Guild Wars 2

Dear ANet staff,

The day is almost upon us, the day we’ve been waiting for since January when the Pact invasion force was smashed and we first watched Rytlock walk into the jungle with a bandage tied around his head.

Between then and now you’ve released information and given us some practice forays but soon we’ll be fighting in earnest. Soon our patience will be rewarded.

So my request is this: please please please (multiplied by a thousand) treat your announced release date as an absolute fixed point in time. You still have the rest of this week, a weekend and most of next week to make your final preparations. Call in extra staff, work shifts around the clock, hire masseuse to massage your programmers shoulders when they get stiff. In short, please do whatever it takes to ensure you meet your deadline.

My preparations are complete. I’ve booked 23rd & 26th Oct as annual leave from work. I’ve crafted two new ascended swords and skinned them with Fiery Dragon Sword. I’ve washed my ascended armour in the Mystic Toilet (it came out with new stats and smelling pine fresh). I’ve stockpiled level up tomes and dungeon tokens. I’ve farmed gold like an OCD Leprechaun. I’ve organised guildie party’s ready to fight our way to and then clear out our guild hall. I made a trash char as soon as HoT was announced so I could save the name I want for my Rev. I saved a makeover kit and transmute tokens. I’ve booked pizza deliveries (one every six hours from Friday lunch time). I am ready.

No excuses now ANet, please don’t let us down.

Regards

A loyal (if slightly over eager) fan

TL;DR please don’t miss your release date, lots of us may have made plans based upon your date.

Just make sure the game isn’t a buggy mess at release, you only get once chance to make a first impression. If need be, there can always be an extra Beta Weekend for people who have taken time off from work.

That said, don’t worry (or if you’re a bit more of a cynic, do worry), as I don’t think they will delay their release date.

As far as I remember Anet are pretty good at sticking to their release dates. I wasn’t around for the release of GW1 and didn’t know the date for Factions but from memory everything after that came out on the day they said it would.

I know a lot of people said GW2 was endlessly delayed, but Anet never actually announced a release date until shortly after pre-purchase started, and they stuck to it. All the rumoured release dates before then which were ‘delayed’ or ‘cancelled’ were purely speculation by fans and the media based on how far along they imagined the development was.

I don’t see any reason for HoT to be any different.

Or, you can go do halloween. It’s only around for 2 weeks and HoT will be here all year long.

I’m quite sure the release date will stick.

But as everyone knows:“Never play on patch day.”

I wouldn’t expect to much proper play on the 23rd (plus it’s a weekend) when just about everyone who owns GW2 and the expansion tries to login at once. Also my faith in Halloween and HoT patch being on the same day is very low. Not saying it can’t happen, but let’s be honest, giving it a 20% chance of success is stretching it.

That being said, Anet have been very resilient and fast to adress issues. So I do think we’ll be up an running hours maybe 1-2 days tops post official launch.

I suppose in that sense it’s a good thing that I can’t play on the 23rd. (Or the next 2 days.)

And I’m definitely going to be prioritising Halloween, it’s one of my favourite in-game holidays, and it’s only temporary whereas HoT will still be there when I’m ready for it.

Lagg.3960:

If need be, there can always be an extra Beta Weekend for people who have taken time off from work.

No, that really wouldn’t do a thing for those of us who have been quietly ignoring the beta weekends so we don’t spoil the new content for ourselves or waste our time in nothing really matters land.

aka,

I’ll have lots of pizza. Please, don’t wanna waste them.

Just be glad you are not one of the devs.

Weekend leave: cancelled.
Meal times: cancelled.
Sleep: cancelled.
Toilet breaks: um, ok but take the laptop with you….

I am pretty kitten’ sure no company on this planet wants their product release to go wrong. Your letter is useless.

That being said..this is an MMO an it WILL 100% have issues on day 1…specially lag.

DoctorDing.5890:

Just be glad you are not one of the devs.

Weekend leave: cancelled.
Meal times: cancelled.
Sleep: cancelled.
Toilet breaks: um, ok but take the laptop with you….

Yeah, it’s unfortunate so few know of this. I bet a lot of people would have a very different tone if they knew what stress and workload the industry has shortly before a release.

Let’s hope we can give lots of praise post launch so people can be really proud of themselves. It makes the crunch time all worth it (I hope).

If something goes horribly wrong, the Devs have 23 hours and 59 minutes to fix it and still hit their announced release day mark.

So, there’s that.

I’m sure they will launch on the 23rd, regardless, though.

To be honest I do not think there will be many issues with the game like at the launch of GW2. The HoT part is already in your computer its what people have been downloading for some of the updates. Now it may have to be tweaked a bit before launch but the basics are still there. With the megaserver system which makes it easier to control populations on the maps it should be a cake walk compared to other game expansions.

At least Anet does not shut its servers down every month for so called maintenance, Like that other MMO does. Anet fixes then copy’s the fix to the servers behind the scenes. All we have to do is restart the game and its usually fixed.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If something goes horribly wrong, the Devs have 23 hours and 59 minutes to fix it and still hit their announced release day mark.

So, there’s that.

I’m sure they will launch on the 23rd, regardless, though.

You didn’t count the seconds! That’s 59 seconds more than what you said that they can be fixing bugs and still hit the release date.

They won’t miss the release date, but to expect any release without some patching and fixes is just unrealistic. Every game encounters unexpected issues when releasing new content/xpacs, don’t expect a 100% no issue, bug free with no patching scenario because you’re going to be disappointed.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If something goes horribly wrong, the Devs have 23 hours and 59 minutes to fix it and still hit their announced release day mark.

So, there’s that.

I’m sure they will launch on the 23rd, regardless, though.

You didn’t count the seconds! That’s 59 seconds more than what you said that they can be fixing bugs and still hit the release date.

Actually, it would be one second less that what I said, because at the time I said, it will have turned to the 24th. Lol.

You can push it back a week. My monthly D&D game is that saturday and I fear I will have a nerd implosion due to overstimulation and lack of sleep.

PopeUrban.2578:

You can push it back a week. My monthly D&D game is that saturday and I fear I will have a nerd implosion due to overstimulation and lack of sleep.

The only way that could be more nerdy is if you were using custom modules like ‘Monster Hunter’ as a base.

LUCKILY, I thought ahead. I won’t be taking the 23rd off, as I anticipate anything from server crashes to impressive bugs. I’ll simply come in from work, and attempt to log-in and do my HoT stuff hours after the possible Launch shenanigans.

The whole reason Anet took so long to reveal the release date is so that it was 100% set in stone going to happen on that day. So there’s no reason to worry.

That said, I do take some offense your idea of forcing the devs to work around the clock just so that your own precious plans aren’t “ruined”.

Electro.4173:

The whole reason Anet took so long to reveal the release date is so that it was 100% set in stone going to happen on that day. So there’s no reason to worry.

That said, I do take some offense your idea of forcing the devs to work around the clock just so that your own precious plans aren’t “ruined”.

I think that’s exactly why Anet took so long to reveal the release date. Once they announce it, players will get upset if it gets pushed back. I would not be surprised if they had an earlier potential release date (say, their anniversary) and internally pushed it back. Imagine if they had announced it and then pushed it back.

I suspect that they will do everything they can to release on that date, even if they have to patch stuff in later. Actually, they’ve already announced that they are holding back raids and the other legendaries. (Personally, I’m glad they’re not holding the entire expansion back two weeks for those, though I do hope they get released soon after.)

At the same time, I do work as a programmer (no affiliation with anet), so I do appreciate having to release on a deadline, and I’m more willing than some to cut them some slack in this regard, though I hope it won’t be necessary.