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A bit 2 optimistic?
Niggle
Member Posts: 2
No Patches, Play with a modem, No monthly fee, stunning graphics.... sounds good, but can it be done?. The problems with patches is that when u fix one problem u maybe create another one. And dial up modem..... who even uses a modem nowadays? And they r not going to have a monthly fee.....wooohooo. how mane people r they hireing to maintain the servers and updating the game...1? Or is the game gonna cost like 300-400$. They aren't a big company with a lot of funds i presume. Are they going to survive on donations?.
Other than this the actual game seem pretty good.
"I can't smoke a plant that was made by God, but i can shoot my wife if i'm a football player.... and they tell me that life is fair?
Comments
No, the game won't be $300!
And we won't have advertising, and we won't be asking for donations, either. We'll release expansion packs that you may choose to buy to expand the Guild Wars experience, but you can continue playing without the XP if you desire.
You can count on good support for the game, because after all, your good experience is what will make you want to continue playing and will make you value the purchase of the expansion packs. So not only are we committed to providing support, we actually have a very big reason to do so!
Gaile Gray
Community Relations Manager
ArenaNet
www.guildwars.com & www.arena.net
Gaile Gray
Community Relations Manager
ArenaNet
www.guildwars.com & www.arena.net
Thanks for THE answer, but u didn't answer all my questions.
Wouldn't it be easier to patch the game in big patches, like blizzard does. It only takes like 2 seconds.
And can u really play with a modem? I rememberd when i had a modem, it only does 5-7ks a second, or am i wrong? And besides doesn't everyone have broadband nowadays?
"I can't smoke a plant that was made by God, but i can shoot my wife if i'm a football player.... and they tell me that life is fair?"
alot of people dont like downloading patches though so i think its better if they just stream it in while we play and i remember that in diablo it took a while with 56k modem to downloa a patch and sometimes i just wanted to get in the game fast
The Obsidian Kings
I just read this stat somewhere like 3 days ago. 1 in 5 Internet users in the US has broadband. That means 80% of the users are still using a modem...
Broadband / Cable can be expensive for some. Anywhere from $23-$55 a month. The typical gamer is from 14-24 years of age. Thats a lot of money per month just for the connection. Then there's the multiple accounts you own. It all ads up. When the majority of games can still function with just the use of a dial up connection, it stands to reason you should be saving that exta $10-$15 per month for another buff bot account.
- Malkavian
"When you find yourself falling into madness... Dive." - Malkavian Proverb
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
Forum Stalker
[email protected]
"When you find yourself sinking into Madness, dive"
People are optomistic because they have a reason to be. If not, then they will revel in ambiguity, but Guild Wars will be different. Unlike WoW, where the features section is filled with buzz words, the story on Guild Wars actually has meat such as information on it's basic gameplay. Way too many times have I seen: "Unlike other MMORPGS the <insert title here> word is an immersive, dynamic, new experience..."
Trully, we consumers will not know anything until retaill; until then it shall be TETRIS for OBI!
This is very true in a traditional development shop. I suspect most good game development shops are using forms of Unit Testing to help circumvent this, which does surprisingly well at avoiding the "waterbed bubble" effect of patching that some software has.
Believe me, the streaming system is far better than what Blizzard uses. And much easier (for the end user, anyway).
I am an alpha tester. I live in Australia, and for the first few months of my time testing I was limited to using a 33.6k connection (around 3kb/sec). Yes, you CAN play via modem. In fact, two people (my brother is in alpha as well) can play over a shared 33.6k connection with ease.
Let me tell a little story... In the year 2001 I was very happy using 512k ADSL in my home. In 2002 I moved house. I moved maybe 10 kilometres as the crow flies. In the new house (the entire sub-city I moved to, in fact) the only available form of broadband was hellaciously expensive satellite. Even worse, due to the phone line infrastructure dialup modem speed was limited to around 28.8-33.6k speeds.
In December of 2003 things finally changed. The phone company finally bowed to pressure and installed new ADSL technology. I am now once again happy as a pig in mud on a 512k ADSL connection.
The point I am trying to make, however, is that for 2 years I had effectively no choice. I was limited to 33.6k at best. There are around 1 million+ Australians who still do not have access to credible broadband options. The biggest reason is remoteness, however I know a lot of gamers in the US who do not have broadband. In many cases they do not have access (phone lines are too poor to carry DSL, and no cable access).
Also, around here, dialup service is usually in the $10/mo range (if not free), whereas broadband is more like $45-50/mo at a minimum. (though DSL can be $30 for first 6 months then jack up the price)
That's a huge price difference, especially for people on a slim budget. I don't know anyone on satalite, but I do know its horrendously expensive. Anyway, "everybody" most certainly is not already on broadband, and probably won't be for quite a while still.
The Obsidian Kings
The streaming technology that they use is simply amazing. When I first logged in a bit over 6 weeks ago, I was grinning my head off when I watched the game patch and instal content automatically, with no fuss on my end. With this ability, they can fix bugs, loopholes etc within hours of them being discovered - not to mention change the game world at whim.
Take April Fool's day for example. The entire main town was invaded by garden gnomes. I'm not talking about a couple of dosen, but hundreds of the things were all around town.
When you think about game patches, sometimes those very game patches sit around for months on end before they are finnaly released, unchanged from when they were first left there. Instead of waiting for one big patch to fix multiple bugs etc (meanwhile you get players exploiting the bugs to unfair advantages), with this method you do not wait at all. Instead they are fixed as they are discovered.
See for yourself once E3 comes around and the public can play the alpha demo.