Guild Wars 2

Like many of you, I’ve been playing GW2 since shortly after beta and while I’m not as active as I once was, I still really enjoy the game and believe it to be the best overall MMO I’ve ever played. When considering some of the games on the market and those coming out this year, visually, GW2 is starting to feel it’s age a bit. Of course, this is just my opinion, but I think that areas such as the character creation, some animations and overall graphics would be a nice improvement.

When looking at the new possibilities available due to current gen PCs, do you all think that Anet will ever produce a remastered version of GW2 that contains more detailed character creator and improved graphics? If so, I wonder if it would be something added to an Xpack or just a quality of life update.

What are your thoughts about the possibility of a remastered version of GW2?

Would be refreshing…unfortunately Anet would need to make sure that it runs on every single pc of the respectable customers. Otherwise it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people. Only way to do that could possibly be with next expansion by announcing new requirements half a year before release.

zoomborg.9462:

Would be refreshing…unfortunately Anet would need to make sure that it runs on every single pc of the respectable customers. Otherwise it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people. Only way to do that could possibly be with next expansion by announcing new requirements half a year before release.

I don’t remember which one, but there was a game that could be downloaded with 2 different graphical engines, but still play online together. Maybe something like that would work. A “current” model, and a “Full HD” model.

On another aspect, Core NPC’s are quite outdated. When you look closely at the NPCs in towns and capitals, their faces are quite low-res, compared to the faces of players and Post LS2 NPCs

Amaimon.7823:

I don’t remember which one, but there was a game that could be downloaded with 2 different graphical engines, but still play online together. Maybe something like that would work. A “current” model, and a “Full HD” model.

There is that option or the other which is basically a remastered “version” available for download which has the same core concept of the current GW2 but just adds the updated visuals. That way, players can pick which one they want to run on their PC.

Think of it sort of like Skyrim remastered I guess? Both have the same content but one just looks better and fixed some of the bugs.

Heck, if Anet was to produce this as an optional Xpack, I’d buy it even at the full retail. To me, it would be worth it.

Amaimon.7823:

zoomborg.9462:

Would be refreshing…unfortunately Anet would need to make sure that it runs on every single pc of the respectable customers. Otherwise it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people. Only way to do that could possibly be with next expansion by announcing new requirements half a year before release.

I don’t remember which one, but there was a game that could be downloaded with 2 different graphical engines, but still play online together. Maybe something like that would work. A “current” model, and a “Full HD” model.

On another aspect, Core NPC’s are quite outdated. When you look closely at the NPCs in towns and capitals, their faces are quite low-res, compared to the faces of players and Post LS2 NPCs

Anarchy Online has the two graphics engines. I would not use that as a comparison model though considering it never really worked very well.

It’s not impossible that this will happen, but like the requests for “DirectX 11 support”, it’s basically “replace the current engine with a newer one”, which is a huge development cost.

It /might/ happen, but it’s a big investment and has relatively limited returns. Especially changes like additional character customization are super-expensive because they require changes not only to the client, but to the server, the storage systems, the network protocol, and anything that interacts with the character model (eg: bones and animations, gear textures, etc.)

So … relatively speaking if you had to spend three months, would you choose something that was close to invisible (character customization) or something more visible (several maps, story, etc) to the players?

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

See my above post

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

As someone else mentioned, Anarchy Online did essentially this. I thought Runescape did as well but admittedly I am not that familiar with that title. So, although it is something that has been done before, both of these titles are very old, and I imagine got a lot more bang for their buck in updating the client then GW2 would.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

So … relatively speaking if you had to spend three months, would you choose something that was close to invisible (character customization) or something more visible (several maps, story, etc) to the players?

When you look at the competition, I would think this would be worth the investment as it would bring new life into the game, make it more competitive of a product, and bring with it a ton of publicity.

It would also make other games in production look that much less relevant when they would be forced to compete against a AAA MMO like GW2 that is now fully remastered into the latest quality of visuals effects.

Amaimon.7823:

I don’t remember which one, but there was a game that could be downloaded with 2 different graphical engines, but still play online together. Maybe something like that would work. A “current” model, and a “Full HD” model.

There is Ultima Online :P

GW2 is not yet at the stage of needing nor benefiting from a new gfx engine. It is too young and still performing strongly enough as it is. The gfx and art have never really been the loudest criticism of the game.

There are other things way more important to the game (a content dump from the forthcoming expac, a wvw focus just to name 2) right now that will help it continue to compete with the other Triple A MMO’s.

Randulf.7614:

GW2 is not yet at the stage of needing nor benefiting from a new gfx engine. It is too young and still performing strongly enough as it is. The gfx and art have never really been the loudest criticism of the game.

There are other things way more important to the game (a content dump from the forthcoming expac, a wvw focus just to name 2) right now that will help it continue to compete with the other Triple A MMO’s.

I could probably benefit from a new graphics engine or I should say an improved one maybe.

Redoing all the art assets? Very doubtful.

One game I know that did this in an okay way is Star Trek Online. You can play in DX9c or DX11. But one thing I remember from Guild Wars 1, before Sorrow’s Furnace was added we had only DX9. That update enabled DX9c for better shaders and reflective armor.

Most people I believe are playing on a DX11 or higher capable machine…unless you are using Windows 7 which only goes as a high as DX10. Adding higher DirectX or even Vulcan support would be great, but it would take time to iron out any potential bugs before it can go live.

moonstarmac.4603:

One game I know that did this in an okay way is Star Trek Online. You can play in DX9c or DX11. But one thing I remember from Guild Wars 1, before Sorrow’s Furnace was added we had only DX9. That update enabled DX9c for better shaders and reflective armor.

Most people I believe are playing on a DX11 or higher capable machine…unless you are using Windows 7 which only goes as a high as DX10. Adding higher DirectX or even Vulcan support would be great, but it would take time to iron out any potential bugs before it can go live.

It’s often the case that “supports both” engines don’t actually do much of anything that benefits from DirectX 11, they just send roughly the same commands they would have sent from dx9 to dx11 code instead.

Certainly, in GW2 the real pain point is not the DirectX version, but rather, the structure of the client code that makes it difficult to take advantage of extra cores. Moving to DX11 would simply mean the same single-threaded performance was blocking the frame rate … but at least DPS meters would have to be called “d3d11.dll” now…

eg: there are not really many technical features unlocked simply by adding DX11 support, and those that are tend to be fairly insignificant without additional effort, or simply available via DX9 extensions.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Funcom is actually revamping The Secret World (adding “Legends” to the name).
Same game, same content, updated graphics, updated gameplay.
But everyone has to begin again, no character transfer

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

World of Warcraft “remastered” over the course of a couple of expansions. Updated character models, textures, effects and so on. It’s a massive undertaking as you’d expect and I don’t think it’d make sense for GW2, I think the game looks really good now, of course, YMMV.

Randulf.7614:

GW2 is not yet at the stage of needing nor benefiting from a new gfx engine. It is too young and still performing strongly enough as it is. The gfx and art have never really been the loudest criticism of the game.

There are other things way more important to the game (a content dump from the forthcoming expac, a wvw focus just to name 2) right now that will help it continue to compete with the other Triple A MMO’s.

Agreed. GW2 needs to fix its gameplay issues more than anything. It lacks the staffing to do this kind of major overhaul in any reasonable amount of time, either. It’s already beginning to struggle to retain its existing core audience/players. I’m not sure how much updated graphics would keep people here for long enough.

Pifil.5193:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

World of Warcraft “remastered” over the course of a couple of expansions. Updated character models, textures, effects and so on. It’s a massive undertaking as you’d expect and I don’t think it’d make sense for GW2, I think the game looks really good now, of course, YMMV.

Generally MMO’s find ways to improve the game looks as time goes on. GW2 did well to produce HoT and keep the min reqs the same, despite any strain and lag. LOTR def improved in the gfx dept as time went on. Seeing what it did with Minas Tirith and then looking back through the game, you can see the improvements.

I expect to see such minor improvements with each subsequent GW2 major release.

Amaimon.7823:

zoomborg.9462:

Would be refreshing…unfortunately Anet would need to make sure that it runs on every single pc of the respectable customers. Otherwise it would make the game inaccessible to a lot of people. Only way to do that could possibly be with next expansion by announcing new requirements half a year before release.

I don’t remember which one, but there was a game that could be downloaded with 2 different graphical engines, but still play online together. Maybe something like that would work. A “current” model, and a “Full HD” model.

Civ V has a dx 9/dx 10/dx 11 launcher. Though I suppose the scale here would be much huger.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Everquest released a texture pack with an expansion that considerably improved the look of wood, stone, paths etc. I think it came on a separate disc, and was an optional upgrade.

They also added and optional character model upgrade, improved armor. I upgraded both and preferred the new look, though some players did not claiming it was too laggy.

I believe WoW has improved it’s graphics over time, though it was hard not to they were extremely low res at the start. I read somewhere about a LOTRO upgrade, either happened or in the works.

Several games have improved their graphics, but only in expansion areas, EQ2 did it, but that’s not the same thing. Some of the new areas in GW2 seem to be more detailed, HoT onward, which makes my experience much more laggy and much less enjoyable.

I’d far far far rather a remastered version of GW1, its the superior game.

DeceiverX.8361:

Randulf.7614:

GW2 is not yet at the stage of needing nor benefiting from a new gfx engine. It is too young and still performing strongly enough as it is. The gfx and art have never really been the loudest criticism of the game.

There are other things way more important to the game (a content dump from the forthcoming expac, a wvw focus just to name 2) right now that will help it continue to compete with the other Triple A MMO’s.

Agreed. GW2 needs to fix its gameplay issues more than anything. It lacks the staffing to do this kind of major overhaul in any reasonable amount of time, either.

Staffing issue or a project management issue? Anet have been shown in the past to be horribly inefficient in their processes.

Even with it’s flaws, I think it’s safe to say that GW2 is generally recognized by most (players and gaming sites) as being a top-quality game with a large appeal and a very unique niche. I think though that as we look and see other games coming out and some currently on the market, more and more are moving away from the more “cartoonish” art style/animations to something more realistic.

GW2 would be more competitive if they updated it with a fresh coat of paint.

Possibly, but altjough a single player game, Zelda released with cartoony graphics and is being critically heralded as one of the greatest games of all time.

I dont think the gfx or the art are holding back the game at all, if anything they help define it. I’m still unconvinced a fresh coat of paint so early in its life is a necs development.

Cartoony looks also age slower than realistic ones and whilst gw2 has aged, it hasnt aged to its detriment yet.

Warobaz.9543:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Funcom is actually revamping The Secret World (adding “Legends” to the name).
Same game, same content, updated graphics, updated gameplay.
But everyone has to begin again, no character transfer

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

Amaimon.7823:

Warobaz.9543:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Funcom is actually revamping The Secret World (adding “Legends” to the name).
Same game, same content, updated graphics, updated gameplay.
But everyone has to begin again, no character transfer

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

Yeah, pretty much every xpac WoW has done something to improve the graphics and models of the game, but these changes aren’t really a “day and night” difference. I believe the context of this thread is more towards a major graphics improvement though.

Amaimon.7823:

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

You bring up a good point. I’m not sure I could handle the sight of a HD Asura (aka Rat Goblin).

Amaimon.7823:

Warobaz.9543:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

Funcom is actually revamping The Secret World (adding “Legends” to the name).
Same game, same content, updated graphics, updated gameplay.
But everyone has to begin again, no character transfer

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

Lord of the Rings Online is doing a character model revamp this year as well. The thing is, both games are old and look pretty dated, especially character models. That’s why both games (WoW in 2014, Lotro in 2017) got new character models.

Guild Wars 2 is still one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played due to its art style. I mean they could give us better / new character textures but anything else is more than fine. Spell effects are great (except maybe Revenant), the zones look amazing… I don’t see a reason for GW2 to remaster it’s game engine or graphics.

Well, here is an example of what I’m talking about for two of my characters with one being from GW2 and the other from BDO. Course, GW2 is a much more relaxed and enjoyable game to play in many areas.

SeranusGaming.7362:

Amaimon.7823:

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

You bring up a good point. I’m not sure I could handle the sight of a HD Asura (aka Rat Goblin).

I think they’ll look less creepy than you think. I think their skin is somewhat reminiscent to that of sharks, although.. that’s just speculation. I tried to look if someone made a HD or ultra-realistic asura picture, a lot of great artwork out there, but sadly nothing I can call to this cause

Can you imagine though, GW2 so detailed, so hyperrealistic, you can count the hairs of a Charr furr? skritt, I’d pay millions for a game that detailed

In a word: No. My evidence: every other MMO that was never “remastered”.

Amaimon.7823:

SeranusGaming.7362:

Amaimon.7823:

world of warcraft did a “remaster” but only for the playable characters. Full HD taurens.. they became kinda kreepy though

You bring up a good point. I’m not sure I could handle the sight of a HD Asura (aka Rat Goblin).

I think they’ll look less creepy than you think. I think their skin is somewhat reminiscent to that of sharks, although.. that’s just speculation. I tried to look if someone made a HD or ultra-realistic asura picture, a lot of great artwork out there, but sadly nothing I can call to this cause

Can you imagine though, GW2 so detailed, so hyperrealistic, you can count the hairs of a Charr furr? skritt, I’d pay millions for a game that detailed

I think Asura would look more creepy if HD. And that would be amazing!

A skeletal revamp would be good, make it easier to make armor skins, and add new races… can’t see it happening tho’

I’m all for it, at the very least they could update the spell effects, to you know…what they were before the ridiculous “Visual noise”crusade.
Because lets be honest this game has been going in the rather opposite direction.
A downgrade from the beginning of Guildwars 2, since Heart of thorns came out, visually i mean.

That being said, i’m not really looking forward to the next expansion….
I would like to be clear, a remaster is a deffinitive yes for me

SeranusGaming.7362:

Like many of you, I’ve been playing GW2 since shortly after beta and while I’m not as active as I once was, I still really enjoy the game and believe it to be the best overall MMO I’ve ever played. When considering some of the games on the market and those coming out this year, visually, GW2 is starting to feel it’s age a bit. Of course, this is just my opinion, but I think that areas such as the character creation, some animations and overall graphics would be a nice improvement.

When looking at the new possibilities available due to current gen PCs, do you all think that Anet will ever produce a remastered version of GW2 that contains more detailed character creator and improved graphics? If so, I wonder if it would be something added to an Xpack or just a quality of life update.

What are your thoughts about the possibility of a remastered version of GW2?

What’s wrong with the graphics? – it sill looks great.
Maybe you’ve been playing too much SAB

nosleepdemon.1368:

In a word: No. My evidence: every other MMO that was never “remastered”.

I am pretty sure that your statement is wrong, accounting only for the content of this thread, for more or less any reasonable definition of “remastered”.

Which of WoW, and The Secret World, failed on remastered by your definition?

Improved graphics, for example, would require moving away from Direct3D 9.

GW2 relies on microtransactions, so unless these start to dry up as a direct result of the game’s aging graphics, what purpose would remastering the game have?

WoW has had some moderate graphical updates, but still looks dated by any standard, I wouldn’t describe it as remastered.

nosleepdemon.1368:

Improved graphics, for example, would require moving away from Direct3D 9.

cough Crysis, which released on … DirectX 9. cough …but, meanwhile, why do you say that? I mean, it’s not impossible, but what is the technical limitation you are refering to here?

nosleepdemon.1368:

GW2 relies on microtransactions, so unless these start to dry up as a direct result of the game’s aging graphics, what purpose would remastering the game have?

Seems irrelevant to the question at hand, but: remember that most developers are not directly motivated by money, and companies do generally like to make their users happy, because happy users translates to more sales.

It’s not “do anything they want” to make users happy, but it also isn’t “show a direct income from X, or never X”.

nosleepdemon.1368:

WoW has had some moderate graphical updates, but still looks dated by any standard, I wouldn’t describe it as remastered.

That’s fair, although some of that is because after this long they have a “style” dictated initially by technical limitations, and now by, well, choice.

How about TSW?

I’ve not played TSW, so I can’t really comment about it.

The technical limitation for moving on from d3d9 is the paradigm shift that happened with the rendering pipeline from d3d10 onward. Now, I’m mostly an OpenGL guy that happens to work loosely with d3d9, but depending on how GW2 is structured, it may be quite a task to upgrade to take advantage of modern graphics hardware.

Leading on from the possible cost of upgrading the graphics engine, one must consider the advantage of doing so: how can this feature be sold to players? For example, one way to justify the upgrade might be a simultaneous console port, opening the game up to a giant new market. However, since gw2 relies not on a subscription, but on micro transactions, remastering the game would need to open up some sort of new avenue for making money in this way.

Another option for remastering, as people have mentioned, is upgrading character models. I would not call this a remaster, but something like that might be more plausible, although perhaps only focussing on body features and not on armour.

… I wouldn’t mind higher resolution character models. My charr are way too polygonal.

They improved graphics in GW1 continuously and even switched from direct x 8 to 9. In GW2 the graphics in HoT are a bit more detailed and a bit more demanding. I hope they will continue to improve it for the next expansion though I doubt they will have a more contemporary directx version. It’s a bit embarrassing to use DX9 in 2017. WoW switched to 10 back in 2010 for instance…

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s a bit embarrassing to use DX9 in 2017. WoW switched to 10 back in 2010 for instance…

That is part of my point as well. The game is fun to play and has good bit going for it but the visuals, even at the highest settings, aren’t that impressive. I have been considering using an EMB but that only goes so far.