The End of GW2?

[Yuyuske.7182]

This latest bit of Living World has got me thinking...we might be approaching the end of the Guild Wars 2 storyline, and there might not be a season after this one; or if there is, there won't be another expansion.Why do I say this?1.) Game age.If we look at NCSOFT's other MMOs and their lifespans and compare it with GW2...GW2 is getting old. The first Guild Wars only lasted about two years before they announced GW2. WildStar lasted about 4. City of Heroes, probably their most popular MMO besides GW2, lasted about 8 years before being discontinued.GW2 is six-and-a-half years old.Yeah, there's other games that have been going on forever (WoW, for instance...hell, even EverQuest is still going), but compared with other NCSOFT MMOs, GW2 is approaching old age.2.) Storyline completion.Kralkatorrik has been built up as the Biggest of Big Bads since before the game launched. The background story coming in is Destiny's Edge and Glint facing off against Kralk and losing, with Glint dying and Destiny's Edge breaking up. Since then, he's gained the powers of the other dragons (and god) we've slain. Between Destiny's Edge, Aurene, and our past choices in the game, there's no other enemy in the game with as much build-up or connection as there is with Kralk.So where do you go, story-wise, once he's beaten? Sure, Bubbles is out there somewhere, but we've never seen its minions and don't even know its real name. I suppose some other old enemy could come back from GW1, but it wouldn't be the same. Anything after Kralk would feel anticlimactic.I think they're getting ready to "wrap up" Guild Wars 2 and move onto their next project, whatever that may be.

[Zola.6197]

I don’t think that’s the case at all. This is just the darkest moment before the dawn, so to speak.

I doubt ANet is going to nerf their primary source of income to develop a new MMO for the next few years. And quality MMOs can have a long shelf life, so I don’t see GW2 ending any time soon.

[Randulf.7614]

I don't think we are anywhere close to that scenario. We have 3 more Dragons out there, should we even kill off Kralk, plus plenty of other unexplored parts of Tyria and even Cantha should they wish to go there too. This doesn't at all feel like the end.

Where could we go?

• Kralk may disappear off to lick his wounds for a while and he moves out of the plot temporarily. He could regenerate in the Mists, but it's pretty dangerous there in his hugely weakened state so he may go off the radar for now. Or we just find a way to kill him and move on to new threats

• Primordus and Jormag will eventually reawaken. That gives potential for 2 more cataclysmic events to deal with. That allows deeper exploration of Asuran, Norn and Dwarven lore.

• Scope for a Charr story in the NE. Possibly involving Kralk, Primordus or Jormag if not a whole other threat.

• Cantha remains on the table even if unlikely

• The Gods could return together or individually.

• The damage Kralk did in the Mists could somehow bring in an all new threat taking advantage of a weakened state in general

• The DSD makes it's move. I'm still unconvinced on this one, but it is out there as an option. This could really add a new dimension to the game

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Yuyuske.7182" said:Kralkatorrik has been built up as the Biggest of Big Bads since before the game launched. The background story coming in is Destiny's Edge and Glint facing off against Kralk and losing, with Glint dying and Destiny's Edge breaking up. Since then, he's gained the powers of the other dragons (and god) we've slain. Between Destiny's Edge, Aurene, and our past choices in the game, there's no other enemy in the game with as much build-up or connection as there is with Kralk.So where do you go, story-wise, once he's beaten? Sure, Bubbles is out there somewhere, but we've never seen its minions and don't even know its real name. I suppose some other old enemy could come back from GW1, but it wouldn't be the same. Anything after Kralk would feel anticlimactic.I think they're getting ready to "wrap up" Guild Wars 2 and move onto their next project, whatever that may be.

I would disagree here. Sure, Guild Wars 2 itself began with Ghosts of Ascalon and Edge of Destiny, and we're finally getting the culmination of a long build-up to Edge of Destiny (and some of GoA though that's been overlooked entirely). But there are plenty of loose threads out there still, including the one focused on in Ghosts of Ascalon (Foefire ghosts, charr-human conflict).

But before those two novels, there was the true beginning of our interaction with GW2 lore: Eye of the North. Though we saw Kralkatorrik, he was hardly a focus. Though we defended Vlast, Glint was hardly a focus. Though Gwen was involved, the Thackeray name was non-existent at the time.

Eye of the North focused on Primordus and Jormag. And they're still out there, technically.

I'm kind of on the fence to this whole "end of GW2" feeling. For starters, people have earnestly been talking about its end and the introduction of GW3 for years. Hell, even I felt like GW2 couldn't survive a decade more back in 2015/6. But I could see ArenaNet trying to get GW2 to go as long as possible just as much as it ending shortly after Kralkatorrik.

Beyond the Primordus and Jormag thing for "tying into the original", there's also looking at GW1 by comparison. Abaddon was the "main threat" of that game, the beginning threat and the end threat, though we didn't quite know it right away when there were minor hints. Dhuum and Menzies were just as big, and more prominent in the beginning, but they were ultimately ignored (alas). But after Abaddon's defeat, while there was Utopia planned and scrapped, we had Eye of the North, then Beyond content (War in Kryta, Winds of Change).

I feel that, end or not, after Kralkatorrik we will have a season that focuses on tying up loose threads (akin to Beyond), and that'll go into the next Elder Dragon threat. I think that if GW2's end is in sight, it'll be with the deep sea dragon that'll be the third and final expansion after Season 5 that focuses on tying said loose threads (M and Z replacements + Malyck, charr-human conflict + Foefire ghosts + renegades that are stated to still be around recently). If they go further, then after the DSD I imagine we'll get answers to the Lyssa situation (if that isn't used for a raid that is), and following that, Primordus and Jormag will wake up and become the next threat.

I do not expect Cantha to ever become a thing in this game. Nor do I see GW2 lasting another decade (if even another 5 years). Nor do I see a GW3 happening - I believe that if Anet ends GW2's story content, they'll go into a new IP, and that if they felt like making more GW stuff, they would focus on raids, fractals, and possibly dungeons in GW2 (and I could only hope: bringing back Season 1 properly, revamping PS/S2, and expanding GW1 content to give us a more proper ending to that game after the open ending of Winds of Change).

[perilisk.1874]

I don't think this is the beginning of the end. In three months, Kraalkatorik will be dead, and they have another season of LS mapped out after that, which puts them in range of a holiday expansion release, depending on how they time it. They've got one more active dragon they can do while they think about where to take the plot after that. Maybe this is a discussion to have in three years.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

If freaking Star Trek Online can make it to 9 years, and still have expectations for year 10, the idea that Guild Wars 2 is anywhere near the end is BS.

Anet has already announced LWS5, which is easily another 15-18 months of content after LWS4 ends, which itself has another 3 months to go before we get episode 6, so we easily have anywhere from 1.5 years, to almost 2, just before we get done with what Anet already has planned for us, and nothing has suggested that LWS5 is the end either.

Besides-Primordus, Jormag, and Bubbles are still alive, and thus, threats to the world.-The Inquest are the major racial enemy that's still active-Cantha is still under the rule of a bunch of crazed xenophobesThere's tons of story material for Anet to work with, both Dragon related and not.

[Rattengeist.8165]

Now that is a pretty dramatic title....

Just because the story build up to this point, doesn't mean we're in a hopeless situation for this game. There are still enough dragons around. Kralk could even go back to sleep in a secret place due to his wounds and thus not making it possible to defeat him anytime soon. And even if we defeat him eventually, other dragons could awaken and start making trouble.. and so the circle repeats itself, story wise. We also could face new enemies and challenges, since dragons aren't the only danger around.

Pretty sure Anet has a rough plan for future episodes and seasons. So don't worry about it that much, really. Especially about future expansions. I mean, I'm pretty happy with getting a new episode and new maps every X months. Time flies by fast if you have a busy private life and play GW2 in your free time. For me, it doesn't feel like the game is getting old or running out of content story-wise

The servers are still very busy, new players appear out of nowhere, so this is a pretty solid thing for a MMO that is over six years old.

[ugrakarma.9416]

@Yuyuske.7182 said:

If we look at NCSOFT's other MMOs and their lifespans and compare it with GW2...GW2 is getting old. The first Guild Wars only lasted about two years before they announced GW2. WildStar lasted about 4. City of Heroes, probably their most popular MMO besides GW2, lasted about 8 years before being discontinued.GW2 is six-and-a-half years old.Yeah, there's other games that have been going on forever (WoW, for instance...hell, even EverQuest is still going), but compared with other NCSOFT MMOs, GW2 is approaching old age.

2, 4, 6, 8, so by this pattern GW2 will last 10 yers.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Yuyuske.7182" said:This latest bit of Living World has got me thinking...we might be approaching the end of the Guild Wars 2 storyline, and there might not be a season after this one; or if there is, there won't be another expansion.Why do I say this?1.) Game age.If we look at NCSOFT's other MMOs and their lifespans and compare it with GW2...GW2 is getting old. The first Guild Wars only lasted about two years before they announced GW2. WildStar lasted about 4. City of Heroes, probably their most popular MMO besides GW2, lasted about 8 years before being discontinued.GW2 is six-and-a-half years old.Yeah, there's other games that have been going on forever (WoW, for instance...hell, even EverQuest is still going), but compared with other NCSOFT MMOs, GW2 is approaching old age.

Guild Wars released on April 26, 2005https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_WarsGuild Wars: Eye of the North (last GW1 expansion) released on August 28, 2007

Guild Wars 2 began development in the middle of 2006; it was first announced to the public in 2007. It began closed beta testing on 16 December 2011.[2] On 23 January 2012, ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 would launch by the end of that year, following beta tests throughout March and April.[3] On 28 June, ArenaNet announced that the game would launch on 28 August 2012.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2

Guild Wars 1 was no MMO, no matter how much people want to delude themselves that it was (no critic about how good the game was/is, it simply was no MMO).

City of Heroes was not financially successful in the mid- and long-run. The small hardcore fan base was simply not enough to keep the game alive. Wildstar was a financial disaster. Also you are focusing only on the western market. NCSoft has a ton of older and newer MMOs which are highly played in Asia. That was Wildstar and City of Heroes problem, they weren't successful in any market.

Given the timeline you established, we are at least 4-5 years away from a GW3 IF we assume PoF was the last expansion and the game turns financially a disaster like CoH and Wildstar.

I also like how you left out every single older MMO like Lineage, Lineage 2, Blade and Soul (launched also in 2012 in Korea), Aion (launched in 2008 in South Korea) and more. Any specific reason why these games did not make your list?

[crepuscular.9047]

@"Yuyuske.7182" said:1.) Game age.If we look at NCSOFT's other MMOs and their lifespans and compare it with GW2...GW2 is getting old. The first Guild Wars only lasted about two years before they announced GW2. WildStar lasted about 4. City of Heroes, probably their most popular MMO besides GW2, lasted about 8 years before being discontinued.GW2 is six-and-a-half years old.Yeah, there's other games that have been going on forever (WoW, for instance...hell, even EverQuest is still going), but compared with other NCSOFT MMOs, GW2 is approaching old age.

Sorry, but I do not agree with your game age statement.

You see other games going on for ages still with strong player base, one of the best example is Runescape.

The reason why Anet decided to move onto Guild Wars 2 was due to the nature of Guild Wars 1 releases expansions more like a standalone game, with each new expansion it adds hundreds of new skills and was becoming really difficult to balance.

So Anet was pretty much forced themselves into a corner either continue with the current release model which require a lot of work, or start fresh with a new model which also need a lot of work; Anet chose the latter.

 

 

Your second point about NCSoft, NCSoft is a development company, but their relationship with Anet is more like a Publisher, providing the up-front fundings for large projects like expansions.

As long as GW2 make good earnings, NCSoft will continue to support the running of the game.

If you look at NCSoft's quarterly earnings, GW2 is the group's third highest earning desktop game, and the highest earning western MMO; btw, Lineage is as old as GW1, and it is group's top earner.

 

 

Unless the dev team runs into limitation of the engine for a 'make-or-break' feature the team wants to implement they cannot overcome, there's really no reason for NCSoft or Anet to kill off GW2 with the current state of the game and the story, after all imagination is limitless.

the Elder Dragons were not part of the original GW: Propehecy, Factions, and Nightfall until Anet decided to move onto GW2 by putting Elder Dragons into GW:EOTN

[Imba.9451]

I don't know what will come after the next Living story season, what what I assume is it to prepare the way for a new story direction.The next chapter will probably finish off Kralkatorrik, and him being finished off in a living season means Anet is trying to connect some lose ends before moving away from Elder Dragons for now. I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but I honestly don't care about them any more. It's been stretched for six years now, and the ED's, the main Big Baddies being promoted before release, are reduced to getting dealt with in a Living story instead of a full blown expansion now.

I don't know what will come after the next season. Maybe it will prepare us to go to Cantha. Maybe it will set things in motion to prepare us for GW3. Maybe nothing of that.But I still think a change of story direction is coming. The elder dragons are getting old, and with Jormag and Primordus asleep, Bubbles not giving a fuck about anything in the world and Kralk soon being a former member of the "Elder dragons still being alive"-club, I fail to see how the focus will stay on them.

[Crini.3985]

@Yuyuske.7182 said: ...

You forgot to mention what i think it was (still) biggest NCSOFT mmo and success, Lineage and Lineage II.

Lineage II has been alive for 14 years!!! then the original Lineage from 1998 still one of fav korean mmo's the NA servers were closed in 2011 but koreans kept it alive. It wasn't wildstar or city of heroes but lineage franchise what keeps ncsoft strong, that and other mmos like aion, blade and soul and the entire asian mobile market.

So GW2 can continue with np, plus getting a new GW with improved graphics and some Unreal engine 4 stuff would take huge hardware requirements (well that without good optimization) in this forum ive seen people complaining bout fps drops (eg: from 70-80 to 20-30 in seconds) having 1080 gpu and good i7 8k cpu's sure they achieve over 100 fps somewhere deep inside brisban wildlands or sparkfly fen but things change with any meta event like dragonstand or world bosses. GW2 can continue for 2 more years or 3 before any gw3 idea becomes reasonable, also the gw3 development could take 2-3 years maybe more that means anet started with gw3 in 2015? that's too soon, even if they begin with the project right now it would take till 2020-21 before any announcement and give or take, 22 or 23 before gw3 launch which leaves gw2 with lots of time for new content.

[Harper.4173]

GW2 can keep going - the graphics are solid, the mechanics are solid.It's just the story isn't as good as it could be - and that the Elder Dragons as enemies pose a lot of design difficulties - how do you fight them? They're too big to be able to do a "normal" fight - so that creates some issues.The game should be fine for a while - but the issue is that Old MMOs tend to attract less and less players over time, so a fresh, clean start is inevitable at some point.

[Jokubas.4265]

I don't see any particular reason at the moment for Arena.net to wrap up Guild Wars 2, and there's no sign that I know of that they're building something to replace it.

However, I do think this might be the end of the Elder Dragons story, more or less. It's been a complaint from many for a long time that the Elder Dragons have gotten boring, and what began as the game's initial premise has ballooned way past what multiple stories covered in Guild Wars 1. Arena.net seems to have recognized that in several places. First, we had detours with Balthazar and Palawa Joko (which were fairly popular as far as I can tell). Second, they totally changed directions with the Dragons. They established that we shouldn't kill them all (needing to find some other solution), and we ended up putting Primordus and Jormag back to sleep. The Deep Sea Dragon still doesn't have any information or direct relevance and nothing is building towards it.

I think there was dialogue in this chapter, though I don't remember where or exactly what it was, that really pumped this up as the final fight. It's sort of weird when you consider that there are other Dragons out there still, but less weird if you consider that we may never need to deal with them. Fighting Kralkatorrik was what established this threat in the novels, and defeating him may be what sets aside that threat so we can move on.

[Hesacon.8735]

Considering how many new technical accomplishments are added each episode, the game is in good shape. The effects and camera work this episode were top notch. Two episodes ago was a cut scene with Joko that pushed the engine to new boundaries. It feels like they're hitting their groove more than anything.

[Jimbru.6014]

@Hesacon.8735 said:Considering how many new technical accomplishments are added each episode, the game is in good shape. The effects and camera work this episode were top notch. Two episodes ago was a cut scene with Joko that pushed the engine to new boundaries. It feels like they're hitting their groove more than anything.

The game still performs terribly on modern machines, and we still have a great many issues that have lingered for years without being addressed. There are events in Metrica and Iron Marches that have been bugged for literally years, just for example. When the game finally is properly optimized for modern hardware and bugs are being actively fixed, then call me. But for now, I refuse to be impressed by a company that is still running a 2005 based game engine in 2019 and refuses to fix long standing problems.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Game age ? Two expansions is still baby territory for an MMO.

[Ronin.7381]

@Harper.4173 said:GW2 can keep going - the graphics are solid, the mechanics are solid.

Eh, mechanics leave more to be desired. A lot of games coming out today (MMOs) are doing the next stage of the evolution of combat in MMOs. Namely, look at Elder Scrolls Online. Both tradeskills and their combat is what I honestly would have liked to see in Guild Wars 2. You also have games like Blade and Soul, Black Desert Online, and what not with pretty awesome action combat that, again, Guild Wars 2 wanted to tap into.

But if quarterly reports are showing much profit as it was suggested last year, I don't see GW2 ending after this Living World Season. I expect a Cantha expansion, something many players (myself counting as one) wanted to see since Day 1. HoT was a success, Path of Fire more so, if they could cover the bill then we're likely to see the next expansion taking us over seas. As far as Kralk goes though, I think Kralk will just signify the end of Elder Dragons as far as the big bads of the game. Path of Fire deviated a little bit but still played an Elder Dragon up but that was a given since this whole relationship with Aurene. If Cantha is to be the next Saga after Kralk, I'm expecting it to be an isolated campaign that has little to nothing to do with Elder Dragons.. which could be a double-edged sword due to knowing next to nothing about the Deep Sea Dragon.

@Jimbru.6014 said:

@Hesacon.8735 said:Considering how many new

technical

accomplishments are added each episode, the game is in good shape. The effects and camera work this episode were top notch. Two episodes ago was a cut scene with Joko that pushed the engine to new boundaries. It feels like they're hitting their groove more than anything.

The game still performs terribly on modern machines, and we still have a great many issues that have lingered for years without being addressed. There are events in Metrica and Iron Marches that have been bugged for literally years, just for example. When the game finally is properly optimized for modern hardware and bugs are being actively fixed, then call me. But for now, I refuse to be impressed by a company that is still running a 2005 based game engine in 2019 and refuses to fix long standing problems.

The unfortunate reality is that these are negligible problems. Investors care more about revenue, how much the game makes. Old content gets shafted by the ability to level up quick, skipping the vanilla story all together. Level up bumps in the form of Birthday rewards and/or BLM character boosts. Optimization is crap but people still play it and as long as we are still forking money, they're profiting.

[Vayne.8563]

Aion was released in 2010 and got an update in 2018. It's not the age of the game that makes a difference, it's how much money it makes for the company. As long as a game makes enough money it will continue to be supported.

Games like Wildstar didn't make enough money, and games like Guild Wars 1 were replaced by Guild Wars 2 for creative reasons rather than financial ones. I mean lineage still gets updates and that's way old.

[Harper.4173]

@Ronin.7381 said:

@Harper.4173 said:GW2 can keep going - the graphics are solid, the mechanics are solid.

Eh, mechanics leave more to be desired. A lot of games coming out today (MMOs) are doing the next stage of the evolution of combat in MMOs. Namely, look at Elder Scrolls Online. Both tradeskills and their combat is what I honestly would have liked to see in Guild Wars 2. You also have games like Blade and Soul, Black Desert Online, and what not with pretty awesome action combat that, again, Guild Wars 2 wanted to tap into.

But if quarterly reports are showing much profit as it was suggested last year, I don't see GW2 ending after this Living World Season. I expect a Cantha expansion, something many players (myself counting as one) wanted to see since Day 1. HoT was a success, Path of Fire more so, if they could cover the bill then we're likely to see the next expansion taking us over seas. As far as Kralk goes though, I think Kralk will just signify the end of Elder Dragons as far as the big bads of the game. Path of Fire deviated a little bit but still played an Elder Dragon up but that was a given since this whole relationship with Aurene. If Cantha is to be the next Saga after Kralk, I'm expecting it to be an isolated campaign that has little to nothing to do with Elder Dragons.. which could be a double-edged sword due to knowing next to nothing about the Deep Sea Dragon.

@Jimbru.6014 said:

@"Hesacon.8735" said:Considering how many new

technical

accomplishments are added each episode, the game is in good shape. The effects and camera work this episode were top notch. Two episodes ago was a cut scene with Joko that pushed the engine to new boundaries. It feels like they're hitting their groove more than anything.

The game still performs terribly on modern machines, and we still have a great many issues that have lingered for years without being addressed. There are events in Metrica and Iron Marches that have been bugged for literally years, just for example. When the game finally is properly optimized for modern hardware and bugs are being actively fixed, then call me. But for now, I refuse to be impressed by a company that is still running a 2005 based game engine in 2019 and refuses to fix long standing problems.

The unfortunate reality is that these are negligible problems. Investors care more about revenue, how much the game makes. Old content gets shafted by the ability to level up quick, skipping the vanilla story all together. Level up bumps in the form of Birthday rewards and/or BLM character boosts. Optimization is kitten but people still play it and as long as we are still forking money, they're profiting.

I do agree partially but regarding combat mechanics I don't think that going in the direction of BDO is what would help.The issue is GW2 is the "casual MMO", which means more of its core audience is "bad" at video games. Because of a multitude of reasons - health, age, casualness. I don't think they could significantly move the game towards a more "dynamic combat" situation and still have a good outcome in terms of player retention.I think they would gain some new players, but given the hyper-casual nature of this game, I feel they would lose a lot more. A lot more people that are "bad" at the game and would not handle more dynamic combat. People that at the same time sink money on the game because "bad" doesn't mean "poor".In fact - if you look at MMOs - I'd argue that the "good" players are the ones least likely to put cash into the game - because they don't really need to. They have the "status" items and the cash - all earned through skilled play.Other systems can be revamped or added - like trade skills for example.

Let's also not forget that in this day and age the industry is all about milking and squeezing dry something that works - so I doubt they'd go for innovation and a "risky" new game instead of the safer option to just milk this one.

Regarding the Elder Dragons - having been with the game since 2012 I feel they were a mistake. They are not an interesting enemy, they're too indirect for that.Also - their scale makes meaningful combat with them impossible. I cringed so hard at the recent fight with Kralk where after nuking him with cannons and crystals and everything we took a few seconds to whack at him with our swords. With out swords. A creature that's the size of a mountain. We walked up to it and prodded it with the equivalent of a toothpick.

[Harper.4173]

@Vayne.8563 said:Aion was released in 2010 and got an update in 2018. It's not the age of the game that makes a difference, it's how much money it makes for the company. As long as a game makes enough money it will continue to be supported.

Games like Wildstar didn't make enough money, and games like Guild Wars 1 were replaced by Guild Wars 2 for creative reasons rather than financial ones. I mean lineage still gets updates and that's way old.

GW1 was replaced for mechanics and engine reasons. They simply needed to start on newer infrastructure. There was plenty of creativity left in that game, look up the last expansion they were going to put out but scrapped.

[RedShark.9548]

@locoporesa.2864 said:

@Yuyuske.7182 said: ...

You forgot to mention what i think it was (still) biggest NCSOFT mmo and success,

Lineage

and

Lineage II

.

Lineage II has been alive for 14 years!!! then the original Lineage from 1998 still one of fav korean mmo's the NA servers were closed in 2011 but koreans kept it alive. It wasn't wildstar or city of heroes but lineage franchise what keeps ncsoft strong, that and other mmos like aion, blade and soul and the entire asian mobile market.

So GW2 can continue with np, plus getting a new GW with improved graphics and some Unreal engine 4 stuff would take huge hardware requirements (well that without good optimization) in this forum ive seen people complaining bout fps drops (eg: from 70-80 to 20-30 in seconds) having 1080 gpu and good i7 8k cpu's sure they achieve over 100 fps somewhere deep inside brisban wildlands or sparkfly fen but things change with any meta event like dragonstand or world bosses. GW2 can continue for 2 more years or 3 before any gw3 idea becomes reasonable, also the gw3 development could take 2-3 years maybe more that means anet started with gw3 in 2015? that's too soon, even if they begin with the project right now it would take till 2020-21 before any announcement and give or take, 22 or 23 before gw3 launch which leaves gw2 with lots of time for new content.

I have pretty much the spec you mentioned and directly out of LA i get up to 140 fps on very high, as soon as i step into LA its around 30, feelsbadman

I do believe gw2 will be running for quite a bit of time still.Even tho i hate their balance choices

[voltaicbore.8012]

I'm personally looking forward to a shift in focus toward Jormag at some point. I think there's the potential for a lot of depth and compelling themes in that one... there's even a good tagline ("rallying the norn") that can serve as a cool headline for that storyline. It would be cool to see the norn take the forefront of the fight against Jormag, with the Pact playing a supportive role in the hunt to bring down the ice dragon. I'm not the biggest fan of Braham as a character, but he's grown on me lately and I can stomach the idea of having him play a similar role for the Jormag storyline that Taimi has so far with Kraalk.

Jormag aside, others in the thread have also raised good points about a lot of potential content remaining in the game, all of which I agree could be great sources for the game's future direction.

Of course, as a few have remarked, it's not the presence or absence of content direction that keeps a game alive, but instead it comes down to profitability. So long as Anet and NCSoft believe there's enough money in the future to keep this ball rolling profitably, I doubt they'll let GW2 die unless they believe their next project will be so killer that it's worth sunsetting GW2 to direct more of us toward the new shiny.

[Randulf.7614]

@Harper.4173 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Aion was released in 2010 and got an update in 2018. It's not the age of the game that makes a difference, it's how much money it makes for the company. As long as a game makes enough money it will continue to be supported.

Games like Wildstar didn't make enough money, and games like Guild Wars 1 were replaced by Guild Wars 2 for creative reasons rather than financial ones. I mean lineage still gets updates and that's way old.

GW1 was replaced for mechanics and engine reasons. They simply needed to start on newer infrastructure. There was plenty of creativity left in that game, look up the last expansion they were going to put out but scrapped.

Vayne means they couldn't utilise their creative vision under the restrcitions of GW1. ie a dynamic and living open world. Yes they could have continued to make stories for GW1 and by all accounts, they had plenty lined up (Utopia, Nightfall Beyond etc), but ti didn't fit what they truly wanted to do. GW2 allowed them to do that.

[Vayne.8563]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Harper.4173 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Aion was released in 2010 and got an update in 2018. It's not the age of the game that makes a difference, it's how much money it makes for the company. As long as a game makes enough money it will continue to be supported.

Games like Wildstar didn't make enough money, and games like Guild Wars 1 were replaced by Guild Wars 2 for creative reasons rather than financial ones. I mean lineage still gets updates and that's way old.

GW1 was replaced for mechanics and engine reasons. They simply needed to start on newer infrastructure. There was plenty of creativity left in that game, look up the last expansion they were going to put out but scrapped.

Vayne means they couldn't utilise their creative vision under the restrcitions of GW1. ie a dynamic and living open world. Yes they could have continued to make stories for GW1 and by all accounts, they had plenty lined up (Utopia, Nightfall Beyond etc), but ti didn't fit what they truly wanted to do. GW2 allowed them to do that.

This is exactly what I meant. The devs said we wanted to make an expansion for Guild Wars 1, but the limtations of the engines and the way we set up the game limited our options and we didn't want to be limited by that. Guild Wars 2 was designed with those lessons in mind. It's less limited. It can be added to.

The example they gave was that Guild Wars 1 was a true MMO, it was (according to the devs) a CORPG. A lobby game. They wanted an truly open world game, where players could actually run into each other in areas other than outposts. So to create an actual MMO required a new game completely. But GW 1 was still going strong when GW 2 was announced.