Would you crowdfund an engine upgrade?

[Veprovina.4876]

We all know GW2's engine is ancient and runs horribly on even new hardware even though it should run perfecly on 10 year old hardware how due to how the game looks now compared to modern games. The netcode of online play could also use some work.

 

Since most of the community seems to be convinced that Anet would only do a new engine if there was a direct profit in it for them and that somehow a new engine wouldn't generate any profit by enticing new players, and satisfiying current ones - making them enjoy the game more and spend more money on gems. So, since Anet gains "nothing" by porting the game to a new engine (i don't believe that but for the sake of the thread let's say Anew would never make a dollar from having a better engine) - would you then be prepared to crowdfund the development of a new engine or an upgrade to the existing one?

 

And what i mean by crowdfund, i mean kickstarter, iniegogo and simmilar platfurms where users can directly pay a company, plus stretch goals, and you get some ingame "backer item" as a reward for your contribution, based on what tier you backed at.

 

An "engine upgrade/new engine" would of course mean, stable FPS on any recent and older hardware (due to the engine not being CPU bound, any even older GFX card would have no trouble rendering the old textures and geometry), stable netcode (less lag), more GFX options like disabling and fine tuning effects, etc.

 

The poll is multiple choice.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Veprovina.4876

[Thornwolf.9721]

Daddy NCsoft has enough money. Let them foot the bill.

[lezbefriends.7516]

3 minutes ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

Daddy NCsoft has enough money. Let them foot the bill.

So ANet can use those funds to work on side projects again? No, thank you.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Mortifera.6138

[Veprovina.4876]

2 minutes ago, Thornwolf.9721 said:

Daddy NCsoft has enough money. Let them foot the bill.

True, but the poll is under the assumption that most of the community makes - daddy NCsoft has no "gain" from making a new engine and therefore won't fund it.

 

But i agree with you 100% though.

[Veprovina.4876]

1 minute ago, Mortifera.6138 said:

So ANet can use those funds to work on side projects again? No, thank you.

That would be a fellony though lol, if they get money for a specific thing then spend it on something else.

[Shivan.9438]

No,

Lore has been rushed and butchered in order to fit expansion release time frames, not to mention making already existing expansions, LW and PS lack luster in some places. They drug their feet for years on updating PvP content in all areas. Existing gameplay, like dungeons need a serious revamp or more dungeons added based on the content given in HoT and PoF.  Farming in this game absolutely ridiculous. In GW1, farming builds and zones were broken by adding mobs that would break a build. Like the zones where 55 monks would farm, they added mobs that would shatter enchantments. They need that kind of thing in GW2. Too much AFK farming that's not addressed or curbed enough to stop it.

The economy blows. T6 mats, which are supposed to be prized and used to make high end inscriptions are always in the dumps because the mats are easy to farm and TP flippers abuse it all in bulk. Anet needs to reduce the ability to farm mats in huge amounts in order to stop casual legendary and ascended crafting. I find it laughable that VM is so easily farmed and then exchanged for what's supposed to be some of the most precious items in the game.

Power Creep. 'nuff said.

I could go on, but with the way Anet is just throwing things into the game without careful thought, I sure as hell ain't spending money to upgrade an engine. Which by the way, Anet already admitted, that they don't have the skillset to do anything more.

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Shivan.9438

[Thornwolf.9721]

48 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

True, but the poll is under the assumption that most of the community makes - daddy NCsoft has no "gain" from making a new engine and therefore won't fund it.

 

But i agree with you 100% though.

I mean at this stage, the only reason this game is allowed to exist is because NCsoft really has nothing that can compete or even replace it once its gone. Like what? Aion classic. LMFAO they killed that game by doing EXACTLY what A-net has been doing to guild wars 2 over the years... but I agree.

Honestly we need a complete new team, with a solid foundation and vision and a guild wars 3.  This game will never be more than it is... 

[Thornwolf.9721]

52 minutes ago, Mortifera.6138 said:

So ANet can use those funds to work on side projects again? No, thank you.

They'd do that and likely are doing that, A-net doesn't care and hasn't cared in a long time. But I agree with you~ Honestly if this game dies it'll be entirely due to how A-net has functioned over the last eight or so years.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Make one mechanical argument for them to upgrade the engine that this engine can't already do.

[Eraden.8740]

There is absolutely no need for crowd funding. ANet knows whether or not an engine upgrade would be profitable for them. If it is, they will spend their own money to do the project. If it is not financially viable, crowd funding would make no difference in the long term.

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

An "engine upgrade/new engine" would of course mean, stable FPS on any recent and older hardware (due to the engine not being CPU bound, any even older GFX card would have no trouble rendering the old textures and geometry), stable netcode (less lag), more GFX options like disabling and fine tuning effects, etc.

Of course.

 

Because crowdfunding always gets you exactly what you want. Kind of like how Camelot Unchained killed GW2 WvW and sPvP in 2014 when it was released, every backer got what they wanted. I also hear Chronicles Of Elyria is the next big thing.

[Daishi.6027]

GW2 needs the new genesis treatment PSO2 got.

Essentially new game, new engine, new economy, fresh balance worked from the ground up; but cosmetics transfer over.

[Infusion.7149]

11 minutes ago, Daishi.6027 said:

GW2 needs the new genesis treatment PSO2 got.

Essentially new game, new engine, new economy, fresh balance worked from the ground up; but cosmetics transfer over.

New economy would annoy everyone that paid for anything in this game.

The only thing I could see happening is an unofficial Steam Linux client using dxvk on Steam Proton. The net cost to them would be zero as Valve supports dxvk.

 

Speaking of which if you can't use dxvk currently then any dx12/vulkan upgrade would be meaningless. The best investment is in multi-threading the client process (non render thread) but some things are inherently serial.

Unless the system requirements are upped to 2012 standards then there really can't be any major multi-threading investment.

https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/201862958-Minimum-System-Requirements

Quote

Intel® Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz

Core i3

AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better

NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GTS , ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT , Intel Iris 5100 or better (512MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
Memory	4 GB RAM

 

 

[Krzysztof.5973]

Let's just crowdfund new engine, you guys! Just fund it LOOOOOOOOOOL
It's a shame it costs millions of dollars and years of work for hundreds of people just to create the game engine. Not not mention transfering 10 years of data into it. Yes, brilliant idea. 

[Zephire.8049]

Yeah, no. While I would love a new engine, companies using crowdfunding as a way to fund new projects without dipping into executive bonuses needs to stop.

 

There's been no indication that Anet lacks money, only that management fails to manage money, projects, and personnel. NCSoft also has billions and could bankroll a new engine without blinking so the idea of them asking people who are already paying them for more money for something that should already be included is beyond tacky.

[phokus.8934]

Them going to a new engine has nothing to do with money.

[Boh.4568]

The fact that in 2021 GW2 doesn't even utilize the GPU is a clear indicator that nothing will ever be done on the game engine, no matter how much money we throw at them.

[Mik.3401]

I personally would contribute because I still believe this game has potential. The problem is the devs team, I got an impression they do not seem attached to the game that much anymore because many of them didn’t create it. So new expansion and gemstore stuff are doable because they bring cash, but engine/graphics update is too much work which could be spent on new projects

[Melech.4308]

I'd crowdfund an M1 Mac client!

[Follyfoot.2803]

It's in their interest to up their engine.  Let's face it, if they don't in the very near future the game is going to die no mater how many expansions they add. You can clearly see the game is on it's last graphical and performance legs.  It farts and chugs along to the point it is now doing some weird stuff.

They should have address this years ago.

[Veprovina.4876]

9 hours ago, Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

Make one mechanical argument for them to upgrade the engine that this engine can't already do.

CPU Multi-Threading?

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that the current engine can't do. I also said in my post, the ability to "prune" some in game effects for better performance on lower systems etc.

 

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Of course.

 

Because crowdfunding always gets you exactly what you want. Kind of like how Camelot Unchained killed GW2 WvW and sPvP in 2014 when it was released, every backer got what they wanted. I also hear Chronicles Of Elyria is the next big thing.

Haha, well there's that too. 😛

 

6 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

Let's just crowdfund new engine, you guys! Just fund it LOOOOOOOOOOL
It's a shame it costs millions of dollars and years of work for hundreds of people just to create the game engine. Not not mention transfering 10 years of data into it. Yes, brilliant idea. 

How about an existing one then? Port the game to Unity or Unreal? Or whatever.

 

2 hours ago, phokus.8934 said:

Them going to a new engine has nothing to do with money.

Probably, yes, the fact that the engine is in such a sorry state for as long as it is means that they probably don't have the talent or enough people to make it better.

 

25 minutes ago, Follyfoot.2803 said:

It's in their interest to up their engine.  Let's face it, if they don't in the very near future the game is going to die no mater how many expansions they add. You can clearly see the game is on it's last graphical and performance legs.  It farts and chugs along to the point it is now doing some weird stuff.

They should have address this years ago.

I agree. This game will die without an engine upgrade and it won't be pretty...

[Dawdler.8521]

9 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

This game will die without an engine upgrade and it won't be pretty...

Its been 9 years. The warranty has already expired.

 

"Just port the game to another engine" shows how far removed from reality it is.

 

You know who tried this too? EA, using one of the most modern and best engines at the time. It turned out to be a trainwreck because wouldnt you know, engines are highly specialized and you cant just plop an fps engine onto an MMO.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Veprovina.4876]

4 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Its been 9 years. The warranty has already expired.

 

"Just port the game to another engine" shows how far removed from reality it is.

 

You know who tried this too? EA, using one of the most modern and best engines at the time. It turned out to be a trainwreck because wouldnt you know, engines are highly specialized and you cant just plop an fps engine onto an MMO.

No one said it would be easy. But you can't deny that the game engine is really stumbling hard. Now... Abut the shelf life? I'd like to think it'll be years before GW2 engine does the "i can't do this anymore" thing and just dies, but who knows...

[kharmin.7683]

3 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

No one said it would be easy. But you can't deny that the game engine is really stumbling hard. Now... Abut the shelf life? I'd like to think it'll be years before GW2 engine does the "i can't do this anymore" thing and just dies, but who knows...

Exactly.  Only Anet knows how easy or hard this would be.  I'm guessing that they've already decided it is not worth the time/effort/money/resources or that doing so would not be profitable.  If upgrading the engine would bring in more money for their investors, Anet would have done so well before now.

[Mik.3401]

7 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Exactly.  Only Anet knows how easy or hard this would be.  I'm guessing that they've already decided it is not worth the time/effort/money/resources or that doing so would not be profitable.  If upgrading the engine would bring in more money for their investors, Anet would have done so well before now.

And that leads me to believe EoD might be the last expansion coming. I’m not trying to be negative, I’d love the game to live on for years and years to come like WoW does. But yes, without necessary upgrades and the new gaming technology coming in next years the things will just get worse and worse. Anet surely has some business strategy team or whatever and they know this obstacle is coming.