![]() ![]() 161, May 2007 formally announced that 'campaign four' (as it was publicly known) had been cancelled and would be repurposed into the first Guild Wars expansion Guild Wars Eye of the North, which would lead in to Guild Wars 2. An NCsoft employee referred to it as a "cancelled project" at the time. The existence of Utopia first came to the attention of the community in December 2006, when a domain name and a trademark from June 2006 were found. At the time, ArenaNet intended to release a new standalone Guild Wars campaign once every six months, which would have put the release date for Utopia at around April 2007. Production for Utopia was "well underway" in October 2006 and cancelled in "early 2007". Among the most recognizable elements depicted in the concept art are architecture from Mitla, El Tajín, and Chichen Itza reoccurring Xicalcoliuhqui motifs, codex art, statues from Tula, an Olmec colossal head, Mayan stone carvings and script, a Teotihuacano-style feathered serpent, and Inca stonework. Just as Elona has an African theme, and Cantha has an Asian theme, Xotecha was to have a Mesoamerican aesthetic, with occasional elements from South America. Joe Kimmes later said that the line about the playground of the gods "doesn't sound accurate". Utopia concept art also features Saul D'Alessio and Lady Glaive's corsairs. It would also feature characters from across the timeline, and both Gwen and Mordakai, Devona's father, were to be main characters. According to Linsey Murdock, Xotecha was a sort of home or playground of the Gods of Tyria, and was to feature an expanded pantheon of the gods, such as Dwayna's father. Utopia was to be set in Xotecha, not a continent in the world of Tyria (as with the other campaigns), but an island of reality in the Mists, the multiverse of the Guild Wars setting. Joe Kimmes, Utopia classes - Guild Wars 2 Forums Both classes tied into some of the themes for Utopia (time, beings lost in the Mists) but I'm not familiar enough with the design to elaborate there. Unfortunately I don't know much about the class lore or if any other classes were considered. So, you might start warming up a 4 second spell but then use a second skill before it activated to modify its effect. ![]() There was an iteration of Summoner that would have been about quickly cycling their summoned creatures - compared to Necromancers who try to keep their minion flock going, Summoners would be using up or combining their summons to bring out stronger or alternate versions to suit the situation.Ī gimmick for Chronomancer that made it to prototype was that they would have very long cast time spells, but instant casts that affected a spell while it was casting. I remember a little about this, but most of it was only in very early prototyping so please take this with a grain of salt! None of the content for Utopia ever reached a true playable state, so this is very much my speculation from early designs that were sent to content programming for feedback. In the interest of offering more variety with an efficient use of existing models, ArenaNet played around with the idea of texture alternatives. Mike Zadorojny, Utopia brainstorming that lead to GW2 - Guild Wars 2 Forums Ultimately it wasn't a single idea that pushed us over, but enough things popped up that we decided our efforts would be better spent moving our designs into a new game. I know the engine programmers were also trying to push the boundaries on the quality of assets we were creating, but I don't remember the specifics there. Like Joe mentioned some of the foundational code work was built around instances being the core PvE content and as we started to try to break that mold the tech hurdles started becoming larger. I think the big turning point came when we essentially created a prototype for something like Shaemoor, that was a persistent map that had 50+ people running (and jumping) around. It got to the point where we started to ask questions about things fundamentally associated with Guild Wars as a whole. While we were building out the story and associated characters, we started playing with the in-game tech more and more. ![]() Which group of people did you choose to provide assistence to? ( Did you focus your efforts on the hospital or the orphanage?) Imagine a story line that branched every couple of weeks/months based on the total number of completions of one set of quests vs another. The core feature that Utopia was being built around was giving players choices through the form of quests and having consequences for the collective choices made by the community.
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