Guild Wars Utopia
|
Hinweis: Diese Seite beinhaltet Informationen über eine Komponente oder eine Funktion von Guild Wars, die entfernt oder ersetzt wurde.
Die Informationen auf dieser Seite finden nicht auf das Spiel, so wie es momentan ist, Anwendung. |
Vorlage:Übersetzungs-Stub Vorlage:Bilder-Stub Guild Wars Utopia ist der Name der verworfenen Kampagne Vier, die später in Eye of the North übernommen wurde. Ihr Veröffentlichung war für April 2007 geplant. Die Community wurde darauf erstmals im April 2006 aufmerksam, als ein Domainname und ein Warenzeichen von Juni 2005 gefunden wurden. Ein NCsoft-Mitarbeiter bezog sich damals darauf als ein "abgebrochenes Projekt", vor der Ankündigung von Eye of the North und Guild Wars 2. Seitdem wurde im PC Gamer Ultimate Guild Wars Guide bestätigt, dass es sich hierbei tatsächlich um Kampagne Vier handelte. Im erwähnten Guide wurden auch einige Informationen veröffentlicht. Weitere Informationen können dem Thread unter this entnommen werden, der mit Concept Art gefüllt ist, darunter auch Artworks aus Utopia.
Produktion und Abbruch
Von der Produktion ist bekannt, dass sie im Mai 2006 "in vollem Gange" war, bis mindestens Mai 2006 fortgesetzt wurde, und im oder vor Januar 2007 abgebrochen wurde. Der folgende Auszug aus der PC Gamer in ihrer Ausgabe von Mai 2007 erklärt, wie Kampagne Vier sich zu Guild Wars 2 ausdehnte.
Zitat von PC Gamer Ausgabe 161, Mai 2007:
“We sat down to discuss what was going to go into Campaign 4 and realised we couldn't do all the things we wanted,” says Game Designer Eric Flannum. “Why? Partly because we'd need more time [than six months], and partly because some ideas wouldn't work well with things we'd done before.”
At that point, there were still no plans to fix a system that didn't seem broken. But ArenaNet Co-Founder Jeff Strain decided to let everyone “freestyle a little bit,” he says. “And the more we talked, the more excited we got about what we could be doing.”
What the team felt it couldn’t do was implement its exciting new ideas in the game’s current campaign-every-six-months plan. While the promise of fresh standalone content twice a year sounds great to players, its requirements have actually caused Guild Wars to become somewhat convoluted from a game-design perspective.
“With each new campaign, we’ve been trying to introduce brand-new mechanics that change how the game plays. That’s led to the need for larger and larger tutorials to explain the new mechanics, and it’s made each campaign’s beginning experience much more bloated,” explains Flannum. “And since every new campaign was aiming to bring in new players – thus requiring bigger and bigger tutorials – plus aiming to give stuff to older players, the list of skills just kept growing.” Each campaign that’s been added to the Guild Wars world – three in total – has added another layer of design that, in the name of making things easier for new players, has actually ended up creating barriers to entry as they try to sort through multiple training areas, increasingly intricate tutorials, and an ever-ballooning list of skills.
“We’re battling against complexity,” Strain adds. “We don’t want to make complicated games. We want to make fun, easy-to-grasp games that are easy to get into and not frontloaded with complexity.”
As the team considered its situation – how to uncomplicate the current campaign model and add new, cool features without making the game any more Byzantine – what began as a brainstorm about Campaign 4 evolved into the blueprint for a completely new game.
“We kept changing the scope of what we were doing, until it became Guild Wars 2,” Flannum says with a shrug and a smile.Danach zu urteilen, dass das Team für die Entwicklung von Eye of the North viel weniger Zeit zur Verfügung hatte als für die anderen Kampagnen, ist es wahrscheinlich, dass Teile von Utopia in Eye of the North übernommen wurden.
Funktionen
Über die Funktionen von Utopia ist nichts bekannt, jedoch trifft man in den Konzeptzeichnungen für die abgebrochene Kampagne Pferde, Riesenkäfer und andere Reittiere sehr häufig an. Wahrscheinlich waren diese eine geplante Funktion, oder ein Teil einer geplanten Klasse für Kampagne Vier, aber aus irgendwelchen Gründen wurden sie nicht implementiert. Reittiere könnten in der Tat eine der "aufregenden neuen Funktionen" sein, die das ArenaNet-Team einbauen wollte, aber nicht konnte, sei es nun aus technischen oder aus zeitlichen Gründen, oder wegen der Tatsache, dass es nicht mit dem zusammengearbeitet hätte, was sie vorher bereits entwickelt hatten.
Klassen
Über Klassen sind keinerlei Details bekannt geworden, jedoch enthält dieses Forum-Posting viele Bilder von etwas, "Chronomancer" genannt, etwas, das traditionell in Fantasyspielen ein Zeitmagier ist. Andere Konzeptzeichnungen, einige davon noch ziemlich neu, und andere, die noch aus der Zeit noch vor Nightfall stammen, zeigen Männer und Frauen mit einer Vielzahl an Waffen, einschließlich Keulen, doppelten Speeren, Wurfspießen, Hellebarden, zweihändigen Schwertern und Doppeläxten. Es ist nicht bekannt, ob sich irgendwelche dieser Bilder auf die andere verworfene Klasse beziehen.
Setting
Vorlage:Section-stub Just as Nightfall had a North African theme, and Factions had an Asian theme, Utopia was to have an Aztec theme. Concept art depicts bustling marketplaces, a giant arena, pyramids, temples, ancient ruins, underground caves, volcanoes, totem poles, bridges (both stone and rope) and massive waterfalls. It's likely that some of this content made it into Eye of the North in the forms of the Tarnished Coast and the Depths of Tyria.
Storyline
As with the professions and features, no information has been released on the storyline for Utopia. However, once again, some inconclusive information can be inferred from concept art. It is dificult to distinguish between the concept art for Utopia ideas, Eye of the North ideas that were scrapped, or Utopia ideas that were implemented into Eye of the North, so looking through the concept art for storyline information leaves much down to interpretation. This section should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the information herein reflects the interpretations of the writer.
Although the PC Gamer articles heavily implies that the plans for Utopia were scrapped and the initial plan for GW2 were started at the same time, there is a possibility that this is not the case, and Utopia, not Eye of the North was intended to be a bridge to GW2. Indeed, it is known that multiple races were intended to be introduced in Utopia, such as the Sidhe (which later became the concept for the Sylvari).
The plot of Utopia seems to have focused on the ruins of some earlier civilization. The Asuran contructs known as golems seem to feature in artwork in multiple different forms. Many depict the golems as - contrary to the existing image of shiny, almost modern constructs - older looking, more statue-like beings. They are also depicted as being a fairly old technology, with one piece of art showing a deactivated golem overgrown with plants and weeds. In any case, it can be assumed that they played a fairly large part in Utopia. It is not known whether their creators, the Asura, were also featured in the game.
Destroyers were also possibly featured in Utopia, albeit not as we know them. Early concept art for "Taneks", "Tanecks" or "Tanneks" (the actual spelling is unknown) feature fleshy, piglike creatures. Later copncept art, also entitled tannek.jpg or something similar features the Destroyers as we know them. It's probable that the name was changed to "Destroyer" sometime after the game was adapted to become Eye of the North (if, indeed, the Destroyers were featured in Utopia) to promote the notion that they were literally mindless creatures. Interestingly, art exists of a sort of hybrid between the old, fleshy Tanneks and the new fiery Destroyers here.
Also featured in artwork are wizards with fiery skulls, with the ability to possess their foes. Nothing more is known about them.
Trivia
- In his palace, Prince Mehtu the Wise tells the player about some artifacts from an ancient civilization recovered at the west coast. It seems to be an intentional allusion to the new continent of Guild Wars Utopia.
- Interestingly, "utopia" is Greek for "no place" or "place that does not exist". It could also be interpreted as "unseen", which, in turn, points to the Mursaat. Janthir also fits the description of a utopian location, by all accounts.
