoever plays stuff like challenge missions on daily basis? Or polymock for anything other than unlocking those PvE skills? If feature doesn't overcome certain threshold of interest, it's a waste of developer time. In other words, a financial loss.

This is my opinion: I want to play a game for the sake of gaming. Anything that doesn't tangibly increase enjoyment of game is just bells and whistles. It's important to look with the eyes of a gamer to understand which features are critical (balance), which are very nice to have (observer mode) and which are just poor band-aid solutions (lootscaling).

Actually it's just asserting your rights as a consumer. If enough people did it with Anets bad marketing decisions they wouldn't have a company left because no one would be buying their game. But like I said, i'm not strong enough, even though decisions in the past have made me severely lose hope in anet. (Australian currency screwover, and BMP anyone?)

I'd say that, for the most part, it's not that we're slamming GW. Most of us probably think GW is a great game, which is probably a reason why we still stick around these forums.

What I slam is ANet's decisions, or lack thereof, on what to do with GW. The biggest problems with those sometimes is that they don't tell us everything about what they want to do with the game anymore, so it's hard to get an idea of where things are headed except to bad places.

One of the reasons for cynicism regarding Guild Wars is that ANet (or at least James) keeps saying the right things, and yet we still have things like Ursan and the Norn reputation grind that goes with it. I don't know if this is because James is being overruled at some level or if they're just getting the balance wrong (and by 'balance' I mean the balance between avoiding grind and giving people something to strive for, although skill balance, especially Ursan compared to nearly everything else, still leaves something to be desired), but there's been enough signs of a disjoint between the rhetoric and what actually comes out for people to be suspicious.

The fact that I'm still here is a sign that I'm still interested, but on the other hand I don't have GW2 on my 'must buy' list the way the extra GW1 material had been.

OP gives easy chicks a bad name.

Pay no attention to what is said, as every developer has grandiose fantasies about their next project. Reality is usually pretty harsh to their "vision" and even worse to those foolish enough to take that vision as their own truth.

Instead, paint Anet with their actions (or inaction) to see the real picture of who they really are and what they are most likely to do or act in the future.

The one thing they have going for them is raw talent. Similar to a 5-star elite chef flipping the best burger some fast food joint customers has ever tasted.