Any Predictions about GW's Future?

Hi,

Sorry beforehand to ask questions that no one has the answers to.

I have some questions about how ANet will continue GW in the future.

1) So if I understand correctly, they will be releasing new chapters in the GW series about once every 6 months, starting from 1Q 2006. Would these new chapters require GW chapter 1 to play or would they be stand alones?

Personally I think that if future GW chapters require chapter 1 to play (and its not included in the sales package), there could be trouble. With any expansion series, sales will go down with each following chapter...unless there is a way to get new ppl to buy the game.

One way of getting new ppl to buy the game is to include all content from previous chapters. OR include new content (e.g. quests) for each and every new chapter specifically for beginners OR there could be a system that the quests are the same, but the game instances are based on the lvl of the character playing the quest. For example: a lvl 20 character would do the same quest as a lvl 10 but the monsters for his instance are much tougher. This would work fine until PUG where you could have a large variation in character lvls.

How in the blazes will ANet manage to do this?

2) OK. Now ais ANet going to continue releasing new chapters for GW for a year or two or do you think they have plans to make a GW2?

If they would make a GW2, I think that there might be some problems on the horizon for the original GW. Because, there is no monthly fee (thank God almighty for this) wouldn't there be a very high possibility that having a second project would eventually mean the downfall of the original GW? I am guessing other online games (such as WoW) that charge a monthly fee can continue to sustain their service. In the case Blizzard decides to make WoW2 then WoW would support itself by using the subscription fees from its players, thus staying online for as long as there are enough players to support it. I think Asheron's Call2 might be an example fof this. Asheron's Call2 service will be stopped while the original is still online.

What about GW? If ANet decides to make GW2, they would put a lot of money and effort into this game essentially taking profits from GW to fund GW2. Isn't there a danger that once GW2 is up and running that GW service could be stopped because there isn't a monthly fee to support it?

Any answers or comments?

I don't think there will be a GW2 for many years...more likely to see 5 or 6 chapters for GW first (3 years) then you are looking at probably 2-3 years developing GW2. Sales are always the deciding factor though in these things.

I guess it depends on how well the current cost model is working.

It's an obvious point, but if the ongoing cost of running the game, outstrips the revenue in sales then either it will change to a cost per month or it will fold..

Most games release the expansion and then after period of time they sell a combination of the base + expansion at a discounted price. It wouldn't make much sense to just sell the expansion as it will more than likely be for ascended characters only and you can't get an ascended character w/o going through chapter 1.

I'm hopeful for GW's future, still enjoy playing it and will more than likely buy chapter 2, but unless they make some pretty wholesale changes I think the player base will continue to drop...

from GW rep
there was also a note that future chapters could be mixed and marched.

i am assuming chapter 1 is needed and would be supplied at no extra cost for sales promotion.

*buy chapter 2 and get the entire chapter 1 game for free *

*2 full games for the price of 1*

*still no monthly fee*

works for me

Anet cant do just plain old GW correctly, they dont have a hope in hell of keeping a fanbase and I predict GW is dead/dying badly by 2006.

"All the good stuff will be available to everyone" - Bullshit. All the stuff in regular GW isnt available to everyone.

"The game relies on player skill not hours played" - Another lie by A-net. Total BS.

I predict that GW will be played for a very long time, and the expansions will be bought, simply because it's one of the few subscription free online "1-massive server" RPG's. However, I don't think this game will ever be anywhere close to a hardcore competetive game like A.net promises. A.net has made a profit, but they certainly haven't made a masterpiece.

The future of the game ll depend if more game content is added or not...
One new and some new items isnt just enough...and i m quite afraid by the idea of new classes (= obvious imbalance) and new races (= useless)

Well, the way Guild Wars areas are instanced is far more manageable than the "persistent" areas of say, WoW. I have not heard of any server downtime since I started playing. From what I've seen so far, their approach has been to attract and keep a player base with patches (which have included new quests), and soon, the free "expansion" Sorrow's Furnace.

Obviously, if they continue to work on free material, they lose money, but may appease the player base more than if they just churned out expansion after expansion.

No monthly fees was the basis on which they marketed this game, so I see no reason for them to change it any time soon.

So was skill over time spendt, but that flew out the window pretty fast. However, that's a debatable subject, so it's easier to throw something like that out than no monthly fees. But A.net has never said anything about other fees, such as extra character slots or pvp unlocks. They're already trying to take your money for more music, so why not?

very bright and successful

They need a change in leadership at ANET. Because it comes across as if they are really indecisive and misinformed about a lot of their decisions in the past. They are getting better at this, but chapter 2 will need to be a lot less retarded than chapter 1. A lot of Chapter 2 has been already so who knows if they will be able to reverse any retarded decisions already made that are too expensive to turn back on.

[QUOTE=Shinsei]However, I don't think this game will ever be anywhere close to a hardcore competetive game like A.net promises. QUOTE]

this was never marketed as a *hardcore* competitive game nor was it marketed as a *hardcore* DING must level grindmonkey game

it is pvp lite
pve lite
even farmer lite

the *hardcore* gamer is a small (in percent of players) nitch market.

for every hardcore that leaves there are a large number of *casual* players taking their place

after all the hardcore from all extremes shake out it will get even better.

and to the person that says it is dead.......join the crowd that said it would be gone by now.

note their backer (NCSoft) can carry it litterally for years building up a profitable player base as their other cash cows can carry it for a long time.

but since it is profitable on its own.........

While I do love this game, guildwars does not have the longevity to go on. Anet erred in too many ways. For example, we already have access to the best equipment, weapons, and level. What else is there to strive for in future updates and expansions? The only thing I think we can really hope for in the future are different weapons, skills, armors, classes, and perhaps an assload of new content such as missions and quests. I highly doubt that this will entertain players for very long however.

that is exactly right.

all the buyers need is to feel that they really got theit moneys worth between chapters while they play some other game and as soon as the next chapter comes out they grab it and have another round of fun and then put it aside for something else.

my example is OBLIVION (Elder Scrolls number 4) which i will grab when it comes out and then grab chapter 2 when it comes out.

GW was never intended to be a constant everyday of your life game like eq or wow.

it is a game you enjoy then put aside til you feel like playing it again

Yeah. I can see myself casting it aside every now and then, but I know I will come back to it for explansions and updates.

I beg to differ.

If I didn't know better, the statement "Built for competition" alone, would lead me to believe that this game is anything but "pvp lite".

I, for one, are very tried of endlessly having to raid to keep up with the new gear. Raid itself is fun, but if I missed a month of raiding, usually I ended up lefting behind by my guild, in key/flag/gear all areas which makes it not fun.

And endlessly better gear means the gear I worked hard to get today may worth nothing tomorrow, when new gear is discovered. And the zones/mobs that is challanging today may become too easy, way too easy to kill with the new gear tomorrow, which makes the game not fun except the very new zones.

The reason I have been play counter-strike for 6 years? It is skill based, not gear based. The same reason I like GW, I don't need to invest 20 hours/week to just keep my gear upto date, and another 20 hours/week to grind for exp.

Yeah, I'll agee here....
I managed to convince my wife to play GW, who has NEVER played any type of swords and spells type game. She watched me play for a month, and thought it looked interesting. GW is easy enough to play that she enjoys it, and is now mildly addicted!

My point is that GW is attracting a number of people who either wouldn't normally try an online multiplayer game. It's my first MMO(lite) game, since I can't justify the monthly cost of other online games. I decided it was worth a try! In my house, they have made two sales!

Anyway, just my thoughts.
Dwig

I think guildwars has a good future. A-net worked very hard to keep the game balanced, and they will work every bit as hard in the next chapters/updates so everything remains balanced. Thats their thing.. thats why they claim it takes skill not time played to be good. Because everything has a counter. It is also very easy to reach level 20, and get decent max dmg weapons. Some weapon upgrades and superior runes arent the easiest things to get, but, thats not going to make or break your character.

They'll keep it balanced and add more content, but i dont think the max level will ever go up. They're gonna think of other things for people to work for.

there are many levels of competition and *hardcore* is only a small fraction of the total .

most people have lives other than total comitment to *hardcore* pvp who still enjoy a bit of it every now and then and this is built for competition on their scale.

the more dedicated pvp will dominate the ladder in time but only a small fraction of pvpers will care what rank they themselves have as long as they are having fun *competing* on their own chosen level

That might be true for games in general, but GW is a bit different. There probably won't be a huge influx of casual pvp'ers since they will be at too much of a disadvantage. The PvE is missing alot of the frills that crowd is used to, and the cities aren't exactly a "friendly" or "helpful" so that segment doesn't seem to be expanding either.

I think the game engine is top notch, and in general the gameplay is superb, so there's always hope.

Stating that this game was "Built for Competition" and then providing the so called "competition" with low to mediocre content is unacceptable. Ontop of that, nothing's being done for the competition, except for hosting 1 universal, broken and boring ladder for the entire game. Oh wait, PvPX! How could I forget...

Let's look at Diablo I/II. they have all the disadvantages you've mentioned, and non of the advantages of GW, and they were incrediably successful. GW's PvE is at long, if not long then D1 D2, and certainly a lot more fun. may not be as successful as D1 D2, but it is already very successful from what I see.

I love people who hate the game and still play it 5 hr/day, and still care enough about it to complain on a fansite.

Man, the Riverside Inn is truly turning into a real hate-fest. Why bother posting here at all if you despise Anet, Guild Wars, etc.?

While GW is no WoW (recently announced 1 million North American subscribers, 4 mm worldwide) in terms of cash generation, it's a franchise to be reckoned with. The business model should be able to survive as long as they choose to do it, so long as addons do not require the previous purchase of the original game and subsequent addons. I don't think there's a lack of talent or creativity at Anet. Initial sales of the game were very good. So I don't see anything stopping them from continuing on and from me enjoying what they put out there.

I don't love the whole game but I'm just amazed by the stupid people that are fanatical enough about the game to come to a fan site and then act like the developers are stupid.

It's happened in every single game I've played and most worse than this one but it still amazes me.

The game was number one on both the European and the US PC game sales charts for 3 months. Trust me on this, nobody with a half a brain thinks the game failed.

Reviews for this game were as high and often higher than WoW which was one of the highest rated PC games.

This game is free, a lot of the people that are playing would either play this or a Pay per month RPG. With this game by the time they're ready to move on they could buy a whole new computer with what they saved over any of the other RPG's.

They have quite a few free game boosts just waiting. They can easily get a lot of the players back just by boosting faction again and if that didn't work they could go to UAS. Either way Chapter 2 is a sure thing in the U.S.

Nice one. Just about everything you said after you declared your love for me was false. I don't hate the game, I hate the direction it's taking. I haven't played at all for over 2 weeks due to moving out, and probably won't be playing until changes are made. And no, I don't come here to complain about the game. I come here because I still want to see changes, and I want to keep in touch with the friends I've made.

2 questions if you would please

1 are you under an NDA?

2 and if so is there any oblique information tidbits you can safely give us about the games future?

The speculation I have been hearing about the future of GW is there will be only 3 new chapters released over the next 18 months then 8 months to a year after that GW2 will be released and most likely pay to play.

To me, they are very similar in basic design. there are towns, aka chat rooms, but with a 3D interface and NPCs to buy/sell. players spam trade messages in local channel, or spam trade messages in non trading chat rooms.

Players try to make teams in towns, or in chat rooms. in GW, "starting a team for xxx quest". In D2, "8 people diablo rush, game name 'diablo must die 038', gogogo!!"

Players enter their own instances of the games, either by themselves or with a team. the whole game/map is to themselves, no other random players there.

games/maps are state-less, i.e. start with full spawns with all the initial settings whenever it loads for a player.

Player reputation doesn't exist in D2, player reputation doesn't exist in GW.

I don't know what carrot on a stick that D2 has and GW doesn't. Maybe in D2 you do half a thousand 10-min end boss runs (what's his name? bali?) to get to level 99. No such thing in GW.

In D2 player farm bosses for items. In GW players farm underworld for items.

D2 has more items with different attributes, which is not necessary a good thing for PvP because it easily gets out of balance.

How do you know this and in 3 years MMOs might not be as popular as they now.This game started good nothing like beta but there came some flaws mind you.This game as I am finding out is made for those under the 25 mark which needs to be changed.

Well if the developers do the smart thing then GW will continue to be profitable and enjoyable. What I mean by this is, for a long time now users have been putting forth their ideas and thoughts about how to improve the game. If the devs take these ideas, and implement them into new chapters, then the game starts to move in the direction that the players want it to. That being is said is an MMOs number one priority, apart form bringing home the bacon.

GW is a game for the casual player. One does not need to spend prolonged periods of time to create a substantial character (in PvP and PvE) unlike some other MMOs, such as WoW. This characteristic means that players will be motivated to continue playing, as they will be on equal terms with other players, even though they have spent relatively less time in-game.

When one finds themself bored or with some free time on their hands they may begin to think, "I'll go play GW. I have a pretty decent build. That should kill some hours." It is difficult to imagine a situation similar to this in, for example, WoW. The train of thought of a casual player would be more like, "I'll go play WoW. But I'm only lvl 18, and all the higher levels will KS me and call me a noob."

Moreover, the cost structure (once again comparing GW and WoW) further proves GW place as a casual game. One who grinds every day and never misses an opportunity to log in is more suited to WoW, as they know they will be playing in the time that they pay for (ie, one month). Casual chaps will rarely find themselves in a gaming routine, and would much prefer to have a one off cost game that will be available when they require it.

Now that I'm going off topic somewhat, let's get back to the real issue I was trying to get to; the player base. Although players appear to be leaving the game, the base still remains somewhat constant. Hardcore grinders tend to leave as they aren't rewarded as they are in other MMOs but casual gamers continue to play for much time to come. That being said there will always be a steady player base, even though specific users may not long in regularily, the number of users online will be steady.

Now i wonder if anyone read all this

a) this game wasn't a complete failure...but if I was ArenaNet I'd be putting a tally mark in the "Failures" column. It fell desperately short of it's original goal. The game is visually breathtaking and a lot of fun to play for a pretty good amount of time. But it didn't achieve it's primary goal. PvP lacks competition and original thought and the PvE is mindnumbingly boring after your first time through it. It's going to take something drastic to save this game.

b) thank you for pointing out that he game isn't free...I'm tired of listening to people argue that we should "take what we got because the game is free"...last I checked I spent 50 bucks on it.

To be honest, if developers listen to more than 10% of the players' suggestions, any game will turn into a failure.

I see where your coming from, but there are some very sound ideas... and a ton fo crap ones

Nice way to put it.

They added a buttload of grind, then kept elements from when they intended no grind - like low max level, easy PvE and no advantages for grinding like uber gear.

Nothing forces you to grind. I'm bringing my 4th character through right now and having fun doing it. There isn't a single thing in the game that forces you to grind to earn cash as having the so called "UBER" items isn't a requirement, it's simply an internet phallus comparison contest. You don't need to have every skill in the game unlocked to be competative in the arenas. Infact my ranger build is 87.5% made up of skills aquired before I reached riverside. is it perfect? Nope, does it allow me to win 1v1 around 50% of the time? Yup. If I can't win atleast half my fights then the build needs help, if I can then the build might need minor tweaks or I need more practice with it, neither of which is what I call grind.

Is it just me, or does a topic somewhere along these lines crop of every couple days or so? The sky isn't falling folks. GW will never be perfect since you can't please everybody. But it seems to please enough of the people enough of the time to continue to be successful. That's all any game company can ask for.

I call bringing 4 characters all the way through a tediously boring PvE just so you can unlock your skills grind....and I don't even PvP. I feel bad for the PvP players...all they want is to have skills available to them. I don't think they should get UAS, but atleast give them some way to get skills/items unlocked in a reasonable amount of time.