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Guild Wars 2: A Game for the New Decade?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the latest in a series of articles about the juggernaut that has become Guild Wars 2, MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller takes a look at the potential for Guild Wars 2 to become THE game for the decade spanning 2010-2020. The potential, Garrett says, is there. See if you agree with his assessment of Guild Wars 2 and then join in on the discussion on our forums.
In the years of 2000 and 2010, MMOs have come a long way. Yet over the better part of that decade we have seen World of Warcraft dominate the industry and continue to grow. Though WoW has changed throughout the six years of its reign as top MMO on the market, the game play has essentially remained the same. Guild Wars 2 has come forward this season with some serious story and world improvements on the basic MMO concept. The way players impact the world is being taken very seriously by the team and looks to launch a new way of thinking in gaming for the next decade. Will we see Guild Wars 2 become the dominant game of the years 2010 to 2020?
Read more Guild Wars 2: A Game for the New Decade?
Comments
I need this game...............
nah, theres still a 1% chance that u wont like this game
Just my opinion but the second part of games and movies mostly suck, why didn't they just improve on Guild Wars and make updates.
This game is going to be awesome
i been telling people for 2 years, an eric flannum game = an awesome game.
finally people are starting to get it.
Games i'm playing right now...
"In short, I thought NGE was a very bad idea" - Raph Koster talking about NGE on his blog at raphkoster.com
Omg are you serous dude? No, guild wars will not be the top MMO. I may be the Best, but it wont be the top.
WoW is the top because it dumped millions of dollars into advertising. Its the only MMO to advertise on television in North America. Its one of the most generic MMOs ever. Look at Mafia Wars and Farmville. Browser games that came before them were much better. It has nothing to do with how good a game is. You have to be a complete idiot to think that better quality wins in this industry when you look at the games that come out on top and compare them to the games they dominate.
WoW appeals to people that aren't gamers. Its dumbed down so that anyone can get into it, just like farmville or mafia wars. There are far more "regular" people out there than there are "gamers". Guild Wars appeals to "gamers" not regular people, or rather, "casual" people.
How is this not common knowledge. Come on people.
well, I'm definately going to buy the game. B2P means I don't have to worry about subbing everymonth, so it is a good deal for me. Not sure if it will be as huge a success as you are making it out to be, but all we have is time. Game looks pretty good from where I am standing.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
Yes among so many crappy mmos..GW2 will be the king for sure..unless what we see is not what we get.
guild wars is Easy to get into, like wow, hence its 6 million sold copies..
Guild wars 2 has alot of potentual, the Art work is just plain beautiful..
I think it will still be second to WOW in terms of how many people are playing the game ................but it will be very very successful in its own way and maybe........MAYBE one day match the total playerbase that WOW has.
I played WOW for two years. Quit about 5 months ago. Got tired of the rinse and repeat raiding just for a chance to get good gear week in and week out. Will not be going back for the expansion on Dec 7. Just waiting for GW2 now.
Even shit sometimes has corn in it. That's content.
Sometimes poo is soft and other times it's rock hard, that's variety.
Actually the only thing FFXIV even has in common with crap is that it stinks.
but the music's good For 5 minutes - "theartist"
this game will be invaved by hardcore lifeless Word of Warcraft players...
"While you have your everyday life to deal with, you also have your Guild Wars life and cannot wait to see what has changed from the night before. This is something that World of Warcraft has not been able to fully accomplish. As many times as the Lich King is killed, he will still be there next week for another visit. Will this fully formed world truly give players an even greater canvas on which to paint their lives?"
"Besttheiswow writes:
Yes among so many crappy mmos..GW2 will be the king for sure..unless what we see is not what we get."
I think GW2 is sounding like a great game. The systems that have been described, the stories, the artwork (heck, one of my goals for the next computer I buy is running GW2 at max settings, just to see how good it can look). I hope it can be *my* game of the decade even if it does not set the standard.
That said, I think people are reading more into some of what has been given to us than is there. Yes, the events will change the world for everyone, but for varying lengths of time. There is still a cyclical nature to them, so it isn't like we are being told that our actions in a dynamic event chain will change the world for everyone forever.
Is the event chain idea better than what we have in a standard MMO today? Sure. I love that when we kill the centaur boss to save a village, the village is actually saved for a while. I can walk away feeling like we accomplished something rather than watching the boss respawn 10 seconds later for the next group on the quest. The village will probably need saving again at some point in the future, though. It may be hours or it may be days, but the event will cycle around.
I hope there will be special events and updates over the life of the game where we *can* change some things, but as one of the developers said, there just would not be enough code or time to create a truly living world where all the events don't repeat.
So my fear is not that GW2 won't be a good game. It is that some people won't see the good because they are mourning the loss of something that never existed in the first place. I am really really looking forward to playing the game, but I am also trying to keep my expectations grounded in reality.
ye gods, I'm never using the quick "post your comment" window again. So much for line spacing. Sorry about the wall above.
Edit: fixed.
I've got to agree with jinx . Blizzard have the fan base , finances & marketing muscle to stay on the top of the western mmo list for another decade , whether it be with WoW or another mmo . But if Anet hold true to their Manifesto & deliver on GW2's potential then they just might have the most influential mmo of the new decade . It will definitely be different from the stock standard cookiecutter tank-n-spank fantasy mmo's of the last ten years .
Basically. WoW doesn't do well because the gameplay is good, its because it appeals to the lowest common denominator(s). Its simple to get into gameplay wise, it can be played on a shit rig, gameplay never gets complicated, art is simple, storyline is pedestrian. Every aspect has been designed to appeal to the widest audience possible, thus increasing it's chances for having the most players significantly.
Because of this no game I would personally call ground breaking, revolutionary or high quality will 'beat' WoW because they would have to lower themselves to this level.
Wouldn't be surprised if WoW end's up being able to launch from Facebook in your browser to a streaming client in the future.
I am stoked for GW2 though. Seems liek the parts I didn't like about the original GW are being upgraded significantly.
I think GW2 will be a great mmo to play through just to see the end of the story you semi-create/follow, without it being a grind /money sink to do that.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Help me here. I could have swore that i read a ANET dev explain that even though dynamic events will happen all over, the outcome of those events will eventually reset and not stay permanent.
I know that this system is being touted as revolutionary and all, but if say, a village gets attacked and is lost. For the dynamic system to really work, shouldn't it stay lost and not revert back to a happy go lucky village full of town folk.
I mean, to constantly have to go and defend and retake the same content over and over, seems like it could become dull and repetative.
Just wondering if i have it wrong or is this how it will be.
No you had it right. But from the way I am understanding it is some of the events will have chain events. So if, using your example, a village gets sacked and isn't rescued, then the next time you log in not only will the village not be there, but something nasty could have moved in and made it home. Then youd have to clear the village of baddies. On the example of a chained event, I think it would be kinda silly to have those just reset back to the beginning because of a cycle. As for the dull and repetative, I am sure by the time this content starts to get there you will have moved onto another area of exploration, and left the village to be saved, or not saved, to someone else.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
@musicmann
If a village is attacked by lets say centaurs and you fail to defend it the village will be partly destroyed and taken over by the attackers until you or someone else comes along and frees it from its invaders.
So in certain situations some consequences have a more permanent result. The devs said that their events have a more persistent rather then a permanent effect.
WoW is beer. It's bland, flat, tastes like piss, but it does it's job. It gets you drunk. WoW entertains. It's mindless, easy to play, and just interesting enough not to ever get truly boring, but it isn't great. It's just good enough to not be blah.
I don't like beer. I prefer something harder. I drink beer because my friends drink beer and I don't want to be too out of place. I play WoW for much the same reason. If, however, I could get them to stop drinking beer and move up to something more interesting, like bourbon or congac, then perhapsthe same could be done for my gaming and we could finally quit drinking beer altogether. Until then, I will have to drink beer, but I will never enjoy the taste.
Furthermore, each cycle in the event chain can have more than one outcome, branching to a different event in the chain. Sounds like an amazing amount of variety for an MMO to me.
Tanek and Musicman are right, theres a danger in hyping the dynamic events without explaining how they will work.
Theres a huge risk for dissapointment otherwise.
If you kill the boss near a city he might be there the next day again when you pass by. And the next day.
The keyword to A-nets dynamic events is "might"
You might as well pass by to see the entire city burnt down with creatures youve never seen before running through the ruins.
If a bunch of players decide to spend a whole evening to "push the scale" to the other side you might pass by next day to see a prospering city with merchants offering weapons youve never seen before.
Thats what i like with these dynamic events, i might pass by some village ive passed many times before and see something ive never seen before, a part of the event ive managed to miss every other time ive been there.
or... the boss is back,...again
I was originally going to disagree with you and dismiss your post because of the first sentence... "Omg are you serous dude?" However, you truly do have a valid point that I completely agree with. The games with the biggest numbers and the most income and the largest share of the industry are NOT the best games, but the most accessible and the most advertised. Heck, I think WoW has turned into a terrible game and there is nothing that will get me to come back to playing it, expansion, flipped over world or not. And I will not even touch Farmville or Mafia Wars either, but all three games numbers are huge and unstoppable. I could've bought a hot dog at 7-11 and received points I could use in Mafia Wars. Or a drink and get a Farmville tractor. You go to the movies, you see a WoW trailer. (Hey Turbine! I want to buy a sub at Wawa and get free TP! Make that happen!) The biggest and best are the ones with the most advertising revenue and the games that can go on the most systems. Quality of the game has nothing to do with how big it will be.
I will definitely be buying GW2 as soon as it drops and forsake everything else to play it, (Other games, sleeping, eating, etc.) because I'm a fan of innovated systems and quality. I stopped being a sheep ages ago and am enjoying the new rebirth of MMO's. Long may they thrive.
After seeing what else is coming down the line this game has great possibilities. For those that don't grasp the marketplace, Wow is going to be significantly impacted by SWTOR, Bioware is going to make sure of that. Guild Wars II could just sneak in there. Anyways, 10 years is a long time and many things could happen.
I imagine its more like a clock pendulum. The village will have the capability of regrowing itself, but only when the residents feel the area is safe enough to move back in. Clear out all the bad guys, the village builds itself back up, let the bad guys get too large, they come and destroy the village in a back and forth pattern. The point is that if you run through as one character, the village could be there and prosperous. On the next time you play it, it could be decimated and have monsters living throughout the husks of the buildings. On the next play through, it could be either way or something else entirely. You could save the village over and over again, but you would never progress through the game. The dynamic content seems to be the areas you quest through on your way to the top, ever changing, but possibly the same.
This approach seems much better than "Oh, you're a new character, go kill those ten boars." and then on the next toon you make, and every toon thereafter you ALWAYS have the same ten boars to kill, they're ALWAYS there and NOTHING changes. It will make the leveling aspect that much more exciting and fun, instead of always knowing whats around the next bend.