Guild Wars 2

I freely throw money at Anet because I love this game. In return, they provide me with Gems to use as I see fit. It’s a loving relationship we have!

Krosslite.1950:

“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

Again..this is not a quote from a dev…and even if it was people should realize by now not to quote them for, well, anything.

NCSoft says they are releasing an expansion, Anet says they are not, well maybe they are, no they definitely are not, well maybe it’s on the table…but not yet, definitely not this year, maybe this year, maybe never.

I honestly don’t know what’s going on in this game from one day to the next, except that I need to punch more pinatas in the face.

Galen Grey.4709:

killcannon.2576:

So I asked you to list what has changed…and you listed:
1.Couple of Grawl npcs in LA
2.The refugees who were not there before the living story are no longer there…shocking!!!
3. A broken Lighthouse
4. Southshore is still a dead zone…which they were supposed to fix but didn’t do too hot a job at.

Three things that have zip to do with gameplay, and another failed attempt to make SouthSun worthwhile. Thanks.

Dont twist my words please. You asked me what impact those events left on the world. I was answering specific this statement of yours in a previous post: “Tyria is much the same as when I started, I can see little to no evidence of any “Living World” that the devs have spoken so much about over the last 8 months.”

I listed 3 off the top of my head that I knew were in game off the top of my head. There are more. Even subtle ones like you can still see the disturbed land where the camps had been in hoelbrak. I mean areas without snow, scorched land where the camp fires where etc..

anyhow back on subject. Like I said in a previous post if you want to have a moving storyline you have to do this. If all the events/instances in flame and frost remained in the world how could you ever say the conflict was resolved? Would it make sense to have the story say we destroyed the molten alliance, the threat is resolved but then in the open world you’d get the alliance attacking the outposts still? or refugees limping along the road?

Think of it in real world terms. If there is a major conflict anywhere in the world, while its happening you see a lot of activity, soldiers fighting, tanks, planes etc… right after the fighting stops things will start to return to normal, you’d see some distraction, people rebuilding, refugees etc.. Fast forward more and you’ll be left with some subtle hints nothing more. More time passes and everything will disappear. If today we visit london or berlin we wouldnt be able to tell those 2 cities where prime targets in a world war. That doesnt mean world war 2 never happened. Same here the effects of the molten alliance are starting to disappear sure but thats to be expected.

Also what do you mean the refugees appeared out of no where? when the flame and frost saga started you could see the refugees walking from the center of where the alliance was attacking up to hoelbrak and the black citadel. Week after week the refugee settlements grew and grew and more refugees joined them. Thats like unheard of in an MMO, what more did you want?

Still waiting on the list of what has changed in this “Living World”.

Nick.6972:

darkace.8925:

A quick browse through your posting history leaves me wondering what your motives on these forums truly are. You’re either very disgruntled that this game didn’t turn out to be Guild Wars 1.5 and you want to share your misery or you’re simply here to troll.

Sorry, sorry.
Guild Wars 2 is the greatest game ever made, people please stop whining.
If you don’t like the game, quit.

There’s a big gap between “here’s what I don’t like about this game” and “NCSoft is too busy investing in Wildstar since GW2 isn;t doing that great.” Every indication is Guild Wars 2 is doing great, but you’re trying to paint a doom and gloom picture (and you’re doing so in a baseless manner). Like I said, your posting history paints a pretty clear picture what your intentions here really are.

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

“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

Again..this is not a quote from a dev…and even if it was people should realize by now not to quote them for, well, anything.

NCSoft says they are releasing an expansion, Anet says they are not, well maybe they are, no they definitely are not, well maybe it’s on the table…but not yet, definitely not this year, maybe this year, maybe never.

I honestly don’t know what’s going on in this game from one day to the next, except that I need to punch more pinatas in the face.

Ok kill.. let me break down the paragraph:

“the in-game gem store which Mike told us feeds new revenue into the studio at a “constant” rate”

Constant being in quotation marks mean Mike said it. Sorry for the confusion

Do you think an expansion would fix this game?..Highly doubt it,just think, another area to finish in hours and never to be seen again,more lame temp content to ‘bring us back’ to the areas we forgot.More nerfs,way more rng and dr.The money they are getting from their crap store sure isnt going into this game.Look at their other projects,thats where all your money is going.Fan boys,eat it..Devs do your kitten jobs.

Vol.5241:

Conncept.7638:

Vol.5241:

“But what about making money? Guild Wars 1 survived on paid expansions, editions, add-ons, whatever you want to call them – are we to believe that the boxed sales of Guild Wars 2 and micro-transactions are enough to sustain such a large operation?

“Yes,” responded Zadorojny. “It absolutely is enough.”

And you guys wonder why they keep making RNG boxes? It sells. I say continue on with that trend.

GW1 didn’t have the Queen of Greed leading the monetization department.

Dwayna forbid a corporation operates with the allure of making money…

I work with people every day who can sell their product without holding any information whatsoever from their customer about their product, they make money completely honestly. Meanwhile, ANet hides it’s profits behind RNG odds it refuses to release. It’s greed, a desire to gain by easier and less honest means than more difficult and honest ones. They could just make all their content worth buying, instead they make a small portion of it worth it and throw it all in to the same roulette table and hope enough players are suckers. If you have no problem with that, maybe you should reevaluate how you handle your own business dealings.

And as for the ‘Queen of Greed’ comment, do some research, the amount of games that Crystina Cox has destroyed, the amount of lies she has told to the playerbase of dozens of games, and the times she has closed it all when she had promised not to and laughed her way all the way to the bank are all well documented. There is not an honest act to be spoken of in her entire career under NCSoft. And I’m sure they love her for it.

Kromulous.4291:

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.)

Exactly. We have very little to show for it. I assume that most of the developers are doing honest work on what tasks have been given them. I don’t think the lack of productivity is because people aren’t working, I think it’s because some key people in charge of the “big picture” have completely failed at taking the incredible core GW2 experience and progressing it.

I fully expected that after launch, they would continue to flesh out the new paradigm that GW2 has created in MMO design and would make additional progress towards fulfilling the Manifesto. Dynamic Events are the most important element of the new paradigm and the most important element in furthering the manifesto. It’s easy to see how the concept could and should improve as Arenanet gets better at making them and creating more complex chains that have a bigger observable impact on the game world.

There is a big problem though. ANet seems to have gotten out of the business of building new Dynamic Event content and building on the incredible foundation they established for this form of content production.

I think there is another failure that comes back around to why they may have decided that a truly living world via efficient DE production wasn’t worth the time and effort. Level scaling isn’t good enough to actually ensure that all content in the game is challenging for a level 80 character. This has provided an excuse for ANet to abandon the promise that doing lower level content would still provide at level loot almost as efficiently as when doing at level content.

Lower level zones are a lot more viable for a higher level character in GW2 than in any other MMO, but the difficulty curve needs to be tightened even further and the reward curve needs to be drastically modified to better reward down-scaling.

It all comes back to the manifesto and the distinctive design decisions that made this game so incredible and imbued it with such promise.

Perhaps the most devastating issue is that it seems that key people currently in charge of GW2 either don’t comprehend what made GW2 special, or always disagreed with those key design elements and now are dismantling the work of smarter, more talented people, or the task of furthering the manifesto and core foundation of the game is just utterly beyond them.

I know of at least one very key developer who has not been seen nor heard from since shortly after launch. Can this really come down to the loss of one person? Or, is it also a byproduct of a botched restructuring of the company for post-launch development that has left too many people that “don’t get it” making important decisions with out enough “adult supervision”?

It was sort of a miracle that a game like this that bucked stale, established MMO design philosophies made it to market with out old school thinkers in the studio bucking attempts to mess with established design rules. It seems like many may never have actually made the paradigm jump and now that they have more power within the studio, we are seeing the sad slide back into old school thinking.

in my honest evaluation the living story content is good and all but like others on this forum are saying a few new items, temporary content, minimal new zones, ect. is just not enough to keep players attracted. since its release i have noticed fewer dedicated players logging on, in my opinion we would rather see places like elona, the crystal desert, cantha, and the like than a few small add-ons here and there, even new story content leading up to another dragon battle would bring back many dedicated players than what happen with flame and frost or sky pirates. i myself have thought about going elsewhere for my video game hobby lately. i would rather pay for an expansion than continue seeing the same places or doing the same things over and over again

Kichwas.7152:

So another thing we’re missing that an Expansion gives: a Plot.
We have a story, but it has no plot.

We got a lot more then what you listed.

You missed the super adventure box, The 2 PvP maps, the flame and frost dynamic events (the invasions, the weather effects, etc..) all of the Guild missions and a couple of additions to it in subsequent months, the story instances of Braham and Rox. the mini games like crab toss, WvW progression and the dragon bash storyline events.

But even so you’re forget the most crucial part. These living story updates is not all that Anet are doing. They are also working on long term updates. We’re using WoW as an example so lets plug WoW itself instead of Gw2 and fact it against WoW. Okey thats complicated but bare with me.

So Lets say we’re comparing WoW A against WoW B
WoW A is a ficticious WoW thats 6 months old after the catacylsm release. WoW B is the real WoW from start to finish. We’re saying that WoW B released a huge expansion 2 years after catacysm that had a lot of stuff more then 4x what Gw2 released so far… fair enough. But lets look at WoW B what did WoW B release in 6 months. 1 zone and 1 raid. Comparing WoW B to WoW A you’ll get the same thing you get in Gw2 (well worst really) WoW B released less then 4x what WoW A released and thats crucial because content release is not linear not in WoW and not in Gw2.

Back to Gw2, you seem to be ignoring the fact that living story updates is not all we’re getting its just short term content we’re getting. They also said multiple times now that the 4 living story teams are just a fraction of the work they’re doing on Gw2, their task is to release stuff every 2 weeks, they’re not gonna be huge updates obviously there is so much one can do in 2 months time of work. But lets not conveniently forget the other teams that are working on long term stuff like gw2 answer to raiding. I mean and this is me just speculating now if they have 4 teams working on living story and 4 teams working on long term stuff. the 4 living story teams release stuff like we’ve been getting the past 6 months every 2 weeks and the 4 long term teams work on stuff that takes 2months + to produce. We know for sure, its been confirmed now, that one of those teams is developing on gw2 take on raiding / content for more then 5 players (source: in game talk by a developer and this week’s guild cast). The other 3 teams (there might be more teams or less teams again we dont know the real number, I just made it up but 4 teams is realistic I imagine) would be working on other long term stuff like 2 teams might be working on 3 new zones each and the last team might be working on guild halls for example. Now lets imagine the raiding is completed after 11 months, the new zones are completed in 16 months and guild housing in 14 months. In such a scenario we’d be getting the updates we’re getting up until end of august and in September we’d get something like raiding and some 10 – 20 man dungeons. then we’d get other living story updates like the once we’re getting for November, December and January. We’d get guild housing in February. more living story in march and April and then a 6 new zones with a new story line and tons of dynamic events in may 2014. (once again just so there are no misunderstanding this is all fictitious except for raiding and 5+ man content I personally invented the content just as an example.)

Wouldn’t that be amazing? Would it be a lot better then waiting 16 months and getting an expansion with everything and nearly nothing in between?

Whats important is lets not make the mistake to assume releases like dragon bash or flame and frost is all we’re getting. They already said multiple times, including in this very thread that the 4 teams working on living story are just a fraction of the effort on gw2. those 4 teams work on short term content that each team releases every 2 weeks (so the development frame of those teams is 2 months max) there are other teams working on other more meatier content that takes longer then 2 months to develop.

Nick.6972:

Ah, well, who knows, maybe NCSoft is too busy investing in Wildstar since GW2 isn;t doing that great.
I’m not saying its true, just “What if”/“Maybe”.

Who says Gw2 isnt doing that great? at least 3m copies sold (probably closer to 4m by now but lets say 3m…) lets assume all those 3m where the basic $60 version lets forget the $80 deluxe and $150 collectors edition… thats $180m… now consider that they’re not developing another expansion that might earn them something close to another $180m in a year’s time (assuming 1 year to complete the expansion) which means that probably the cash shop itself is ranking in more then $180m in a year most likely…. but even so.. consider that EvE online does $90m in a year .. 500k subs x $15 × 12. so even if gw2 does $180m in a year its doing twice as better then eve online and people consider eve online is doing great!

But thats not all… keep in mind that if the cash shop is doing $180m in a year this year Gw2 will have made $360m ($180 for the box sales and $180 for the cash shop)… thats like 4m subs! which short of WoW this year would make Gw2 the most profitable MMO ever probably. Hmmm Nope I have a feeling Gw2 is doing Great actually.

The cash shop doing 180 million a year? Get real.
Also in the original gw1 they started almost right away with the expansion, factions was there in a years time or so after the game’s release. -It makes no sense to hve a full gaming company capable of doing complete new games to fiddle around with the living story part alone imo.

aspirine.6852:

The cash shop doing 180 million a year? Get real.
Also in the original gw1 they started almost right away with the expansion, factions was there in a years time or so after the game’s release. -It makes no sense to hve a full gaming company capable of doing complete new games to fiddle around with the living story part alone imo.

I have no idea how much the cash shop is doing. I know the box sales of gw2 did at least 180 million. by deciding to go biweekly updates rather then expansion they’re essentially choosing cash shop over boxed sales. Why would they do that if the cash shop profit wasnt at least comparable to the boxed sales?

It makes no sense because you’re assuming every update will have the same scope of every living story update we had so far. Its been already pointed out several times the living story teams is just a fraction of the development going on. There is longer term content being developed as well.

Its not like we’re not going to get content that you usually find in expansions like new classes, new professions, new zones, new storylines etc… its just they’ll be released when they’re ready rather then all at once, one time per year.

I’m not going to slog my way through the whole thread, but my main issue with these ideas of not doing an expansion is that…well…the updates we have gotten have been ridiculously lackluster.

Now, I know what some folks are saying. They are saying that we shouldn’t be expecting an expansion worth of content already. Well, I got news for you guys. We aren’t. Well, at least most of us aren’t. We just want meaningful updates rather than weak little mini-events like the first phase of the first living story. It was a total waste of time, little plot to speak of, and had us simply running around clicking on things until we did it enough times.

That isn’t a quality addition to the game. And with this silly Living World setup, the new ‘content’ we get is taken away just as quickly.

But, I could let all of that go if it weren’t for this: We were told back at the beginning of the year that we would be getting the equivalent of a full-fledged expansion in three patches. We got our patches, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that it was an expansion’s worth of content.

And yet, they advertised the game again with the statement that they had already released over a full expansion’s worth of content for free.

If you were to ask me, we’ve not even seen a fifth of a full expansion in updates since release. But, Anet seems to feel they have. So when they say they don’t need to do expansions because they can just release them as they go…yeah….I’m not buying it.

I’m not surprised they don’t need to do an expansion. I know for myself that I’ve spent easily the equivalent of a subscription for the months I’ve played (bank unlock, char unlock, etc.). And I’ve been quite happy to do so.

If they get it right and they do add content at the equivalent rate of doing major expansions every year, I’d be happy with that too. Of course it remains to be seen whether it’s possible for them to do, but that seems to be what they’re aiming for – i.e. I envisage it that each temp content leaves a few things behind, and there are occasional unlockings of new areas, so that the cumulative net result is about equal to a major update every year or two.

Rhysati.4932:

I’m not going to slog my way through the whole thread, but my main issue with these ideas of not doing an expansion is that…well…the updates we have gotten have been ridiculously lackluster.

Now, I know what some folks are saying. They are saying that we shouldn’t be expecting an expansion worth of content already. Well, I got news for you guys. We aren’t. Well, at least most of us aren’t. We just want meaningful updates rather than weak little mini-events like the first phase of the first living story. It was a total waste of time, little plot to speak of, and had us simply running around clicking on things until we did it enough times.

That isn’t a quality addition to the game. And with this silly Living World setup, the new ‘content’ we get is taken away just as quickly.

But, I could let all of that go if it weren’t for this: We were told back at the beginning of the year that we would be getting the equivalent of a full-fledged expansion in three patches. We got our patches, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that it was an expansion’s worth of content.

And yet, they advertised the game again with the statement that they had already released over a full expansion’s worth of content for free.

If you were to ask me, we’ve not even seen a fifth of a full expansion in updates since release. But, Anet seems to feel they have. So when they say they don’t need to do expansions because they can just release them as they go…yeah….I’m not buying it.

Exactly.

I don’t even want an expansion. I’d much rather have proper updates every 3-4 (even 5-6) months with new explorable mode dungeons, new fractals, and real stuff to focus on rather than some meaningless grinds loosely connected to a mediocre story, with the occasional story mode dungeon that will disappear after a couple of weeks.

I sometimes wonder if the people in ArenaNet’s PR department have ever played an MMORPG, or if they just think their players won’t notice when they say things that are grossly inaccurate (or make promises that are simply never mentioned again as if they never happened, as the fluff updates continue to be shovelled out).

My main issue with no expansions, is that it seems to be the logical way to introduce new professions and skills into the game. And with this game, new weapons would also introduce new skills. Does that mean we won’t see new classes, skills, or weapons? I’m not too sure that a simple living story bi-weekly update will itnroduce something like a new class. It’s possible, but I’m still unsure.

Unless they plan to release “mini-expansion pack” level patches that could possibly include these things.

What we know is in the 1st quarter of 2013 the game had sales income of around $32 million USD according to NCSOFT financials. We don’t know how much of that is Cash Shop versus game sales. An stock analyst published a report (pdf) July 1st suggesting that GW2 will have $26 million in sales 2nd quarter and around $100 million for the entirety of 2013.

$100 million would be the equivalent of over 500,000 old style $15 monthly subscriptions.

Take that number and split it up however you will between Cash Shop and game sales. It’s still shows a successful product.

You keep people playing in an MMO by having something new to do all the time. An expansion would last exactly how long before the most rabid players here would have finished it and be posting here “is that all, what a ripoff”. A week at most?

Don’t forget that now that the Living Story teams are in place, and each team is responsible for 2 consecutive updates, each team has 4 months to work on their month’s content. I think we will see meatier patches henceforth, and no reason we can’t see things like whole new zones, or professions eventually, or anything we might see in an expansion tied into these bi-weekly patches. It’s very exciting. =)

Fiontar.4695:

I don’t think the lack of productivity is because people aren’t working, I think it’s because some key people in charge of the “big picture” have completely failed at taking the incredible core GW2 experience and progressing it.

I fully expected that after launch, they would continue to flesh out the new paradigm that GW2 has created in MMO design and would make additional progress towards fulfilling the Manifesto. Dynamic Events are the most important element of the new paradigm and the most important element in furthering the manifesto. It’s easy to see how the concept could and should improve as Arenanet gets better at making them and creating more complex chains that have a bigger observable impact on the game world.

There is a big problem though. ANet seems to have gotten out of the business of building new Dynamic Event content and building on the incredible foundation they established for this form of content production.

This is precisely what they are failing at. They spent years telling us that the open world and the dynamic event system was the core of GW2. Now they want us to believe they are “focusing on the core gw2 experience” while the very aspect they labeled as the “core” hasn’t changed. The only DE’s we have seen along with the living story content are solitary, unlinked/chained, “kill these things” events with little to no context. The only open world content in the currently running living story are holograms and effigies. All those are doing is getting people to farm in level 1-15 zones because the scaling makes it so much easier to do there. Zones like Timberline Falls (one my favorites) are still as deserted as they have been for months. The Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates “content” has done absolutely nothing for the “core GW2 experience”.

What we need are more events that aren’t just random, non-chain, storyless events. There are parts of the game that have this, or at least the beginnings of it. Orr is a good example of DE’s done almost right. The camp defense/capture on the east side of the map rarely cares if the camp on the west side is held, taken, or under attack. Why are we busy attacking the risen’s camp far behind the front lines while our only foothold in the zone is at risk? Should that not make us fall back and defend, giving up the assault attempt for now?

That’s the type of DE that has hyped up before release. Where the enemy takes one camp, then starts preparing to attack the next closest camp. We see them preparing, and can stop them be retaking that camp, or by cutting off their supply lines. There are plenty of events to defend our own supplies, but where are the events to assault theirs?

Add interesting/fun DE’s and make them open up access to worthwhile rewards. Merchants with Harpy Perfume, Portal Guns, and Quaggan Tonics are amusing and funny, but there aren’t any outside of the Orr temple vendors that offer any real rewards. Give us armor/weapon skins, unique food or sigils/runes. Anything to make the open world rewarding to experience.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget that now that the Living Story teams are in place, and each team is responsible for 2 consecutive updates, each team has 4 months to work on their month’s content. I think we will see meatier patches henceforth, and no reason we can’t see things like whole new zones, or professions eventually, or anything we might see in an expansion tied into these bi-weekly patches. It’s very exciting. =)

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

Assyrian.4827:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget that now that the Living Story teams are in place, and each team is responsible for 2 consecutive updates, each team has 4 months to work on their month’s content. I think we will see meatier patches henceforth, and no reason we can’t see things like whole new zones, or professions eventually, or anything we might see in an expansion tied into these bi-weekly patches. It’s very exciting. =)

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

Or maybe the other people, the ones not on a LS team, will be working on the more long-term stuff. But why think reasonably when you can “prove” you’re right by jumping to conclusions.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Assyrian.4827:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget that now that the Living Story teams are in place, and each team is responsible for 2 consecutive updates, each team has 4 months to work on their month’s content. I think we will see meatier patches henceforth, and no reason we can’t see things like whole new zones, or professions eventually, or anything we might see in an expansion tied into these bi-weekly patches. It’s very exciting. =)

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

Or maybe the other people, the ones not on a LS team, will be working on the more long-term stuff. But why think reasonably when you can “prove” you’re right by jumping to conclusions.

What other people ?
oh the group that is still working on LFG tool.

Good, in the current state of the game if there was an upcoming expansion i wont ever dare to buy it.

So, if they want to make expansion better bring the warriors back to the game and balance a lot of things in pvp if not, there is no more money on me.

And they know that, they know that a lot of people wont buy an expansion if the current state of the game continues.

I think its good that at least it sounds like they want to “finish” the base game before they start adding on expansions and probably never fixing all the current issues.

I’d rather see them take a long time trying to perfect the base game then give me a new expansion. A lot of MMOs just put out their game, then 6 months later an xpac and that hurts the game usually. And a ton of expansion packs (even with no sub fee) can throw new players off sometimes as well.

Even so, they can still add classes, story content, etc later without making us go out and buy a expansion potentially. I’m sure they’d probably try to put new classes to be bought through the gem store though, which is fine really.

All that said, they must make a lot more money in gems then I thought if that can actually be enough income for them.

Assyrian.4827:

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

Or maybe the other people, the ones not on a LS team, will be working on the more long-term stuff. But why think reasonably when you can “prove” you’re right by jumping to conclusions.[/quote]

Each team is responsible for 2, 2 week patches. For example, the team that did Dragon Bash would have also done Sky Pirates (and I am fairly certain that these were made by the same team). So, all 4 groups get 4 months to make their 2 content patches.

Assyrian.4827:

What other people ?
oh the group that is still working on LFG tool.

The article states that the living story team only makes up a small part of their overall development team. The other groups are working on the much larger content that takes a longer amount of time and resources than the living story stuff.

Behellagh.1468:

You keep people playing in an MMO by having something new to do all the time. An expansion would last exactly how long before the most rabid players here would have finished it and be posting here “is that all, what a ripoff”. A week at most?

Exactly

So they have adopted this method.

You still get the “is that all, what a ripoff” threads but at least with a bi-weekly update they won’t last long

Assyrian.4827:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Don’t forget that now that the Living Story teams are in place, and each team is responsible for 2 consecutive updates, each team has 4 months to work on their month’s content. I think we will see meatier patches henceforth, and no reason we can’t see things like whole new zones, or professions eventually, or anything we might see in an expansion tied into these bi-weekly patches. It’s very exciting. =)

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

In another article or video interview Mike stated that they are a 4 month rotation that overlaps the other teams and they have been hard at work for two months before the interview

GoldenTruth.2853:

Assyrian.4827:

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

Or maybe the other people, the ones not on a LS team, will be working on the more long-term stuff. But why think reasonably when you can “prove” you’re right by jumping to conclusions.

Each team is responsible for 2, 2 week patches. For example, the team that did Dragon Bash would have also done Sky Pirates (and I am fairly certain that these were made by the same team). So, all 4 groups get 4 months to make their 2 content patches.

Assyrian.4827:

What other people ?
oh the group that is still working on LFG tool.

The article states that the living story team only makes up a small part of their overall development team. The other groups are working on the much larger content that takes a longer amount of time and resources than the living story stuff.[/quote]

“…every two weeks there will be a release with brand new playable content…”
Each team is responsible for 2, 2 week patches. That means each team will have 3 months not 4.
and this is bad thing because I thing we will see 4 stories that are not connected to each other and a lot of copy & paste.

killcannon.2576:

Still waiting on the list of what has changed in this “Living World”.

A lot of stuff being added and then taken away again. Apparently that simulates the real world, things are there one day and then it’s missing a few days later.

Assyrian.4827:

“…every two weeks there will be a release with brand new playable content…”
Each team is responsible for 2, 2 week patches. That means each team will have 3 months not 4.
and this is bad thing because I thing we will see 4 stories that are not connected to each other and a lot of copy & paste.

Well assuming they aren’t spending an entire month working on bug fixes for the current patch they have 4 months. In other words, when their content goes live they will be working on the content 4 months from then (and I’m pretty sure this was verified in some interview where the June team said they were already working on October’s patch).

And, yes, the major flaw I see with this design is that it’s hard to make the living stories feel connected from month to month because different teams are working on different months. A flaw which I can only hope becomes less noticeable as Anet gets more used to pumping out the living story.

After skimming through a few pages, I am realizing more and more that NOBODY knows that the Gem Store only feeds NCSoft who gives Anet money at their discretion. They aren’t supporting the game, they are supporting paychecks.

ozma.3498:

Rhysati.4932:

I’m not going to slog my way through the whole thread, but my main issue with these ideas of not doing an expansion is that…well…the updates we have gotten have been ridiculously lackluster.

Now, I know what some folks are saying. They are saying that we shouldn’t be expecting an expansion worth of content already. Well, I got news for you guys. We aren’t. Well, at least most of us aren’t. We just want meaningful updates rather than weak little mini-events like the first phase of the first living story. It was a total waste of time, little plot to speak of, and had us simply running around clicking on things until we did it enough times.

That isn’t a quality addition to the game. And with this silly Living World setup, the new ‘content’ we get is taken away just as quickly.

But, I could let all of that go if it weren’t for this: We were told back at the beginning of the year that we would be getting the equivalent of a full-fledged expansion in three patches. We got our patches, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that it was an expansion’s worth of content.

And yet, they advertised the game again with the statement that they had already released over a full expansion’s worth of content for free.

If you were to ask me, we’ve not even seen a fifth of a full expansion in updates since release. But, Anet seems to feel they have. So when they say they don’t need to do expansions because they can just release them as they go…yeah….I’m not buying it.

Exactly.

I don’t even want an expansion. I’d much rather have proper updates every 3-4 (even 5-6) months with new explorable mode dungeons, new fractals, and real stuff to focus on rather than some meaningless grinds loosely connected to a mediocre story, with the occasional story mode dungeon that will disappear after a couple of weeks.

I sometimes wonder if the people in ArenaNet’s PR department have ever played an MMORPG, or if they just think their players won’t notice when they say things that are grossly inaccurate (or make promises that are simply never mentioned again as if they never happened, as the fluff updates continue to be shovelled out).

You do realise you’re getting that already I hope! if you’re really happy with such content every 6 months I would point out you got 9 fractals, A substantial number of guild missions as well as 2 dungeons with some fluff in between. isnt that double what you suggest would make you happy? or does the fluff in between somehow negate the content you like?

Zacchary.6183:

After skimming through a few pages, I am realizing more and more that NOBODY knows that the Gem Store only feeds NCSoft who gives Anet money at their discretion. They aren’t supporting the game, they are supporting paychecks.

Well if you follow a certain link: http://www.arena.net/ and scroll down to the section called careers you’re see they’re currently recruiting people in 27 different positions. Just to be clear we’re not talking 27 people but 27 different disciplines. If you research a bit you’ll also see Arenanet had 250 employees when they developed Gw2 and since launch the team has increased to above 300 employees. I have no idea how much ncsoft is pumping into Anet but I think its safe to assume its more then just paychecks.

Thing is you’re right, all money payed on the game goes to ncsoft which is fair enough considering that ncsoft payed for everything while gw2 was being developed and got nothing in return for years. BUT that doesnt mean they hold on to everything. You need to spend money in order to make money. Gw2 in the words of ncsoft themselves exceeded their expectation both in terms of box sales and cash shop sales. Its in the best interest to ensure they keep the momentum going. And they are doing just that which is why in most cases MMOs lay off people after the game is released and they switch from development to maintenance mode yet in case of Anet they actually hired at least 50 more people and are hiring more. I think people are being a bit unfair on NC soft here they dont see as evil as people are painting them at all.

Galen Grey.4709:

Well if you follow a certain link: http://www.arena.net/ and scroll down to the section called careers you’re see they’re currently recruiting people in 27 different positions. Just to be clear we’re not talking 27 people but 27 different disciplines. If you research a bit you’ll also see Arenanet had 250 employees when they developed Gw2 and since launch the team has increased to above 300 employees.

It’s worth noting that GW2 is not the only project on ArenaNet’s plate at the moment. There was a piece of concept art by Daniel Dociu from an unannounced ArenaNet/NCSoft game in this year’s Into the Pixel competition.

I didn’t see any recent requirements for submitted artwork, but press releases on the ITP website list rules for previous years’ contests, including this one.

“Submissions must be art from published or soon-to-be-published computer and video games, or art that was used in the creation of the games.”

The piece is obviously more than just some random concept art he had sitting on his desk, and Anet/NC were willing to attach their names to the contest submission. They are working on something, and it’s definitely not related to Guild Wars 2.

Edit:
I feel the need to clarify this.
I’m not attempting to imply that this project is somehow taking away from GW2’s development, nor am I willing to claim that has no effect. I mention this because its existence means that at least some of Anet’s staff are not full-time members (or members at all) of the GW2 team. I never assumed that the entire 200+ member development team would continue working on the game after release, and this project appears to prove (or at least strongly support) that idea.

mrstealth.6701:

Galen Grey.4709:

Well if you follow a certain link: http://www.arena.net/ and scroll down to the section called careers you’re see they’re currently recruiting people in 27 different positions. Just to be clear we’re not talking 27 people but 27 different disciplines. If you research a bit you’ll also see Arenanet had 250 employees when they developed Gw2 and since launch the team has increased to above 300 employees.

It’s worth noting that GW2 is not the only project on ArenaNet’s plate at the moment. There was a piece of concept art by Daniel Dociu from an unannounced ArenaNet/NCSoft game in this year’s Into the Pixel competition.

I didn’t see any recent requirements for submitted artwork, but press releases on the ITP website list rules for previous years’ contests, including this one.

“Submissions must be art from published or soon-to-be-published computer and video games, or art that was used in the creation of the games.”

The piece is obviously more than just some random concept art he had sitting on his desk, and Anet/NC were willing to attach their names to the contest submission. They are working on something, and it’s definitely not related to Guild Wars 2.

Edit:
I feel the need to clarify this.
I’m not attempting to imply that this project is somehow taking away from GW2’s development, nor am I willing to claim that has no effect. I mention this because its existence means that at least some of Anet’s staff are not full-time members (or members at all) of the GW2 team. I never assumed that the entire 200+ member development team would continue working on the game after release, and this project appears to prove (or at least strongly support) that idea.

Your supposition seems to contradict this paragraph, from the article.

“But those teams are “a fraction” of ArenaNet’s massive development force as a whole. Zadorojny told me that the same number of people work there as they did when the game launched (upwards of 250), and they’re all focused on Guild Wars 2 – he indicated that there was nothing else in development."

IndigoSundown.5419:

“But those teams are “a fraction” of ArenaNet’s massive development force as a whole. Zadorojny told me that the same number of people work there as they did when the game launched (upwards of 250), and they’re all focused on Guild Wars 2 – he indicated that there was nothing else in development."

It definitely raises some questions. Unless the rules of the ITP competition have changed drastically in the last several years, the artwork had to be from a game that is at least in development. Either the art submission was not legitimate, the interviewer grossly misunderstood Zadorojny, or the information given to him was incorrect.

If it took 250 people (fairly sure the team was smaller at the start) 5 years to make all of GW2, I’d think more would have been done if that 250 were still working on the game for the past 10 months. Maybe they really are working on something massive, but I certainly have my doubts about that. I would assume the full team would only stay on if they were working a large expansion that would require all of the positions as a new game project. Without a project of that scope, there would almost have to be a number of people who’s talents just weren’t required any longer.

Jski.6180:

Devata.6589:

A Massive Headache.1879:

Devata.6589:

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.

“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.

Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.

“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”

So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.

“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?

You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.

Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.

…..

I am pretty sure I already said it was not B2W (so cosmetic) but that that is not the whole problem. A focus on the gemstore in this case also meant temporary stuff (nothing more then a marketing technique) and stuff like the gold-driven mechanics. Many of the complains you see on this forum can be indirectly linked to there focus on the gem-store and there would be no need for that focus (on this level) if they would focus on expansions in stead. That was the whole point.

That like saying gaming is money focus though its a “truthism.” Even in P2P games the game makers would have items you could buy with real life money to “enhance” your game by looks or others. So i am not sure if you have a point at all your in the end simply saying Anet is putting out this game for money and yes they are and should be that how our system works and should work.

It’s not the fact that they try to make money with the game. It’s a company, what do you expect. And it’s also not the problem that they have items they sell and they make some money with.

The problem is that when they decide to make money with the gem-store in stead of with expansions (and thats what they seem to be talking about here) is that a lot of focus go’s to the gem-store and we already saw that for a couple mounts. That focus however means there are doing things with the game now with the intention to make the game better but with the intention to get people to buy stuff from the gem-store. (think, gold-driven system, temporary items, events and so on) and in the progress they make the game worse. While if the focus is on making money with expansion they will try to make a good expansion (so a good / better game) so people will buy that expansion.

Making money is no problem at all but doing it with a gem-store focus is bad for the game while doing it with an expansions focus is much better for the game.

Devata.6589:

Making money is no problem at all but doing it with a gem-store focus is bad for the game while doing it with an expansions focus is much better for the game.

I’d rather have them making an expansion than coming up with more bad ideas for gemstore gimmicks.

I think they actually had a better cash shop in GW1. The big moneymaking thing there was costumes, and (from seeing how many people ingame had them) they sold quite a few. They seemed to sell a lot better than the costumes/town clothes in GW2.

I’d guess the reason for the GW1 costumes being successful is two key features of that system.
1) Costumes were worn over armor, and remained in combat (only usable in pve)
2) Once purchased, any costume could be retrieved (via an NPC) an unlimited number of times an any character

GW2’s town clothes give you a single copy that you must permanently store somewhere if you aren’t using it. They lack the “value” of GW1’s costumes, consume precious space, and cannot be worn in combat. Going back to a system like GW1’s would make a costume a great gemstore option that does’t harm the game. Having RNG/lottery boxes that give exclusive non-cosmetic items (like the Dragon Coffer recipe or Black Lion Chest permanent bank/trader contracts) is exactly what we don’t need.

mrstealth.6701:

Galen Grey.4709:

Well if you follow a certain link: http://www.arena.net/ and scroll down to the section called careers you’re see they’re currently recruiting people in 27 different positions. Just to be clear we’re not talking 27 people but 27 different disciplines. If you research a bit you’ll also see Arenanet had 250 employees when they developed Gw2 and since launch the team has increased to above 300 employees.

It’s worth noting that GW2 is not the only project on ArenaNet’s plate at the moment. There was a piece of concept art by Daniel Dociu from an unannounced ArenaNet/NCSoft game in this year’s Into the Pixel competition.

I didn’t see any recent requirements for submitted artwork, but press releases on the ITP website list rules for previous years’ contests, including this one.

“Submissions must be art from published or soon-to-be-published computer and video games, or art that was used in the creation of the games.”

The piece is obviously more than just some random concept art he had sitting on his desk, and Anet/NC were willing to attach their names to the contest submission. They are working on something, and it’s definitely not related to Guild Wars 2.

Edit:
I feel the need to clarify this.
I’m not attempting to imply that this project is somehow taking away from GW2’s development, nor am I willing to claim that has no effect. I mention this because its existence means that at least some of Anet’s staff are not full-time members (or members at all) of the GW2 team. I never assumed that the entire 200+ member development team would continue working on the game after release, and this project appears to prove (or at least strongly support) that idea.

mmm wasnt aware of that. Looks amazing then again it Daniel Dociu, of course it looks amazing That being said Daniel Dociu is not just an Arenanet employee but also ncsoft chief art director: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dociu
Could this be something another studio under ncsoft is working on? If according to the rules it has to at least be a game thats soon to be published it would imply its been worked on for years ! But we’ll see. Part of me is kinda loves the idea of cyberpunk game/MMO and both Arenanet’s games are my 2 top favorite MMOs so there would be a lot of win there.

Also as off january Arenanet employeed 300 people. Many of those job listings specifically state the job is for Gw2 so in any event there is definitely more investment being made in the game.

mrstealth.6701:

IndigoSundown.5419:

“But those teams are “a fraction” of ArenaNet’s massive development force as a whole. Zadorojny told me that the same number of people work there as they did when the game launched (upwards of 250), and they’re all focused on Guild Wars 2 – he indicated that there was nothing else in development."

It definitely raises some questions. Unless the rules of the ITP competition have changed drastically in the last several years, the artwork had to be from a game that is at least in development. Either the art submission was not legitimate, the interviewer grossly misunderstood Zadorojny, or the information given to him was incorrect.

If it took 250 people (fairly sure the team was smaller at the start) 5 years to make all of GW2, I’d think more would have been done if that 250 were still working on the game for the past 10 months. Maybe they really are working on something massive, but I certainly have my doubts about that. I would assume the full team would only stay on if they were working a large expansion that would require all of the positions as a new game project. Without a project of that scope, there would almost have to be a number of people who’s talents just weren’t required any longer.

Everything is possible. The rules you posted included “art that was used in the creation of the games”. Seem to me the same 2 published or soon to be published would still apply but perhaps it means that concept art for a game in early stages of development still apply? Cause if this is still in early stages of development then it might simply be a small team working on it. Also Daniel doesnt just work for Anet but is also ncsoft chief art director perhaps this has nothing to do with anet at all. More wildy perhaps we’ll be getting a time travel living story were we get to move 1000s of years in tyria’s future… okey thats too crazy scratch that <— joke

Anyhow back on subject… I am sure the living story team isnt made up of 300 people but like they told us multiple times the past week, the living story is just part of the gw2 work force. Other teams are working on longer term stuff. A good number of people might be working on new zones moving the personal story forward towards one of the other elder dragons. I am sure it would take such a team a long time before they’re done so its entirely feasable that big number of developers / artists / other disciplines are working on stuff we know nothing about. For instance its been revealed there is work being done on a raid like system for gw2 and dungeons/content for more then 5 people. Up until last month we knew absolutely nothing of this so its quite possible there is other content that takes much longer then 2 months to develop thats being worked upon in the background that we’ll know nothing about until much later. Perhaps things will get clearer when they release the “roadmap” post they promised this month about whats planed for the next 6 months.

Galen Grey.4709:

Anyhow back on subject… I am sure the living story team isnt made up of 300 people but like they told us multiple times the past week, the living story is just part of the gw2 work force. Other teams are working on longer term stuff. A good number of people might be working on new zones moving the personal story forward towards one of the other elder dragons. I am sure it would take such a team a long time before they’re done so its entirely feasable that big number of developers / artists / other disciplines are working on stuff we know nothing about. For instance its been revealed there is work being done on a raid like system for gw2 and dungeons/content for more then 5 people. Up until last month we knew absolutely nothing of this so its quite possible there is other content that takes much longer then 2 months to develop thats being worked upon in the background that we’ll know nothing about until much later. Perhaps things will get clearer when they release the “roadmap” post they promised this month about whats planed for the next 6 months.

Only the new Blog will answer some of these. Just hope it is before the end of the month

Galen Grey.4709:

Everything is possible. The rules you posted included “art that was used in the creation of the games”. Seem to me the same 2 published or soon to be published would still apply but perhaps it means that concept art for a game in early stages of development still apply? Cause if this is still in early stages of development then it might simply be a small team working on it. Also Daniel doesnt just work for Anet but is also ncsoft chief art director perhaps this has nothing to do with anet at all.

In terms of game development, “soon” doesn’t have a very clear meaning. That could very well mean years later. And the other part of the rule does leave more room for interpretation on just how far along in development a title must be. If they are working on this game, I would assume it’s development isn’t very far along, since they likely didn’t even start till after (or very near the end) of GW2’s initial development.

And yes, Daniel Dociu does work with NCSoft’s other North American studios. However, the concept art in the ITP competition specifically lists ArenaNet as the game’s developer. If the game was a project from another NCSoft studio, it should be their name on it, or just NC’s name in its place if they wish to keep that developer a secret. I don’t see a reason to attribute the game to Anet unless they are actually involved in the development. In fact, falsely putting Anet’s name on it would just end up being problematic and raise a lot of questions about what we’re being told versus what is really happening within the company…much like what we are discussing right now.

Hell Avenger.7021:

I think what people want is a coherent LONG story campaign with expansive contents, and not these tiny updates with massive grinds built into it.

They are trying to compare these “episodic release” as TV shows, well too bad none of the current content has any quality climax to make people wanting to see the next thing. There isn’t any real goal. Who are we fighting now? Some pirates? GIVE people a purpose in your storyline, and not some random weird out of nowhere bs.

This. So much this.

Personally, I wouldn’t really care whether content is delivered as an expansion or in smaller living story style increments, if the end result was a coherent storyline with challenges that made sense and affected the state of the in-character world.

So far, the living story hasn’t achieved that. I’ve enjoyed each individual piece, but taken together there’s no coherent larger narrative emerging. Flame & Frost came closest, but then suddenly it was on to the next unrelated thing with no real resolution of the broader hows and whys.

The GW1 campaigns had that driving narrative, as did the GW2 personal story… and I miss it.

I’m still having fun, but I’d be having more fun if I had the sense of an unfolding story rather than just semi-random story parts being tacked together with little exposition and then disappearing again.

Even if it turns out that all these chapters are interrelated, there’s still a lack of forward narrative motion at the time to provide the epic adventure feel I’d like the story to have.

I just hope it includes variation and new Dynamic Events that we can come across as we traverse the various zones multiple times. It would also be nice if those DEs (if they were to come) showed some of what they learned from earlier DEs and make those more involved or more in-depth with (maybe) slightly more permanent effects (that could be reversed)?

Just my hopes because I really like coming across Dynamic Events.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Hell Avenger.7021:

I think what people want is a coherent LONG story campaign with expansive contents, and not these tiny updates with massive grinds built into it.

They are trying to compare these “episodic release” as TV shows, well too bad none of the current content has any quality climax to make people wanting to see the next thing. There isn’t any real goal. Who are we fighting now? Some pirates? GIVE people a purpose in your storyline, and not some random weird out of nowhere bs.

This. So much this.

Personally, I wouldn’t really care whether content is delivered as an expansion or in smaller living story style increments, if the end result was a coherent storyline with challenges that made sense and affected the state of the in-character world.

So far, the living story hasn’t achieved that. I’ve enjoyed each individual piece, but taken together there’s no coherent larger narrative emerging. Flame & Frost came closest, but then suddenly it was on to the next unrelated thing with no real resolution of the broader hows and whys.

The GW1 campaigns had that driving narrative, as did the GW2 personal story… and I miss it.

I’m still having fun, but I’d be having more fun if I had the sense of an unfolding story rather than just semi-random story parts being tacked together with little exposition and then disappearing again.

Even if it turns out that all these chapters are interrelated, there’s still a lack of forward narrative motion at the time to provide the epic adventure feel I’d like the story to have.

I look at is from an financial point of view. Would it be a bad idea to not bring big expansions but build on the game with a story that adds content (it does not really do that not as most is temporary, but ok) one by one in a nice story. So not a whole new race from one day to the next but an ongoing story.

Yeah that idea by itself is not bad.. And if this would have been an non-commercial company I would say, go for it.

But it is an commercial and they need to make money, one way or the other. Using the living story means they will need to make money with the gem-store and that means the story will become commercials for new gem-store items including with a lot of other bad decisions purely based on the idea ‘how do we get people to buy gems’.

And I personally think… and already see in the game, that that way of thinking is not good for the game.. If they would focus on expansions then there question was not “how do we get people to buy gems” but “how do we get people to buy the expansion” and I think the answer to that second question results in a much better game then the answer to the first question.

Devata.6589:

And I personally think… and already see in the game, that that way of thinking is not good for the game.. If they would focus on expansions then there question was not “how do we get people to buy gems” but “how do we get people to buy the expansion” and I think the answer to that second question results in a much better game then the answer to the first question.

In either case, they are still trying to make content to keep players interested and playing. Although, living story updates and gemstore based revenue does split up that focus. If they were relying an on expansion, the entire focus would be on that expansion, and making it be something the players see as worth our money. All the living story has to be is something to keep our attention briefly so they can throw more gemstore items at us.

What they are trying now can work, but I don’t think they are doing it right at all. We know they are making money on the gemstore, but they could be making a lot more by selling items with more value. Most of the friends I play with won’t bother with things like the permanent gathering tools because they are only for one character. I bought the Molten axe, and I regret it because I have one on a character I’m not actively playing, and there is nothing I can do about that. I’m certainly not going to pay $80 to have it on every character, but I know several people that would likely pay the $10(or maybe a bit more) for an account-based unlock they got for all of their characters.

The gemstore needs a balance between squeezing more money out of each player and giving players a feeling of value in their purchases. Selling items at $10 each for a single character, in a game that is supposed to encourage playing alts, is not value, it’s greed. They are trying to bank on greed by betting on the chance that a few players will buy multiple copies, instead of trying to give the item more value and appeal to a greater number of players.

edit: just an afterthought
I’ve lost count of the number of things I’ve totally lost interest in with GW2 with the thought of “oh, that’s character-based”. That goes things in and out of the gemstore. I’m not saying that everything that could be account-based should be, but there are a lot of things that would be better off that way.

Assyrian.4827:

2 weeks =14 days
so each team will have 14+14+14=42 days before it is their turn to show what they made.
that is so great a new profession and new skills made in less than 2 months
game balance will be total chaos .
and we will be doing the (beta) testing.

1. They have extra teams on long term projects
2. There are beta testing servers. If you’re a game developer, or work for a magazine publishing game new you can write an email to Anet and get in. We don’t get an untested product, but some bugs will still sneak in, that’s why right after the new release we get hotfixes a few hours in.

Devata.6589:

..snip
But it is an commercial and they need to make money, one way or the other. Using the living story means they will need to make money with the gem-store and that means the story will become commercials for new gem-store items including with a lot of other bad decisions purely based on the idea ‘how do we get people to buy gems’.

And I personally think… and already see in the game, that that way of thinking is not good for the game.. If they would focus on expansions then there question was not “how do we get people to buy gems” but “how do we get people to buy the expansion” and I think the answer to that second question results in a much better game then the answer to the first question.

I dont really think the difference is as much as you think.

Sure with the living story approach the focus is to have people buy from gem store while with the expansion approach its how do we get people to buy the expansion. That being said those two scenarios share an important commonality. For people to buy stuff from the gem store they need to be playing the game and for them to be playing the game they need to provide content those people enjoy. If they shift their strategy in a way to make it all about the gem store players will get bored. Selling nifty weapon skins is great and all but if you dont play the game at all why would you buy the weapon skin? hence they still need to make their player base happy so they keep playing. Actually I would say its probably more important to keep their player base happy with the living story approach then it is with an expansion. Because an expansion gives you a grace period so to speak. If player get bored for a few months and quit the game they may still decide to give an expansion a try if they enjoyed the game before then and thus Anet would still get their money. On the other hand with the living story they get no grace period, if players get bored and stop playing they’re not going to get a single cent while they’re not playing obviously but not just that if at some point in the future those same players decide to give it a go they’re going to be cautious. Think about it, if you come back after say 5 months of not playing the game cause you were bored, would you spend any money on skins when you’re not sure if you’re going to be enjoying the game enough that you’ll keep playing in the longer term? If no compelling content was released in the interim cause based on your assumption they focused too much on the gem store rather then making the game as best as it can be the answer will most likely be those players will again be bored and quit for another longer chunk of time without anet earning anything.

Just look at this threat for proof, the main argument against the living story is people are afraid its not going to keep them interested in the game because they’re afraid there will not be any longer term engaging content like an expansion would have. I assume all those people who’ve been asking for an expansion do so because they want one and they’ll all happily buy one if its ever released. Yet their fear is the current release strategy will make them wanna stop playing in the long run. Making an expansion would be nearly sure money (obviously it still would need to be good enough) where as if they stick with the living story they need to have releases that are so good that they’d convince the skeptics that there is long term value in the game even without expansions.

Bottom line while they’ll obviously do what they can to insentivize people to buy stuff from the gem shop they also need to ensure people are happy playing the game and to do that they still have to make quality content even more so then an expansion most likely.

Galen Grey.4709:

If player get bored for a few months and quit the game they may still decide to give an expansion a try if they enjoyed the game before then and thus Anet would still get their money. On the other hand with the living story they get no grace period, if players get bored and stop playing they’re not going to get a single cent while they’re not playing obviously but not just that if at some point in the future those same players decide to give it a go they’re going to be cautious. Think about it, if you come back after say 5 months of not playing the game cause you were bored, would you spend any money on skins when you’re not sure if you’re going to be enjoying the game enough that you’ll keep playing in the longer term? If no compelling content was released in the interim cause based on your assumption they focused too much on the gem store rather then making the game as best as it can be the answer will most likely be those players will again be bored and quit for another longer chunk of time without anet earning anything.

Just look at this threat for proof, the main argument against the living story is people are afraid its not going to keep them interested in the game because they’re afraid there will not be any longer term engaging content like an expansion would have. I assume all those people who’ve been asking for an expansion do so because they want one and they’ll all happily buy one if its ever released. Yet their fear is the current release strategy will make them wanna stop playing in the long run. Making an expansion would be nearly sure money (obviously it still would need to be good enough) where as if they stick with the living story they need to have releases that are so good that they’d convince the skeptics that there is long term value in the game even without expansions.

I very much fit into the group that is quickly losing interest because of the current/planned release strategy and the (so far) lackluster content of the living story. I’ve stopped spending money on the gemstore because I don’t see myself activtely playing GW2 any more. I only play now because of friends I have known for years, otherwise I would rarely bother logging in. I don’t see this changing any time soon. Now, if there was an expansion announced today, I’d be the first in line to pre-order it.

The only aspect of the current living story content that kept my attention for more than an hour or two was getting weapon tickets for myself and a friend. Both of us were already losing interest in the game, and after we got our tickets, the interest in playing slipped back away. Getting coffers/tickets isn’t exactly interesting/engaging, or even “content”, but it was something to do and a goal to work towards. That type of reward system nice occasionally, but I don’t want RNG box farming to be the main/“long-term” attraction for every 2-week story like it was for Secret of Southsun and the Dragon Bash. Unfortunately, that is what think we will see more of, because it’s an easy way to keep people logging in for the tiny chance of getting the reward they want.