How did GW2 managed to build its hype "without" GW1?

[Khiva]

It's not like they just stopped updating the game altogether, they just stopped releasing campaigns.

They didn't just stop releasing campaigns, they also moved nearly their entire team of developers over to production of GW2, leaving only a small handful to maintain the original.
As far as I know, the only "updates" they managed were the introduction of several costumes, periodic skill adjustments (which were often spectacularly shortsighted because the experienced developer originally in charge of that also left for GW2), and a couple of those crossover quest chains. Over the course of 4-5 years.

[Fencers]

They give you the option to fill out teen, now last I checked teen generally refers to 12-19 =P

Looking at the chart now and there is no age range give for "teen". Which may as well top out at 16 or 18 as 19. But would still make the majority of players in that poll roughly in their late teens [17-19] or early 20s.

Still not unreasonable to say the majority of players for GW2 are rather young or sub 30 year olds.

[rezoacken]

Just because it seems to have worked out for them does not mean it was a sound decision. Like I said, I'm amazed they're not bankrupt.
If one were to come across some random dark chasm in a cliffside and decide that jumping blindly inside would lead to them landing safely surrounded by hidden treasures, and actually did, that would still not have been a reasonable conclusion to expect. Any rational person would expect them to have wound up a broken mess at the bottom of some dark empty pit.

That it worked at all must be a testament to just how well Guild Wars was doing, which makes it that much more stupid that they abandoned it so thoroughly.

I'm not sure I understand... As much as abandoning GW sucks for GW1 players, ANet doesn't develop GW2 with GW1 benefits (or at least not entirely)... it's a subsidiary of NCSoft, NCSoft agreed on the project and therefore financed it. The future profit from GW2 is what financed GW2. And so far, it's probably already a profit when considering future sales.
What GW1 did in all this, is mostly give ANet the credit of being a profitable subsidiray.

[PaladinBash]

I loved it once I first saw a few videos about how different it was and all the new ideas that the creators genuinely cared about. It has loads of great features and makes levelling fun and easy. Having played endlessly on the beta has also convinced me that this is a great game for me. PVP in it is like oldskool AV for WvWvW and I love that it's very hack and slash. No kiting around for 20 minutes. No pillarhumping nonsense. Just run in and kill each other like old PVP was before arenas ruined it.

[Deleted]

U bought the ganme , knowing it has no trinity and u are whining now ehm ?
Whos the low inteligence guy here ? (ur my target)

I love rangers, warriors and mages too wise guy so I'm gonna play it. but if I had a choice I would play healer class.

[Deleted]

For the age thing, there's also this poll:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cf...FE8D91383044F0

<12 - 1.5%
12-16 - 2.2%
17-18 - 2.0%
18-22 - 12.3%
22-30 - 29.6%
31-40 - 28.2%
41-50 - 13.6%
51-60 - 3.1%
61+ - 0.9%
I am not going to play, take me to the results - 6.5%

It's just based on 990 votes through.

[Deleted]

In what universe was the post you quoted "Well Said"? The person you quoted obviously has no idea what they are talking about, also the argument that it is brawn over brains combat style holds no basis as it uses one of the most skillful combat systems in any MMO in the market, skill selection plays a much bigger role in Guild Wars 2 than in pretty much any other MMO.

he was talking about hype for GW2, and I agree with him that it's mostly because it's very easy to play game. Gear doesn't matter, levels doesn't matter, class doesnt matter, grouping not needed. It's very very casual friendly game and if you dont see this you must be blind.
But of course it doesnt mean that skill is not important, so it's one of this - "easy to play hard to master" games which is good.

[badaku]

I'd be playing both wow and gw, but I cba to spend any money on a decent computer, so I'm sticking with wow

[Awe]

Hmm. After reading through the thread, what about asking a reversed question for those who had some experience with GW1? Since many people here claims that GW2 is so different from GW1 that GW1 is irrelevant when it comes to GW2's hype. Do you think that there will be some fans of GW1 who will dislike GW2 becouse of how far it deviated from certain GW1 concepts? Maybe someone here who feels that it may happen to him/her? I loved GW1 and so far from everything I seen in GW2 beta weekends I am banking that I will love GW2 as well. Just wondering what other GW old timers think.

[Yoshimiko]

Well, Guild wars was huge. It was large in itself, so when they release a new game - some people will at least check it out.

Next up you have their owners and developers. I actually got to spend 10 minutes talking with one of the developers. We did a couple quests together, too. I'm a nobody, I don't host a website, I don't have a famous youtube channel - I'm just some guy who logged in to their beta weekend. This alone just outright shocked me.

Their developers have had conversations on fansites, as well as on their official forums. The OWNER actually sat down and talked with a few gamers on a forum. These things really show how interested they are in hearing what WE have to say.

Balance. Shit was broken bwe1. Broken beyond imagination. Bwe2 rolls around - they've fixed 90% of problems, and made one or two more - BWE3 rolls around..I have 0 complaints now on PVE and PVP. They turned a game I regretted paying into, into a game I'm genuinely excited to play. They were with the players every step of the way, They were fine tuning with us. Problems were swiftly fixed, and BWE1, 2, and 3 had better launches than even Diablo 3, WoW(any expansion), or any other game in recent memory.

Overal Fun Experience. With balanced PVP(Something I haven't seen in a game in a very long time - since burning crusade at least), Balanced and enjoyable PVE, A new and entertaining questing system that leaves you with so much to do, Amazing combat system, Great music, Awesome Scenery, and draw-dropping stylization, All around I think this game hooked us in with the graphics, and promises - and kept us by fulfilling said promises.

[Willias]

Gear doesn't matter, levels doesn't matter, class doesnt matter, grouping not needed.

The hell have you read that?

Gear is an important part of your character's build. No there's not going to be much for gear progression at the level cap, but it is important to pick stats that are strong for your chosen build.
Levels matter as a way to lock content. Level 1 characters won't be going to do battle in Orr.
Class matters because certain classes are better at certain things than other classes. You'll be disappointed if you look for an Elementalist or Necromancer to give out many boons for example.

The last point is true, but that's been true of many MMOs since World of Warcraft has been released. You'll still need to group however for WvW combat or doing dungeons.

[terrahero]

Rift has yet to implement a cash shop alongside subscription as well. Something it's competitors, including World of Warcraft, can not claim in part or whole.

But Blizzard did it out of profit, not necessity. They even introduced a well hidden possibility to pay2win and a cardgame, not because they are hurting for cash. But, why not try and take people for everything they've got anyway?
Thats the position they are in and why its so important no one ever gets such a stranglehold on the market.

[rezoacken]

Well, Guild wars was huge. It was large in itself, so when they release a new game - some people will at least check it out.

Next up you have their owners and developers. I actually got to spend 10 minutes talking with one of the developers. We did a couple quests together, too. I'm a nobody, I don't host a website, I don't have a famous youtube channel - I'm just some guy who logged in to their beta weekend. This alone just outright shocked me.

Their developers have had conversations on fansites, as well as on their official forums. The OWNER actually sat down and talked with a few gamers on a forum. These things really show how interested they are in hearing what WE have to say.

Balance. Shit was broken bwe1. Broken beyond imagination. Bwe2 rolls around - they've fixed 90% of problems, and made one or two more - BWE3 rolls around..I have 0 complaints now on PVE and PVP. They turned a game I regretted paying into, into a game I'm genuinely excited to play. They were with the players every step of the way, They were fine tuning with us. Problems were swiftly fixed, and BWE1, 2, and 3 had better launches than even Diablo 3, WoW(any expansion), or any other game in recent memory.

Overal Fun Experience. With balanced PVP(Something I haven't seen in a game in a very long time - since burning crusade at least), Balanced and enjoyable PVE, A new and entertaining questing system that leaves you with so much to do, Amazing combat system, Great music, Awesome Scenery, and draw-dropping stylization, All around I think this game hooked us in with the graphics, and promises - and kept us by fulfilling said promises.

I agree that developers to players communication is pretty good and after the iron curtain of blizzard in its recent games, that feels really good to not be considered only as "down the line consumers".

And yeah it feels they work on the game... not like D3 -.-

[vilhelm1992]

I call BS.

http://gw2census.com/charts.php?pie=total÷=agegroup

everyone knows thet 98.847% of internet statistics are made up

[Osprey39]

It's not like they just stopped updating the game altogether, they just stopped releasing campaigns.

This is true. I only went back and played for about a month but they put up 2 or 3 new builds in that time and had several events.

[Shostie]

I'm surprised there are so many delicate little flowers who are staying away from the game because they're afraid they'll get hurt.

[Miah]

This makes NO sense whatsoever. If someone in WoW can beat someone else while wearing no gear and of equal skill then he is playing a massively overpowered class vs a massively gimped class. Funny story tough, in Vanilla this did happen. LOLrogue.

And then the rest of your post is calling it "wellfare" to give everyone equal footing in a game? Well then i guess Counterstrike is also a wellfare game. Or LoL. Or Starcraft. Or any other competitive game. Because thats pretty much the definition of a competitive game, no artificial advantages. You played more, there is your advantage, experience and more time to get good.

How is it fun or even fair to give players better gear for playing longer if your intent is skill based competition? What you get is gear vs gear, where whoever grinded his way to the best gear get the biggest advantage.
Where new players are completely stomped because those that spend more time playing are not only much better, but they got a flat numerical advantage. That in games like WoW is king.

You get new looking gear in sPvP, better and different looks is what your reward is. And thats fine, im sick of having to keep running on two sepperate gear threadmills just to play the basic game.

I don't know about WoW PvP, haven't touched it in well over a year its so bad, as you say, OP classes ruin PvP more than any gear set I can think of and Blizzard had some infatuation of reading forums full of whiners yelling "NERF".

Like I said, I like having a reason to strive to be better at PvP and beating people 1-2 gear sets above me, some people like challenges. This is what's fun. New players should " get stomped " and if they don't get stomped then there's your fun. And yes Counterstrike and LoL and the rest are boring, you go out and completely destroy people over and over and over with zero reason to do so, thats why I played Counterstrike for maybe a month then let it die. What's the point behind it? If GW2 is going to have server leaderboards or something then great, it might be worth it. I do understand the people that don't want to put forth effort to "gear up" and want to pop into a match here and there, get frustrated because they get whooped and its usually not because of gear, its because they give up and cry about gear is the difference instead of the fact they don't understand teamwork, objectives, and the role of the undergeared person needs to play in getting their gear. I'm a PvPer, I don't play a couple matches a week, I am up very early every day, well before the sun comes up and use it as my coffee to wake up. I get bored with PvE fairly quick because it's easy and scripted, I like fighting things with a brain and reaction time.

The non reward PvP is great for the casual player, they should consider a casual Casual PvP Que and a reward PvP Que that way people that aren't scared of geared up people and like beating them have something fun to do, more challenging is actually fun for some people

---------- Post added 2012-08-20 at 01:13 AM ----------

Yes, yes. Warhammer was so great that is why it's in the dust bin of MMO history. How many servers do they have running these days? Simple fact of the matter was I found the game not fun to play in the beta and what was worse (and anyone that was in the beta can tell you this) was Mythic's heavy handed forum moderation. Anyone that started a thread about something that wasn't a designated point of focus quickly had that thread closed and was threatened with removal from the beta. It was clear to me at that point they were destined to have a clunker of a game.

I'll agree with you that you shouldn't draw conclusions of how the release game will PERFORM based on beta performance but when a game just isn't fun to play, well that is pretty apparent even in beta. In contrast, at the end of my first BWE in GW2, I couldn't wait for the next one. Why? Because I found it extremely fun to play.

Actually Warhammer has quite a few people PvPing in the F2P starter areas. Warhammers downfall was Aion, Aions downfall was.......etc.etc.etc. just like GW's downfall will be the next MMO that appears fun. People are hungry for a good MMO that doesn't get old after a month. Having to pay a subscription also dust bowls most MMOs these days.

Personally, I think a lot of the PVP orientated MMOs fail because people get stomped and run back to their game where they have 10 level 85s fully geared for playing it for the better part of a decade and sit in Map chat trolling people. Their trail of tears are clearly seen in the forums as they whine about OP this, and gear that.

You are right, flaws show up in betas and I find this game a Warhammer clone except Trinity, It's probably the most clunky game I have played in a long, long while at least in beta and on all the PvP videos, but I pre-ordered without hesitation in case the launch title has a good PvP zoom and the clunky camera is just a server lag issue.

You let heavy handed forum moderation dictate what game you like? If you don't like their game and find it clunky, don't play it. It's their game, their design

[rezoacken]

I don't know about WoW PvP, haven't touched it in well over a year its so bad, as you say, OP classes ruin PvP more than any gear set I can think of and Blizzard had some infatuation of reading forums full of whiners yelling "NERF".

Like I said, I like having a reason to strive to be better at PvP and beating people 1-2 gear sets above me, some people like challenges. This is what's fun. New players should " get stomped " and if they don't get stomped then there's your fun. And yes Counterstrike and LoL and the rest are boring, you go out and completely destroy people over and over and over with zero reason to do so, thats why I played Counterstrike for maybe a month then let it die. What's the point behind it? If GW2 is going to have server leaderboards or something then great, it might be worth it. I do understand the people that don't want to put forth effort to "gear up" and want to pop into a match here and there, get frustrated because they get whooped and its usually not because of gear, its because they give up and cry about gear is the difference instead of the fact they don't understand teamwork, objectives, and the role of the undergeared person needs to play in getting their gear. I'm a PvPer, I don't play a couple matches a week, I am up very early every day, well before the sun comes up and use it as my coffee to wake up. I get bored with PvE fairly quick because it's easy and scripted, I like fighting things with a brain and reaction time.

The non reward PvP is great for the casual player, they should consider a casual Casual PvP Que and a reward PvP Que that way people that aren't scared of geared up people and like beating them have something fun to do, more challenging is actually fun for some people

So... your fun is about killing noobs wearing better gear or stomp noobs having bad gear, but trying to be the best around (best team) just based on skill doesn't interest you.

Am I reading this right ?

[DrakeWurrum]

New players will get stomped based entirely on skill, while still having a chance of overcoming their opponents. You don't need gear to make it happen.


And saying that "non reward" pvp (which is wrong, as GW2 pvp does have rewards, they just don't reward you with statistical superiority) is great for casual pvpers but not hardcore pvpers is absolutely wrong.

Or else LoL and SC2 would not be true esports. Same for any FPS eSport out there. They reward you specifically with cosmetic/vanity rewards, such as skins, badges, titles... not gear.

[ZerOKami]

Hmm. After reading through the thread, what about asking a reversed question for those who had some experience with GW1? Since many people here claims that GW2 is so different from GW1 that GW1 is irrelevant when it comes to GW2's hype. Do you think that there will be some fans of GW1 who will dislike GW2 becouse of how far it deviated from certain GW1 concepts? Maybe someone here who feels that it may happen to him/her? I loved GW1 and so far from everything I seen in GW2 beta weekends I am banking that I will love GW2 as well. Just wondering what other GW old timers think.

Hmm not likely. GW1 was well laid out and frequently updated, everyone who liked it only for its playstyle and wouldn't want to change it are already satisfied for all the years of fun they got.