Guild Wars 2 News Timeline

I haven't had the pleasure of working with her. I have read many of her articles, and discussions she has participated in on community management (most of which I was exposed to from also working in that field).

So you don't know her professionally, but have read parts of her work. That said, it's more than I know about her.

Yes sorry my mistake, mixed it up. Will change it in my post.

If I had actually been a colleague of hers I would probably say I know her personally. As I only know her through her profession and the work she has done, I'll say I know her professionally.

No offense, Gun, but that is largely irrelevant to JR's post. As to JR's post, I disagree with the statement that Regina and Martin don't feel this is their community. Maybe a year ago or so, but they could have (and maybe have been) shaping this community explicitly (web 2.0 stuff, etc.) and implicitly (silence) since they grabbed the reigns. We are also going to be a large part of the voice of the GW2 community.

A good benchmark is this: WARNING THE F-WORD APPEARS.

Regina, IMHO, appears to be following 1-3 very well. 4-5 and are kind of debateable but since the constant theme is "We has no GW2 info." I would really dock points from ArenaNet more than Regina herself whose hands are likely tied. If you want to understand what Regina's job is honestly, check out this blog. Especially the archives from the first few months.

What I was getting at is that there are many things that we (not only JR) can't know by reading what she posts only. Like for example:

She represents our views to the devs. What does she do or does not do when some of the devs get irritated and respond with something like: yes we know about the playerbase wanting x, but we already told you a dozen times, it won't happen. Imagine the reason why it won't happen is because of NCSoft. Who's gonna confront NCSoft?

How far does she go to protect the devs and at the same time the playerbase from what they don't wanne hear? How much weight can she pull in versus the seasoned devs or 'higher ups'.

She seems like a smart person and was friendly the few times I asked her something.

Apart from that, I think they need to cummunicate much more, get into some of the more difficult debates. That's the challenge ofcourse.

Here's a working link to that post: http://bit.ly/2DXvgZ

Sanya's blog is indeed well worth reading. The first 5 or so posts she made on there contain a lot of insight into the job of a community manager. [EDIT: Particularly this one.]

As for the rest of your post, I don't really see any strong disagreement with my points.

Sorry, I didn't know the GO RED ENGINE would invade links as well. Makes sense in hindsight.

the thing is, I'm under this too from speaking to Martin and Regina as a games journalist and community DJ for Guild Wars I DO work with them both and we do discuss things that I and JR can't discuss outside of that msn/vent/skype conversation and unfortunately GW2 is one of those things they are totally unable to talk about or they would be sacked!

this is NOT Martin or Regina just not communicating, they do a great job at doing it as the shows they did on my station proved that (hell, they even took flak for doing those too and that was a mess to tidy up), this is ANet telling them they can't talk about it because ANet don't want us having info yet!

this is a business desicion and is above them, so we SHOULDN'T be flogging the horses when the driver won't tell them were to go!

Gw2 doesn't exist.
It's vaporware until they decide to give us more info, there for we shouldn't give a damn and stop QQing.

In other words, just play gw1. It will come when it comes.l

Yeah, we never get tired of hearing that.

Can I read your work somewhere, interviews with Martin and Regina? I prolly missed them, that's why I ask. Read a short one some time ago, but don't know if it was you.

I agree, but it is the community team's agenda to push the issues of the community. In this case that happens to be lack of news on Guild Wars 2. I don't know that Regina and Martin aren't doing that, in fact I'm fairly sure they are, but perhaps not hard enough.

I've said numerous times that (for a number of reasons) I'm ok with the lack of information on Guild Wars 2, but clearly the community as a whole is not. It's hard to argue with the people that say 'would a few screenshots or broad focus articles really hurt?'

Then again it all comes down to how interested the people like Mike O'Brien are in the current player base. From his perspective, looking at a launch in two years, how much are they going to get back from putting effort into the community right now vs. the potential pitfalls.

I think part of ArenaNet's issue lies with a catch-22 problem: A large part of this community is jaded, skeptical and often quite unpleasant, so why would they want to commit resources to providing for it when the benefits aren't even that clear? Then on the flip-side, that attitude isn't going to change and neither will they see any benefit until they do put more effort in.

I think they have two potential paths right now:

1) Start releasing information on Guild Wars 2, and start acting as if they have some responsibility to this community. Build on that as a springboard for the start of Guild Wars 2 closed beta, pulling testers from the community and creating focus feedback groups.

2) Continue treating this community as if it has no relation to Guild Wars 2. Ditch the premise that Guild Wars 2 is a sequel at all, and change the name to something original and attractive. If you aren't going to market your product to your existing fan base then there really is no point in calling a sequel. People are less likely to try a sequel if they are unfamiliar with the original, and if they are aiming to build a community of fresh blood that should be taken into account.

Anet are a company, like any other trying to make a profit. the current player base are part of the target audience for future products.

i dont see providing information on gw2 as them having a responsibility to the community to do so, but rather properly marketing their product and maintaining what little interest the players have for the game, current and future.

I don't accept their reasoning of not disclosing anything as 'not wanting to reveal to the competition' what they're upto. look around anet, most up and coming games do exactly that by showing off in detail what they are doing. its all about increasing the awareness of the product, not hiding in the bushes.

Guild Wars has always been poorly marketed compared to other games, maybe thats ncsofts fault but its no excuse to continue the trend.

Every time someone from Anet says anything about anything, it's treated as fact and people expect the most extreme from it. Someone vaguely mentions 2008/2009 beta and it's suddenly quoted as fact. Regina vaguely says she's seen GW2 and is quoted that the game is fully playable. You guys take everything far to literally. You twist and turn vague quotes into some fantasy, and when it turns about to not be true, you yell at Anet and then wonder why they stopped giving you any information at all.

Two years off release, they really aren't (and shouldn't be) in any rush to start building hype yet.

Show me a recent MMO that has been a true success and I'll accept your premise that there might be better alternative ways for ArenaNet to operate. Out of the dozens that have released over the past 5 years only LotRO stands out as having moved ahead of the pack, and they had a lot going for them.

You are the one who is exaggerating unfortunately Kuntz. It wasn't "vaguely" mentioned with a 2008 beta. It was on every gaming news site out there. It was stated in an interview by Mike O'Brien along with the Anet team:

Regardless of that though, things do change. Timelines vary. The fans are rabid for information and there's only so much ArenaNet can do. I'm sure many of us wonder what happened. Why the extreme shift in the timeline. If it was slated for a 2008 beta and possible release in 2009 something major had to have happened. Whether that meant just a different direction, possibly the NCSoft consolidation, or what we may never know.

My bad. The wiki's made it look like it was just Gaile who mentioned the 2008 beta. When they announced GW2, and the "2008" beta, they hadn't actually began working on the game yet.

Look at how Bioware are handling The Old Republic, another MMO due 2010 or later. As I mentioned in another thread, they have been releasing regular screenshots and information since it was announced less than a year ago. While different subscription models they will still compete in the same MMO/RPG realm for customers.

As for the beta of GW2, that was mentioned in the offical press release back in March 2007 that announced GW2, projected to be "sometime in the second half of 2008".

My personal conspiracy theory involves ArenaNet dedicating resources to help NCKorea get Aion ready for release, particularly the art team. If you think about it, it does make some sense:

- Most obvious: The art in Aion has all the trademarks and style of the Guild Wars art team. I don't really see why this should be the case for two separate teams in such different locations.

- If Guild Wars 2 development was largely put on hold at the time the delay was announced and doesn't get rolling again until around the time Aion releases the time-line about adds up to what they originally projected.

- ArenaNet staff took most of the high level leadership roles at NCWest during the consolidation. This could reflect the significant responsibility they took on in bailing out NCKorea, while other parts of NCSoft (Tabula Rasa) had fallen over.

Look at the Directors of NC West:

1. Jeff Strain – Co-founder of Arena.Net, Director of Arena.net
2. Chris Chung – Director of Arena.Net
3. Pat Wyatt – Co-founder of Arena.Net, Director of Arena.net
4. David Reid – only started working at NCsoft 2 months ago


- Lack of art development would go a long way to explaining why we have still yet to see any significant media for Guild Wars 2. Seriously.

A likely situation? Maybe not, but as you said: Something drastic must have happened for a delay that sudden and that large.

You need a successful example to prove the approach can be successful. Whilst I have a lot of faith in and respect for Bioware as a developer, let's not count their chickens before they have hatched. Many good studios (Mythic, for one) have seen huge budgets and fantastic ideas not get anything near what they had hoped in terms of player numbers.

GW2 and The old republic are MMOs being developed with target dates estimated to be 2010 or later, and both taking very different approaches to how they market their product. While we wont know how those differing strategies convert into success in the short term, for a fan isn't it clear which is better?

I agree that ANet as part of NC West have probably been working on localizing AION. At the very least the loss of personel has had some kind of effect in GW2s development.