Missed oppertunity to increase revenue for Anet

I do understand that Anet is doing well with GW2, but it misses one thing that can get more players in their corner. The continuation of the Original GW. Let's look at other games and compare a bit. One of the most profitable games for NcSoft is Lineage, not Lineage 2 but the original game. Why is this? Well the reason is because they took a popular game and kept it relevant by giving it new updates and expansions. Anet took a big hit in personnel but still has way more people than when GW2 started. When GW2 did not exist they could easily churn out a new campaign every six months for GW, which they do not even have to do campaigns from now on just expansions like Eye of the North a small dedicated team could create something for GW fans that would blow them away every 2 years or so. They would also be available if needed for adding to GW2's massive story and lore. Now the new stuff in GW would have to be on a strict lore design since 250 years had passed between the games. Mainly tell stories of how things came to be in GW2. For example in Elona the rise of Joko and how the sun spears were hunted by his undead hordes. How the people became to love him in life and in death. How an why Cantha became a closed off society after the defeat of Shiro You know what happened in between GW and GW2 in that 250 years. The books do tell some of that of course, but I think people would love to play those events in GW.
I hope people will agree with me on this. And Anet you can charge money for those expansions people will buy them.

Your point is based on a mistaken assumption.

No, Anet cold not, "easily churn out a new expansion every six months."

Part of the reason for shelving GW1 was specifically that they found the pace unmaintainable.

One problem is, how do you fit any new story lines from new Guild Wars 1’s expansions into history of Guild Wars 2? Do you retcon GW2’s history? Do you completely ignore the new lore and the new important historical characters? Right now the history is fixed. Adding new story lines into the history has an impact on the lore of this game, unless you just want to say at the start of each new gw1 expansion, “Ignore all this. It means nothing.”

@"Ashen.2907" said:Your point is based on a mistaken assumption.

No, Anet cold not, "easily churn out a new expansion every six months."

Part of the reason for shelving GW1 was specifically that they found the pace unmaintainable.

That plus the GW1 engine was severely limiting what they could do. (And yes GW2 uses a heavily modified GW1 engine, but it took years for them to change it enough to give us GW2 and every expansion they have to figure out how to get things to work and there's still plenty of bugs that pop up.) Limited engine + setting a rapid content release pace = massive burnout for devs and players getting angry when content isn't what they think it should be.

Arenanet also isn't hurting for money. Their current model is fully sustainable without treating devs like replaceable cogs. It actually brings in enough money consistently enough that for multiple years it was able to fully fund at least two projects with people being pulled off GW2 to work on those projects. Sure the numbers may not always seem impressive compared to other IPs, but it's not like Arenanet and GW2 is anywhere near the red.

Chasing forever increasing profits and using dollar signs as a measurement of quality and worth are overrated, especially in the video game industry.

You are comparing apples with oranges, both fruits but very different. Lineage is a different type of MMO, with different audience, different monetization and the sunk cost that comes with it.

Lineage is being kept alive, almost "single-handely", by its massive Korean base. I'm pretty sure NCsoft has shutdown all of its NA servers by now. GW was a western mmo that didn't have that going for it. Obviously, the ones with all the numbers at their disposal thought it would be more cost effective to leave it on autopilot and transition to the sequel. I'm inclined to believe they know better since their main concern is... making money.

It's not really a missed opportunity when they as the creators and with full knowledge of the market and industry (ie they know better than us) realised they had gone as far as they could with the original game and the only way to realise their vision, tell the stories they wanted in the way they wanted and grow the business, was to go into GW2 and ditch GW1. They clearly felt managing the two together was untenable since one or both would suffer.

In other words, they saw an opportunity to make more money and took it. Seems to have worked out pretty well for them overall

@"Ashen.2907" said:Your point is based on a mistaken assumption.

No, Anet cold not, "easily churn out a new expansion every six months."

Part of the reason for shelving GW1 was specifically that they found the pace unmaintainable.

Considering the pace GW2 started off, that sounds very strange.

I thought the biggest reason, was that they wanted to do more but the GW1 was to rigid in its engine, so they basically had to make a new game.

One can peruse this page to learn some of the reasons GW2 was created: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia(I do remember a quote about the pace being too much, but I can't find it right now.)

“We sat down to discuss what was going to go into Campaign 4 and realized we couldn't do all the things we wanted,” says Game Designer Eric Flannum. “Why? Partly because we’d need more time [than six months], and partly because some ideas wouldn't work well with things we’d done before.”At that point, there were still no plans to fix a system that didn’t seem broken. But ArenaNet Co-Founder Jeff Strain decided to let everyone “freestyle a little bit,” he says. “And the more we talked, the more excited we got about what we could be doing.”What the team felt it couldn’t do was implement its exciting new ideas in the game’s current campaign-every-six-months plan. While the promise of fresh standalone content twice a year sounds great to players, its requirements have actually caused Guild Wars to become somewhat convoluted from a game-design perspective.

And, given that the development team has aimed to release a new campaign every six months or so (despite missing that deadline by six months for the second campaign), one might assume that every Guild Wars designer's wildest ideas have found a home somewhere between the lands of Tyria and Elona.

“With each new campaign, we’ve been trying to introduce brand-new mechanics that change how the game plays. That’s led to the need for larger and larger tutorials to explain the new mechanics, and it’s made each campaign’s beginning experience much more bloated,”

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:One problem is, how do you fit any new story lines from new Guild Wars 1’s expansions into history of Guild Wars 2? Do you retcon GW2’s history? Do you completely ignore the new lore and the new important historical characters? Right now the history is fixed. Adding new story lines into the history has an impact on the lore of this game, unless you just want to say at the start of each new gw1 expansion, “Ignore all this. It means nothing.”

Your right that is why it would have to be strict on the lore not go over it or come up with something new that did not exist. Just fill in gaps people are missing. It's like 250 years are just gone never existed at all. Which technically they didn't but they could be told in Guildwars either way. Guild wars has a decent fan base still and even I would revisit and purchase a new expansion for Guildwars, so I could play it alongside Guildwars2

The reason I say expansion instead ofa campaign (which is a stand alone game they usually introduce new professions with it). In an expansion no new professions are needed for it like Guild Wars Eye of the North. They could however later on add one profession to that as it progresses. > @"Ashen.2907" said:

Your point is based on a mistaken assumption.

No, Anet cold not, "easily churn out a new expansion every six months."

Part of the reason for shelving GW1 was specifically that they found the pace unmaintainable.

They shelved GW1 because they wanted to give more to the players in a new way it started with being able to jump then dodge then glide and last but not least mounts. Guildwars was and still is a great game different from other MMO type games but also mainly instanced only towns and outposts were places where people could meet and socialize. Guildwars 2 is a true MMO most things are done in a persistent world where everyone interacts with or near each other. I find it cool doing a vista high up and see people on the map when I click on the vista flag and watch the animation for it.

I know that ArenaNet makes plenty of money and does not have to do this, but they have been doing some QoL updates to Guildwars recently so why not expand on that.

Others already pointed out most that I wanted to say except:

@Chyanne Waters.8719 said:When GW2 did not exist they could easily churn out a new campaign every six months for GW

How much work do you think had already been completed on those campaigns prior to Prophecies release?

None since Prophecies was the first. But don't exactly know show me something that extends past their first campaign while it was being made if you have anything. Also read further down I was wrong about the six months thing that was the schedule but it became a burden after a while. A new expansion could however be done in 2 years or so along side any new content for Guildwars 2.

@Chyanne Waters.8719 said:None since Prophecies was the first. But don't exactly know show me something that extends past their first campaign while it was being made if you have anything. Also read further down I was wrong about the six months thing that was the schedule but it became a burden after a while. A new expansion could however be done in 2 years or so along side any new content for Guildwars 2.

It being the first doesn’t necessarily mean that other content wasn’t being work on in tandem.

Your right it could of been, but being it was a new style of game and a new way of thinking I doubt it. Of course Anet does do things differently than other gaming companies.

You're right. They should work themselves to death like the other dev companies do because you deserve a new toy every week.

@Trise.2865 said:You're right. They should work themselves to death like the other dev companies do because you deserve a new toy every week.

Do not want that or did I even say that. It is just an idea if they wanted to do it. They seem to stay busy and if they cannot come up with something for GW2 they could do something for GW while thinking about that. Also it is not about me it is about everyone interested In either game.