Flameseeker Chronicles: Brace for the flood or get out of the way?

Convention season 2011 is in full swing, and two of the upcoming events got a lot more exciting for Guild Wars 2 fans over the weekend. The Guild Wars 2 crew had a presence at Comic-Con, and as always, Community Manager Regina Buenaobra kept up a steady stream of information on Twitter for those playing along at home.

One of those tweets caught the eye of the fanbase in a big way: "Panel is over! Kristen let the crowd know that Sylvari will be playable at Gamescom & Sylvari week will happen before Gamescom!" GamesCom, of course, is the European game convention and trade fair held in Cologne, Germany from August 18th through the 21st.

The Sylvari race (and its much-talked-about redesign) has been one of the most fascinating aspects of GW2 for those who have been following the game's development for a while. After months of talk, curiosity, and speculation, it looks like we're finally going to get everything we wanted to know in the next few weeks.

The end of a long wait is the hardest part, so follow along after the jump and let's pass the time with some discussion!

As is always the case with this sort of thing, I find myself wondering about ArenaNet's standard method of revealing big information. I've said before that the company walks an extremely fine line with this sort of thing. Keeping significant parts of GW2 -- like the Sylvari redesign -- completely under wraps until it's time for a massive reveal can be a double-edged sword, particularly given the short attention span of the gaming community at large.

Each time it happens I wonder how many people got bored with the wait and wandered off to find a more forthcoming developer. Sure, those of us in the longtime, hardcore fan community will stick around, but let's not kid ourselves that we're going to make GW2 a success all by ourselves. There are millions of potential customers out there who don't have the first clue what a Charr is, let alone why the Sylvari race holds such fascination for the core fans.

I was on vacation all of last week and almost completely out of the loop, but I still managed to hear about the impending Sylvari reveal thanks to readers who sent emails and Twitter messages. It got me thinking about how much a simple tweet resounded through the community. This is what we've been waiting for for nearly a year, and it's technically not even information. It's just the promise of information to come, but it's enough.

However, it might not be enough for those who don't have Guild Wars 2 front and center on their radar. NCsoft seems to have the very sensible goal of spreading the word of GW2 as far and wide as possible, but turning a simple race reveal into a months-long process seems like it would leave casual fans saying: "Okay, the game will have plant people and they're going to look different. Whatever," and not paying much attention beyond that. What a potential waste of so many months of hard work!

Am I way off base? I have no idea -- I'm not a marketing expert by any stretch of the imagination, I'm simply trying to picture this from a casual fan perspective. From that point of view I can easily see how this news wouldn't be very exciting; just the promise that in a month we're going to see something we've known about for ages anyway.

Thousands of people will be attending GamesCom and PAX with "Guild Wars 2" in big bold letters at the top of their to-do lists. However, even more people will be attending with the game somewhere lower down on the list or not on there at all. ArenaNet needs to draw those people in and introduce them (and their wallets) to Tyria, and I'm wondering if the promise of a redesigned and newly-playable race is enough to do it.

On the other hand, all the eggs aren't in the Sylvari basket. We got plenty of new tidbits this week, with WvWvW information and the promise that the final class reveal will be highly controversial high up on the "Hmm, maybe I should check this out" list for potential new customers. Admit it: Anything with the promise of controversy makes it a little more interesting.

All of this goes back to something I've discussed in Flameseeker Chronicles before: ArenaNet's need to keep the established customer base, draw in a completely new customer base, maintain the current game, create a new game, and bridge the gap between the two -- all at the same time is an immense juggling act. And while I think the company does a pretty good job, it's flat out impossible to appeal to all the customers all of the time.

The standard ANet method of reveals appeals more to the most loyal of longtime fans. Going for months on nothing but secrets, and the promise of great things to come is pretty standard, but for those MMO gamers who aren't already invested in the world, it's way too easy to say: "That sounds great. Call me when you have something concrete."

Don't get me wrong, ANet has given us a ton of solid information this spring and summer, and the gameplay demo setup at various events has been well-designed to offer something to both novice and experienced players. The impending Sylvari reveal has a very familiar feel to it, however. Months of promises combined with incredible care not to reveal so much as a hint of information, finished up with a huge information flood in a very short period of time.

Big things are coming for GW2 fans in the next month. It's very exciting, but is it exciting for enough of the fanbase to make it worth it? How many of us are gearing up to absorb every syllable of text and pixel of art, and revel in all the details that the ANet team has been working on? How many will simply find it overwhelming, skim it, and move on -- get out of the way of the flood, so to speak?

I'll be watching for that information with almost as much interest as I will be the Sylvari information itself.