Alot of us know the state of TSW, but due to all the NDA's they like to toss around ill get banned im sure for just even saying TSW and NDA in the same sentence. This is why you havnt heard anything about the game, they are locking down hard on anyone who even thinks about the game.

Originally posted by TemperHoof

 

What made the Star Wars situation unique is that it combined elements of WAR’s hype machine and Final Fantasy XIV’s fan-driven expectations, married into one organism. The difference though, is that Star Wars: The Old Republic is actually a playable game, and many people have found it to be quite acceptable. In several points, the hype did live up to what people were told to expect, but it didn’t exactly live up to what people were really hoping for overall. In the end, a lot of people really were disappointed with Star Wars, either because they had too high of hopes or felt they were simply lied to. Whose fault is hard to tell, for there were two massive fronts generating a massive amount of hype before its release.

 

So what’s so different? What is it that makes Guild Wars 2 different from these previous tittles? As a product, one could argue that nothing is different at all. Guild Wars 2 is ultimately still a game, it is to be sold to the public, it is to be played, and probably enjoyed for only a short period of time – or at great length depending on the person who is going to play it. But as a market plan – Guild Wars 2 is a very different creature indeed. I’ve known about this title for a long, long time. In 2010 in fact they released gameplay footage of it, of course this was low quality, but the footage was roughly about an hour long featuring a female ranger running around in the starting zone.

 

Actually no, I have the articles where the devs interviews made broad outlandish statements about how great their combat system would be, how unlike other mmo's it was not going to be the same twenty little guys beating on a larger boss and how they were doing something no one else had done before (even tho they were vague and didn't reveal what(. They did not deliver what they promised But since it was Starwars people just settled in and paid these people anyway.

 

For the past few years, Guild Wars 2 has been something of a quiet creature. While Guild Wars 2 remained high on the hyper-meters of many websites, there wasn’t much known about the final product. All people really had were their experiences with Guild Wars and how it handled. Aside from occasional information dumps of class information via the main website, the fair bulk of Guild Wars 2 content was still completely unknown and up to the wild imaginations of the community. That is until February 2012 of course.

 

Ugh it's just amazing to me how much people can miss in a year by not searching. I've been using Google for over a year now since last christmas following this game title. there hasn't been unknown speculation, there's been post after post of interviews commentary gameplay reviews from pax and cons alike (they didn't do a single show they did many) and what amazes me about your statement is that since you didn't find anything until feb 2012 there wasn't any information available. ??? HA. right.

 

Often times Press were seen as something of the enemy, people to be avoided! You see, the Game-Press have this nasty habit of spreading information. Games, especially MMORPGs, are supposed to be top-secret development projects, right? No one is supposed to know ANYTHING about the game until like 2 weeks before release, then the Game-Press and can come and go as they please as Open Beta is underway. But Arena.Net pretty much hand-picked a lot of major game websites, especially those who pod-cast regularly, gave them the keys to the car and said: “It’s yours for the weekend.”

 

After that, it’s like a virtual information bomb went off on the internet. A tsunami of gameplay videos, impressions, blogs, reviews, and more just poured into every orifice of just about every game-related website on the face of the internet. 

 

I agree with you there! there was a bomb that went off LOL it is still everywhere as there was a short understandable delay between events and the videos. 

 

 Now the information is trickling down to the community itself, who weren’t the first ones to be catered to it at all. With an information overload, the community is still sifting through the mass media. If you haven’t looked at anything Guild Wars 2 related, you should. These aren't simple assumption articles. These are detailed descriptions of the actual mechanics of the game that will not see much alteration between now and the final release. Confident in their product, especially after a record breaking 50 hour beta sign up period, Arena.Net is offering full on pre-purchases of the final product. This too has been seldom done.

 

But but don't tell people there are FACTS about the game, they'll simply turn around and tell you that you are a hype machine!

 

 

Originally posted by Alucardlb

Alot of us know the state of TSW, but due to all the NDA's they like to toss around ill get banned im sure for just even saying TSW and NDA in the same sentence. This is why you havnt heard anything about the game, they are locking down hard on anyone who even thinks about the game.

For some reason EA branded titles usually do that. :(

Originally posted by steeler989
I like your typing. Can you type for my new website?... Back to seriousness, I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE SAID

Send a private message if you have a serious offer and can pay the commission fees.

Originally posted by TemperHoof

The critical flaw in your point of view/response is that you take a bold assumption. No where in my article, or in any of my responses for that matter, do I declare/annoucne/assume that Guild Wars 2 is and will be the best game ever. As a matter of fact, I do not feel that Guild Wars 2 will be the greatest game, and everyone I tell about the game I say this.

"You know, the game looks really solid and polished, looks like plenty to do, and there is a good solid gameplay structure to at least enjoy for a little while. Even if it's not a huge success from the start, you can at least be assured that it will have a positive effect on future games."

You can quote me.

I actually didn't mean it to come off as putting words in your mouth.  It was more of a counterpoint to everything I had just finished saying about not buying into hype. 

And for the record, I'd like GW2 to be great.  I want TSW to be great too, if only because the setting is newish.  I really don't like to see games fail, and for the life of me, I can't understand how so many games can have individually good ideas but one game can't come and put them all together. 

I also didn't mean to derail the thread into a TSW thing.  My bad!

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by TemperHoof

 

What made the Star Wars situation unique is that it combined elements of WAR’s hype machine and Final Fantasy XIV’s fan-driven expectations, married into one organism. The difference though, is that Star Wars: The Old Republic is actually a playable game, and many people have found it to be quite acceptable. In several points, the hype did live up to what people were told to expect, but it didn’t exactly live up to what people were really hoping for overall. In the end, a lot of people really were disappointed with Star Wars, either because they had too high of hopes or felt they were simply lied to. Whose fault is hard to tell, for there were two massive fronts generating a massive amount of hype before its release.

 

So what’s so different? What is it that makes Guild Wars 2 different from these previous tittles? As a product, one could argue that nothing is different at all. Guild Wars 2 is ultimately still a game, it is to be sold to the public, it is to be played, and probably enjoyed for only a short period of time – or at great length depending on the person who is going to play it. But as a market plan – Guild Wars 2 is a very different creature indeed. I’ve known about this title for a long, long time. In 2010 in fact they released gameplay footage of it, of course this was low quality, but the footage was roughly about an hour long featuring a female ranger running around in the starting zone.

 

Actually no, I have the articles where the devs interviews made broad outlandish statements about how great their combat system would be, how unlike other mmo's it was not going to be the same twenty little guys beating on a larger boss and how they were doing something no one else had done before (even tho they were vague and didn't reveal what(. They did not deliver what they promised But since it was Starwars people just settled in and paid these people anyway.

 

 

 

Did those early statements really create any sense of confusion toward what the final product would offer in the end? As it's not like they hid combat from public view. It was no secret what TOR's combat was before it released. So I'm not sure what the above has to do with Temper's point.

You act as though NDA was held until release day, there was over a month of uncontrolled tester/press feedback.

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by TemperHoof

 

What made the Star Wars situation unique is that it combined elements of WAR’s hype machine and Final Fantasy XIV’s fan-driven expectations, married into one organism. The difference though, is that Star Wars: The Old Republic is actually a playable game, and many people have found it to be quite acceptable. In several points, the hype did live up to what people were told to expect, but it didn’t exactly live up to what people were really hoping for overall. In the end, a lot of people really were disappointed with Star Wars, either because they had too high of hopes or felt they were simply lied to. Whose fault is hard to tell, for there were two massive fronts generating a massive amount of hype before its release.

 

So what’s so different? What is it that makes Guild Wars 2 different from these previous tittles? As a product, one could argue that nothing is different at all. Guild Wars 2 is ultimately still a game, it is to be sold to the public, it is to be played, and probably enjoyed for only a short period of time – or at great length depending on the person who is going to play it. But as a market plan – Guild Wars 2 is a very different creature indeed. I’ve known about this title for a long, long time. In 2010 in fact they released gameplay footage of it, of course this was low quality, but the footage was roughly about an hour long featuring a female ranger running around in the starting zone.

 

Actually no, I have the articles where the devs interviews made broad outlandish statements about how great their combat system would be, how unlike other mmo's it was not going to be the same twenty little guys beating on a larger boss and how they were doing something no one else had done before (even tho they were vague and didn't reveal what(. They did not deliver what they promised But since it was Starwars people just settled in and paid these people anyway.

 

 

 

Did those early statements really create any sense of confusion toward what the final product would offer in the end? As it's not like they hid combat from public view. It was no secret what TOR's combat was before it released. So I'm not sure what the above has to do with Temper's point.

You act as though NDA was held until release day, there was over a month of uncontrolled tester/press feedback.

Actually that is what happened, they weren't as open or as free with their actual gameplay footage, they had a very low footage to interview ratio, and since not everyone who was interested had as much information as say GW2 has out for it's title a year in advance, people thought it was going to be one way instead of another. It's like WoW's celebrity commercials, they don't really reveal anything concrete and there are only a few of them but they built up hype via ads. Oh and then there was the issues they discovered post launch where the final beta of the game was different then the launch, and i don't just mean graphics issues.

Originally posted by itgrowls

 

Actually that is what happened, they weren't as open or as free with their actual gameplay footage, they had a very low footage to interview ratio, and since not everyone who was interested had as much information as say GW2 has out for it's title a year in advance, people thought it was going to be one way instead of another. It's like WoW's celebrity commercials, they don't really reveal anything concrete and there are only a few of them but they built up hype via ads.

THe game-play was laid bare at just about every single event that existed.

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by itgrowls

 

Actually that is what happened, they weren't as open or as free with their actual gameplay footage, they had a very low footage to interview ratio, and since not everyone who was interested had as much information as say GW2 has out for it's title a year in advance, people thought it was going to be one way instead of another. It's like WoW's celebrity commercials, they don't really reveal anything concrete and there are only a few of them but they built up hype via ads.

THe game-play was laid bare at just about every single event that existed.

15 minutes(usually) of the same exact slice of game. while GW2 demos were expanded nicely from show to show, the game time was longer and the game itself had more layers to show. exploration videos were in bountiful supply, while with TOR there was no "off the beaten path". the result was that less of the game was shown.

PvP, crafting(in depth), all playable and stuff people could see for themselves. half the swtor footage were staged canned pieces and very brief. they weren't putting high level content in your hands at trade shows.

Originally posted by itstheclimax

Originally posted by Distopia

THe game-play was laid bare at just about every single event that existed.

15 minutes(usually) of the same exact slice of game. while GW2 demos were expanded nicely from show to show, the game time was longer and the game itself had more layers to show. exploration videos were in bountiful supply, while with TOR there was no "off the beaten path". the result was that less of the game was shown.

PvP, crafting(in depth), all playable and stuff people could see for themselves. half the swtor footage were staged canned pieces and very brief. they weren't putting high level content in your hands at trade shows.

In either game what is the difference between mid to low level content and high level content? In TOR not much, in GW2 they say endgame starts at level one.

The only thing not shown of TOR pre-release was Ilum. They showed Flashpoints, Class quests, Companions/crafting, side quests, Operations, Combat and Warzones, is there anything more to TOR than that?

You do realize The entire game of TOR was at conventions all through 2011 right? It wasn't a demo build.

Not sure what you're arguing here. A lot of games release information before the release. What we're talking about is the method of deployment, how Arena.Net has chosen to spread the world of Guild Wars 2, how they are hitting a target audience, and how they are doing it differently than other games.

Originally posted by TemperHoof

Not sure what you're arguing here. A lot of games release information before the release. What we're talking about is the method of deployment, how Arena.Net has chosen to spread the world of Guild Wars 2, how they are hitting a target audience, and how they are doing it differently than other games.

That was more or less a side debate in response to something said. AS to your OT ..sure.. They've passed on traditional marketing for what is essentially viral marketing. They've handed the marketing raines over to their fans, Fiontar said it pretty well a few times earlier. As he pointed out the problems that could case quite perfectly.

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by ariboersma

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by ariboersma

Originally posted by eHero

You know what's also different from all those games and GW2?  They're out, and we can now look back at the actual games themselves and see what they did wrong.  We can't do that with GW2.  Yet.

It's easy to sit back and say that enough information about Warhammer and Swtor (I never played FF, but when the boss apologizes for releasing a bad game, I guess enough's said) wasn't released, but it was.  We had gameplay videos all over the place.  But you can't really get a feel for the thing until you play it. 

It's not really fair to compare the marketing departments of these games while using the state of those games to prove your point.  Here's the thing.  Marketing sold me on games like Warhammer and Auto Assault.  Marketing has sold you on GW2.  Because that's all it is.  Good marketing.  And it's JUST hype and marketing until the game hits the shelves. 

Look, I had this same conversation with AmazingAvery when he knew that Age of Conan would be the best game ever.  I get it.  And I'll never convince you that you're affected by anything other than just what has to be the most awesome game ever.  That's fine too.  Just realize that it's all the same sales machine, and this one has your soul.  Just like A Secret World has mine.

That's going to be the best game ever.  I saw videos.

You might want to talk to someone who has played the game for more than a tiny bit at a con before giving it your soul... just sayin. All you have to do is look at the state of the game RIGHT NOW, compare GW2 with TSW. TSW is in no way ready to be release in June... three game companies combined couldn't make it so. *shakes head, sighs and moves on*

how do you know what state TSW is in?  they haven't exactly releasd a slew of videos.  you've been saying you played the beta, but that was months ago.

you aren't following your game of choice very well... its in beta right now. You can see that right now at the TSW forums.

i must not bother to visit the forums, cause im so interested in it.  i just hate how people slander games, for no good reason.

so you ignore the useful information because you just can't take ppl not liking it >.< I would think you WANT the poor reviews so you know what to be careful of...

Originally posted by ariboersma

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by ariboersma

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by ariboersma

Originally posted by eHero

You know what's also different from all those games and GW2?  They're out, and we can now look back at the actual games themselves and see what they did wrong.  We can't do that with GW2.  Yet.

It's easy to sit back and say that enough information about Warhammer and Swtor (I never played FF, but when the boss apologizes for releasing a bad game, I guess enough's said) wasn't released, but it was.  We had gameplay videos all over the place.  But you can't really get a feel for the thing until you play it. 

It's not really fair to compare the marketing departments of these games while using the state of those games to prove your point.  Here's the thing.  Marketing sold me on games like Warhammer and Auto Assault.  Marketing has sold you on GW2.  Because that's all it is.  Good marketing.  And it's JUST hype and marketing until the game hits the shelves. 

Look, I had this same conversation with AmazingAvery when he knew that Age of Conan would be the best game ever.  I get it.  And I'll never convince you that you're affected by anything other than just what has to be the most awesome game ever.  That's fine too.  Just realize that it's all the same sales machine, and this one has your soul.  Just like A Secret World has mine.

That's going to be the best game ever.  I saw videos.

You might want to talk to someone who has played the game for more than a tiny bit at a con before giving it your soul... just sayin. All you have to do is look at the state of the game RIGHT NOW, compare GW2 with TSW. TSW is in no way ready to be release in June... three game companies combined couldn't make it so. *shakes head, sighs and moves on*

how do you know what state TSW is in?  they haven't exactly releasd a slew of videos.  you've been saying you played the beta, but that was months ago.

you aren't following your game of choice very well... its in beta right now. You can see that right now at the TSW forums.

i must not bother to visit the forums, cause im so interested in it.  i just hate how people slander games, for no good reason.

so you ignore the useful information because you just can't take ppl not liking it >.< I would think you WANT the poor reviews so you know what to be careful of...

i like to form my own opinion rather than soak up all the generalizations and speculation on forums. 

Great summary. 

I've said as much myself.  Except, I want to say that NCSoft's willinglness not to rush this title is the reason they are able to market it so well. It's barely marketing.  This game was probably finished overall a year ago.  Around the time the marketing picked up.  But instead of rushing it out, they gave people what they wanted, what they knew other game designers won't do. They told them that there was new functionarlity and showed that functionality at work.  Visual evidence is what sold me.  SWTOR was a big disappointment.  Things began to disappear well before it was launched. By the time beta was launched the PR had changed. 

So arenanet's appraoch to, this is what we got feels good.  There need to have it all perfect works for me.  I'd rather not have a release date for another year than hav them givre one because they feel they need to. 

As a journalist, I can pick up on when previews are of a bad game.  The wording is different. Like I can tell  right now that Secret world did not impress a great impression.  Guild wars feels as if there is ginuine love for this game and this is from a variety of different journalists.  This is big.  I like to think we are fairly unbiased. WE get paid not to be on the hype train.   

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by ariboersma

snip

so you ignore the useful information because you just can't take ppl not liking it >.< I would think you WANT the poor reviews so you know what to be careful of...

i like to form my own opinion rather than soak up all the generalizations and speculation on forums. 

so what are you doing here? If you don't want to hear what others have to say go figure out another way to delelope your opinion. 

I hate to break it to you OP, but I think SWTOR did pretty much exactly the same in its roll out: short closed beta weekends, press event, prelaunch + a late NDA drop, etc.

Also SWTOR showed a considerable amount of gameplay from press before preordering started and people were convinced that they made a very informed decision (I for one) when in fact it wasn't. We all know there is much more to these games than a few hours or even days of starter experience can cover.

Making betas and press events short (i.e. beta "weekends") and restricting them to a certain level range or area very much limits most of what we've seen to "first impressions".  It's very much controlled and orchestrated and despite us catching a glimpse of pretty much every aspect, there's still plenty of questionmarks.

SWTOR didn't have long term testers speaking out until pretty late, and most of them just had multiple weekends under their belts: true, prolonged max level gameplay reports were very scarce (if any). At this moment we've yet to read the first report from people who played GW2 for a considerable while and past level 30 and the players in the first, limited closed beta have yet to speak out publically (NDA).

So yeah, the buy or not choice will be about as informed as SWTOR's was, (provided they follow up soon with an NDA drop).

Whether that's enough information is a personal decision for everyone, but saying that everyone knows everything they need to know isn't really true, I'm afraid.

Originally posted by TemperHoof

 

 

Now the information is trickling down to the community itself, who weren’t the first ones to be catered to it at all. With an information overload, the community is still sifting through the mass media. If you haven’t looked at anything Guild Wars 2 related, you should. These aren't simple assumption articles. These are detailed descriptions of the actual mechanics of the game that will not see much alteration between now and the final release. Confident in their product, especially after a record breaking 50 hour beta sign up period, Arena.Net is offering full on pre-purchases of the final product. This too has been seldom done.

 

Not to be confused with a pre-order, a pre-purchase is a full commitment by the consumer to right out buy, at full price, the final product of the game as though it were on the shelf right now. That means refunds are highly unlikely, and that the consumer is showing a great deal of trust in the developer to provide what they’ve already put on display. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, videos are worth roughly 29,970 words per second. The Game-Press are the ones doing the leg work to really sell this game, offering their genuine excitement and experience in a fashion that can be wildly shared and seen with actual gameplay footage and natural player-like experience. Game-Press appeals far more to the consumer, as they are people, just like you – not a game developer preaching what you want to hear or a massive Review Website offering oddly to-good-to-be-true insights.

 

So far, I admit I’m impressed with the marketing strategy of Guild Wars, for as a consumer, I feel very confident in the investment I intend to make in the pre-purchase. I feel I have the knowledge and the foresight of what to expect, thanks to the hard and eager work of the Game-Press. While the developers over at Arena.Net seem to have a good game on their shoulders, it is the Game-Press who really have knocked this one out of the park with selling the product for the developer. Never before have I seen a company so nimbly dance around a publisher, almost laughing in the face of NCsoft – because Guild Wars 2 is actually selling itself right now in all the right ways.

Man, what differentiate your post from Barnett liturgy, even WAR was fun first 10-15 days of game play, everyone already know that you can't judge MMO for few days of game play. GW2 is not out yet, be careful. Rest of the post is very good, till you turn on marketing hype. ;)

Originally posted by DarkPony

I hate to break it to you OP, but I think SWTOR did pretty much exactly the same in its roll out: short closed beta weekends, press event, prelaunch + a late NDA drop, etc.

Also SWTOR showed a considerable amount of gameplay from press before preordering started and people were convinced that they made a very informed decision (I for one) when in fact it wasn't. We all know there is much more to these games than a few hours or even days of starter experience can cover.

Making betas and press events short (i.e. beta "weekends") and restricting them to a certain level range or area very much limits most of what we've seen to "first impressions".  It's very much controlled and orchestrated and despite us catching a glimpse of pretty much every aspect, there's still plenty of questionmarks.

SWTOR didn't have long term testers speaking out until pretty late, and most of them just had multiple weekends under their belts: true, prolonged max level gameplay reports were very scarce (if any). At this moment we've yet to read the first report from people who played GW2 for a considerable while and past level 30 and the players in the first, limited closed beta have yet to speak out publically (NDA).

So yeah, the buy or not choice will be about as informed as SWTOR's was, (provided they follow up soon with an NDA drop).

Whether that's enough information is a personal decision for everyone, but saying that everyone knows everything they need to know isn't really true, I'm afraid.

Yet it is not as if much is being hidden. Like we pretty much know how the entirety of max level PvP will be like in GW2 (Structured PvP & WvW). Yet did we see any max level PvP in SW:TOR, with how gear disparity will effect the warzones and did we even see Ilum in action? The press beta experience of SW:TOR was much more constrained, with players being able to experience level 1-15 PvE content and the warzones.The only important things that haven't been shown off in GW2 is endgame PvE. We know what it will contain (3 Dungeons & Level 80 zone), yet we don't know the state of the content. The problem of revealing that is that there will be very little surprise come launch and whether it will be a good or bad surprise has yet to be seen.