Elder Dragon Vlast for my Gw2 AU. Designed/art by @achromant ! @commander-rox had the idea of Vlast being a Chromatic dragon, to be the opposite side of a coin to Aurene's prismatic magic. I think it was really clever. [SIDENOTE: Achromant I accidentally said desaturated when i meant satured... but it was an easy fix in my art program so dont worry abt it LOL]
It took me forever but I'm very happy with how it came out. I had initially wanted to add the figure of Dwayna departing in the clouds as the sandstorm rolls in, but this piece has taken me two weeks to do so I had to put the pen down and call it.
I'll fully admit im still not done June's Art Party stuff but that WILL NOT STOP ME from posting today's!
I did not get anyone's udernames so if you know who these guys belong to, please shout!
And also, A few doodles of @drakeheart's guys, as they were both also at the party and have been subjects of my vile experiments---
Confirmed Arenanet will be starting development on the next expansion for GW2 next year, but the details won’t be announced or revealed until after the launch of GW3 (they didn't specify whether they meant the beta or the 1.0). The aim is to return to an annual cadence for GW2 like what we’ve seen with SoTO, JW, & VoE
The announcement of GW3 has made an overall positive impact on the population of the game. Since the announcement on Friday they've seen a 40% increase in daily active users. VoE set a record with returning players (accounts with no log-ins for a year or more) and this weekend beat that by almost 2x (Saturday was the single best day for new player acquisition since the Steam launch). So the population is very healthy despite some community concerns about player migration.
The strategy they're embracing moving forward looks to keep that momentum and entice more players to try, remain engaged with, or return to regular activity in GW2 and GW1 with the tiered HoM 2.0 releases, GW2 world polish, and more info about GW3 being provided makes people excited to experience or return to the world.
They spent a while emphasizing that they want player time and investment to be and feel respected bridging between the three games, and are fostering an ecosystem where players are encouraged or inspired to try the different 'versions' of the world to earn those HoM rewards/ explore the unique experiences each game has to offer.
They heard feedback about GWAMM being carried over to GW3; that's not their current objective, but they might review/revisit. In that vein, they also essentially confirmed GW1 HoM won't connect to GW3 like. at all.
HoM 2.0 will ‘feel like the Return To experience’ and release in chronological order, with the core game having 2 releases (one focused on open world, one focused on story) to tackle the sheer volume of core content. Confirmed the living world instalments will also be included, not just the titled expacs. HoM 2.0 will grant rewardss in both GW2 and GW3.
Insisted that they have not and will not move devs off of GW2 to GW3 during these 18 months of 'down time' before the beta launch next fall to dispel concerns about gutting GW2's team/ resources. Each game has a dedicated team, they don’t share people or resources.
In talking about the new WVW BL, they touched on where they failed in the release of desert BL back in HoT. The internal approach was ‘what's best for gliding’ instead of ‘what's best for WvW’ and they're acknowledging that wasn't the correct approach. They've taken years of feedback to heart while developing their new map: they didn’t work alongside the community during devlopment of desert BL and they learned their lesson there (will be taking cues from the PvP push mode beta and feedback gained throughout that moving forward). Eg. They want to run betas for the new map for around a year on the live server and not just the private test realms to get broader community feedback and data.
Chatted a bit about the technical challenge of modernizing/optimizing the engine as the game has aged and touched on the coming PBR (physically based rendering), community voiced performance concerns (client performance like frame rate in large scale populated areas, server performance like skill latency) etc. that they want to address in these polish updates and future development. For example, they mentioned added granular settings for individual optimization, so more settings client side for your rig, and making info like event/boss timers and other stuff more intuitively accessible in game instead of through the /wiki commands.
‘You don't make investments in technology at this scale unless you are committed to supporting those investments long term.' Reaffirmed their commitment to developing all three games. All three will be updated with a zippered/staggered approach; a ‘lull’ in one game will be a leapfrog for an update in another, meaning there's always content in the world of Guild Wars.
GW2 will not be coming to mobile or console; the 3 games are meant to occupy different niches, and they've built them intentionally in that way. in order to do a game really well on console, you have to build it from the ground up with those gameplay and tech considerations in mind. doesn't make sense for GW2 to be placed anywhere other than PC ('Players managing gw2 inventory with a controller seems like a cruel punishment' lol).
The GW3 timeline is intensely focused on high fantasy with little to no technological advances in the world given it's so far in the past, with the intent that seeing how the magitech and jade tech etc. evolve in GW2 and feeling that distance between the setting of GW2 and GW3 is tangible and impactful (and also letting each game fully embrace it’s own unique storylines and themes).
Acknowledged that they've been a bit silent the last few months leading up to the announcement of gw3, but they want to return to more regular dev updates/roadmaps/ communication with the community now that the secret is out and they have more space to speak freely about the schedule/plan moving forward.
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