At an event for Guild Wars 2, we had the chance to speak in a very small group with two developers of the MMORPG. They told us how it all started back then and that a Guild Wars 2 was actually not planned at all.
During a Guild Wars event near gamescom, not only did some players come together. There was also a small roundtable for the press with the developers.
We were invited to this by MeinMMO along with two colleagues from international sites. We could talk together about the creation of Guild Wars 2. Primarily, it was about the past of the MMORPG.
In line with the 10th anniversary, the developers have gathered many memories and let us share in them. But they also talked about the future and the current Steam release. Particularly interesting was the story that Guild Wars 2 actually should not exist at all.
Aaron Coberly has been with ArenaNet since 2003 and was involved as the Lead Character Artist in Guild Wars Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. Since 2017, he has been the Art Director for Guild Wars 2, primarily responsible for how the MMORPG looks today.
Bobby Stein has been working at ArenaNet since 2005 and was initially involved in the first Guild Wars as a writer. Over the years, he worked his way up to Narrative Director, a position he has held for Guild Wars 2 since 2021. He is responsible for how the story of the MMORPG continues and is told.
In the Steam trailer for GW2, you can see what you can get there now:
Guild Wars 2 was not planned but happened
What were the beginnings? Bobby Stein tells us that Guild Wars 2 was not actually planned as the MMORPG we know today. It was primarily envisioned as a new expansion for Guild Wars 1. To underscore this, he shows us early screenshots of what we now know as Lion’s Arch.
These were still in the GW1 engine, but one can already roughly see where the journey is heading. Even Shaemoor Keep, which stands in the starting area of the humans, was already finished before Guild Wars 2 even existed.
After the first areas and a rough plan of what one intended to do with “the new expansion” for Guild Wars, it became clear that the old engine could not support the existing plans. A new one was needed, and why not just make a new game? That was the birth of Guild Wars 2.
Charr as a unique feature: As a small reminder: In the first Guild Wars, you could only play as humans. These were in conflict with the feline-like Charr. As one of the first ideas, the former enemies of the humans were now chosen as a playable race.
Among humans, Sylvari, Norn, and Asura, they are the only race that is not more or less humanoid. When we asked how much longer it took to animate armor for the four-legged Charr, the developers could only smile. About 40-50% longer it would take, Aaron Coberly reveals to us.
To counteract this time-consuming task, ArenaNet deviated from the concept in GW1, where each class received its own armor. Therefore, in Guild Wars 2, there are now “only” three different armor classes for all playable classes. But it is worth it, because the Charr are still seen by ArenaNet as a unique feature and trademark of Guild Wars 2.
The inspiration for the MMORPG was GTA 4
A vibrant world: Besides the Charr, they needed something that would set them apart from the competition at the time. They did not want to be just another MMORPG on the market, as Bobby Stein says.
The brilliant idea actually came from GTA 4. Because there, the world just felt alive, he reports. One could walk through the streets and simply listen to dialogues. Following NPCs, experiencing their daily routines, and even overhearing them talking about trivial things contributes to the feeling of a truly vibrant world.
And exactly this feeling was wanted in Guild Wars 2, and they have succeeded. Thousands of voiced NPCs now provide a lively world in GW2, and if one wishes, they can even chase Charr children playing tag all around Lion’s Arch just to see who wins.
This vibrant world was then further brought to the forefront in Season 1 of the “Living World”, as the story events in this episode changed the entire world of the MMORPG. Lion’s Arch, the starting point of GW2 and one of the largest cities in the game, was completely destroyed by Scarlet and was inaccessible to all players for a long time.
However, since this was simply impractical for everyone who started with the game later, they deviated from this concept after Living World 1. Nevertheless, a large world remains with countless NPCs and hundreds of fully voiced quests, which also turned out to be a problem.
Too much dialogue: Because this vibrant world with all its dialogues took a lot of time. In one language alone, the base game Guild Wars 2 had over 90,000 spoken lines of dialogue. This then had to be translated into several languages and re-recorded.
Especially at the beginning, this posed problems for the developers. But over time, they learned to deal with it. They even created a technical possibility that dialogues can be integrated into the gameplay.
While at the start of GW2, all dialogues took place in small cutscenes, now your player character can speak with other NPCs in the open world and even turns their head to the character that is currently speaking. A small detail for many, yet it contributes to making the entire MMORPG feel more alive. For the same reason, by the way, one can today sit on chairs in the world. This was not possible at launch.
Meanwhile, thanks to the removal of technical limitations, there are over 200,000 lines of spoken dialogue in Guild Wars 2 and its expansions. And that is only in English.
Mounts and capes were never supposed to exist
Technical limitations forbade capes: The same went for capes in Guild Wars 2 for a long time. While today hundreds of players run around with fluttering capes, that was unthinkable for the developers for a long time, Aaron says.
It was not that ArenaNet did not want capes in the game. But if they were to be brought in, they had to be good. They did not want capes that clip through mounts and armor, but a nice way to customize their characters.
Aaron kept asking whether capes were finally possible, he animatedly recounts. Until a few years ago, the technical team finally said not “no” anymore, but “You know what, I think we could actually make capes.”
A similar story occurred with the mounts, which are today one of the highlights of Guild Wars 2.
This video impressively shows how versatile and freely the mounts can be used in Guild Wars 2:
Mounts are now a highlight: Aaron also recounts at the roundtable that mounts were never supposed to exist in Guild Wars 2. They simply did not fit. And besides, the technical limitations were too great to implement mounts the way they really wanted.
With the release of Path of Fire in 2017, it finally happened. The various mounts made their way into the MMORPG five years after release. Furthermore, they were so well received by the community that they are now considered one of the main highlights of Guild Wars 2.
Even outside their own community, the mounts in GW2 are admired. They rank among the best the genre has produced and shine through various uses and maximum freedom. Each mount is useful for different situations, and none is completely useless.
Only with the latest expansion, End of Dragons, even a mount for two players was introduced into the MMORPG. One can ride the enormous battle turtle while another player shoots from its cannons. It plays just as well as it sounds.
When we asked whether the horses also succumbed to the technical limitations to this day, the developers could only laugh. So it remains a mystery where the horses in Tyria have gone.
Steam release 10 years after launch – Also for the SteamDeck
Where does Guild Wars 2 stand today? After 10 years of Guild Wars 2, the MMORPG is one of the most popular representatives of its genre in Germany. Unfortunately, it is not possible to say exactly how many people play GW2. However, according to the developers, there are over 16 million registered accounts.
For the 10th anniversary, the game was also released on Steam, but can currently only reach an average of 4,650 players there. This is also because one cannot link their old account to the Steam version.
A precise assessment of how Guild Wars 2 stands today has been summarized for you in a separate article by our author Schuhmann.
Play GW2 on the SteamDeck: The roundtable with the developers concludes with Bobby Stein showing us that Guild Wars 2 can even be played on the SteamDeck. While it has not been officially verified yet, it works well anyway.
The community has already uploaded various control templates that can be simply downloaded and used via Steam. We were able to play GW2 for a few minutes on the SteamDeck ourselves. And thus experience the game in a whole new way. For fans of controllers who are lucky enough to have snagged a SteamDeck, this is certainly a nice opportunity to experience Guild Wars 2 in a different way.
This closes the retrospective on 10 years of Guild Wars 2. From a half-finished Lion’s Arch in the engine of the first Guild Wars to a mobile experience on the modern SteamDeck.
What are your personal experiences? How long have you been playing Guild Wars 2? Or have you not been playing for very long and only became aware of the MMORPG through the Steam launch? Feel free to let us know in the comments here on MeinMMO and let us sink into nostalgia.
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