Guild Wars 2

Is the app still in development or was it abandoned?

It was a great idea but no new information or progress on it.

Was anybody excited for it but me?

Depending on what it includes I may be interested in it.

If it is just an official character planner, well, IGN’s app does that.

I remember. It was one of the reasons I finally transitioned to a smartphone. I was really hoping to be able to get notifications when one of my friends went online. Sure there would have to be the option for the person to turn that on and off but it could be really helpful.

Toxyn.9608:

Depending on what it includes I may be interested in it.

If it is just an official character planner, well, IGN’s app does that.

An application for smartphones, iPod Touch, and iPad will be made available to talk to in-game friends and guild members, view friends’ in-game locations in real-time, and allow remote access to the marketplace. The application will be free for Guild Wars 2 players.

http://www.curse.com/news/guild-wars-2/15866-pax-coverage-gw2-ipad-application

Crusheddiamond.1895:

Toxyn.9608:

Depending on what it includes I may be interested in it.

If it is just an official character planner, well, IGN’s app does that.

An application for smartphones, iPod Touch, and iPad will be made available to talk to in-game friends and guild members, view friends’ in-game locations in real-time, and allow remote access to the marketplace. The application will be free for Guild Wars 2 players.

http://www.curse.com/news/guild-wars-2/15866-pax-coverage-gw2-ipad-application

Yup, I would definitely be interested in that.

Crusheddiamond.1895:

Toxyn.9608:

Depending on what it includes I may be interested in it.

If it is just an official character planner, well, IGN’s app does that.

An application for smartphones, iPod Touch, and iPad will be made available to talk to in-game friends and guild members, view friends’ in-game locations in real-time, and allow remote access to the marketplace. The application will be free for Guild Wars 2 players.

http://www.curse.com/news/guild-wars-2/15866-pax-coverage-gw2-ipad-application

Oh, that would be great.

Hope that would include more than just the Ipad, but the market trading would be awesome.

I hope this is still in the works. Would be very nice to have.

Felicela.2810:

Hope that would include more than just the Ipad, but the market trading would be awesome.

It is smartphones and ipod touch and ipad’s as well

Hope its not scrapped.

Went the same way as guesting. And minigames. And the character personality dynamic. And back pieces/armor. And town clothes. And LFG system.

Delayed or pending.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Totally awesome news. Although the app would have been nice to have, if making the core game more stable (bug fixes) and fun (rewards) for all is the compromise then so be it. Thanks for the update.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

That’s great news! Thanks for the heads up!

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

This was one of the features I thought would put GW2 squarely in the “next-gen” category, with support for external channels right out of the box… very disappointing.

Zeldain.5710:

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

This was one of the features I thought would put GW2 squarely in the “next-gen” category, with support for external channels right out of the box… very disappointing.

Well he did say it was going to happen eventually, and even if it takes a while then at least the core of the actual game will be the benefactor. Although it doesn’t have your idea of “next gen” out of the box (bit late now) I’m sure many players will be happier to have better, more reliable loot drops, less buggy traits, perpetually working DE’s, bosses that are more innovative etc. etc..

Tommyknocker.6089:

Zeldain.5710:

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

This was one of the features I thought would put GW2 squarely in the “next-gen” category, with support for external channels right out of the box… very disappointing.

Well he did say it was going to happen eventually, and even if it takes a while then at least the core of the actual game will be the benefactor. Although it doesn’t have your idea of “next gen” out of the box (bit late now) I’m sure many players will be happier to have better, more reliable loot drops, less buggy traits, perpetually working DE’s, bosses that are more innovative etc. etc..

See, to me… “better, more reliable loot drops, buggy traits, working DEs, innovative bosses” – that should all be part of the package without any special treatment. I shouldn’t have had the opportunity to even buy a box if those were the things that were still left to be done.

But they showed off the “extended experience” in 2010… they alluded that they had an entire team dedicated to working on it… separate from the game designers responsible for the things above.

So, it’s fairly inexcusable to me that it doesn’t yet exist, but even more so because it was due to “needing to make the game better first.”

The game should have been “better” out of the box.

The idea of playing the market from my smartphone, something I really wanted. Guess it will have to wait :P

Personally would rather they do what they’re doing rather than making a not-really-important app for a smartphone.

Zeldain, I can understand your frustration and to a certain extent agree with you. However in this world, kitten happens, and being able to see into the future won’t happen (at least in my lifetime) and as such all the beta tester in the world can’t foresee problems that can and do happen once live. I am not a fanboi in that I too am upset at the way these bugs have consistently put a damper on this game I wanted to be much more complete. But with his replies over the last two weeks he has at least admitted that they are committed to fixing the problems that have come to light and putting any “extras” on a back burner. To me this speaks of professionalism and should be respected even if we don’t get everything we wanted out of the box we can at least say they are moving into the right direction. Also I am sure they they had an agenda to get the game “out the door” by X date, even though they said when it’s ready, so some things had to be unfortunately compromised. Let us hope the next six months prove to iron out all the problems that should have (I agree) been working on release.

thanks Colin for the response Can you tell us which team will be working on the App?

Thanks for the info, Colin! I think you’re doing a great job. As much as I’ve anticipated a smartphone (Android) app, I’m glad you’re prioritizing the core content. I mean, who would want an app for an underwhelming game?

Still, I had a couple of questions, based on the Digital Gaudium interview from a few months back.

For launch we won’t have any GW2 apps available for use for players. However, soon after launch we’ll be launching a robust app development program in conjunction with our community that should allow for the development of some truly spectacular GW2 app and website development. We’ll discuss this more post ship, right now we’re focused on making the release of the game the greatest it can be.

Are there still plans for the “app development program”? If so, will the smartphone app mentioned above be a sort of “official” app created using the same tools mentioned in the article, or will it be a separate project? And will all of it have to wait until after the Jan/Feb/March updates?

At the other end of the spectrum, I don’t have a smartphone and couldn’t care less.

Happy to hear the coder time is being devoted to making the game stronger on it’s native platform if there isn’t manpower enough to do both simultaneously.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Shouldn’t you have had additional employees, with the very specific skill sets needed for this, completely separate from your core programers, working on this from the start? Why would it be put at the bottom of the basket of tasks for your main programmers when benefit/demand should have very obviously supported a small, dedicated team devoted to this project?

You could probably have even outsourced it to a proven mobile app development team and avoided the hassles of hiring new employees completely. That is still something you should very strongly consider.

Some times it feels like Arenanet doesn’t really want the game to fulfill it’s potential, but would rather just coast along on “well, that’s good enough”.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Thanks, I agree that’s a better choice. Thanks for the dedication to improving the core game over peripheral features.

How about adding some developer API’s so we can code things that aren’t high priority to you but are high priority to us? (specifically Trading Post APIs)

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

How about adding some developer API’s so we can code things that aren’t high priority to you but are high priority to us? (specifically Trading Post APIs)

APIs would be wonderful! Let the community build the mobile/web app platform around you!

Totally understand the priorities here and why these folks we re-assigned as you mentioned, but hopefully you hear that the community greatly looks forward to such features to expand this game in very different and modern areas

Rey.6348:

The idea of playing the market from my smartphone, something I really wanted. Guess it will have to wait :P

Guess some good came of this decision then, anything that cuts down on ‘playing the TP’ and screwing the economy is fine by me,

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Colin, you do realize that there has been a VERY talented and involved developer community drawn to GW2 and all you have to do is release the APIs to enable us to write this stuff? While I understand that any company looks first at how best to monetarise it’s assets, where the resources cannot be justified for development this is often an ideal opportunity to engage and empower your community…

morphemass.2850:

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Colin, you do realize that there has been a VERY talented and involved developer community drawn to GW2 and all you have to do is release the APIs to enable us to write this stuff? While I understand that any company looks first at how best to monetarise it’s assets, where the resources cannot be justified for development this is often an ideal opportunity to engage and empower your community…

^ this
Just provide us with API.

Posted in wrong topic.

Delete me.

I’m smiling cause just yesterday evening, while I was eating a pizza with 2 friends which play GW2 with me, I asked them “But… Do you remember when they said there would have been an app for smartphone to read guild-chat, queuing upgrades, etc.? That was such a cool idea…”.
This morning I casually found this topic with even a dev answer! What a disappointment!

Avitarus.1865:

Went the same way as guesting. And minigames. And the character personality dynamic. And back pieces/armor. And town clothes. And LFG system.

Delayed or pending.

Yes, I remember as well every promise they made.
I’ve waited this game for 5 years reading all the articles, interviews, etc.
Now it seems we have to be grateful if they fix the core game this year.

Makes you wonder what they are actually working on, all we get is “soon” “not working on it” “we are aware of it” “delayed” and “it’s in our plans for the future”

Either way it’ll probably involve the gem store.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This project was delayed in favor of having the specific folks required to build it skill-set wise working on solidifying the core of the game. You’ll hear more about our ecosystem in the future, but we’re not actively working on this project, in favor of making sure the core game itself is as fun and rewarding as possible.

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

Hang on, I thought Guild Wars 2 came out “when it is ready”?

Now we hear that actually features that were marketed have been scrapped to reassign resources towards finishing the “core of the game”.

They still have an open job listing for ‘Mobile Developer’.

Actually making the app(they might even have it already) seems like the least of their problems though. The authentication system does not seem to be able to handle high load very well and an app would only increase it.

Fiontar.4695:

Shouldn’t you have had additional employees, with the very specific skill sets needed for this, completely separate from your core programers, working on this from the start? Why would it be put at the bottom of the basket of tasks for your main programmers when benefit/demand should have very obviously supported a small, dedicated team devoted to this project?

You could probably have even outsourced it to a proven mobile app development team and avoided the hassles of hiring new employees completely. That is still something you should very strongly consider.

Some times it feels like Arenanet doesn’t really want the game to fulfill it’s potential, but would rather just coast along on “well, that’s good enough”.

I get the impression that you don’t really understand the concept of budgets and timelines.

Or that in software development, throwing more money and/or people at problems is often not a path to faster or better results.

Can’t wait to hear more.

@Girlsgonewow “Can’t wait to hear more.”
Sig- Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

That’s pretty funny.

You can already get a free Spidy like app for your Android. All they need to do is allow the addition of a login and add buy & sell buttons.

LOL like I have any clue what it actually takes to build the app…

Crusheddiamond.1895:

Toxyn.9608:

Depending on what it includes I may be interested in it.

If it is just an official character planner, well, IGN’s app does that.

An application for smartphones, iPod Touch, and iPad will be made available to talk to in-game friends and guild members, view friends’ in-game locations in real-time, and allow remote access to the marketplace. The application will be free for Guild Wars 2 players.

http://www.curse.com/news/guild-wars-2/15866-pax-coverage-gw2-ipad-application

Want…

Just another half done idea. Like a lot of other things. Lmao when it’s ready indeed.

11 months later…

:(

Mokzie.5178:

11 months later…

:(

Yeah now we don’t have a smart phone app or core game improvements… we only have scarlet…

Why would they waste resources on an app when the game is doing poorly?

This could have been a true next-gen feature in the MMO genre, the way it was being presented.

It stinks there’s not even a web-facing character armory, or anything.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Why would they waste resources on an app when the game is doing poorly?

how is it doing poorly?

Apps? See the API section of the forums where the community has grabbed the reigns and done the work on their own!

Malchior.5042:

Apps? See the API section of the forums where the community has grabbed the reigns and done the work on their own!

I must have missed the iPad app that you could log into and move your character through the world with Waypoints, as they were demoing in 2010

That’s the kind of next-gen experience I was hoping for, but a set of APIs doesn’t really allow for that.

Creeper.9360:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Why would they waste resources on an app when the game is doing poorly?

how is it doing poorly?

He’s said so. Someday he’ll be right, just hedging his bets.