What would you choose to work on if you would be the boss of anet?

[Zzik.5873]

Rework the whole social experience. Proximity voice chat, casual content like housing, etc. This game really feal lonly to play yet the fun content is gated behind playing with 9 other person that train with you. Im tired of pugging is so unfun, I dont want to command squad anymore, people just leave, trash talk, they act like jerk and you need to sit thru all this kitten to get centent down. The new CM olc is so unfun to try to form a pug squad. Oh and I would stop cmc and roy from doing any further damage to the balance. Theyre killing the combat system and homoginesing it to a point of boringness. If only community existed inside the game and not ouside.

[Jordan Stone.6395]

7 hours ago, Ben K.6238 said:

I don't know how viable porting the entire GW2 project to UE5 would be, and it may not actually work better for them than improving the engine they've already got (after all, UE still gets regular upgrades at least 25 years later).
My suspicion is they're doing a separate game that functions a bit differently, as GW1 did.

They give you a options to port your game into new versions of UE upon new release. There is actually alot of companies getting away from their proprietary engines though, I'm going to leave a link (at the bottom) of one set of developers talking about converting their game into Unreal Engine 5 from their proprietary engine and they talk about the advantages and disadvantages of it, it really makes it clear on the advantages and why they ended up doing it after considering it multiple times in the past and deciding not to do it. The way ArenaNET are hiring people right now is mainly within a Senior position which is the same thing the other studio did before switching over their engine so they had employees that could help the rest of the team learn at a faster pace.

One specific reason the studio gave for switching was this, you have to consider the advantages Unreal Engine gives their team it's already far more advanced then their Engine in a majority of ways but not all of it was better overall, and the fact that you spend more money paying your engineers to contineously update the proprietary engine when instead you can use UE5 and now your engineers have more time to focus on the game infrastructure and being able to push out more content faster in a game then previously before, or focusing on improving the infrastructure within UE5 for where it falls short. But then again %5 of your profits go to EPIC so it depends on how much money they are spending on upgrading their engine and how much more important being able to push content out and be competitive with others within the genre already existing or releasing in the future.

 

The other two major reasons they gave was one that listed in my last post which was the multi-user work flow allowing faster production for a whole team working on it, and the fact that most junior programmers are trained in school on UE5 and being able to hire more people that are already familiar with UE5 instead of trying to training the juniors on a proprietary engine. The other thing that I honestly thought was insane was whats called the "validation system."
 

The Unreal Engine (UE) Editor features a Data Validation plugin for developers to validate assets with custom-scripted rulesets. Common validation use cases include:

• Checking that assets meet name conventions

• Enforcing space and performance budgets

• Catching non-cyclic dependencies

If the developer screws up on something it's gonna bring it up to them so that they can fix it as they work along this would seriously cut down on issues within the game.

 

As for a game like GW1, I don't see it happening but thats my opinion. I loved GW1, and miss alot of things about it. But overall Guild Wars 2 is a better game overall and just needs to take some more ideas from GW1,  like for instance I think a good idea would be to gut DRM's and make a instance content that resembles GW1 with being able to have heroes help you out on missions and have an entire system eventually that could even allow you to customize your companions or something. If they do plan on switching up the combat system we could end up with something better then both games depending on what they do. Except I can't really see them doing dual classes in this game at all, it worked well in Guild Wars 1 but it would break GW2 unless they push it into the system. I think they just plan on expanding and giving us more freedom within the weapon choices we have, I really do feel like as time has gone on the default weapon deck skills are holding back alot of specs/professions from really being able to choose certain roles.

 

The more I research into other companies pushing away from their engines and going for UE5 the more I'm confident that this might actually be happening, and ArenaNET said they had big announcements on the direction they are taking with the game the new year and I'm honestly wondering if this is it. The only thing that throws me off is finishing the updates to the GW2 engine but if it'll take 6 months to get a grapple on the UE engine at minimum and say another year to switch it over efficently then I could see why they are wrapping up some projects. It will take time, but building a new MMORPG will definately take far longer (closer to 5+ years) then converting it over. After watching several videos about this subject there are a lot more pros then cons in support of switching to UE5 then continuing your current engine but it's really honestly up to the developer. I'm no expert on the matter but just following the trail of bread crums here and so far it looks like it could be a very plausible option, more so then I had orginally thought. Anyways, cheers thanks for the input. 🙂

https://exputer.com/exputer/unreal-engine-5-obsolete-others/

 

Edited December 18, 2022 by Jordan Stone.6395

[Dithnir.4593]

As the boss of Anet I'd need to be investing in our next MMO, if we're to continue to make MMOs at all. GW2 might have a few years in it, great, but I'd be thinking about the long term future of the company and if it's in MMOs, that's GW3.

EDIT: I'd add too, as I'm in Gamedev as a studio head and I've seen it, I'd also look to switch to Unreal to save devtime to focus that on content. Far easier to surf the Unreal updates with a core tech team than continue something in house. I'd also be looking to double down on instanced content, have the maps be node based like GW1, it would mean more detail in the environments (unless the nodes were intentionally larger for bigger bosses).

I'd also look to create and balance classes for pvp and then evolve off that for pve content. It is Guild Wars after all, the clue is in the title.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Dithnir.4593
additional points.

[Bladestrom.6425]

1 hour ago, Dithnir.4593 said:

As the boss of Anet I'd need to be investing in our next MMO, if we're to continue to make MMOs at all. GW2 might have a few years in it, great, but I'd be thinking about the long term future of the company and if it's in MMOs, that's GW3.

EDIT: I'd add too, as I'm in Gamedev as a studio head and I've seen it, I'd also look to switch to Unreal to save devtime to focus that on content. Far easier to surf the Unreal updates with a core tech team than continue something in house. I'd also be looking to double down on instanced content, have the maps be node based like GW1, it would mean more detail in the environments (unless the nodes were intentionally larger for bigger bosses).

I'd also look to create and balance classes for pvp and then evolve off that for pve content. It is Guild Wars after all, the clue is in the title.

 

Do you think they could get appropriate performance with the unreal engine in large scale fights?  bear in mind this isn't a shooter and there is an extremely high load of overlapping processes/AOE in play.  Genuine question.

[CashCow.9548]

Make it so it takes 2 weeks to get Skyscale.

[Bladestrom.6425]

Just now, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

 

Do you think they could get appropriate performance with the unreal engine in large scale fights?  bear in mind this isn't a shooter and there is an extremely high load of overlapping processes/AOE in play.  Genuine question.

 

Just now, CashCow.9548 said:

Make it so it takes 2 weeks to get Skyscale.

 

*slow clap*

[CashCow.9548]

2 hours ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

 

 

*slow clap*

What's up?

[Bladestrom.6425]

4 hours ago, CashCow.9548 said:

What's up?

Trying to railroad interesting chat with pointless disingenuous nonsense, play a game instead if your bored.

[Solvar.7953]

If we were going on the list of things I found annoying and would remove/change:

- All timegates for crafting (or anything else).  Maybe keep them in when content is new, but once content has been out for a while, remove them.

- Make all dialogue skippable.

- And at least a 1c vendor value to all items so even for trash with no use (hatched chilis come to mind, but there are others), you could sell it for something instead of having to destroy it.

- Remove confirmation dialogues for things which are really not a big deal to remove - items that 'are only useful in a collection', unlocked skins, among others.

- Remove account bound from virtually all items - this is only upon receipt - once used, things would become account bound.  Certain items may be account bound (rewards for achievements).  To me, one of the greatest strengths of GW2 is the trading post, and account bound removes that.  I often have excess of something, and I can look on the trading post and can sell it, knowing I can just buy it back again if I do need it.  I can't do that with account bound items.

 

[CashCow.9548]

13 hours ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

Trying to railroad interesting chat with pointless disingenuous nonsense, play a game instead if your bored.

Ohh kitten, my bad. I had no idea I cant give my thoughts on the original title of the thread, and that instead I have to cater to YOUR "interesting" ongoing discussions.

 

Not everything is about you.

[Bladestrom.6425]

1 hour ago, CashCow.9548 said:

Ohh kitten, my bad. I had no idea I cant give my thoughts on the original title of the thread, and that instead I have to cater to YOUR "interesting" ongoing discussions.

 

Not everything is about you.

oh your a happy little camper.  I wasn't taking about my ongoing discussions.   So as the boss of a software house for an AAA game, you would  prioritise 'Make it so it takes 2 weeks to get Skyscale'  interesting.

[CashCow.9548]

5 minutes ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

oh your a happy little camper.  I wasn't taking about my ongoing discussions.   So as the boss of a software house for an AAA game, you would  prioritise 'Make it so it takes 2 weeks to get Skyscale'  interesting.

What other interesting chats were you referring to... that I seem to derail by commenting on the title of the thread? 

 

Yeah. I would make Skyscale take long or longer than originally. Is that a problem? I dont know if you've been around, but its always a complaint of how quickly people finish new content and how it turns to "anet please, there's nothing to do" so yeah in fact, Id make all the grinds in this game take longer.

 

Do you have a problem with my opinion?

[Bladestrom.6425]

personally i founds Jordan's chat quite interesting.  maybe read more and try to pick fights less.

[CashCow.9548]

32 minutes ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

personally i founds Jordan's chat quite interesting.  maybe read more and try to pick fights less.

What are you even on about? This is a open, public post. I can comment directly to the topic of the thread- which I did. By your logic I can only comment to the thread if I have something to say about the last discussion in hand? What's the matter with you...

 

And how am I the one picking fights? You started with your cocky "slow clap" to my comment, for no reason. I didnt even quote you.

 

And then you procceed to tell me that I derail "discussions" and what I have to say is completly nonsense, while all I do is share my honest opinions on the title of the topic.

 

So tell me again, who is picking fights...?

[Juan.6124]

Updating old pve to fit current meta would mean to make it more difficult because power creep has been raging over the game. Are you sure you want that? I do at least 

[ParadoX.3124]

Communication

[Sindust.7059]

Reverting the November 29 mechanist changes. And then fixing signets, so that they don't go on cooldown with no effect.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I’d start with a profession overhaul. Ground up reworks of each profession with a focus on playstyle in PvE/WvW/PvP.  I’d look at game flow including skill animations and effects and focus on the essence of combat for each profession/espec.  I’d also scrap and rebuild the boon system  

Once this had been attempted, I’d split the rest of the work into revamping existing systems. PvP: rework of Arenas, Ladders and rewards. WvW push into Alliances, and update reward system.  In both I’d also dig deep into bug fixes that have negative impact on combat and competitive results. 
 

In PvE I’d review NPC Mob balance across Core and each LW and Expac. Tighten up or rework some existing Metas/World events (looking at PoF and EoD maps specifically).  The goal would be to make encounters more balanced from Level 1 to EoD.

Lastly I’d consider revising rewards by streamlining what loot is given and how we use it (or dispose of it). 

[Rogue.8235]

I would find running a subsidiary (effectively) company too frustrating.  You don't have the ultimate say on strategic management, as the parent company can slap things down if they think you're getting too uppity with their bottom line.  Even more so for a firm built around a creative IP.  

As a result, I would end up balancing the creative process of my developers, building new content for the IP we wish to grow, with the demands of the parent company's financial targets.  It is never worth getting into a legal dispute with a company with a much bigger retainer than you.

As such, I'd focus development on new content that is most played by the player base.  This allows for creative expansion of an IP while ensuring that all financial targets are met.  This is also such a ridiculously oversimplified explanation of what it would take to be the CEO of a development firm.

In secret, I would slowly make a long-term plan (maybe 6-10 years) to break from the parent company for a business environment that allows for much bigger expansion into product lines to build the IP.  Details for this is non-existent because I have not done any market/industry/economic/legal research and analysis into ArenaNet's specific business environment.  Even so, this will most likely not be done, as it is extremely risky and the benefits will most likely not stack up.

 

For the long-term strategic goals of a going concern, I'd be looking at either expanding the Guild Wars franchise in some manner, or look into development of a new IP.  A going concern means a company that will last indefinitely, and the strategic plans to keep the business operational and profitable in perpetuity.

 

Disclaimer: My post is wildly unreasonable.

 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Revert all art, dialog, and voice acting changes to ls1. Add lost shore and cutthroat politics as side story achievements. Stop the culture of orphaned story threads that plagues the narrative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

If you were the boss of ArenaNet you still wouldn't get to chose what to work on because its the publisher and investors that decides that in the video game development world. That's why so many complaints against them are unfair, but you can't explain corporate politics to random people on the internet.

 

Here's a basic run down of how it works:

Investors: Here's some money, we want you to do this thing.

Developers: This thing doesn't fit within our vision, we'd really like you to reconsider.

Investors: You will do the thing or you won't get the money.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Sevens.9452]

gw3 on mobile

[Kozumi.5816]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:10 AM, Sevens.9452 said:

gw3 on mobile

Already happening, Will be mobile/PC like Genshin and full of pay to win like Diablo Immortal.

[Gendalfs.7521]

I would create small department that does nothing but plays the game and consults balancing team what to do and Why to do so.

[Doggie.3184]

Easy. I'd add tons of swimsuit armor for all genders and un-genderlock all designs that look totally different between genders so males get more ab windows and crop-tops; like the True Assassin's Guise, and females can dress more masculine or less revealing if they wish. With that we can finally achieve world peace, and equality. 🙂

...and I'd bring the underwater combat from alpha stage to beta so we can begin GW2: Path of Moist. 🏊‍♂️