Guild Wars 2 News Timeline

I'm really surprised at GWGuru.

I thought they learned not to trust anything ArenaNet says at face-value years ago.

I think a big point is being missed here.

The promise of the Beta in 2008 was a big one. I personally had reasonable doubts it would be delivered, and I don't think that anyone really cares *too* much about the fact it was delayed or postponed. I think pretty much everyone here will agree that there are good reasons to delay it which were acted upon.

From what I can see, however, most of the people here who chose option number 1 in the poll are only using it as an example of how far the void of information has gone; from beta in 2008 to absolutely nothing for more than two years. There has been absolutely nothing new about Guild Wars 2 since 2007, since the initial announcement in PC Gamer actually. All the information we have about it now is the same as what we learned in April of 2007.

No one here is asking for detailed screenshots of proprietary development. There are no demands for the software code. There is simply the request for a level of disclosure that is comparable to other companies that are excited about their product and acknowledge that there is an existing fan base of any size.

Competitors can steal nothing, absolutely nothing, from pretty pictures.

From what I can see, everyone who chooses option number 1 is simply asking for something, anything, to officially acknowledge that GW2 is in existence and on track as compared to the norm that other developing MMO's show. Other MMO's two years in development have an actual (albeit simple) website, a gallery of concept art (if not early screenshots) and a rough outline of concepts.

At this point there is GW2 concept art out there, but you have to go hunting all over the internet to collect what very few pieces there are. And as far as I know, none of it has been officially acknowledged as Guild Wars 2 concept art. The guildwars2.com domain links to the main Guild Wars website, where if you follow an obscure link you get an FAQ that hasn't been updated in months and links to articles more than a year old. Not to mention that all of those articles are basically summaries and rewordings of the original one.

I honestly thank Regina and Martin for coming here to acknowledge this thread, but there again is the problem. It is really nice to know that GW2 is following the development schedule, but that means very little. I know that they are not allowed to say anything, based on the decisions of higher ups in the company. However, we are left, again, with nothing more than their word that GW2 is on track. I do take it seriously and have no qualms in accepting their word that GW2 is on schedule. I am looking forward to PAX, especially now that our CRM has left a sizable hint about it, but I hope I'm forgiven for taking a cynical attitude towards there being anything new there.

I think that 90% of the people that chose option number one would be satisfied with a small three or four page website. A nice index page, a gallery showcasing some concept art that gives away absolutely nothing proprietary (updated with new pieces every few months), and an FAQ page would satisfy the community for months. Or heck, a simple headline on the official GW.com website that reads 'New Guild Wars 2 Concept Art!" and a page that shows a handful of pictures every now and then. Just simply anything to fill the complete and utter void of the last two years.

There is a level of discontent within this community that I have never seen before, and I think that that is worth noting. On other forums for other MMO's in development I have never seen threads like this, let alone so many that people groan and start flaming when there is 'another one.' There is something very strange and exceptional going on in this community, and with this game.

Again, a simple website and/or a few officially acknowledged pretty pictures would do nothing to injure the proprietary property of Arenanet. However, it would go a long way towards stemming the discontent that seems to be growing ever larger in this community. The issue is not that people feel they deserve information. It is that they are wondering where the information is and why it is not there.

When this vote first started, the largest percentage chose option number two. Option number one is slowly taking the lead. Now that is something to ponder.

why would ncsoft? push so hard a new MOO (aion) that will most likely fail, I mean even MMOs with huge fan bases behind them (Conan and Warhammer) are struggling to keep subscribers

they should actually work harder on an already established franchise (guild wars) that most likely will succeed

Personally I think you all are expecting gold and all your going to get is crap. They did not ever even finish making GW 1 and yet they are already started on GW2, LMFAO. what a floop it will be, you watch, then they might be able to go back to their original creation if the fans are not totally disgusted in that that is.

There are so many broken story lines and unfilled gaps that they tried to fix with the expansions, campaigns and bonus mission pack but in all reality all they did was spur more questions.

Did you ever wonder what happened to saul after the mursaat took him, or how about shiro, why did the emperor betray him or he the emperor, how is this lich lord and where was his home or whatever why does he want the titans out. Where did the am fah and the jade brotherhood come from, why do they hate each other so much. why does each continent have so much free open space after you get done vanquishing, i mean they filled in some with eotn but how bout the rest. what is the story between cynn and mhenlo or hell any of the other henchies you help out or use. I could go on and on with points but ill stop there.

The point is there are so many holes and broken story lines in this game that they could have spent some more time fixing or further expanding yet they choose to make GW2, so next time you spend your idle time wondering about how great GW2 will be, think of all the holes and crap it will have in it.

Holes in lore!= bad quality game.

I think the majority of players would rather get GW2 than a new, boring campaign that would tie up every single hole in the lore. Besides, ANet left lots of lore open for player speculation. I heard it brings up many discussions amongst some of the community, which is good.

We still don't know what those weird orb things are in the mineral springs cave. They look like a teleporter device ^^

That is faulty logic. If a competitor can't get anything useful from a screen shot, then neither can you, which means there was no point to releasing the picture to begin with.

And what exactly are you demanding from Anet, a screen shot of a tree in the middle of a field? A sword being carried by a man? What does that give you?

Nothing.

But yet here you are demanding it, for a reason you can't even explain.

It will give us a small hint about the graphics.

More than that, too. After a few rounds of screen-shots how long will it be until people are saying 'Where are the videos? Every other game has them!' 'How does the combat work?' 'Tell us what that is?'.

Starting to release screenshots would start the hype machine rolling. It would attract attention from outside sources at a time when ArenaNet isn't ready to follow through on that and keep people interested. That's only going to damage their long term marketing plan, as new people come in to the community for Guild Wars 2, see what's going on, and then get bored and leave. They wont have the benefit of being able to say 'Omgosh first screenshots ever!' later on when they can keep the ball rolling.

Graphics DO NOT make a game

Especially an MMO

IMHO that's what Anet is trying to address by being silent. It's a silence that says "we will only talk when we have rock-solid information that is 99% sure".

Ofc it's also an admission that revealing GW2 info in PCgamer was way too early and announcing a beta in 2008 was a terrible mistake. One they'll only correct (in the long run) by being correct whenever they'll make an announcement.

Gaile had a very, very different PR technique than that of Regina, where you can see she's careful about what she says and where she says it.

So wait and see.

Agree, but we are still all wondering how its gonna look.

Are you sure? Because last time I checked the graphics quality gets better and betters with each game, meaning we get more demanding, meaning Anet won't ever be able to pull of GW2 when it looks like D1.

I tried quite a few games myself and some of those games simply didn't had the graphic quality I was looking for. Purely based on that, I never bothered playing them again. So you might want to rethink you statement, mister DJ.

I'm perfectly sure and JR will back me up on this

a sign of a great game isplayability and Microsoft have hit a cash cow with the XNA developers kit because of this on the 360 because of the great inde games that are popping up on there that may have ten year old or older graphic styles but are new, innovative and have so much playability I go back to them more than Halo 3 or Gears

but remember, I grew up with my Atari Vic 20 and the beast of a machine that was my Amiga 500+ (which I still have btw and it works) andthenmoved onto the master system and Megadrive and followed Sega through to the demise of the console generation as it was andthen got a Playstation for Granturismo and Final Fantasy 8 and yes, thats when I started caring more about graphics, but playability is STILL the deciding factor for me

EDIT:

A great case in point is the now open sourced Open transport Tycoon Deluxe which can be found here: http://www.openttd.org/en/

I was introduced to it just four weeks ago and already wracked up 250 hours playing it and lost three days of my life and loved every moment of it

firstly they started on working on the gameplay and multiplayer aspects which they've done a great job on and now they are updating graphics and they look awesome! I'd highly reccomend anyone that likes those sort of games grab it for free and those that aren't sure give ita try and then have a look through the mods available for it

Graphics can change immensely before public release, just take a look how Guild Wars looked in 03 (long before release): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJn9GhF8TI0

Even logos change too:

early screenies FTW!

Originally Posted by Kondichael
It will give us a small hint about the graphics.

Good point, another point: My current favorites games look like this and this.

Guess what? I have not found game that is more fun than this two. Graphics are just optional bonus for me, because once gameplay and immersion sets in, they are going to be ignored anyway.

If they'd launch the game looking like this GW would've died many years ago.

Demanding? Demanding Screenshots? Where? Lack of explanation? Did I need one? Did I have a chance to do so before you baselessly flamed my post about my non-existent demands? :/

Please, at least bother to read my post and comprehend it before you start flaming away about things that aren't even there.

And a screenshot would;

1) Give peace of mind to an obviously discontent community.
2) Prevent threads like this from popping up.
3) Give ideas about the graphics to expect (They will be at least this good).
4) Give something new for the community to chew on after a two year void of information.
5) Give proof that GW2 exists in some form and shush those wonderful "GW2 is vaporware" one liner posts.
6) Give an idea of the premise of GW2, I.E. a man with a sword would discount the worry/hope that it will become some weird technologically advanced world like this picture (which was hinted but not confirmed, as far as I know, as a piece of GW2 concept art) suggests might be the case.
7) Give us an idea of the world, I.E. if we see a picture of a tree in the middle of a field, then we will know that GW2 will have fields, unlike a lot of GW1 which is just a maze of artificial canyons.
8) Give us something to show to our friends and excitedly tell them all about the upcoming game because we finally have something to show them.
9) Give some excitement to the community.
10) (hopefully) Show us that it was a good decision to basically abandon GW1 and instead develop a completely new game.
11) Give people the feeling that Arenanet isn't ignoring their fanbase.
12) ... Give infinitely many other things and concepts that each individual person takes from their own view of such a release.

None of those things would give a competitor any information than they already have or could figure out, but even a minimal release would have a very good impact on the community.

And yes, I've stated many times that I would be interested in seeing a tree in the middle of a field. If you would like I can dig up some quotes attesting to that very concept.

By the way, I didn't say anything about Screenshots. Concept art, yes. Screenshots, well, I mentioned them once in a portion that had nothing to do with what might satisfy the community. Again, I might suggest actually reading before you grab the flamethrower.

Well, GW2 beta was a huge thing to get people hyped about, so the community assumed that ANet wouldn't fail to deliver. But, for whatever reason, they did.

sorry, World of Warcraft released looking very much like this and look how well that went

WoW is suppose to look a bit cartoonish. GW, based on the early screenshots, isn't, which you can clearly see when looking at the armors and houses. WoW's graphics therefor fit the scenery while GW's just look horrible.

And honestly, WoW looks way better compared to those early GW screenshots. (Never thought I would say that...)

so not only are you comparing GWas its is now to its own early screenies, but your also comparing WoW as it currently is to GW's early screenies?

both GW and WoW, which are both 4 years old now, have BOTH had at least 3 major graphics overhauls since release, either model/texture overhauls or graphic engine overhauls

congrats

I see a lot of people concerned about GW community and its feelings. But ther is no *GW community*. There is a Guru community and there is some other unofficial sites that formed a GW themed community, but this segregation and those unofficial sites will never form, or be a real gw community.

For a GW community to exist, ANet must provide support for it. So whenever people try to make a judgment over how good or bad "CM"s do their job they should remember ANet is not even interested in setting up an official forum on their website after more 4 years of GW.

That is how far their denial of the GW community existence goes.

* So why do you expect the community's voice to be heard when they don't even offer an official channel for the community to express itself?

* How much more clear could a company be in stating they don't care about any community they might have created around its game?

* And derived from the above, what more do they need to do to make it clear our opinion here on guru or other unofficial sites is worth close to nothing to them?

* How hard would it be and why don't the current CMs push for the creation of an official forum? Shouldn't that be the *first* thing on their agenda as they take a CM job with any company?

* All other MMOs I know offer an official forum. Even other NCSoft titles like Lineage2, or even Aion(?). With GW is just whatever unofficial site you land on after a google search or so.

So it should be pretty obvious to anyone they either have no clue they have a community around (not likely) or they don't really care, even after 4+ years.

FYI, I was comparing early and beta screenshots with your early GW screenshots.

Sorry Test Me, but no, your very wrong on all your points and I know Martin and Regina are highly active in the community and on all the sites that are listed in the Community pages of the GW website

For the love of God, can you suck up more?

suck up? you what?

That wasn't my point.

Yes Regina and Martin in particular, they follow all those sites. Which *in fact* makes their job much harder. I am not judging their performance in any way. But they should be the first of people to push for an official forum/community support so that they *don't* have to read tens of sites for feedback. Of course they will still have to keep an eye on other sites even if an official forum existed, but not to the extend they do now as they could focus their attention to the main forum.

And in the end how come Aion (not even released yet) has an official forum while ANet wasn't able to offer this in 4+ years? How come Lineage2 has one, and so on and on. To me this is a clear statement coming from ANet, not even NCSoft (since other NCSoft titles prove they pay attention to community). They don't want it, so they don't do it.

Question is: why?

I'll leave you to answer it, if you don't like my interpretation.

Actually thats not entirely correct

there is one main reason they have not put an official forum up and trolling through WoW's forum is a good case in point... POWER

here on guru, on TGH, on GWO, on my forums and others, Martin and Regina have NO POWER at all and as shown on WoW's board and on others through the lifespan of the MMO genre, once that power is given to CM's, it can goto their heads and things go missing, get deleted, etc when they are not wanted to be mentioned in the light of day

This gives Martin and Regina a sense of credibility and also more opportunity to screw up and keeps them (to a point) honest, as they HAVE to be careful what is said as they can't delete threads that undermine them as HAS happened on official forums for other games

another good point being that it also brings many different ranges of ideas, emotions, etc to the table as certain forums have gained certain personalities through the people posting on them and this can be seen by polls put up by the CM's in the past on all the big Elite Fan Forums and all the poll's coming back with differing ranges of answers and then they can collate the answers themselves to get a better idea of feedback

Definitely true (good old MxO days). However, since they're not able to delete threads at GWG, they end up ignoring them. Not much of a difference really.

To say that there is no Guild Wars community is silly. There is no official Guild Wars community, sure, but I personally like being able to choose which communities to belong to rather being forced in to an official community dictated by company rules.

The fact that there is a chance you would get robbed while walking the streets of any town does not mean you should stay locked inside your house.

There are plenty of things that can go wrong, I fear any person deciding to embrace "doing nothing" just because of fear of failure for one reason or another. Where would we be as humans if fear of failure was the driving emotion?

So no. I don't buy your argumentation. That is, in no way, a reason or good justification for why there is no official forum. You're trying to come up with excuses form their attitude, which strengthens the argument that they got it wrong. But it is not your mistake, therefore not your excuse to make.

It's been 4+ years of a game that build heavily on community activity (from teaming in game to coming up with builds and discussing strategies) that offers no official support for its community.

That is a pretty clear attitude, speaks itself if you'd like. I like GW too, but that doesn't mean I need to get delusionally in love with their team and all they do.

And I hope they take this as constructive criticism and I really hope Regina and Martin will hear this point and finally push for an official forum. It might be 5 years too late, but better late than never... and better early for GW2 than... never.

Aion only has beta forums right now, to the best of my knowledge they have not yet stated whether or not they will have official forums post-release. That said, I'd be surprised if they didn't, considering two of their CMs were fansite leaders.

As for why ArenaNet chose not to have them for Guild Wars: Official forums are only worth having if you are going to run them properly. Controlling the signal/noise ratio on an official forum is ten times worse than on a fansite forum, because it's everyones first stop. It's also a reflection of your community, so you need to dedicate the resources to maintain it. You can't really rely on volounteer mods, and paying for mods is obviously just another expense. If you can afford to outsource a forum admin and a team of level-headed moderators I think official forums can be the way to go. If you aren't willing to make that commitment they can be a curse.

Then there is the benefit of having a community split between fansites. Each fansite will develop a community with a particular direction and attitude, which can help prevent fiction between different factions of the playerbase. For example, imagine if GWO and TeamQQ were mixed together on one forum. I think you can imagine the chaos that would ensue. Having official forums naturally discourages fansite development, because you are always going to get the majority of people signing up.

Also as LoneSamurai said, it gives us the impression that ArenaNet is on our turf. If a thread goes missing here, or a rant against Anet gets locked, we aren't going to launch into some conspiracy about how they are the man holding us down.

There are lots of benefits either way. It really depends on how much of a commitment the company is willing to make. There have been many who tried to launch official forums have failed in the past, underestimating just how much time and effort is required. Guild Wars is proof that you can develop a very healthy fansite community. It's even proof that it can be strong enough to last through years of neglect, it just may not be very healthy on the other side.

I believe, that is because you are more or less tech-savvy then others. You don't represent the majority of people that would probably be please to know there is an official forum out there they can go to.

On the other hand the existence of an official channel is not exclusive with the existence of unofficial fan sites. Your choices are not less if an official community site existed as you make it sound ("forced in an official community"), but rather they are extended: you can choose to check the official community and any other unofficial site you like *at the same time*.

The first option is not possible currently so it is today that you have less choices and are "forced" to pick a random unofficial site to scrap for any pieces and bits of "official" information you might like to hear or talk about. Of course not really knowing which site is more relevant than the other, besides the position they show in a web search engine.

Who said we don't?

Technically I should say "we" since I'm part of the axis of evil that is Guru, but whatever.

no, that would be Inde holding us down, which some would say may be quite nice

Precisely my point.

It's pretty obvious ANet is not wiling to make any commitment to its community, though the game by design (the simple existence of the skill and equipment build game mechanics) it is a community oriented game. Players that never reach the wiki, pvx and forums like guru are totally lost ingame, if they don't quit early because they don't get what the hell is going on.

About GW as an example of a healthy community split across different fansites... I don't really see where the "healthy" part comes from. Have you seen the last year posts on these communities?

PS: Please stop finding them excuses. Even if you identify with ANet because you like GW so much, it does not mean it's your personal failure if ANet did something bad and you need to defend them. Unless you believe ANet is perfect... and then the issue is somewhere else.

Test, we're not "finding them excuses", JR and I regularly chat to Martin and Regina about game and normal life things (hell, I ask them for input into my shows for god sake, thats part of their job)

the point JR is making is commitment through monetary means, and ANet would rather not spread the cash thinner than it already is by running official forums and paying the dedicated people needed to mod them, update them, service them, etc

WoW for instance has a dedicated team doing that, however Blizzard has in the range of 15billion dollars a month (not sure what the break down is sorry) compared to ANets minuscule by comparison amount coming in...

the point is also that this IS NOT an MMO in the traditional sense and comparing the business model and how they run the communities between GW and mainstream styled MMO's is like comparing the games themselves and you know aswell as we do that you just can't do that