Maybe GW2 for console?

[Zoid.2568]

The new direction ArenaNet is taking with GW2 seems like it could be heading towards console. It's just a gut feeling.

What we know

• Lay offs
• No more expansions
• Sagas replacing seasons
• GW2 has no subscription fee
• Build templates (easy to navigate on console. 4 clicks instead of 44 clicks)
• Action combat/camera
• GW2 already has alot of content to explore (for new players)
• GW2 already has alot of features available (mounts added recently for example)
• Consoles are huge platforms and they are asking for new games

What can happen next

• GW2 on console would get a new UI customized entirely for a controller.
  • More focus on delivering content monthly
  • More impactful content
  • A huge reveal at E3 saying GW2 is coming to console
  • Next gen consoles like PS5 are getting huge upgrades to their hardware

What I think

• I would definitely play it on console
• Other mmorpgs already on console - Tera, FFXIV, ESO and more
• Mmorpgs plays very well on console

What do you all think?

[Tekneeq.4302]

lolol what do u think they did those layoffs for.. most likely they tried this... the game would never be able to run smooth enough for retail console companies to sell it.. there would be refunds left and right.. most likely this is what the layoffs were for.. they tried porting to console and saw there was just no way

[Zoid.2568]

@Tekneeq.4302 said:lolol what do u think they did those layoffs for.. most likely they tried this... the game would never be able to run smooth enough for retail console companies to sell it.. there would be refunds left and right.. most likely this is what the layoffs were for.. they tried porting to console and saw there was just no way

They always said no to console. They probably wanted staff to keep doing expansions + living story, not because they wanted the game on console.I think console is the perfect move now when they won't do expansions in the future. People on consoles are hungry for new games.

[Xion.5694]

Other mmos dont run engines that are ancient and unoptimized like the GW2.They'd had to rewrite the code entirely and that wont happen.

For what I feel that we are getting into maintenance mode in about a year and Anet will try to sell a new IP (if any).With new 'season' we will be getting by the old Hall of Monuments, so by the end of it, I predict they will put it again into use (so you will spend 2-3 years maxing things and maybe buy something).

[Tekneeq.4302]

@Xion.5694 said:Other mmos dont run engines that are ancient and unoptimized like the GW2.They'd had to rewrite the code entirely and that wont happen.

For what I feel that we are getting into maintenance mode in about a year and Anet will try to sell a new IP (if any).With new 'season' we will be getting by the old Hall of Monuments, so by the end of it, I predict they will put it again into use (so you will spend 2-3 years maxing things and maybe buy something).

u just said the 100 percent truth right here.. no way could they run gw2 on consoles.. and yes they alrdy tried.. and if they havent then theres something def wrong with the marketing over there

[Healix.5819]

@Tekneeq.4302 said:lolol what do u think they did those layoffs for.. most likely they tried this... the game would never be able to run smooth enough for retail console companies to sell it.. there would be refunds left and right.. most likely this is what the layoffs were for.. they tried porting to console and saw there was just no way

They were developing their next game and had hired over 100 people since PoF for it. NCSoft cancelled it, hence the layoffs.

@Zoid.2568 said:They always said no to console.

They were originally testing the 360, but it was ultimately cancelled due to the anti-MMO practices of consoles at the time.

@Zoid.2568 said:What we know

(they're hiring for console development)

[Zoid.2568]

@Healix.5819 said:

@Tekneeq.4302 said:lolol what do u think they did those layoffs for.. most likely they tried this... the game would never be able to run smooth enough for retail console companies to sell it.. there would be refunds left and right.. most likely this is what the layoffs were for.. they tried porting to console and saw there was just no way

They were developing their next game and had hired over 100 people since PoF for it. NCSoft cancelled it, hence the layoffs.

@Zoid.2568 said:They always said no to console.

They were originally testing the 360, but it was ultimately cancelled due to the anti-MMO practices of consoles at the time.

So Mike O´Brien left ArenaNet and created his own company so he can develop the name game on with his new company?

[Fozzie.5370]

@Zoid.2568 said:People on consoles are hungry for new games.

^^ They should buy or use their PC then :yum:

[Healix.5819]

@Zoid.2568 said:So Mike O´Brien left ArenaNet and created his own company so he can develop the name game on with his new company?

When NCSoft stepped in, they effectively took away his freedom. He had always wanted something else and had been on side projects for years. The new company is him doing what he wants by starting over from scratch, and they'll likely open with a mobile game to gain traction.

[Trise.2865]

I think you should get a job in politics. Your ability to present imaginings as absolute truth is nothing short of brilliant.

[Cynn.1659]

Milking Playerbase > Consoles

[Zoid.2568]

@Trise.2865 said:I think you should get a job in politics. Your ability to present imaginings as absolute truth is nothing short of brilliant.

I never presented it as a truth. Maybe I am really convincing then, as you understood it as a truth? Thank you for the compliment.

[Zoid.2568]

@Cynn.1659 said:Milking Playerbase > Consoles

They have millions to milk on consoles.

[Sirius.4510]

The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

[Zoid.2568]

@Sirius.4510 said:The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

I am using reWASD on PC and it works very well to play GW2 with a controller. The only thing that doesn't work with a controller is the UI, which needs to be customized for a controller, and also some other elements.The possible combination of buttons on a controller is about 100 buttons in total.

Other mmorpgs are doing it and it works well, very well. Tera is my favorite mmorpg with a controller.

An exampleI'm using a PS4 controller.

Dodge - RoundJump - TriangleInteract, auto-attack - X (Auto-attack normally, when close to something to interact (prioritze interact))Mount selection - Square (Will use something similar to Radial Mount addon, which lets you hover over the mount u want to select. very smooth)

Up - F1Left - F2Right - F3Down - F4F5 - Left joystick press down

Switch weapon - Right joystick press down

Move around - Left joystickMove camera - Right joystick

L2 held down +L2 + Square - Weapon skill 2etcetc

L1 held down +Utility skillsHealing skills

As you see, there are many combinations available.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

Not sure if you are new to the game or not, however that was the idea when the game first launched, they had a team working on porting the game to xbox, this is why GW2 was still using DX9 when DX9 had been end of life for a while, as the xbox of the time was using a modified version of DX9 (easy to port). However that project was abandoned, as what most people dont understand, to release a game on console, be it xbox or PS, they have performance requirements for games so it has a "polished" feel across the whole platform, unlike PC where you have millions of variations in builds and no hard performance metrics you have to meet, while consoles are supposed to "just work". Once they were working on the port to xbox, they probably realized they were not willing to, or couldn't reach those minimal performance requirements on a system that is far less powerful than the PCs that play this game. This was also when GW2 was new and making waves and popular, it's old now, and MMOs have never been all that popular on console to start with, I can't see them releasing on console at this point considering even back then they didn't see it as worth the ROI.

On top of all of that, doing it now would mean releasing on new consoles that did not exist when they first did work on porting to console, so that means starting all over. Not only starting over, but starting over on a console that uses a new API, as GW2 is DX9, while xbox one is DX 11.2, meaning they would have to rebuild the engine around DX11.2, making the cost and time involved many fold that of when the game first came out.

[Taygus.4571]

@Sirius.4510 said:The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

I play on controller. And its fine in most pve.

But agreed...it wouldn't work for most players. There alot of combos to memorize.

Also targetting is sooo much slower...meaning I pretty much die instantly to mesmers... this would put console players at a major disadvantage on pvp.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Just for reference

https://www.cinemablend.com/games/Guild-Wars-2-Coming-Consoles-Because-Microsoft-Sony-57315.html

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-15-ncsoft-confirms-guild-wars-2-on-console

[Zoid.2568]

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:Not sure if you are new to the game or not, however that was the idea when the game first launched, they had a team working on porting the game to xbox, this is why GW2 was still using DX9 when DX9 had been end of life for a while, as the xbox of the time was using a modified version of DX9 (easy to port). However that project was abandoned, as what most people dont understand, to release a game on console, be it xbox or PS, they have performance requirements for games so it has a "polished" feel across the whole platform, unlike PC where you have millions of variations in builds and no hard performance metrics you have to meet, while consoles are supposed to "just work". Once they were working on the port to xbox, they probably realized they were not willing to, or couldn't reach those minimal performance requirements on a system that is far less powerful than the PCs that play this game. This was also when GW2 was new and making waves and popular, it's old now, and MMOs have never been all that popular on console to start with, I can't see them releasing on console at this point considering even back then they didn't see it as worth the ROI.

On top of all of that, doing it now would mean releasing on new consoles that did not exist when they first did work on porting to console, so that means starting all over. Not only starting over, but starting over on a console that uses a new API, as GW2 is DX9, while xbox one is DX 11.2, meaning they would have to rebuild the engine around DX11.2, making the cost and time involved many fold that of when the game first came out.

I have played since GW1, so not new. GW2 being upgraded to DX11 would benefit PC and not only console, which would be a good upgrade for the game. GW2 has optimization issues that needs to be adressed.Perhaps they have been working on a rebuild for GW2 for years now? Other companies have done it with their mmorpgs. FFXIV and Blade and Soul for example.

[Zoid.2568]

@Taygus.4571 said:

@Sirius.4510 said:The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

I play on controller. And its fine in most pve.

But agreed...it wouldn't work for most players. There alot of combos to memorize.

Also targetting is sooo much slower...meaning I pretty much die instantly to mesmers... this would put console players at a major disadvantage on pvp.

Do you know that there are settings for targeting, which makes it much easier and more precise to target enemies? Especially when you use a controller.

Snap ground targetSkill retargetingMelee attack assistPromote skill targetAutotargetingGround Targeting: Instant

[Taygus.4571]

@Zoid.2568 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:

@Sirius.4510 said:The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

I play on controller. And its fine in most pve.

But agreed...it wouldn't work for most players. There alot of combos to memorize.

Also targetting is sooo much slower...meaning I pretty much die instantly to mesmers... this would put console players at a major disadvantage on pvp.

Do you know that there are settings for targeting, which makes it much easier and more precise to target enemies? Especially when you use a controller.

Snap ground targetSkill retargetingMelee attack assistPromote skill targetAutotargeting

yes.. I do....I've been playing with controller for 2 years.That doesn't change that mouse targetting is fastest..and joysticks can not yet emulate mouse precision

Also, you don't want to use melee attack assist in most situations.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

@Zoid.2568 said:

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:Not sure if you are new to the game or not, however that was the idea when the game first launched, they had a team working on porting the game to xbox, this is why GW2 was still using DX9 when DX9 had been end of life for a while, as the xbox of the time was using a modified version of DX9 (easy to port). However that project was abandoned, as what most people dont understand, to release a game on console, be it xbox or PS, they have performance requirements for games so it has a "polished" feel across the whole platform, unlike PC where you have millions of variations in builds and no hard performance metrics you have to meet, while consoles are supposed to "just work". Once they were working on the port to xbox, they probably realized they were not willing to, or couldn't reach those minimal performance requirements on a system that is far less powerful than the PCs that play this game. This was also when GW2 was new and making waves and popular, it's old now, and MMOs have never been all that popular on console to start with, I can't see them releasing on console at this point considering even back then they didn't see it as worth the ROI.

On top of all of that, doing it now would mean releasing on new consoles that did not exist when they first did work on porting to console, so that means starting all over. Not only starting over, but starting over on a console that uses a new API, as GW2 is DX9, while xbox one is DX 11.2, meaning they would have to rebuild the engine around DX11.2, making the cost and time involved many fold that of when the game first came out.

I have played since GW1, so not new. GW2 being upgraded to DX11 would benefit PC and not only console, which would be a good upgrade for the game. GW2 has optimization issues that needs to be adressed.Perhaps they have been working on a rebuild for GW2 for years now? Other companies have done it with their mmorpgs. FFXIV and Blade and Soul for example.

DX11 wouldn't really help GW2 in performance. Optimizations can be done in DX9, not just DX11, the reason some games moved to DX12 was due to being able to have it far more parallel on the CPU end and lowering CPU overhead with a more "direct to metal" manipulation on the GPU, as even with DX9 or DX11 GPU side is already highly parallel. While DX9 can be made thread safe, it requires significant synchronization overhead and often reduces performance.

Also, since GW uses it's own in house game engine, they would have to rebuild that engine for the new API as well. It might not require rebuilding everything from the ground up, but it's also not a small task either that they are not going to invest into such an old game, those funds and resources would be better spent in new IP in the form of GW3 or the like, not a 7 year old game that has lost it's way and trying to push it into a platform that doesn't have a high demand for MMO's in general and has a higher level of programing restrictions, requirements and limited hardware vs PC. Not to mention is it going to be cross platform? Well that adds a whole other issue to the situation.

[Zoid.2568]

@Taygus.4571 said:

@Zoid.2568 said:

@Taygus.4571 said:

@Sirius.4510 said:The thought of trying to cram 10 skills + F1-F4 or F5 + dodge + weapon switch + mount + that weird special action skill onto a gamepad is frankly horrifying. There are ways you could do it, but it'd be about the most confusing RPG control scheme on the market.Aiming for the console market is quite possibly the single strongest argument in favor of a GW3 (or at least a spin-off, if you want to keep 2 running, which is quite a reasonable strategy). Simplify the control scheme, bring it closer to its GW1 roots, open it up to a wider audience.

I play on controller. And its fine in most pve.

But agreed...it wouldn't work for most players. There alot of combos to memorize.

Also targetting is sooo much slower...meaning I pretty much die instantly to mesmers... this would put console players at a major disadvantage on pvp.

Do you know that there are settings for targeting, which makes it much easier and more precise to target enemies? Especially when you use a controller.

Snap ground targetSkill retargetingMelee attack assistPromote skill targetAutotargeting

yes.. I do....I've been playing with controller for 2 years.That doesn't change that mouse targetting is fastest..and joysticks can not yet emulate mouse precision

Also, you don't want to use melee attack assist in most situations.

That's for console in general. FPS games on console use aim assist to help with aiming, because they can't aim as precise as with a mouse.

Mouse targeting is rarely an important thing in GW2 and the target settings are good enough to replace the mouse. If you use action camera on PC with a mouse it's the same as playing action camera with a controller.

Also.. not all people have good aim with a mouse. I've seen terrible players in FPS games, even with a mouse they can't aim. However on console they can as they have aim assist.

[Blude.6812]

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Just for reference

https://www.cinemablend.com/games/Guild-Wars-2-Coming-Consoles-Because-Microsoft-Sony-57315.html

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-15-ncsoft-confirms-guild-wars-2-on-console

LoL, 6/7 years old.

[Zoid.2568]

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:

@Zoid.2568 said:

@TinkTinkPOOF.9201 said:Not sure if you are new to the game or not, however that was the idea when the game first launched, they had a team working on porting the game to xbox, this is why GW2 was still using DX9 when DX9 had been end of life for a while, as the xbox of the time was using a modified version of DX9 (easy to port). However that project was abandoned, as what most people dont understand, to release a game on console, be it xbox or PS, they have performance requirements for games so it has a "polished" feel across the whole platform, unlike PC where you have millions of variations in builds and no hard performance metrics you have to meet, while consoles are supposed to "just work". Once they were working on the port to xbox, they probably realized they were not willing to, or couldn't reach those minimal performance requirements on a system that is far less powerful than the PCs that play this game. This was also when GW2 was new and making waves and popular, it's old now, and MMOs have never been all that popular on console to start with, I can't see them releasing on console at this point considering even back then they didn't see it as worth the ROI.

On top of all of that, doing it now would mean releasing on new consoles that did not exist when they first did work on porting to console, so that means starting all over. Not only starting over, but starting over on a console that uses a new API, as GW2 is DX9, while xbox one is DX 11.2, meaning they would have to rebuild the engine around DX11.2, making the cost and time involved many fold that of when the game first came out.

I have played since GW1, so not new. GW2 being upgraded to DX11 would benefit PC and not only console, which would be a good upgrade for the game. GW2 has optimization issues that needs to be adressed.Perhaps they have been working on a rebuild for GW2 for years now? Other companies have done it with their mmorpgs. FFXIV and Blade and Soul for example.

DX11 wouldn't really help GW2 in performance. Optimizations can be done in DX9, not just DX11, the reason some games moved to DX12 was due to being able to have it far more parallel on the CPU end and lowering CPU overhead with a more "direct to metal" manipulation on the GPU, as even with DX9 or DX11 GPU side is already highly parallel. While DX9 can be made thread safe, it requires significant synchronization overhead and often reduces performance.

Also, since GW uses it's own in house game engine, they would have to rebuild that engine for the new API as well. It might not require rebuilding everything from the ground up, but it's also not a small task either that they are not going to invest into such an old game, those funds and resources would be better spent in new IP in the form of GW3 or the like, not a 7 year old game that has lost it's way and trying to push it into a platform that doesn't have a high demand for MMO's in general and has a higher level of programing restrictions, requirements and limited hardware vs PC. Not to mention is it going to be cross platform? Well that adds a whole other issue to the situation.

Blade and Soul has been remade with Unreal Engine 4. The game will look and feel totally new. The publisher behind blade and soul is NcSoft, which is the same publisher behind GW2. It's not impossible that GW2 will get the same treatment.