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!"
Ya, no need to rush it.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
Something happened during the development of the game that made it take much longer than they originally planned in 2007. What was that?
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."
Another reason I heard was one class had full animation blending as their sort of unique charm, and it tested so well they wanted it for all the characters.
I'm thinking that they took the time to re-adapt to a quickly changing mmo market. Per their mission statement, GW2 is addressing a lot of what sucks in themepark mmo gaming right now (ex: crappy collect quests and traditional questing altogether) and also in mmo PvP. I see things quickly shifting from the old worn out formulas (which is why SWTOR bit the dust so fast). My hope is that GW2 speeds along this process and challenges other publishers/dev studios to be more innovative and make games that are actually FUN and not designed to keep me paying and playing f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Let's hope that GW2 is prepared to be flexible after launch and continue to adapt.
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?
And I applaud them for caring more for their community and creation than bottom dollar.
Because it's impossible to delay a game to make it better to make more money.....
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Uh, they decided they it wasn't good enough and went back to the drawing board? Not sure what more you're looking for, the answer is obvious. It's also nothing unheard of in the industry.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
After 2007 there were a lot of high budget mmos that "failed" (warhammer, AOC, Aion). My guess is, their initial plan was to make a much lesser mmo but when they realized that it wasn't enough, they invested more money on gw2.
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?
Actually they did comment on the 2008 beta. At the time they had a simple website to register for beta shortly after the announcement they were working on it.
As far as why it was delayed, I remember watching a developer video blog last year (It may still be on the ArenaNet site buried) that the GW1 engine wasnt doing to well with the different things, like dynamic events and other implementations they were trying to adapt early on. Along with that, they hired a new artist that brought something fresh to the table in which blew away what they had already put into the game and had imagined. Therefore, they had to pretty much start over, along with rebuilding the engine. I would imagine that was the cause of most of the delay.
Originally posted by Leonona 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?
ive been tracking GW2 on a different games forum (the old updated faq from June 2008 is still posted there)
one question about GW2 @46:50.. (not the exact words)
reporter: Currently Guildwars 2 is scheduled for a 2011 release, why the delay? Chris Chung (CEO of NC West): During development we changed our plan and decided to make the game bigger and add more content as previously planned.
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.
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.
On the other hand were not all planned feature realized in the end. For one thing were the original plan to have it without zooning with a new idea that for some reason didn´t happened.
One of the things that happened was that Jeff Strain, ANETs master programmer, lead designer and founder left the company to found Undead labs. While he did have the engine up before that someone like that is irreplacable (He also were lead designer and programmer on Warcraft 3 and Diablo and coded battlenet).
That was 3 years ago but it is not unlikely that it added a year or so for the production of the game.
Besides that it seems like ANET got a lot better budget and upped the art department a lot. The mists werent really anything close to what it became in the initial draws either, that adds time.
And most computer games becomes delayed anyways, particularly ones releasing when they are ready. Heck, look on Blizzard, they moved back a lot of games during the years even though they rarely put an exact date.
What really matters is how good the game eventually get, not when the devs originally thought it would be released.
Actually they did comment on the 2008 beta. At the time they had a simple website to register for beta shortly after the announcement they were working on it.
As far as why it was delayed, I remember watching a developer video blog last year (It may still be on the ArenaNet site buried) that the GW1 engine wasnt doing to well with the different things, like dynamic events and other implementations they were trying to adapt early on. Along with that, they hired a new artist that brought something fresh to the table in which blew away what they had already put into the game and had imagined. Therefore, they had to pretty much start over, along with rebuilding the engine. I would imagine that was the cause of most of the delay.
But now we have an awesome mmo on the horizon.
I heard that it was because they were really unhappy on how the engine handled the effects so they bought tools to make them better (probably because they got a better budget then). But it still is just one of the reasons.
Actually they did comment on the 2008 beta. At the time they had a simple website to register for beta shortly after the announcement they were working on it.
As far as why it was delayed, I remember watching a developer video blog last year (It may still be on the ArenaNet site buried) that the GW1 engine wasnt doing to well with the different things, like dynamic events and other implementations they were trying to adapt early on. Along with that, they hired a new artist that brought something fresh to the table in which blew away what they had already put into the game and had imagined. Therefore, they had to pretty much start over, along with rebuilding the engine. I would imagine that was the cause of most of the delay.
But now we have an awesome mmo on the horizon.
I heard that it was because they were really unhappy on how the engine handled the effects so they bought tools to make them better (probably because they got a better budget then). But it still is just one of the reasons.
Okay. Found the video. It sounds like it was more about the art. 6:23 is where Daniel Dociu talk about starting over or just read the quote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GwKGbNKQHE
Daniel Dociu:"I came on roughly halfway through the development process and at that point the technology had been developed but the art was pretty much just placeholders so we’ve started over and scrapped everything and all the art assets and rebuilt the entire game from scratch."
Actually they did comment on the 2008 beta. At the time they had a simple website to register for beta shortly after the announcement they were working on it.
As far as why it was delayed, I remember watching a developer video blog last year (It may still be on the ArenaNet site buried) that the GW1 engine wasnt doing to well with the different things, like dynamic events and other implementations they were trying to adapt early on. Along with that, they hired a new artist that brought something fresh to the table in which blew away what they had already put into the game and had imagined. Therefore, they had to pretty much start over, along with rebuilding the engine. I would imagine that was the cause of most of the delay.
But now we have an awesome mmo on the horizon.
I heard that it was because they were really unhappy on how the engine handled the effects so they bought tools to make them better (probably because they got a better budget then). But it still is just one of the reasons.
Okay. Found the video. It sounds like it was more about the art. 6:23 is where Daniel Dociu talk about starting over or just read the quote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GwKGbNKQHE
Daniel Dociu:"I came on roughly halfway through the development process and at that point the technology had been developed but the art was pretty much just placeholders so we’ve started over and scrapped everything and all the art assets and rebuilt the entire game from scratch."
actually, i think he was talking about GW1, not GW2.
What's important now is that it practically is, just a little more spit-shine between now and Aug 28th. For the quality we're getting, well worth the wait. Imagine if SWTOR took a couple more years to really nail it instead of rushing to release...
I don't care what delayed it, I'm happy that it will release in the awesome state it currently is in and if they hadn't delayed their original projected dates the game wouldn't have turned out this way.
It's one of those things you can speculate about for as long as you want / can but only Anet / NCsoft know the real reason.
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?
If you played any one the BWE's, you saw what happened
But anywayz.. it doesn't really matter, launch next month and it WILL be GRAND!! )
They announced they were making GW2 in 2007. What they were originally planning to release for 2008 was Guild Wars Utopia.
They scrapped that, and changed the name to GW2, because they realized that what they wanted to do was not possible within the current scope of GW1. Hence the big 'campaigns cancelled!' bulletin on the magazine cover.
GW2 started developement in 2007. It would be pretty ridiculous to expect them to release a brand new MMO in just 1 year. 2007-2012, here we are, 5 years later. 5 years is pretty standard for an MMO.
What got delayed, and then inevitably cancelled, was the final (and supposedly largest) campaign for GW1. Instead we got an entirely new game. It's not really anything news worthy, tbh.
They announced they were making GW2 in 2007. What they were originally planning to release for 2008 was Guild Wars Utopia.
They scrapped that, and changed the name to GW2, because they realized that what they wanted to do was not possible within the current scope of GW1. Hence the big 'campaigns cancelled!' bulletin on the magazine cover.
GW2 started developement in 2007. It would be pretty ridiculous to expect them to release a brand new MMO in just 1 year. 2007-2012, here we are, 5 years later. 5 years is pretty standard for an MMO.
What got delayed, and then inevitably cancelled, was the final (and supposedly largest) campaign for GW1. Instead we got an entirely new game. It's not really anything news worthy, tbh.
I saw an interview about utopia and how they tried to implement dynamic events and other stuff but yeah, they cancel that plan and started to work on gw2. They said that they didn't wanted to change gw1.
What's important now is that it practically is, just a little more spit-shine between now and Aug 28th. For the quality we're getting, well worth the wait. Imagine if SWTOR took a couple more years to really nail it instead of rushing to release...
Wouldn't have helped, they made design decisions early on (to deliver the same old standard theme park MMO with a story line twist) and more time would not have changed this.
Contrast that with ANET's decision to try some very new concepts / designs in GW2 and you can see there's much greater potential to create something different and better.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What's important now is that it practically is, just a little more spit-shine between now and Aug 28th. For the quality we're getting, well worth the wait. Imagine if SWTOR took a couple more years to really nail it instead of rushing to release...
Wouldn't have helped, they made design decisions early on (to deliver the same old standard theme park MMO with a story line twist) and more time would not have changed this.
Contrast that with ANET's decision to try some very new concepts / designs in GW2 and you can see there's much greater potential to create something different and better.
I agree fully with GW2s direction being so much better than SWTOR. Just thinking that if SWTOR had a couple more years to add a full plate of content, bring their worlds to life, etc. it could have been so much better for the fans of that game. I never had interest in it personally, just hate to see so much promise wasted like that. But, that's another story. Thanks to ANets decision to take the time to do it right, I'm fully confident that come the 28th of August I'll be embarking on my last MMO journey for a good many years, and it will be good.
Something happened during the development of the game that made it take much longer than they originally planned in 2007. What was that?
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!"
I am positive that this is exactly how it went.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.
Comments
Ya, no need to rush it.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
Yeah that make a lot of sense haha
this. iirc, they originally had planned to not have underwater combat and that underwater content was strictly just for exploration purposes.
Another reason I heard was one class had full animation blending as their sort of unique charm, and it tested so well they wanted it for all the characters.
Animation takes time contrary to popular belief.
a yo ho ho
I'm thinking that they took the time to re-adapt to a quickly changing mmo market. Per their mission statement, GW2 is addressing a lot of what sucks in themepark mmo gaming right now (ex: crappy collect quests and traditional questing altogether) and also in mmo PvP. I see things quickly shifting from the old worn out formulas (which is why SWTOR bit the dust so fast). My hope is that GW2 speeds along this process and challenges other publishers/dev studios to be more innovative and make games that are actually FUN and not designed to keep me paying and playing f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Let's hope that GW2 is prepared to be flexible after launch and continue to adapt.
gw2 rules
Guild Wars 2: Four 80's and counting!
Because it's impossible to delay a game to make it better to make more money.....
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
They made the best mmo I have ever played thats what happened
Uh, they decided they it wasn't good enough and went back to the drawing board? Not sure what more you're looking for, the answer is obvious. It's also nothing unheard of in the industry.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
After 2007 there were a lot of high budget mmos that "failed" (warhammer, AOC, Aion). My guess is, their initial plan was to make a much lesser mmo but when they realized that it wasn't enough, they invested more money on gw2.
Actually they did comment on the 2008 beta. At the time they had a simple website to register for beta shortly after the announcement they were working on it.
As far as why it was delayed, I remember watching a developer video blog last year (It may still be on the ArenaNet site buried) that the GW1 engine wasnt doing to well with the different things, like dynamic events and other implementations they were trying to adapt early on. Along with that, they hired a new artist that brought something fresh to the table in which blew away what they had already put into the game and had imagined. Therefore, they had to pretty much start over, along with rebuilding the engine. I would imagine that was the cause of most of the delay.
But now we have an awesome mmo on the horizon.
ive been tracking GW2 on a different games forum (the old updated faq from June 2008 is still posted there)
http://www.brellrants.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17775
in Feb 2009, this chart was posted on a german fansite
conference call on the quarterly earnings report, Feb 2009 www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/quarterly.aspx
www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php
one question about GW2 @46:50.. (not the exact words)
reporter: Currently Guildwars 2 is scheduled for a 2011 release, why the delay?
Chris Chung (CEO of NC West): During development we changed our plan and decided to make the game bigger and add more content as previously planned.
EQ2 fan sites
On the other hand were not all planned feature realized in the end. For one thing were the original plan to have it without zooning with a new idea that for some reason didn´t happened.
One of the things that happened was that Jeff Strain, ANETs master programmer, lead designer and founder left the company to found Undead labs. While he did have the engine up before that someone like that is irreplacable (He also were lead designer and programmer on Warcraft 3 and Diablo and coded battlenet).
That was 3 years ago but it is not unlikely that it added a year or so for the production of the game.
Besides that it seems like ANET got a lot better budget and upped the art department a lot. The mists werent really anything close to what it became in the initial draws either, that adds time.
And most computer games becomes delayed anyways, particularly ones releasing when they are ready. Heck, look on Blizzard, they moved back a lot of games during the years even though they rarely put an exact date.
What really matters is how good the game eventually get, not when the devs originally thought it would be released.
I heard that it was because they were really unhappy on how the engine handled the effects so they bought tools to make them better (probably because they got a better budget then). But it still is just one of the reasons.
Okay. Found the video. It sounds like it was more about the art. 6:23 is where Daniel Dociu talk about starting over or just read the quote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GwKGbNKQHE
Daniel Dociu: "I came on roughly halfway through the development process and at that point the technology had been developed but the art was pretty much just placeholders so we’ve started over and scrapped everything and all the art assets and rebuilt the entire game from scratch."
actually, i think he was talking about GW1, not GW2.
What happened is simple.
It wasn't ready.
What's important now is that it practically is, just a little more spit-shine between now and Aug 28th. For the quality we're getting, well worth the wait. Imagine if SWTOR took a couple more years to really nail it instead of rushing to release...
Oderint, dum metuant.
I don't care what delayed it, I'm happy that it will release in the awesome state it currently is in and if they hadn't delayed their original projected dates the game wouldn't have turned out this way.
It's one of those things you can speculate about for as long as you want / can but only Anet / NCsoft know the real reason.
If you played any one the BWE's, you saw what happened
But anywayz.. it doesn't really matter, launch next month and it WILL be GRAND!!
)
Wow, a lot of info being mixed up here.
They announced they were making GW2 in 2007. What they were originally planning to release for 2008 was Guild Wars Utopia.
They scrapped that, and changed the name to GW2, because they realized that what they wanted to do was not possible within the current scope of GW1. Hence the big 'campaigns cancelled!' bulletin on the magazine cover.
GW2 started developement in 2007. It would be pretty ridiculous to expect them to release a brand new MMO in just 1 year. 2007-2012, here we are, 5 years later. 5 years is pretty standard for an MMO.
What got delayed, and then inevitably cancelled, was the final (and supposedly largest) campaign for GW1. Instead we got an entirely new game. It's not really anything news worthy, tbh.
I saw an interview about utopia and how they tried to implement dynamic events and other stuff but yeah, they cancel that plan and started to work on gw2. They said that they didn't wanted to change gw1.
Wouldn't have helped, they made design decisions early on (to deliver the same old standard theme park MMO with a story line twist) and more time would not have changed this.
Contrast that with ANET's decision to try some very new concepts / designs in GW2 and you can see there's much greater potential to create something different and better.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I agree fully with GW2s direction being so much better than SWTOR. Just thinking that if SWTOR had a couple more years to add a full plate of content, bring their worlds to life, etc. it could have been so much better for the fans of that game. I never had interest in it personally, just hate to see so much promise wasted like that. But, that's another story. Thanks to ANets decision to take the time to do it right, I'm fully confident that come the 28th of August I'll be embarking on my last MMO journey for a good many years, and it will be good.
Oderint, dum metuant.
As development got serious they allways said, it will be ready when its done...
I seriously can not see any delay at all... Developing an AAA MMO takes 4 to 5 years at least.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I am positive that this is exactly how it went.
When all has been said and done, more will have been said than done.