Iteration goes hand and with scope, that's why that same article is really what raised these concerns. Scope and your approach to it can make or break a game. As Jazzy said, you can find yourself wrapped around one feature for far too long, I just feel that Anets scope and an iterative process don't exactly go hand in hand, at least how they describe them . Not to create a solid game all around in a timely fashion under a proper budget.
Could it be that Anet is just more open about this? That other companies have the same process, but that the process stays behind closed doors (well apart from the companies that just release broken products) . I dont think they have been postponing yet. Judging on what you get to see in the demos, I would rather argue that they are on top of this process.
Where you see any revision of a feature as postponement, Anet maybe has reserved that time already and it still fits in their planned schedule. It is just unusual for us to see them 'going back to the drawing board' with something.
Yeah. I think they are not only more open about sharing insight on the process, but they reject the developer tunnelvision and dare I say, arrogance, that often prevents developers from tinkering with things to make them better. If ANet thinks something could use some tweaking, they do it, rather that sticking by some calculations that tell them why the current properties are ideal, in spite of what game play experience tells them.
I now understand where the OP was coming from. At some point game developers need to stop adding features and tweaking things and just work on ensuring that what is in the game is polished and bug free. Too broad a scope can lead to a lack of focus that results in a game being less than the sum of all parts, rather than more than the sum of all parts.
I do believe that ANet worked the flexibility to tweak things into the devlopment schedule. I also have a very strong gut feeling that ANet has put a lot of stress on efficient tools for content creation and game system tweaking. There is a big difference in development cost in time and dollars between a game where every little tweak requires recoding and one where a lot of tweaks can just be done by changing values in a data base and content files via a powerful GUI front end.
Distopia, I am still going to be unable to answer your concerns about community focus because I do not play any of the games you listed. I don't play any shooters, however, I have spent more time in mmos such as WAR, LOTR, CoX, CO, STO, or Rift. So, what is the community-building aspect you fear to lose? There will be guilds, persistent guild rewards, a multitude of places for players to congregate, out-of-game apps that allow you to communicate with and chat with friends, etc. But none of this info is meaningful if that's not what you are referring to.
Why do you believe that if a player can jump into any sort of pve adventure they desire, this will ruin community somehow? Cooperation will still be necessary to complete several dynamic events, and all dungeons. Again, need more info.
It's basically a fear of bringing the other spectrum into the community and the effect it will have on it overall. There could be no impact at all, or it could poison the overall perception of that community, worse comes to worst it could destroy the idea of community at all in the game.
A concern is not a prediction it's just a concern.
First of all to your community issue. Well... thats is true up to a point. As it was with WoW they attracted a lot of Blizzard Fans, RTS players, Diable players and the like to the mmorpg community and a more general audience. The results of it can be seen in WoW.
This may have some effects in GW2 and if successful as WoW, in the design and development for further MMOs, as every successful MMO in the past. As EQ changed the UO dominated more virual world MMO world into a level/item hunting, raiding dominated MMO world.
I personally didnt like the changes come into MMO development from EQ, and even more the changes from WoW(even more item centric and raid focused). But noone can denied it. Maybe GW2 will intruduce again some, but maybe even for the better.
Especially when we talk about community. Lets look at it. Community was a really strong point in UO and in DAoC, too. Everything in UO influenced the community, everything played against or together, a game server was one world. In DAoC the RvR really melted the community together. On the other side, in EQ the community was more fragmented into Lvl-zones or raiding parties, and even more in WoW.
GW2 will bring back WvWvW which may help community building a lot, and they try to avoid leveling gaps with the sidekick systems, which may both be good for a healthy community. The DE may also bring the community together.
On the the other hand the more or less separated e-sport part of the game. Well, i can just compare that with FPS or RTS games, where the e-sport part was always seperated. I guess this will be a part of it own, and if there is a influence it will be more of a spectator experience. You watch them fighting. You see how cool that is, and maybe try something of that on your own. But overall it isnt imporant nor part of the real gaming community at all. It is just a side effect.
But finally we can just wait and see. Only the time will tell, if the tools in GW2 will be able to create a better or worse community than some games in the past. And how the different player tpyes from FPS, to RTS, to modern MMO, to oldschool MMORPG players will work together and fit together. (different mindsets are different mindsets,, and they will not be erased that fast).
About the scope and iteration in the development cycle of GW2.
As fas as we have seen the development process of GW2 i am really not concerned there. Because they really picked up early on what they wanted to implement and how the want to realise that. And as we see now, everything looks, like it will fit together. The iteration process overall is just for polishing and balancing things, you cant reinvent the wheel there, or bring completely new features in at that point. But after all we have seen up today, they are not doing it. The features they have anounced are more or less as old as the first concept of GW2 over 5 years ago. They just change things a lil bit, to get a better overall game feeling, or a better balance as it should be in the iteration process. And as fas as i can see everything looks fine and incredible polished. It may be one of the polished games since years, more or less WoW niveau.
I find it very similar to someone having a concern with an MMO relying on Story as a main driver for their MMO. Attracting traditional single player RPG players into an MMO setting could have the same consequences. Story typically drives single player experiences and having too much story with little advantage for grouping could bring the whole MMO experience down as well. Having compainions in a four man group provides for nice coop play, but certainly doesnt scream MMO.
I guess I see other popular games taking very similiar risks.
I'm glad someone brought up TOR, as it does show a different approach at changing things up. It's approach is more in the presentation department and quality of story content. Not saying it's safer as yes they could succumb to similar pitfalls. However they do have one advantage tried and true mechanics do not require the same level of development as something entirely new, or mostly new. These systems for GW2 will require far more iteration testing than what Biowares game mechanics will. They have a base that can work, they just expanded on it there is a significant difference there.
I think you might be assuming to much about mechanics. I agree with you that mechanics can kill a game but they have to be bad mechanics. They would have to be mechanics that changed the way you moved, or played the game in the basic sense. Improvements on tried and true mechanics will be accepted universally. GW2 mechanics are not so radically different that you wouldn't understand them. They didn't change them that much, the just improved them. I am sure everyone can accept and welcome the ability to dodge the arrow being fired their direction or not having to worry about others working on the same quest. These two changes in game mechanics improve the game play. They don't force me to radially change how I play. I think your concerns would make more since if there was something to point to in the all the information and/or the numerous videos released that would support the cause for concern.
I disagree about your assesment of TOR. Bioware is combining tried and true mechanics from an MMO with the strong story driven game play of single player RPG's. This is just as risky. One of the biggest complaints from WOW players about WOW is that the game has gone to single player. I am not saying it will cause TOR to be a single player game, I am just saying the risk is the same as what GW2 is trying to do. However, IMO, GW2 and TOR have an advantage over previously released MMO's. Because of what they are doing both games will appeal to a wider audience. They will not have to rely solely on current MMO subs for numbers.
I think you're going to have to be more specific in your concerns if you want helpful responses instead of a bunch of misunderstandings. If you are afraid GW2 will iterate itself into a Duke Nukem forever, say so. However, note that even with ANet's iterative process, they, too, acknowlege there is a point at which they must stop and release - you can see it in the features they are holding back for post-launch, just to list one example.
I am inclined to agree with you that the easy in and easy out playstyle is being catered to, even in pve, but we could be intending entirely different things by that statement. What examples do you have of the kind of gamlay that you want to keep you attached to a game? It may be that GW2 simply isn't aimed at your playstyle, but it could also be that your needs are fulfilled in some way you don't know about.
In short, be specific, speak less in generalities.
Sure, I can do that. As for the community element and that concern. It's more in the area of I don't want future MMO's taking a direction even less in support of community building. I want them to cater to fans of DAOC, UO, EQ, SWG etc.. I don't want them to cater to COD, BF, Quake or Gears of War fans. The latter concern specifically is, I see their philosphy better suited to a halo fan , moreso than an MMO fan such as myself.
I'm not really seeking helpful advice, as my first two concerns can not be proven right or wrong, until we see the final product. Differing opinions are fine, but I'm not asking to be proven wrong, just stating a few things that I've grown concerned over.
Iteration goes hand and with scope, that's why that same article is really what raised these concerns. Scope and your approach to it can make or break a game. As Jazzy said, you can find yourself wrapped around one feature for far too long, I just feel that Anets scope and an iterative process don't exactly go hand in hand, at least how they describe them . Not to create a solid game all around in a timely fashion under a proper budget.
First off Anet was founded and is managed by professional coders/developers. Jeff Strain is a heavy weight coder not some dude is a suit. Good developers understand scope and interative refinement. Anet hs already shown they can not only manage software projects well but that they do it better than 90% of the MMO industry. They do better desgin and have made a novel business model succeed on time and on budget multiple times. Second guessing them is pointless, maybe they screw up maybe they don't but thereis no way you can pick that up from soundbites that arepurposely dumbed down for reporters who don't understand jack.
All software development works in this way. Scope and feature creep are something all developers are familar with. Sometimes, especially in the MMO industry, you get pie in the sky designers who throw everything and the kitchen sink inand do not view it as software project. Beleive me when I tell you Anet doesn't work this way. You can tell it from their basic design principles.
Secondly I think you are missing a core philosophy of theirs in regards to their games. They focus on competition and e-sports for philisophical reasons. Mainly they operate under the basic assumption that if their unerlying system and gameplay mechanics cannot be competition ready, then they did not design and implement them well enough. Think about it for a second , why does GW1 has a from the beginning designed idea of each skill has a counter? This was one of their design choices to attempt to meet their quality goals. And competition itself is one of the method.s of testing that they have met their Quality Assurance standards. One of the hardest things about this sort of stuff is actuallly creating a paradigm that can actualy tell you something useful and proves something "works". What is "works"? And that is something competition naturally does, afterall the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Anet has always tried to make GW1 and GW2 more than just tab target and more towards the action end of things, but the esports thing is not about trying to be like all the FPSs out there. Its to craft something that is high enough quality that it can withstand the extremely rigorous examination that competition will bring.
Think about it for a second, all those FPSs get by on the strength of something that was made years ago and essentially just mimics the real world. Namely the FPS interface which is naturally going to work fairly well as long as you capture mechanics we have known since the before electricity was prevalent. But GW1/GW2 must have an entire skill based system that can be that high quality without the benefit of being able to mimic the real world. If they can do that then they have made something very impressive. Something most MMOs fail pretty miserably at. Its not about getting the FPS kiddie crowd its pure ambition and shooting for quality and using the already in place methods humans have used for millenia to prove it.
I think there is a big difference between most sequel and GW2. In most sequels like EQ2; lineage2 and many other is that they were rebuild from scratch, i think most even had an other engine. I think its not the case with GW2, most of GW2 was taken from GW, and the rest are only added feature and tweaks, so they have a lot more time for those things most team would never get, simply because working on the core of a game take most of your effort, and this even if you buy a game engine.
Now about competitive pvp, and cooperation, i really don't get what is the problem. Both are great aspect, i don't even understand how you can critisize such approch. Competitive pvp is a must if you take pvp seriously, and cooperation is way better than the "force grouping" concept themepark builds imposed on the genre. And this i think responded to your last paragraph about toxicity in the game community. For me it seam obvious cooperative gameplay is far less "toxic" than force grouping. Also those concept existed before themepark builds in UO and Muds, so if anything they are more about mmo than "force grouping" for sure. Cooperation is still one of the biggest success for non themepark games, look at the way comunities are builds in games like Eve and you can understand what cooperation mean to mmo communities. Even if GW2 concept is slightly different, and seam to aim a lot more for causual gamers, which is even better for me.
First I'd like to say thanks to everyone for keeping this topic civil and discussing these things with eloquence rather than insults.
@ Fiontar: I hope you're right I do think the PVE side of the game sounds and looks very promising at this stage. If I didn't have some faith in Anet these would be more than concerns for me, I'd probably be making predictions. I am giving them the benefit of doubt at this point, I don't think they deserve anything but that. They are afterall (obviously) talented and creative people.
@ Apraxis, you hit the nail on the head in reference to my community concerns. The genre has been in a downhill slope for a long time now, especially when it comes to catering to positive communities. I'm just hoping the inclusion of another more competitive audience doesn't degrade the genre even further down that road. The most important thing to an MMO's longevity is community, without it there's little incentive to play an MMO for a person like myself. As far as I know I'll be playing GW2 alone, as in my guild is dead set on TOR, as is most of the former MMO community I belong to. I just hope there's an equally accepting community to be found in GW2.
@Steejanz: You're right I won't deny TOR could fall to these same pifalls.
To all, I don't blame anyone who doesn't quite agree with my first two concerns. I'm glad to see there are still companies out there who have their fans respect and trust, not to mention support. Nothing keeps a company on the right track more than that, as long as they keep to their core vision, I think the game will be fine.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
I think there is a big difference between most sequel and GW2. In most sequels like EQ2; lineage2 and many other is that they were rebuild from scratch, i think most even had an other engine. I think its not the case with GW2, most of GW2 was taken from GW, and the rest are only added feature and tweaks, so they have a lot more time for those things most team would never get, simply because working on the core of a game take most of your effort, and this even if you buy a game engine.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this assessment at all.
According to the wiki...
Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.[4] It uses Havok to provide destructible environment and ragdoll animation of creatures[5] and Umbra's occlusion culling technology.[6]
Even beyond the engine though, the games are almost completely different outside of the lore. I can't think of really anything directly taken from GW1 and put in GW2. The closest I can come up with is that ghostly bosses of dead NPCs from GW1 will use skills no longer in GW2.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I think there is a big difference between most sequel and GW2. In most sequels like EQ2; lineage2 and many other is that they were rebuild from scratch, i think most even had an other engine. I think its not the case with GW2, most of GW2 was taken from GW, and the rest are only added feature and tweaks, so they have a lot more time for those things most team would never get, simply because working on the core of a game take most of your effort, and this even if you buy a game engine.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this assessment at all.
According to the wiki...
Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.[4] It uses Havok to provide destructible environment and ragdoll animation of creatures[5] and Umbra's occlusion culling technology.[6]
Even beyond the engine though, the games are almost completely different outside of the lore. I can't think of really anything directly taken from GW1 and put in GW2. The closest I can come up with is that ghostly bosses of dead NPCs from GW1 will use skills no longer in GW2.
GW2 have the same dev team mostly and don't even had to learn their engine, those 2 aspects alone i'm sure spare them a lot of time. Everything you listed are still additions, and are nothing close, time wise, as making an engine from scratch or learn a bought one, i'm not a pro here, but i could probably bet on this.
I think there is a big difference between most sequel and GW2. In most sequels like EQ2; lineage2 and many other is that they were rebuild from scratch, i think most even had an other engine. I think its not the case with GW2, most of GW2 was taken from GW, and the rest are only added feature and tweaks, so they have a lot more time for those things most team would never get, simply because working on the core of a game take most of your effort, and this even if you buy a game engine.
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this assessment at all.
According to the wiki...
Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.[4] It uses Havok to provide destructible environment and ragdoll animation of creatures[5] and Umbra's occlusion culling technology.[6]
Even beyond the engine though, the games are almost completely different outside of the lore. I can't think of really anything directly taken from GW1 and put in GW2. The closest I can come up with is that ghostly bosses of dead NPCs from GW1 will use skills no longer in GW2.
GW2 have the same dev team mostly and don't even had to learn their engine, those 2 aspects alone i'm sure spare them a lot of time. Everything you listed are still additions, and are nothing close, time wise, as making an engine from scratch or learn a bought one, i'm not a pro here, but i could probably bet on this.
I didn't know you were only speaking about the engine, I thought you were talking about how a lot of the content had ported over.
That being said, I remembered something which I don't even know is the whole thing that I was thinking of. In the GW2 prototype section of this video, they talk about implementing events in GW1 and playing with that for 6 months while they waited for the GW2 engine to be built.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
First I'd like to say thanks to everyone for keeping this topic civil and discussing these things with eloquence rather than insults.
@ Fiontar: I hope you're right I do think the PVE side of the game sounds and looks very promising at this stage. If I didn't have some faith in Anet these would be more than concerns for me, I'd probably be making predictions. I am giving them the benefit of doubt at this point, I don't think they deserve anything but that. They are afterall (obviously) talented and creative people.
@ Apraxis, you hit the nail on the head in reference to my community concerns. The genre has been in a downhill slope for a long time now, especially when it comes to catering to positive communities. I'm just hoping the inclusion of another more competitive audience doesn't degrade the genre even further down that road. The most important thing to an MMO's longevity is community, without it there's little incentive to play an MMO for a person like myself. As far as I know I'll be playing GW2 alone, as in my guild is dead set on TOR, as is most of the former MMO community I belong to. I just hope there's an equally accepting community to be found in GW2.
@Steejanz: You're right I won't deny TOR could fall to these same pifalls.
To all, I don't blame anyone who doesn't quite agree with my first two concerns. I'm glad to see there are still companies out there who have their fans respect and trust, not to mention support. Nothing keeps a company on the right track more than that, as long as they keep to their core vision, I think the game will be fine.
In general PvP communities tend to be a bit of a cesspit. This maxim is older than MMOs. It was true in the days of MUDs as well.
You seem to be asserting there has been some decline as a "genre". There has not. Not precisely. But what has happened in many games is the naturally trashy socialization of a PvP crowd becomes completely out of control due to anonymity and lack of consequences.
Teenagers spam chat and try to get a rise out of anyone because many teenagers are attention junkies. That sort of thing. In UO that sort of thing was not really possible as channels were different and even if it did happen someone could kill you and tak all your stuff for being annoying. People still griefed each other in UO though, they still did all sorts of nasty and juvenile things.
The predilections are still there. And I can tell you write now as a former captain of a high school wrestling. This is the sort of stuff teenage and young 20-something males do all the time in a sports environment. Being plain obnoxious, intimidating people for fun, bullying, verbal abuse. Its been going on since time immemorial, and is especially emphasized in any competitive environment computer or not.
Will there be people who act like dicks on a GW2 server. Yes. Will there be more than some PvE only server of some other game. Almost certainly.
But I don't think this has anything to do with GW2 in and of itself. I mean you can go to tons of internet forums and see exactly the same behavior.
It has something to do with controls and anonymity. But there is more to it than that. Even if GW2 had UO style consequences of full loot etc. We know you still get dicks and griefers. And the attitudes that drive this sort of stuff is just getting more prevalent and accetable across the entire internet. Shadowbane may have had a tighter community than some games but it also had a metric ton of assholes.
The biggest deterrant to being a dick is being identified socially as a dick. Otherwise a large segment of people find it actually kind of fun being a dick, especially when the people they are a dick to are out of their social melieu. No consequences, no guilt. Its all pretend and anonymous.
In some games, usually sandbox games, you reputation meant more and many people felt like there was something more like real social consequences for acting like a dick. But as I alreayd said there was still plenty of griefing in those sandbox games because for many people it wasn't close enoug and besides you often aren't under much threat of social ostrasization.
In this day and age if the game has PvP there will be a number of asshats. That is just the way it is. Its not avoidable. No amount of game features will change that statement as it currently stands.
I personally do think MMO communities have declined over the last ten years. The audience has broadened and the games themselves have not only made soloing easier, (which I'm fine with), but have made randomly grouping with people and helping others a detriment. Plus the ability to grief has encouraged some players to be pretty nasty to other players.
GW2 is designed so there are zero penalties for randomly helping and cooperating with other players. Events scale up based on the number of players participating and high level toons scale down in level to the content they are tackling. There's no kill stealing and no world PvP vs. other players on your server. ANet is doing everything they can to encourage a friendly, cooperative game environment.
As I've noted before, playing competitive PVP requires creating a character exclusively for that environment. Most people who buy GW2 to play CPVP almost exclusively may never play the PvE side of the game. Also, we can't over generalize the community of people who are more drawn to e-sports. Many may have no interest in in the PVE game, but those who will aren't going to be too much different as a group than the general MMO audience.
So, I think the game design here will encourage a better community and the segregation of CPVP from PVE will prevent E-sport players from doing much to alter the PVE community. Even if some migrate over to play WvWvW, the lack of combat and griefing opportunities vs. members of your world greatly dulls any negative impact that the minority that might otherwise cause trouble can have on the community.
Lack of official forums is a plus as well, since it diffuses that entire dynamic of self perpetuating negativity.
Originally posted by wojtekpl As for the OP. Difference is WAR devs failed and they only "promised" but never delivered. Hell they never listened to their beta testers. ANet on the other hand only "reveals" what is already done and in the game. So you don't have any promises at all you just get what is already there.
Also GW2 looks in Alpha better than any other game in history of MMOs.
Yeah, the evil WAR devs... Currently Mythic = 2 MMOs, Arenanet = 0 I mean hype is okay, but perhaps we should wait until release, before we build a shrine for a dev team. It is quite funny actually: the most hyped developer teams here(Arenanet,Bioware) released not a single MMO yet.
Unlike Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2 is not going to have a PVP Only character creation option. If you want to only take your character to PVP you can do that. Or if you never want to PVP (I hate PVP) you can do that too.
Comments
Yeah. I think they are not only more open about sharing insight on the process, but they reject the developer tunnelvision and dare I say, arrogance, that often prevents developers from tinkering with things to make them better. If ANet thinks something could use some tweaking, they do it, rather that sticking by some calculations that tell them why the current properties are ideal, in spite of what game play experience tells them.
I now understand where the OP was coming from. At some point game developers need to stop adding features and tweaking things and just work on ensuring that what is in the game is polished and bug free. Too broad a scope can lead to a lack of focus that results in a game being less than the sum of all parts, rather than more than the sum of all parts.
I do believe that ANet worked the flexibility to tweak things into the devlopment schedule. I also have a very strong gut feeling that ANet has put a lot of stress on efficient tools for content creation and game system tweaking. There is a big difference in development cost in time and dollars between a game where every little tweak requires recoding and one where a lot of tweaks can just be done by changing values in a data base and content files via a powerful GUI front end.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
First of all to your community issue. Well... thats is true up to a point. As it was with WoW they attracted a lot of Blizzard Fans, RTS players, Diable players and the like to the mmorpg community and a more general audience. The results of it can be seen in WoW.
This may have some effects in GW2 and if successful as WoW, in the design and development for further MMOs, as every successful MMO in the past. As EQ changed the UO dominated more virual world MMO world into a level/item hunting, raiding dominated MMO world.
I personally didnt like the changes come into MMO development from EQ, and even more the changes from WoW(even more item centric and raid focused). But noone can denied it. Maybe GW2 will intruduce again some, but maybe even for the better.
Especially when we talk about community. Lets look at it. Community was a really strong point in UO and in DAoC, too. Everything in UO influenced the community, everything played against or together, a game server was one world. In DAoC the RvR really melted the community together. On the other side, in EQ the community was more fragmented into Lvl-zones or raiding parties, and even more in WoW.
GW2 will bring back WvWvW which may help community building a lot, and they try to avoid leveling gaps with the sidekick systems, which may both be good for a healthy community. The DE may also bring the community together.
On the the other hand the more or less separated e-sport part of the game. Well, i can just compare that with FPS or RTS games, where the e-sport part was always seperated. I guess this will be a part of it own, and if there is a influence it will be more of a spectator experience. You watch them fighting. You see how cool that is, and maybe try something of that on your own. But overall it isnt imporant nor part of the real gaming community at all. It is just a side effect.
But finally we can just wait and see. Only the time will tell, if the tools in GW2 will be able to create a better or worse community than some games in the past. And how the different player tpyes from FPS, to RTS, to modern MMO, to oldschool MMORPG players will work together and fit together. (different mindsets are different mindsets,, and they will not be erased that fast).
About the scope and iteration in the development cycle of GW2.
As fas as we have seen the development process of GW2 i am really not concerned there. Because they really picked up early on what they wanted to implement and how the want to realise that. And as we see now, everything looks, like it will fit together. The iteration process overall is just for polishing and balancing things, you cant reinvent the wheel there, or bring completely new features in at that point. But after all we have seen up today, they are not doing it. The features they have anounced are more or less as old as the first concept of GW2 over 5 years ago. They just change things a lil bit, to get a better overall game feeling, or a better balance as it should be in the iteration process. And as fas as i can see everything looks fine and incredible polished. It may be one of the polished games since years, more or less WoW niveau.
I think you might be assuming to much about mechanics. I agree with you that mechanics can kill a game but they have to be bad mechanics. They would have to be mechanics that changed the way you moved, or played the game in the basic sense. Improvements on tried and true mechanics will be accepted universally. GW2 mechanics are not so radically different that you wouldn't understand them. They didn't change them that much, the just improved them. I am sure everyone can accept and welcome the ability to dodge the arrow being fired their direction or not having to worry about others working on the same quest. These two changes in game mechanics improve the game play. They don't force me to radially change how I play. I think your concerns would make more since if there was something to point to in the all the information and/or the numerous videos released that would support the cause for concern.
I disagree about your assesment of TOR. Bioware is combining tried and true mechanics from an MMO with the strong story driven game play of single player RPG's. This is just as risky. One of the biggest complaints from WOW players about WOW is that the game has gone to single player. I am not saying it will cause TOR to be a single player game, I am just saying the risk is the same as what GW2 is trying to do. However, IMO, GW2 and TOR have an advantage over previously released MMO's. Because of what they are doing both games will appeal to a wider audience. They will not have to rely solely on current MMO subs for numbers.
First off Anet was founded and is managed by professional coders/developers. Jeff Strain is a heavy weight coder not some dude is a suit. Good developers understand scope and interative refinement. Anet hs already shown they can not only manage software projects well but that they do it better than 90% of the MMO industry. They do better desgin and have made a novel business model succeed on time and on budget multiple times. Second guessing them is pointless, maybe they screw up maybe they don't but thereis no way you can pick that up from soundbites that arepurposely dumbed down for reporters who don't understand jack.
All software development works in this way. Scope and feature creep are something all developers are familar with. Sometimes, especially in the MMO industry, you get pie in the sky designers who throw everything and the kitchen sink inand do not view it as software project. Beleive me when I tell you Anet doesn't work this way. You can tell it from their basic design principles.
Secondly I think you are missing a core philosophy of theirs in regards to their games. They focus on competition and e-sports for philisophical reasons. Mainly they operate under the basic assumption that if their unerlying system and gameplay mechanics cannot be competition ready, then they did not design and implement them well enough. Think about it for a second , why does GW1 has a from the beginning designed idea of each skill has a counter? This was one of their design choices to attempt to meet their quality goals. And competition itself is one of the method.s of testing that they have met their Quality Assurance standards. One of the hardest things about this sort of stuff is actuallly creating a paradigm that can actualy tell you something useful and proves something "works". What is "works"? And that is something competition naturally does, afterall the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Anet has always tried to make GW1 and GW2 more than just tab target and more towards the action end of things, but the esports thing is not about trying to be like all the FPSs out there. Its to craft something that is high enough quality that it can withstand the extremely rigorous examination that competition will bring.
Think about it for a second, all those FPSs get by on the strength of something that was made years ago and essentially just mimics the real world. Namely the FPS interface which is naturally going to work fairly well as long as you capture mechanics we have known since the before electricity was prevalent. But GW1/GW2 must have an entire skill based system that can be that high quality without the benefit of being able to mimic the real world. If they can do that then they have made something very impressive. Something most MMOs fail pretty miserably at. Its not about getting the FPS kiddie crowd its pure ambition and shooting for quality and using the already in place methods humans have used for millenia to prove it.
I think there is a big difference between most sequel and GW2. In most sequels like EQ2; lineage2 and many other is that they were rebuild from scratch, i think most even had an other engine. I think its not the case with GW2, most of GW2 was taken from GW, and the rest are only added feature and tweaks, so they have a lot more time for those things most team would never get, simply because working on the core of a game take most of your effort, and this even if you buy a game engine.
Now about competitive pvp, and cooperation, i really don't get what is the problem. Both are great aspect, i don't even understand how you can critisize such approch. Competitive pvp is a must if you take pvp seriously, and cooperation is way better than the "force grouping" concept themepark builds imposed on the genre. And this i think responded to your last paragraph about toxicity in the game community. For me it seam obvious cooperative gameplay is far less "toxic" than force grouping. Also those concept existed before themepark builds in UO and Muds, so if anything they are more about mmo than "force grouping" for sure. Cooperation is still one of the biggest success for non themepark games, look at the way comunities are builds in games like Eve and you can understand what cooperation mean to mmo communities. Even if GW2 concept is slightly different, and seam to aim a lot more for causual gamers, which is even better for me.
First I'd like to say thanks to everyone for keeping this topic civil and discussing these things with eloquence rather than insults.
@ Fiontar: I hope you're right I do think the PVE side of the game sounds and looks very promising at this stage. If I didn't have some faith in Anet these would be more than concerns for me, I'd probably be making predictions. I am giving them the benefit of doubt at this point, I don't think they deserve anything but that. They are afterall (obviously) talented and creative people.
@ Apraxis, you hit the nail on the head in reference to my community concerns. The genre has been in a downhill slope for a long time now, especially when it comes to catering to positive communities. I'm just hoping the inclusion of another more competitive audience doesn't degrade the genre even further down that road. The most important thing to an MMO's longevity is community, without it there's little incentive to play an MMO for a person like myself. As far as I know I'll be playing GW2 alone, as in my guild is dead set on TOR, as is most of the former MMO community I belong to. I just hope there's an equally accepting community to be found in GW2.
@Steejanz: You're right I won't deny TOR could fall to these same pifalls.
To all, I don't blame anyone who doesn't quite agree with my first two concerns. I'm glad to see there are still companies out there who have their fans respect and trust, not to mention support. Nothing keeps a company on the right track more than that, as long as they keep to their core vision, I think the game will be fine.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
I'm sorry but I don't agree with this assessment at all.
According to the wiki...
Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.[4] It uses Havok to provide destructible environment and ragdoll animation of creatures[5] and Umbra's occlusion culling technology.[6]
Even beyond the engine though, the games are almost completely different outside of the lore. I can't think of really anything directly taken from GW1 and put in GW2. The closest I can come up with is that ghostly bosses of dead NPCs from GW1 will use skills no longer in GW2.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
GW2 have the same dev team mostly and don't even had to learn their engine, those 2 aspects alone i'm sure spare them a lot of time. Everything you listed are still additions, and are nothing close, time wise, as making an engine from scratch or learn a bought one, i'm not a pro here, but i could probably bet on this.
I didn't know you were only speaking about the engine, I thought you were talking about how a lot of the content had ported over.
That being said, I remembered something which I don't even know is the whole thing that I was thinking of. In the GW2 prototype section of this video, they talk about implementing events in GW1 and playing with that for 6 months while they waited for the GW2 engine to be built.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
In general PvP communities tend to be a bit of a cesspit. This maxim is older than MMOs. It was true in the days of MUDs as well.
You seem to be asserting there has been some decline as a "genre". There has not. Not precisely. But what has happened in many games is the naturally trashy socialization of a PvP crowd becomes completely out of control due to anonymity and lack of consequences.
Teenagers spam chat and try to get a rise out of anyone because many teenagers are attention junkies. That sort of thing. In UO that sort of thing was not really possible as channels were different and even if it did happen someone could kill you and tak all your stuff for being annoying. People still griefed each other in UO though, they still did all sorts of nasty and juvenile things.
The predilections are still there. And I can tell you write now as a former captain of a high school wrestling. This is the sort of stuff teenage and young 20-something males do all the time in a sports environment. Being plain obnoxious, intimidating people for fun, bullying, verbal abuse. Its been going on since time immemorial, and is especially emphasized in any competitive environment computer or not.
Will there be people who act like dicks on a GW2 server. Yes. Will there be more than some PvE only server of some other game. Almost certainly.
But I don't think this has anything to do with GW2 in and of itself. I mean you can go to tons of internet forums and see exactly the same behavior.
It has something to do with controls and anonymity. But there is more to it than that. Even if GW2 had UO style consequences of full loot etc. We know you still get dicks and griefers. And the attitudes that drive this sort of stuff is just getting more prevalent and accetable across the entire internet. Shadowbane may have had a tighter community than some games but it also had a metric ton of assholes.
The biggest deterrant to being a dick is being identified socially as a dick. Otherwise a large segment of people find it actually kind of fun being a dick, especially when the people they are a dick to are out of their social melieu. No consequences, no guilt. Its all pretend and anonymous.
In some games, usually sandbox games, you reputation meant more and many people felt like there was something more like real social consequences for acting like a dick. But as I alreayd said there was still plenty of griefing in those sandbox games because for many people it wasn't close enoug and besides you often aren't under much threat of social ostrasization.
In this day and age if the game has PvP there will be a number of asshats. That is just the way it is. Its not avoidable. No amount of game features will change that statement as it currently stands.
I personally do think MMO communities have declined over the last ten years. The audience has broadened and the games themselves have not only made soloing easier, (which I'm fine with), but have made randomly grouping with people and helping others a detriment. Plus the ability to grief has encouraged some players to be pretty nasty to other players.
GW2 is designed so there are zero penalties for randomly helping and cooperating with other players. Events scale up based on the number of players participating and high level toons scale down in level to the content they are tackling. There's no kill stealing and no world PvP vs. other players on your server. ANet is doing everything they can to encourage a friendly, cooperative game environment.
As I've noted before, playing competitive PVP requires creating a character exclusively for that environment. Most people who buy GW2 to play CPVP almost exclusively may never play the PvE side of the game. Also, we can't over generalize the community of people who are more drawn to e-sports. Many may have no interest in in the PVE game, but those who will aren't going to be too much different as a group than the general MMO audience.
So, I think the game design here will encourage a better community and the segregation of CPVP from PVE will prevent E-sport players from doing much to alter the PVE community. Even if some migrate over to play WvWvW, the lack of combat and griefing opportunities vs. members of your world greatly dulls any negative impact that the minority that might otherwise cause trouble can have on the community.
Lack of official forums is a plus as well, since it diffuses that entire dynamic of self perpetuating negativity.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Currently Mythic = 2 MMOs, Arenanet = 0
I mean hype is okay, but perhaps we should wait until release, before we build a shrine for a dev team. It is quite funny actually: the most hyped developer teams here(Arenanet,Bioware) released not a single MMO yet.
Unlike Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2 is not going to have a PVP Only character creation option. If you want to only take your character to PVP you can do that. Or if you never want to PVP (I hate PVP) you can do that too.