Guild Wars 2

I was thinking earlier after watching WP’s latest video on if GW2 should do a typical expansion or release content that would usually be in an expansion in smaller frequent LS updates.

While thinking about this I started wondering why ArenaNet hasn’t pulled the trigger on either, and I started wondering what ArenaNet’s relationship/contract with NcSoft is like.

It seems that this could have alot to do with their decision. Maybe small frequent LS updates is ArenaNets strategy to keep Ncsoft at arms length or is financially in their best interest because of their contract with NcSoft.

I don’t know much about the gaming industry. Which is the reason I posted this. For those of you who do know about the studio publisher relationship-or better yet ArenaNet NcSoft relationship-what do you think? Is this a possible theory or does it not make sense given your insight into the situation.

Once again I am speculating with no real basis for this theory, and it may be a dumb theory but I was curious and thought I’d ask.

The Living story is a “testing program”. They throw in different concepts and players are giving their feedback. The ones they like will be noted and developed.
One example is: they added various events in the world but people didn’t seem too interested to discover them. In the end they managed to create the Scarlet invasions to see if people are doing the events if announced in the chat. People respended positively to this type of mechanic.
So, I guess they are gathering information “on live” about what people enjoy and what not. Instead of working on a big expansion and then have a lot of bugs in it, they can make small additions and people can give feedback on it.

You will never be privy to the reasoning behind their decisions: anyone who does know is contractually obligated not to share that knowledge.

Small or big additions it doesn’t matter. It is still a temporary content!

Nike.2631:

You will never be privy to the reasoning behind their decisions: anyone who does know is contractually obligated not to share that knowledge.

We already know the reasoning behind their decisions: money.

I will only say a couple of things – only Anet and NCSOFT know what they have negotiated and it’s a professional secret and as such will never be known to us.

I do hope they give us an expansion soon(ish) cause living story is bullkitten. 90% of the people I know only do it for 2 reasons – 1 being that if you miss out on it you will NEVER be able to do it again, and 2 being that there is usually some way of making extra money by getting a lucky rare skin/mini drop or certain not-so-time consuming farm that will possibly shorten the amount of time you would usually have to spend on getting a precursor or sth they wanna get.
Most of them find the scarlet invasion stupid and not rly a good part of the game (like how did you manage to add robots with star wars kinda “laser sounds” a part of this game?! last time i checked this was GW2, not SWOTR), and only find some of the patches interesting. Like some find SAB interesting like me, and absolutely love it, some hate it and like stuff like molten alliance dungeon or sth.
What we all agree on is that living story is there only as an excuse to not give us the expansion, that it’s a farm that we don’t wanna miss out on for achievement points reasons, but are also tired of having to farm sth new every 2 weeks cause if we skip on it there is no going back.
WE all want/need more permanent content. I will start saying I instead WE as to not sound like i’m a spoksman for some large group, i’m kinda saying what me and few of my friends and guildies are talking about usually.
In a year we have been given 1 extra island – southsun cove, withought any decent content. Nobody ever goes there except to farm blood or karka shells, and every now and then when people grow bored of it and take some villages we get karka queen – map gets filled for 7-10 minutes, then it’s empty again. Sorry, almost forgot about karka rush or guild challenge.

If this was guild wars 1 there would be a rumor of a factions expansion, 2 new professions, and a whole new continent to explore, with kittenloads of new skills, some new mechanics etc.

I find living story kinda ok, but also a fail cause it is making our chances of getting a full expansion lower and lower. When do you see us getting chanta or elona or some other continent? WE didn’t even get like 40% of Tyria that is still not accessible, and they gave us only 1 small map, very uninteresting and unimportant, in a whole year. By this rate we’re gonna have grandchildren by the time some expansion is ready.

I welcome the changes like new tequatl fight etc, but I wanna see new dragons before I grow to old for gaming. Last year when you said there are 5 elder dragons and we only get to fight 1 I said AWSOME, we gonna get like 2 dragons per year with kittenloads of new content and when we kill all of them we gonna be moving to chanta and elona and fix some kitten there as well. Instead we’re still stuck on 1 lame elder dragon fight that’s very unimpressive, specially after the new teq fight (come on, shooting dragon clinging from a tower for 5 minutes… it’s horrible) and 2 smaller dragon champions. And it took you 5 months to introduce us some characters that are gonna form a new dragon slaying party at one point? When? summer next year we go for jormag? and then by 2020 we gonna get to them all? 2030 we go back to chanta and elona… maybe?

I only know i won’t be spending 1 more year of doing the same dungeons and fotm. Living story kinda took a lot of time from me, and at times I have a feeling I don’t have a lot of time for “normal” gw2.

The LS nets them more profits for a little bit of work. That’s why an expansion isn’t their priority right now. All that temporary content compels people to come back to finish them because they miss out on rewards, namely some kittenty kittening wings and achievements. In coming back, something catches their eye on the TP, an everlasting weapon or skin and they get it.

With an expansion, the expense is more than you’d expect, and they aren’t willing to spend that type of money until profits are maxed and a vast majority of the masses will say LS is getting boring. Which should’ve been about 6 months ago.

Cantha.
Do it.

Nike.2631:

You will never be privy to the reasoning behind their decisions: anyone who does know is contractually obligated not to share that knowledge.

Thank you for your reply. Of course I know that no one can say with any certainty what the reason is for this except for those in the know. I just wanted to know if this COULD be a possibility or was their a fallacy in my thinking. For example, I came up with this theory and thought that maybe “Anet doesn’t actually see the profit, they just collect salary from NcSoft”. The whole point isn’t so much about what is actually going on but what the business model is and given that business model is my earlier theory an acceptable theory-and nothing more-to what is going on.

Honestly I like the bi-weekly updates that trickle out stuff over an expansion, at least in theory anyway. The problem with living-story updates is too much of the content put out is temporary and the rewards can only be achieved in a certain time frame.

roamzero.9486:

Honestly I like the bi-weekly updates that trickle out stuff over an expansion, at least in theory anyway.

I’m being serious here, but how much of the Living Story is actually “expansion caliber”? If ArenaNet were to release a full-fledged expansion, I doubt it would be loaded with stuff like “break 150 pinatas, collect 150 kites, ride in 30 balloons”. And I bet it would feature new zones or regions, more voiced dialogue, and actual in-game presentation of the story.