Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
ArenaNet Provides Update on Guild Wars 2 WvW Performance Testing
System
Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
ArenaNet Provides Update on Guild Wars 2 WvW Performance Testing
ArenaNet earlier provided an update on Guild Wars 2 WvW performance and map cap testing following an initial test last Friday.
Comments
A Game engine is very hard to update. Especially one that is so old, like the GW2 engine.
GW2 actually is better than ESO, if you have ever played the WvW version there. It makes GW2's lag look great.
Also, GW2, is one of the few games that actually does Collision detection, which means is you shoot a projectile, it only shows damage if it hits it's target. Other games just assume, especially tab-targeting games.
They are also using Amazon game servers now, so they might have to optimize for those servers compared to what they used before (NCSoft servers).
Isn't the GW2 engine the GW1 engine?
I'd have loved for it to be the case, since I think GW1 is a much more unique game, but they clearly didn't want to redevelop it for an upgrade.
I think there are also certain things they wanted to get away from. For example, the standalone campaign model meant that they had to make clone skills to guarantee minimum viable builds for each expansion. Why they didn't just make a large set of core skills is beyond me. They also set a precedent that each campaign would have two new classes, while also supporting the old ones with new content. And while I don't think it actually matters, it has been brought up that new classes/skills could overpower old content.
They also clearly bought into the popular mindset that open world = good, instances = bad. It's a stupid mindset, because the fully instanced approach offers unique advantages that GW1 really took advantage of (and most modern instanced games do not). Regardless, they clearly wanted a MMO, and thus abandoned the incredible CRPG they already had.
Shit, more modern games like Destiny, Warframe, and Marvel Heroes have shown that you can have your cake and eat it too. You can put large, persistent MMO-lite patrol instances with dynamic events inside of a fully instanced game. They're a lot of fun, and if the GW1 engine were capable of it, I'd love to see it.
But then again, I have already come to terms that Anet had no concept of long term development, hence their willingness to just toss out whatever, because no doubt their abandoned "Side" project was GW3 and they already had plans to maintenance mode GW2 by now, so they didn't care if people left or felt alienated by their choice in GW2, with the knowing that they would get most of them and a whole lot more back, with a GW3 launch.
They very well might have been correct, but it seems that plan kinda died in the water, and now they are stuck with the bed they made, no wonder so many jumped ship.
I would disagree with that. What makes GW2 lag worse is the culling, where enemy does not even render on your screen. Not sure if that is still a thing but it was last time I was in that mess. And ESO has the same collision detection. GW2 WvW has been egregiously neglected since release, that's one difference. It is why I quit that game long ago. For all its faults I would take Cyrodiil over WvW any day.
Of course, the reality that this cadence was unfeasible should be obvious. Putting out content at that speed results in wildly inconsistent quality. Some of Season 1 was great. Some of it was bugged to Hell. Some of it offered a sizeable and unique experience. Some of it wasn't even worth the 2 week wait. Damn near all of it was temporary.
I shouldn't have to explain that the expansions were the result of that. They came about as a desire for permanent content and features that the biweekly cadence (that eventually became a 'when it's ready' deal in Season 2) weren't delivering.
Maybe that was the wrong decision. Maybe players were confused and didn't truly want endgame so much as more permanent new content in the moment. I don't know and I don't claim to know. I do know that what I personally wanted was more skills and build diversity to play with, and if the expansions had only delivered that through advanced classes (which they also really needed to add a f2p Core Tyria advanced class for the sake of fairness), with normal content, I would have been completely satisfied. That's the largest part of what I look forward to anyway.
I think that nowadays, they at least have a direction. The 3-4 month content updates are really excellent and reliable. Having a new map and story on such a predictable basis is amazing.
With the way people talk, I don't think there will be a GW3. Why should they? People will say, 'It's not GW1' and others 'It's not GW2'.
I think they did but being owned by NCSoft, who really only has games in Asia now, which is a totally different market, makes it hard for A.Net to really do anything (my opinion).
No long term planning? The game is 8 yrs old. Yeah - they had no long term plan.
Some people say there isn't enough to do. I laugh and say that there's so much to do that I overwhelm myself with goals. That actually is amazing.
It also depends on your distance you have set and the number of players set in your video presets in the game. If you have it very set for very short distance, than it is your rendering that is the issue not culling. Two very different things.
Millions upon millions of people survive for 60+ years without any real plan of what to do with their life, they just seek to survive, and react as situations come up. The same could be said for Anet, they might have had a plan at the start, but that was long dead by the end of season 1, where they just kept changing things, trying new things, tossing out anything they thought might work and getting rid of things that were not working well enough for them.
Also keep in mind, when NCSoft basically shut down their side project, that they had half their 300+ team working on, that was so important to them and they were so invested into that project, they openly let HoT fumble around and launch with many unfinished features... after NCSoft shut that down.. MO quit. If there was a sign that the plan was to drop GW2 and launch that "side" project as their new flagship.. that would be it.
So yah.. they may have had a plan, and It is a very safe bet that plan was to drop GW2, and launch GW3, just like what they did to GW1.
Of course, with the direction of the industry something tells me that GW3 would be "everything you love about GW2 on your phone."
I think that is the game that was being developed before the big cull that happened in the recent past. They were working on a mobile game, but was canned by NCSoft.
But it isn't enough to bring back the population needed to make certain content/modes lively again. My favorite past-times (aside from PvE) were Alliance Battles and Fort Aspenwood. These need more players if I'm ever to really enjoy them again. And GW2's WvW will never be a viable substitute for AB's for me. Namely because ABs were actually fun.
making the game worse over the years also don't help
wow did? still looks like crap to me
But the difference is that WoW is the largest MMO in the industry with an active subscription fee and expansions... that still has the gall to have a cash shop. I would be frankly appalled if they didn't do things like this with the money that they fleece from their players.
Well, when you have as many people as WOW, that can happen, A.Net is small maybe 200-250 employees. Blizzard North is 4700.