Guild Wars 2 release window pushed back to 2010 - 2011
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Feb 15th 2009 at 5:20PM }
Though they did just suffer a few layoffs and are apparently skipping out of E3, NCsoft isn't exactly economically plagued -- their latest title, Aion, sold like hotcakes in Korea during Q4, bringing in a hefty year-end chunk of change. So, if it's not for financial reasons, what's causing this major delay? Is the Guild Wars 2 dev team taking time off to work on their needlepoint? Are they training for the winter olympics? Are they following in the footsteps of their former colleague and becoming idiosyncratic millionaire cosmonauts? We may never know.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Codex @ Feb 15th 2009 5:25PM
Bring on Aion :P
Haggard @ Feb 15th 2009 5:35PM
Aww crap.. I'm one of those folks.
J.Goodwin @ Feb 15th 2009 5:36PM
Could be those PS3 projects are taking precedence.
Einhanderkiller @ Feb 15th 2009 9:42PM
I doubt it. Guild Wars is huge. There have been 6 million accounts registered for the game.
J.Goodwin @ Feb 15th 2009 9:51PM
I'm registered actually. Haven't played in forever. I did buy the base game and the oriental adventures expansion (whatever they were calling it).
Not quite compelling enough to keep playing :/
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 15th 2009 5:42PM
What I liked most about guildwars was the special events every holiday out of that well it is better than world of warcraft,sorta.The only problem I had with the game is that all spells looks very similar so is hard to know what you just did,they are a bunch of flare effects etc I hope they change it in the sequel.When I'm casting meteor or something I would like to see a meteor.
Also until Nightfall they changed the way the game displayed the story.Everything was displayed in text form but you had to scroll over if you gave a crap something hard to acomplish because there was a huge button that said click here for XP and L00t in every TL;DR text conversation.
Haggard @ Feb 15th 2009 6:53PM
You do see meteors when casting both Meteor and Meteor Storm. The former is more of a fiery bullet from above.
Dave @ Feb 15th 2009 6:03PM
Maybe it's like the Twilight Princess delay. They wanna make it "extra good".
goboColossus (LIVE, PSN - gobopop) @ Feb 15th 2009 6:17PM
Yeah, and make it exclusively compatible with Windows 7 for one month, throw in tacked on pen-tablet required controls, and completely exclude manual camera manipulation.
DBuck_Eye @ Feb 15th 2009 6:16PM
I have noticed that their needlepoint has been a bit lackluster lately.
Jasmino924 @ Feb 15th 2009 7:21PM
Well that sucks I was really looking forward to GW2! Right now video game developers are really testiong my patience, with all of the economic trouble games like Guild Wars 2 are getting their release date spushed back. George Bush, Gordon Brown I'm blaming you!
http://systemfailnews.blogspot.com/
ugg.tryptophan @ Feb 15th 2009 10:51PM
with spelling like 'testoing' and 'spushed', 'Im sure noone wants to read your blog, or could...
Arnie @ Feb 15th 2009 6:29PM
Man this sucks. I was one of the people so looking forward to this game. I think they started out being not Dx10 and then shifting to DX10/Dx9.
I guess if it ensures a good game experience with no subscription fees then I am ok. However they will be potentially competing with SW:The Old Republic, Star Trek Online, DCUO, Champions Online not to mention the other MMOs already out.
Longhorn4Life @ Feb 15th 2009 6:38PM
who invited Anne Frank?
Jerk Face @ Feb 15th 2009 7:08PM
Longhorn, are you being a D-bag for any particular reason?
-Vexx- @ Feb 15th 2009 6:35PM
I want it to come out even if I just got the Trilogy in December.
SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Feb 15th 2009 6:53PM
this is one of those games i was always curious about. i should have downloaded a demo for it. i like WoW but im not a fan of the subscription fees so this sounds better for me. it sucks that the second will be taking so long though. maybe it's just a "worst case scenario" place holder date or something.
Haggard @ Feb 15th 2009 6:54PM
Guild Wars is best thought of as a co-op RPG with a rewarding skill/build system and an incredible pvp option.
J.Goodwin @ Feb 15th 2009 9:51PM
Guild Wars has a very low level cap, so get yourself in a state of mind to accept that first. All your development will come from skills.
Neptune @ Feb 15th 2009 7:04PM
Damn it! I haven't been playing Guild Wars for a few months now, but mostly cause there wasn't much more for me to do except title farming. I had hoped GW2 would be release late 2009/early 2010.
stromm @ Feb 15th 2009 9:28PM
No loss for me. I got bored with GW back before Nightfall. Tried it anyways and after my character was deleted THREE times by server crashes, losing me unique items which couldn't be re-added to my character, and a total of 10 levels I gave up.
Just recently I started playing WoW with a friend. Both GW and WoW have their own issues, but even though it's a pay-for service, it's just better.
cknblade @ Feb 15th 2009 9:44PM
I'm shocked. I've been playing guild wars since its start in May 2005, and have never once heard of a character being entirely deleted, let alone three times...
Arnie @ Feb 15th 2009 11:03PM
I too have been playing this game for approx 2.5 years and never ever had anything deleted. Server Crashes?? WTF are those? I stopped playing it for 6 months and then came back to it & everything I had was still there. I highly doubt what you are saying is true.
Nietha @ Feb 16th 2009 5:07AM
I've played GW since release and have never lost an item or experience (aka levels), nevermind a character. Not that any loss would be okay, but 10 levels really isn't a big deal since it doesn't take long to get to 20.
Snowblind @ Feb 16th 2009 10:58AM
Again, as someone who's been playing the game for just on three years now I'll also confirm there's never been any instances where entire characters would have been deleted.
There were two extreme occasions were server roll backs meant some data was lost, but they were only rolled back a few hours.. I know some people who were annoyed by losing some of their time spent farming but that's about it.
GW's only problem at the moment is the lack of new content, because their focusing on GW2, so a delay is a pretty big deal.. The only reason I still play it these days, is for the birthday presents and festivals.
stromm @ Feb 16th 2009 11:02AM
It happened. I hadn't for a bit longer than six months each time. Supports emails stated that after six months, characters are move to backup servers (not world servers) and then when you login with it, it's transferred back to a world server. They had backup servers crash, not the live ones. Then when I couldn't login with my char, they had to pull it off tapes. This has happened to a few other people I know.
Also, for someone who's schedule only allows 1-2 hours of play per week, getting from 11-20 is a huge deal. But the major bummer was that once a system wide unique item has been allocated, it can not be reallocated which is what's needed when a character has been restored.
R @ Feb 17th 2009 2:00AM
Been playing GW since november 2005. own all the games, 9 characters, 3200 hours logged.
Never once have I heard of anything like this happen.
I bet a taco this is a WoW fanboy trolling, in which case successful troll.
stromm @ Feb 21st 2009 10:30AM
Pay up the taco :) I just started playing WoW last month. The only reason I even got it was my neighbor got tired of 360 games and pretty much shoved it into my hand. I hate single player games. One thing I don't like about both is the trade restriction on equipment. Not sure where that concept came from, I know it wasn't any paper RPG I've ever played. And I've played lots of them.
I only get a few hours in a week even. After this many days, I had played GW WAY more. Honestly, I prefer Lineage II over both, just that LII doesn't have the support of WoW, so if I'm going to pay for something every month, the company better spice it up more than what was on the disks I installed.
DREntertainment @ Feb 15th 2009 9:49PM
This move is for the best... though I wonder if they will try to go head on against The Old Republic, given this time for release. Granted though, Guild Wars already has a solid player base that will no doubt support this next big update. I myself will defiantly be picking up Guild Wars 2 as I enjoyed the original Prophecies a great deal during launch. I might even take off work a few days for it.
SantaDuJuan @ Feb 15th 2009 10:55PM
What is with people complaining for WoW's subscription fee?
It's 50 cents a day
Arnie @ Feb 15th 2009 11:07PM
Yes its 50 cents, but its still something. What gets me though is stuff being deleted. If I leave the game and come back after 6 months, I have to start from the beginning.I hate that and frankly with the money they make Blizzard can afford some backup servers.
For people who have rare items, there is no option but to keep playing it. It kinda forces your hand. That is my problem with subscription based games.
Anyway to each his own I guess.
DREntertainment @ Feb 15th 2009 11:11PM
Some people simply don't want to pay that much. Truth though is that $15 a month is needed for MMO companies. Guild Wars doesn't do it, which is admirable... but that is their selling point as well. It's common knowledge that most people won't pay for two MMO's a month, so going the non payment rout is smart. They also tried to go for more expansion packs to make up for their lack of subscription fees.
Back to WoW though. By getting all the money from subscriptions it allows them to produce a far better product. Granted WoW is so big now, that they don't really "need" the excess cash they're getting. But it translates to other products like Starcraft II and Diablo III. Still... the average MMO needs that kind of money for the company to grow and to create a better product. I for one advocate the $15 fee as being worth it for any game that you enjoy playing a decent amount (ie. 20 hours a week)... if you play more, then you have no excuse.
Gehodra @ Feb 16th 2009 8:08AM
Genius, isn't is?
Gehodra @ Feb 16th 2009 8:09AM
Crap, that was in response to Arnie.
Teach me for not refreshing the page in 9 hours...
NoughtSoClever @ Feb 16th 2009 9:27AM
I've played GW since the original beta. I bought each game for $50 over 3 years and the expansion for $40, This comes to a total of $190 for 3 years. I'm not certain what the price is for WoW, but assuming it's $15 a month, that comes to a total of $1,080 over 3 years, without taking into consideration any expansions.
The fact is, they are are most vaguely similar in game play. I think the biggest dynamic change is only being able to have 8 skills allocated from your arsenal (in GW). It is silly to argue over which is the 'better game', as it's a matter of opinion. But I can tell you that I have never even played Wow, and I consider GW to be a significantly better value.
NoughtSoClever @ Feb 16th 2009 9:44AM
I made a calculation error. The Wow figure should be $540 over three years, not including expansions.
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Feb 15th 2009 11:18PM
I was really looking forward to GW2, though I have to wonder if Diablo 3 will dominate it.
Nietha @ Feb 16th 2009 5:10AM
I'm way more excited for Diablo III. I've spent 3 years playing GW, but even more years (on and off) playing Diablo II.
That being said, I'm still surprised how easily time flies while playing GW. It's a very immersive gaming experience.
mocax @ Feb 16th 2009 7:16AM
probably adding some new stuff for Windows 7.
NoughtSoClever @ Feb 16th 2009 9:15AM
Curse you Grenth! CURSE YOU!!!!!
R @ Feb 17th 2009 2:04AM
Now is a really good time to start playing GW 1 though. Coming in as a newbie, you have a stupidly large amount of stuff you can learn and do.
Also, this: http://www.amazon.com/Guild-Wars-Trilogy-Pc/dp/B001DI6O6C/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1234854157&sr=8-2
Buy this buy feb. 28, and you get all 4 of the Guild Wars games for only $47. Just remember to add eye of the north to your cart.
Seriously, thats a crazy deal. fall of 07 I paid $40 for the last expansion pack alone. If you want to get into GW, this is the month to do it.
jokerpower5 @ Mar 18th 2009 2:22AM
fuck ncsoft and anet i will not buy aion i will play private server of aion and support it if they dont give a fuck on guildwars 2 lots of gw funs will hate them for this and they will go down someday for ignoring us because aion is nothing lik GW i dont care whatever you guys think about this commet but they are talk shit! delaying the game that gave them reputation and money
romesurfs @ Apr 14th 2009 1:30AM
wow, all you proved with that statement is that you are horrible at swearing... and are probably 15 years old...
Any GW fans will more than likely wait for GW2. If people leave, then they will come back in droves when GW2 is released. If you don't buy Anet/NCSoft products, they have less money and therefore must push back releases and cancel projects. Obviously that doesn't help. They are delaying it for their own reasons. It may be very badly bugged, or they are fine tuning it. If they have a whole extra year to work on it, the game will be that much better.
coli @ Mar 26th 2009 6:30AM
Man ur soo right.
brian @ Apr 24th 2009 10:57PM
I was a GW player and we started playing WoW (Yes I'm so early) but one thing I miss is the missions in GW. Am i just missing something or is there really no primary mission in WoW?
RaVeN @ May 28th 2009 6:11AM
Ok this is primarily to you stromm, but everyone else listen up too.
First the only possible way for your character to get "deleted" is if you repeatedly make vulgar or asinine names like "Fook mei" or some dumb shit like that.
Second only possibly way is if you are found, what gamers like to call boting. Which is a breach in the games terms of agreement. These things both are. However I'm most certainly positive that if you were boting, than your account would in fact be banned/ suspended.
The last and final way for a character to even remotely get deleted is if you did it your self or someone else hacked your account, stole your shit and then left you blank. which is most likely this. So don't complain, because people that watch too much porn and sign up for retarded sights end up getting key logged eventually, or what net people like to call phished.
So please stop crying and if you in fact do play Guild Wars still and this is to everyone, feel free to message me in game I am what you would say one of the old timers/ guru's of the game.
Now for the rest of you all that anticipate GW2. Don't count on it anytime soon. I have been playing GW for 4.2 years now as a die-hard supporter of NCSoft and ANet both. I am proud to say that I am among the few left that still play that actually alpha and beta tested this game back when it was bare-boned and dull. Back when the Healing Signet was the first ever PvE skill and when Hundred Blades was actually a non-elite.
Anyways. The reason why GW2 has not been released is because some people that developed the C++ programming that 98% of all good MMORPG's, retail and 3rd party alike use is going after the lower marketed MMO franchises first and trying to get their share of the cut. This will most likely result in a settlement due to the fact that the people that in fact developed the C++ format failed to patent the programming before many of these MMO's were released or even in development, so there was no need to request that they be allowed to use this programming. Many of you that have played the NwN (Neverwinter Nights) would in fact be supremely familiar with its capabilities and how to use it and not even know that you were. because NwN ran off of C++.
Sorry to make this long but in short, GW2 hasn't been released because of a lawsuit of some sort.