What if GW2 were to shut down?

[Arnox.5128]

Note that I'm not talking about the LIKELIHOOD of this happening. (It's very very low.) I'm just wondering what our backup options would be. Honestly, it looks pretty grim. Especially compared to WoW. If Blizzard shut down WoW tomorrow, it wouldn't matter THAT much because private servers for WoW are everywhere in almost every flavor. GW2 though, for better and for worse, is much more locked down, and I don't know if ANYONE outside of ANet even has any sort of access to the server software needed to spin up a GW2 server.

What's worse, GW2 is a very fashion and player character focused game, and many many people have spent years and years earning and making all the characters on their account complete with equipment and figured out builds. There are even many items on accounts that, for one reason or another, were made unavailable years ago and have become collector's items. And THEN there's all the unlocked waypoints on characters. If GW2 were to shut down, all that account data that was so many years in the making is going to go right down the toilet. So even if someone somehow got access to the server software, everyone would have to start at ground zero. And sure, the server admins could theoretically make those unavailable items available again and/or speed up the time it takes to get rare items, but while that is indeed an option, it just won't be the same as how it felt originally.

Oh, and finally, I have a suspicion that WoW is a much easier game to run, servers wise, as compared to GW2. So if someone wanted to start up a private server, they may need a very beefy server just to have it running in a minimal state. Not even talking about any maintenance the server might require in the background that maybe only ANet will ever be equipped to handle.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Arnox.5128

[Astralporing.1957]

It's not a matter of private servers. It's a matter of alternatives. WoW is a much more mainstream MMORPG (primarily because for years it has been the example on which mainstream was based on) than GW2 is, which means Blizzard players have more options for something that can satisfy them well enough. For GW2 the situation is not that nice - especially for the casual, OW based part of the playerbase (which is a significant majority of it). At the moment there's just no other game that offers similar experience on the market.

[Arnox.5128]

18 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It's not a matter of private servers. It's a matter of alternatives. WoW is a much more mainstream MMORPG (primarily because for years it has been the example on which mainstream was based on) than GW2 is, which means Blizzard players have more options for something that can satisfy them well enough. For GW2 the situation is not that nice - especially for the casual, OW based part of the playerbase (which is a significant majority of it). At the moment there's just no other game that offers similar experience on the market.

Yeah that's another good point. GW2 is so kitten unique, and if it goes out, no one will be there to fill its shoes unless someone is willing to buy out the GW IP from NCSoft and keep the original servers running. And even if that happens, there's a very strong possibility that we may see some big changes from how NCSoft and ANet ran it together all the way up to now.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Arnox.5128

[Mungrul.9358]

I would hope if it got to that stage, ANet would allow users to download server executables and character information so they could run their own instances. But I suspect that would be a lot harder than it would even be with the first game.

At the same time, while that's my hope, I'm under no illusions that due to legal complications and intellectual property fights, this would not be likely to happen at all.

 

And this is a problem for ALL games that only exist online or utilise an online component for copy protection (and even games without these features).

How do you preserve them for future generations and historical reference?

Games companies are really bad at this kind of thing, and it usually comes down to the community to preserve games, often acting in grey legal areas.

Because while IPs like this may appear to be abandoned, rights holders will jealously guard them and prevent their release to the public.

 

John Carmack pioneered a really good approach with id Software engines before he left to join Oculus, and all id game engines up to and including the Doom 3 engine have been released as Open Source, so the community can do with them whatever they like (not the art assets, but certainly the code).

Unfortunately, that practice died when he left, and since then, Bethesda have stopped releasing subsequent engine source code, now even requiring that people who use modern id tech engines publish solely through them.

 

This kind of behaviour has always struck me as petty and self-destructive. Do these companies not realise that a lot of their employees come from backgrounds where they worked on mods and open source adaptations?

How do you foster the next generation of talent if the tools widely available to them aren't as available as they used to be?

Edited July 8, 2022 by Mungrul.9358
woulda, coulda, shoulda...

[Luthan.5236]

I'd just watch more anime. It's not that I need GW2 or any MMORPG at all - more like I'm playing it cause it exists and it is nice to have.

[Hotride.2187]

All your time ingame goes poof, I assume. Money spent on the game, too. But its not so bad as it sounds, you just find something else to do. As long as you keep in mind that all your time ingame will eventually evaporate.

 

[SinisterSlay.6973]

Sometimes it's tough to think about the years spent and literally wasted.

[Dawdler.8521]

Since GW2 isnt actually a "single server" design where everything is contained, a private server would be far more complicated than that. You'd need an entire cloud with account server, TP server, multiple instance servers and sPvP and WvW servers which is probably separate from the rest since they arent instanced.

A shutdown is inevitable, but GW3 isnt announced (from announcement to release it would be AT LEAST 3 years, more like 5 years) and we're not seeing any maintance mode yet. So we're looking at something probably 8+ years away.

Well unless Anet go belly up or the world burn in nuclear fire.

Either way I'll probably be playing the Skyrim 20th Mega Legendary Anniversery Edition or something by then.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Danikat.8537]

At the moment it does seem like if GW2 was to shut down the answer is simply that the game would be gone, which is the case with several MMOs. But I'm not sure if that's because it's impossible to make private servers or because no one has wanted to do it enough to actually go through with it. WoW isn't open source and WoW private servers don't exist because the developers chose to make all the necessary information available to the people who made them. For a long time they would actively try to prevent or shut down any they were aware of, and one of the reasons WoW Classic was set up was to remove some of the appeal of moving to private servers. Again it's the same with several other MMOs which have got private servers, either alongside the official ones or after they shut down, and with some single-player games, especially ones run through emulators. So it might be that someone could make a private GW2 server but no one who has the skills to do it wants it enough to deal with both the work involved and the legal trouble they'd get into if Anet or NCSoft found out.

But this is one reason I always say ultimately the only reason to do anything in a game is for fun. At some point every one of us will stop playing GW2. It might be because the game gets shut down, it might be because we got bored with it, it might be because we die, or any number of reasons. Whatever the reason is when that happens all the stuff you've done and collected in the game is gone, even if it's still online if you're not playing any more you can't access it or do anything with it. So it doesn't really mean anything. All that will be left is your memories and experiences and potentially relationships with people you met in-game or played with (unless you die, then those are gone too).

Personally I'm ok with that because overall I've had fun with the game, it's been a good experience and given me some good memories and I hope if that stops being the case I'll stop playing before the bad memories outweigh the good ones. The same has already happened with countless older games. I spent hundreds or thousands of hours on some games and series and have nothing to show for it because the save files and other data are gone. In one case a CD literally exploded in the drive, and an old PC hard drive got physically broken so it was 'grinding itself into dust' according to the repair shop and any data on that part of the drive was destroyed. Oh and some of those glitches in old Pokemon games which everyone said could break your game? Turns out some of them really could. Others have been less dramatic, I just lost or wiped or sold the disc or cartridge or hard drive or whatever, but the end result is the same. They're gone and all I have to show for that time is my memories of it and in some cases friendships that have lasted decades past the game we originally met through.

 

2 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

What's worse, GW2 is a very fashion and player character focused game, and many many people have spent years and years earning and making all the characters on their account complete with equipment and figured out builds. There are even many items on accounts that, for one reason or another, were made unavailable years ago and have become collector's items. And THEN there's all the unlocked waypoints on characters. If GW2 were to shut down, all that account data that was so many years in the making is going to go right down the toilet. So even if someone somehow got access to the server software, everyone would have to start at ground zero. And sure, the server admins could theoretically make those unavailable items available again and/or speed up the time it takes to get rare items, but while that is indeed an option, it just won't be the same as how it felt originally.

Isn't that the same for other games? It's been a while since I looked into private servers for MMOs but I'm not aware of any which allowed you to copy over a character or other account data from the main game, and often starting from scratch is presented as part of the appeal.

[Sylvari.2953]

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this but I wouldn't really care at this point, tbh. I've been playing since beta and I used to be obsessed with GW2 but it's been my side MMO since 2019... It's kinda "meh" these days.

[Sarius.9285]

probably just play FF14 and maybe some League again. I would miss it, sure, but I got enough good memories 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I've been playing MMOs for half my life and this is my third major MMO. A shutdown is inevitable, but most likely it'll just go into maintenance mode while a sequal comes out, and then we'll all move to it or stay behind and enjoy our glory days, just like with GW1. Some people will do both.

 

This is just how life is, nothing lasts forever except our bonds. You learn to live with it.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Einsof.1457]

25 minutes ago, Sarius.9285 said:

probably just play FF14 and maybe some League again. I would miss it, sure, but I got enough good memories 

FFXIV will shut down before gw2. I'll make that bet. 

[Gibson.4036]

8 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

FFXIV will shut down before gw2. I'll make that bet. 

Curious why you think that.

Because FFXIV inherently has less longevity for some reason? Or because the owners will be quicker to cut losses when the game declines?

I only played FFXIV during betas of the original, terrible version, so I don’t know much about what it’s like now.

[Sylvari.2953]

49 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

FFXIV will shut down before gw2. I'll make that bet. 

I doubt it. Even FFXI is still alive and it has significantly less players than XIV! Plus it will get a graphics update in 7.0. They just added more EU servers and new NA ones are coming soon. If the game were dying, they wouldn't spend money on these things.

[Chrysaliss.8720]

If GW2 shut down, then I would finaly have enough time to finish painting my Tyranid army.

[Discobizkit.6531]

Continue playing my guitar. 

[Linken.6345]

Well I got a big backlog on steam.

[Einsof.1457]

2 hours ago, Sylvari.2953 said:

I doubt it. Even FFXI is still alive and it has significantly less players than XIV! Plus it will get a graphics update in 7.0. They just added more EU servers and new NA ones are coming soon. If the game were dying, they wouldn't spend money on these things.

The reason why FFXI is still going and FFXIV won't go longer than GW2 is because FFXIV by design relies on a constant influx of new content. Due to vertical progression systems that the game is built around, a maintenance mode will be near impossible without working out how rewards could work in a non-update state. FFXI has great horizontal progression, as does GW2 (And GW1), so they are likely to last longer than a strictly vertical theme park mmo, where content MUST be released to keep the carrot on a stick at a distance. You could put FFXIV into maintenance mode but the incentive to play will drop off a cliff without constant updates, increased ilvl gear, levels, etc.  

Edited July 8, 2022 by Einsof.1457

[Einsof.1457]

3 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Curious why you think that.

Because FFXIV inherently has less longevity for some reason? Or because the owners will be quicker to cut losses when the game declines?

I only played FFXIV during betas of the original, terrible version, so I don’t know much about what it’s like now.

Correct. See above. 

[Cuks.8241]

6 hours ago, Arnox.5128 said:

Oh, and finally, I have a suspicion that WoW is a much easier game to run, servers wise, as compared to GW2. So if someone wanted to start up a private server, they may need a very beefy server just to have it running in a minimal state. Not even talking about any maintenance the server might require in the background that maybe only ANet will ever be equipped to handle.

I'm certain all the wow private servers are reverse engineered. And unless Anet decided to sell or make the source public the private version would need to be reverse engineered also. So it would really depend on the developers. It could be that the private version would run much smoother 🙂

But I doubt there is any interested community out there for running private gw2 servers. 

[Dante.1508]

If it does i'll play something else.. Honestly how its managed i wouldn't be surprised if it was.

3 hours ago, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

If GW2 shut down, then I would finaly have enough time to finish painting my Tyranid army.

I'd then have time to paint my Battletech minis..

5 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Sometimes it's tough to think about the years spent and literally wasted.

Its not wasted we spent 10 years so far on it.. How is that a waste.

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Dante.1508

[SinisterSlay.6973]

21 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

If it does i'll play something else.. Honestly how its managed i wouldn't be surprised if it was.

I'd then have time to paint my Battletech minis..

Its not wasted we spent 10 years so far on it.. How is that a waste.

 

As a useless person I probably wouldn't have accomplished anything in those 10 years. But I could have ...

Not sure why I never travelled. I'm going to be one of those people that is born, lives and dies in a tiny corner of the world never seeing anything else.

 

 

[Ashen.2907]

"What if GW2 were to shut down?"

We would move on to something else. Another MMO? Perhaps. Other types of games? Likely. I would probably start another PnP RPG campaign and let online gaming go for the most part.

[Randulf.7614]

My book backlog is running close to 2000, so it’ll be fond memories and “so long and thanks for all the fish”. I suspect the game will outlast me though!