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Guild Wars 2: When It's Ready
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the latest Guild Wars 2 Blog, Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum gives the answer that we both love and hate to hear when asking when Guild Wars 2 will finally arrive: "When it's ready." But Flannum goes one step further and fleshes out exactly what that means to him, to ArenaNet and to the Guild Wars 2 development team. It's a fair representation and one that fans of the game, much as we wish otherwise, should read.
Everything that I’ve said here also ties into how often we are able to release information. We don’t hold things back according to some sinister master schedule, to intentionally tease our fans, or for any of the other malicious purposes that I’ve seen bandied about on various forums.
We try to release information when we feel like it’s ready and in a way that’s going to satisfy the people waiting for it. If we did anything else it would just result in a lot of speculative features and gameplay elements being talked about, many of which would either never make it into the final game or would be very different when they did eventually make it in.
Read more here.
Comments
I hope I wasn't the only one who saw the title and went "RELEASE DATE!"
Either way though, I didn't really think they'd give that away just yet, (just had my fingers crossed) but we'll get to see another prof soon.
Cya guys, till the next year! :]
making something innovative takes a while as you have to test and retest and test some more and retest even more than that
And by the time the devs are halfway dead it's the holidays or they get sick
But I do recall several developers of games stating the same obvious answer
"When it's ready it'll be ready"
Although it's a bit frustrating not to know when the waiting is going to be over, I fully approve of Anet's model of information sharing.
i think this is a way of saying its not going to be out for a while. This is a good thing but also bad because i cant wait for it lol.
Not necessarily
Ensemble Studios used to use this phrase ALL the time
and usually the next iteration of the AoE Series was only a few months away
So if GW2 gets a beta I would put it around this time next year probably
Good. I hope they take as much time as they need. A bad launch is hard to recover from these days. I am confident ArenaNet will deliver a solid product in the end.
After the utter failure that releasing too early has caused some recent games, FFXIV being one of the more prominent, this is really the only answer.
Now with 57.3% more flames!
I agree with the current idealogy of it's ready when it's ready, it allows for developers to create a game and not be constricted by a release date.
The only problem with this is, holding the fans. Unless you keep the hype up high with releasing info, the fans get restless because they never know when to expect the game. Sure you get a estimated window but no real date. 2012 could come by and you'd still have it's ready when it's ready release date.
While fans of a game will hold on for a while. They will only hold on while it's interesting and then that interests will wane with no release date.
So while yeah it's great to see a company taking it's time, if they take too long and if lack of info on said game replaces info then a release date has to be given to recharge interest.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
But no one has said it as much as them.
This is not a game.
Releasing "when it's ready" is always the best way to go.
However, the longer you hype a game, the greater the expectations get raised, and the better the product ArenaNet is going to have to deliver.
You can't just string people along for a year of hype and not expect there to be some ramifications. There is one chance to make a first impression, and you make it harder to manage them with a longer hype period. Once you start releasing videos, gameplay trailers, etc., you're hyping, so the clock is ticking on ArenaNet, and the expectations are naturally going up with every passing day. Hopefully they can deliver.
While i agree that a game shouldn't be out until its ready, i have yet to see this statement actually proved. Many developers have stated "When its ready" and not one has actually released it when it was ready.
I hope Anet do prove it but i'm not going to start saying they are great by saying this, broken promises are all to common.
the only problem with this concept is if it isn't ready until 2012, there will be other games out already, they may even be better, the longer you hold out on a game, the more competition there will be that pops up. If you don't give yourself a deadline, sure, some things may suffer, but you don't have to eleminate them completely, isn't that why Guild Wars has so many expansion packs? That is the great thing about MMO's...b/c they require you to be online, you can release small improvements over time. If there is no deadline, you could end up OVER developing, kind of like many are anticipating SW:ToR may be doing.
Again, I understand where they are coming from as a designer, you never want to stop, but from a marketing persepctive, I will lose interest the longer i have to wait and will move on to other games.
Basically 5 years is still a lot of time to get the game to a almost polished state, any more than that and your cutting into budget concerns.
Journalists need to start asking "When will you be ready?" instead of "When will you release the game?"...
No offense but tell that to Starcraft and Duke Nukem: Forever. If a game is popular it doesn't matter when it comes out, as long as it does. The only thing to worry about really is whether your tech will be seen as current or not, even then as long as the game is good, that really doesn't matter much either.
Wouldn't that still call for the same answer? (q) When will you be ready? (a)When it's ready...
Sometimes I wonder if devs feel like parents talking to their children.
"When will dinner be done?"... " When it's done..."
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
loved GW but i fins GW2 is not a game at all =D
it just a myth!
so it like waiting for 2nd coming of Christ or other part of known mythology: everybody keep hope but it never comes.
may be in 10 years....
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
I don't see that as a problem as long as it really is perfect at release. If those other games releases in a better shape things will be different but I have the feeling they wont.
I rather play a over developed game than a under developed, to be frankly can't I even imagine how you could over develop a MMO. Blizzard started Wows development in late '97, that is 7 years in development and still released the game a little too early.
In some genres taking too long time is a problem since graphics becomes dated pretty fast, but MMO graphics are not that hot and GW2 still looks as good as most upcoming games.
Releasing crap early and fixing it later is what turned Vanguard into the failure it is today. Now the game is actually very good but no one play it. Hyping a game up and releasing it while cutting all the cool features is what made WAR into the dying game it is...
The only way to make a good game is releasing a game that already is great and wont be in a few years. Wow could have used 3 more months but it was still the most complete MMO at it's release, that is what made it so huge. EQ2 was not a worse game in itself but it was broken at launch, SOE thought just like you say and that cost them a lot of money.
A superior game will be the next big one and that game will need to be perfect already at launch. That game might or might not be GW2 but a crappy release would kill the games chances.
"When it's ready" is an excellent answer. Sounds pretty good in my ears. Be ready as soon as possible because I'm ready to play.