GW1 catered to the e-sport pvp crowd in Prophecies, it went more story oriented with Factions and by Nightfall it was more about the PvE than the PvP. If you ask anyone that actually plays GW1, the PvP was long ago outshined by the PvE.
You have to get outside of the Guild Wars bubble for a second and realize not a damn person has talked about Guild Wars being a good pve game. I know they are RP heavy, but when it comes to challenging pve content I have never seen anyone recommend Guild Wars.
ArenaNET dug their own hole on this with the catering they did to the e-peen pvp crowd. I played with some of these SOB's in Aion and heard statements like "We were the #1 guild in Guild Wars and do not want to work with your legion" or "We want to run the server and control how it works".
They keep throwing out this 7 million number of copies sold, but where the hell are the 200 servers like you see in WoW? I think without a doubt they will bring some incredible concepts to the pvp genre, but it will be copied rather fast.
If you do not think Trion or Blizzard do not have WvW planned you are on drugs. The stuff like no direct heals or no gear grind is what will really separate the game at end game, but that stuff appeals to pvp'rs yet again. Nothing here is screaming good pve game to me.
You can sum it up with what I've been trying to say in all of these "hype" threads -
Hype is developer created, carefully crafted and presented information or pure marketing material.
Dev blogs, interviews, CGI videos, etc.
What Anet has done, release the game to the media and give them full permission to show us uncut footage and raw impressions etc. is something I haver never seen a MMO company do before release.
It shows a LOT of confidence in their product.
No hype, no spin, just raw access to the game.
The only "hype" present may be the spin the press put on things themselves, but with hours and hours and pages and pages availabel, you really can look for yourself and make your own decision.
This is why I think the idea of a full pre-purchase works for GW2.
Only marketing part of the Prepurchase I disliked, is the lack of retail outlets to buy the physical box in the UK. I had to buy online with a company I have never dealt with before. Amazon didnt have the Standard Edition, I went to Newcastle knowing in the back of my mind I wasnt going to be able to Prepurchase from Game or HMV (missus treat me to a Nandos though so the trip was worth it). I ended up ordering through Savvi who used to have retail outlets but dont seem to have anymore, just hope that company can live up on its promise.
Originally posted by Puremallace You point to a single player running around a zone as your key evidence as to what makes this game different? Somehow you leave out the fact that ArenaNET has said GW2 will bring grouping back to mmorpg's, but have yet to provide any actual examples of this massive gameplay they are hyping.
My prediction is WvW will be a massive lag fest. Sorry, but there is not magic bullet for technology that simply does not exist. If you think all these flashy spells will not cause performance issues, then you have have mental performance issues and are fighting reality, We know they are working on toning down spell effects to help with this, but I'm also concerned that hundreds vs hundreds is going to cause lag, I've yet to see any MMO get over that one This dev has little to zero actual experience in a mmorpg model of running a game and B2P up to this point has not worked. Sorry the content is slow and out dated. Nothing about Guild Wars impressed me. This will be labeled a pvp game with pve barely sprinkled in while leveling and zero pve at end game that is even worth the attention of a serious guild. Seven million units sold prove you wrong on the B2P model not working. 25 large zones with 8 dungeons (each having a story mode then three different explorable modes) hardly seems like PvE is getting nothing but lip service. If you judge a guild as 'serious' because it only sees end game raiding as the only option then yeah maybe those 'serious' guilds would be disappointed, my guild and thousands of others however won't be
1. You point to a single player running around a zone as your key evidence as to what makes this game different? Somehow you leave out the fact that ArenaNET has said GW2 will bring grouping back to mmorpg's, but have yet to provide any actual examples of this massive gameplay they are hyping.
2. My prediction is WvW will be a massive lag fest. Sorry, but there is not magic bullet for technology that simply does not exist. If you think all these flashy spells will not cause performance issues, then you have have mental performance issues and are fighting reality,
3. This dev has little to zero actual experience in a mmorpg model of running a game and B2P up to this point has not worked. Sorry the content is slow and out dated. Nothing about Guild Wars impressed me. This will be labeled a pvp game with pve barely sprinkled in while leveling and zero pve at end game that is even worth the attention of a serious guild.
4. I will be proven right in the long run.
Forgive me if I decided to break up your post into four sections, as it would look better to respond to points and numbers rather than injecting text into your post.
As for your 1st statement, "a single player running around a zone as your key evidence as to what makes this game different?". My article has nothing to do with the game itself, but more about the way the idea of "hype" has been handled. The purpose of the article has been to inform those of this forum in a nice, condensed, and easy to read fashion -- of how the evolution of Guild Wars 2 hype resides in relation to many other massive let downs in the past 8 years. While it doesn't cover everything, and simply can’t -- unless you want me to bust out a book which breaks down every fiber of detail that I highly doubt you'll actually read -- is because there is just so much information out there.
My goal, was to take a grand image and try to provide it in a small, brief, bite sized article that people may find interesting and perhaps read up on the subject further if they felt that perhaps the article was on to something. The idea of evidence, leads me to believe that you are stating that I've intended my article to state how Guild Wars 2 is just plain better than all other games. This was not the intended purpose of the article, and it is likely you may have misread it.
Furthermore, Arena.Net is not trying to bring Grouping back to MMOs -- not in the fashion that many people who have done Grouping anyway -- in the way you are suggesting. Grouping, at least in more classical MMOs like Everquest and Final Fantasy XI, was an extensive and laborious process. A lot of time was taken to pretty much hand select key members who would execute a role that was needed for the situation. Often it took several hours to put together a party, and often it was a massive undertaking that took away from your overall enjoyment of the game. Guild Wars 2 is trying to bring in a more organic, natural feeling way to get players to naturally play together.
Your 2nd statement is purely opinion, which is you every right to. And for many people, who have enjoyed World of Warcraft, will indeed find WvW to be an extremely laggy experience. This is inevitability. Or a self-proclaimed prophecy. Pretty much anyone with even a sliver of commonsense will understand that lag will come in any massive PVP game and situation and people who do not prepare for it need to do homework. Differences in internet connections and computer specs will lead to confusion, people will say "Well my computer plays WoW perfectly, why not GW2?" and other statements to that point.
The fact you say "Sorry" further indicates that you attempting to be condescending, taking it upon yourself to assume that I perhaps may feel that Guild Wars 2 is somehow some perfect, flawless diamond that god himself just pushed out of his bowels that will here-by bring in the era of peace and end all hunger in the world. I do not feel this way, and I expect a lot of issues to be encountered with Guild Wars, especially on its release day and following weeks afterward.
Despite the inevitable issues that we will all face, I look forward to tackling them just like I have in many of the other games I've purchased and started in on day-one with. Every MMO is tough and rough, especially from the start. Because this game has qualities that appeal to me, I'm going to do my best to endure that punishment. That is me. That may not be for everyone, and I do not assume everyone wants that experience -- so I don't paint Guild Wars in a wash of glitter and roses.
"If you think all these flashy spells will not cause performance issues, then you have have mental performance issues and are fighting reality," -- Allow me to point out you have no idea what I'm thinking. Nowhere in my article or in this thread is there a mention of how I feel the game will handle and perform. That is not the point of this article/thread, and you need to seriously consider your approach to responding to it. You MAY be making an effort to incite a negative response, likely to start a "flame war". I do not know this certain, and I do not make any assumptions.
3. Curious where you have been. Guild Wars is a successful product. Perhaps you don't like it, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a successful product. Ultimately, they've build upon its foundation to create a grander version of the exact same game: Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars is out dated because it's been out since 2005 and was in production as early as 2001. The first playable parts were introduced in E3 2004 and were very in-date at the time.
"Nothing about Guild Wars impressed me." -- Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and viewpoints. I can assure you now that if you didn't like Guild Wars, you're probably not going to like Guild Wars 2 either. GW2 is not striving to appeal to everyone, and has never made an effort to. It is just trying to appeal to its choice crowd. Which probably doesn't include you.
"...zero pve at end game that is even worth the attention of a serious guild." -- Sounds pretty reasonable for a serious PVP guild. But I digress; this is purely your assumptions. At this point, we ultimately do not know the future of Guild Wars 2, and no one can really pretend they know either. I make no assumptions, and nor should you.
You should just take it easy, and take in the article for what it was meant for -- to inform the audience that different games have different hype trends, and Guild Wars 2 is doing something pretty new and interesting I felt I should point out. Simple as that.
Did you read the paragraphs following that one? I assume you just stopped reading at that point, and didn't take notice to the additional links I gave to SWOTR gameplay videos dating as early as 2009.
yes, contradicting yourself in the very next sentence isn't that great of a thing
you can't say swtor only displayed and I quote "flashy, bright, lovely CGI movies but really little overall gameplay." and then defend your possition by saying "but I linked to gameplay!" you can't have it both ways, either the game only had cgi videos with little to no gameplay, which is what you said and which can be proven to be utterly false with a single youtube search, or it had cgi videos in addition to gameplay videos
Did you read the paragraphs following that one? I assume you just stopped reading at that point, and didn't take notice to the additional links I gave to SWOTR gameplay videos dating as early as 2009.
yes, contradicting yourself in the very next sentence isn't that great of a thing
you can't say swtor only displayed and I quote "flashy, bright, lovely CGI movies but really little overall gameplay." and then defend your possition by saying "but I linked to gameplay!" you can't have it both ways, either the game only had cgi videos with little to no gameplay, which is what you said and which can be proven to be utterly false with a single youtube search, or it had cgi videos in addition to gameplay videos
You see, this article is a history lesson. You can't make an argument by taking my statement out of context. The section you are referring to was a topic on trade shows; the article covers early gameplay videos of Star Wars much later in the piece. I'm not going to list every single video or piece of information as it was released, that would be off subject and frankly quite pointless. The article was to inform people mainly about how Guild Wars 2 has been doing something different with its hype generation; other games in the article were references of what has been done in the past.
I fail to see what you're trying to state, especially when you say 'proven to be utterly false' — when clearly if you watch the entire trade show I referenced, they did show very little gameplay. When I talked about the gameplay videos they did post, I also referenced examples of gameplay videos they posted. I don't see what you're complaining about.
GW1 catered to the e-sport pvp crowd in Prophecies, it went more story oriented with Factions and by Nightfall it was more about the PvE than the PvP. If you ask anyone that actually plays GW1, the PvP was long ago outshined by the PvE.
You have to get outside of the Guild Wars bubble for a second and realize not a damn person has talked about Guild Wars being a good pve game. I know they are RP heavy, but when it comes to challenging pve content I have never seen anyone recommend Guild Wars.
ArenaNET dug their own hole on this with the catering they did to the e-peen pvp crowd. I played with some of these SOB's in Aion and heard statements like "We were the #1 guild in Guild Wars and do not want to work with your legion" or "We want to run the server and control how it works".
They keep throwing out this 7 million number of copies sold, but where the hell are the 200 servers like you see in WoW? I think without a doubt they will bring some incredible concepts to the pvp genre, but it will be copied rather fast.
If you do not think Trion or Blizzard do not have WvW planned you are on drugs. The stuff like no direct heals or no gear grind is what will really separate the game at end game, but that stuff appeals to pvp'rs yet again. Nothing here is screaming good pve game to me.
errr this is completely false.. GW1 is a great game and many of us have said so here. It is also pretty challenging at times.. it is certainly not for everyone but many ppl do enjoy it for PVE.
Personally, I feel I know more about GW2 without having played beta than some games I was in beta for. They've been pretty clear on features, their goals, where they are in development, etcetera. I'm impressed with the quality of information so far. I've seen a lot of gameplay, including large-scale WvW without the servers crashing and burning... so in my mind the quality is there. It's hard to get into my typical skeptical rants when they've shown with evidence their game performs fairly well so far. Nothing wrong with skepticism, but I can't find many faults so far.. maybe crafting or other things will let me down.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Personally, I feel I know more about GW2 without having played beta than some games I was in beta for. They've been pretty clear on features, their goals, where they are in development, etcetera. I'm impressed with the quality of information so far. I've seen a lot of gameplay, including large-scale WvW without the servers crashing and burning... so in my mind the quality is there. It's hard to get into my typical skeptical rants when they've shown with evidence their game performs fairly well so far. Nothing wrong with skepticism, but I can't find many faults so far.. maybe crafting or other things will let me down.
Personally, I feel I know more about GW2 without having played beta than some games I was in beta for. They've been pretty clear on features, their goals, where they are in development, etcetera. I'm impressed with the quality of information so far. I've seen a lot of gameplay, including large-scale WvW without the servers crashing and burning... so in my mind the quality is there. It's hard to get into my typical skeptical rants when they've shown with evidence their game performs fairly well so far. Nothing wrong with skepticism, but I can't find many faults so far.. maybe crafting or other things will let me down.
agreed
Doubly agree.
GW2 and Anet have been as vocal and open about what features are in the game as any company I know. Plus every single feature (of which there are a ton) has only been released once its worked, polished, iterated and tested in house.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Don't take this personally, Pony. I assure I don't mean to offend you, but if you didn't know what you were getting into with TOR beforehand, you were not paying attention.
For all the critique Bioware got about TOR, one thing they got right was being absolutely transparent about the game. The gameplay videos released ahead of launch showed pretty much all you needed to know about it, their dev interviews confirmed the design route they chose, and the 2 beta weekends were more than enough for anyone still undecided to make up his mind.
Exactly. I dont understand what people are upset about, It didnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that endgame in SWTOR is exactly like WoW or Rift. It was open and available to all to see. Why do you think there were about half gazillion posts claiming: I only intend to play SWTOR as a single player RPG or as a KOTOR3. No offense but if you thought SWTOR was anything other then what it is today you were blinded by god knows what.
The Similarities between SWTOR and GW2 end at the start of the game. Do we know everything about GW2? No but I can almost guarentee you that the endgame of GW2 will consist of: WvW, Doing DE's for Karma and Gold and world bosses, Organized Structured PvP and Running dungeons. Some similarities with other game but more diverse in their methodology in how you achieve it. Plus we dont know what else Anet has up their sleeves for endgame but I dont hype on "What ifs" or "What Elses" thats the problem half of the SWTOR population did.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
After reading the post from the OP I had to quickly look at the url and make sure this was still MMORPG.com...
Very well written, and its interesting to see a take that focuses more on marketing campaigns then "OMFG THIS GAME SUCKS BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE EXACTLY WHAT I WANT".
The one thing I would point out though is discrepencies in talking about ArenaNets marketing campaign as something new. The Media Beta was done just a few months before by SWToR, Beta Weekends (Which I still find silly to call it a beta..its more like "Marketing Weekend") have been in use for the past few games (Including Rift, SWTOR).
I do think its interesting how marketing has changed from WoW to now. UO and EQ (that era) had no real marketing campaigns beyond a trailer here and there, and never in any massive market. WoW changed all that by shelling out boatloads of cash for marketing, landing trailers before big summer blockbusters, and rolling out TV commercials on major networks. I still maintain that this was a key factor in the rise of WoW to the super power it has become..not actual gameplay. WoW was a moment of marketing brilliance that hit at the right time.
After the success of WoW's marketing, the somewhat subdued, subtle approach to marketing that Rift, Tera, SWTOR, and now Guild Wars 2 have taken is...unexpected ? At the very least one would've expected a SWTOR trailer to precede the release of Star Wars Episode 1 in 3d.
I submit that this is a result of what WoW did. WoW slapped everyone in the face with MMOs, and I believe current games are still reaping the benefits, instead of whoring themselves out across widespread multimedia, they can be subtle about it (and save a ton of money) and still get the same amount of buzz for their product.
Comments
You have to get outside of the Guild Wars bubble for a second and realize not a damn person has talked about Guild Wars being a good pve game. I know they are RP heavy, but when it comes to challenging pve content I have never seen anyone recommend Guild Wars.
ArenaNET dug their own hole on this with the catering they did to the e-peen pvp crowd. I played with some of these SOB's in Aion and heard statements like "We were the #1 guild in Guild Wars and do not want to work with your legion" or "We want to run the server and control how it works".
They keep throwing out this 7 million number of copies sold, but where the hell are the 200 servers like you see in WoW? I think without a doubt they will bring some incredible concepts to the pvp genre, but it will be copied rather fast.
If you do not think Trion or Blizzard do not have WvW planned you are on drugs. The stuff like no direct heals or no gear grind is what will really separate the game at end game, but that stuff appeals to pvp'rs yet again. Nothing here is screaming good pve game to me.
THIS EXACTLY ^ ^ ^ ^
Only marketing part of the Prepurchase I disliked, is the lack of retail outlets to buy the physical box in the UK. I had to buy online with a company I have never dealt with before. Amazon didnt have the Standard Edition, I went to Newcastle knowing in the back of my mind I wasnt going to be able to Prepurchase from Game or HMV (missus treat me to a Nandos though so the trip was worth it). I ended up ordering through Savvi who used to have retail outlets but dont seem to have anymore, just hope that company can live up on its promise.
Forgive me if I decided to break up your post into four sections, as it would look better to respond to points and numbers rather than injecting text into your post.
As for your 1st statement, "a single player running around a zone as your key evidence as to what makes this game different?". My article has nothing to do with the game itself, but more about the way the idea of "hype" has been handled. The purpose of the article has been to inform those of this forum in a nice, condensed, and easy to read fashion -- of how the evolution of Guild Wars 2 hype resides in relation to many other massive let downs in the past 8 years. While it doesn't cover everything, and simply can’t -- unless you want me to bust out a book which breaks down every fiber of detail that I highly doubt you'll actually read -- is because there is just so much information out there.
My goal, was to take a grand image and try to provide it in a small, brief, bite sized article that people may find interesting and perhaps read up on the subject further if they felt that perhaps the article was on to something. The idea of evidence, leads me to believe that you are stating that I've intended my article to state how Guild Wars 2 is just plain better than all other games. This was not the intended purpose of the article, and it is likely you may have misread it.
Furthermore, Arena.Net is not trying to bring Grouping back to MMOs -- not in the fashion that many people who have done Grouping anyway -- in the way you are suggesting. Grouping, at least in more classical MMOs like Everquest and Final Fantasy XI, was an extensive and laborious process. A lot of time was taken to pretty much hand select key members who would execute a role that was needed for the situation. Often it took several hours to put together a party, and often it was a massive undertaking that took away from your overall enjoyment of the game. Guild Wars 2 is trying to bring in a more organic, natural feeling way to get players to naturally play together.
Your 2nd statement is purely opinion, which is you every right to. And for many people, who have enjoyed World of Warcraft, will indeed find WvW to be an extremely laggy experience. This is inevitability. Or a self-proclaimed prophecy. Pretty much anyone with even a sliver of commonsense will understand that lag will come in any massive PVP game and situation and people who do not prepare for it need to do homework. Differences in internet connections and computer specs will lead to confusion, people will say "Well my computer plays WoW perfectly, why not GW2?" and other statements to that point.
The fact you say "Sorry" further indicates that you attempting to be condescending, taking it upon yourself to assume that I perhaps may feel that Guild Wars 2 is somehow some perfect, flawless diamond that god himself just pushed out of his bowels that will here-by bring in the era of peace and end all hunger in the world. I do not feel this way, and I expect a lot of issues to be encountered with Guild Wars, especially on its release day and following weeks afterward.
Despite the inevitable issues that we will all face, I look forward to tackling them just like I have in many of the other games I've purchased and started in on day-one with. Every MMO is tough and rough, especially from the start. Because this game has qualities that appeal to me, I'm going to do my best to endure that punishment. That is me. That may not be for everyone, and I do not assume everyone wants that experience -- so I don't paint Guild Wars in a wash of glitter and roses.
"If you think all these flashy spells will not cause performance issues, then you have have mental performance issues and are fighting reality," -- Allow me to point out you have no idea what I'm thinking. Nowhere in my article or in this thread is there a mention of how I feel the game will handle and perform. That is not the point of this article/thread, and you need to seriously consider your approach to responding to it. You MAY be making an effort to incite a negative response, likely to start a "flame war". I do not know this certain, and I do not make any assumptions.
3. Curious where you have been. Guild Wars is a successful product. Perhaps you don't like it, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a successful product. Ultimately, they've build upon its foundation to create a grander version of the exact same game: Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars is out dated because it's been out since 2005 and was in production as early as 2001. The first playable parts were introduced in E3 2004 and were very in-date at the time.
"Nothing about Guild Wars impressed me." -- Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and viewpoints. I can assure you now that if you didn't like Guild Wars, you're probably not going to like Guild Wars 2 either. GW2 is not striving to appeal to everyone, and has never made an effort to. It is just trying to appeal to its choice crowd. Which probably doesn't include you.
"...zero pve at end game that is even worth the attention of a serious guild." -- Sounds pretty reasonable for a serious PVP guild. But I digress; this is purely your assumptions. At this point, we ultimately do not know the future of Guild Wars 2, and no one can really pretend they know either. I make no assumptions, and nor should you.
You should just take it easy, and take in the article for what it was meant for -- to inform the audience that different games have different hype trends, and Guild Wars 2 is doing something pretty new and interesting I felt I should point out. Simple as that.
Oh and your 4th statement.
Edit: Added another pony pic.
yes, contradicting yourself in the very next sentence isn't that great of a thing
you can't say swtor only displayed and I quote "flashy, bright, lovely CGI movies but really little overall gameplay." and then defend your possition by saying "but I linked to gameplay!" you can't have it both ways, either the game only had cgi videos with little to no gameplay, which is what you said and which can be proven to be utterly false with a single youtube search, or it had cgi videos in addition to gameplay videos
You see, this article is a history lesson. You can't make an argument by taking my statement out of context. The section you are referring to was a topic on trade shows; the article covers early gameplay videos of Star Wars much later in the piece. I'm not going to list every single video or piece of information as it was released, that would be off subject and frankly quite pointless. The article was to inform people mainly about how Guild Wars 2 has been doing something different with its hype generation; other games in the article were references of what has been done in the past.
I fail to see what you're trying to state, especially when you say 'proven to be utterly false' — when clearly if you watch the entire trade show I referenced, they did show very little gameplay. When I talked about the gameplay videos they did post, I also referenced examples of gameplay videos they posted. I don't see what you're complaining about.
errr this is completely false.. GW1 is a great game and many of us have said so here. It is also pretty challenging at times.. it is certainly not for everyone but many ppl do enjoy it for PVE.
Personally, I feel I know more about GW2 without having played beta than some games I was in beta for. They've been pretty clear on features, their goals, where they are in development, etcetera. I'm impressed with the quality of information so far. I've seen a lot of gameplay, including large-scale WvW without the servers crashing and burning... so in my mind the quality is there. It's hard to get into my typical skeptical rants when they've shown with evidence their game performs fairly well so far. Nothing wrong with skepticism, but I can't find many faults so far.. maybe crafting or other things will let me down.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
agreed
Doubly agree.
GW2 and Anet have been as vocal and open about what features are in the game as any company I know. Plus every single feature (of which there are a ton) has only been released once its worked, polished, iterated and tested in house.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Exactly. I dont understand what people are upset about, It didnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that endgame in SWTOR is exactly like WoW or Rift. It was open and available to all to see. Why do you think there were about half gazillion posts claiming: I only intend to play SWTOR as a single player RPG or as a KOTOR3. No offense but if you thought SWTOR was anything other then what it is today you were blinded by god knows what.
The Similarities between SWTOR and GW2 end at the start of the game. Do we know everything about GW2? No but I can almost guarentee you that the endgame of GW2 will consist of: WvW, Doing DE's for Karma and Gold and world bosses, Organized Structured PvP and Running dungeons. Some similarities with other game but more diverse in their methodology in how you achieve it. Plus we dont know what else Anet has up their sleeves for endgame but I dont hype on "What ifs" or "What Elses" thats the problem half of the SWTOR population did.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
After reading the post from the OP I had to quickly look at the url and make sure this was still MMORPG.com...
Very well written, and its interesting to see a take that focuses more on marketing campaigns then "OMFG THIS GAME SUCKS BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE EXACTLY WHAT I WANT".
The one thing I would point out though is discrepencies in talking about ArenaNets marketing campaign as something new. The Media Beta was done just a few months before by SWToR, Beta Weekends (Which I still find silly to call it a beta..its more like "Marketing Weekend") have been in use for the past few games (Including Rift, SWTOR).
I do think its interesting how marketing has changed from WoW to now. UO and EQ (that era) had no real marketing campaigns beyond a trailer here and there, and never in any massive market. WoW changed all that by shelling out boatloads of cash for marketing, landing trailers before big summer blockbusters, and rolling out TV commercials on major networks. I still maintain that this was a key factor in the rise of WoW to the super power it has become..not actual gameplay. WoW was a moment of marketing brilliance that hit at the right time.
After the success of WoW's marketing, the somewhat subdued, subtle approach to marketing that Rift, Tera, SWTOR, and now Guild Wars 2 have taken is...unexpected ? At the very least one would've expected a SWTOR trailer to precede the release of Star Wars Episode 1 in 3d.
I submit that this is a result of what WoW did. WoW slapped everyone in the face with MMOs, and I believe current games are still reaping the benefits, instead of whoring themselves out across widespread multimedia, they can be subtle about it (and save a ton of money) and still get the same amount of buzz for their product.