Thoughts about GW3 [Merged]

[firedragon.8953]

Haha Anet must really hate NCsoft at the moment. What a disaster.

But, GW3 or no, everyone just needs to chill. We know nothing about this so called GW3. Games under development don't always go to market. Anet has always been cooking stuff in the back, GW3 or otherwise. Those saying you don't want to play GW2 anymore because of GW3 and that GW2 is now a waste of time, need to reevaluate what games really are. In short, if your having fun playing GW2 now, play GW2 now. Even if. GW3 is on the horizon, it's likely years away. If you think maxing out your GW2 account is like slogging through a PhD thesis and has any inherent value besides your own enjoyment, you should have quit long ago.

[tzaeru.3742]

8 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

First was not meant to be reported at all, second the exact opposite, so...

Notice, btw, that the first report came from korean financial site that likely has no idea (nor cares about) what GW is and was likely completely unaware about how that small part of what they reported on might cause a reaction for GW2 players. Second, yes, that was a PR message that was meant to bring reaction from people interested about Anet and Guild Wars, and was specifically crafted to calm people down.

So, again, which do you think is likely to be more honest?

The report is based directly on a question made to the chairman of NCSoft.

I do not know Korean business culture, but typically, the thing is, if the chairman of a large public company says something like this, then it is going to influence the valuation of the company and that creates further pressure to deliver.

Generally speaking, chairmen and CEOs of public companies should not lie, and it's in fact often illegal for them to do so.

It is possible he spoke without understanding what he was speaking about and only said what he thought shareholders would like to hear. But that's actually rather worrisome if that's how NCSoft operates. Expectation management is a huge part of making any business profitable and at the end of the day, while ANet is its own company, it is wholly owned by NCSoft and as such ANet's capability to deliver is tied to whether NCSoft is able to stay afloat.

Edited March 29 by tzaeru.3742

[Gehenna.3625]

9 hours ago, Sugar Min.5834 said:

Exactly my thoughts too. No point spending more time and money on a dying 12 year old mmo knowing it will be gone and replaced soon.

That would be NcSoon™. It'll probably be another 5+ years before it will actually come out, if indeed it will come out and doesn't get scrapped along the way somewhere.

[sanguigasm.1325]

I just realized that like what they doing now with soto, anet intended to do half-yearly release for gw1 starting with Utopia, but ended up cancelled for Eye of the North and eventually for gw2. What if soto turns out to be the eotn that connects gw2 and gw3, and gw3 turns out to be set in kryptis realm

Edited March 29 by sanguigasm.1325

[Entara.3075]

I find it interesting that two of the most common complaints I hear on this forum are that the graphics are outdated and that the FPS are so slow in the new zones. Regardless of the effect of a more efficient engine, state of the art graphics will require modern computers.

People will no longer be able to play on their old potato computers and then they will whine about that.

There is always a balance that needs to be maintained. I don't see why people equate fun with being able to see if a character has wrinkles on their skin.

[Swagg.9236]

Lmao.  This game was dead in 2015.  The one caveat on the news is that the guy was more or less forced to say that GW3 was in development because of how pressured he was over NCSoft's constant financial failings.  GW2 was never going to last forever, and regardless of what anyone thinks, the player base is anemic but super dense at the top end with all of the people who actually bought into the "Masteries collections, time-gated grinds, and buying expacs to win in PvP is totally real gameplay, guys" farce.  People could have an impression that GW2 is alive mainly because it has a lot of overly-invested mouth-pieces.

The way that the game is designed now is almost entirely in a way that chases out new players trying out the totally old and busted junk while the people who paid for the powercteep continue to think that nothing is wrong.  It's a sun burning iron.  Maybe GW3 will actually have GvG lmao.

 

[Blood.7254]

6 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Minor shower thought:

I wonder if the CFO may have done this intentionally as a publicly coded message to ANet to produce something of value soon. If he is getting fire for ANet and their product not performing, calling them out publicly might have been intended as a wake up call to them. Would explain why he focused so much on noting ANet's "unprofitablity" and emphasizing a pretty clear framing of GW2 and GW3 as ANet's responsibility.

It also conveniently sets him up to throw ANet under the bus in a year or two if revenue continues to stagnate.

I legit can't wait for the 2034 documentary spilling all the tea on NCSoft-ANet tensions.

I was thinking along the same lines.

However, I was more of a doomer lol. Arenanet is not profitable apparently. Which is absolutely crazy to think about. At least to an outsider like me. Their financial reports show GW2 is currently in a solid place when compared to the past 8-9 years. Meaning the overall income has been about the average, with a smaller studio since the 2019 layoffs. We know that since covid GW2 has had a steady income of new players and Arenanet actually said their playerbase increased by a lot at some point during/after EoD.

During this shareholder meeting the CEO starts explaining how you know "we've reshuffled some studios in the US and now we have one big one. And it's to increase competitiveness, so even though this one big studio is not profitable it IS making us competitive in the western market which is great. And Arenanet is like a family business and the totally right people are in charge."

Which CEO actually thinks like this? This is absurd from a business perspective. Am I wrong on this? I am honestly open to be explained I am wrong, I've no business experience personally. If your western division has been operating at a deficit for over a decade then something is terribly wrong.

What if (let me put my doomer glasses on) the CEO did this premature GW3 "announcement" intentionally as a way to bury Arenanet. Knowing that players who subscribe to sunk-cost mentality will flee GW2 and tank revenue even more - to a point where NCSoft will just "have to cut their losses" and close Arenanet. Maybe they just want to get rid of it?

These are just random ramblings of a degenerate mind. Bear in mind I am wearing 20 tinfoil hats rights now.

Edited March 29 by Blood.7254

[Gehenna.3625]

4 minutes ago, Blood.7254 said:

I was thinking along the same lines.

However, I was more of a doomer lol. Arenanet is not profitable apparently. Which is absolutely crazy to think about. At least to an outsider like me. Their financial reports show GW2 is currently in a solid place when compared to the past 8-9 years. Meaning the overall income has been about the average, with a smaller studio since the 2019 layoffs. We know that since covid GW2 has had a steady income of new players and Arenanet actually said their playerbase increased by a lot at some point during/after EoD.

Perhaps they are profitable but not profitable enough. Being able to keep the ship sailing comfortably is not enough for shareholders these days.

4 minutes ago, Blood.7254 said:

During this shareholder meeting the CEO starts explaining how you know "we've reshuffled some studios in the US and now we have one big one. And it's to increase competitiveness, so even though this one big studio is not profitable it IS making us competitive in the western market which is great. And Arenanet is like a family business and the totally right people are in charge."

Yeah shareholders tend to like consolidation because it means firing people and losing buildings which means cost cutting.

4 minutes ago, Blood.7254 said:

Which CEO actually thinks like this? This is absurd from a business perspective. Am I wrong on this? I am honestly open to be explained I am wrong, I've no business experience personally. If your western division has been operating at a deficit for over a decade then something is terribly wrong.

This is the thing. Nowadays shareholders don't care about the business itself but whether or not it makes a lot of money for them this year and that every year. And if indeed it has been operating at a deficit (which I doubt, I just think they haven't been succesful enough) there's still such a thing as market share and presence. 

4 minutes ago, Blood.7254 said:

What if (let me put my doomer glasses on) the CEO did this premature GW3 "announcement" intentionally as a way to bury Arenanet. Knowing that players who subscribe to sunk-cost mentality will flee GW2 and tank revenue even more - to a point where NCSoft will just "have to cut their losses" and close Arenanet. Maybe they just want to get rid of it?

These are just random ramblings of a degenerate mind. Bear in mind I am wearing 20 tinfoil hats rights now.

I doubt it was to bury them and why even do it this way? A few years ago they came in and ordered Anet to cut their staff by 30% and quit all of their side projects and Anet complied. If you have this much power over them, then you don't need to do it like this. It may have been intentional but not to bury Anet but rather to gauge the reactions from shareholders and the players, to see how they react to this idea.

I also see that NcSoft are musing about it being released (successfully) in Korea at the same time, which means it would have to be a very different beast altogether. Which might be the reason for UE5 for starters. Who knows? Maybe Koreans don't care for huddling together all the time in WvW or raids 😉

[Higuera.1028]

21 hours ago, tzaeru.3742 said:

So if the news hadn't yet hit you, it seems that the chairman of NCSoft, in a shareholder interview, confirmed that is GW3 is greenlit. The original news, in Korean, use e.g. Google Translate: https://m.inven.co.kr/webzine/wznews.php?idx=294408

Making a sequel for a MMO is always a bit risky. You might end up splitting the playerbase, and the whole franchise can significantly suffer from that - take, for example, EverQuest. It's also possible some people will not want to spend more money into GW2, if they feel that GW2 is going to go away and get replaced by GW3.

On the other hand, GW2's codebase by now is prolly pretty hefty and hard to expand. It's also difficult to do a significant graphics overhaul with the existing game. Models and textures would eventually need to be redone, etc.

It's also not confirmed, of course, that GW3 will even be a replacement for GW2. Maybe it will do a reverse Warcraft and be a RTS. Who knows.

I personally still see a lot of potential in GW2 and hope that this doesn't mean that GW2 gets less attention. There are also ways to mitigate e.g. consumer fears of spending money to a game that is going to be replaced. You can, for example, give a fraction of the GW2 account value back for GW3, etc.

Thoughts?

Simple as: I want Playable Dragons as a Race Option :V

Not the Bipedal "Human" sort, but just Actual Dragons. Dragons are Cool, we can all agree to this. (and yes i'm aware it'd be a nightmare beyond belief for the developers to implement, likely requiring unique weapons and/or armor, possibly race-locked even)

And if they have a racial function similar to mounts alongside mounts launching initially? Hell yes. (could even mount another player, too...)

[Blood.7254]

19 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I doubt it was to bury them and why even do it this way? A few years ago they came in and ordered Anet to cut their staff by 30% and quit all of their side projects and Anet complied. If you have this much power over them, then you don't need to do it like this. It may have been intentional but not to bury Anet but rather to gauge the reactions from shareholders and the players, to see how they react to this idea.

I also see that NcSoft are musing about it being released (successfully) in Korea at the same time, which means it would have to be a very different beast altogether. Which might be the reason for UE5 for starters. Who knows? Maybe Koreans don't care for huddling together all the time in WvW or raids 😉

Yeah, it was a wild shot in the dark that theory 😆

[Gehenna.3625]

1 minute ago, Blood.7254 said:

Yeah, it was a wild shot in the dark that theory 😆

hehe, so how about this one (puts on tinfoil hat): GW3 will be a reboot of GW1 

[DartPancake.5360]

2 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

Why should gear be carried over? GW3 will be a completely new game and 10 legendaries are really not much tbh. I have 72 legendaries. I don’t want them carried over because this is not how it works. 

Many people had concerns what GGG will do with all items. So, at the announcement of PoE2 they just said that all store items will be carried to new PoE. After which people calmed down and the community had almost no worries about the development of a new game. Because other items are not so hard to make, but they don't turn our money to dust. I don't see myself farming bag slots again, bank expansions and other things. I had enough of it.

Because it's not a pirate server, which can take your money and close. Because legendaries in gw2 are highly timegated and require a lot of time. Not many games require a 5 weeks-8 weeks to make ONE item (like WvW ring or backpack). Point of legendaries for many people here like "Now I can play any class, any build and don't spend a cent on crafting of equip anymore. I can play who I want and when I want". 

I can't come up with any other MMO examples which require so much from player to make one item. Leave games like Lineage 2 when in many countries you need to donate a house to make top tier item. That's not complexity.

Also because GW2 still have attention of many new people. Many people come here a few months-years ago from WoW, some after other games, and many of them just did their first leggies and planning on doing more.

I've already seen official servers of other games dying.  At the beggining they will say that there will be no new content. Then they will start to combine servers because there is no people on maps. After that they will combine, combine, combine. Until there is only 3 servers (because WvW needs at least 3 servers). After that game is dead with message like "Money from game is not enough for support, so we are closing the project. Good luck everyone, here a few titles in GW3 for you". Like "Wow, that was quality armor"

I started in gw2 in 2012, but didn't like it enough to spend more than few hundred hours until PoF was released. So I played WoW for over 10 years total. And guys, I know game have it's problems now, but I will prefer system like WoW. Upgrades of game little my little, still adding new content. Maybe not as great as 10-15 years ago, but new content. I'm not pushed to always start over and over again. Level up a few levels each expansion is not that hard. Level up every class to new max level is way faster than making of 1 legendary in GW2.

It can backfire to ANet, because they made collectible game and now they can take everything that we collected. MMO is not as popular as 10-15 years ago. GW3 may not gain many new people, but lose a lot of old ones.

P.S. Also there can be a situation like Payday 2 and Payday 3. Developers wasted a lot of money and all people are playing old game because new one sucks.

Edited March 29 by Petrified.9826

[tzaeru.3742]

1 hour ago, Swagg.9236 said:

Lmao.  This game was dead in 2015.  The one caveat on the news is that the guy was more or less forced to say that GW3 was in development because of how pressured he was over NCSoft's constant financial failings.  GW2 was never going to last forever, and regardless of what anyone thinks, the player base is anemic but super dense at the top end with all of the people who actually bought into the "Masteries collections, time-gated grinds, and buying expacs to win in PvP is totally real gameplay, guys" farce.  People could have an impression that GW2 is alive mainly because it has a lot of overly-invested mouth-pieces.

The way that the game is designed now is almost entirely in a way that chases out new players trying out the totally old and busted junk while the people who paid for the powercteep continue to think that nothing is wrong.  It's a sun burning iron.  Maybe GW3 will actually have GvG lmao.

 

That's just silly.

GW2 moved to top 5 most played MMORPGs in the Western market pretty soon after launch, and it's held its place there to today. Calling a top 5 most played MMORPG "dead" is just nonsensical. By that logic, only WoW and FFXIV are "alive".

It's always a bit weird when people who apparently greatly dislike the game and believe it's been dead for 10 years actually still want to write to its forums. What's the point behind that?

At the moment GW2 is very lively, with new players coming in all the time; I'm in a guild that specializes in low entry level and doing e.g. blind runs for content, and we constantly get new players interested in strikes, raids, fractals.

It is true that some of GW2's appeal to new players suffers from out-dated graphics and a bit too many systems on top of systems, and in that sense, a fresh start can be good; but it's only good if the established playerbase actually moves with it.

  

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I doubt it was to bury them and why even do it this way? A few years ago they came in and ordered Anet to cut their staff by 30% and quit all of their side projects and Anet complied. If you have this much power over them, then you don't need to do it like this. It may have been intentional but not to bury Anet but rather to gauge the reactions from shareholders and the players, to see how they react to this idea.

Well, naturally ANet complies; they're wholly owned by NCSoft. While ANet no doubt has many employees who care about making GW2 as good an experience to its players as it can be, this isn't really true for the shareholders of NCSoft. For them, the point is for NCSoft to grow and for NCSoft stock to gain value.

I sincerely believe that the best way to do that is to build games and worlds that have long-term potential. Most of NCSoft's games are short-term money grabs. Mobile and console games with obnoxious monetization systems. Those games they have failed to make long-term profit from. GW is profitable and NCSoft of course understands that.

There would be absolutely zero reason for NCSoft to kill ANet, since ANet is making them money, while many of their other studios are not.

Revenue-wise, 2022 was actually the 2nd biggest year for GW2, with only 2015 having been bigger. From NCSoft's perspective, this should mean that ANet is a great investment.

In the previous quarterly report, Q4 2023, they also added this bit of info: Q4 NA/EU sales grew by 15% qoq due to strong sales of GW2. GW2 is the only thing they have going for in the USA and EU markets.

Edited March 29 by tzaeru.3742

[Chyro.1462]

Dunno if that's too much to ask, but I'd already be happy if Gw3 was just a remake of Gw2 that can fully carry over our QoL unlocks and possibly legendary gear. Same world, different maps, different story (preferably with great writing :D) for a fresh start. Polished graphics and engine, optimized for current hardware. I really like the combat system overall, so keeping that or just slightly overhauling it would be neat - perhaps with less focus on stacking for a change. Classes - either new ones or current ones with a fresh coat of paint. Like a breath of fresh air would be neat, while easing the player's worries that all their progress and investment of time and money on their Gw2 accounts would go to waste as soon as they move to the new game.

No idea how realistic that is, but it's my wishful thinking. I'd be very happy with a Gw3 like that 😄

[Neferpitouh.4356]

I think I'll step away from GW2 till we get a clear explanation.

I'm not sure why would I continue playing essentially wasting my time, money and effort on a MMO that will be put in maintanence mode in a near future.

[Krajtin.8956]

8 minutes ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

I think I'll step away from GW2 till we get a clear explanation.

I'm not sure why would I continue playing essentially wasting my time, money and effort on a MMO that will be put in maintanence mode in a near future.

This. I used to invest my time in getting legendaries and helping new players. Now I connect, I go to my home instance and I leave.

[Chyro.1462]

I really don't understand the mindset that the possibility of a new game sometime in the far future invalidates any enjoyment you can get out of playing this game here and now in the present. Can someone please explain the thought process behind that? Genuinely curious.

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, hellsmachine.4085 said:

I really hope that GW3 is just GW2 upgraded with a new engine, like Overwatch 2 or Counterstrike 2. Same game but with more. A lot of players will quit GW2 and be very reluctant to spend money on it if it all their purchases will be nullified with the next game.

I'd rather have a new game based on the same IP than a remake of the same game with updated graphics.  It can't be a revelation that the rewards you earn in an MMO are temporary, lasting only until either you stop playing or the game shuts down.  I can understand why an impending release of another game you intend to play exclusive to this one would be demotivating, but this is still years off and may not happen at all.  Why should that have any impact at this point?

[Krajtin.8956]

2 minutes ago, Chyro.1462 said:

I really don't understand the mindset that the possibility of a new game sometime in the far future invalidates any enjoyment you can get out of playing this game here and now in the present. Can someone please explain the thought process behind that? Genuinely curious.

I explain my way of playing. In single player games, you play, complete it and abandon it.

In games as a service, you play the game for the long term, helping/interacting with other players to achieve certain goals/objectives. MMOs consume a lot of time to achieve the player's objectives.

What am I going to do now. I'll wait to play the "new" content of the mini-expansions and that's it. I'm not going to bother making achievements or helping other players.

[DartPancake.5360]

Just now, Chyro.1462 said:

I really don't understand the mindset that the possibility of a new game sometime in the far future invalidates any enjoyment you can get out of playing this game here and now in the present. Can someone please explain the thought process behind that? Genuinely curious.

I think it's because GW2 has long-term collectible mindset more than other MMOs. In other words - in vertical progression games like WoW you don't really stick to your gear. And almost all endgame gameplay outside of PvP//WvW are based on finally making legendaries. 

I will still play the game, I enjoy many formats of it, but I don't feel like donating more for new skins, for example. Until there will be some clarification. I hope ANet will not close from players like many devs do.

[Teknomancer.4895]

First off, anyone who says they're quitting the game over a vague, machine-translated post on a third-party gaming site was already looking for an excuse to leave anyway. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Second, why should anyone expect that this claim of a GW3 being worked on means anything? Alliances, anyone?

Granted they will probably be pressured to say something official since lots of the streamers are piling on (even though they have their own clickbait incentives to hype such "news"), but nothing is official until it comes directly from ANet, specifically addressing this topic on its own instead of having it come up in the context of reporting a bunch of other performance metrics.

[Sunyavadin.7962]

There's literally nothing to really talk about here. This kind of throwaway statement is fairly common in these kinds of investor meetings. He said a thing to get a Korean investor asking about Nepotism in hires off his back, by justifying that Arenanet has a major IP nobody in Korea has heard of which does well in the US and Europe, and that plans have been knocking around since 2017 to maybe do another sequel.
NCSoft clarified this much after the meeting. There's a proposal on the table to potentially do a GW3, but it's not been approved. And probably won't until they think it's suitably profitable for the necessary investment.

"[in] a quote from NCsoft issued after the meeting; NCsoft says, “The Guild Wars 3 project is in the review stage and the start of development has not been finalized.”

 

[DartPancake.5360]

3 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I'd rather have a new game based on the same IP than a remake of the same game with updated graphics.  It can't be a revelation that the rewards you earn in an MMO are temporary, lasting only until either you stop playing or the game shuts down.  I can understand why an impending release of another game you intend to play exclusive to this one would be demotivating, but this is still years off and may not happen at all.  Why should that have any impact at this point?

There is a difference in monetization. You can buy legendaries and other things like Black lion skins directly from ANet by buying gems and converting it for gold. So, Frostfang for example is around 50$ I think. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of people have many of their legendaries this way, just because earning gold by working is way easier than farming ingame. It's situation that ANet created themselves and now they are responsible for it.

You can't buy endgame items directly from Blizzard or GGG. You earn them in raids or dungeons and can't trade or craft them out of gold. So that's easier to justify loss of your items.

[Sunyavadin.7962]

4 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

 nothing is official until it comes directly from ANet, specifically addressing this topic on its own

I mean, the NCSoft statement that the project is under review and has not been given final approval was pretty clear. I expect Anet wouldn't make any comment unless NCSoft went ahead and told them they could have the money for it.

[yoni.7015]

9 minutes ago, Krajtin.8956 said:

helping other players.

So if a guild mate asks if you could help him you just say “no,  because maybe GW3 will be releasing in a few years”? I don’t get it