Guild Wars 2

My body is ready for expansion 2.
Want new areas, new ideas, new raid challenges etc.
Willing to pay any price.

As long as it happens this year I am happy. Expansion 2 at the soonest next year would be… risky.

I suppose there’s the hope that they’re busy polishing expac 2 before announcing it, but I kinda doubt that.

Look back to 2015. We had the announcement at PAX around February (?) that Heart of Thorns was coming. We then got the release date of late October. The footage we saw ended up being quite different to what we got, so I suppose it’s safe to assume that it was still heavily under development at announcement.

And then people complained that the expansion was full of bugs and didn’t offer the content that it said it would- at least not immediately.

I think asking for one by the end of this year is a little optimistic- unless, like I said, they announce an almost finalised product.

So…. would you rather wait for a complete expansion, or get an unfinished one “soon”? :P

It hasn’t even been announced yet. So we’re probably getting the announcement with the final episode of LS3 again, somewhere around autumn.

Then it’s a year or more until the xpack comes out, because as Crimson said they had too much negative feedback over the polish.

So either late 2018, or early 2019.

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

I’m sure Mike O said they wanted to have a smaller window between the announcement of the expansion and release this time, so what happened before may not be much of a barometer. In theory it could be announced in June and still come out before the end of the year.

I suspect they announced HoT relatively early because they knew they were going to have to drop work on the Living Story to complete it and they wanted to justify the lack of new releases in advance.

My other MMO did it the other way around – for about 6 months they only released a few bits and pieces – 2 new dungeons and some updates for the base game – then they announced that was because they’d been working on an expansion and it’d be coming out in 4 months.

I’m not sure which is better honestly. Both seemed to have the same result – people were angry or disappointed in the lack of other releases and having to pay extra for what they had been working on but otherwise pleased with the prospect of an expansion and many people were firmly of the opinion that they could easily have managed to keep up their previous release schedule whilst also producing the expansion, either because they were certain the existing staff were capable of doing both or because they were certain the company could afford to hire more staff. (In spite of both being privately owned companies who do not publish details on their profits, numbers of staff or any of the other info required to make that decision.)

I suspect that’s what Anet are aiming to avoid this time. My guess is they were in a better position to plan this time, having had experience with the Living Story > Expansion > Living Story cycle so they’re aiming to have much less of a delay between the end of the living story and the start of the expansion and so don’t need to announce it as early.

It’s also possible that Season 3 is going to lead directly into the next expansion (like S2 did with HoT) so announcing it too early might give away some details we’re supposed to find out during the story.

Even if it’s stuff some players have already guessed or they’ve hinted at – like fighting both Jormag and Primordus at the same time – I’m sure they’ll still want to ‘reveal’ it properly through the story before they tell us out-right.

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

ProtoGunner.4953:

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

Generalize much?

“People” want different things. Different players, different expactaitions.
Im perfectly fine with the speed we are getting new things.
New maps, new and revamped fractals, new raids, new story stuff, new pvp seasons, new legendaries, etc.

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

It’s better if they give us a finished product, instead of some betatest version. Unfortunately, for this we’ll have to wait.

OniGiri.9461:

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

Actually, the “new stuff” in gw2 is mostly new in GW2, while at the same time trying to make this game into somethivg more alike to those “plenty of other games”.

I hope that this time around Anet will not repeat the HoT mistakes, and will concentrate mostly on GW2’s strong sides, instead of trying to please some small minorities at the expense of core players.

OniGiri.9461:

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

That is indeed good, but I wish that just once they’d stick around and then polish up the systems which worked, instead of promptly throwing 10 more things against a wall to see what sticks.

Development by accretion is doable, but feels insanely messy in a long-lived game such as an MMO because the game ends up with hundreds of separate systems and components.

Quick, list me how many different ways to acquire which type of ascended armor exists! It ought to be a quick list, but it’s everywhere. Because no one ever went back and re-streamlined the slowly aggregating bits and pieces.

OniGiri.9461:

ProtoGunner.4953:

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

Generalize much?

“People” want different things. Different players, different expactaitions.
Im perfectly fine with the speed we are getting new things.
New maps, new and revamped fractals, new raids, new story stuff, new pvp seasons, new legendaries, etc.

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

I know, I know. GW2 people tend to be very patient. I assume it’s part conditioning part ‘you have to get along with it’. But imagine the standard MMO player back in the days and you release an expansion with only 3.5 maps and not a single dungeon. The people I talked with wished much more. So to speak, no I don’t speak for the general GW2 community, but at least with those who played with me GW2 and GW1 the past 10 years.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s better if they give us a finished product, instead of some betatest version. Unfortunately, for this we’ll have to wait.

OniGiri.9461:

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

Actually, the “new stuff” in gw2 is mostly new in GW2, while at the same time trying to make this game into somethivg more alike to those “plenty of other games”.

I hope that this time around Anet will not repeat the HoT mistakes, and will concentrate mostly on GW2’s strong sides, instead of trying to please some small minorities at the expense of core players.

Since i am a core player – what are you talking about? please don’t say raids…. please

Carighan.6758:

OniGiri.9461:

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

That is indeed good, but I wish that just once they’d stick around and then polish up the systems which worked, instead of promptly throwing 10 more things against a wall to see what sticks.

Development by accretion is doable, but feels insanely messy in a long-lived game such as an MMO because the game ends up with hundreds of separate systems and components.

Quick, list me how many different ways to acquire which type of ascended armor exists! It ought to be a quick list, but it’s everywhere. Because no one ever went back and re-streamlined the slowly aggregating bits and pieces.

I agree its hard to keep track of some things. But isn’t it also good to have many different sources for one “thing”?

ProtoGunner.4953:

I know, I know. GW2 people tend to be very patient. I assume it’s part conditioning part ‘you have to get along with it’. But imagine the standard MMO player back in the days and you release an expansion with only 3.5 maps and not a single dungeon. The people I talked with wished much more. So to speak, no I don’t speak for the general GW2 community, but at least with those who played with me GW2 and GW1 the past 10 years.

I can’t speak for the complete player base but i excert as much as i can from a game. I have been actively playing almost every day since i bought the expansion (two months after it came out) and still have a lot of stuff to do. Also LS3 is spitting out new maps every few months. Also raiding keeps me pretty busy. Oh yeah and i’m also working on Ascension.

I have plenty to do

Carighan.6758:

It hasn’t even been announced yet. So we’re probably getting the announcement with the final episode of LS3 again, somewhere around autumn.

Then it’s a year or more until the xpack comes out, because as Crimson said they had too much negative feedback over the polish.

So either late 2018, or early 2019.

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

They’re not going to have another 9 month content drought before the second expansion is released. The game won’t survive that, they know this, that’s why we’re being LS releases every two or three months now. If imagine that the expansion will be 3 -4 months after the end of the LS and the next LS will start about 6 months after the expansion launches.

The way HoT was handled with the drought in the run up to the release and the drought afterwards as they fixed the borked reward schemes they must added almost killed the game, IMO.

HoT isnt too good of a benchmark. It clearly wasnt properly planned in the pipeline back then. There was also a lot of confusion on what exactly anet was trying to prioritize as well as shifting content model – which means resources werent optimally placed.

With this expansion, they are clearly more prepared. Im expecting announcement to come with episode 6, which should be released around late july or august. Then they would have time to build hype for release round the end of year. seems all reasonable tome. unless, of course, something major happens.

It is being released june 6.

oh wait that’s the other mmo…

Carighan.6758:

It hasn’t even been announced yet. So we’re probably getting the announcement with the final episode of LS3 again, somewhere around autumn.

Then it’s a year or more until the xpack comes out, because as Crimson said they had too much negative feedback over the polish.

So either late 2018, or early 2019.

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

This could be a reason why they delay the announcement, not the release. So announcement in early Summer, release end of the year seems reasonable when they’re polishing XPAC 2 right now and have figured out what are the features and the content.

Late 2018 or even 2019 (both are highly unrealistic in my opinion because it’s too late, even early 2018 would be late) would kill the game rather than having another semi-finished XPAC this year. At least we’ll have something in that scenario.

ProtoGunner.4953:

OniGiri.9461:

ProtoGunner.4953:

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

Generalize much?

“People” want different things. Different players, different expactaitions.
Im perfectly fine with the speed we are getting new things.
New maps, new and revamped fractals, new raids, new story stuff, new pvp seasons, new legendaries, etc.

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

I know, I know. GW2 people tend to be very patient. I assume it’s part conditioning part ‘you have to get along with it’. But imagine the standard MMO player back in the days and you release an expansion with only 3.5 maps and not a single dungeon. The people I talked with wished much more. So to speak, no I don’t speak for the general GW2 community, but at least with those who played with me GW2 and GW1 the past 10 years.

And yet this is the sentiment I came to this game to get away from. I don’t care if they EVER introduce another dungeon.

In most games you burn through the new zones, go quest hub to quest hub, get everything done and never return to that zone. This game is a very different animal.

I can’t compare VB or TD or DS for that matter to any expansion zone in any game I’ve played, ever. I got far more replayability out of those zones.

The number of zones is not as important to me as the complexity of the zones.

I think I’d be happiest if they never add another expansion.

xpac 2 = tengu?

As long as they don’t stop everything else for months to get the expac2 working, I’m game whenever they say.

All I ask is for the next elite specs to be better balanced and more thoroughly integrated with the rest of the gameworld: proper lore for each, usefull in all modes, interesting and original to play, not so OP and not so locked into itselves. PLEASE NO MORE RUSHED LAST HOUR DEVELOPMENT FOR ENGIE! Please, not another Scrapper situation.

My guess is that this LS will be shorter since it has had waaaaaaaaaaay more content packed in one episode and when I say shorter I guess it will be 5 or 6 episodes and only 5 will get a new map from Ascalon continent.

Edit: Part of my guess is that the next expan will come out 2-3 months after the last episode.

But to be honest, I am happy with the current dynamic. Great content each 2-3 months is AWESOME! And some day (when it is truly ready) we will get an expansion. I have high hopes, and we as user should let ANET know the direction we want with our wallet (even if it sounds bad), soooo if you prefer Episodes each 2-3 months, buy 5-10 dollars in gem and if you prefer an expansion… wait and buy.

I for one don’t care as long as I get good content and this game is worth every penny (Even HoT).

ANET, just keep doing an awesome job as you have been in this LS and apply that to the next expan whenever it comes out.

I hate to be that guy tho but since open discussion how they did things I preordered deluxe so beta and all I preordered hot the what $100+ both times and it’s kinda sad they didnt really do anything to compensate for changing things to free I know its an kitten thing and I’m being “entitled” but please look out for the players that we get the higher cost things for really collectibles or UNIQUE skins etc something to set us apart it doesnt have to game break or give us an edge I just want to be classy and one of a kind. Seems more is done for the people who cheat and I’m completely serious they do and get whatever they want get super far ahead and scam others but the honest players that might work 2-3 weeks at a time before being able to play again get nothing which is why I throw my wallet at everything with a higher price tag so when I’m the loser of the group I still got something they cant get.

Vayne.8563:

And yet this is the sentiment I came to this game to get away from. I don’t care if they EVER introduce another dungeon.

In most games you burn through the new zones, go quest hub to quest hub, get everything done and never return to that zone. This game is a very different animal.

I can’t compare VB or TD or DS for that matter to any expansion zone in any game I’ve played, ever. I got far more replayability out of those zones.

The number of zones is not as important to me as the complexity of the zones.

I agree. Although, if I could have had twice as many HoT maps of that quality and level of complexity, I would have been even more pleased with the expansion!

Carighan.6758:

Then it’s a year or more until the xpack comes out, because as Crimson said they had too much negative feedback over the polish.

When they announce is completely unrelated to the development process. Later announcements doesn’t mean that they have to do less polish.

They been much more conservative post-HoT with early announcements. (look at LS3 episodes being announced the week they drop) I would not be surprised if expac2 is announced much closer to it’s release than HoT was.

Also even if they are following the HoT announcement timetable, they are not yet behind if they are going for a Christmas season release.

Carighan.6758:

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

I think you mean “RIP and goodbye ANet.” As NCSoft/Nexon pulls all their funding to funnel into another game like they’ve done with many other promising games their meddling and dishonest business practices have utterly tanked.

Conncept.7638:

Carighan.6758:

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

I think you mean “RIP and goodbye ANet.” As NCSoft/Nexon pulls all their funding to funnel into another game like they’ve done with many other promising games their meddling and dishonest business practices have utterly tanked.

Since GW2 is still pulling in 6 times the quarterly income City of Heroes did before the plug was pulled and Wildstar is still alive with income hovering around end of CoH levels, GW2 is going nowhere yet.

Also Nexon sold all their NCSOFT stock at a loss before HoT dropped when the take over attempt of the Board of Directors failed. Find a new strawman.

Back to the subject at hand, I too believe there will be a much shorter hype train between announcement and shipping of the next expansion, on the order of 4-6 months during they will still be dropping content in game. I say dropping after next lunar new year event and the last living story dropping after Halloween so very little content drought.

Conncept.7638:

Carighan.6758:

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

I think you mean “RIP and goodbye ANet.” As NCSoft/Nexon pulls all their funding to funnel into another game like they’ve done with many other promising games their meddling and dishonest business practices have utterly tanked.

Nexon doesn’t have a controlling interest in NcSoft and has no control at all over what happens to Guild Wars 2. Just saying.

Trying to be realistic, I really don’t expect the next expansion to come out at least until fall 2018. Anet’s team was cut in two with half of them working on the next expansion. Although there are people working on raids, fractals, and legendaries besides the living world episodes, they mentioned that the amount of people working on these parts is quite small compared to the number working on living world. Additionally, we can’t forget that they pulled people from the expansion that one patch to fix many aspects in the HoT expansion. I also think it is a good guess living story 3 is leading to the next expansion beings that is what happened last time. There was 8 episodes in living story 2. I expect living story 3 to have around the same amount of episodes. Yes, they are a little longer. However, they probably planned it out this way so that they had the time they needed to work on the next expansion (At least that is the way I would have done it). After all, they really can’t miss the mark with the next expansion. The expansion team is working on other things too besides maps. For example, I would be severely disappointed if all the maps were like the ones in the living story and didn’t have any meta events. I would also be disappointed if they only had one mastery per map. Additionally, they have the next elite specs to work on and much, much more. All of this is telling me that I don’t expect Anet to finish maps in the next expansion any faster than living story 3. In fact, I expect it to be slower. My guess is that 8 living world episodes would give them close to the time needed to make 6 maps or so for the next expansion (which I’m sure is close to the bottom line of maps expected based on the reactions to the first expansion.) If there is a 3 month gap between living world episodes and an additional 3 month gap between the last episode and the expansion, that would place the expansion at around August 2018. If they added one more episode or if the gaps were slightly longer than 3 months, that would put the expansion at around the same time HoT came out, right in time for Christmas, a very good time to release an expansion. IMO we also have to look at the HoT legendaries. Although they certainly could release HoT legendaries after expansion 2 comes out, it definitely doesn’t look good to release a second expansion before all parts promised in the first expansion were released. It is also not very fair to players who want those legendaries as those weapons require HoT play and those maps would certainly attract less people after a second expansion was released. Anet still has 9 more legendaries to release (they only released 7 so far). If they continued to release one per 3 months of so like they have been doing, it would take a whopping 27 months, or 2 years and 3 months, before they release all the legendaries. Now, do I expect this to happen? Of course not. However, it really wouldn’t surprise me if they had around 8 episodes that allowed time for 4 more legendaries to be released. At this time they would have 5 more left. Perhaps with the gap between the last living world episode and the expansion they could then pull enough people together to finish the last 5. All of these are reasons why I don’t expect the next expansion to come out until next fall, which I am honestly happy with as long as it beats out HoT in content and is polished.

Not yet! Patience!

Considering the rushed release of HoT, let ANet take as long as it will with the next expansion to get it right.

Nyel.1843:

As long as it happens this year I am happy. Expansion 2 at the soonest next year would be… risky.

Why? This year the competition is gonna be really tough with both ff14 and eso releasing theirs and i dought gw2 can take on them both. Tbh i prefer having this lw season have like what? 8 to 10 episodes then the expansion to make sure they have the time they need.That way we get a quality product that brings the lvl of detail and quality this game has shown to be able to pull off.

ProtoGunner.4953:

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

correction, how blizard did things

Astralporing.1957:

It’s better if they give us a finished product, instead of some betatest version. Unfortunately, for this we’ll have to wait.

OniGiri.9461:

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

Actually, the “new stuff” in gw2 is mostly new in GW2, while at the same time trying to make this game into somethivg more alike to those “plenty of other games”.

I hope that this time around Anet will not repeat the HoT mistakes, and will concentrate mostly on GW2’s strong sides, instead of trying to please some small minorities at the expense of core players.

I take you refering to raids. I suppose yes raids exist in other games but in general hot was prett diff from what other games have. Maps with metas that effects the entire map, elite specs that change the playstile of the base class drastically, A mastery system for max lvl progression ( this is rather unique since other mmos tent to just raise the lvl cap) And then post release content such as lw season wich in it of it self is pretty unique to gw2.

ProtoGunner.4953:

OniGiri.9461:

ProtoGunner.4953:

FF14: ARR came out a year later and releases a 2nd expansion this summer…

Just to make people feel how extremely slow anet is. I lost motivation after a couple of months after HoT and I don’t bother to log in anymore because I am so bored (and some great games coming out the past months).

They need to learn that a steady stream of content is needed to keep players coming online. Why they only think they have to reinvent the wheel with new ‘concepts’ etc. is beyond my comprehension. People just want cool and meaty content like dungeons (non-gimmicky like Aetherpath). They just need to gaze upon their ex-company Blizzard to know how you do things.

Generalize much?

“People” want different things. Different players, different expactaitions.
Im perfectly fine with the speed we are getting new things.
New maps, new and revamped fractals, new raids, new story stuff, new pvp seasons, new legendaries, etc.

Im glad they try out new stuff. If i wanted the same ol’ same ol’ – there are plenty of other games that deliever that.

I know, I know. GW2 people tend to be very patient. I assume it’s part conditioning part ‘you have to get along with it’. But imagine the standard MMO player back in the days and you release an expansion with only 3.5 maps and not a single dungeon. The people I talked with wished much more. So to speak, no I don’t speak for the general GW2 community, but at least with those who played with me GW2 and GW1 the past 10 years.

well 4 maps and yes the no dungeons release was aa bummer i would like at least 2 new dungeons to tell more specific story bits in the expac but they sort of abandoned the old dungeons. Well that doesnt mean new ones cant be made tho and i hope we will get to see some. But, pls bear in mind anet is by no means blizzard the can do so much with what they got.

Pifil.5193:

Carighan.6758:

It hasn’t even been announced yet. So we’re probably getting the announcement with the final episode of LS3 again, somewhere around autumn.

Then it’s a year or more until the xpack comes out, because as Crimson said they had too much negative feedback over the polish.

So either late 2018, or early 2019.

Or, more likely, RIP and in GW3.

They’re not going to have another 9 month content drought before the second expansion is released. The game won’t survive that, they know this, that’s why we’re being LS releases every two or three months now. If imagine that the expansion will be 3 -4 months after the end of the LS and the next LS will start about 6 months after the expansion launches.

The way HoT was handled with the drought in the run up to the release and the drought afterwards as they fixed the borked reward schemes they must added almost killed the game, IMO.

yeah honestly good job by some teams for turning that around.

Hmm, I believe it will happen by the end of the LS like before maybe? One thing I do know and suspect… Is that when it come to expansion I see 2 in the future:

1) New Race: Tengu and a new FULL Tyria Size Map in the SKIES, facing one of the Elder Dragons… Im guessing a Flying Mastery would be needed, maybe they will find an excuse to give us a combat mount machine or beast to fly? Hmmm I guess if there are enough currents the gliders could keep us on air… and less resources to spend on it… we have to see.

2) New Race: Largos and a new FULL Tyria Size Map in the Deep scary Oceans…to face mister bubbles… Fast Swimming and using the ocean’s deep currents would be the Mastery I think. I guess since Largos already have their racial Ocean Swimming wings… Im guessing the mastery would help to even the odds in deep underwater combat.

Im just guessing but it seems to me it’s the only thing missing since GW2 pretty much covers everything with HoT. Im so addicted to it and I have not dive into the Raid stuff!

am I the only one who feels like they have only like 5 people working on this game. The smallest of updates seem to take forever for them and new content just sorta seems weak all the time. I really hope the new expac makes me feel more confident about their ability to get kitten done.

Ngeluz.4860:

Hmm, I believe it will happen by the end of the LS like before maybe? One thing I do know and suspect… Is that when it come to expansion I see 2 in the future:

1) New Race: Tengu and a new FULL Tyria Size Map in the SKIES, facing one of the Elder Dragons… Im guessing a Flying Mastery would be needed, maybe they will find an excuse to give us a combat mount machine or best to fly? Hmmm I guess if there are enough currents the gliders could keep us on air… and less resources to spend on it… we have to see.

2) New Race: Largos and a new FULL Tyria Size Map in the Deep scary Oceans…to face mister bubbles… Fast Swimming and using the ocean’s deep currents would be the Mastery I think. I guess since Largos already have their racial Ocean Swimming wings… Im guessing the mastery would help to even the odds in deep underwater combat.

Im just guessing but it seems to me it’s the only thing missing since GW2 pretty much covers everything with HoT. Im so addicted to it and I have not dive into the Raid stuff!

They woul rather dry the oceans of the planet tyria rather than give us underwater maps cozzz “NOOOO one of our game’s feature isnt as polished we better delete everything that has to do with it from the game” sigh

Another Idea GW2 team could try is to do a non-essential LS Size mini expansion or Packs… These would just add deep personal story to your Character… the story just talks about you…

Example: Your a human, lowlife, necro who chose Grenth as your deity and you are from the Order of whisper… The expansion just expands on that… nothing else… A Story of how and why you became a Reaper (maybe face Zaithan in a new fight flying with your glider and showing who is the true master of Shadow and death?), how much you suffered as a street rat… Unlock your connection with one of the Six and where they been… The Order of Whispers sends you on an important mission only meant for you…etc etc… Each story is affected by your initial choices as you started a new character… and just tell about you in depth. Rewards can be from changing the colors of your powers to semi-legendary and cosmetic skins, a few goodies…well, you get the idea…

and it be at reasonable low prices since its not a full blown Expansion… you don’t need it to play the full game and anything going on but its a nice extra if you like to have it or have a bit of extra?

TheJokester.4672:

I hate to be that guy tho but since open discussion how they did things I preordered deluxe so beta and all I preordered hot the what $100+ both times and it’s kinda sad they didnt really do anything to compensate for changing things to free I know its an kitten thing and I’m being “entitled” but please look out for the players that we get the higher cost things for really collectibles or UNIQUE skins etc something to set us apart it doesnt have to game break or give us an edge I just want to be classy and one of a kind. Seems more is done for the people who cheat and I’m completely serious they do and get whatever they want get super far ahead and scam others but the honest players that might work 2-3 weeks at a time before being able to play again get nothing which is why I throw my wallet at everything with a higher price tag so when I’m the loser of the group I still got something they cant get.

You should have the Royal Guard outfit for being a purchaser of the core game before Free-To-Play. Heart of Thorns preorder came with the “Maguuma Trailblazer” title.

zealex.9410:

Nyel.1843:

As long as it happens this year I am happy. Expansion 2 at the soonest next year would be… risky.

Why? This year the competition is gonna be really tough with both ff14 and eso releasing theirs and i dought gw2 can take on them both. Tbh i prefer having this lw season have like what? 8 to 10 episodes then the expansion to make sure they have the time they need.That way we get a quality product that brings the lvl of detail and quality this game has shown to be able to pull off.

FF14 and ESO release their expansions in June. So it would be smart to release the GW2 expansion in September / October / November when most players are already done with the other two expansions (Stormblood will have massive content but Morrowind is pretty small compared to other MMORPG expansions). To release an expansion 4-5 months after the competitors did is pretty smart because in that time frame won’t be any bigger game expansion for the next 6-12 months.

Battling in late 2018 with WoWs next expansion seems to be much harder than battling with half a year old FF14/ESO expansions.

Nyel.1843:

zealex.9410:

Nyel.1843:

As long as it happens this year I am happy. Expansion 2 at the soonest next year would be… risky.

Why? This year the competition is gonna be really tough with both ff14 and eso releasing theirs and i dought gw2 can take on them both. Tbh i prefer having this lw season have like what? 8 to 10 episodes then the expansion to make sure they have the time they need.That way we get a quality product that brings the lvl of detail and quality this game has shown to be able to pull off.

FF14 and ESO release their expansions in June. So it would be smart to release the GW2 expansion in September / October / November when most players are already done with the other two expansions (Stormblood will have massive content but Morrowind is pretty small compared to other MMORPG expansions). To release an expansion 4-5 months after the competitors did is pretty smart because in that time frame won’t be any bigger game expansion for the next 6-12 months.

Battling in late 2018 with WoWs next expansion seems to be much harder than battling with half a year old FF14/ESO expansions.

So much this. It’s one of the reasons I expect the expansion this year.

OniGiri.9461:

I agree its hard to keep track of some things. But isn’t it also good to have many different sources for one “thing”?

Hrm, not necessarily.

I mean in theory it can be positive, gives a lot of choices how you want to spend your time. Though honestly if I were to think down that path I’d come back to the argument that Ascended items being “better” wasn’t a good idea to begin with and they should have differentiated themselves only through the infusion slots and nothing else.

But ignoring that part for a second, the downside of having many ways to do X is that it’s very confusing what you are supposed to do if you want X. More so because not all of the ways were implemented around the same time or even given the same attention.

Meaning that if I want an Ascended Weapon, I might end up doing something which is woefully ineffective, never knowing that methods A and B, instead of C which I am doing, are far more effective, one because it was implemented later in a more well-defined environment, one because it is outdated and was never fixed up to work the way it was intended to and I can buy oversupplied mats (hypothetical example).

The dev-workload keeps increasing. If they ever want to make, say, Ascended items 10% more difficult to get, wow do they have a lot of things to do. And that’s just ascended items, they have this problem for virtually anything in the game.

There’s usually two ways to “fix” the mess which results from it:

• Can just keep the acquisition/gameplay types for each result very small. This obviously fixes it (say, Ascended is crafted and that’s it, no exceptions), but as you said there are upsides to having multiple ways of getting things.
• Alternatively, can “clean up” the old ways. Say Ascended gear in PvE is acquired either by crafting or by zone currency or by FotM drops, then the former two can be upgraded every so often, removing the old recipes and vendors in favor of the newer ones (with either a significant delay or a way to exchange the zone currencies for example). Especially for vendor-bought items this makes sense as the new zones feel very throwaway and tend to not last all that long.

Of course, this is more of a fine-tuning element when looking at just one specific thing: Ascended gear.
But this problem affects virtually everything. There’s sooooo many attempted design ideas lying around, and nothing is ever polished or cleaned up, leading to this ever-growing mountain of abandoned elements. It’s a bit like how zones get outdated in other MMOs as the level cap increases, only we have it for design components. :<

Ngeluz.4860:

Another Idea GW2 team could try is to do a non-essential LS Size mini expansion or Packs… These would just add deep personal story to your Character… the story just talks about you…

Example: Your a human, lowlife, necro who chose Grenth as your deity and you are from the Order of whisper… The expansion just expands on that… nothing else… A Story of how and why you became a Reaper (maybe face Zaithan in a new fight flying with your glider and showing who is the true master of Shadow and death?), how much you suffered as a street rat… Unlock your connection with one of the Six and where they been… The Order of Whispers sends you on an important mission only meant for you…etc etc… Each story is affected by your initial choices as you started a new character… and just tell about you in depth. Rewards can be from changing the colors of your powers to semi-legendary and cosmetic skins, a few goodies…well, you get the idea…

and it be at reasonable low prices since its not a full blown Expansion… you don’t need it to play the full game and anything going on but its a nice extra if you like to have it or have a bit of extra?

Let’s see… Just for Humans that would be 3 x (where you came from) x 5 (God of choice) x 9 (Profession) = 135 different stories. Just for one Race. (Not counting if there was one for base Profession and one for Elite Specialization (Profession). I doubt we would see anything like that unless we waited years. And years.

Oh! That’s not even including choosing an Order. Ok, 135 × 3 = 405. I can’t see them doing that many paths/arc/branches in a story. Especially at a low, reasonable price.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ngeluz.4860:

Another Idea GW2 team could try is to do a non-essential LS Size mini expansion or Packs… These would just add deep personal story to your Character… the story just talks about you…

Example: Your a human, lowlife, necro who chose Grenth as your deity and you are from the Order of whisper… The expansion just expands on that… nothing else… A Story of how and why you became a Reaper (maybe face Zaithan in a new fight flying with your glider and showing who is the true master of Shadow and death?), how much you suffered as a street rat… Unlock your connection with one of the Six and where they been… The Order of Whispers sends you on an important mission only meant for you…etc etc… Each story is affected by your initial choices as you started a new character… and just tell about you in depth. Rewards can be from changing the colors of your powers to semi-legendary and cosmetic skins, a few goodies…well, you get the idea…

and it be at reasonable low prices since its not a full blown Expansion… you don’t need it to play the full game and anything going on but its a nice extra if you like to have it or have a bit of extra?

Let’s see… Just for Humans that would be 3 x (where you came from) x 5 (God of choice) x 9 (Profession) = 135 different stories. Just for one Race. (Not counting if there was one for base Profession and one for Elite Specialization (Profession). I doubt we would see anything like that unless we waited years. And years.

Oh! That’s not even including choosing an Order. Ok, 135 × 3 = 405. I can’t see them doing that many paths/arc/branches in a story. Especially at a low, reasonable price.

And Humans are the most boring of the options, anyway.

No please not another expansion. Game balance is kittened as it is. Another expansion is just asking for chaos.

Fix what’s here, then do the cash thing.

Ithilwen.1529:

Fix what’s here, then […]

Accretion-based development doesn’t work like that, sadly. You never fix, instead you throw another superseding idea at it.

Ithilwen.1529:

No please not another expansion. Game balance is kittened as it is. Another expansion is just asking for chaos.

Fix what’s here, then do the cash thing.

What is wrong about the game balance?

OniGiri.9461:

Ithilwen.1529:

No please not another expansion. Game balance is kittened as it is. Another expansion is just asking for chaos.

Fix what’s here, then do the cash thing.

What is wrong about the game balance?

On the assumption that this is a real question: Game balance has been a hot button issue for years. There are a fair number of people who would generally agree that balance is a serious problem in PvP and WvW and to a lesser extent PvE.

I can only recommend that you have a look at the PvP and WvW forums.