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Guild Wars 2: Measuring Up
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the latest Guild Wars 2 column here at MMORPG.com, Managing Editor Jon Wood takes a look at originals and sequels. At times, it seems that the first is better and more fulfilling than the second. Jon wonders whether this pattern will continue with Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Read Jon's GW2 column and then let us know what you think in the comments below.
And it’s not like sequels are a new concept to the video game genre, or even to the MMORPG genre. There’s EverQuest and EverQuest II, Lineage and Lineage II, Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XIV, Jumpgate and Jumpgate Evolution (eventually), Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 (for a while) and probably a few that I’ve managed to forget and will no doubt hear about at length on the forums.
Read more Guild Wars 2: Measuring Up.
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Comments
Great article. You added a typo: Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XIV. You can also add A Tale in the Desert I,II,III,IV (I dont know how many there are).
In before 10 pages of angst filled comments about how GW2 is not a sandbox and semantics discussions about MMO-lite vs Co-Op multiplayer.
"Reacting to market trends in much the same way that they did in 2005, the folks at ArenaNet have identified a nice in MMO gaming that isn’t being filled and are currently moving to fill it."
You mean niche?
You know what I'm tired of? People who post like they know anything at all about GW2 apart from what game videos explicitly show. You can pretend that the devs won't just make things sound better than they are, that all previews are glowing for all games, etc, but it's just not true. Until alpha and beta leaks come out, or you actually get to play it, you know NOTHING about GW2.
I read in another topic someone saying GW2 won't have any quests, or any fedex quests, etc. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WILL HAVE. It doesn't matter what the devs have said. People really need to pull their heads out and just shut up and wait.
My personal interest in the Guild Wars games started not because of any game features really. It was the rock solid open Alpha test they ran. Their servers were hammered with account creations and players joining in to try things out. There was 0 downtime, negligible lag, no account creation problems, and an enjoyable experience.
Now the coders of ANet have had years more experience and are finally producing a game that they seem to be making for the players and not sticking to unpopular systems just because they think they are neat. Heres hoping GW2 finds a niche and a place in history as one of the few MMo's that did not flop in this generation of games.
Did you read his comment at all or did you respond to someone else? I mean.. your whole post is a huge straw man argument.
Or did I get your post wrong and it wasnt meant to criticize him but to agree and add what kind of people you don't like?
And when you make your triumphant return to reality, you may figure out that one of the big things that makes a site like this go is speculation. The idea that people will stop talking about something because they have no explicit facts is pretty foolhardy. Fanbois want to talk about common interests and haters want to tear down, as per their nature. Besides, when the hell have a lack of facts been an impediment to holding an opinion about games that actually have been released?
It's a game discussion forum, not a court of law. If it's about games, it's up for discussion, and no one is required to place their hand atop a bible to do it. Anyway, who would be qualified to determine the veracity of someone's comments? You?
I really don't know what to expect from GW2 because I didn't much care for GW in the first place.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
A Tale in the Desert doesn't really have sequels. Every couple of years or so, they wipe everything and make everyone start over. They call it a sequel for marketing reasons, but most of the game is exactly the same as it was before the wipe. It's a little bit like calling the live version of a game a sequel to the beta.
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Guild Wars 2 won't live up to the hype, nor will it be as good as Guild Wars 1. But it will still be a good game.
agreed one that my friend. The game will sell boxes...no doubt but even if the servers are empty a year from launch the changes Anet has taken will serve notice to the rest of the world.
the extended experience alone will be extreme (yes i know it is expanding on WoW's auction house and Fallen Earth's crafting apps) but moving a character to a different town from a web browser and being able to talk in guild chat from a work computer is a huge advancement in gaming. Total involvement is rare and everyone says "ill play GW2 and rift (or wow, tera, dcU, or whatever game they play now) but That all depends on just how good guild wars 2 will be.
The story and lore in guild wars (for an ip created by a company) is second to none. I believe that GW2 will top that.
An opinion I definitely agree with. They removed the dual-class system and the ability to pick and choose from hundreds of skills for your build. Before making a character, I usually spend hours deciding and planning on a build. I found this freedom of picking a second class and choosing those skills that work well together a great aspect of Guild Wars. Yet GW2 destroyed all that by forcing skills on the player and attaching half your skills to weapons. If this game had a subscription, I would never buy it. For me, they destroyed what made GW stand out from the rest.
*sigh* Why couldn't they just give us a permanent world and jumping (for those who begged for it). Why fix what wasn't broken.....
I hate when people say that they don't like GW2, because they didn't like GW1 (and I know you didn't say that but your post reminds me of reading such posts in the past). Maybe it is the fact that most of my MMO experience is with GW1 but I can't figure out why people can't look at the dev blog, look at the manifesto, look at the demo videos, and not see that this game is different from what has come before. Different even from GW1.
for this reason, I would like to say that the likelihood of this "sequel" falling short of the first game is a bit silly because, from what I can tell, its a game trying to stand on its own feet, not to be propped up by GW1 (although that will happen regardless). The way I see most sequels is as a money making scheme to milk the fan base while changing little (or making small improvements as opposed to drastic changes like between GW1 and 2). I don't think this escribes GW1 at all.
I do suppose that from a design sense, GW1 and 2 are similar, as they both are in the same world, have similar art styles, have similar classes, and many other things besides, all of which would help in getting a feel for what GW2 is likely to be like. It is also possible that people who played the demo (such as myself) may sound a little too enthusiastic about the game (unless you ended up not liking the demo at PAX, Gamescom, and NYComicon) but I assure you that the experience those people had is not being described through the filter of "this game is in pre-alpha, so I expect problems, but this is good for pre-alpha", it is more in lines of "holy s***, this is pre-alpha?!"
if after reading the tons of info about GW2 (which I would suggest for anyone who has not already) you don't know what to think about the game (and please don't judge based on GW1...its gameplay really feels nothing like GW1...or WoW, or LotRO, or any other game I have played) then you can always check back after the beta (which hasn't been announced) or even after the game comes out.
And no...this is not a rant at any particular person, its a post inspired by one too many people without proper opinions about something (anything not just GW2).
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Personal story, player housing, a persistent world and not to mention Guild Wars is a great franchise add in the fact that this is Arenanet making the game, it is going to be leaps and bounds over the original.
Think GW2 will still be a theme-park MMO, just one of the first (for ages) to do theme-park how it should be done and that will be a fine achievement if it materializes. Goodbye unexciting combat, hello actiony combat. Goodbye boring level grind, hello fun whichever direction you take. Goodbye uninspiring world-building, hello Guild Wars 2...
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I really do think that this game will out do the original. First I hated the non persistant nature of the original though I loved the artwork and liked the story. Not to mention it really does run on about anything you can think of. I couldn't beleave such a beautiful game ran so lightly on my system at the time.
Having gone back I really like the game at times and at others... well it can be frustrating..(the original more than any of the additions)They do seem to be fixing most of those complaints I once had leaving all the best of the original game. I've not looked forward to as much as this for years.
Guild Wars is my favorite "MMORPG" to date due to its story-driven approach, excellent competitive PvP modes and compelling fantasy setting.
And I expect that Guild Wars 2 will surpass it in every possible way. The gameplay footage shown thus far and all the revelations on the official website have been overwhelmingly positive thus far. Guild Wars 2 looks to negate all of its predecessors weaknesses, while also tackling some genre-wide flaws and retaining the second-to-none art direction and fantasy setting of the original. That being said, not much has been revealed regarding the PvP elements, so there's still some room for ArenaNet to screw this up.
I can understand how some fans of the original might not like the new direction of quality-over-quantity in skills design, skillbar implementation and the lack of secondary classes. However, this seems like a good direction to take in my opinion. Guild Wars suffers from an overabundance of - often redundant - skills that turn its inventive build creation system into something of a chore. A more restrictive skill bar setup (with more slots) that sees fewer, but more unique, skills for each class can be a good thing, if ArenaNet doesn't restrict the amount of skills to choose from for that second half of the skillbar by too much. A few score slottable skills per class should be more than sufficient to retain the strategic depth of Guild Wars while making the build system more balanced and approachable.
It's true that many fundamental gameplay elements of Guild Wars 2 will be entirely new to the genre, which ordinarily would be cause for concern with regards to quality of the final product. But this is ArenaNet we're talking about and they've proven in the past that they can make innovative designs work while also providing a top-notch product with outstanding production values. There is some risk that they will not be able to pull it off a second time, but given the responses to the playable demos thus far that's starting to seem very unlikely.
Right now Guild Wars 2 is probably the game I'm most looking forward to alongside The Witcher 2. Hopefully both will be worth the wait.
Raptor, the problem that accompanied those hundreds of skills per class, was barely any were used.
Any of the "number-cruncher" builds rely on at most 1 Elite skill (the focus) and maybe a couple of other skills that suppliment or feed it, or are needed for its requirements.
Discord-way is a good example of such. Its main thing is built around 3 Necro heroes spamming Discord, causing insane spike damage, while you call targets via a hex and condition spell/ability. Hell, my skill-bar has largely remained the same throughout the various campaigns I've gone through with my character.
And they haven't completely removed the idea of dual-class, its been moved up though. The idea was to allow you to create your own character, and have their abilities interact and compliment the build. Now its allowing those skills to interact not with just others, but to affect and alter others as well.
And attaching a few skills to the weapon themselves isn't a bad thing. Whatever skills you'd need for the weapon, are automatically attached to it, which means you don't need to scour and search around for them. And since you can switch between a few weapons in battle (from what I remember), it gives you more versatility. As a warrior, the gun isn't just a device to pull, it can put out some good damage before the enemy reaches you and the group, and as a ranger, if you have to switch to melee, you wouldn't be completely gimped (just some examples).
Its a little early though to be declaring doom and gloom with the game, or claiming its destroying its name because frankly its still unique. Unless WoW copies GW 2 with its next expansion, which I wouldn't be surprised by one bit...
All we have is expectations. We and neither developers still knows how the game is going to be. Only after release we'll see if GW2 fill or not our expectations. For now, all we can do is wait until we can see more.
Carpe Diem
I don't see that happening, at least not PvP and dynamic world wise. That would be a lot more work than the revamp they made with Cata. Blizz might paste and copy a lot for their next game but GW2 differs so much from Wow that they would have to NGE Wow to use the features of GW2. And that ain't gonna happen, Blizzard have to much too loose.
Smaller stuff that works is a possibility of course but this is a lot more complicated than borrowing Phasing from LOTRO.
True.
Though I think half the shock with NGE was the sudden introduction and no prior warning of it in the first place, and not just the genericizing of how it alterd SWG. If Blizzard announced a major shift in combat as one of the key points in the expansion, it's still guaranteed to sell to at least half of the subscribers with intent to play, and some more from just the curiosity.
Cursedsei
Yes, GW1 has a lot of useless skills but the fact is you are FREE to CHOOSE what you put in your bar. Want to be a warrior with a pet? go ahead.... Want to be Ranger that can launch fireballs? YOUR choice... Want to have a sword and not cause bleeding or deep wounds? NO Problem! Want to go adventure and trust all healing to someone else? by all means.... want to play the entire game without ever forming a party with other players? up to you... Want to know what it would feel like to play as X profession without starting all over? Go ahead and switch your 2nd.....
GW1 has all these freedoms that from what the developers have said are not going to be in GW2.
Heck I think even the crappiest of F2Ps allow you to put whatever skill/spell you want in your bar.
Don't get me wrong, I think GW2 is going to be a good game. BUT it could have been SO much better (for me at least) if the players had been allowed to keep these freedoms....
You touch on an interesting difference between the 1 and 2. But GW is famed for it's GvG also and it will be very revealing when GW2 announces PvP we will see if what you describe above was worth adapting/replacing or not. ^ ^
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
At this point, I have no clue what to expect from Guild Wars 2. The graphic style I have seen so far is disappointing, not near as good looking as the orginal, but I love the idea of an open world and events (we will see if what we does really matters). The promised crafting I can do without, I like the crafting system used in Guild Wars. I farm the materials and trade them and a few gold for the item I want, which is as much as crafting matters to me.
I guess you could say I am holding my breath where Guild Wars 2 is concerned. One thing I know for sure, it will be the best game released in years. I full expect the servers to be upto speed when the game launches, I don't expect any game crashes, everything will be working when they launch or they will push the launch back. EA and many others could learn a lot from ANet in that respect.
well we all saw the pre-pre-alpha gw2 on gamescom. And It showed us everything arenanet mentioned or showed in their videos.
Guild Wars 2 Youtube Croatian Maniacs
My Guild Wars titles
Actually it kinda does. Sure I can make a judgment based on what I've seen, why shouldn't I be able to? It's not like opinions are set in stone or I'm writing some kind of review so I can only use hard and proven facts. Opinions, man.