Guild Wars 2

Just a quick question. Can we expect guild wars to ever be renewd with Unreal engine 4?
I came across it on the web and I must say the graphic is just stunning. Some games are already announcing when they will renew games with it.
So, can we expect that ?

Is that something that they can put on the current engine or does the game need to remade and added to it?

they have their own engine. so to use unreal 4 they would probley have to recode everything…

heres stuff form wiki

Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.⁶ It uses Havok to provide destructible environment and ragdoll animation of creatures⁷ and Umbra’s occlusion culling technology.⁸

There is not a “click-to-move” control system, ⁹ but target-locking is available.

The game engine for Guild Wars was developed by ArenaNet. Engine components developed for Guild Wars are available to be licensed to other NCsoft companies and have been used in other NCsoft games. However, ArenaNet have said they will not license the game engine technology to non-NCsoft companies.³³

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

Redenaz.8631:

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

I think the Unreal Engine would make the game a lot more responsive and stable. The GW2 engine is terribly written.

Farry.8259:

Redenaz.8631:

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

I think the Unreal Engine would make the game a lot more responsive and stable. The GW2 engine is terribly written.

You don’t know anything about Game Development do ya?

Farry.8259:

Redenaz.8631:

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

I think the Unreal Engine would make the game a lot more responsive and stable. The GW2 engine is terribly written.

Have you ever played an MMO with an Unreal Engine or CryEngine when you
had big zerg fights ?
In Lineage 2 when i played it i had to turn down all setting long before i reached
a town because else i got a big lagfest for the next 10 minutes.

The same in AION for big zerg fights where you had slideshow most of the time.

All those shooters are optimized for a fixed amount of objects on the screen
but with more or less unlimited players they go down the same like any other
engine. And with only 5 player on the screen GW2 also runs fantastic.

Farry.8259:

Redenaz.8631:

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

I think the Unreal Engine would make the game a lot more responsive and stable. The GW2 engine is terribly written.

The development of a game takes years. GW2 was in development for many many years before it was released. To release the game in an entirely different engine to the one that it was built in would take years and years and years… It’s not going to happen and it isn’t at all feasible. They’re not going to abandon their own engine and recode all of the game content just to use another engine. The cost of doing so far far outweighs any benefit.

lol what.

Please research before you make a topic. An engine isn’t simply a dropbox where you select “Cry Engine” or “Unreal Engine” lol. I mean you could maybe persuade Anet to spend the next 5 years or so completely remaking the game in UE4 but my suspicions is that they will deny your request. Not sure why, I just get the feeling they wouldn’t go ahead with that.

Unseenchaos.7036:

lol what.

Please research before you make a topic. An engine isn’t simply a dropbox where you select “Cry Engine” or “Unreal Engine” lol.

Haha .. yeah like you can order a Mini Cooper or Beetle and select a Chevrolet,
Ferrari or Maserati motor for it

He probably just got a new PC or something, that would explain why he just ask for a new game engine out of nowhere lol.

Beldin.5498:

Unseenchaos.7036:

lol what.

Please research before you make a topic. An engine isn’t simply a dropbox where you select “Cry Engine” or “Unreal Engine” lol.

Haha .. yeah like you can order a Mini Cooper or Beetle and select a Chevrolet,
Ferrari or Maserati motor for it

Pretty much this.

Hey, let’s upgrade your building’s frame from steel to titanium.

If they do decide to do this, they might as well make it GW3 while at it.

Also people that don’t know anything about game engines, it should be noted that a game engine doesn’t instantly mean better graphics and performance.

Like, it means almost nothing other than the team you are developing with and your talent.

Be nice. While there would be a bit of work involved, if they could preserve all the art, animations, and sound assets, that cuts down a lot of needing to start entirely from scratch.

The OP called out UE4 for it’s looks but this game was never about photorealistic environments. And while the UE engines do scale down to lower end hardware well enough, it’ll end up performing and looking worse than what we have now on the lower end systems. So they would be sacrificing a portion of their potential base of players.

Also UE4 is a 64-bit only engine. Sure nowadays systems running a 32-bit OS are all but obsolete but the game did come out supporting that. Same is true with Dx9 support as the UE4 dropped support for that. Again that’s tied to the now long unsupported by Microsoft Windows XP and shouldn’t be an issue for new players but it was supports once.

Behellagh.1468:

Be nice. While there would be a bit of work involved, if they could preserve all the art, animations, and sound assets, that cuts down a lot of needing to start entirely from scratch.

The OP called out UE4 for it’s looks but this game was never about photorealistic environments. And while the UE engines do scale down to lower end hardware well enough, it’ll end up performing and looking worse than what we have now on the lower end systems. So they would be sacrificing a portion of their potential base of players.

Also UE4 is a 64-bit only engine. Sure nowadays systems running a 32-bit OS are all but obsolete but the game did come out supporting that. Same is true with Dx9 support as the UE4 dropped support for that. Again that’s tied to the now long unsupported by Microsoft Windows XP and shouldn’t be an issue for new players but it was supports once.

I don’t think you have any idea of how insanely difficult it is transferring all of those assets from a massive complete game to an entirely different framework.

In fact, it’s easier to start from scratch.

Snarftastic.6709:

Farry.8259:

Redenaz.8631:

Short answer: No. Absolutely not.

GW2 uses its own engine, and to redo the game with Unreal would basically mean remaking the entire game. There are systems they could carry over, of course, but the whole thing would be extremely expensive, tying up artists and programmers for a long time.

UE4 has excellent lighting, among other features, but it’s just not practical here. I think Anet would rather continue working with their own engine, developing new content, than the massive amount of work it would take to redevelop the entire world. There are other considerations as well, like how much UE4 would raise the system requirements to get the results you’re imagining. Then you have licensing the engine, retraining everyone to work in the new engine, etc.

I think the Unreal Engine would make the game a lot more responsive and stable. The GW2 engine is terribly written.

You don’t know anything about Game Development do ya?

You didn’t know switching engines is as simple as pressing 1 button

Their compact systems are totally different. Do you know that Star Citizen delayed a lot because CryEngine simplest does not support some of its features and need custom coding. It is not worthwhile for ANet to adopt another engine for their game.

In the time they spent remaking GW2 in UE4 they could just make GW3.

There would literally be no point in switching from their own proprietary engine to one that none of their development tools work with.

The DAT file is right there, unobfuscated. Please extract all of the content and import it into UE4. It sounds like you know what you’re doing and the community will be very appreciative of your effort.

Porting from one Engine to another wouldn’t take as much time as many believe.
With proper development team – it’s possible in 1~2 years at most.

As someone has mentioned – some systems can be imported.
Some such as targeting system etc probably would have to be coded again.

Thing is, that graphic wise it won’t change.
UE4 may give better lightings, shadows etc, but models will stay the same pretty much.

But, question one could ask – if it’s worthy.

In my opinion – no.

Even if it would take 1 year to make Gw2 work on UE4 it’s still a cash and time sink.

Would rather spend those resources on developing further the current custom engine.
Make a whole dedicated team sit in one room, give them current engine and polish it.

Just because it won’t be named Unreal Engine 4 or CryEngine 3/4, doesn’t mean it has to be bad.

It’s also good to give a notice – most custom engine made games show much better performance at the same or very similar image quality as those UE/CE engines.

Difference here is advertising.

Snarftastic.6709:

Behellagh.1468:

Be nice. While there would be a bit of work involved, if they could preserve all the art, animations, and sound assets, that cuts down a lot of needing to start entirely from scratch.

The OP called out UE4 for it’s looks but this game was never about photorealistic environments. And while the UE engines do scale down to lower end hardware well enough, it’ll end up performing and looking worse than what we have now on the lower end systems. So they would be sacrificing a portion of their potential base of players.

Also UE4 is a 64-bit only engine. Sure nowadays systems running a 32-bit OS are all but obsolete but the game did come out supporting that. Same is true with Dx9 support as the UE4 dropped support for that. Again that’s tied to the now long unsupported by Microsoft Windows XP and shouldn’t be an issue for new players but it was supports once.

I don’t think you have any idea of how insanely difficult it is transferring all of those assets from a massive complete game to an entirely different framework.

In fact, it’s easier to start from scratch.

Depends. If they kept the original source asset files, before they manipulated for their engine. From the various behind the scenes videos as well as their jobs page it appears they use some fairly standard tools and I know export/import tools exist for various game engines.

And I did say “if they could preserve”.

Doug Whisper.2465:

Their compact systems are totally different. Do you know that Star Citizen delayed a lot because CryEngine simplest does not support some of its features and need custom coding. It is not worthwhile for ANet to adopt another engine for their game.

Well all game engines require various degrees of custom coding because they are rarely all encompassing for all genres.

I know exactly what changing graphic engne would mean.
Every map/character/monster they made, would need to be remade. They would need to remake game almost from begginings.
Sure it would cost much and take lots of time, but GW2 sold over 3M copies + not to mention gems in game. I think they wouldn’t have money problems.
But I forgot that for UE4 to run perfectly we would need monster PC.

ShinyDay.5349:

I know exactly what changing graphic engne would mean.
Every map/character/monster they made, would need to be remade. They would need to remake game almost from begginings.
Sure it would cost much and take lots of time, but GW2 sold over 3M copies + not to mention gems in game. I think they wouldn’t have money problems.
But I forgot that for UE4 to run perfectly we would need monster PC.

It would take 3+ years to do it. It would be like starting the game development from scratch. It’s not just about shifting all of their maps and characters and monsters. It would require completely recoding the entire game. Every single event. All of the dialogue. Every single tiny asset. It would involve retraining all of the staff to deal with a new engine. Redoing all of the in game movements. The engine isn’t just about aesthetics, it runs most of the game… You’re also grossly underestimating how much game development costs. They would burn through all of their money (and then some) doing it, and they would be highly unlikely to make new sales as a result of the change. Meaning they would end up bankrupt…

FlamingFoxx.1305:

ShinyDay.5349:

I know exactly what changing graphic engne would mean.
Every map/character/monster they made, would need to be remade. They would need to remake game almost from begginings.
Sure it would cost much and take lots of time, but GW2 sold over 3M copies + not to mention gems in game. I think they wouldn’t have money problems.
But I forgot that for UE4 to run perfectly we would need monster PC.

It would take 3+ years to do it. It would be like starting the game development from scratch. It’s not just about shifting all of their maps and characters and monsters. It would require completely recoding the entire game. Every single event. All of the dialogue. Every single tiny asset. It would involve retraining all of the staff to deal with a new engine. Redoing all of the in game movements. The engine isn’t just about aesthetics, it runs most of the game… You’re also grossly underestimating how much game development costs. They would burn through all of their money (and then some) doing it, and they would be highly unlikely to make new sales as a result of the change. Meaning they would end up bankrupt…

Thank you, people severely underestimate what Game Development really takes, especially on a scale of an MMORPG.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

It would take 3+ years to do it. It would be like starting the game development from scratch. It’s not just about shifting all of their maps and characters and monsters. It would require completely recoding the entire game. Every single event. All of the dialogue. Every single tiny asset. It would involve retraining all of the staff to deal with a new engine. Redoing all of the in game movements. The engine isn’t just about aesthetics, it runs most of the game… You’re also grossly underestimating how much game development costs. They would burn through all of their money (and then some) doing it, and they would be highly unlikely to make new sales as a result of the change. Meaning they would end up bankrupt…

To be honest. It wouldn’t be as hard or timeintensive as you claim.
I mean, just check out OpenMW. Those guys are reimplementing the morrowind engine from scratch and it took them like 6 or 7 years with 2 or 3 really active developers. And those 2 or 3 developers aren’t doing this fulltime. They are doing this as a hobby and they are completly reverse engineering the game. If you have a team of full time developers with full documentation it will be much faster.

Unreal Engine 4 is already available in GW.
Just type the secret console command:

/GiveMeMoreLeetererGrafixAndEverythingInnit

Seemed to work for me.