Guild Wars 2

Hi there, guys. I’d like to express my concern about ANet reputation throughout the years when it comes to consistency on delivery. This is not a hate thread, it’s a legit concern.

See, it all started with Living World season 1 when updates were frequent, and a balanced mix of open world/instance, and a few items both in-game and gemstore. Soon ArenaNet realized the manpower needed to keep up was too huge or else it would work like enslaving the devs to create such amount of content. This is, too much content and unable to create for the stablished schedule. They decided to stop for reasons such as difficulty to maintain, and zero replayability value, but the main point is: it seems they hadn’t foreseen this could happen.

Second, they came up with Story Journal and season 2, and declared LS updates to be biweekly. The new framework allowed for replayability, but nobody replays just for the sake of replaying a story chapter, there wasn’t (isn’t) incentive for such. The schedule seemed to be settling down, but then they gave up on that aswell. Again, they hadn’t foreseen this could happen.

Third, there was a gigantic content drought while creating the expansion. This made the entire community overhype HoT to all extremes, regardless of everything Colin had been stating, that the xpac would be what he showcased on the reveal and players shouldn’t expect more than that. He was honest. But that seemed like a PR speech and we maybe could get more things, or maybe shortly after the xpac there would be LS3 (yeah…). Well, no. Everyone devoured the content to death, and partially that was because the content wasn’t much in terms of depth. It’s also important to remember that it’s been long since ArenaNet started reevaluating the game way too much, and polish, and redo core, and “improve the base game”. Feature Packs, and HoT were all about polishing stuff… but I have a feeling that they were actually fixing their true intent since the game’s launch on 2012. It’s a separate story, but I have a feeling the game launch was rushed. But anyways, they hadn’t foreseen players would consume the content in the blink of an eye. That was because it lacked depth, while the new mechanics for the millionth time “improved the base game” to allow for… more… in the future.

It draws a pattern that’s worrying:
1. They’re always strengthening the “core”. I think the core will never be strengthened enough. There are always these new frameworks to allow for more content, but the content is never delivered, instead we get new frameworks. We don’t want the plate anymore, we want cake. It’s been so long that their philosophy is so centered towards frameworks that it saddens me.

2. They always come up with schedules, and always go back in their own word. They cut content because they’re unable to do it. Do they even have meetings for this? Well, I think they do. How could someone responsible in there not realize some things can’t be done in time? Are they going to postpone new legendaries? Or maybe re-schedule the LS from 2-3 months (as we know from Reddit) to 6 months? Well, we’ll never know. But it’s clear now that they are horrible with scheduling content, and this saddens me aswell. For how much I like the game.

3. Content drought has become another part of the company behavior. It’s not my intent to make devs mad at me, or MO. But we got facts on hands: you guys postpone things and make up stuff, but the players… the players aren’t so blind. We know what we’re getting, and to what extent we’re getting. And you, ANet, is always making up little things as big, and time passes, and the amount of content is always so underwhelming that it takes the shine from HoT away. It didn’t matter how awesome HoT was, the content drought before, and after it was so long that folks are stopping to care how brightful it once was. Content drought damages the game in a way you rarely see in other MMO titles out there, F2P included.

So yeah, I just wanted to get this out of my throat. Some decisions, and behaviors make me really sad about the game. I am not leaving GW2. I even bought GW so I could understand more from the aspect I love the most: the story. But there are things that… really make me sad.

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

I think only part of the issue was with development requirements. It’s not exactly a secret that mmo’s cannot create content at the same rate at which its player base consumes it. If they are done revamping core systems (which supposedly, they are), that should help the consistency issue.

The other part of issue came due to the backlash from (seemingly) significant portions of the player base. It was that backlash that resulted in LS2 being permanent. Their changes to the system, in addition to actually creating the content, which caused delays.

The expansion (and subsequent drought) can be placed quite firmly on the community’s shoulders, imo. Even with the changes to LS2, there was still a huge outcry for an “actual” expansion. The fact that we ended up with a content drought during that time period should not have been as much of a surprise as it was.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The expansion (and subsequent drought) can be placed quite firmly on the community’s shoulders, imo. Even with the changes to LS2, there was still a huge outcry for an “actual” expansion. The fact that we ended up with a content drought during that time period should not have been as much of a surprise as it was.

HoT is what would have been LS3, instead of releasing it one chunk at a time they held everything back and packaged it as an expansion. That they couldn’t do both at once is not a surprise to anyone. It’s a rule of thumb that 80% of the problems come from 20% of your customers, this is what happens when you try to satisfy those who are never satisfied.

penelopehannibal.8947:

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

not being rude but how do you know?

1. Anet has said NOTHING about a release date or any relevant information for the summer update

2. While it is logical to expect anything on tuesday (the end of pvp league) there is a chance nothing will happen

3. there is that leaked italin article saying that LW will come at the end of summer

OP, since you didnt include a tldr, I’m going to assume you forgot to consider the fact that a lot of the changes in the release pacing was demanded by players.

@ed, strong odds it’s coming this month given the fact it’s a QUARTERLY update. Same odds it’s happening once the league finishes, as that’s what it did before. Also, that “leaked article” is almost guaranteed to be a giant pile of dolyak kitten in regards to any sort of truth.

eduardo.1436:

penelopehannibal.8947:

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

not being rude but how do you know?

1. Anet has said NOTHING about a release date or any relevant information for the summer update

2. While it is logical to expect anything on tuesday (the end of pvp league) there is a chance nothing will happen

3. there is that leaked italin article saying that LW will come at the end of summer

Because it wouldn’t be quarterly if it wasn’t. I have faith they will stick to the quarterly deadline, which is 3 months after the last one. LW in the Italian thing (which as far as I’m concerned, something could have been lost in translation by the interviewer) might not necessarily be part of the Quarterly Update.

Couldn’t disagree with you more about the core game, they’ve yet to strengthen the core game where the need has always been most obvious, the combat and build systems.

Still no reason to bring the majority of the games stats in nearly all of the games PvE content. Still enormous disparity between offensive and defensive stats in the PvP game modes. Still mechanics which have no application in one game mode and yet are Nigh-Unto-God status in another. And on top of that, still no build save system!

And worse than not improving the combat to have any skillbar beyond dodge-or-die, they’ve actually devolved the gameplay to an archaic system they themselves labeled as strategically shallow and defunct, the tank-and-spank trinity.

eduardo.1436:

penelopehannibal.8947:

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

not being rude but how do you know?

1. Anet has said NOTHING about a release date or any relevant information for the summer update

2. While it is logical to expect anything on tuesday (the end of pvp league) there is a chance nothing will happen

3. there is that leaked italin article saying that LW will come at the end of summer

They were pretty clear in the reddit AMA that LS3 would be coming after Raid Wing 3.

That’s how players know its coming soon™

slamfunction.7462:

Couple things..

1. ANet is gonna do what ANet is gonna do, regardless of what anyone thinks, because its their business. Lose players. Gain players. It matters little, unless profits drop, which they really haven’t.

2. Which leads me to: These forums and subreddit. Many people love to do absolutely nothing, but complain. Too much to do. Too little to do. Not enough this. Too much that. And etc, etc. If you read all the negative posts now, everyone is complaining about a content drought, instead of being happy with what was, and moving on to something else to play, during the interim. Honestly, you don’t have to play this game 24/7, 365. I swear!

3. Alot of people bought into the negative hype from the forums and subreddit, thus it began to reshape their impressions of this game, forgetting that even Blizzard had issues with deploying content the first 2 years, as they were expanding faster than they could manage. All of these negative thoughts, and expressions tend to guide the weak-minded into believing this is the worse game ever, which it really isn’t.

4. Due to the expansion, and after Colin had left, ANet woke up, and started paying attention to things. They started communicating more. Even Mike O’Brien popped in, and even though he brought bad news, bad news is better than no news. So KUDOS! to that. He was honest. Something ANet often portrays the opposite of.

Things ARE changing, but you have to be patient. Take a break. Go play something else for a few months, because there are plenty of great games out there, that you’ll burn through the content, and be just in time for next update for GW2.

Its that easy. Lets just be happy with what we have, and eagerly await new stuff, without being toxic and judgemental.

Man, lifes too short to go around stressin over stuff like this. Especially with all the bad things happening in the world right now. Be happy that you can log in every night, and burn the day’s stresses away on something. Many people don’t have that ability, and live in an anguish neither you or I can imagine.

Woaw this guy has impressed me. Respect, nothing else to say.

However, they did not totally link LS3 with the Quarterly Update (MO even said the transfer of the Legend team miiiiiight speed up LS3) so the two things could come at different times. My great hope is that we’ll see LS3 this Tuesday or the next one, but my only expectation is that we’ll get the Quarterly. Since we have not gotten any teasers and the streaming calendar doesn’t have a Guild Chat for next Friday, Rubi being on vacation as of today, I no longer am optimistic about this Tuesday. All we knew was that until raid 3 was released we definitely would not get LS3, and now that limiter has been removed.

Yet as ANet wants to run dark these days, we could get a nice surprise. Soon.

tolunart.2095:

HoT is what would have been LS3, instead of releasing it one chunk at a time they held everything back and packaged it as an expansion. That they couldn’t do both at once is not a surprise to anyone. It’s a rule of thumb that 80% of the problems come from 20% of your customers, this is what happens when you try to satisfy those who are never satisfied.

This.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

tolunart.2095:

HoT is what would have been LS3, instead of releasing it one chunk at a time they held everything back and packaged it as an expansion. That they couldn’t do both at once is not a surprise to anyone. It’s a rule of thumb that 80% of the problems come from 20% of your customers, this is what happens when you try to satisfy those who are never satisfied.

This.

Except Anet tends to do things in a way that makes real gamers question why they bought the game. Take Elder Scrolls online for example: Taking an entire race, an entire map, and entire essential core parts of the game and sticking them behind a wall that you have to pay to get behind. You want access to that stuff, you have to pay upwards of 60 bucks. I see no difference when Anet holds back LS content and throws it behind an expansion wall that costs 60 bucks. You bet when that happens 20% of the playerbase will be upset. On my GW2 box, I still remember it saying something about “Pay once, and that’s it”. Well that idea obviously got moved aside.

I’m not bashing here, but if you really stop to think about it, a lot of their moves have been questionable. For example, they seem to change their mind about things an awful lot. From Living Story to expansions, from giving hardcore raiding players Tequatl and then lowering his difficulty level so casuals could beat him, from normal servers to a megaserver, from normal classes to strange mutant classes (specializations). I could keep going, but I imagine you get the point. The mind changing drove away quite a few of my friends.

Galtrix.7369:

On my GW2 box, I still remember it saying something about “Pay once, and that’s it”. Well that idea obviously got moved aside.

No, it did not. The game content that came with that box, and more besides, is still available. That promise does not mean they have to provide new content ad infinitum.

Galtrix, that often comes from trying to follow the needs of 999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 different groups of people. As for world bosses, if successes are limited to a handful of large guilds with organization and tactics greater than the norm, odds are such events need to be tinkered with anyways.

With LS3, Anet’s said that regardless of where LS3+ goes, if you dont have HoT, you cant participate. My guess is it’s going to require masteries.

Preach on brother Valento

Bit of revisionist history in the OP. Anet didn’t do the two week updates during season 2. They announced the two week updates during season 1. Season 2 had very few instances of two week updates.

The Living World Season 1 was touted to be two week updates and mostly kept to that. The Living World Season 2 obviously changed.

Anet is not a single person or entity. It’s a company that’s ever evolving, trying different things to see what sticks.

Take the Living Story as an example. Even though they were producing content every two weeks, it wasn’t one team doing that. The teams were staggered. There were four of them.

Those four teams, therefore, had two months to make content, not two weeks. And it wasn’t everyone in the company either. People could be rotated on or off those teams.

Anet felt it was sustainable, but at the end, there were too many complaints about the lack of replayabiility, and the calls for an expansion instead of Living Story. To say that Anet stopped doing that because it wasn’t sustainble…well it might be part of the reason, but it’s a big leap to make.

I don’t know about you but I remember quite a few forum posts about LS 1 and how people missed stuff and about how pressured some people felt to keep up. There were many reasons for changing the forum, and player reaction was one of them.

From the outside looking it, it’s hard to see how a creative endevaor can overlook things, but it can, because no one ever really knows how fans will react.

To add to that, once LS 2 was under way, there was suddenly a few people saying how much they liked LS 1. But while LS 1 was out it got notably less support.

Which brings us to what most of us has likely figured out already. When people are happy they don’t have to come to the forums, they’re busy playing the game. Those that complain will always have the loudest voice, even if they’re not a majority.

slamfunction.7462:

Couple things..

1. ANet is gonna do what ANet is gonna do, regardless of what anyone thinks, because its their business. Lose players. Gain players. It matters little, unless profits drop, which they really haven’t.

2. Which leads me to: These forums and subreddit. Many people love to do absolutely nothing, but complain. Too much to do. Too little to do. Not enough this. Too much that. And etc, etc. If you read all the negative posts now, everyone is complaining about a content drought, instead of being happy with what was, and moving on to something else to play, during the interim. Honestly, you don’t have to play this game 24/7, 365. I swear!

3. Alot of people bought into the negative hype from the forums and subreddit, thus it began to reshape their impressions of this game, forgetting that even Blizzard had issues with deploying content the first 2 years, as they were expanding faster than they could manage. All of these negative thoughts, and expressions tend to guide the weak-minded into believing this is the worse game ever, which it really isn’t.

4. Due to the expansion, and after Colin had left, ANet woke up, and started paying attention to things. They started communicating more. Even Mike O’Brien popped in, and even though he brought bad news, bad news is better than no news. So KUDOS! to that. He was honest. Something ANet often portrays the opposite of.

Things ARE changing, but you have to be patient. Take a break. Go play something else for a few months, because there are plenty of great games out there, that you’ll burn through the content, and be just in time for next update for GW2.

Its that easy. Lets just be happy with what we have, and eagerly await new stuff, without being toxic and judgemental.

Man, lifes too short to go around stressin over stuff like this. Especially with all the bad things happening in the world right now. Be happy that you can log in every night, and burn the day’s stresses away on something. Many people don’t have that ability, and live in an anguish neither you or I can imagine.

I wanna buy you a beer, or ten.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know about you but I remember quite a few forum posts about LS 1 and how people missed stuff and about how pressured some people felt to keep up. There were many reasons for changing the forum, and player reaction was one of them.

Yeah .. so much better to have no updates at all than maybe missing something.
The same with having no new armor sets at all than having them in the gem-shop.

Good job community .. destroying the game with your complaints.

In the end the dying of the game started after LS1 when we got the wardrobe, after
that content updates got less and less .. and they stopped giving us new armor-sets
and in the end most of the time i was just grinding gold so i could buy all old stuff
for the following 2 years.

Paraphrased from Neil Gaiman

…it’s unrealistic of you to think [ANet] is “letting you down”.

…I keep trying to come up with a better way to put it, but …my perspective is this:

[ANet] is not your [slave].

….
People are not machines. [Game designers] aren’t machines.

You’re complaining about [ANet] doing other things than [communicating often and releasing new [content] …as if your buying the [original game] …was a contract with [them]…

No such contract existed. You [paid for the game] …and I assume that you enjoyed it because you want [more].

It seems to me that the biggest problem with [MMOs] is that either [players] complain that the [games] used to be good but that somewhere in the effort to [release every two weeks] the quality has fallen off, or [the games] aren’t coming out [quickly] enough.

Both of these things make me glad that I am not currently [a game developer]… For me, I would rather [play a good game] from a contented [development team]. I don’t really care what it takes to produce that.

…

The economics …for a [development team] mean that very few … can afford to [develop new content all the time]… So [development teams] with huge [ideas]… are going to [work on] them and [release content] as they go along.

And if you are waiting for a new [release] in [an MMO], whether from [ANet] or [Bethesda]…

Wait. [Play] the original …again. [Play] something else. Get on with your life. Hope that the [dev team] is [working on the content] you want to [play] … and not [going belly up], or something equally as dramatic. …

And …in the future, when you see other people complaining that [ANet] …has been spotted doing something other than [publishing vague plans or releasing poorly-developed content] …, explain to them, more politely than I did the first time, the simple and unanswerable truth: [ANet] is not working for you.

The original box does say, “No Subscription Fee: Get the game and play. It’s that simple!” (Yes I still have my original box from when I bought it.)

Though there is no subscription fee even now, there is a charge for HoT and every subsequent expansion that comes out. (Assuming there are further expansions.)

So…does that mean ANet went back on its word? Or should we look at it as ANet “saving the game” by making more money off it rather than shutting down from lack of income?

To be honest, I don’t keep up with ANet’s finances. So I don’t know if the game was making money or losing money or what before they decided to do paid expansions. All I know is that I bought a game that was supposed to be buy once, play forever. Except now someone else can get what I got for free, and if they pay once, they get more content than I do.

I don’t think that was the best decision, but without knowing more about the specific reasons prompting it, I’d rather not express too strong an opinion. I’ve got the game I paid for, I’ll be satisfied with that for now.

eduardo.1436:

penelopehannibal.8947:

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

not being rude but how do you know?

1. Anet has said NOTHING about a release date or any relevant information for the summer update

2. While it is logical to expect anything on tuesday (the end of pvp league) there is a chance nothing will happen

3. there is that leaked italin article saying that LW will come at the end of summer

A chance nothing will happen? They always release the quarterlies why would they stop? That would certainly cause problems. I think your a bit over skeptical here and reaching.

EvilTwin.4125:

The original box does say, “No Subscription Fee: Get the game and play. It’s that simple!” (Yes I still have my original box from when I bought it.)

Though there is no subscription fee even now, there is a charge for HoT and every subsequent expansion that comes out. (Assuming there are further expansions.)

So…does that mean ANet went back on its word? Or should we look at it as ANet “saving the game” by making more money off it rather than shutting down from lack of income?

To be honest, I don’t keep up with ANet’s finances. So I don’t know if the game was making money or losing money or what before they decided to do paid expansions. All I know is that I bought a game that was supposed to be buy once, play forever. Except now someone else can get what I got for free, and if they pay once, they get more content than I do.

I don’t think that was the best decision, but without knowing more about the specific reasons prompting it, I’d rather not express too strong an opinion. I’ve got the game I paid for, I’ll be satisfied with that for now.

How do you justify your confusion when it does not say never buy an expansion from us? And no one had to buy the expansion if they really didn not want to, but all it saids is no subscribtion which all of guild wars 1 games said as well and they had tons of expansions and no one complained.

You could of done more research if you really wanted to, if you are the type of person to expect an mmo without an expansion then you would think you would be the type of person to look into the companies game history. Anet still releases free content beyond just living story like any other mmo, but they always had worthy expansions anyways, whats the difference between paying for a 20 hour game for once 60 dollars once or twice a month and buying one expansion since the game has been out which offers far more hours?

Ryou.2398:

EvilTwin.4125:

The original box does say, “No Subscription Fee: Get the game and play. It’s that simple!” (Yes I still have my original box from when I bought it.)

Though there is no subscription fee even now, there is a charge for HoT and every subsequent expansion that comes out. (Assuming there are further expansions.)

So…does that mean ANet went back on its word? Or should we look at it as ANet “saving the game” by making more money off it rather than shutting down from lack of income?

To be honest, I don’t keep up with ANet’s finances. So I don’t know if the game was making money or losing money or what before they decided to do paid expansions. All I know is that I bought a game that was supposed to be buy once, play forever. Except now someone else can get what I got for free, and if they pay once, they get more content than I do.

I don’t think that was the best decision, but without knowing more about the specific reasons prompting it, I’d rather not express too strong an opinion. I’ve got the game I paid for, I’ll be satisfied with that for now.

How do you justify your confusion when it does not say never buy an expansion from us? And no one had to buy the expansion if they really didn not want to, but all it saids is no subscribtion which all of guild wars 1 games said as well and they had tons of expansions and no one complained.

You could of done more research if you really wanted to, if you are the type of person to expect an mmo without an expansion then you would think you would be the type of person to look into the companies game history. Anet still releases free content beyond just living story like any other mmo, but they always had worthy expansions anyways, whats the difference between paying for a 20 hour game for once 60 dollars once or twice a month and buying one expansion since the game has been out which offers far more hours?

Regardless, Anet’s made some pretty poor decisions. Making the core game free for new players was a giant one. Does it allow more people to join without having them pay an arm and a leg? Yes. Does it make the already existing playerbase angry because they feel they were screwed over? Definitely. They added injury to insult when they made the expansion $60. And then they added even more injury by making us pay for an “expansion” with about as much content as a free Rift update.

The difference with GW1 was that the expansions didn’t cost 60 bucks each and nobody felt like they got screwed.

Galtrix.7369:

Ryou.2398:

EvilTwin.4125:

The original box does say, “No Subscription Fee: Get the game and play. It’s that simple!” (Yes I still have my original box from when I bought it.)

Though there is no subscription fee even now, there is a charge for HoT and every subsequent expansion that comes out. (Assuming there are further expansions.)

So…does that mean ANet went back on its word? Or should we look at it as ANet “saving the game” by making more money off it rather than shutting down from lack of income?

To be honest, I don’t keep up with ANet’s finances. So I don’t know if the game was making money or losing money or what before they decided to do paid expansions. All I know is that I bought a game that was supposed to be buy once, play forever. Except now someone else can get what I got for free, and if they pay once, they get more content than I do.

I don’t think that was the best decision, but without knowing more about the specific reasons prompting it, I’d rather not express too strong an opinion. I’ve got the game I paid for, I’ll be satisfied with that for now.

How do you justify your confusion when it does not say never buy an expansion from us? And no one had to buy the expansion if they really didn not want to, but all it saids is no subscribtion which all of guild wars 1 games said as well and they had tons of expansions and no one complained.

You could of done more research if you really wanted to, if you are the type of person to expect an mmo without an expansion then you would think you would be the type of person to look into the companies game history. Anet still releases free content beyond just living story like any other mmo, but they always had worthy expansions anyways, whats the difference between paying for a 20 hour game for once 60 dollars once or twice a month and buying one expansion since the game has been out which offers far more hours?

Regardless, Anet’s made some pretty poor decisions. Making the core game free for new players was a giant one. Does it allow more people to join without having them pay an arm and a leg? Yes. Does it make the already existing playerbase angry because they feel they were screwed over? Definitely. They added injury to insult when they made the expansion $60. And then they added even more injury by making us pay for an “expansion” with about as much content as a free Rift update.

The difference with GW1 was that the expansions didn’t cost 60 bucks each and nobody felt like they got screwed.

I feel like I was screwed over by the fact that Anet didn’t buy me a new computer to play HoT on.

Nor have they deposited into my retirement fund.

Both complaints every bit as legitimate as feeling screwed over, after having played the game for as much as three years for a single purchase price, when the core game went free to play in order to lower barriers to entry with the addition of an expansion.

Oh, and some people did feel like they got screwed with expansion purchases in GW1.

Ashen.2907:

I feel like I was screwed over by the fact that Anet didn’t buy me a new computer to play HoT on.

Nor have they deposited into my retirement fund.

Both complaints every bit as legitimate as feeling screwed over, after having played the game for as much as three years for a single purchase price, when the core game went free to play in order to lower barriers to entry with the addition of an expansion.

Oh, and some people did feel like they got screwed with expansion purchases in GW1.

1. I’m happy for you if you think you got a good deal out of it. I, for one, am not going to pay 60 dollars to ride a rollercoaster right now, when I can obviously wait 5 minutes, ride the coaster and get a free pass on the new fancy ride too… all for the price of one!

2. Those complaints on GW1 expacs were utterly pathetic. I saw nothing wrong with those expacs. The prices were nice, the content was really well put-together, and everything was fine.

Galtrix.7369:

Ryou.2398:

EvilTwin.4125:

The original box does say, “No Subscription Fee: Get the game and play. It’s that simple!” (Yes I still have my original box from when I bought it.)

Though there is no subscription fee even now, there is a charge for HoT and every subsequent expansion that comes out. (Assuming there are further expansions.)

So…does that mean ANet went back on its word? Or should we look at it as ANet “saving the game” by making more money off it rather than shutting down from lack of income?

To be honest, I don’t keep up with ANet’s finances. So I don’t know if the game was making money or losing money or what before they decided to do paid expansions. All I know is that I bought a game that was supposed to be buy once, play forever. Except now someone else can get what I got for free, and if they pay once, they get more content than I do.

I don’t think that was the best decision, but without knowing more about the specific reasons prompting it, I’d rather not express too strong an opinion. I’ve got the game I paid for, I’ll be satisfied with that for now.

How do you justify your confusion when it does not say never buy an expansion from us? And no one had to buy the expansion if they really didn not want to, but all it saids is no subscribtion which all of guild wars 1 games said as well and they had tons of expansions and no one complained.

You could of done more research if you really wanted to, if you are the type of person to expect an mmo without an expansion then you would think you would be the type of person to look into the companies game history. Anet still releases free content beyond just living story like any other mmo, but they always had worthy expansions anyways, whats the difference between paying for a 20 hour game for once 60 dollars once or twice a month and buying one expansion since the game has been out which offers far more hours?

Regardless, Anet’s made some pretty poor decisions. Making the core game free for new players was a giant one. Does it allow more people to join without having them pay an arm and a leg? Yes. Does it make the already existing playerbase angry because they feel they were screwed over? Definitely. They added injury to insult when they made the expansion $60. And then they added even more injury by making us pay for an “expansion” with about as much content as a free Rift update.

The difference with GW1 was that the expansions didn’t cost 60 bucks each and nobody felt like they got screwed.

Ok but we are not talking about the core game going free but come on dude, there are other games that go free after sometime, you think I dont know how it feels? I have played many mmos where it ruined the community and turned into huge pay to wins, and guild wars 2 didnt do that, so honestly it shouldnt be a big issue. Anyways the original point was buying expansions.

Did you not get thousands of hours already in the core game before it even went free?

Galtrix.7369:

Ashen.2907:

I feel like I was screwed over by the fact that Anet didn’t buy me a new computer to play HoT on.

Nor have they deposited into my retirement fund.

Both complaints every bit as legitimate as feeling screwed over, after having played the game for as much as three years for a single purchase price, when the core game went free to play in order to lower barriers to entry with the addition of an expansion.

Oh, and some people did feel like they got screwed with expansion purchases in GW1.

1. I’m happy for you if you think you got a good deal out of it. I, for one, am not going to pay 60 dollars to ride a rollercoaster right now, when I can obviously wait 5 minutes, ride the coaster and get a free pass on the new fancy ride too… all for the price of one!

2. Those complaints on GW1 expacs were utterly pathetic. I saw nothing wrong with those expacs. The prices were nice, the content was really well put-together, and everything was fine.

1) Did you buy the base game willingly? Did you receive the base game when you paid for it? Did you play the base game, for which you paid, for as much (potentially) as 3 years?

My car sells for a lot less now than it did when it was new. Should I complain?

2) Those complaints about the GW1 expacs were every bit as valid as someone complaining that they got what they paid for in GW2, but that the asking price went down over time. I can get GW1 + expansions now for a fraction of the cost I paid at launch…should I complain about getting screwed over ?

Ashen.2907:

Galtrix.7369:

Ashen.2907:

I feel like I was screwed over by the fact that Anet didn’t buy me a new computer to play HoT on.

Nor have they deposited into my retirement fund.

Both complaints every bit as legitimate as feeling screwed over, after having played the game for as much as three years for a single purchase price, when the core game went free to play in order to lower barriers to entry with the addition of an expansion.

Oh, and some people did feel like they got screwed with expansion purchases in GW1.

1. I’m happy for you if you think you got a good deal out of it. I, for one, am not going to pay 60 dollars to ride a rollercoaster right now, when I can obviously wait 5 minutes, ride the coaster and get a free pass on the new fancy ride too… all for the price of one!

2. Those complaints on GW1 expacs were utterly pathetic. I saw nothing wrong with those expacs. The prices were nice, the content was really well put-together, and everything was fine.

1) Did you buy the base game willingly? Did you receive the base game when you paid for it? Did you play the base game, for which you paid, for as much (potentially) as 3 years?

My car sells for a lot less now than it did when it was new. Should I complain?

2) Those complaints about the GW1 expacs were every bit as valid as someone complaining that they got what they paid for in GW2, but that the asking price went down over time. I can get GW1 + expansions now for a fraction of the cost I paid at launch…should I complain about getting screwed over ?

My points obviously flew over your head there, friend. Therefore, I see no reason in continuing the conversation. But I wish you a good day.

Galtrix.7369:

Ashen.2907:

Galtrix.7369:

Ashen.2907:

I feel like I was screwed over by the fact that Anet didn’t buy me a new computer to play HoT on.

Nor have they deposited into my retirement fund.

Both complaints every bit as legitimate as feeling screwed over, after having played the game for as much as three years for a single purchase price, when the core game went free to play in order to lower barriers to entry with the addition of an expansion.

Oh, and some people did feel like they got screwed with expansion purchases in GW1.

1. I’m happy for you if you think you got a good deal out of it. I, for one, am not going to pay 60 dollars to ride a rollercoaster right now, when I can obviously wait 5 minutes, ride the coaster and get a free pass on the new fancy ride too… all for the price of one!

2. Those complaints on GW1 expacs were utterly pathetic. I saw nothing wrong with those expacs. The prices were nice, the content was really well put-together, and everything was fine.

1) Did you buy the base game willingly? Did you receive the base game when you paid for it? Did you play the base game, for which you paid, for as much (potentially) as 3 years?

My car sells for a lot less now than it did when it was new. Should I complain?

2) Those complaints about the GW1 expacs were every bit as valid as someone complaining that they got what they paid for in GW2, but that the asking price went down over time. I can get GW1 + expansions now for a fraction of the cost I paid at launch…should I complain about getting screwed over ?

My points obviously flew over your head there, friend. Therefore, I see no reason in continuing the conversation. But I wish you a good day.

No, no points flew over my head as there were no points made.

But you have a good day as well.

Awesome you bought GW, That is such a great game. Sure it’s pretty basic by today standers, But in my opinion it’s a far superior game then gw2. Constantly changing skills to keep pvp fresh, which also helped with pve too. The story was great in all 3 campaigns and the expansion too. Every change they made in gw1 was pretty much always for the better with not many “1step forward 2 steps backward” like you see in gw2.

Take the regions for example, in gw1 you could do your home region or play in international which made meeting ppl or playing with your guild so much easier. Then they made it so you could freely change your home region. Come to gw2 and it took then a year to get guesting to work. Then another year or 2 and they made megaserver. Still waiting for them to remove NA/Euro restrictions which i imagine if the game goes another 3 years they might do…

Take guilds, gw1 better guild system and guild loyalty. Come to gw2, and you lose your guild loyalty as guild hopping was made too easy. and it took them 3 years to link all the guilds your in into your chat, which basically made you alienate your previous guilds.

Also more to your point for current devolpment behaviour you just have to look at the removal of wvw cafting stations. They were fine in there for almost 4 years, then they remove them using “queues” too long due to crafters, which is false. One cuz it’s 1 map with crafting stations, Two with the new reward track in there, alot more ppl afk then the few that crafted. Three players also went to those crafting stations to sell and use their bank, both of which you can still do just takes a bit longer.

So for me at least, if they keep changing things for the sake of changing with no real reason for it. I will not be buying the next expansion if they make one. I will not be buying a guild war 3 if they make that.

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know about you but I remember quite a few forum posts about LS 1 and how people missed stuff and about how pressured some people felt to keep up. There were many reasons for changing the forum, and player reaction was one of them.

Yeah .. so much better to have no updates at all than maybe missing something.
The same with having no new armor sets at all than having them in the gem-shop.

Good job community .. destroying the game with your complaints.

In the end the dying of the game started after LS1 when we got the wardrobe, after
that content updates got less and less .. and they stopped giving us new armor-sets
and in the end most of the time i was just grinding gold so i could buy all old stuff
for the following 2 years.

You’re fooling yourself if you think this game is dying, except maybe in the abstract we’re all dying. This game is doing better than you think.

You can’t compare this game to itself you have to compare it to other MMORPGs that have come out in the same time frame.

It’s up there with the top games in the industry, except WoW which is losing subs so fast they stopped reporting them altogether. And WoW isn’t dying either.

When games start dying you see staff layoffs. We’re not seeing that here.

Was the expansion as popular as they’d hoped? Nope, it wasn’t.

Doesn’t equate to the game dying. From my personal point of view, the game is in the best shape it’s been in as far as offering a variety of content to disparate groups of players.

We finally have silence from people who were asking for more challenging content, for example. The WvW community seems to be happier than it was. The PvP community is never happy in any game, so I don’t know what to think about that. lol

But yeah, this game isn’t even close to dying. I’ve played dying games, this isn’t one of them. Wildstar is dying. Guild Wars 2 isn’t even close.

I’m guessing OP hasn’t been around from the beginning as the broad themes don’t really match up with the actual history. They certainly have talked about polish and aspects of the core game but that was never the focus; and, that lack of focus on the core was an issue for many in the early days. Instead, their focus was content delivery on a mad scale that has never been attempted before: monthly releases of major pieces of content. Now, many players are software developers who realized that they couldn’t possibly do this. And, of course they couldn’t and the core game suffered for this. What we got was episodic story-telling that was gone with the telling. No expansion of the world, no permanent change to Tyria. The expansion was an acknowledgement that they couldn’t evolve the world in the manner of their original choosing.

What we see in the management of GW2 over time are developers attempting to learn from their mistakes. No grand plan, success, or failure.

Gwilym.4257:

What we see in the management of GW2 over time are developers attempting to learn from their mistakes. No grand plan, success, or failure.

Anet hasn’t learned anything. The only path they’ve chosen is to constantly re-write over what has already been established. They ram square pegs into round holes and cover it in glue hoping nobody cares about the final product. They’ve gone back on their word so many times and made a myriad of small to large changes that have either made no sense within the context of the game or were “solutions” to things that were never even problems to begin with.

While it’s admittedly easy to go about and pick out the individual positive changes made to GW2 since release in 2012, on the whole, the game has taken one step forward and five steps back from its original manifesto, its original spirit and its original roots.

The biggest issue is probably a heavy focus on time-gated grind rather than new content generation. It’s quite honestly offensive.

I think this game would be best with payed LS releases to keep the flow of content steady. As long as there would be a set standard what they must include and clear pricing model on it.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I think this game would be best with payed LS releases to keep the flow of content steady. As long as there would be a set standard what they must include and clear pricing model on it.

No.

This game was designed and marketed as B2P. The paid expansion was marketed as including ongoing content additions at no additional cost.

Furthermore, ANet doesn’t design to set templates. They iterate (perhaps too much, but that’s a separate debate) until they have something they feel worth releasing, and then they iterate it some more. What would you say they “must include?” One new map? Ok, so you want them to churn out a new map to meet a deadline and still have it well designed and original? That’s just not how the creative process works.

I do feel they’ve been a bit slower to add to the story than one might reasonably expect, and that they have iterated base systems at the cost of enriching and deepening the world lore, but I don’t feel the answer lies in a forced production schedule to make content players have to pay to experience.

Well that clearly failed. Unless this draught/flood season, with 2nd huge draught in progress can be called “release cycle”.

This game needs new management like air, and one that will consider “quality of life” upgrades such as:

- stable release cycle

- actual communication with players, regarding current state of development of upcoming content. no hype train, but no “full ninja, u can’t see me” model either.

- tying gem purchases with development and letting us know how’s it looking (much like on kickstarter funding, where you see how much was raised and where the money goes)

Because currently i’m not on board for guessing games on what we’ll get, how mucb of it will be there, when it drops and what will follow it and when. 9 months of nothing will do that to you.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

This game needs new management like air, and one that will consider “quality of life” upgrades such as:
…
- tying gem purchases with development and letting us know how’s it looking (much like on kickstarter funding, where you see how much was raised and where the money goes)

Anet is not a new kickstarted company. You are not a shareholder. You are not privy to their books. If you’d like to know where your money is going, that’s easy:

Accounting, advertising, benefits, contractors, insurance, legal, licences, maintenance, office supplies, R&D, rent, salaries, servers, taxes, travel, utilities (the list goes on and on, but I got bored)

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

GW2 is a reworked GW1. They are dealing with a lot of legacy code. I imagine that leads to some fantastic spaghetti code when it comes to bugs. That makes everything take forever to develop and test properly.

Here’s hoping they learned their lesson for GW3!

Aidan Savage.2078:

With LS3, Anet’s said that regardless of where LS3+ goes, if you dont have HoT, you cant participate. My guess is it’s going to require masteries.

We might need Masteries but it would be much easier to tie LS3 to a place then a set of skills. I image we’ll need to talk to someone in 1 of the new maps.

Roundabout.1752:

Aidan Savage.2078:

With LS3, Anet’s said that regardless of where LS3+ goes, if you dont have HoT, you cant participate. My guess is it’s going to require masteries.

We might need Masteries but it would be much easier to tie LS3 to a place then a set of skills. I image we’ll need to talk to someone in 1 of the new maps.

I mean that without HoT, you wont be able to participate at all. IE no joining a friend in their instances.

I’d say it is pretty much a given that masteries will be needed.

Hopefully there will be some mastery points as rewards, that would be much appreciated.

That’s probably likely, given the pattern of getting MPs from the personal story, ls2 chapters, and HoT chapters.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

Did you possibly misunderstand how for-profit businesses work? The company earns money from gem purchases so that it can have income which translates into: 1) funds for development of this game; 2) potentially funds for any other project they see fit to pursue; and 3) profit (which certainly is intended to fatten the shareholders’ wallets).

Without 3), you can be sure there would be no motivation to keep running the business.

If this doesn’t sit well with you, then you should probably not buy gems – it’s 100% up to you to choose whether you do or not.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

When I buy a bottle of coke, I don’t buy it because I expect future development by coke. I buy it because I want a bottle of coke.

When I buy a book I buy it because I want the book. That’s what most people probably do.

But I also like the direction of the game right now, and I like where it’s going, so I’m happy to spend money in the gem store, because I understand that it takes time to do stuff.

Anet fixed HoT. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you but it’s made it a whole lot better for me. That was only in April. It’s three months since a very large work intensive upgrade.

It wasn’t just rewards redone. It wasn’t just a few events added. It was a rework of stuff like de-linking day and night cycles and working on scaling and population density in certain areas.

I’m not sure why people think that isn’t worth supporting because I believe it is. Anet listened to the community and made changes. Changes that were asked for.

No doubt work on the LS has continued through that, but I have no doubt it would have been slowed.

Had Anet not made those changes, though, it would have been worse.

Sometimes you have to look at the big picture. I know you’re not the only one who feels disenfranchised but I also know I’m not the only one enjoying the new zones. Plenty of people there.

You stop buying gems, I buy more gems.

It all balances out in the end.

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

When I buy a bottle of coke, I don’t buy it because I expect future development by coke. I buy it because I want a bottle of coke.

When I buy a book I buy it because I want the book. That’s what most people probably do.

But I also like the direction of the game right now, and I like where it’s going, so I’m happy to spend money in the gem store, because I understand that it takes time to do stuff.

Anet fixed HoT. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you but it’s made it a whole lot better for me. That was only in April. It’s three months since a very large work intensive upgrade.

It wasn’t just rewards redone. It wasn’t just a few events added. It was a rework of stuff like de-linking day and night cycles and working on scaling and population density in certain areas.

I’m not sure why people think that isn’t worth supporting because I believe it is. Anet listened to the community and made changes. Changes that were asked for.

No doubt work on the LS has continued through that, but I have no doubt it would have been slowed.

Had Anet not made those changes, though, it would have been worse.

Sometimes you have to look at the big picture. I know you’re not the only one who feels disenfranchised but I also know I’m not the only one enjoying the new zones. Plenty of people there.

You stop buying gems, I buy more gems.

It all balances out in the end.

When you buy something with money, you’re paying more than the actual worth of the product because you are also paying for a service, but most importantly, a convenience. For some reason, the most profitable entertainment industry on earth consistently gets away with shoddy, unfinished product quality. It doesn’t balance out because video game consumers are typically, somehow, terribly irresponsible with money.

You don’t buy a broken or unfinished product because you expect the manufacturer to fix or complete it later.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Paraphrased from Neil Gaiman

…it’s unrealistic of you to think [ANet] is “letting you down”.

…I keep trying to come up with a better way to put it, but …my perspective is this:

[ANet] is not your [slave].

….
People are not machines. [Game designers] aren’t machines.

You’re complaining about [ANet] doing other things than [communicating often and releasing new [content] …as if your buying the [original game] …was a contract with [them]…

No such contract existed. You [paid for the game] …and I assume that you enjoyed it because you want [more].

It seems to me that the biggest problem with [MMOs] is that either [players] complain that the [games] used to be good but that somewhere in the effort to [release every two weeks] the quality has fallen off, or [the games] aren’t coming out [quickly] enough.

Both of these things make me glad that I am not currently [a game developer]… For me, I would rather [play a good game] from a contented [development team]. I don’t really care what it takes to produce that.

…

The economics …for a [development team] mean that very few … can afford to [develop new content all the time]… So [development teams] with huge [ideas]… are going to [work on] them and [release content] as they go along.

And if you are waiting for a new [release] in [an MMO], whether from [ANet] or [Bethesda]…

Wait. [Play] the original …again. [Play] something else. Get on with your life. Hope that the [dev team] is [working on the content] you want to [play] … and not [going belly up], or something equally as dramatic. …

And …in the future, when you see other people complaining that [ANet] …has been spotted doing something other than [publishing vague plans or releasing poorly-developed content] …, explain to them, more politely than I did the first time, the simple and unanswerable truth: [ANet] is not working for you.

Perfect.

Valento.9852:

Hi there, guys. I’d like to express my concern about ANet reputation throughout the years when it comes to consistency on delivery. This is not a hate thread, it’s a legit concern.b

Second, they came up with Story Journal and season 2, and declared LS updates to be biweekly. The new framework allowed for replayability, but nobody replays just for the sake of replaying a story chapter, there wasn’t (isn’t) incentive for such. The schedule seemed to be settling down, but then they gave up on that aswell. Again, they hadn’t foreseen this could happen.

About the replaying of the story chapter and nobody would want to do it, I would have to say you’re completely wrong about that. Many story based games, allow people to replay a story chapter for lore and for the player to see how much better they’ve become. Some people, just replay to see what would have if they made difference choices during the mission. Some just replay for achievements, others replay to show a friend how they got through a mission. Others replay, to make tutorial or guides for players that are struggling with the mission. There are many, many, reasons to replay a mission that players enjoy. It’s why so many games (including non mmorpgs), allow players to replay the previous missions.

TLDR:
Replayable missions are good and a ton of players like the option to replay missions.