- Official Post
A few interesting quotes snipped from this article:
Which classic Guild Wars values were “non-negotiables,” that you protected during the modernization process (such as combat feel, instancing model, buildcraft, etc.)?
We’re not going to change the basic gameplay. Guild Wars is unique in the way it mixes skills and skill-building. But we want to expand the audience in two directions: one is more challenge for long term players while simultaneously making the game more accessible for new players.
Similarly, what were some of the difficulties with making Reforged in general? Did anything surprising present a roadblock?
The one area where we faced challenges was with the tools for making content.No new content has been made for the game for a long time, and the tools for making things like 3D models or introducing new items or spawns had accumulated compatibility issues over time. We’re still actively recovering a lot of those tools and getting them working again. For a big online RPG like Guild Wars, that’s a mountain of work, but it’s also rewarding “archeology,” each new tool we recover opens up additional possibilities for future features and content.
What kind of future updates are on the table down the line? Maybe some more QoL enhancements?
Guild Wars has been around for 20+ years at this point and there are a few legacy behaviors that folks have been working around that we’d love to improve. We’d love to keep coming up with interesting ways for folks to re-engage with the game from a new perspective like the Dhuum’s Covenant mode, which recognizes players who haven’t died a single time.We’re also on the lookout for ways to make the experience more inviting for new players. Guild Wars is a complex game with a steep learning curve, but is extremely rewarding once you’ve started to develop some mastery with its systems. We want to make it easier for new players to get to that point.
One of the biggest benefits of shipping Guild Wars Reforged is that it has reinvigorated the community for the game, so the experience is alive with other players in a way it hasn’t been for some time. We want to help continue to grow that community.
How will you decide what to tackle next—community surveys, telemetry, support tickets, Steam reviews, or something else?
It’s a bit of everything. We definitely spend time on various channels seeing how folks are engaging with the game and listening to pain/high points. We also have testers come in that have a range of experience with the game and ArenaNet has an excellent community voice team that helps us consolidate and prioritize feedback from all of these sources.We’re also fans of the game and have our own ideas about the ways we’d love to see it grow. We love finding ways of surprising new and long-time fans.
Since 2018, Reddit has been our main communication path with players. For Reforged, we significantly ramped up our social media outreach. We're expanding our creator partners program to support OG Guild Wars and we hope soon to be working with some of our passionate fan sites and fan groups.
This came out just before the 28 January Melandru Accord Beta Release, so they've got a flow with a news release and an update.
Pleased to hear they've worked on some of the old development tools to help aid in improving things for new and old players and are keeping working towards that!
