Behind the Scenes

How do you judge quality of a creative effort without first hand experience? One clue is the pride shown by the creators. Check out the profiles of the ArenaNet offices by Eurogamer.

Daniel Dociu (Art Director who painted GW2 landscape at top of post)

"At my age, I don't feel like I have the luxury of wasting a development cycle, of putting five years of my life into something that's less than relevant or game changing," Daniel Dociu says. "Will it feel big enough, relevant enough, to where I can look back and say, 'Hell, this was definitely worth putting five of my last years into?' And I hope that's going to be the case, but you can't help but be nervous about it." "I feel I have accomplished a lot," he adds in reflection. "I can't help but feel good where my career went over the last eight years. I could have very well been buried and doing the same old thing at another place, or one of my previous places of employment, and plateaued, to be jaded by now, and treat every day as 'another day at the office'. But it's none of that.

Mike Zadorojny (QA lead)

"Working on a project like this," Mike Zadorojny tells me, "it doesn't come along very often. This is hands-down the biggest title that I've ever worked on, in terms of the potential of what it can actually do." When he thinks of all he's been able to do here he feels "special". "Blessed, I guess, is another word for it." "It's hard not to get caught up in the moment and get swept up in the emotions of the hype that's existing outside of this company. The fans are demanding. They're super excited, but they're demanding something that's fantastic, something that's great. And I just hope we can deliver up to their expectations. We think we've been able to make something great, and we just hope that the fans can agree that this is something that's truly super."

Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer)

"I feel pretty spectacular," Colin Johanson beams. "This is my dream job. My parents, when I was a little kid, used to tell me all the time that you will never get a job in videogames. You need to stop doing this. You need to find a real job. And now they tell me, 'Well, we're glad you didn't listen to us.' "Yeah," he adds, "I couldn't be happier."

Jeff Grubb (Continuity and Lore director)

"I'm very excited about this project and I speak for others: we're ready to go, we want to be done," Jeff Grubb says. " We're not there yet, we've got a lot that still needs to be done, but every morning we come in just really gung-ho about it - and I see it in my co-workers, and I see it in my own work, that we're very proud of what we've done, and we're still very excited. And after six years, that's saying a great deal."

Mike O'Brien (Founder)

"Any of us, we want to look back at our lives and go 'wow, we really shook up the industry, we really made a game that changed the way people thought about gaming.' We've had an opportunity to do that. And so I wouldn't give it up for anything. And we continue to have that opportunity at ArenaNet. "You're going to be coming back here in five years and asking me that question [would you do it all again] again, and I'm going to still say I wouldn't give it up for the world. We have an amazing future ahead of us."

The obvious pride these people have is rather infectious.

Let the Games begin

Forbes (yes, that Forbes) article on Guild Wars 2

“We’re in it to win it this time,” said O’Brien. “We were number two to World of Warcraft with Guild Wars, now we want to beat them. We’ll be satisfied when the Guild Wars 2 is the most successful MMO. I think we have something unique here and players are going to see it and understand why dynamic events are a way better content model than people have experienced before in online worlds. Word-of-mouth will get people to understand that we really are doing something new and different. The sky’s the limit once this game is out. Online worlds have a networking effect. People will bring friends to Guild Wars 2. We hope all the people who play the beta weekend will tell their friends about it.”

Believe the Hype

GuildCast episode 19

at the 29 minute mark:

Gary(Host): James says, "What is your opinion on the hype of Guild Wars 2?  Will the game live up to it or has it been overhyped by the community and other factors?"

Scott:  No.  It's a disaster.  People are going to hate it. 
Elixabeth:  Total trainwreck. 
Gary:  We're totally just trolling you people.  That's all we're pretty much doing.
Scott:  We've spent so much time setting this up to be the biggest joke.  Like next weekend everybody's going to walk in and just go, "Wait a minute.  You mean it's all just stick figures?"
Gary:  The 27th's going to launch, and you know what, people are going to be like. . . .

 (Plays cat animation)

. . .

Richie:  A couple of months ago, I might have been a little more nervous.  Here I am following this game religiously, making videos, writing about it and basically realizing I've been doing all of this effort and I've never even played the game.  Then with the two recent beta events and you see all the press and so many critical eyes on it and most people have just amazing things to say about it.  I'm pretty convinced now it's not just merely hype.  There is something to back it up. 

. . .

Scott: That's where I come from (a MMO hoppper looking for a home), because I liked the first Guild Wars, but I'm not as invested in it coming up to Guild Wars 2 as Ritchie and Elixabeth were.  I've been playing virtually every MMO under the sun because, you know, I'm mental.  But also because, as the leadup to Guild Wars 2, I'm into design and I'm into the mechanics of the games and I just started seeing how it looked, which is like unbelievable.  But then you'd see all these different choices (that the designers made) and you're like, "God, that makes sense.  I've been wanting a game to do that for like ages"  Or "Why aren't other games doing this?" which is the phrase we use so many times it's ridiculous.  It's a cliche.  It should be (announcer voice) "Guild Wars 2 - Why isn't anyone else doing this?"

Gary:  "Why did this take so long?"

Scott:  Yeah?  Why haven't you got this over there you fools?  So, that's what really built it up for me.  Before I first got my hands on it, I'm like, "it promises to sound great," and then I got my hands on it, and it pays off.  And that's what it comes down to.  Yes, it's hyped to an extent, but seriously, think of all of the negative reviews that. . . How much press have tested this game?  How many of them have actually given it a negative review? 

Gary:  Yeah.  Not many.

Scott:  Can you think of a game before that's got such positive feedback from press?

Beta Weekend Details

Event Information

We’re counting the days until the first public Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event, which begins on Friday, April 27, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and ends on Sunday, April 29, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7). Hundreds of thousands of players from around the world will get their first taste of Guild Wars 2—and rest assured, we’ll be playing alongside them!

You’ll create your own personalized charr, human, or norn character and pick from our eight powerful professions. Your choice of race is vital to your personal story, and it determines in which of the huge starting areas you begin as well. A noble human mesmer will have a radically different game experience than a charr engineer in the service of the Iron Legion. Fortunately, you can roll more than one character and sample each starting area for yourself! 

 

Beta Weekend Announced

Guild Wars 2 Facebook Entry

Good news!First Beta Weekend Event will be from April 27-29. We will let you know once the client is ready for download. We'll have a blog post with details about what and when you can play later today or tomorrow. If you haven't already: pre-purchase to participate! https://buy.guildwars2.com/ ~RB2

The Painterly Aesthetic

ArenaNet wants to recreate the feeling the of your twelve year old self when you found the Tolkien calendar in the back of the mall bookstore. You compared what your mind painted while reading to what the artist put on canvas, and a part of you wished to be in that painting.

The aesthetic of personally inhabiting a great fantasy painting is a clear goal of the Guild Wars 2 designers, and it's such a natural idea, it's somewhat strange so few fantasy role-playing games have explored it at all, much less to the extent ArenaNet is.

Epic Dragon Battle

Arenanet's Lore and Continuity Designer Ree Soesbee sets up the ingame footage taken from a recent demonstration. The action starts around the 1:20 mark if you want to skip ahead.

The video features a Dragon attack on Hylek (frog-people) territory. You'll see several participation methods. Attack the Dragon directly (not always recommended!), climb into one of the assorted Asura-designed siege weapons, defeat minions of the dragon attacking those weapons, or break down the Dragon's defensive measures.

The battle is a group effort and everyone on the server can pitch in and get rewarded if the battle is successful. You will see this mostly from the perspective of a Sylvari (plant person) engineer player carrying a rifle. The regular gunshots may get annoying, so turn the sound down a bit, but not too far as you'll want to hear the frog-people shouting advice to participants. Some minor footage has been spliced in from other players to give some different views on the dragon's rather impressive entrance.