Prediction: When will Anet release GW2 information?

What no flying?

You're right! The announcement of GW2 was a crummy platform for marketing GW2! Based on that announcement, nobody's going to be running out to buy GW2 the instant it hits the stores in Q4 2007!

...wait.

Maybe the reason it was a crummy announcement was because it was in an early stage of development and they didn't have much to release. Maybe it wasn't intended as a marketing platform for GW2.

Maybe it was simply intended to inform. After all, if you think this is bad, imagine what would have happened if ANet had simply done everything the way they have done... except that they kept quiet about GW2. People would have been expecting at least another expansion sometime in 2008. At least now we know why we aren't getting any more GW1 installments, and what that funny thing around the scrying pool where you can raise statues representing various accomplishments and possessions is actually for. They'll make an announcement for promotion purposes when they're good and ready.

It's like the criticism they get for announcing account-wide HoM so early when we're not actually going to see it until April at the earliest. They did it not to promote, but to inform. Without it, I'd still be acquiring multiple sets of Elite Canthan, Ancient, Ebon Vanguard and other sets I like multiple versions of rather than now aiming to have at least one example of each set among my characters.

And... pre-alpha playable demo? Who the heck does that? Most game companies I know of leave demos as one of the last things they do - just before release if not in fact post-release. They certainly don't like to show off their bug-ridden pre-alpha underwear to competitors and potential customers who may be turned off by it if they can avoid it.

I voted never.

12 chars

I'm not disagreeing with your post - this is sort of tangential - but what surprises me so much about the nothing we've heard since GW2 was announced is how much we actually heard then. We heard about dragons and bridges and persistence and descendants and slimmed down classes and realm battles and the playable races and they weren't vague about things they could have been vague about. I know more about GW2's feelings towards playable races, persistence, and instancing than I do about that in the new Star Wars MMO, and that's reached a point where Bioware's doing weekly updates.

Checking in every few months for the tiniest GW2 update is starting to feel like Waiting for Godot.

It would look better. My position: you should only announce project when you has something to show people. Have nothing ? Good bye. Easy as it is. WIP stands for work in progress, not chatter in progress.

Well, they showing videos. Or do closed tests between player. Or both.
...And most of independent developers just showing demos. It's save 'em from part of bug-testing...

Too many trolls,too little patience.

My guess of release is April 2010

But I beg Anet not to make a Funcom (age of Conan) release, though Anet has 4 years of exp.

But they pushed back the beta testing for 2009 so I presume release date in 2010 and remember this time it's going to be a MMORPG

(C) Dusty29 ?

It's probably just Anet's marketing plan. Ya it sucks for us, but they probably want to see what other games like diablo 3 are going to do first before they officially declare anything. They'll probably release some big info maybe about a month after diablo 3 or other games are released.

Yeah, killing your community for your existing game, ruining your reputation and thus losing a lot of potential future sales is obviously a better idea than informing people of why they're not going to get any more content.

I really don't think ArenaNet had much choice in this. The announcement was for the benefit of the GW1 community, and not really intended to begin hyping GW2, which is why it was pretty small - buried to a certain extent in the GW:EotN announcement as it was.

GW2 will eventually get the normal announcement with content, when ArenaNet is ready, which is fine. It is probably better to start building up hype reasonably close to release rather than have it build up to some impossible level. I mean, look at us - half of us doubt it will ever come out, and we know little except some backstory and a list of desired features which may or may not be in the final product (like GW1's level 50 cap). I'ld say vague interest is a healthy mindset to have at this point in the product's development.

Then why not another announcement for us, the community? How about a simple message with an updated timeline? They were so concerned about us missing a chapter that they leaked GW2 info saying it was 2 years in the making when they knew it was more like 4? Well a-net, now we're missing GW2, how about a more realistic timeline?

It's not like we mind being un/intentionally misled. We're still here talking about GW2 even though your initial timetable of releases has come and gone (way gone).

I don't think most of us are saying 'dammit a-net give us our beta, you promised!!!', we just want some type of idea what to expect and when. It doesn't have to be a balls-on accurate date, just an estimate. Hell, I'd settle for 1st/2nd half of 20xx. And I'm not saying a date for completed product, but for website, concept art, screens, etc.

I'm even doubt that development was actually started... BTW, I always wanted ask 1 question to ANet. This question is very simple: what has been done ? Well, most of pepople here won't be interested in answer...

Talking about features... Yeah, it was very interesting press-releases:
1) There is very "optimistic" backstory, which, of course, greatly motivates people to save world in 4 original campigns. So bad that we can't just leave new Cantha's imperror to Shiro... Anyways, that story seems more like bad fanfiction for me.
2) There are lists of playable races, but no single word about new proffessions. At all. Also there no even single piece of GF2 concept art (which is most early thing to be released). Also there no info about skill system (just note that skill list will be shortened), equipment and so. Only races.
3) Feature list is strange. Jumping, swimming, climping trees, server-to-server PvP and total lack of mouse control. And no one of developers seems to care that instancing is required for sane storyline, jumping is useless in battle (if aren't Dragoon from FFT, of course), swimming in clothes is just a great way to kill yourself and climbing trees and WoW is already here. Pathetic.

Conclusion: Utopia was a lot more real and interesting project. But it was cancelled, so now GW is slowly dying without new content (even ShadowBane receives more significant updates), when ANet lazily trying to make us belive in upcoming seaquel.... Pathetic.

I'm not worry about GW2, they will tell us about GW2 when they are ready, keep in mind that it took them a while to get GW1 out the door..

* Guild Wars Announcement - April 2003
* Guild Wars to Launch April 28 in North America and Europe - February 2005

That’s a solid 2 years......

But you can bet they were working on it before NCsoft got them.. that was 2002..., I would be willing to bet the farm they were working on GW way back in 2000 when Anet was for formed.

That would be 5 years....

Now GW2 was announced in March 2007, along with Eye of the North.. it took them about 5 months to finish up Eye. (Eye was done in Aug)

Ok 2008 they announced that they weren't going to have the beta for GW2 in 2008. From that point onward they have been quite about GW2, with the exception of telling us they are working on it.

So now its now 2009, that’s 2 years from the announcement of GW2, if they started working on GW2 right when it was announced, which I'm guessing they didn't get started on it until Aug of 2007 when Eye was done, so really it isn't 2 years yet.

In closing I’m thinking this year we will either see a beta or a big update about GW2.

Areas related to the storyline will still be instanced, not 100% of the game will be permanent.

I would have liked to see what Utopia could have been, but much as I like EOTN I understand the reason why they scraped GW1 and started all over with GW2. The game is already a pretty dificult task to balance as it is, imagine the confusion if would have been releasing new skills for the 10 professions and creating another 2. The colossal amount of combinations and builds resulting would have been impossible to keep in check, this is a flaw in the GW1 system. I imagine it was a pretty hard thing to swallow but in the end, they had no other choice but to start it over. With every new campaign they would add the problem would only be larger and larger, things couldn't go on like this, it's not hard to see it would have completely ruin the game in terms of gameplay.

Whenever gw2 comes out, I am hoping for a reduction in the size of the environment. In GW, the is always around 400 fight of ceiling room, or there is open sky. We can't go in buildings, and towns dont really feel like towns. I got a free trial of LOTRO, and everything is to scale. It just feels more complete. I don't know, but I hope in GW2 that there are indoors like pubs, houses, and shops.

If you need and example of the largeness in GW, go to the pre-searing in ascalon. You will see that the buildings are so out of proportion that is makes all the characters seem like midgets. Everything that is supposed to be house is more like a church.

A small, persistent world and GW put together sounds like a great (and also free) game.

Sorry, but all of the points you bring up are really irrelevant to what they are doing today. They had less funding when GW was being developed, less confidence from their publisher (NCSoft), less staff. Not to mention they had to design the GW engine from scratch, and then almost all over again after it had a major graphics change.

GW2's development team is significantly larger than GW1's, and they're hiring more and more (or says their page). NCSoft knows the success of GW, and so they are willing to dump more money into Anet's bucket in order to get this thing done right to be able to compete with previously said games like Diablo III and the rest. More staff and more funding means things get done quicker, so the time frame you're trying to compare it to doesn't really apply.

Not to mention the fact that GW2 won't run on a brand new engine, just a heavily modified one (correct me if I'm wrong, though). That should also cut the time needed to develop it.

You know, while we're throwing around outrageous conspiracy theories...

You mentioned you're a developer yourself. Which of ANet's competitors do you work for?

I will admit to being somewhat annoyed by #1 myself. Some I can understand (the new emperor does come out of the left field, although maybe another generation or two would be easier to stomach) and Palawa was obviously following a strategy of playing possum until he knew he could win, but it is annoying that they have Ascalon fall to a known threat while the so-called heroes are still of fighting age. What did they do, sit at the scrying pool at the EOTN eating popcorn while Ascalon was overrun?

They could have just as easily had the situation they wanted for GW2 by having the disasters happen after the heroes have died. Let the Charr be consumed by civil war for a few decades only to catch everyone by surprise in a resurgent assault. Let the Canthan situation develop a few generations afterwards so it doesn't look like Kisu was completely incompetent at raising an heir.

However, Blizzard has done similar things...

On #3... these are things that have been requested. Jumping may not provide direct benefits (although one of the things that has been mentioned about the skill system is that the effect of skills depend on the circumstances, so presumably there are skills that have additional or just different benefits if used while jumping), but do help with moving around both in and out of combat. Swimming... is in fact something that can be done in clothes if people are good enough at it. Actual armour is harder, of course, but maybe there's some magic that allows it? This is, after all, a fantasy setting.

Guild Wars 2 is also considerably more ambitious in its features list.

One thing I find curious is your comment about how the graphics change required practically rebuilding the engine. Don't you think GW2 will also come with a similar graphics update to that which occurred in the GW1 alpha, and that adding a proper z-axis will require even more substantial modifications to the engine?

persistance, jumping, swimming, climbing oh my....world vs world combat in the mists...planet altering "events"....global bonuses....playable races....yadda yadda yadda...it'll be here when it gets here.

on the brighter side, whens street fighter 4 coming out? ;P

When people forget about it.

If I hear "production is well underway" again, I'm going to slap someone.

I'm waiting for those books to be released.

At what was? If by buried you mean this:


Then you actually have a point. Otherwise, no.

Good one!

Like I said before this is where the next announcement will be from with the slyvari mini this time.

Ok I'm going to try to hit each one of your points all very valid points btw. (side note, i hate quote wars, i hate forum wars, I'm not a forum master, you can tell that by my join date vs my post count.)

• They had less funding when GW was being developed

  Well yes... I would hope so I know I have invested my share to their banking accounts.

• less confidence from their publisher (NCSoft)

  I'm not so sure about this one, the 3 guys that started Areanet (aka Triforge) didn't lack confidence.

• less staff

  Well this is a given

• Not to mention they had to design the GW engine from scratch

  yup

• GW2 Team larger than GW1's Team

  Again, at the beginning sure.. but about 2004 I would guess they have the same staff size.

• NCSoft giving them more cash

  Yup, but keep in mind they didn't announce GW1 until after NCsoft had them in house, I'm thinking NCSoft knew that Anet was going to be making a great game and gave them money then.

• Old Engine (Heavily Modified One)

  really you think so... I don't recall them saying this but they really haven't said much.. LOL. I don't see them using the same graphic engine

Keep in mind, this is going to be ANET's second game.. Factions, Nightfall, are just nothing more than expansions, just like Eye.. they're stand alone expansions, but still expansions.

GW2 is going to be the second (real) game for Areanet, they are not going to be putting out junk, god i hope not, for the second time at bat. They're going to be trying to hit a homerun, because that what everyone except from them.

If anything they have a lot more pressure on them than they did for GW1 to get it done right.

No they are taking the same amount of time the most game developers take for sequels, like diablo 3, remember it was just unveiled in 2008 but it was in development since 2005, that 3 years folks. Its hasn't even been 2 years for GW2 yet.

But then again I could totally off base, then again I'm not going to call it vaporware or anything like that until its been a few more years.

Will GW2 happen? Sure, it will. Do I have any info to support this from Anet? Nope....

You're very well organised though.

I think all of what you said had good logic behind it. There are a lot of positive things to look at concerning GW2.

We don't have much information, but that does not mean the game is going to suck. We might get some soon though. I know ArenaNet loves to come up with radical ideas and i'm sure some plans end up being unstable, but i'm assuming they've settled on a lot of them by now.

what is it?

It's a money making way for Anet to keep there customers in GW1 *sarcasm*

I'm pretty sure they didn't create this hype for nothing.... Did they?
Anyways, when it is going to come out, I'll buy it. If there's a delay, no problem!
I'm concentrating on my studies anyways.