Anet is Waiting for a Reason

Age of Conan came out and because of the "blood and decapitation" sequences and "mortal kombat" kill moves hooked and pulled in alot of the younger more "oh did you see that" type fish. I am pretty sure after the first free month that comes with buying the game that it will lose half of it's pre-release mmorpg addicts. Similar to what happened with Vanguard. They will most likely go back to WoW, or wait for the release of Warhammer Online this fall...

Which brings me to Warhammer Online. Warhammer Online is already dropping playable professions and cities because they have bitten off more than they can chew. Warhammer will be trying to get it's money back, just as AoC is doing currently, by using the mmorpg initial launch "hype machine". Selling six month chunks of pay to play before the open beta is even up and running. Seems the programmers over there are too busy being "rock stars" and are not busy enough with their content to compete with the WoW monopoly...

I do, however, think that Warhammer will eventually beat out AoC in terms of player population and new content, but, I also think that after Warhammer is launched as has time to show it's true colors for six months or so, that it will have alot of trouble from the WoW monopoly...

The only true exception in the now flooded pay to play mmorpg market is, Everquest and Everquest 2, simply because that game has a fan base that is just as loyal as GW, because it was the first of it's kind. It was a precursor to the WoW monopoly...

Lord of the Rings Online, Vanguard Online, Star Wars, City of Hero's, etc...will continue to slowly drop accounts, as long as WoW continues to patch in new content...because all of these pay to play mmorpg's are very similar to...you guessed it...the WoW monopoly!

Which brings me to the Assasin of the mmorpg, you guessed it...Guild Wars!

The GWEN patch is a direct trial and error test for GW2. Anet is pushing buttons across the board from within the state of the game, from ursan farming, nerfing/buffing builds, and economy control to instanced dungeons and title formations, to name a few. The majority of the original program developers for GW and it's stand alones are now sitting with silent tounges (and no hype) working on GW2 for a reason. They are waiting and watching what all these other muck mucks that are flooding the market with hasty half finished pay to play games are going to do compared to the WoW monopoly.
And whereas the GW franchise dosen't charge for server time per month, I have a strong feeling that they aren't hasily begging for early money during launches due to lack of content and/or bugs. NC Soft has deep pockets and Anet is just getting warmed up. I wouldn't be surprised if GW2 dosen't come out until the end of 09' or early 2010, all for the fact that they have a niche that they know they can use against the pay to play monopolies...


I'll See You All There,

Brother Sunrise



P.S. PvP for armor upgrades (WoW) or PvP for friggin' cash money (GW).

You do hit some good points, just hope your right. But then again they could have released some info of GW2 to keep the people a bi more interested.

Well, I wouldn't even want to put GW on the same table genre as an MMO. That aside...

If anything, I'd say their waiting for a time where they won't be utterly crushed by the competition (hiya D3). We have been given more info, though, so that's always a good thing.

Honestly, wait and see. But from what we've been told so far, it sounds very much like one of two things: An MMO or a much more traditonal RPG - and I'm really hoping it's going to be more of a traditional RPG.

well i hope they learnt well from GWEN

..not to include anything like that in guildwars again

If D3 comes out before GW2, I won't be getting GW2 put it that way.
Im guessing alot of other people feel the same way.

Anet might not know everything that they are doing yet in the game. Yes a screenshot of the graphics might be nice, but even that might be still in development, who knows how far they have gotten into GW2. I think they haven't released much information because they don't want to make any promises they can't keep. I'm sure they are probably testing different things to see what works best in this half GW, half tradition mmorpg game. I don't really mind that they haven't hyped up the game yet, we don't need another age of conan disaster where the game was rushed, incomplete, and fell short of expectations. I remember purchasing GW about 2 weeks after it came out and I didn't notice any significant bugs and the whole game seemed completed. The only thing that wasn't there that I noticed was an icon for the necro scar pattern armor... which isn't much. Maybe I'm all wrong, but I think if anet hypes up the game too early, then they'll feel rushed to satisfy the market and release an unfinished game. As long as GW2 is a good solid game that sticks to the original ideas of GW (no grind, skill > time, etc) then I'm fine.

what is your point with this tread???

His point is in the tittle, "Anet is waiting for a reason"

Poor education strikes again!

I for one agree with everything he(OP) said.

GW2 should not be mentioned alongside other games in development that have released screenshots and gameplay demos (playable or otherwise). As Regina has recently stated GW2 won't be "shown" at PAX or Leipzig, it must mean that GW2 development is in much worse shape than one was led to believe by the hype surrounding the announcement in March 2007. I don't know why they are being so secretive, but I know from personal experience that they are losing players at a high rate because of the complete stagnation of GW1.

I can only wonder if Anet are following the trail blazed by 3D Realms, makers of the equally fictional Duke Nukem Forever.

bit off topic but, there has been some videos showcasing gameplay from DNF.

Only after a couple centuries, however : I

I always remind people, D3 has been in development for how many years now? And they only just announced it...

Compare that to GW and I think Anet's actually handling it better so far.

I like the mesmer style of play... and I'm pretty certain it won't be in D3.

Me two.

However from the people I have talked to on different WoW forums and just friends in general who play it. They have said like the Guild Wars economy the WoW economy is slowly dieing. Many of my friends have said they think the next exspansion will be the dagger in the heart of WoW economy. However I don't think WoW will be dieing out anytime soon I don't believe it will stay the power house for ever. I think you kind of see it that way. Showing all the errors in all these different games and comparing them to the ALMIGHTY WOW. WoW has great concepts but so do all those other games. The other games just need time to get the kinks worked out just like WoW did.


Edit: OOOO HAHAHHAHA!! Are you kidding. I was reading through a couple posts I didn't feel like reading at first a little more closely. AND! "I think they haven't released much information because they don't want to make any promises they can't keep" Um where have you been lately. They have broken a ton of there promises.....

why the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO are you comparing Anet and Blizzard ?

Which is better than announcing something with hardly any material to show for it. ANet announced GW2 way too soon. I'm sold on D3 and with each passing day without anything show for GW2, I'm becoming more and more disinterested in GW2.

I agree with you, the only two ways I would play GW2 is if it comes out before D3 or if D3 turns out to be a really bad game.

a reason for what? he dosnt talk about that at all, he only talks about other games and then simi compares it to gw2.

Because they're competitors, and any smart consumer compares their choices in order to pick the better one.

He meant that there was a reason that they were waiting, not that they were waiting for a reason to do something.

When its released, Guild Wars' competition is going to be D3, and that could be bad news for Guild Wars.

You give Anet a bit too much credit.

that wasn't very clear or well displayed in his post.

also the main reason why we are not hearing anything about GW2 is that they anet has no idea what it wants to do in GW2. i highly dought the engine that will be use for the game is any where close to being done yet, and thus no screens.

If they didn't announce it, we would be wondering where the hell our next 2 or so chapters are.

The OP makes several good points. AoC will fail for several reasons.

1) Instanced area hate. People want to run from coast to coast. WoW players can run from one side of the map to the other and it creates a game feel that you are truly immersed into the world. AoC sends you all over but few truly connected area’s.

2) Lack of end game content. This has caused half the AoC population to already leave the game. This combined with a way of leveling that was far too fast.

3) Lack of meta game content, such as fishing, cooking, etc. WoW had a great idea that I hope will be implemented into GW2. Fishing was fun in WoW because it’s something in game that can be done casually any time you find a nice area to fish at.

I hope the team at Arena Net will focus on what does work with these MMO's that are out there and combine them into a great experience.

Honestly I don't know where all the D3 hype is coming from. I watched the gameplay trailer and nearly fell asleep. Just seems average, graphics, and everything else, just looks average... Seems like you are only limited to 5 classes as well. Although its not like any of the games have subscription fees too, so its not like you are limited to one game.

Ok, so you made your point. Basically, everything you said was fact. I really don't see a reason this needed to be made into a thread.


Maybe we're all giving them too little credit. From what I've seen so far, it's a lot like a WoW-clone, especially with the addition of persistent areas and races. Sometimes I think they may be hoping for half of the WoW-train to be like "Hey, this Guild Wars 2 is a lot like WoW, and I won't have to shovel out $180/year to play it!" BAM, a million copies sold within 5 months of release, just like GW1.

We all know businesses do everything they can to make the largest profit margin possible, but at the same time, try to offer a quality product, but if it ever comes down to a choice, Profit Margin > Quality.

GW2 was announced much too soon, it's been like, a year ago already and there's not gonna be a beta for almost another year! I realize they don't have the draw something like D3 has, even since hundreds of thousands of people still play D2. To me, it would be a big stretch to say GW1 has half a million active players. When GW2 was announced, all they had was some concept art and an idea. I would have liked to have seen some gameplay, like when Red Alert 3 was announced.

You also forgot that about 10% of the quests are uncompleteable because of bugs, and we can't really assume a save-all patch is in the works. Just look at Fury, we all know how well that went over.

I'm not sure what to think of your post. I will say that ArenaNet has a 'Slowpoke' factor of putting out. We have to bitch and moan for several weeks or maybe months. Or, forever as there's still tons of shitty skills in the game. Of course, they do things that I particularly like, such as new content here and there, and what not. ArenaNet is a 4/5 company, who created a game I enjoy more than "level up until you're leet" MMORPG's such as WoW. This game is more...tactical. However, I think it was much more of a hateful community due to that skill.

Also, there's less children. They go to WoW. Thank science.

I think this hits the proverbial nail on the head. I suspect they would have liked to remain secretive until they had something that would blow people away, but felt the players deserved an explanation as to why there weren't new campaigns coming out any more.

The big Blizzard announcements have had the advantage that they weren't being made in lieu of expected content. In the case of GW2, though, people had already started wondering what happened to Chapter 4 when the announcement was made - if they'd kept quiet they would have probably lost a lot more than the announcement and silence regarding GW2 may have lost.

Personally, I think they probably should have kept enough people on GW1 for periodic expansions of approximately GWEN size every year or so, which could have kept people occupied while continuing to build up for GW2, even if that meant GW2 got delayed a year or so. But maybe they have their reasons for doing things the way they are... *shrug*

I think ANet has a very good idea of what they want GW2 to be, and no it won't be a WoW clone. With the recent announcement of no beta this year, that means we are likely 12 months off of release at least. So no need to start the hype train this early.

They are wanting to make a game that has the open world like normal MMOs but not have the high bandwidth and server costs like normal MMOs to keep it free to play. That takes work, besides having to make the entire huge area along with hundreds of quests and probably dozens of instanced areas for the GW2 version of missions.

QFT .

Considering Blizzard hasn't made anything short of "awesome" so far, D3 being a bad game is very unlikely.

wat? i'd like to know where anet is keeping all my cash money. i achieved a 10-win streak in Random Arenas just the other day and have still not received my cash money. oh and the people who won the mats for the last couple months didnt get any cash money either. such injustice should not go unpunished, so i have come up with an ultimatum for Arena Net: come forth with the withheld cash money post-haste, or fail to receive the privilege of my patronage henceforth.

cash money from pvp = getting z keys and sell them 5k each

Nice info ... but for the record, it was the success and the acceptance by mainstream gamers of Ultima Online and not EQ that made MMORPG what it is today. Ultima Online and the folks at Origins Systems (now part of EA) fathered every MMORPG since 1997 --- bastard and all. Mmmkaay?

more info about UO and Origin Systems here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems
Notable people are the Garriott brothers, Tom Chilton (lead designer for Blizzard), Raph Koster (EQ and SWG), Britt Daniel (Spoon lead singer), Chris Roberts (Wing Commander/Digital Anvil founder), John Romero (Doom, Quake),Warren Storm (Deus Ex, ION Storm founder), etc. etc. etc.

Vladimir Drakken

They started developing GW2 with a full team after the release of GWEN, on the 31st of August, 2007. The game hasn't even been in development for a friggin year, and you already want screens, videos and a beta test?

ill be glad if they make it a late 2010 release, considering what needs to be done (new game engine etc)

This isnt just a new GW chapter which can reuse / reskin loads of art / models, they need to make everything from scratch.

Personally speaking, the only two games that catch my attention while waiting for GW2 are D3 (and only if it somehow recaptures the "wow" factor that made D1/Hellfire such a blast) and possibly Sacred 2.

Apart from them, GW will should keep me occupied for a while yet.

Looked at the D3 info and under classes saw only 2 Barbarian and Shaman if that's it I'm not impressed.
A playable demo with 2 classes is fine but not when its an info page explaining about a forthcoming game its not that good.

Warhammer will always do well because its a franchise that's been doing well for years.
The warhammer rpg became the warhammer battle games with the figures wargamers crowd doing fantasy wargaming.
Most cities in the UK have a Games Workshop store and they push warhammer games.

Point is there is an entire generation out there who grew up on warhammer and own computers, that's a pretty good edge.

It actually started earlier than that with MUD RPG gameplay. MUDs are as old as the internet and are the true fathers of the MMO genre.

Indeed, the overwhelming open world of Diablo 3 which millions of players can experience at the same time, with an in-depth pvp system and beautiful 3D graphics (not isometric, mind you) is bound to ruin all success for GW2.

/sarcasm

As I have stated before I will play Diablo 3 AND Guild Wars 2. Niether one of them have a monthly fee. Wow, what a crazy concept!

Diablo 3 didn't look very impressive in the Gameplay Trailer. It has the mana/life bubbles from God of War, and overall looks just like Titan Quest. Not alot of new ideas.

Undoubtedly, if it comes out before GW2 it will steal A Lot of players.