A Letter to Our Fans [from Mike O'Brien]

I have to say, this paragraph in particular is a little disconcerting:

On Friday, NCsoft released investor materials that showed a very broad release window for Guild Wars 2, with the explanation that release timing is still "to be announced." ArenaNet has never given a release date for Guild Wars 2 other than "when it's done." NCsoft's investor materials are a reflection of that philosophy.

See, I read this as , 'Hold on there, we can't really commit to 2010-2011!' Might just be the pessimist in me.

-ANoid

So, I guess I now have to ask.

Are they assuming that we will stay interested in GW1 until then with just re-hashed festivals and boring weekend events? Will this statement accelerate the death of GW1?

I dont understand this marketing strategy...

Arena Net has my faith 110%, I believe it WILL be the best game ever, and since it's free, it's going to grow rapidly.

But that's not the entire reason they have my faith, they have my faith because Guild Wars is the only good RPG I have ever played and it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to play ANY RPG but GW. And if they don't come out with GW2....I'm going to die Like literally. I'm one of those people that don't fit in society and must stay inside away from the light *hiss*

If I had the money I'd give them a billion dollars to finish the beta by the end of this month Don't make me wait, please

I think Sniper22 is probably correct, the real fanboys are the impatient people who need any and all info about GW2 now. As I have said in the past I may be naive, but when someone who is close to a situation tells me things are progressing, I will believe what they are saying.

I do, Blizzard infiltrators are eating away at GW2 plans, delaying stuff. So that the new wow expansion could come out when GW2 was suposed to go for beta.

Ow wait Anet's strategy...

To not survive the credit crunsh!

*logs onto Elf wow account*

Its working! Good strategy, i'm gone.

First of all... the letter is sad. I was like oh finally some answers and nothing. Don't "set the record straight" without setting the record straight.

Also this is really bad marketing. Don't get me wrong I'm all for waiting untill a game is really finished before releasing it but they should at least create another chapter or have had one in the bank to release later to help bridge the gap. Oh well, looks like I'll have a couple years to try out another mmo.

I love guild wars but imo it's been nothing but a dissapointment as of late.

Edit: And to the post above... yeah that would be a vaild reason for GW2 to hold of on beta but the reality is, this article clearly states that it is because it's not near ready, so your theory fails.

For those of you who keep saying 'well at least now we know GW2 is coming out' take a few minutes to read this article about a title that was damn near completed: http://kotaku.com/5132851/free-radic...nt-iii-is-dead

I do believe they're working on GW2, I do believe they have every intention of bringing it to market. Just because a company has a guaranteed seller on it's hands doesn't mean they can't go belly-up before hand, especially in troubling times.

For me, chatting in a thread with others who have the same concerns is very cathartic. It allows me to vent my concerns and hear from others with similar feelings, and helps me get through this time. If that's QQing and hand-holding, so be it, I guess I need it.

P.S. I also love to here from the believers in the group, it gives me hope. But the 'get over it' crowd does nothing for me.

*goes back to his Wii for a few years*

I'm done w/ GW. I'll be back when GW2 comes out.

"when it's done"
Famous words of id, blizzard and 3drealms, all champions of vaporware. I think we can all agree gw2 has been delayed because of the change of vision the developers had. I believe 08 beta was possible with the original gw2 which I would assume was just gw1 with some upgrade, but now they are hoping to make a revolutionary game. Hopefully features i enjoyed in gw1 will remain.

I can't believe the amount of people QQ'ing over this.

Really, how can you expect them to create the amazing game that you guys are expecting in such a short amount of time? Games do not pop up over night, they take years to develop.

I for one would much rather wait and get a quality game than have Anet rush the game out in a terrible condition. Yes it may be a long time to wait but in the end i'm sure it will be worth it. If they released the game prematurely to please all the people who are saying "QQ screw this, I can't wait that long, I quit QQ" it would be a disaster. No one wants to play a poorly finished game and i'm sure the same people who were being impatient would be the first people to complain about how bugged it is.

For all those saying "How will they keep my interest?" Knock it off.

1)GW is a non monthly fee game. They don't HAVE to update shit. I talked about this in another thread long ago and I'm not retyping the whole thing.

2) You don't have to be interested in a prequel for 3+ years to buy its sequal. That's like saying "I know Smash brothers Brawl wont be out for another good amount of years, but I think they should do something to Melee to make it more interesting so I have something to do until then!"

3) The upcoming release of the beta or game will make people curious about gw1, and have gw1 people want to go back at least for a little bit to replay it a bit.

4) Do ANYTHING else for the next 3+ years. Read a book, get a degree, hang out with your friends, try another game or another Anet game!

Honestly I'll be surprised if a single game can hold my interest for 7+ years.

DESPITE not having to update, they WILL be giving us more 'major' updates like they said in the dev update. Every 4 or so months. Most likely a new hero or a couple quests or something like that. I'm thankful they decided not to drop the whole game and move all their resources to everything else since they aren't getting money for every month we play it.

I'll weigh in here. I do appreciate the statement from ArenaNet, while it wasn't very revealing it at least acknowledges they are listening and that they heard.

As for whether GW2 is coming out, since there are believers and non-believers, there is no way to know. Pointing to a previous game believed to be vaporware that came out, means nothing. Pointing to a previous game that was on track and ready for release that was scrapped, means nothing. We all know of these games. Quite frankly, there are sometimes forces outside a publishers and developers realm that they can't control.

What you need to take from this statement is that GW2 is being developed. That's it. Nothing glorious or sinister.

As of this moment, right now, GW2 is being developed.

Exactly! Also...it woulda been akward if they scrapped it exactly while you were typing this XP

Jeeeeeez I had no idea there are so many whiners around

"What am I going to do till GW2 comes out? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?"

F*
Go to school and learn something useful. Start to live properly. Start spending quality time with your family. Find a job you enjoy

F*
Every time I go on vent I'm hearing parents saying to their 2-3 old child "Shut up son". Or "I hate my job"

You sad, sad people I feel sorry for you

Being a glass-half-full type, I read this as being confirmation that GW2 is still fully supported and well on the way through development.

To those of you who mention playing other games now and when GW2 comes out, well, what will be different if it comes in 2010 or 2012? You'll still play more than one game. Will you refuse to try GW2 if it comes later?

I had to laugh when I read some of these comments. How about starting a series of books in 1990 and 17 years later having the author die before finishing the 12th, and final book? Waiting a year or two is nothing.

You're failing to see a few things:

It's not necesarily the fact that it's takign a while to get here, whci his perfectly fine because it does take years to develop a good game. It's just that the beta is close to the release which means we won't get it experience nay part of it for a logn while, but that STILL isn't the problem.

The problem is that we can't even see a tiny glimpse of what it looks like, we are completely oblivious to ANY detail of the game. I know they are trying to keep it all a secret so they can blow us away, but does that mean we can't even see a tree, some grass, the sky, an eye ball? SOMETHING??

I'll wait as long as I need even though it pains me to wait to. There are only 3 companies in this world I respect.

1. Google.
2. Arena Net
3. Mozilla

If people can just see some small details to know that it IS being worked on and they ARE getting somewhere. Could seeing a tree or a hill really spoil the game? Well, maybe it can spoil a surprise if the DX10 version looks like Crysis' graphics multiplied by 50. In that case, I can understand not showing a tree =\ It'd burn out eyes xD.

I'd rather have them be straightforward than promise and try to meet a short-sighted deadline that forces them to either delay production/release or reveal a crappy product.

Take your time, Anet. I'll be waiting, and with eagerness, not frustration.

You'll get a picture of an eyeball and 2 days later people will start asking for eyelashes.
Something or nothing. They decided to give us nothing

Hehe, true xD
---------------
Moment the pre-order is out I'm buying it :@.

Idk what I'm gonna do 'til GW2. Except maybe play Team Fortress 2 'til it comes I guess. TF2 makes me feel like GW Made me feel during the first 3000 hours. Both offer Team Play xD wee, think I'ma go play right now.

I keep seeing this. It's false. It's to imply that being vocal on detail, visual or other, is a key to success in the end. It's also to imply that ANET's marketing team should follow in the foot steps of Mythic and FunCom, which needless to say dropped the marketing ball. If all this were true, that great marketing is constantly flashing bling, recent releases in the MMO market should have cut WoW's player base by, at least, 20-25% spread over those multiple releases. Instead, the opposite has happened. Those new releases have lost active players while WoW's has gone up.

Bad marketing is the failure by marketing teams to learn from previous mistake made by themselves, and competition. Bad marketing is the failure to adapt and be aware.

There are two huge mistakes that have been made in the marketing department in recent history. I'll use Anet as one example and the industry in general as the other.

Anet made the huge mistake of giving information concerning GW2 and a beta in 08. It was a mistake because it fell into the catagory of a risk that this information could be taken back on. To repeat something I've said in previous postings around here - The moment a company gives information on something, that's the bar of expectations the public will expect to be met. If you can not meet it, if there is any doubt whatsoever that this information can change drastically, you're better off not saying anything. If people want accurate information, information that can be delivered upon, they must be willing to wait for it, or risk that information to be greatly altered. (I say greatly because a push back by a week, or two-weeks wouldn't be that big of a deal in regards to a beta announcement).

The second mistake, in general industry which I already spoke on, was the hype-machine. With Hellgate, with Tabula Rasa, with Warhammer, with Age of Conan; All the hype can't sweep poor quality under the rug. All the screenshots, trailers, and teasers these games showed us were, in the end, useless because the final quality of the product didn't meet the bar of expectations they hyped on. The bar of expectations the public demanded be met the moment the first detailed information was given. So, YaY - Players got pretty pictures for months and months before release. Was it worth it?

I've said it before and it's worth repeating: Potential Customers is one thing, but actual customers is another. You can market all you want to gain potential, but if your quality doesn't meet the standards, your actual customer base (the one that will count) will plummet and all that marketing was pointless.

There is only one purpose to release 'something' right now and that reason is to shush the howling wolves. That's not a good enough reason. Showing a pre-alpha phase screen serves no purpose for Anet. None at all. It would immediately get, "So this is the Great Awsome Mind Blowing GW2??? What a joke!".

The only return they get is a few calm down for a week, but the rest scrutinize the screens until the next release. I, for one, highly doubt this board would be vacant of displeasure.

As it stands right now, from the first announcement of GW2, to it's time-frame release, ANET is right on the mark of your average development time of a large scale online game. I simply cannot imagine a surpurbly designed game to be done in 2 years in today's MMO market. 2010-*11-*12 puts it right on target for avg span.

The main difference between this and other games is gamers are used to being spoonfed goodies during the process. Since that method has shown itself to not garuntee any success with a final product, there's no motivation to spoon feed the public this time.

It appears ANET is learning from the constant mistakes made by other companies and even mistake they've made in the past. Some gamers, though, appear to not have learned much of anything. If I were ANET, the very last thing I would do with my marketing team is to have them follow the same steps of recent games that didn't come close to the success they promised.