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GW2 delayed more than 3 years, what happened?
Leonona
Member UncommonPosts: 225
When GW2 was announced in march 2007 in PC GAMER, Arenanet came out and said straight away that we could expect a beta at the end of 2008. The beta date was also stated on the official faq. At the end of 2008 when fans were crying for a beta, Arenanet updated the faq, saying the game wasn't ready and they wanted gamers to be blown away the first time they experienced GW2. Gamescom 2009 we saw the first trailer and in december, same year a second trailer detailing the races was released. I think many fans, myself included at this point was expecting a 2010 release, some said 2011 and only the most pessimistic mentioned 2012.
Yet here we are in 2012 and I have sometimes wondered as the years went by, why Arenanet would come out with a date when it was so far off. To my knowledge they have never commented on this 2008 beta date, beyond the updated faq(long gone now), so we can only really speculate. My best guess is that the game just grew much bigger than they originally planned. Perhaps they were somewhat surprised by how much work it is to make a real mmorpg. Maybe some of you have better answers?
Comments
The answer is in red.
Because they decided to, pretty much, completely gut everything GW1 and re-do from the start. Then to make the process take even longer, they've (essentially) written multiple versions of the game trying out lots of different ideas.
If they were just going to make a GW1 or WoW knock off, they'd have been done in 2009. They're going for a far greater impact than that.
Something happened during the development of the game that made it take much longer than they originally planned in 2007. What was that?
NCsoft gave them alot of $$$, to keep working.
As others have already said. Probably scrapping the entire GW1 game mechanics and redoing it. More funding?
Honestly, I don't see why you care or why it matters. This is the most polished game I have ever played, besides maybe RIFT. I am glad they are not releasing an unpolished and unfinished steaming pile of shit like 90% of all MMO companies out there.
As ArenaNet has said, if you are going to do it at all, you might as well do it right.
I don't see why it matters when I simply can't imagine a GW2 releasing several years ago, being any good, compared to the behemoth it is now. Did the OP actually want the game to release that early?
They were never going to make a GW1 or WOW copy. All the major features like dynamic events, personal story and WvW were planned right from the start. But I think you're right that iteration is a part of the picture.
Eye of the North came out in 2007, if they planned on having betas for GW2 for 2008, my guess is that the original design was more simmilar to GW1, as in, persistent town hubs with instanced adventure areas, so that the engine was mostly done, and sometime before that they decided to change it to a fully persistent open world, which would need a more or less full engine rewrite to make it work, and I'm guessing that's what they mostly did between then and 2010 which is when the design manifesto was posted on their site, though the archive only goes as far back as then (april 2010), no idea if there were earlier posts about it.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
I'm not sure why there has to be a specific thing that happened.
It probably went something like:
ArenaNet: "Hey, NCSoft, can we have a bunch of money and a few more years to make this game what we want it to be?"
NCSoft: "Well, that sounds pretty pricey, can we see your plans?"
ArenaNet: "Yup, here they are."
NCSoft: "Well, it looks like a pretty good plan and you guys certainly haven't disappointed in the past. Here is a shitload of money to fund a 270 person team for a few years."
ArenaNet: "YAY!"
cant say better,thast exactly what happen and this year we have the proof that is ready and already blow our mind
Are you a coporate spy?
Lol'd
ANET did say that the addition of underwater content and underwater combat contributed to the "delay"
Have fun storming the castle! - Miracle Max
I predict we'll see a similar headline for GW3 in a few years.
I imagine something like:
It's not what we want and it doesn't fit with the market trends. Gut it and re-build from scratch.
I can think of at least a couple of games that should have done the same.
I don't think he's critising your beloved Master10k, so no need to ride to the rescue :P
As for the OP, I remember this as well, I still probably have the article somewhere from the U.K PC Gamer in '07. It's somethings that convienently forgotten by most on here because you know the greatness of GW2 is inevitable isn't? :P
As I recall, and this was rumours circulating on message boards/forums at the time, the original idea for GW2 was actually to have a series of expansions which sort of transitisoned the game from GW1 into GW2. It would keep the game same CORPG but there would be no more actual GW1 at all, just after the expansions GW2, with the new races/better graphics etc.
This idea got shot down in the end for a couple fo reasons:
1. Alienating a fanbase in getting rid of an entire game, also it would have distrubed the 'modular' feel of the first game.
2. Arenanet wanted to try different ideas and things that worked well in other games and the GW tech wasn't up to the task, both graphically and adding new features.
3. Back in the mid naughties MMO's were a gold rush. Everyone was trying to get a piece of the action, (WAR and AOC had released with initally impressive results), so a bridge into a new game that would take the old fanbase and hopefully attract new players seemed like a good idea. However by '08 the market had taken a few knocks from supposed, 'WOW clones', and other expensive failures. So Arenanet realised that if they'd have to revise their approach and bascially analise what players were going to want in the future in this market. Some believe the, 'Manifesto', is the direct result of this.
Even if any of that is true, GW2 is no Tabula Rasa. There was no major different version before a complete overhaul, just maybe a change in philsophy that brings us to where we are now :P
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
To me it seemed like this one was a bit mis-managed. But that is me. As much as a Anet supporter I was, the vibe I get this time around was much different. Yeah I don't buy hype or hate much, there are plenty of games the gamers ignore that I found to be really good. Most follow what's popular.
Goodness, I'm 53 years old they better get to it or I will be wearing diapers when I play. o.O
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
And I applaud them for caring more for their community and creation than bottom dollar.
I can assume that none of us would have gotten much enjoyment out of an mmo that only took a year to make. We've been told that they didn't really dig in until after EotN was complete. I also don't think many people that have been following the development from the announcement day really, really expected a beta in '08 by as early as that year. They didn't continue to say there was going to be a beta then over the course of that first year so I don't even consider the game to have been delayed. By 2010 everyone was really antsy though since so many prognosticated a spring '11 launch , but again, they never scheduled anything.
We'll all be happier with a 4 1/2 year development cycle in the end.
Maybe these two pages will help you get a very vague snapshot of what was happening early on.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/News/Archive/2007-2009
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/News/Archive/2010
Upping the development cost. It makes sense. The original guild wars series sold 2 million between 2005 and 2007. And over 2007 and 2011. It sold more then 3 million copies.
Wasn't hard to wait 3-5 years for game to came out, it's hard to wait ?nother 2 months to release.
well they could have done the opposite and released a buggy half done game a couple of years ago that would have been fun for a couple of days and then ............you feel like an idiot for buying into the hype
And then they danced!
(Aint no house party like a Peanuts house party!)