To the vaporware people...

That was pretty much the idea.

And as Winstar says, there are much better ways for ANet to keep making money out of GW1 than waving around a sequel they have no intent to finish.

Anet is doing it for the lulz.


But seriously, even if GW2 is delayed past 2010 (keep in mind that no one of any credibility ever said it would hit the market before then) or until after that moronic lawsuit has blown over, they won't cease production on it completely. It'd be pretty stupid of NCSoft to put all of its chips into Aion, a game which, for all we know, could fail miserably. Anet has a track-record for making very good games (apparently #7 most played according to some post I read somewhere. Don't site this as fact until you've read it for yourself), and NCSoft isn't just gonna say "screw you guys, Aion's gonna be better." They're not quite THAT stupid. In my humble opinion, the idea of GW2 is just too promising for NCSoft to pass up.

As for Anet being just plain lazy, we've been there and done that. That was to be expected long before EoTN came out.

And also, keep in mind, Anet's pretty much starting from scratch on this one. As they said, it will be a completely new game. It's not like it's a direct sequel that they can pull out of their butts within a year or two. It'll take time, no matter what obstacles stand in their way, whether they be laziness, or stupid companies who claim that they invented online gaming.

Touching on another subject people have mentioned in other threads, I personally don't think competition will be THAT much of a problem. As Anet has said countless times, it has no intention of creating a WoW killer. They want to produce a game that's geared toward casual MMO players that also has the potential of delivering to the few hardcore gamers out there looking for something new and cheap. If anything, games like D3 and GW2 will compliment each other. From what it sounds (based on written information about GW2 only), they'll both be very good, albeit DIFFERENT games. I can pretty much guarantee that if they're released within a year or two of each other, people will be more than willing to play both (I will).

But for now, just enjoy GW1 and stop whining. If you don't like GW1 anymore, then GTFO. GW2 will get here when it gets here.

^^ Exactly what I'm and I'll be doing!

/Angelica

Assuming that GW2 isn't vaporware, the fact that there is not even a screenshot or a piece of concept art suggests that the development is still in the very early stages. Considering that there are no further notable updates for GW1 planned, will anyone really care by the time GW2 does come out? You can't expect people to cling to GW1 forever. Letting people become disinterested with GW isn't a great way to hype your new game.

I'm thinking the game has been put on the back-burner pending the success of other projects. You can't suggest that a game has been in development for 2 years without producing anything tangible to show for it. Even if there were a single graphic artist working on it, he could throw together a piece of art and call it a concept.

Here is my guess as to why it was delayed. When they started working on GW2 years ago, the economy was still fine. Nowadays with the massive layoffs, lagging sales, and difficulties in getting business loans/investments, NCSoft has tightened its belt. Not to mention the risk of the lawsuit.

Releasing the game around this time would have been very risky, even releasing it at the end of 2009 is a risk since the economy would probably be even worse by then.

If your budget is cut, and your hiring headcount slashed, with economic uncertainties in the near future, how do you think that would impact your brand new game that is still under development? One of the ways this can be dealt with is to cut features/content to lower the investment cost of creating the game but that is still going to be a tough decision.

1) There are fairly large updates yet to come for GW1:
http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/de...ttractions.php

2) Even if the current player base does drift away from GW1, I'd bet my bottom dollar that most of them would be more than willing to at least give GW2 a shot. After all, as someone said earlier on in this thread, Blizzard hasn't released a new Diablo title in nearly a decade, and many old school D2 fans are itching to play D3.
- As a side note, do you know how often they updated D2? Maybe, MAYBE once or twice a YEAR (correct me if I'm wrong), and it still managed to be a popular game well into the 2000's. If you ask me, we should be grateful for Anet's willingness to keep a watchful eye on GW1 whether they're working on a sequel or not.

By the way, when it comes to concept art, don't you think the pages upon pages of concept art for Utopia kiiiiiiinda sorta count a little bit? I mean, they canceled that campaign, took its skeletal remains, and gave us EoTN. If you think that a large portion of that unused art WON'T be going straight toward GW2, you are insane, Jack! =P

Edit:

QFT

Why is it so hard for people to believe that Anet doesn't want to release game info, because they don't want to (even if they have their reasons)? Conspiracy theorists ftw.

Here's a nifty detail that I don't know why no one else thinks about it:

A few months ago we were told that the reason the HoM changes weren't made at that time was because they were working side by side with the GW2 development team. They had to wait for the game to reach a certain stage in production so they could implement the changes on the GW2 side and then be able to change it in GW1 (feel free to find that annoucment I have no ideia where it is by now but it was something like that). If we're getting the HoM changes in April you'd think the game is developed enough for the team to be able to work on it, it not beeing a primary goal and having to create the actual game before started on something that small. Don't you think?

Diablo and Blizzard have a long standing history and reputation. You cant compare Diablo/Blizzard to GW/Anet. Diablo in its prime, and even decline was many times more popular and sucessful than GW at its height. Many people, like myself, will be buying DIII partly for nostalgia, and partly because the Diablo series has not disappointed in the past. While an argument can be made, in reality there are no true "oldschool gw/anet fans."

No, Utopia was created with an entirely different theme in mind. Judging from the original appearance of the Sylvari, they would have been dark forest ents, living in place like echovald.

It may be used for inspiration, but Utopia and everything that might have been, died with the Disaster of the North.

Regina has seen the game, Regina has played the game. GW2 exists. Production keeps on moving forward.

I believe her.

Poor soul. You believe a Community Manager that posts in 2-3 threads every month and a half, leaving more questions than answers?

Ok, lets take a few real examples of late then. Tabula Rasa, AoC and Hellgate.

All 3 rushed to market, all three had initial good sales and then bombed to the extent that 2 out of 3 are totally dead and gone and the third is barely hanging on.

Forgive me but I'd rather see Arenanet take a more considered and intelligent approach and start the marketing and hype when they have a product deserving of it instead of another MMO failure.

Oh, and for all the QQ'ing about a GW2 beta, you all realize that GW2 would be a closed beta, right? So, it could actually be in beta already and none of you would know it and those that did know would be under an NDA not to talk about it. Just a thought.

It's a calculated risk based on a few observations:

Regina is a down to earth person. It's not her style to tell lies imo. She prefers to say nothing over pointless crap talk.

Secondly, the software purchase Anet made indicates they're on top of things. They save developping time by acquiring that one.

Have to agree with that, and dont forget to leave me all your cool stuff on the way out the door.

Agreed, Regina is an amazing Gal. I would see no reason for her to lie.
If im correct they purchased rights to use and modify the Unreal Engine?

Well I was talking about this one:
http://www.umbrasoftware.com/

It's not really an engine on itself.

I hope they use Unreal Engne, its fking awsome!
I coulda sworn they bought it...Maybe it was another game like Aion or something, i dunno..

Dont really care as long as GW2 is good :P

I'll believe her before I believe a serial troll.

The game is vaporware. It doesn't mean that it won't come out. It just means it hasn't released concrete footage, yet. Look at what they've done with NCSoft, creating a new division(NC West) and putting ANet execs in key positions. They have Aion coming out. I think they want to give that time to gain traction before they announce Guild Wars 2 beta. Guild Wars is too big for them to be promising a sequel and not deliver something good.

Besides, releasing stuff and rushing the game process to satisfy the fan retards did WONDERS for Hellgate, TR and AoC, didn't it? From concept to release, GW took 5 years. If they release this one in 2010, it will still be head of the curve.

Re: graphics engine: Aion is using the Crytek engine. Update your mainframe to play it.

People keep siting Hellgate, AoC, and TR as reason to avoid giving information, but they failed not because they were over hyped, its because they had failed launches and the games were riddled with bugs, incomplete content, and BAD design decisions. They all had good sells at first because of their marketing, but once people started playing, word of mouth and reviews sealed their fate.
The failure of these games had nothing to do with what information was given out when they were designing them, but because of the release then patch mentality the gaming market is currently having.
Btw, Regina is paid to give a positive spin on everything she says, she is a biased source of information.

Wait, so you believe or not? I don't get it now.

Such would be the result of rushing game development to satisfy the fan retards. If they do a rush job to get it out the door, it will have bugs, incomplete content, and BAD design decisions.

And that "release then patch" mentality would also be tied to rushing the game out the door before it is ready.

What he is trying to say is not to rush the game out before it is truly ready, otherwise it will have bugs, incomplete content, and bad design decisions and once people started playing the beta, word of mouth and reviews would seal their fate.