Guild Wars 2

Some people argue that the game has already received an expansion pack worth of content over the past 2 years.

Some argue that the game is in dire need of an expansion and the LS and Feature Packs are not enough.

Do the Living Story and Feature Packs eliminate the need for an expansion?

The LS is terrible for people that want content they can enjoy for a long time. Dry Top is cool, but endgame players want content they can do over and over (AKA dungeons). The LS is maybe two hours of content every two weeks and offers little to no incentive to replay unless you want to hunt AP, whereas people replay dungeons dozens of times. As someone who is looking for something to do, the LS doesn’t cut it for me.

As for the feature packs… they are really just bug fixes and changes we’ve been waiting for since release two years ago (party system etc..). Also it seems like many of the “features” they’re adding in this one are actually making the game even worse (LS changes, WvW changes, low level changes etc…) to cater to the asia market.

There’s a reason other games have gear treadmills and level cap increases. They give players something to do while they create new content. Also, that gear is required to progress when the new content drops.

In GW2 we have a tiny amount of new content every two weeks that can be completed in a couple of hours and then nothing to do. Ascended armor is a total fail in that it is pure grind to obtain and is completely uneccessary. So we have gear treadmills but no content to use the gear in. And then of course there’s the fact that Anet has told us they aren’t making more dungeons.

Not much to keep people who play a lot around.

There aren’t words for how much I loathe the LS, and if GW2 wishes to continue to output LS in place of an expansion, then it’s clear this game is no longer for me. Expansions, at least for me, revitalize my interest and generate buzz and excitement – new skills, new dungeons, new monsters, and, usually, a whole new ambience based on a series of new maps, geography, etc. With LS I instead get the destruction of beautiful/interesting zones (Kessex Hills, LA) and often have no idea what happened or why. I’ve played on and off since launch, so for those few months where I’m absent I’m left wondering what happened to whole zones, which speaks to the utter lack of replay value of LS – having been absent, I can’t even play it once! And we’ve had, what? two new zones added in two years? That’s not even close to expansion level content, map-wise at least.

What’s ultimately most frustrating, however, is ANet’s horrible wall of silence policy which prevents them from laying out a road map outlining where they want to take the game. No hope for expansions? just LS? Who knows? I’m tired of checking in every few months in the hopes of engaging new content; my hope has turned to frustration, disappointment, and anger. Please – pretty please – may I have an outline of what you want to do with the game, ANet?

nope LS is simply not an expansion. I don’t care for skippable cutscens and melodramas among characters that I hardly recognize/care. It introduced a “map”, but then it doesn’t even count towards world completion. LS at best is a small content of upcoming expansion.

Nope. We got six skills, ~four maps, and no new classes? Now compare that to what Guild Wars: Factions added to the game: 200+ skills, all of Cantha, and two classes. I won’t consider the Living Story an expansion’s worth of content until it rivals that.
EDIT: Or compare it to Eye of the North, which added 100+ skills, four regions, 18 dungeons, 124 quests, and 41 armor sets.

Answering title of thread.

No.

To me, an expansion would be a totally new campaign like their previous model with original GW. Anything less than GW2: Elona edition or GW2: Cantha edition would be a huge disappointment. They would have a hard time getting full price for it. LS is just filling out the current edition of GW2, not an expansion.

The living story is boring short term content. Nothing which keeps me playing.

For gamers definitely not. For Anet and NCsoft most likely yes.
LS is very low cost development that keeps the game just alive enough to make profit from the cash shop.

when i think of an expansion, i think about new land and big changes that changes the way players play the game.
in GW1 we first has proph, when factions was released we found a way to quickly get a character max level and PvP players had a way to play with whole alliances against other alliances.
nightfall brought heroes in the game and insignia’s/inscriptions were removed from armors/weapons while changed as a separated thing, this gave the players the ability to focus more on builds and less about what armor/weapon to buy.

now i do know that they are all three chapters rather then expansions but with the way it go’s, GW2 is in dire need of a chapter size expansion.
start from lvl 50-60 and build a whole land with that idea, expand this land to the brink and introduce new and exiting features the base game doesn’t offer.
they never stated anything about the crystal desert which is a pity, there is so much land to expand to and all we get is a pathetic piece of land, one of the smallest area’s both GW2 and GW1 has to offer.

The LS delivers one very important part of the game, story. This is something every game needs, but Anet seems to think it is the only thing the game needs, which is not true.

Expansions provide things in addition to the story. They provide new continents, new races, new skills, new dungeons, new quests, new skins, new features, new game modes, new raids, etc.

So far the LS has not provided any of the other components of an expansion, and no amount of story will ever make up for the lack of those things imo.

Could the Living Story eliminate the need for an expansion? Yes, if done right. There is nothing that is traditionally part of an expansion that could not be released via the Living Story / Feature Pack model.

Will the Living Story eliminate the need for an expansion? Only time will tell.

• Four “chapters” of living story every 6 months (each chapter being as big as Canach’s “dungeon” is to a real dungeon) including one half-sized (smaller, actually) map every 6 months.
• PvP: one balance path every 6(!) months. e-sport? Yeah, right.
• WvW: nothing.
• Dungeon, small group content: nothing.
• Guild content: nothing.

Not sure a formal “expansion” is necessary, but what we’re getting now is pretty sad.

Let’s face it….
LS doesn’t eliminate the need of an expansion it’s blocking it.
And of course this is made on purpose.
A-Net has a wonderful excuse for not doing an expansion.

The target group changed dramatically since GW1.
GW2 targets the teen group or younger. This way they still have some kind of an income because begging for daddys wallet can be annoying and parents will give in.
Even more important you don’t need depth in your game because this age group has almost no expectations as long as there is something flashy, colored and fast moving.

NC Soft moved on to the next games and as long as GW2 creates a +/- 0 or a little profit they just let it run on low budget.

Is this right or even fair………… absolutely not.
Is it business……… it sadly is

Since i did my legendary weapon i went back to GW1.
Leveling up a character is fun and exiting, not a second job like GW2

LS is far better then expansion in ways of putting out new content. What you see from most ppl complaining is not so much how the content is put out but more on the lines of what the content is and often the LS way of doing it is getting scapegoated.

So 6 months of LS ever 2 weeks > then waiting 6 months for one big update that hold 6 months of that LS update.

The two have nothing to do with each other. Expansions are a traditional way of delivering content in chunks, far apart. ANet has opted to deliver content, story and features, gradually. They’ve been clear about it, too, saying (words to the effect of): “as long as we’re making money using the free-to-play model, no expansions.”

A similar question is: does ANet intend to add new professions, new races, and a lot more dungeons/maps? They’ve been all-but-silent about this. My guess based on what they’ve delivered is: no new races or professions, but at some point, more dungeons and all existing zones are subject to change. Completely.

No.

The LS is short, relatively low quality, extremely low replayability type content.

An expansion ought to contain much higher quality content, with decent replayability, and an impressive amount of content.

Another key difference is the LS can’t be genuinely difficult, because then parts of it would be too hard for most of the players, and the LS is something everyone should be able to complete. An expansion can add genuinely difficult things.

Unfortunately, it seems ANET is going in “let’s give them low amounts of low quality content that has near zero replay value” direction, also known as living story, instead of the expansion direction.

In theory, it could. There is no reason that stuff a boxed expansion would bring needs a box when the LS format is around.

However, they are not doing things expected of an expansion. Just the linear path of the story segments being thrown at us every 2 weeks. The most expansion-esque content we have received is the 2 new maps over 2 years (SSC and DT).

So yes, it COULD. It just isn’t.

First we have to define what expansion stands for.

If we define expansion as an expansion of skills, zones, races, PvP modes etc. then the answer to your question is “no”. The LW can not eliminate the need of an expansion just as the PS could/did not replace the zones, dungeons etc. LW is only a concept to deliver content embedded in a story. LW is basically a pimped-up PS with more to do in the single instances.

If we define expansion as an expansion pack then the answer to the question is “yes”. An expansion pack is basically a CD key or serial number that is purchased to unlock the launched content. Therefore LW can easily replace an expansion pack.

Regardless the method you launch the expansion – expansion pack, LW or even modules in the gem store – a decent number of teams have to develop the content and deliver it to the method of choice. If there is not a decent amount of content all methods – maybe except of gem store – will feel small and not satisfying. At the moment the launch of LW and its content is basically an equivalent of former PS chapters. Even if you make an expansion pack of all season 2 episodes it would not satisfy the people, who want an expansion pack.

The living story had the potential to eliminate the need for expansions, but it failed miserably. The current living story is terrible and doesn’t offer any lasting content or anything else big we would normally see in an mmo’s expansion.

Fernling.1729:

The living story had the potential to eliminate the need for expansions, but it failed miserably. The current living story is terrible and doesn’t offer any lasting content or anything else big we would normally see in an mmo’s expansion.

It has eliminated the need for expansion because what you see in a say 6 month span is what you get from an expansion its just simply put out ever 2 weeks so there new content all the time for you to play and not just a simple binges gaming content ever 6 months.

You may not like the content that you got in the last 6 months but why would there be more content from an expansion? Simply put this is an talk about how content is put out and NOT simply asking for more.

Does LS eliminate the need for an expansion?

No.

Does it need to add level or gear grind?

No.

This is a game that can appeal to the casual gamers and explorers. Give us that. Give us places where we can just take in the sights and try interesting jumps and get lost in the world. Yes, we’ll eventually explore all of it. But if it’s made well, then we’ll go back to the parts we enjoyed and have fun there.

You can’t match what other games have for treadmill grinding. Don’t try. But the LS isn’t blowing the doors open, either. It may show us a new place every now and then, but it doesn’t expand the horizon.

Nope. Currently you run the living story once (or twice if you’re going for the achievements) and then never again which generally isn’t what expansion content is since expansion content tends to be the main content played until the next expansion.

Expansion or not the people-like myself-who are dissatisfied will remain dissatisfied. The stuff we want goes against anets vision.

More dungeons
More classes
More “hard core” content
More gear (that’s attainable without gems)
More skills
More prestige items

it’s time we face it and accept anet is uninterested with catering to that portion of its customer base. Which it’s hard to blame them. We want the most, complain the most, and go up and arms when it doesn’t go our way.

Personally, I’m waiting for a dev studio who cares to cater to the player that I am. It’s silly to keep expecting anet to turn into something that they are not and have never planned to be.

I don’t believe so, no. In my mind however, I feel like they’re using the Living Story as a bridge between the original game and an expansion. What I mean is, at the end of this or maybe a future Season of the LS they can use it as a way to set up an expansion to the game.

For me, that’s the only thing I can see them doing with this because, if that’s not what they’re doing with the LS, they’re messing up big time.

Living Story could replace an expansion, yes, if ANet chose to use it that way. But they probably won’t, because free is free. You get what you pay for.

I play through the LS once and then go back to WvW.
So short answer is no; WvW and PvP are the only endgame content that interest me at the moment.

The problem with the Living Story is that it lacks exploration. Everything is small and confined. When I play PvE in a MMO it’s to explore and discover challenging areas, not to repeat the same story instance 5 times for achievements. Also I find the whole of the PvE game is too easy. An expansion could have more difficult areas to propose.

It’s nothing like a full expansion. Because the LS is paid through the gem store, it keeps a lot of stuff behind pay-walls. On the other hand, an expansion pays itself, so an expansion would not only contain new story like the LS, but it would also contain stuff like commodities and skins that can be obtained OUTSIDE the gem store.

This is also why I think an expansion would be A LOT more desirable than the Living Story.

Also, the way I see it, Living Story updates are like the new raids and PvP seasons of traditionnal MMOs. Those MMOs add extra PvE challenges for their top players, while GW2, being more focused on casuals, offers more story. But, eventually, you need an expansion to keep the game fresh.

In my honest opinion I feel that the LS can eliminate the need for an expansion but only if it is permanent and enough content is created. We still have many areas in Tyria (map) that have not been created if the LS can tackle this by adding areas each seasons it can definitely in my opinion eliminate the need for an expansion (two areas in two years not nearly enough). Expansions for me would only be needed to add a new continent (Cantha/Elona). LS can fill in the map of Tyria and later if/when expansions come out they can do the same with the new continents.

It can but not the way its currently being shipped. Too much time in between fixes and features. This leads to stale gameplay. Class and Profession balance/updates really shouldn’t be an every 6-7 month thing. That’s a bit drastic.

I can understand not wanting to knee jerk balance, but you could atleast push the major bug fixes or even new traits/skills with each Living World update and it wouldn’t be confusing.