Guild Wars 2

Ok, let me get a disclaimer in here ( This is some very good suggestions by me. I am not a newcomer to the gaming field and I can see where the future could lay with gaming.. many of these points many people i know have agreed on)

First, lemme say that i am super excited for HoT and a huge Anet fan.

Want to increase exposure for more players to have access to the game? I know several of the reasons the game still uses dx9 is because it allows for a larger spectrum of players. Not everyone can fork out a dx12 card atm and quite a bit are still stuck on windows xp and a good number have migrated over onto the newer versions. Being stuck on dx9 has drawbacks.. limited to things you can do.. being more cpu bound.. while you say it’s ok because another pont would be that many don’t have very powerful gpu’s , so to focus on that might hurt the player base.. well give me a moment of your time to let me explain what I believe would be very beneficial and will not hurt the player base but potentially increase the player base even greater. How so? Well, lend me your ears.. or eyes.. or anything you’re using to read this lol. There is a little thing called dx12 that recently came out, but wait before you jump in and say.. "well you’d have to need a newer machine and a very new gpu to utilize it… this guy had me going for a while but he lost me there and now i can move on.. ok ok so settle down there before the roll eyes phase and just chill and listen.. while dx12 is a good idea.. and would help this game or any game by a huge margin.. it has these drawbacks you’ve already seen coming and already have a case closed on the whole matter i’ve built on to thus far… Well you’re in luck, because I got some news for you.. dx12 isn’t the only kid in the block… you have.. wait for it… Vulkan.. what is vulkan? Well, vulkan is a gamers wet dream basically that is coming up to a pc near you very soon. It offers every bit of the benefits of dx12 and more.. BUT you don’t need a brand spankin’ new rig or video card to use it, pretty much all existing hardware for a long while now will be able to fully enjoy the fruits of it, and who doesn’t like fruits? Now the perks and amazing benefits for using this new api are too many to name right here, but to make a long story short (you can go do some research on it now if you like… you know google is really cool for that) it makes the game run faster.. more fps yo and it also makes it extremely easy to port any game to any platform .. i mean simple simple.. so all those mac players can finally have a authentic real genuineeee gw2 running natively on their machines without the lag issues and problems they have atm with it being “emulated” to run for their machines. And not just that, it’ll run for linux as well.. and would be a great start for future outlooks.. as the new consoles are out and doing fairly well right? You’ll be able to port to them as well.. not to mention run on the steamos.. You can stay with old technology and let other games pop out and get places.. or you can work on a port once vulkan is out and about.. This is just my 2cents and i’d put in another cent if it helps any at all.. but then i’d be out a penny..

Anyways, I love you guys at Anet and keep up the work! HoT will ruleeeeeee

Wall.. of… text….

also, why would you disclaim that your suggestions are good? I’m not sure you understand what a disclaimer is for

because people like you and others will have something to say, a disclaimer would be me simply messing around and saying that these are suggestions i have and are from me personally and others i know.. while others may have other important things to focus on..
And instead of making fun of the large amount of text i wrote…. i can shorten it up or type slower so people who read slow can catch up next time. I guess i should have put yet anther disclaimer for it being a Wall.. of… text…..
:)

Lame.3819:

I guess i should have put yet anther disclaimer for it being a Wall.. of… text…..
:)

+1

TL/DR: Use Vulcan instead of dx12

Edit: Why is this posted as a question thread anyways?

Didn’t mean to,, was late when i posted the thing lol but hey.. i am surprised i could stay awake long enough to get all that typing done haha

No.

15char

Well, first of all, your idea isn’t necessarily good because you say it is. It’s good because others say it is. And second, I do agree the wall of text has to go. It makes it very difficult to read even on paper, and even harder on a computer screen. Please don’t take that as a personal offense. It’s just a friendly tip. Try to read your own text, then you’ll see how difficult it can be for others.

Other’s have suggested Vulkan and I’ll tell you what I told them. Vulkan’s future depends entirely on the success of Steam OS. They will get zero support from the biggest hardware manufacturers until Valve convinces them it is worth their time. They are already working hand in hand with Microsoft to support DirectX 12. Right now, no game developer in their right mind is going to touch Vulkan. They can hit the largest user group, and get the most 3rd party support, by using DirectX 12. If they want to support Mac they’ll build an OpenGL render path, not the newest OpenGL either, because they have to pick one that has as much hardware support as possible. If they go to the trouble of developing an OpenGL render path, they may then choose to release a Linux client as well, since they are already putting in much of the coding work for Mac.

What they won’t be doing is touching Vulkan. If Valve does much better with their Steam Boxes and Steam OS than I think they will, that may change. I certainly wouldn’t bet on it though.

PS already uses a version of OpenGL which is what Vulkan is a expansion of, not to mention I believe AMD is already looking into it since they already where working on something similar. I doubt Vulkan is completely dependant on SteamOS’s success, though it could be a major influence. However for GW2 the cost vs worth of rewriting a lot of aspects to a different API might not be worth it. The linux base isn’t big enough(or those who don’t dual boot or have a MS PC) and Mac might not be worth the effort/headache.

E: Before I get flamed, my knowledge of Vulkan is limited and even about graphics APIs in general. So take it with a grain of salt.

AMD was working on Mantle. Mantle work translated almost seamlessly to Directx 12. So seamlessly in fact, that there has been a great deal of conjecture that mantle was actually based on pre-release knowledge of Directx 12. Just FYI. The whole reason Nvidia was kind of silent about the whole Mantle thing beyond a few vague comments about it not being needed was that they also had access to the same early DirectX 12 documentation.

Again, I’m not saying Vulkan doesn’t have potential to EVENTUALLY become a standard of concern to game developers and graphic makers. I’m just saying that it is currently years down the line, while DX12 is here to stay.

I’m also not arguing for a DX12 port of Guild Wars 2, as it would do nothing for the game in its current state. This game is entirely CPU bound, and the kind of threading optimization that it would take to make a new API make any difference would go way, way beyond simply adding that API to the game.

Paragraphs are a good thing, just saying.

I see some good points here, and yea i wrote this very tired and just putting up some ideas here i believe would be good and many many others thought so as well.

It was meant to be funny as well for those who did take the time to read all the darn thing lol. But, as others have stated correctly Vulkan is not dependent on SteamOS, though it will be a big influence to it as many big triple A game companies are joining aboard in assisting development. Even if SteamOS flops, the Vulkan API will still thrive, just as OpenGL did and this is the next best thing.

Valve already is first in line to make use of it, check out the new Dota 2, while they haven’t released a public port to the game with Vulkan, they have it up and going already with Intel gpu’s. Nvidia and AMD are working close with them as well to get their drivers ready. It was written from scratch, a new generation api which offers amazing things.

While dx12 isn’t written from scratch per se, they have just added new abilities to the existing api with a new paint job. Not hating on dx12, but Vulkan would be more friendly for ports to any new system, and not having to own Windows10 or a dx12 capable card is a huge plus, and also being able to have a true native Mac, Linux, SteamOS and PS4 port (many others to come, who knows the future?) if they ever decide to would give them very little hassle.

It’s true that the cost for porting could be high and time consuming, but they would have to consider if it’s worthwhile in the end to have it reach more people and run way smoother and faster as a result and allowing the progression at their pace as the game most likely will be out for years to come(hopefully).

All in all, just my opinion on the matter. I just want the game to rock! Anet fanboy here in the flesh lol.