Guild Wars 2

danbuter.2314:

Add in skritt, TENGU, and kodan as player races.

You forgot the Tengu

Wait is this about adding things to the game or just simply buying them out? If its about changing the game you must know how to programed games (knowing what you can realty do with there system) you must know how to put it out (knowing the server limitation) there a lot more to making a game and adding things to games then just shouting “I WANT THIS NOW!”
As for buying them out unless you intend on just simply firing who lead of the game and putting your self as lead (there a host of problems doing this) your not going to changes things that much.
Money talks but it a cheep talk you simply cant spend your problems away.

A billions dollars is almost ten times the cost of the most expensive games ever made. To put things into perspective, if ANet somehow had a billion dollars on top of what they already have they could actually start development on several other AAA titles and still have money left over to continue developing GW2.

Now if you’re saying this money is only going towards GW2 then it would make it the game with the highest development budget of all time. It would likely remain that way for at least 50 years as even the most expensive movies only cost around $250 million, which is only 1/4th of $1 billion.

So what could ANet do with $1 billion? Let’s pretend that all the logistics are taken care of and that the investors don’t really care about seeing a return on a $1 billion investment.

• The map of Tyria that you see in game is only a fraction of the entire planet. You may have had a chance to see the massive globe in the Order of Whispers hideout. Right now there are still many parts of this map that are locked out. They could populate all these areas and quite possibly the rest of the world. The world of Tyria would be bigger than any game world ever made.
• When money is no object then developers aren’t constrained in their decision making and they are able to take really big risks. The possibilities become endless. Remember those bosses you fight at the beginning when you create a new character? Well, they cost money to make so you see only small numbers of them. They could populate the world with these kinds of bosses and create truly epic encounters like an invading centaur army on a capital city.
• They could add truly dynamic content that isn’t limited to only dynamic events. There could actually be a carnival at Divinity’s Reach like it’s been hinted at. There could be parades and fireworks at night like at Disney Land. You could even have rides like Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy 7.
• Back on the topic of risk-taking, they could explore entirely new themes that have never been done in a fantasy MMORPG. Cantha, after 250 years could be like modern day Japan/China with high rises and neon signs. You could have something completely unthinkable in a fantasy setting like an alien invasion. Think about it, the mists link to Tyria and countless other worlds.
• Speaking of other worlds. In addition to the massive world that is Tyria you would have all these other massive worlds to explore. The possibilities just grow from there. You could have a world of giant floating islands in a gas nebula. You could have a Dyson sphere around a star with individual colonies on it. You could have a ring world like in Halo. You could have a completely inverted and hollow planet where instead of the sky you’re looking at the other side.

A lot of these things you guys mention could be done without $1 billion or even $100 million for that matter. You really have to think big when you’re dealing with this kind of money.

Jski.6180:

Wait is this about adding things to the game or just simply buying them out? If its about changing the game you must know how to programed games (knowing what you can realty do with there system) you must know how to put it out (knowing the server limitation) there a lot more to making a game and adding things to games then just shouting “I WANT THIS NOW!”
As for buying them out unless you intend on just simply firing who lead of the game and putting your self as lead (there a host of problems doing this) your not going to changes things that much.
Money talks but it a cheep talk you simply cant spend your problems away.

That added nothing to the conversation. IF you have a billion dollars, you can hire programmers capable of adding new things to the game (including guys already working at anet). What is it with people saying “YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE GAME. YOU’RE NOT A PROGRAMMER, SO YOUR INPUT IS INVALID!!!!!”

Newsflash!: The current anet programmers are making changes to the game right now! It’s call biweekly patches! Amazing!

Veplerion.3921:

Force ANet to build the game a new DX11 engine, one capable of handling massive amounts of people on screen at once, so I can run large PvE world bosses and WvW at a decent framerate.

Basically, they’d just purchase steal the Camelot Unchained engine.

ArenaNet couldn’t add DX11 to the game if they had 10 Billion USD. We’ll never see good AntiAliasing, DX10/11. What you have today is what you’ll have tomorrow (years from now).

Developers/Designers want games out the door, regardless if they are far from perfect.

Welcome to Corporate America

Buy every item on the TP, mark it all up 1000%, and institute a clause in the EULA that says you can be banned if I don’t like you. Start contest zones in WvW like “winner take all” where if you are defeated by another player they get your gear or “Net Arena” where you PvP with net guns on a collapsing bridge structure suspended over lava. Add heroes but only for the new areas. Make all the benefits of Anet employees the best available (having a kid: twenty-four months paid time off, in-house child care, and 90% medical expenses) in any reasonable field. Give the rest of the money to in-game contests.

Buy the Black Citadel so my Charr can declare himself Khan-Ur and have crazy naked dance parties in the big dome.

Uh…LOL

Well, I guess I would want them to be independent of NCsoft first…

1) The rest would go to funding more permanent content development such as new dungeons, and new types of content on top of the living story thing.

2) More sandbox content, I would like to be able to build a house, and for trade skills to be a fun part of game play as well as for it to mean something more than it currently does.

3) A Cantha expansion – This would be a must

4) Further optimizations to the engine & client are always welcome as I know there’s people who struggle with this somewhat.

5) Hiring someone who knows how to make really stylish armor & gear for both genders, as well as imposing gear. Not that I don’t think the people that are already there can’t do it, but we’ve yet to see the armor live up to a lot of the concept art. It’s either too bulky, or too masculine (for girls), etc. This should not be rocket science but it seems like it is sometimes.

6) Many new hairstyle and face options for all races. Improved hair physics

Veplerion.3921:

Force ANet to build the game a new DX11 engine, one capable of handling massive amounts of people on screen at once

Even better: hire id Software to pimp the tech5 engine (there’s no engine like an id engine^^) and make it platform independent

(and fire whoever invented Trahearne…)

Paul.4081:

Wait, how much goes to NC Soft and how much goes to Anet? I’ll spend my money on a bouncy castle instead if it’s going to NC Soft and not Anet. A certain lady probably opened a new bank account when she read the OP’s title

Oh, and don’t forget the investors….they are $$ madd.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I’d force the dev team to implement the sandwichmancer profession, and then spend the rest of the money making it really imbalanced so I can win the $$$ back in PvP tournaments.

This made me smile.

The power of money…

a lot of this that and the other, but for sure I’d have free pizza Tuesdays and ice-cream Fridays for the staff. (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays would have mandatory athletics hours to keep the staff fit )

I would build a super computer and run WvW lag free… then I’d invest enough money into the game to create a spinoff personal instance server. I’d hire a team to develop the greatest personal instance expansion ever, with an upgradable dwarf butler who’s voiceover work was done by the actor who played Alfred in the newest Batman movies. I’d create a clothing rotation for my dwarf so he changed clothes once a day, have them based on the seasons and\or holidays, etc…. i’d most assuredly create quest lines where hegets kidnapped and i have to rescue him. He’d probably be an alcoholic and objectify women, but we’d love him anyway. I’d create a quest line where I get married and my wife forces me to kick him out of my personal instance house, at which point I’d have to build him a personal instance shack where he could work on building things and fixing machinery. Eventually my wife would get kidnapped as well, and my dwarf would die saving her life… at which point she would adopt his dwarven kin into our home and realize that his objectifying of women was actually a cultural problem. Of course, his kin would then get kidnapped, my wife would eventually bear me a son, at which point he would get kidnapped… and I’d finally invest in some home security. Perhaps a team of dwarven guards, who perhaps owe my family a life debt for rescuing their nephew from kidnappers. I haven’t worked out the details on that yet.

Interesting question. Most of what would improve the game isn’t anywhere near this sum of money though. The things I can think of would tend to turn the game into something it isn’t…

Still, there are certain things. These aren’t on that scale of budget, but probably would require increases, so hey.

• Expand the PvP side of things – get some people actively working on making it a more competitive game, getting spectator stuff in there, and also promoting it again so GW2 has a better chance of making it back to the “e-sport contender” thing – the promotion is probably where the big bucks will go, to be honest. Not $1b worth since that’s what might be spent on a presidential campaign, but still.
• Oh yeah, the engine. Needs to be optimized more, and if we can find and train the personnel to pull it off, why not look at going cross-platform?
• Fix armor clipping. If I have a billion to throw at this, I don’t care how much work it is anymore – we can find a way.

…most of the rest of the gameplay stuff isn’t budget-dependent. So time for some slightly… blue-skies stuff.
While I’m not totally sure of the merit of throwing out WvW for a re-imagined but essentially different game mode, keeping both is probably going to dilute players. But it could be bigger. Inject a bit of Minecraft, let players build their own fortifications around strategic locations (resources, chokepoints, and so on). Throw in large numbers of AI-controlled soldiers (probably requires improved AI) to hold these locations when they can’t be there. Actually, maybe the AI can do sieges by itself just so you can’t slack off just because the other server is asleep or at work. And I wouldn’t say no to making the map size bigger, although on the other hand GW2 isn’t Daggerfall and I’m not sure it ever should be (kind of conflicts with the art/design direction for the game).

Not totally sure it’d work, but if you’ve got the budget, a lot of experiments become worth the effort. Especially if you don’t need to make the money back. (Do you?)

I would buy out Anet and then sell it for money I could actually spend…

buy rng boxes, in 1 billion i should at least get 1 skin right, right?

In all seriousness, if i had 1 billion i wouldn’t invest a penny in Arenanet or NC soft, it’s to late for that.

Buy gems and convert it all to gold to see if it’s enough to buy the entire TP.

1. Buy a lot of beer
2. Throw a party of all ANET emplyees
3. Go to the party (as the investor I’m allowed to get in)
4. …
5. VOMIT

One thing and one thing only.

Pay them to make a living story event where the humans retake Ascalon and over the course of a year slowly rebuild it and recreate something close to Pre-Searing in Guild Wars 1.

That’s my dream.

1. Hire a dev who can code pet ai that is able to hit moving targets aka hit while moving.

Let’s not ignore the fact that some suggestions are already so.
Most glaring example is the relatively independence of A.net from NCSoft which is almost unseen in this industry.
Second huge example is the PVP balancing team which has a clue as shown in the last State of the Game and Guildcast. Not only that, but Colin explicitly stated he recruits actual players for balancing discussions from map chat and forums.
Thirdly, an upcoming expansion is a public secret and all but confirmed.

Apparently, you don’t need a billion dollars to do so.

I would keep some live updates going and would focus the development on Guild Wars 3, wich would be what was originally promised: A persistant Guild Wars 1.

I’d find a way to keep the billion for myself, and retire on some lost island somewhere while living from the income generated by the money.

- Buy Arena.net.
- Burn balance team.
- Force ANET emplyees to play pvp with only warrior until bleed her eyes.
- Kick from my group.

One Beeeeellion doolars?

What couldn’t I do with that?

Guild Wars: Beyond the Mists

An alternate world version of Tyria, without all this silly elder dragon stuff. A nearly total sandbox game set in a very similar Tyria, pre-searing Ascalon lives. A sandbox world were players have housing, furniture and player founded cities, and every item in game could be crafted. All crafting materials would be useful.

• A dye like appearance system, where item skins are unlocked and can be applied to any item of the same type as many times as the player wants.

• Truly dynamic events, not merely slightly branching scripted events. Much more of a Living World than monthly theme park updates of kill 250 of the Bad Guys of the Month.

• Dynamic dungeons than are composed of building blocks and rotating sets of puzzles/mechanisms.

• Completely equal clothing options for both genders. Want that male great coat on a female, done. Want that miniskirt on a guy, done.

• A Pony. No, a Unicorn Pony. Wait, Pegasus Unicorn Pony. With Sparkles.

I would invest one billion to a team which will convert the GW2 in to fully immersion, matrix like game

Joiry.2504:

One Beeeeellion doolars?

What couldn’t I do with that?

Guild Wars: Beyond the Mists

An alternate world version of Tyria, without all this silly elder dragon stuff. A nearly total sandbox game set in a very similar Tyria, pre-searing Ascalon lives. A sandbox world were players have housing, furniture and player founded cities, and every item in game could be crafted. All crafting materials would be useful.

A sandbox Gw2 every one could live with that! its the future of mmo’s actually.

let me add some thing otherwise than ponys XD

Political minister system were guilds could represent army and factions on Tyria were players vote on the supose guild/person to the assembly. Guild that wins would have to protect their people from MOBS raids also and dragon raids.
as if they were another army in tyria.

IF was possible had patrols as in sea and air to help fighthing the dragons raid when atacking main cities.

WVW would be a continent were guild fight for resources needed to fix their cities and build castles on WVW.

What migth happen: Tyria history being different from server to server due politics and guild actions, not every one likes to be the good guy! sea Charr pirates MYAHHR?

Almost forgot the Tyrian Guild VS Guild system.

Just wonder if 1b$ would be eneught to develop of fix actual engine to do this (3b$ maybe???)

Make a game thats fun after max lvl?

I would:

1. Form an Open World team with the purpose of creating new skins that can only drop from specific meta event daily chests (e.g., Shadow Behemoth). Once each world boss has a unique set of weapons and armor, have the team focus on adding new world bosses to every map area that doesn’t have one.

2. Form a Dungeon development team with a goal of releasing a new Fractal every 1-2 months. Twice a year they can take a break from adding Fractals to add a new permanent dungeon instead. Make dungeons easy like CoF path 1, then make a ‘Hardmode’ with appropriate rewards. Give a bonus chest with good dungeon specific loot if all monsters in a dungeon are killed like a GW1 style map vanquish. This would give incentive for parties to not skip/speed run through dungeon content.

3. Form a WvW team who’s first task should be to add new Borderlands and Eternal Battle grounds maps say every 3 months. Have these new maps mix and rotate in with the current map. E.g., one week red borderlands could be topical (Maguuma) themed, green could be the current borderlands map, blue could be Orr themed, and EB could be Canthan inspired. Next week all maps get randomly re-assigned, etc.

4. Form a Dragon Expansion team to work on creating a solid expansion around the slaying of Jormag. After this expansion is done, have them start working on the other elder dragons.

As more dragons are slain, magic is re-released into the world and the 6 human gods come back! This team should also give us a new Fissue of Woe, Underworld & Domain of Anguish as more dragons are killed.

5. Form a New Continent Expansion team to work on creating expansions that expand into the continents of Elona and Cantha. Each expansion should come with a new story and at least: 1 new race, 1 new profession, 1 new weapon for each profession, 10 new skills for every profession, 1 new elite skill for every profession, etc.

Items 1-3 are what I feel would improve the “core” game. Items 5 & 6 expand the game in the two directions I think most people want to see it go.

I would rebuild it on cry engine 3 instead of this outdated crap gw2 currently has. But then if with this early 2000’s graphics we get 20fps in wvw, i can just imagine what kind of fps we’d be getting on a CE3. Or Frosbite, go kitten i would like to see destruction in this game like games in this current decade!! not like something that was released in 1996…

Joiry.2504:

Guild Wars: Beyond the Mists

An alternate world version of Tyria, without all this silly elder dragon stuff.

I wish. After WoW and Rift I am sick to death of dragons and GW2 has them too. There are other creatures in fantasy besides dragons!

I will buy 1 billion worth of gems.

Oh wait…

Cantha, PvP and a profession named the Assassin that plays like the thief, but is full of spiky armor and gets blown up by exploding Afflicted and Plague carrier Risen.
That is where the money is going.

1) Hire real clothing/costume designers to put some actually attractive gear into the game.

2) Make a really fabulous housing proposed by a French Forum FR.

3) Create a mod Orr: discovery, any current ugly. And change: after, blessed, and changing.

4) Focus on Creation Adding new character options were semi-frequent Basis. More hairstyles for all races, faces, and ears / horns.

5) I’d create a PvE skins locker like what exists for PvP. Create news beautiful armors racial (T0, T4, T5, T6, T7)

6) Expand on the personal story as frequently as possible.
Tone down DR a lot and possibly make it account wide (would have to see how well that worked).

7) Add a metric ton of minigames (because I love minigames and most MMOs are woefully lacking in them).

8) Evolve to the cities of the game! add events!

Lion’s Arch: Complete reconstruction of the Lighthouse. Enbellisment houses! Arrive on Zepplin towers in height, with jumping and more!

Divine promontory Reconstruction neighborhood Cantha, ugly finish wood structure, PR Addition places.

Rata Sum: Addition housing Asura Dynamic / static / Synergetic dormitory. Additions RP labs, adds tables to bars, additions floors below.
+ Dimensions tarnished other city Asura discovery and exploration Maguuma.

Black citadel housing additions!

Hoelbrack: Additions structures From mini games.

9) Additions / WCW cards PvP

10) Additions Guild Halls! and Guild Wars!

11) Dungeons additions, especially in the tower of the sorcerer.

LordByron.8369:

Esplen.3940:

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Source?

There are many threads on it (with official dev answers) i don t keep record of all posts….but there are so many that maybe somoene have a link.

I’ve seen those post about Anet being pretty independent from NCSoft as well. Here’s a pic mentioning gem store stuff.

Villious.8530:

LordByron.8369:

Esplen.3940:

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Source?

There are many threads on it (with official dev answers) i don t keep record of all posts….but there are so many that maybe somoene have a link.

I’ve seen those post about Anet being pretty independent from NCSoft as well. Here’s a pic mentioning gem store stuff.

Except for nuking the Canthan district, you mean.

danbuter.2314:

Villious.8530:

LordByron.8369:

Esplen.3940:

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Source?

There are many threads on it (with official dev answers) i don t keep record of all posts….but there are so many that maybe somoene have a link.

I’ve seen those post about Anet being pretty independent from NCSoft as well. Here’s a pic mentioning gem store stuff.

Except for nuking the Canthan district, you mean.

Good point!

Dangerkips.6035:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

This would be what every developer everywhere needs to do. The suits have smelled money to be made in the games industry, and money makes all the decisions. That needs to change so games can go back to being made by gamers for gamers, not to make a quick profit.

This.
10 year development cycles aren’t cheap, but seeing a game pushed out 6 months to a year early and getting horrible reviews because the publisher thought a certain release date was more important than a quality game is upsetting to say the least.
Then once released, unless you’re Blizzard with ungodly amounts of cash to throw at a game, you’re going to have to watch your spending. The industry standard layoffs after release suddenly means you have a team focused more on keeping investors happy with constant updates than fixing existing minor bugs like text errors.

With that said, while I bounce between MMOs like crazy I always have a special place in my heart for GW2 simply for what they’re doing. A quality game, constant content and balance updates, community interaction and not trying to make the game ‘pay to win’ to bully players into paying them.

This game isn’t worth spending 1 billion on.

Mindshard.3572:

This.
10 year development cycles aren’t cheap, but seeing a game pushed out 6 months to a year early and getting horrible reviews because the publisher thought a certain release date was more important than a quality game is upsetting to say the least.

Are you talking about GW2 here? Because, what horrible reviews?

I’d spend the money on GW1…….(runs)

In all seriousness, I’d be putting that money toward fixing Eternal Battlegrounds. It’s virtually unplayable with rubber banding and skill lag at the moment.

I’d force the dev team to implement the sandwichmancer profession, and then spend the rest of the money making it really imbalanced so I can win the $$$ back in PvP tournaments.

Sandvich™

I’d use the whole billion to actually play the game from Mars

I’d create a stand alone campaign (a la Factions, Nightfall) with a modern theme set in and around a large urban area, with all new professions and skills derived from magic, science, technology, mutation, and keenly honed natural abilities. These new professions wouldn’t rely on gear, although some would make use of things like bows and swords and firearms, but those who used no gear at all would be no less powerful for not having any. Armor skins would be purely cosmetic and not really ‘armor’ at all. Just cosmetic. Completely mix and match.

There would be a system of transportation devices strategically located at various points throughout the area, allowing characters to move freely (no charge!) between zones. In keeping with the modern theme this system would resemble a tram running on an elevated track. Movement within a zone would be fast and fun, with characters able to cover vast distances quickly and efficiently by either jumping over pretty much anything and everything, running really really swiftly, teleporting from one point to another, or soaring majestically above the terrain like a great bird – wings optional!

That’s what I’d do. And that’s barely scratching the surface. Not sure what I’d call it, though…

Buy the license to create games in the GW universe. Acquire the GW lore bible.
Fund indie teams to make small games alongside GW2, exploring various subjects that players always wanted answers to. Closely work with ANet loremasters to keep the games canon, or hire them to write. Have them stick very closely to ANets manifesto…

With 1 Billion Dollar (Id rather take 1 Billion Euro, they are worth more!!, currently 1€ = 1,28 $, so they are basically 30% better of worth)

With that huge amount of money I’d just make my dream come true, hire needed people at let design my own MMORPG together with a series of novel books for background story.

A MMORPG with my Class/Race System that would be truly unique together with a Skill/Talent/Trait System that allows for real depthful character progression.
A game without any RNG mechanics. Everything you see in that game or what gets implemented later, could get earned by the player by doing certain tasks in the game to earn what you want. Nothing would just base on pure luck in my game.

A MMORPG, that is also truly full of especially RPG elements and would offer an truly epic story, where your character truly becomes over time a legend and where beating the game doesn’t feel like having survived just a real bad joke…
A modern MMORPG, that mixes alot of the very good and old traditional gameplay elements together with alot of good more modern elements from GW1/GW2, so that you basically get always the feeling of playing an offline RPG full of rich story basically just online in a full explorable persistent world, which would be also at end game explorable really to 100% and where you actually get the feeling of “grind” being not long and tedious, but being connected with fun to do things, where you never get the feeling of have to do certain tasks like thousands of times and where you don#t have to collect for every BS full stacks of ultra rare items always, just to be able to get something in the game.
There would be no places on the world map, which can’t be exlored and would be just silly map fillers so that the world just looks only “complete”.
For me a game world is only then complete really, if you absolutely can explore also everything. Thats also somethign that totally kitten ed me of in GW1, a game world, which was basicalyl only 60% explorable, the other 40% were just always unexplorable map filler to make the map look like complete >.<

Id make my MMORPG also offer absolutely all kinds of PvP:

• 1 versus 1 (up to 3 vs. 3)
• Guild versus Guild (Team sizes higher than 3)
• Random Arena
• Team Arena
• Server versus Server (Siege/Raid PvP)
• Codex PvP (that sort of, where players get restrictic to use daily different skills so that theres no meta build there)
• Tournaments

Simply said, I’d make with 1 Billion Euro that kind of MMORPG, which anet tried to make with GW2, but kind of currently failed hard to create it in certain aspects due to NCSoft mostly having a huge word so say in everything money related and a massive lack of character progression together with a halfway lousy game story, where all the current 2 novel books had like a 1000x better story, than the overall game and where even GW1 had a much better storytelling based around Mission Gameplay Style, something id bring back into my game also ….
GW2 could be already a much better game, if NCSoft wouldn’t waste so much money with other games like Aion, which was from the begin on an absolute typical asia grinder flop.

I’d make with 1 billion € that MMORPG, that puts WoW finally into its grave
I doubt hard, that GW2 will achieve this ever in its current form.
Not with all this RNG crap.
Not with all this stereotypical asia grind style of gameplay around equipment
Not with such a terrible full of cliche storyline/ storytelling and it is in no way “personal” so far where like 70% of the story is emotionless BS and the only truly epic moment of the game being at the absolute end hearing the only epic thing of the game – the ending song, the only real emotional thing of this game so far … oh and seeing Tybalt/Sieran/Forgal die… that makes two ..wow, I’m impressed!!

However, story isn’t everything, but its important just for the immersion and overall flair of the game world… it just makes a game more trustworthy and immersive/intense, when a story truly can touch you and is believable to the point, that it is really empathic. But in GW2 currently i felt never any empathy for characters of the game due to the storytelling being so extreme emotionless.

However, my dream will stay a dream, as I’ll naturally never will have the money to make it come true xD sadly sniff

PS: To reword my posting, as the topic was about money using in regard of GW2..
Id fix otherwise with all this money the points i complained about here.
So basically pushing alot more RPG intio this game, with much more and better storystelling.
Remove all rng crap.
Implement more PvP modes
Improve the general Class/Skill System for alot more better character progression
Make the game less grindy.

1 billion, eh?

Back-end Stuff

1. Hardware – Improve server hardware, to better deal with higher bandwidth.

2. Optimisation – Continue to optimise the code (as well as improve code structure to reduce the occurrence of bugs) to, alongside with improved hardware, provide a smoother experience.

3. Tools – Improve the tools the devs have to work with to produce more complex, quality content.

4. Public Test Server – A public test server, where the community can test out content to balance difficulty, find bugs ect.

5. A Seamless World – remove the walls stopping people from exploring and zone instances. If someone wants to get from one zone to the next traversing a treacherous mountain, so be it.

Business

• *Buy Anet out, as well as all of the rights to GW and GW2 from NCSoft, and give sole ownership to Anet on the condition I get to become Evil Overlord, and a desk plaque and job title that says so.

• *Remove RNG boxes from the cash shop, and place everything for sale straight up.

• Have a team that works specifically on the gem store with things like town clothes, novelty items ect.

Features

Create a Features team, who would focus solely creating and adding features and systems to the game. Things like: Guild Halls, Housing, Scavenger Hunts, Treasure Maps, Mini-Games, New Crafting Professions ect. The aim would be to get at least one feature out per month in the first year.

The team working alongside the Features team would then focus on expanding on these features (so, more styles of Guild Hall, for example), while the first team continues to come up with concepts for and implementing features, so features aren’t left too long without updating. The aim would be to update each feature at least once a month, with bigger tasks (such as new Guild Halls) every 2 months.

General Additions (Applicable to PvE and WvW)

• Weather System – A weather system that is totally independent and random, while keeping in the theme of the area. Different weather effects would cause different issues. For example, Snowstorms would reduce visibility and cause Chilled unless your wore Warm Clothes (town clothing, not armour), Sandstorms would reduce visibility and cause Blindness at random intervals unless you wore sand-goggles (town clothing, not armour), while Downpour would reduce the duration of Burning and increase the duration of Chilled in Winter.

• Night and Day – Night and day would play a greater part, with different creatures coming out during the night and day.

• Seasonal Cycle – This would be tied to real-life time, with the environment changing (leaves fall off trees) and more frequent weather in certain areas (Snowstorm in Winter) and weather that doesn’t normally occur in an area might occur during a season (Snowstorm in Queensdale)

PvE Content

Each focus team will actually be comprised of two teams working together:

• One to come up with the concepts behind the content (the creative guys)
• One to create and implement these concepts and ideas into the game world (the technical guys)

A team focused solely on Open-World. This would be one of the bigger teams, since they’d be responsible for:

• Mini-dungeons
• Jumping Challenges
• DE’s and Meta Events
• Random, GM created events (GM’s would be given the tools to create these)
• Quests and Tasks (Not traditional ! and ?. No indication would be given that you’re on a quest. It’s up to the player to decide whether to investigate what they’re saying)

A team focused solely on Fractals: As well as the LS dungeons, I’d demand, from my throne while being fanned and fed grapes by beautiful women dressed like Eir and Gwen, that they produce the following Fractals:

• Destiny’s Edge vs Kralkatorrik
• The rebellion against the Flame Legion
• The Protectors of Kryta
• The Foefire

A team focused solely on Dungeons. As well as improving the current dungeons, this team would have the aim of introducing a new dungeon every 2 months, and improving a path every month (starting with CoF1).

The Living Story groups will continue doing what they’re doing.

WvW

First, I’d scrap the current WvW in favor of a more sandbox type, where players have to gather stone from a quarry and build their own forts and such. This gives players a chance to build forts in their own design, and opens up more tactical thinking when creating forts in terms of location and shape. In order to stop people from simply memorizing the most strategic locations, the terrain of the maps would be randomly generated each match.

Forts and such from other teams wouldn’t show up on your map (unless marked by a player), meaning scouting would become important.

In order to facilitate this, matches would go on for longer.

In order to complement these additions, WvW ranks in Scouting and Construction will be added. Scouting gives the player Partial Stealth (not totally invisible, but harder to notice) providing the stay still and out of combat, passive movement speed in WvW only and Map Marking, which allows them to highlight on everyone’s maps where the opposing teams fortifications are, as well as notes as to what they have defending it (weapons, guards, numbers ect), while Construction allows the player to build better forts, as well as portable constructions such as barricades and such.

SPvP

More game modes. To be honest, I’m not much of a SPvPer, so I’ll leave that to people who are.

Quality Control

This team tests all different aspects of game-play to squash bugs and see where it could improve. This would be loaded into the PTR first to get feedback, which the QC team would deliver feedback to the appropriate teams.

For starters, I’d tell them to fix their dungeon mechanics and provide an API for websites to track all sorts of stats (fastest dungeon clears, ect.).