Guild Wars 2 News Timeline

How can a fan-site be unofficial? A fan-site is just what it says a site run by fans and with ANET's seal of approval.

I voted 3

too much released too early means the opposition can copy some ideas and release first.
I would like a rough release date but don't expect to hear anything until its a couple of months off.

Its a difficult situation since they changed direction quite late on.
First intending to keep adding to and improving GW1 then suddenly decided to abandon that and create a new game.

It nay appear that a game can go from first ideas to the store in 12 months but its often more like 3 to 5 years.
I expect gw2 to be out Christmas 2010 at the earliest

How long have Diablo fans been waiting for Diablo 3 ?

Since D2 came out for the most part. Much much MUCH longer than GW fans have been waiting for GW2.

I'd love you people would stop creating misleading thread titles. I thought there was some actual news...

There wasn't anything wrong about them saying that they were going to work on GW2, or when they said it.

What was wrong was how much labor they removed going towards the original game and doing little to add new staff.

From what I've read and heard:

Blizzard North was indeed working on it for some time before Blizzard took over. But Blizzard was not satisfied with the results so the project got cancelled and they had to let Blizzard North go. (Some of those guys created flagstudios and started working on Hellgate London.)

So after that, Diablo3 came into Blizzard (California) hands some 4 years ago now and they basically started from scratch too.

But yes, I wasn't there as a witness so I don't have the facts to state they lied or not. Just the info that was made public.


Did Diablo 2 promise an MTG campaign and expansion model and did it stop on that promise after only 2 years?

I have never understand why regular players try to take desicisions for Anet.
I'm fairly sure that Anet knows what its doing and doesnt need help from players who haven't got any experience in building a game.
Developing a decent MMO takes time, so be patient unless you want a crappy GW2.

Yes, a wiki full of half-assed and vague lore. I have a 10-year-old nephew that could have come up with the same crap.

And no, there is NO info on classes/gameplay/skills/things that would matter to GW1 players.

Essentially this. I felt extremely "betrayed" upon the first announcement that they were cancelling the campaign route, making the next full campaign into a half assed barely able to be called an "expansion" and that we MIGHT hear something about a brand new shiny game in a few years. After that...what was the point of GW1 even?

The fact that Gaile told us about a beta in the end of 2008 which never came to be and yet we still don't even have screenshots is reprehensible. Like I said in another thread, does anet even have a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing PR department?

Would you rather keep bloating the current game to fulfill the original premise or scrap it and have them work on something new and better?

Guild Wars has not been a 'cash sink' for NCSoft. It hasn't been a huge earner either, but certainly both profitable and successful.

How are we supposed to know if it's better w/o ever seeing screenshots, video, or even learning a little bit about gameplay?

The point of this thread is not whether or not GW2 should have been made, it's about GW2 info.....of which there has been very, very little.

That's a question that should never arrise, unfortunately we are forced in that situation today and have to make a choice if we want to answer it.

The ideal situation would have been to work on both games at once, like the big boys do. But NCSoft doesn't want that. Not enough recources, willingly or unwillingly.

This is most pertinent. I wasn't just buying a product. I was buying a service, which "guaranteed" content updates (which I might have to pay for, but that's fine). See also L4D bamboozlement.

Recent gameplay videos and screenshots is comparable to a couple of pieces of concept art and a few vague statments made years ago?

And here is why Anet fails. There were only really three things Blizzard could have done to make Diablo 3 (or Starfcraft 2 for that matter) unsuccessful:

1. Changed the name without telling anybody
2. Waited until everybody who played Diablo and Diablo 2 was dead to release 3.
3. Cancelled it

I do not believe Anet has that luxury. Guild Wars is their only game, and it's competing in a packed arena. Blizzard can develop their games in a shroud of silence and still make them work because they have that kind of name recognition and the massive resources coming in from WoW to back the development indefinitely. Anet has only one thing: NCSoft's checkbook.

What it comes down to, in my mind, is this: I do no believe Guild Wars has the level of support and interest required to sustain a customer base for a sequel without keeping people around in Guild Wars 1 (which is not happening), and I think at this rate, Anet is going to be pretty much back to square one for the marketing of Guild Wars 2.

Frankly, I'm with some of the other people in this thread. I don't even care anymore. In all likelihood, I'm not buying Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. Maybe eventually, but the enthusiasm for this game is just loooooong gone.

Option #1.

I don't care about their innovation. All I want is the occasional screenshot update showing off their graphics and allowing for fan-speculation until the release of the game. Obviously Guild Wars 2 won't push the graphics envelope, because they've already stated that they are gearing it toward a wide market that doesn't require immensely powerful computers in order to run the game effectively. Therefore, in showing screenshots, one would think they are not playing their innovative hand.


Anet = [Tease]

This.
It would be like advertising Zelda and Mario at the same time. People can't always have both. And GW and Aion being rpgs you can invest THOUSANDS, quite literally, THOUSANDS of hours into, so only one can be marketed at a time.

You keep on bringing this up like it is some kind of major flaw in their game plan, and it's a truly ridiculous argument.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Blizzard runs the most successful MMO in the world, by player count and income. They can afford to do pretty much whatever they want. Why on earth would they stop developing World of Warcraft, as long as it is the company cash cow?

You are saying Guild Wars should have gone the same route, so as to be able to afford to continue developing Guild Wars whilst working on Guild Wars 2. Has it ever occurred to you how massive a change you are suggesting?

Would Guild Wars even have been able to compete for a market share against World of Warcraft had it also gone for a subscription model? How different would the game be even if it had managed to survive? Would you even be here talking about this if you weren't looking forward to a subscription free sequel?

Please, quit it with the nonsense comparisons and naive worship of Blizzard.

Left4Dead suffered for content massively because Valve almost immediately started work on the sequel. We have had four years of development, including premium and free content updates.

Just how long did you expect ArenaNet to keep pumping out chapters for Guild Wars before being allowed to move on?

I think it's pointless to be as quiet as they are. The 15-year-olds get excited about stuff like screenshots. And then they buy your game. So why avoid it?

I don't personally care because there's other games to play outside the GW genre. Hell GW2 can not ever come out and what does it matter? There's other stuff in life, games, everything.

Gun doesn't imply GW should have been a monthly subscription MMO where exactly did you get that from?

Actually Gun makes a fair point with which I agree. I bought this game knowing they will release updates periodically and that I would have to pay for them. It was advertised as a different "pay-to-play" model.

I could have payed monthly and play something like WoW but I never liked that system as *I don't play every month, week, day*. If the system WoW had was "pay per number of hours you play/per usage" (more like mobile carriers) it would have been more appealing maybe.

So the different model was one of the main reasons I chose GW and I am pretty sure I'm not the only one, I know I'm not that exceptional/unique.

Regarding the model they advertised... they failed. Undeniably.

And like Gun I also think they should have kept building campaigns/expansions for GW1 *during* the same time they worked on GW2. Yes there might have been technical difficulties... But they obviously did not need to add new skills or classes every expansion. However they chose to dump and run.