Guild Wars 2

ANet I want to believe you can release an expansion-level amount of changes and content. I don’t think I’ve seen it yet, but I want to believe you can do it.

Even if I haven’t liked everything in every release so far, there’s always been an aspect of it I did enjoy. As soon as I saw the quote the OP posted, I knew it would be cause for reaction. With Whiteside saying “entire new landmasses are on the list,” that gives me hope.

The things that define expansion content for me are akin to the feelings I got when the game released: A sense of wonder and excitement to explore wonderful new areas with memorable art and design, New mechanics, skills, professions, classes to create builds for and learn how to use effectively, Ever-evolving complexity and creativity in dungeon/boss mechanics that make those encounters fun, engaging, and help you improve at your chosen classes, and the idea that with story and lore, nothing is forbidden (Assassinate the Queen, truly cleanse Orr of the Risen, reveal the Pale Tree really is the final dragon =p)

Content spread over frequent releases is great and all, but don’t forget the power behind a huge release that rekindles the sense that “Oh gosh, there is so much to do, I’ll never get to it all!” like an expansion gives.

Well, i had a thought that it might be their business plan, to monetize on those frequent Living Story updates, selling stuff and all, and to do that instead of making an expansion. And well, i think this is totally suck for us as players, at least for me personally. We’re getting close to a anniversary , 1 year from a launch of GW2 and look at how this game changed so far and what new content it have. There were some substantial and significant updates and chunks of content, like the last patch or the one that added FotM, but can it all be even nearly compared to a full expansion? To what Factions brought to GW? Obviously not. And Factions did come out exactly 1 year after the release of the original GW. So, i think this is really good for AN, because it’s probably way cheaper for them, because the amount of actual new content they need to produce is significantly smaller compared to a full expansion, yet it keeps the flow of sales more or less steady. And, i think, this is in general bad for players, because, while we do get some new stuff very often, overall we’re getting much less content, less stuff to do, times and times less. I understand their choice, all money are green after all, but i don’t have to support this or accept it.

Thorn.7963:

I’d gladly shell out 40-50 for a whole new continent to explore
But I’d really kill for new skills and weapons.

Quoted for emphasis.

Aryto.5873:

Content spread over frequent releases is great and all, but don’t forget the power behind a huge release that rekindles the sense that “Oh gosh, there is so much to do, I’ll never get to it all!” like an expansion gives.

Exactly. Logging in once every 2 weeks, doing a half hour worth of content and going “Well back to waiting for something new” is not good for the world.

I loved it when I got the game and I had a whole world to explore, countless events and things to do, and semi-branching story lines.

Now I got “Travel around the map and press F” and “do a non player-tested dungeon that lasts for a few weeks and doesn’t give much reward” and it just doesn’t feel as fun.

That said, SAB was a step in the right direction.

This is akin to books really: some authors regularly release short stories lasting a few hours each, which is cool. GRRM has done this. But what these authors are best known for are the epic volumes they publish every few years. Or another spin on it, would you prefer GRRM to release a chapter of Song of Fire and Ice every month and never release the whole book at once, or would you prefer to stick with an entire book every few years (ok not every 5 years like with GRRM, but you know what I mean :P). I know I would prefer the latter, simply because it is a much more epic and fufilling experience.

Oh look, it’s Bejeweled wars 2!

There goes any hope of getting new Weapon Types/Bars.

No new Personal Stories either…

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

Thanks Colin.

It seeing responses like this that keep me a player of this game not matter what the nay-Sayers may be trying to not only convince other but themselves that they are correct, when as you have just shown they are not. Admittedly I being just a customer don’t have all the answer either, but due to my twenty years experience in MMOs and having successfully run a multimillion dollar business. I feel I have the knowledge to understand where you guys are going with your plans and I whole hardily support them.

Lane.3410:

el matadore.3852:

sky pirates to much as a filler? you get a new dungeon. I really don’t get why people are complaining so much about these updates.

What about people who don’t like dungeons?

F & F: instanced, solo to 5 story events; open world DE’s (more challenging that usual); dungeon, plus clicky busywork (some people must like that stuff)
Southsun: solo dungeon, farmable events, clicky busywork stuff, new world meta event, mini-game
Dragon Bash: story instances, clicky busywork, mini-game, dungeon; scavenger hunt

Looks like they’re mixing it up to me.

Nick.6972:

Thorn.7963:

I’d gladly shell out 40-50 for a whole new continent to explore
But I’d really kill for new skills and weapons.

Quoted for emphasis.

I spend more then that a month in the gem shop… What is your point?

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

Thanks for saying this, hopefully it will calm down some of the peeps on here. I’ve no idea why people always assume the worst. Let the people behind the game do their work. Keep it up Colin! <3

Krosslite.1950:

Nick.6972:

Thorn.7963:

I’d gladly shell out 40-50 for a whole new continent to explore
But I’d really kill for new skills and weapons.

Quoted for emphasis.

I spend more then that a month in the gem shop… What is your point?

That crap like that is whats wrong with MMOs nowadays.

Who needs content when you can make more money scamming people with RNG?

ColinJohanson.2394:

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible.

You’ve been doing this for the past 10 months. I fail to see how this is your focus when what you’ve been doing thus far is making add-ons to the ‘core GW2 experience’ and then taking them away after a few weeks.

And -
Shouldn’t the core experience been there/integrated since the launch?

Is this still beta?

For me the biggest gripe is that the Living World has thus far felt like nothing more than a Parade of Events.

You want to take that which traditionally has been done in an expansion, and break it up into smaller chunks, released more often? That’s great.

However, consider the person coming into the game after taking a month or two off, for whatever reason. They should be able to see that the world has changed, and be able to spend quite some time “catching up” on what all has happened.

At present, instead, they have “well, this week you’re supposed to go kill ten rats in each of several different zones”.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

If I can make one request Colin, please keep the blog post as clear and open as possible. The start of the year blog that detailed the first half of the year had far too many vague proposals and common place concepts.
“We want to expand on the community features”
“Our stories should play out and have far reaching consequences”
“We want to develop unique systems that reward players in exciting ways”

What I disliked about the previous blog post was that a whole lot was said without really telling the reader anything at all. I’m not saying the post was purely negative, but my intentions are merely to clarify and explain my areas of contention, in a constructive way, off course.

I’d prefer it if more is explained through example. I know this isn’t always easy, but it will clarify you guys and gals’ intentions a whole lot more, rather than leaving an unsatisfied feeling that I’ve read a whole lot and still don’t really know what’s going on.

For instance, when talking about community, the guild features could maybe have been mentioned. Or with story features you can mention more of where personal stories would go, painting an idea of how zones can be affected and focusing on the whole permanent vs temporary content grievance and how that will be addressed in the future. Maybe even talk about what the idea behind loot is and the goal to make things more rewarding, perhaps throw some early details so the fans can give input. After all, some people visiting the forums might have valuable ideas that might help in the design process, or the global idea of what fans might want could sway you guys into a certain direction.

Anyway, I’m really excited to see what awaits us Tuesday, and I can’t wait to read the blog. Keep up the good work guys and gals.

This worries me a bit about new races. I’m looking forward to rolling a tengu, but if they’re going to continue focusing on the Living Story that means it’s either going to be a very long wait until tengu are added via expansion or they’re going to add them via the Living Story. If the latter is the case, I wonder if they’re going to be added via Gem Shop (insert rng joke here) or if they’ll simply be free. And if they are added via the Living Story, are they going to get the same care and polish and depth the original five races were given (full independent story, voice acting, starting city, starting zones, atmospheric details, etc)?

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

Glad to hear the Devs are actually reading the forum and actually giving us some insight regarding future plans for GW2. Gradual contents are good as long as pieces come together in the long run. Cheers to that, and hopefully it all works out.

This song about making core game experience as strong as possible and all is going on for a 6 months now. And WvW did get a culling fix, and sPvP got CA and a Spectator mode, and PvE got … chunks and bits of Living Story i guess, well, there was an Orr fix and AC rework, i’am not sure if you can call AC rework a success though, since it’s deserted now, while it was quite lively before the update. So, first of all, the definition of the “core experience” is really spacious in GW2 and second, just imagine if the full expansion would be coming out in 2 months… Including all those already released features, like culling fix in WvW and PvE, CA, sMode, but on top of that new story, new continent, new modes for sPvP and new what not. Oh well, yea, no Living Story, how horrible. And no SAB prolly. Decide for yourself what would you choose. xP

What Colin said in this topic so far sounds to me like a damage control tbh, nothing more. Been there, heard that. It’s not like they’re going to roll out an expansion’s worth of content in next 2 months anyway. xP

Another interview on this subject.

“In terms of box sales and microtransactions are still very strong, and of course we are preparing an expansion pack but in terms of when we will actually launch it, it’s something we are still monitoring… We are looking to the performance of the game and then we will decide what will be the best time to do the launch.”

Unfortunately developer ArenaNet doesn’t appear to have got the memo, with director Colin Johanson saying as recently as March that none were currently planned.

“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future, but we don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-13-ncsoft-profits-up-yoy-but-down-on-last-quarter

I wonder how far in advance the “Living Story” content was created. We think it’s all brand new and constantly being created. It could have been created a year before launch and thus there would be no need for expansions. We’ll never know for sure I guess.

People saying that they don’t like 2 hours of content every 2 weeks should think about how much time they would have to wait receiving no content at all while devs are busy stockpiling it for an expansion.

As some people have already noted, people are forgetting that Guildwars 1 received the Factions expansion 1 year after release, and then received Nightfall a mere 6 months after that. In short, 2 expansion packs consisting of 2 brand new continents, and 2 new classes each were released within 2 years of release. And anet had a much smaller team back then. Don’t see why they can’t pull at least 1 expansion of similar size out of the bag in the forseeable future.

I can’t help wondering what happens when rival mmo’s release big meaty expansions…will GW2 players stay with living story or jump ship?

Thorn.7963:

Krosslite.1950:

Nick.6972:

Thorn.7963:

I’d gladly shell out 40-50 for a whole new continent to explore
But I’d really kill for new skills and weapons.

Quoted for emphasis.

I spend more then that a month in the gem shop… What is your point?

That crap like that is whats wrong with MMOs nowadays.

Who needs content when you can make more money scamming people with RNG?

That “crap” as you put it is what is funding this game, but if you would rather pay a subscription please let Anet know this. I would rathe fnd a game that is free to play after you buy it and spend money in a cash shop.

Oh…….. wait. I already did

COLIN PLZ

we want our tengu race… then possibly hylek

let me take you back, to like 2005 I think it was when Guild Wars 1 was being released, they were talking about possibly making new playable races in one of their development posts (before it was released) on the main website. Obviously this never happened.

Don’t let that happen to GW2.

we want our Skritt race… shiny, yes? More come now. Make Skritt good. You help!
Go, go, go.

Need Skritt weapons, too. Big stick. Throw bottle. Hard rock. You make, yes?

Aryto.5873:

ANet I want to believe you can release an expansion-level amount of changes and content. I don’t think I’ve seen it yet, but I want to believe you can do it.

Even if I haven’t liked everything in every release so far, there’s always been an aspect of it I did enjoy. As soon as I saw the quote the OP posted, I knew it would be cause for reaction. With Whiteside saying “entire new landmasses are on the list,” that gives me hope.

The things that define expansion content for me are akin to the feelings I got when the game released: A sense of wonder and excitement to explore wonderful new areas with memorable art and design, New mechanics, skills, professions, classes to create builds for and learn how to use effectively, Ever-evolving complexity and creativity in dungeon/boss mechanics that make those encounters fun, engaging, and help you improve at your chosen classes, and the idea that with story and lore, nothing is forbidden (Assassinate the Queen, truly cleanse Orr of the Risen, reveal the Pale Tree really is the final dragon =p)

Content spread over frequent releases is great and all, but don’t forget the power behind a huge release that rekindles the sense that “Oh gosh, there is so much to do, I’ll never get to it all!” like an expansion gives.

I want to second this because it’s very true. It can be easily argued that releasing a lot of content at one time has the benefit of generating more hype and increasing your sense of wonder about the game. I like the living world stuff, but it isn’t a satisfactory replacement for expansion-style mass content releases, or at least hasn’t been so far. I hope they can manage both.

Since launch, we have seen features and improvements to WvW and sPvP. I’m happy for those, but they were needed features and not something one would expect an MMO developer to save for a paid expansion.

Looking at actual playable content, the past 10 months has been rather sorrowful in that regard. I’d actually rather pay $35-$50 a year for an actual expansion’s worth of content, than see resources wasted on a ten month program that has produced 1/20th of an expansion’s worth of content. Things are compounded by the fact that most of it has been temporary and very little of it has led to permanent changes to the game world.

If the last two updates are indicative of what to expect moving forward, then things aren’t really any better, they just provide an illusion of productivity by providing an update every fortnight. It’s fast-food content that provides no real nutritional value and leaves you feeling hungry.

They can’t call it Living World content, because none of it makes the world feel alive. They shouldn’t call it Living Story content, because there is never enough actual story. (We really should get 3-5 Story Instances at least on par with the story and game play experience provided by the Personal Story with each installment).

It really feels like fluff content slapped together by a studio that has forgotten how to produce content. I mean, look at the amazing amount of content of all sorts the game offered at alunch and the massive, detailed worldspace it inhabits. Arenanet clearly knew how to harness it’s employees and direct the project in a way that produced an unprecedented amount of at launch content for an MMO. What happened to that studio?

ANet developed over 1600 Dynamic Events in five years, while also building everything else that went into the game. If they could have produced even 300 new DEs around the world over the last ten months, we would have a true Living World. Instead, DEs are suddenly “too hard” and we get this Living Story kitten instead.

Potential? Squandered. Future? Uncertain…

Kichwas.7152:

This, if it turns into the way things shall be, will mean an endless series of hastily cobbled together, poorly plotted, un-QA’d, marginal quality updates with a lot of shinies to get through quickly, but little larger substance.

This, a thousand times this.

I have two things I wish to point out that I am seeing a lot of in this thread.

1) A lot of people keep mentioning the last ten months. Shame on you.
This has nothing to do with the state of Anet at this time. This is a recent development for them as this game comes into it own. To compare what they now promise to what has come out before should never be done. They have been trying something new and as of now is not how they thought two months ago let alone at the time they launched the game.
SO STOP.

2) lets define the word Expansion:
per Dictionary.com it is:

1. the act or process of expanding.
2. the state or quality of being expanded.
3. the amount or degree of expanding.
4. an expanded, dilated, or enlarged portion or form of a thing: The present article is an expansion of one he wrote last year.
5. anything spread out; expanse.

Now tell me what really sound like an expansion to you. What they say they are going to deliver from here on out or what we have gotten in the past from other MMOs.

Personally I like Anets method better.

Krosslite.1950:

Personally I like Anets method better.

I can respect that, but consider the following analogy. If you want watch a good, engaging story would you rather have it presented in a five episode mini-series with one episode airing per week over five weeks? Or would you rather have it in a 2.5 hour movie you can sit and watch all at once? Bear in mind the movie budgets typically dwarf those of mini-series.

I can’t work the production time into the above analogy, but I can’t imagine the LS having the development time a full-fledged expansion would have. And the more time a developer has, the more fine-tuning and polishing he can put into the final product.

“[Living World] is only a fraction of what the rest of the company is working on,” he said. "We have large feature teams that are working on exciting things behind the scenes that, when it’s ready, we’ll release those with these updates.

Ill be highly optimistic here and give an ideal to as what the above could mean;

Bi-weekly content updates will bring small amounts of content but more regulary than any other MMO on the market.
The large undisclosed teams working on ‘behind the scenes’ features might develop a new region, new PS arc, new classes/races etc (everything youd expect in an expansion).
The living story team will handle the introduction of these features into the game world over a month or two of story updates, even shorter if the story arc involves a new region.

This means elona, cantha or any other large bits of content isnt off the table. Imagine 6 months running by, in which the living story team updates existing content and rolls out this idea of a living breathing story. In that 6 months other teams pile up content that all belong to a new region or continent, once that is ready the living story team introduces them through the usual living story updates.

If this is true, its a brilliant yet risky strategy. One that could bring thousands more players into the game (albeit, once a large living story patch is introduced and news gets out). Imagine the excitement as each update is announced and players wonder whether it will be leading up to a new region or new class/race. Just like the TV show analogy, it will leave alot of players looking forward to the next ‘episode’.

However, if another 6 months goes by and gw2 is looking very similar to as it did upon release, excluding some features it should have had since launch, players will start dropping like flys and Anet will be forced to consider expansions again.

Heres hoping that whatever way you look at it, we will see massive content updates in the future. But then again, only time will tell.

EDIT: Also want to point out this quote in the article -

Sales of Guild Wars 2 are officially 3 million, a slightly cobwebbed number accurate only as far as January 2013. NCSoft typically shuts down questions about sales, as it did again when I asked, but as the PR was going through the motions of saying, “When we hit another milestone that we’ve got in our heads…”, I interrupted with “5 million?” and with a laugh he replied: "There will be another milestone coming up pretty shortly.

> Thats alot more sales than alot of haters in the forum give this game credit for. Even if only 500k of those purchases are still active players, thats a massive base of customers that can re-install gw2 given a new region/race/class announcement. This is the reason i suggest that the strategy might be genius, because lets face it – With alot of haters that are hating, paid expansions might just limit the amount of players anet targets with these content updates, instead they know almost all previous customers will play again if something massive was announced.

darkace.8925:

I can’t work the production time into the above analogy, but I can’t imagine the LS having the development time a full-fledged expansion would have. And the more time a developer has, the more fine-tuning and polishing he can put into the final product.

These are all things that have been addressed in another interview:

“It’s a marathon not a sprint and we’ve been getting better with each of our releases, in terms of how we budget, how we plan it out, how we manage personnel etc. Now we have four full ‘Living World’ teams that are building these content updates, so that we can stagger releases and make sure that people [developers] can decompress and get the quality time necessary to build a good design document before going back in and trying to implement it all over again”

“It seems all of this free content is only possible due to the ongoing popularity of the in-game gem store which Mike told us feeds new revenue into the studio at a “constant” rate, something which regular updates would inevitably increase as players return to the game regularly to sample newly added content. Essentially it seems those who use the store are essentially sponsoring those who don’t ensuring these new content updates remain free, and that’s a tough balance which very few online games get right.”

http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/arenanet-planning-fortnightly.html

Fiontar.4695:

…If the last two updates are indicative of what to expect moving forward, then things aren’t really any better, they just provide an illusion of productivity by providing an update every fortnight. It’s fast-food content that provides no real nutritional value and leaves you feeling hungry.

They can’t call it Living World content, because none of it makes the world feel alive. They shouldn’t call it Living Story content, because there is never enough actual story. (We really should get 3-5 Story Instances at least on par with the story and game play experience provided by the Personal Story with each installment).

It really feels like fluff content slapped together by a studio that has forgotten how to produce content. I mean, look at the amazing amount of content of all sorts and the massive, detailed worldspace it inhabits. Arenanet clearly knew how to harness it’s employees and direct the project in a way that produced an unprecedented amount of at launch content for an MMO. What happened to that studio?

ANet developed over 1600 Dynamic Events in five years, while also building everything else that went into the game. If they could have produced even 300 new DEs around the world over the last ten months, we would have a true Living World. Instead, DEs are suddenly “too hard” and we get this Living Story kitten instead.

I think your point is absolutely appropriate. I mentioned before how GW2 fans are being deceived or deceiving themselves into lowering their standards.

The Living Story Project does not live up to the quality that the level 1-80 experience impresses on you, not story wise and not content wise. It also fails to make the world of Tyria feel alive. F&F went from January to April and the majority of it was nothing but “achievements”. When it “concluded” the only thing that changed about the world was that the content was removed.

SAB had more of an influence in the world because Moto is still there and the Box is still there also. Not to mention several players who you see running around with weapons from SAB because they were purchasable with tokens earned inside the event.

Dont you dare touch my SAB you Living Story devs! dont you dare!

Hm I don’t know. I have mixed feeling about it – on one hand it’s a cool idea, but I would really love to see a full expansion like GW Factions/Nightfall was with brand new continents released each time. This way it sounds, till we get all zones, and Elona/Cantha it will take forever and half.

I really wanted to see those continents added in paid expansion, but if they can pull it of, well we’ll see.

One big question Mike, Colin, or any of the A-net team, is this going to be a repeat of what happened with Guild Wars 1 Beyond content? Since I remember a gigantic list of things that you wanted to do for GW1 after Winds of Change and it got killed by May of this year.

Sephius.2876:

What I’ve loved about expansions in the past is getting 3 or 4 new zones open and released at once. It really was a breath of fresh air, and gave me a new perspective on the game as an adventurer, rather then just re-visiting old zones with slightly different mobs.

The problem, I think, with the living story updates is that there’s no real ground breaking change. It’s like 1 small area, a couple of small events and then waiting a couple of weeks until the next update. There’s no brand new sweeping forests to explore, or new towns or villages, or no new castles/mountains/jungles. And for me that makes the new content just seem a bit hollow.

An expansion would change everything.

Yeah this, pretty much this

the new dungeons still have lag issues and combat still feels ‘meh’ at best, and all in all the pointlessness of doing dynamic events simply makes the fighting aspects of gameplay mediocre at best.

I would suggest updating your engine anet… there some games coming out late 2013 which (from preview gameplay) simply looks astonishing…. like they’ve raised their gameplays experience to a:

(0:10)

TL;DR – if any expansion is happening, please be focusing on the dynamic events (in story mode and dungeon mode) and please do not implement anything new unless an adequate game engine power exists support them. This game has much greater potential I believe that we (as players) have yet to see.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

Appreciate the reply, and what you guys do.

Is any of this “expansion type content” appearing in the near future? New large maps, new skills, classes, ect? I feel that, right or wrong, that tends to be the general expectation out of the playerbase at a year + into an MMO. It seems to me that most of the worries about the lack of expansions REALLY boil down to thinking that the above might not be in the works.

I’m not concerned, it seems like they intend to do expansion-like things, but spread out. I remember reading an interview during GW2’s development that they recieved both good and bad feelings about GW1 expansions, that some people were able to finish it very quickly while others were unable to keep up, I doubt I could find the source, but I believe I recall correctly. And if it’s still possible to see new zones, professions, races, dungeons, etc; I’m all for living storys. He even said if this all goes right, so it’s not like everything will, we may see expansions depending on how all this goes. What honestly bothers me the most, is Zadorojny is also the dredge general who believes the destroyers will work for the dredge. :P

Sindex.9520:

One big question Mike, Colin, or any of the A-net team, is this going to be a repeat of what happened with Guild Wars 1 Beyond content? Since I remember a gigantic list of things that you wanted to do for GW1 after Winds of Change and it got killed by May of this year.

That’s because it the Live team from GW1 was needed for the launch of GW2, and it really doesn’t make sense to develop anything for that game anymore, not even a final event when the servers are shutting down. It’d be wasted money and time.

Silentsins.3726:

Is any of this “expansion type content” appearing in the near future? New large maps, new skills, classes, ect? I feel that, right or wrong, that tends to be the general expectation out of the playerbase at a year + into an MMO. It seems to me that most of the worries about the lack of expansions REALLY boil down to thinking that the above might not be in the works.

here is a list of the key elements that have been stated will take place:

1) Anet will refine and update existing content and locations

2) Overhaul explorable dungeons

3) update the reward system

4) add new fractals

5) create new activities

6) Change world bosses into more epic encounters

7) Holiday events that will change slightly year to year

8) events that change the landscape of the world forever ( leaving behind epic monuments, destruction, new playable content)

8a) introduce new maps and regions permanently

Krosslite.1950:

A lot of people keep mentioning the last ten months. Shame on you.
This has nothing to do with the state of Anet at this time. This is a recent development for them as this game comes into it own. To compare what they now promise to what has come out before should never be done. They have been trying something new and as of now is not how they thought two months ago let alone at the time they launched the game.
SO STOP.

They’ve been talking about “focusing on the core gw2 experience” ever since they finished up the Halloween event. So, past eight months then, sorry. And don’t shame us for saying something you don’t want to hear. Anet’s made it clear time and time again the reason why we haven’t seen any big additions to the game yet is because they’re focusing on improving what’s already in-game. The question, what do we have to show for it after 8 months? Comparatively little considering the timespan. (10 months in reality if you think Anet took those two months off and lounged around before figuring out what they wanted to do.)

Thorn.7963:

But I’d really kill for new skills and weapons.

I’d kill for existing weapons to be expanded to more classes eg. torch on Ele, plus quality of life improvements such as an out of combat weapon swap.

While I agree that RNG boxes bring some money in… wouldn’t it bring even more money having “SURE” drops/buy instead of gambling, at a higher price of gems with some discounts at times? By “discounts” I mean real money/gem change discounts.

Say like putting 1200-1500gem price for a single dragon weapon of your choice, you could burn like 20hrs of farming/effort to get enough gold for the change, or simply “buy” it with, like, 8 euros or something? that would probably even the balance between: “HRS spent farming” and “actually paid HRS of work” (which probably awards more money than what you spent right? time/effort-wise speaking).

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.

It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.

We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.

Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.

Fantastic! Though, for a living world, why isn’t there any dynamic weather? It’s all static.

Rfreak.6591:

While I agree that RNG boxes bring some money in… wouldn’t it bring even more money having “SURE” drops/buy instead of gambling, at a higher price of gems with some discounts at times? By “discounts” I mean real money/gem change discounts.

Unfortunately it seems not. But that doesn’t excuse their exploitative practises.

Kromulous.4291:

They’ve been talking about “focusing on the core gw2 experience” ever since they finished up the Halloween event. So, past eight months then, sorry. And don’t shame us for saying something you don’t want to hear. Anet’s made it clear time and time again the reason why we haven’t seen any big additions to the game yet is because they’re focusing on improving what’s already in-game. The question, what do we have to show for it after 8 months? Comparatively little considering the timespan. (10 months in reality if you think Anet took those two months off and lounged around before figuring out what they wanted to do.)

Asking for “big additions” in the first year of any MMO is just ingnorance talking. This company has time and time again shamed other MMOs in how they address content and issues with said content.
I have been through 19 betas; 25 game launches and played in over 30 MMOs from MUDs to GW2.
The last leaves all others wanting. when you have over 20+ years in MMOs let me know. Only then will I feel you have aquired enough knowledge to know what you are talking about. it is obvious you have never run a business either.

So yes shame on you.

In a way I find this information a little odd because I don’t have any plans in the near future to spend money on the Gem Store. Currently the only investment I’ve made is the initial 60$ for the game and the only other money I would spend is on expansions, so does that mean I may never have to pay anything ever again? If so, then that’s cool with me and I’ll leave it to others to pay for my new content. Not like there’s been (or probably ever will be) in the Gem Store that has remotely pushed me to spend any more money.

Antara.3189:

Also note the accidental achievement section ((DELETE ME!!)) that found its way through to the live client.

I don’t think that was accidental. Seemed more like a teaser. You don’t think the person who went to the trouble of placing that achievement section into the live game and then renamed it to “((DELETE ME!!))” even though everyone except them must’ve known that the sky pirate event hadn’t started yet didn’t see it?

ASB.4295:

That’s because it the Live team from GW1 was needed for the launch of GW2, and it really doesn’t make sense to develop anything for that game anymore, not even a final event when the servers are shutting down. It’d be wasted money and time.

I understand GW1 struggling with it’s popularity after 2007, and why the abandonment of GW1 beyond. I was asking for rhetorical means. It seems if they go this route the only thing that will keep GW2 going, is the interest people have in the living story content. If it that interest wanes what happens then? Future game development would have to take a dramatic turn.

Don’t get me wrong, I think some of those people who professed their undying love for GW1 after quitting GW2 were hypocrtical. If the numbers showed that GW1 gained popularity despite GW2 being live then things would be different. Better or for worse.