What happens when GW2 comes out?

I've seen reports from the past couple of years that gw1 servers will still continue to function, etc. Just a few days ago, though, a friend of mine who is (usually) knowledgeable on such things said that the gw1 servers would be shut down and gw1 would cease to exist. He claimed to have read that on the new Dev Tracker part of the support forums, but I haven't been able to find that anywhere in there. Can anyone else shed some new light on this? The article I saw was from a couple years ago, wondering if anything has changed. Thanks!

That question got asked a few weeks ago at FanDay by Izari of TalkTyria.net.
Here is the reply she received and included in her article for GuildMag http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-w...-the-live-team .

Looks like your friend was right. That is business-talk for "Since a large portion of our consumers will move to GW2 and revenue from GW1 will drop, we now have an excuse to stop supporting GW1. We can make other people feel bad about this instead of putting the blame on ourselves!"

Well, the glass is either half full or half empty. I think GW 1 will be up for at least another two or three years after GW 2 comes out. Maybe more. Here is why:

1. Not everyone's computer is going to run GW 2. We do not know the recommended specs yet, but they will be higher. Depend on it.

2. Not everyone will like GW 2. (screams of disbelief from the audience) No, really! I personally know two highly experienced GW players who simply do not like WASD character control. One is disabled. The other is quite agile but has tried it in other games and just does not like it at all. Period.

3. There will be some, unsure how many, who will want to play "the original" to get at least basic vet status from the Hall of Monuments.

4. ANet can provide other goodies for GW 2 that can only be obtained from GW 1 and stimulate even more game sales. Find it hard to believe that ANet will not see the money to be made from doing this.

5. Some players will want to keep on hunting up Nick the Traveler every Monday. Me for instance.

6. Nostalgia. It will be nice to return to old GW and run a Zaishen quest or two just to have the familiar heroes back, see the old NPCs and hench. I'm fond of them!

That's not particularly fair. Anet's always shown that they care more about what the players want than making money(Or at least equally), they just need to make money because, well, they need money. The micro transactions show this, rather than all of us pay that subscription crap, we pay for as much as we want, no more, no less.

This is more a matter of "There is no point in keeping GW servers running if a handful of people are the only ones playing". I mean, really, would anyone here keep servers going at their expense to appease a very small group of players?

GW1 will probably die, the majority of players I see chatting are saying they're grinding for their HoM, and some forms of pvp are totally dead at any time that isn't peak hours.

As Wilebill said, there are players out there who won't make the change. If you like GW and have become comfortable with the story and the game, GW2 might not be that appealing. If you don't have the funds to upgrade your pc, you won't be buying the game. Other's might buy GW2 and find they don't like it.

Will all that create enough of a player base to keep the servers populated? We will have to wait and see. I do know that the Live Team is hyped about expanding the possibilities of GW with new content so they are not looking forward to the demise of the game.

If they expect to keep giving GW the same level of support as they do now or lower after they launch GW2, then I can count on having a reason to not bother with this game anymore.

Sure, people might start buying GW2, but it's not like GW ran on a subscription fee or something, or that there won't still be things worth doing in GW for new players. The best thing that the devs for GW2 can do to keep people buying and wanting GW is to make sure that the HoM rewards do not suck.

In theory they can just downsize the serverparks as the GW1 population decreases, there's no need for servers to handle 100,000 players if there's only 10,000 left.

This downsize wouldn't really affect normal game play, but it would affect annual events as suddenly 100,000 people could come back just for a weekend to claim some goodies. But that's the price to pay if you don't play regulary I guess.

So where do the limit go until it's time to shut down the servers? 10,000 people? I'm sure they down size first and let them play. 1,000 players? I think they even let these play. 100 players? They'll probably shut down server in a few months, offering a 50% discount on GW2 to remaining players just so they leave GW1 to lay down to rest.

I'm sure GW1 will always be around, even if it gets less support. After a year or so I'm sure updates will cease, then maybe events will follow some time after. Regardless, as long as there are enough people playing the game to warrant the game being around it will remain to be around. If the game hits 100 players or less I'm sure they'll have pulled it off of store shelves and THEN begin preparations to shut down the servers but I highly doubt it will get that low for years.

Honestly I would expect nothing, then anything they do do will be great and unexpected.

But really, just look how GW1 is right now and then make it 50% and then expect that, but personally I think that when GW2 comes out they will really let GW1 rot and not bother with it in any major way, security issues is the only real thing I expect them doing then


I find this funny considering, there is still a good amount of demand in GW1 right now but they don't support it well enough.


I say expect the servers to still be up and still be able to play GW1 but nothing else.


I don't expect that many people to bother with GW1 after GW2 is launched if they liked GW2 that includes festival hats and items they can't add to HoM since they won't really be in GW1 world to enjoy them.

What would probably kill of GW1 is if GW2 is a huge success, I know many of us have said we will play both and or come back occasionally for nostagia sake.

I think the reality is with 8 classes plus the Races and the 80 levels to gain I for one will be hard put to visit GW other than at festivals.

It will be pretty sad but that is the life of most games, if it was a game where you could run your own server and also mod the game as you wished too then it would go on practically forever.

If gw 2 is fantastic expect to see me at birthdays and festivals only

When GW2 comes out most of the fans will rush to it. It will be a few months after that before we know if GW2 is a suscess or failure. If GW2 bombs out (which is possible) I expect many of the hard core fans will move back to GW1. IF GW2 is a huge success, I expect to see GW1 servers reduced within six months, and GW1 shut down in about two years.
After all, it's all about game play and content. One of the problems I read about was that testers could not find the content. If players can't find the content, they can't play it and the game will fail.

More and more stuff makes me feel that I won't like GW2 as much as I like GW. I mean, getting rid of the monks and instituting an engineer? Guns and rifles in GW? No secondary professions? Ugh.

fine, ill' just run 100accounts then so they keep the servers running.(only 90accounts short!)
+why would i want to play such retarded game as gw2(at least it looks crap from my perspective, but i guess most are sheep going with the flow)
Guns will be beyond broken i guess, even more than what dervs are right now.

You forgot no7

7. New players to gw2 may want to try gw1 and purchase it

I'm not going to buy GW2, so I hope that the servers will run until the premiere Diablo 3

I doubt the servers will ever go down.

Essentially, my prediction is that when GW2 comes out, most of the people still playing will move on, even further reducing the number of players. So, the server load will become lower and lower, to the point where it will cost Anet hardly anything.

So, the servers will be up. However, I predict that the lower number of players will warrant an even smaller live team, and even less new content. Actually I fully predict that they'll simply automate teh festivals and call it quits eventually, when even just one Stumme is too much for the few remaining players.

Automating just about everything is the track that they appear to be on. Y'know Flux? That's supposed to replace balance updates once the Live team is finished. It's a little unsettling that after the team is done making all of the large content updates that they're interested in, which will probably consist of WoC and any story changes in Elona or the expansion areas, and GW2 is released, there may be a feeling by ANet that they don't need to dedicate members to the game anymore. They may only ask people to work on it if a severe bug starts plaguing the game. It's not the direction that I want to see things move, hence why I'm jumping ship as soon as I can find a decent place to jump to.

Here are some factors:

* The server costs may dwindle, but there's still fixed costs.

* Some time after the launch of GW2, lots of resources from ANet2 (if I may call it that) will be freed. They might get reallocated to GW1.

* GW1 and GW2 are entirely separate games. Not just in terms of gameplay. NCSoft is a MMO powerhouse. This is what they do. GW2 is just another MMO for them. They have compartimentalized it fully. This means it will stand or fall on its own. Same for GW1.

* They will not necessarily cannibalize each other, mainly because of the non-subscription model, since people don't have to commit fully to either one.

* Most players (GW1 or other MMO) will buy the 1st GW2 campaign simply out of curiosity. No more, no less.

* Some informed decisions will be taken only at least a few months after the GW2 launch. Before that nobody can tell anything for sure, because it regards the reaction of a huge mass of unpredictable humans in contact with a game never seen before.

* Lots of other factors. Take for example Stumme and the Live Team, we seem to treat them like pieces of furniture, assuming they're allocated to GW1 for all eternity. But what do they want? Maybe they want to move to GW2. Maybe they want to quit ANet at some point altogether and go somewhere else. I suspect their contracts have a finite end, when they will make some decisions of their own.

My opinion: too early to tell. But I see no reason for NCSoft to preemptively decide to kill GW1 (doesn't mean they couldn't be reasons, just that I don't see them). They will wait and see just like everybody.

I take the point on Guns and Rifles it will seem a little strange not to say noisy for a while.

The other points do not bother me, Lack of a Monk well 2 things strike me here I for one thought that a monk was going to be a martial arts specialist not just a healer.
Secondly what's in a name a while back monks were being sidelined in favour of other classes with healing ability.

All gw2 classes have healing and its apparent that some are designed with healing and protection in mind maybe more paladin in style but still monk like.
Also although there are no secondary classes this is more than compensated imo by the skills given from weapons shields focus items etc.
You also have racial traits.

In gw you can change your secondary and your skills while in a town whereas in gw2 you can change them every minute if you like.
It would seem to be very easy to take weapon sets that give healing and protective skills.
This would make your character the de facto party healer/monk

Basically, as long as ANet is still selling new GW1 accounts, they have a legal and moral obligation to kept the servers running for a reasonable amount of time afterwards, which all things considered, would be years.
As far as ANet saying they won't "support" GW1 goes, the term "support" in this case means that they won't be doing any skill updates, balancing, etc., sort of stuff. In other words, once GW2 goes live, "what you see in GW1 is what you get". However, the "servers" will still be running - or more accurately, GW1 will still be running on their server farm, it just won't change any more.

After GW2 is released, do I think that
... the servers will shut down? No.
... skill updates will stop. Very likely.
... annual events will occur? Most likely.
... new birthday items? I'm sure of it.
... automatic flux? Yes, a repeatable set of flux cycle for xx months.

The staff will mostly just make sure servers are running, and create some new items for annual events. All major changes will stop, WoC is going to be the final major addition to the game.

Man, that took me back to the old hack'n'slash MUDs. Where the warriors used swords, wizards used fireballs, monks did hand-to-hand combat and thiefs used stealth and backstabbing. And everybody quaffed potions when they wanted to heal.

I'm kind of hoping that won't be the case. I'd hate to see it kept in such a "zombified" state, I'd rather they went out in style. Have the party to end all parties, all outposts filled to the brim, consumables, tonics and minis flowing like water, and Dhuum dancing in the middle of Shing Jea Monastery.

But that's because I've more or less played the game. If I was someone who just discovered GW1 now I'd be sad to see it go no matter the reason. It's funny how we, those who have experienced it already, seem to take it for granted, to gloss over what a special thing GW1 really was (and is, it's not gone yet).

Still, realistically speaking, there will come the day when they shutdown GW1 at 12:00 PST. One minute still there, the next gone, just videos on YouTube, the 5000 still shots on your hdd and all the stuff written on various blogs and forums left to remember it by. I guess if there's anything you want to do, you should do it today, no time like the present.

Im giving it a 50/50 chance that they will continue to support GW1 after GW2 release and history gives me this notion. Remember they thought after eotn release that they were done with content updates. What I am hoping for is after WoC they will be done focusing on content and start really looking at skills. If the game is balanced then I hope they just keep the servers live.

You cannot possibly know this and even if guns are OP when released I highly doubt they will be for more than a few days. With GW2 going to be the company's biggest game ever they won't throw balance out the window like they did with GW1 and that only happened to GW1 because all their resources diverted to GW2.

Will players be able to run GW and GW2 simultaneously?

^Maybe that's a factor as well? ;D

What do you mean by "simultaneously"? I sure that you could play them one at a time, just the same as you can now play GW1 and WoW if you want. In fact you could have both WoW and GW1 running on your computer at the same time - which would be "simultaneously".
As far as running both GW1 and GW2 "simultaneously" goes, it depends upon the login procedure and the account structure. It could be that you need to log out of one in order to play the other - but you should at least be able to switch back and forth whenever you want.