Guild Wars 2

There are two points I’d like to make, regarding recent posts in this thread.

1. The reason, in my opinion, temporary content is temporary..particularly things like dungeons, is because after a month or two, those dungeons would take traffic away from everything else. Anet wants people in the open world, not in a handful of dungeons. People who like dungeons and come from other games were dungeons are central don’t get this at all. Dungeons aren’t really central in this game. Anet wants the world to be bigger than the dungeons. Leaving the dungeons in divides the playerbase. They saw this with fractals. Everyone complains there are less people in the world. Right. Because five people at a time in a dungeon means less people in the open world.

2. People say subscription games are better because when a game uses the cash shop to fund itself, everything becomes about the cash shop…and to a degree that’s true. What those same people aren’t saying is that when a game is a subscription everything about the game is put in there to get people to play LONGER. Everything about the game is slower. You level slower. You have dungeon/raid lockouts. You have very slow crafting. You have flight paths. You have no instant travel. You may or may not like any of those things, but the whole idea is, the longer they can keep you playing, the happier you are.

I’ve played many subscription games over the years and I don’t like them. By the same token I’ve played many free to play games and I don’t necessarily like them. Lotro cost me a small fortune because much of the content had to be paid for. SWToR can’t really be played, unless you pay. This feels like a lie to me.

So far at least, I can play Guild Wars 2 without paying a fortune in the cash shop and I don’t have those annoying lockouts or things that really slow me down. I can just play the entire game.

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

Vayne.8563:

There are two points I’d like to make, regarding recent posts in this thread.

1. The reason, in my opinion, temporary content is temporary..particularly things like dungeons, is because after a month or two, those dungeons would take traffic away from everything else. Anet wants people in the open world, not in a handful of dungeons. People who like dungeons and come from other games were dungeons are central don’t get this at all. Dungeons aren’t really central in this game. Anet wants the world to be bigger than the dungeons. Leaving the dungeons in divides the playerbase. They saw this with fractals. Everyone complains there are less people in the world. Right. Because five people at a time in a dungeon means less people in the open world.

2. People say subscription games are better because when a game uses the cash shop to fund itself, everything becomes about the cash shop…and to a degree that’s true. What those same people aren’t saying is that when a game is a subscription everything about the game is put in there to get people to play LONGER. Everything about the game is slower. You level slower. You have dungeon/raid lockouts. You have very slow crafting. You have flight paths. You have no instant travel. You may or may not like any of those things, but the whole idea is, the longer they can keep you playing, the happier you are.

I’ve played many subscription games over the years and I don’t like them. By the same token I’ve played many free to play games and I don’t necessarily like them. Lotro cost me a small fortune because much of the content had to be paid for. SWToR can’t really be played, unless you pay. This feels like a lie to me.

So far at least, I can play Guild Wars 2 without paying a fortune in the cash shop and I don’t have those annoying lockouts or things that really slow me down. I can just play the entire game.

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

You get a +1 from me bro and totally agree.

I think it is due to the fact that we have been in MMOs longer then most posting here

Tiger.7506:

million people say “no endgame”

what would you do as an endgame without transforming it into just a bigger/brighter/tougher carrot?

Vayne.8563:

There are two points I’d like to make, regarding recent posts in this thread.

snip——

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

I dissagree-At least to a point. Anet would never convert this game to a sub-fee game. Ever-It won’t happen. If they did the backlash, and the damage it would cause there company would be irrepressible. Simply put, anet made its name on being a Buy Once, Play forever with a cash store. Now-That said, It sort of is moot to compare Gw2 to a sub based game. Yea Sub games were horrible, but This is not much better. A cash shop is great-But I question HOW did anet have a cash shop that kept gw1 alive as long as it did(and still alive mind you)?-Yet never once did you need to get out your credit card to look decent. You had to pay for expansions(BUT THEY WERE STAND-ALONE GAMES! All but 1) Anet made bank in gw1, So I’m not sure why they seem to be so “strapped” in gw2.

The game feels like a starving wasteland. The cash shop is overbearing on the players . It screams with the temp content “I’m your only hope!” And even then its not a guarantee. Part of business is SUSTAINING business. Anet Should want to make players “want” to play the game. Also people spend more money when they want to, not when they feel they have to. Business is not difficult-people are like sheep. If you poison the herd though-There goes your cash cow. Anet does not seem to grasp this.

They truly don’t. I can’t tell you how many players I used to love to group with who wont come back because of Rng boxes. Or players who really loved a temp content and now its gone forever. I know I myself bitter because F&F actually carried a very important and interesting STAT combo in it-which btw as far as anyone knows is never coming back. My server is poisonous, They warn new players to leave the game, and spit and hiss. The game is not in a bad state yet-But Cash shop has a very STRONG bearing on everything in this game. Not just statistically or cosmically. But The environment that players interact with each other in is altered by it too. There is a reason why many Ramshackle towns fight, and few get along. People get bitter, and angry when they feel starved and stressed. For a casual player like me-I am stressed from gw2. Part of my enjoyment is looking good. I step out for 2 weeks-AND BAM missed something forever. The armor skins, the weapon skins, the dungeons Those need to be permanent. They make new players look at the game and say “WOW-the developers have just made this game better and better, meaning more for me to do”. Rather then “WOW-I wish I was there for that event a year ago-I feel bummed now”

It is a oxymoron that anet says “Living story is to enhance the core game” and yet nothing is effect the core pve game other then mechanic overhauls. It dissipates in 2 weeks and is gone forever. The core never keeps it-It never strengthens it. I’m sorry, its a weak excuse that I can’t believe smart players buy into. Its not even the expansions. Anet could do living story for 10 more years, and maybe it will be great. Yet they are using the living story to sell the cash shop-and through this they are poisoning the environment. They dump sludge in the river that powers the building they work in-I only question how long till the sludge dams it. The cash shop is great-If people want to buy from it. This last update had so little range it was great. They even offered armor straight buy. Awesome. I hope anet continues this-and stops the cash shop from being the most important aspect of the game. Where it sits right now. All is balanced off it-even skill balance. Anet seems to be pulling away from that-I’m glad. I just hope it stays like that.

Vayne.8563:

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

This is wrong, it is quicker to get BiS equipment in games like SWTOR and WoW. We’ve had the evidence cited on this forum before.

The fact is that GW2 is turning into a mix of B2P/F2P.
And GW2 is going F2Pwith the release of new MMOs (my opinion).
F2P games are just not that good. And there is a reason why
CASH SHOP

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

This is wrong, it is quicker to get BiS equipment in games like SWTOR and WoW. We’ve had the evidence cited on this forum before.

Quicker to get BIS equipment has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how fast it is to travel around Tyria, which on SWToR and WoW would normally take you considerably longer. You ever try to craft 150 things in WoW? Get up. get a cup of coffee, stretch, because you’re going to be a while. And getting BIS gear also depends often on luck of drops. It’s not JUST BIS gear is the BIS gear you want.

You’re confusing grind with something like time delayed stuff, which I have no problem with.

The fact is, you can level in a day through crafting in the game from level 1. Try that in WoW.

frostflare.6390:

Vayne.8563:

There are two points I’d like to make, regarding recent posts in this thread.

snip——

It’s a matter of personal taste, but I’ll never play a subscription game again, because subscription games are designed to slow you down….far more than a game like Guild Wars 2 is.

I dissagree-At least to a point. Anet would never convert this game to a sub-fee game. Ever-It won’t happen. If they did the backlash, and the damage it would cause there company would be irrepressible. Simply put, anet made its name on being a Buy Once, Play forever with a cash store. Now-That said, It sort of is moot to compare Gw2 to a sub based game. Yea Sub games were horrible, but This is not much better. A cash shop is great-But I question HOW did anet have a cash shop that kept gw1 alive as long as it did(and still alive mind you)?-Yet never once did you need to get out your credit card to look decent. You had to pay for expansions(BUT THEY WERE STAND-ALONE GAMES! All but 1) Anet made bank in gw1, So I’m not sure why they seem to be so “strapped” in gw2.

The game feels like a starving wasteland. The cash shop is overbearing on the players . It screams with the temp content “I’m your only hope!” And even then its not a guarantee. Part of business is SUSTAINING business. Anet Should want to make players “want” to play the game. Also people spend more money when they want to, not when they feel they have to. Business is not difficult-people are like sheep. If you poison the herd though-There goes your cash cow. Anet does not seem to grasp this.

They truly don’t. I can’t tell you how many players I used to love to group with who wont come back because of Rng boxes. Or players who really loved a temp content and now its gone forever. I know I myself bitter because F&F actually carried a very important and interesting STAT combo in it-which btw as far as anyone knows is never coming back. My server is poisonous, They warn new players to leave the game, and spit and hiss. The game is not in a bad state yet-But Cash shop has a very STRONG bearing on everything in this game. Not just statistically or cosmically. But The environment that players interact with each other in is altered by it too. There is a reason why many Ramshackle towns fight, and few get along. People get bitter, and angry when they feel starved and stressed. For a casual player like me-I am stressed from gw2. Part of my enjoyment is looking good. I step out for 2 weeks-AND BAM missed something forever. The armor skins, the weapon skins, the dungeons Those need to be permanent. They make new players look at the game and say “WOW-the developers have just made this game better and better, meaning more for me to do”. Rather then “WOW-I wish I was there for that event a year ago-I feel bummed now”

It is a oxymoron that anet says “Living story is to enhance the core game” and yet nothing is effect the core pve game other then mechanic overhauls. It dissipates in 2 weeks and is gone forever. The core never keeps it-It never strengthens it. I’m sorry, its a weak excuse that I can’t believe smart players buy into. Its not even the expansions. Anet could do living story for 10 more years, and maybe it will be great. Yet they are using the living story to sell the cash shop-and through this they are poisoning the environment. They dump sludge in the river that powers the building they work in-I only question how long till the sludge dams it. The cash shop is great-If people want to buy from it. This last update had so little range it was great. They even offered armor straight buy. Awesome. I hope anet continues this-and stops the cash shop from being the most important aspect of the game. Where it sits right now. All is balanced off it-even skill balance. Anet seems to be pulling away from that-I’m glad. I just hope it stays like that.

It’s funny. I don’t find the cash shop overbearing. I buy what I want and don’t buy what I don’t want. It’s called self-control. I need nothing in that cash shop to play the game with the arguable exception of bank tabs. Everything is is optional. I can buy stuff if I want, but I don’t have to.

It’s not like Lotro where quests and areas are completely locked off if you don’t pay. Where entire professions are locked off if you don’t pay. It’s just your mindset that makes it overbearing, which I would say is your problem.

When you have to pay for content (not skins), I’d agree that it’s getting into murky water. but paying for skins that don’t give you an advantage?

That’s sort of what cash shops are for.

Vayne.8563:

1. The reason, in my opinion, temporary content is temporary..particularly things like dungeons, is because after a month or two, those dungeons would take traffic away from everything else. Anet wants people in the open world, not in a handful of dungeons. People who like dungeons and come from other games were dungeons are central don’t get this at all. Dungeons aren’t really central in this game. Anet wants the world to be bigger than the dungeons. Leaving the dungeons in divides the playerbase. They saw this with fractals. Everyone complains there are less people in the world. Right. Because five people at a time in a dungeon means less people in the open world.

I liked your other points but I am quoting you here because I believe this is what the Devs promised – to bring us back into the world. If I may let me recap:
-F&F was good at this because it brought us back to Wayfarer and Diessa where we had achievements to do, refugees that needed various things, and the entrance and exit to the MF dungeon.
-SouthSun was their best attempt because it (for a short while at least) resurrected, an otherwise waste of development time, SouthSun Cove. New events and a world boss.
-Dragon Bash and Sky Pirates are the worst because they took place in what is already the most popular area to park your character…Lions Arch. Dragon Bash is a holiday so I excuse that but Sky Pirates being exclusive to LA and even having its dungeon located there too is ridiculous design wise and lore wise(how do you explain a base being built in LA without the Vigil, The Whisper, or the Priory not to mention the Lion guard noticing??)
-Bazzar of the Four Winds is out tomorrow but it has its own little area exclusively for itself. This is probably the worst because its taking place outside of the world completely. In a vacuum if you will.

Below I have attached a map of the world and I have colored the areas which I feel could use some attention. 12 areas that I never visit, at all. After World Completion these areas might as well have dropped off the map. I was pretty generous too as I only went to Blazeridge Steppes tonight to help guildies with the world boss, I go to field of ruins because its usually empty and i can farm coffers, and I put Southsun Cove because I went once to check out the new content but I havent been back since.

These places can use a make over, use some new events, new world bosses, new vistas, hearts, races, jumping puzzles, what have you. Why couldnt they just build the floating Bazzar above one of these empty areas? Would bring players back to the area and at the very least revitalize some already existing events. No actually that wouldnt be the very least, the very least would be that it would get players to remember that this particular area exists at all.

Devata.6589:

And yes some of the now F2P still have a “premium” subscription tier but they had to move to that system because the subscription system failed.

I think you’re taking this a bit too black and white. You dont switch business model just because you failed, its a good idea to switch if you believe the other model will be more profitable. Take Swtor as an example. They said 500k subs would still make it profitable. Then look at EvE 500k subs is phenomenal for them. So what about rift? I am sure they had around 500k subs as well perhaps it was going down sure but that doesnt mean they failed.

At the end of the day people tend to underestimate the profit potential of f2p. Per player you might get less but f2p can attract big big numbers which in some cases more then makes up for it. Look at DC universe online for example when they switched to f2p they net profit increased by 8x going f2p.

Thing is most of the time MMOs that opt for P2P are just hoping to hit the holy grail which is matching WoW’s success. But WoW’s success isnt really the number of players it has, other games match and exceed that. We know League of legends is played by 12 million players on a daily bases. World of tanks claim 60 million accounts. Perfect world International claims 50 million accounts etc.. WoW’s success comes from the amount of money it makes 8m regular subscribers exceed the revenue generated by 12 million players who can opt not to pay anything month after month. But as with everything in the commercial world there is a break even point. I dont know what it is and in anycase it will vary depending on how successful your mmo is but lets say for the sake of argument its 1m subs. That means that if your MMO has more then 1m subs then its making more money then if it were to go f2p. However if you have less then 1m subs it means going f2p will make you a greater profit. However still as long as you have more then 100k subs you’re still profitable. So if such a company decides to switch to f2p once it hits 600k subs does it mean it failed? not really its just making the smart move but it is not really a failure until it hits that 100k point.

Fairymore.8609:

Vayne.8563:

1. The reason, in my opinion, temporary content is temporary..particularly things like dungeons, is because after a month or two, those dungeons would take traffic away from everything else. Anet wants people in the open world, not in a handful of dungeons. People who like dungeons and come from other games were dungeons are central don’t get this at all. Dungeons aren’t really central in this game. Anet wants the world to be bigger than the dungeons. Leaving the dungeons in divides the playerbase. They saw this with fractals. Everyone complains there are less people in the world. Right. Because five people at a time in a dungeon means less people in the open world.

I liked your other points but I am quoting you here because I believe this is what the Devs promised – to bring us back into the world. If I may let me recap:
-F&F was good at this because it brought us back to Wayfarer and Diessa where we had achievements to do, refugees that needed various things, and the entrance and exit to the MF dungeon.
-SouthSun was their best attempt because it (for a short while at least) resurrected, an otherwise waste of development time, SouthSun Cove. New events and a world boss.
-Dragon Bash and Sky Pirates are the worst because they took place in what is already the most popular area to park your character…Lions Arch. Dragon Bash is a holiday so I excuse that but Sky Pirates being exclusive to LA and even having its dungeon located there too is ridiculous design wise and lore wise(how do you explain a base being built in LA without the Vigil, The Whisper, or the Priory not to mention the Lion guard noticing??)
-Bazzar of the Four Winds is out tomorrow but it has its own little area exclusively for itself. This is probably the worst because its taking place outside of the world completely. In a vacuum if you will.

Below I have attached a map of the world and I have colored the areas which I feel could use some attention. 12 areas that I never visit, at all. After World Completion these areas might as well have dropped off the map. I was pretty generous too as I only went to Blazeridge Steppes tonight to help guildies with the world boss, I go to field of ruins because its usually empty and i can farm coffers, and I put Southsun Cove because I went once to check out the new content but I havent been back since.

These places can use a make over, use some new events, new world bosses, new vistas, hearts, races, jumping puzzles, what have you. Why couldnt they just build the floating Bazzar above one of these empty areas? Would bring players back to the area and at the very least revitalize some already existing events. No actually that wouldnt be the very least, the very least would be that it would get players to remember that this particular area exists at all.

I think that getting people back into the world is important but I don’t think it’s so important that it’s all you do. Whenever any new map opens up, it’s going to be widely used when it opens up…until the next thing.

The important thing is to keep areas jumping by having lots of people in them. You’re not going to be able to beef up 12 slower zones all at the same time, because that would mean dividing the playerbase 12 ways and it will show.

What Anet is trying to do is traffic control. Drive people to where people are. Some months there’ll be people in the open world and some months there’ll be people in new instances.

I don’t even know if this new instance is permanent, but it looks like a lot of fun. And I for one can’t wait to try the racing game. That looks like a blast.

The thing is, the Living Story is going to get us grouped together wherever this is. I’m certainly all in favor of new zones, and they shouldn’t not make new zones to keep people in old ones.

As long as the Living Story can keep traffic flowing, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing.

Assyrian.4827:

The fact is that GW2 is turning into a mix of B2P/F2P.
And GW2 is going F2Pwith the release of new MMOs (my opinion).
F2P games are just not that good. And there is a reason why
CASH SHOP

It’s not turning into a mix of B2P/F2P. It’s always been BTP with a cash shop from day one. And now that the bulk of game sales is over for now, baring a steep price cut, the game’s primary income source is the Cash Shop. It’s not like they ever hid that fact from us. Gem cards were out in stores in the US within a month of the game’s arrival. Buying Gems at the Cash Shop essentially the same time the Cash Shop went up.

It’s just now players are starting to see cool stuff added to the Cash Shop or sales every week or two. Stuff they are interested in buying. Except everything there is entirely optional. Character/Bank/Inventory slots is pretty standard fair, Guild Wars had them for sale. Armor and weapon skins, Guild Wars had those too. So how is anything they are doing now is so different than what they did in Guild Wars? Besides adding more stuff every other week?

Fairymore.8609:

..snips
Below I have attached a map of the world and I have colored the areas which I feel could use some attention. 12 areas that I never visit, at all. After World Completion these areas might as well have dropped off the map. I was pretty generous too as I only went to Blazeridge Steppes tonight to help guildies with the world boss, I go to field of ruins because its usually empty and i can farm coffers, and I put Southsun Cove because I went once to check out the new content but I havent been back since.
snips…

Actually Dragonbash, Skypirates and even the bazaar had content specifically designed to get you playing those areas.

Dragonbash had the effigies for example. Now how effective that is depends on the players of course, in my case it was the most effective content at having me play around cause I ended up walking through many zones I would otherwise not visit in a single playing session. But thats the key most players too the effigies like they were a chore to complete. Teleport to the nearest way point press F repeat. I am sure that wasnt whats intended on so many levels. For starters why do the vitality buff they did if they thought players would teleport around ? Why have the achievement at all if they expected players to just teleport around, its not like there is anything fun with pressing F 150 times and watching that dance 150 times. And finally while spread them in all zones? Nope I am sure their intention was for players to walk from one to the other and just enjoy themselves on the way. I personally had a blast but it ultimately depends on the player.

Sky pirates had the pirate caches hidden in different jumping puzzles in different zones and achievements like those same caches and killing x amount of pirates in various zones.

The bazaar will have the stolen kites which are again hidden all around tyria.

Thing is this issue rests mostly with the players I believe. If players keep treating the game like a job there will always be this issue nothing Anet can do about that. If players are always in a hurry and not willing to slow down they can do as many incentives as they want in any part of tyria, players are going to swarm that content and move on. In turn those players will complain calling all these incentives money sinks because they’re being forced to teleport so much. In turn that will force Anet to make the situation worst.

If the effigies for example were meant to provide content for about 15 hrs (I estimate thats how long it took me give or take (3 days playing at about 5hrs each day) and these people finished it in 30 mins because they teleported around, next release they’re not going to reduce them to make it easier on players like me, they going to increase it so that it will be impossible to finish in just 30 mins. Worst yet, Anet will be bashed because they’re designing the game around the gem shop because they’ll claim obvious the reason for the effigies was so that people loose 3g or so in teleportation fees there by forcing them to convert real money into gems. Finally they will complain there is nothing to do because 30 mins and they were done.

What can Anet really do to combat that?

Vayne.8563:

I think that getting people back into the world is important but I don’t think it’s so important that it’s all you do. Whenever any new map opens up, it’s going to be widely used when it opens up…until the next thing.

The important thing is to keep areas jumping by having lots of people in them. You’re not going to be able to beef up 12 slower zones all at the same time, because that would mean dividing the playerbase 12 ways and it will show.

What Anet is trying to do is traffic control. Drive people to where people are. Some months there’ll be people in the open world and some months there’ll be people in new instances.

I don’t even know if this new instance is permanent, but it looks like a lot of fun. And I for one can’t wait to try the racing game. That looks like a blast.

The thing is, the Living Story is going to get us grouped together wherever this is. I’m certainly all in favor of new zones, and they shouldn’t not make new zones to keep people in old ones.

As long as the Living Story can keep traffic flowing, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing.

Exactly and I would add a bit to this. This is a tricky thing for Anet, if they release a new permanent dungeon that has better rewards then anything before it, players are going to mainly play it and nothing else. IF they release a new permanent dungeon that doesnt have better rewards then players are going to play it a few times and then move back to the most profitable content.

This might be another reason for temporary dungeons to avoid reward creep if you want. Like this they’re free to make a very rewarding dungeon (1g for the last dungeon which is possible to complete in 15 mins is very good!) sure it was difficult but everything becomes easier with practice. Took me 2 hrs to finish the clock tower for the first time. By the end of the event I was rarely failing it at all. Same here. If that dungeon was allowed permanently in game people would be finishing it in less then 15 mins easily and it will get farmed to death. Hence if it were a permanent addition there is no way it could have a 1g completion reward which will result in players complaining that every new dungeon is pointless because older dungeons have better rewards so why play the new ones?

The living story is trying to solve the problem fairymore states. By having the content temporary its not creating increasingly better rewards that will ensure players never set foot in a lower level zone ever again because it would be so unrewarding to do that. Achievements are designed to have players play in every zone. With this months content that will mean new interesting skins that can be used as many times as people wish on as many alts as they wish. They can keep adding skins to the system release after release there by ensuring people have a good incentive to pursuit these achievements thus indirectly stimultating play in all zones.

Win Win imho

Tiger.7506:

this game could have 10kk players!

Dont talk like an idiot please. It makes no sense to start that stupid kk, no its even beyond stupid.

I have to ask what are 250 employees doing at anet really… Cause its not Developing anything that makes GW2 a draw to play anymore…
Guild Halls, Forget about it its never happening punk.
Expansions, Ah who cares we give you enough in our events that no one wants to play.
New classes or abilities, maybe someday but they are not needed, it will cause decent in the community if some new class comes out and prevents people from grinding.

So all they do is keep the same and dress it up with new skins of LAMENESS. This interview is PROOF that NCSoft has abandoned western markets and ANET is stuck in a downward spiral of ignoring consumer request and dwindling population.
Generally Gamers do not want to be in grind in perpetuity to get an item that is no better then a general drop from an average creature.

We Want new areas to explore, new creatures to destroy, and new dungeons to vanquish and loot. We are willing to pay for these DLC expansions but short of THAT, there is little to no reason to continue playing Guild Wars 2 where its neither a war or has guild halls to gather our friends within for internal commerce. GW2 days are as numbers as was Paragon Studios when they were trying to say Oh no we got lots of plans on the table in the works but nothing is happening right now… all along they knew they were closing cause NCSoft demanded it to be so. The same is true of Anet at this point unfortunately.

Galen Grey.4709:

Actually Dragonbash, Skypirates and even the bazaar had content specifically designed to get you playing those areas.

Dragonbash had the effigies…

If the effigies for example were meant to provide content for about 15 hrs (I estimate thats how long it took me give or take (3 days playing at about 5hrs each day) and these people finished it in 30 mins because they teleported around, next release they’re not going to reduce them to make it easier on players like me, they going to increase it so that it will be impossible to finish in just 30 mins. Worst yet, Anet will be bashed because they’re designing the game around the gem shop because they’ll claim obvious the reason for the effigies was so that people loose 3g or so in teleportation fees there by forcing them to convert real money into gems. Finally they will complain there is nothing to do because 30 mins and they were done.

What can Anet really do to combat that?

I purposefully did not mention effigies and holograms because they are not good at getting players, heck getting me, to visit old areas. They are certainly not good at getting me to care about it.

F&F had events happening in Diessa and Wayfarer. Achievements/quests involving the Refugees were found in those two areas. The double agent quest had you running all over both these areas. The invasion itself were happening more in these two areas than anywhere else. This is good. WAY more could have been done like changing all dredge into Molten Alliance dredge, permanently changing dynamic events to reflect the Molten Allaince, a new world boss, new hearts, BUT as the first Living Story Project it was good.

They can do this with the other Living Story projects. Take them to Timberline Falls, Mount Malestorm, Harathi Hinterlands. Scoop out the old hearts and dynamic events and add new ones that support a new story for the area that compliments and adds to the current Living Story project.
Both Sky Pirates and Bazzar are organizations that are not anchored to any particular part of the world because their domain is the sky so they can be placed anywhere! Toymaker Tixx had a more relevant influence in the world than both the Sky Pirates and the Bazzar because he actually went from place to place with his airship lol

Were they not suppose to make the WORLD feel alive, relevant, and changing? Are effigies enough and I am just asking the impossible?

Ingram of Haz.5987:

I have to ask what are 250 employees doing at anet really… Cause its not Developing anything that makes GW2 a draw to play anymore…
Guild Halls, Forget about it its never happening punk.
Expansions, Ah who cares we give you enough in our events that no one wants to play.
New classes or abilities, maybe someday but they are not needed, it will cause decent in the community if some new class comes out and prevents people from grinding.

So all they do is keep the same and dress it up with new skins of LAMENESS. This interview is PROOF that NCSoft has abandoned western markets and ANET is stuck in a downward spiral of ignoring consumer request and dwindling population.
Generally Gamers do not want to be in grind in perpetuity to get an item that is no better then a general drop from an average creature.

We Want new areas to explore, new creatures to destroy, and new dungeons to vanquish and loot. We are willing to pay for these DLC expansions but short of THAT, there is little to no reason to continue playing Guild Wars 2 where its neither a war or has guild halls to gather our friends within for internal commerce. GW2 days are as numbers as was Paragon Studios when they were trying to say Oh no we got lots of plans on the table in the works but nothing is happening right now… all along they knew they were closing cause NCSoft demanded it to be so. The same is true of Anet at this point unfortunately.

People who say Guild Halls are never coming have no patience. It’s that simple. Just like people thought rewards for achievement points were never coming. Stuff takes time. That’s it. If you don’t want to wait, don’t wait.

But when the Guild Halls do come out, you’ll be proved wrong. What’s the point of using the word never, like you have some crystal ball or something. Things aren’t happening fast enough for you, fair enough. Saying something is never coming out is just plain wrong.

Vayne.8563:

Ingram of Haz.5987:

I have to ask what are 250 employees doing at anet really… Cause its not Developing anything that makes GW2 a draw to play anymore…
Guild Halls, Forget about it its never happening punk.
Expansions, Ah who cares we give you enough in our events that no one wants to play.
New classes or abilities, maybe someday but they are not needed, it will cause decent in the community if some new class comes out and prevents people from grinding.

So all they do is keep the same and dress it up with new skins of LAMENESS. This interview is PROOF that NCSoft has abandoned western markets and ANET is stuck in a downward spiral of ignoring consumer request and dwindling population.
Generally Gamers do not want to be in grind in perpetuity to get an item that is no better then a general drop from an average creature.

We Want new areas to explore, new creatures to destroy, and new dungeons to vanquish and loot. We are willing to pay for these DLC expansions but short of THAT, there is little to no reason to continue playing Guild Wars 2 where its neither a war or has guild halls to gather our friends within for internal commerce. GW2 days are as numbers as was Paragon Studios when they were trying to say Oh no we got lots of plans on the table in the works but nothing is happening right now… all along they knew they were closing cause NCSoft demanded it to be so. The same is true of Anet at this point unfortunately.

People who say Guild Halls are never coming have no patience. It’s that simple. Just like people thought rewards for achievement points were never coming. Stuff takes time. That’s it. If you don’t want to wait, don’t wait.

But when the Guild Halls do come out, you’ll be proved wrong. What’s the point of using the word never, like you have some crystal ball or something. Things aren’t happening fast enough for you, fair enough. Saying something is never coming out is just plain wrong.

I have to add as we established earlier in this thread that new content does not happen over night. We have shown 2 other MMOs that did not release new content till way over the one year mark.
This game is just over ten months old. Clamoring for new content this early in an MMOs live is non-realistic and naive.
Be glad that Arenanet is not follow the models of the traditional MMOs or we may not have seen ANY new content at all till maybe Christmas of this year.

Krosslite.1950:

Be glad that Arenanet is not follow the models of the traditional MMOs or we may not have seen ANY new content at all till maybe Christmas of this year.

That is a non-argument.
Of course ANet couldn´t have done nothing for a year, so that they can release their next expansion pack.
If they would´ve been “like that other” MMO then we instead would´ve seen CRITICAL bugfixes and gasp polish of already released content much earlier.
Instead the very first thing we see is a frikken humongous temporary content release so everybody can be a witch for it seems their favorite Holiday.

BTW guys, please try to get it right.

It´s GUILD AIRSHIP.

I don´t want no boring Hall.
That thing better be airborn with lazors for making us wait so long!

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

And yes some of the now F2P still have a “premium” subscription tier but they had to move to that system because the subscription system failed.

I think you’re taking this a bit too black and white. You dont switch business model just because you failed, its a good idea to switch if you believe the other model will be more profitable. Take Swtor as an example. They said 500k subs would still make it profitable. Then look at EvE 500k subs is phenomenal for them. So what about rift? I am sure they had around 500k subs as well perhaps it was going down sure but that doesnt mean they failed.

At the end of the day people tend to underestimate the profit potential of f2p. Per player you might get less but f2p can attract big big numbers which in some cases more then makes up for it. Look at DC universe online for example when they switched to f2p they net profit increased by 8x going f2p.

Thing is most of the time MMOs that opt for P2P are just hoping to hit the holy grail which is matching WoW’s success. But WoW’s success isnt really the number of players it has, other games match and exceed that. We know League of legends is played by 12 million players on a daily bases. World of tanks claim 60 million accounts. Perfect world International claims 50 million accounts etc.. WoW’s success comes from the amount of money it makes 8m regular subscribers exceed the revenue generated by 12 million players who can opt not to pay anything month after month. But as with everything in the commercial world there is a break even point. I dont know what it is and in anycase it will vary depending on how successful your mmo is but lets say for the sake of argument its 1m subs. That means that if your MMO has more then 1m subs then its making more money then if it were to go f2p. However if you have less then 1m subs it means going f2p will make you a greater profit. However still as long as you have more then 100k subs you’re still profitable. So if such a company decides to switch to f2p once it hits 600k subs does it mean it failed? not really its just making the smart move but it is not really a failure until it hits that 100k point.

No I am not taking it to black and white. Because I do not say that changing to another payment model always means the old model has failed (The ‘they’ in my sentence refers to those who did). A good example of that is lineage 2. For them the subscription based payment model did not fail but when the game became older and it became harder to get new players they did change to another payment model.

But for those MMO’s that changed there payment model in about 2 years (usually after seeing a big drop in players, or the lack of players in the first place) you can definitely say it failed. And of course those companies will bring it in a positive way like if it not failed but they moved on to something else. It’s not really good for your company to say.. well this failed so we have to move on to something else, because people might lose trust in it. They still do as not many of those games made a real come-back. I think none did so far. But yeah, thats why you don’t see them really saying that.

And then your example is also kinda bad because Swtor is for sure a great example of the games where it did fail and they moved on to another system because it failed. The fact that they basically said it did not fail means noting.

And also for Rift it failed.. (not as bad as for Swtor I guess, but it still failed) They for sure had hoped to be able to go on for years with a subscription based model and a big playerbase, looking at WoW as there example.

The look at WoW and how they made money was the reason for most of those fails. Funny thing is you pretty much say that yourself ”Thing is most of the time MMOs that opt for P2P are just hoping to hit the holy grail which is matching WoW’s success.” and they did not succeed in that so they failed with there model.

And I don’t really want to go in to the F2P part as I do not say F2P can not make money. I think it can make and I think F2P, B2P and Subscription-based games all can do well if you have the correct game for it at the correct moment in the correct place. (At this moment I don’t think subscription based will work for any new mmo in the western word).

What you basically say is, it (the game / payment model) did not fail because they can still make money (with another payment model). Yeah they can, but I say, there payment model failed because it did not work out like they hoped. Anyway, this starts to get to far away from the subject so I would like to leave it with that.

HawkMeister.4758:

Krosslite.1950:

Be glad that Arenanet is not follow the models of the traditional MMOs or we may not have seen ANY new content at all till maybe Christmas of this year.

That is a non-argument.
Of course ANet couldn´t have done nothing for a year, so that they can release their next expansion pack.
If they would´ve been “like that other” MMO then we instead would´ve seen CRITICAL bugfixes and gasp polish of already released content much earlier.
Instead the very first thing we see is a frikken humongous temporary content release so everybody can be a witch for it seems their favorite Holiday.

Ok Hawk. Not going to disagree. Could more bugfixes and or polish done? Maybe.
I really haven’t encounters any real issues myself that weren’t fixed by now.

Ingram of Haz.5987:

I have to ask what are 250 employees doing at anet really… Cause its not Developing anything that makes GW2 a draw to play anymore…
Guild Halls, Forget about it its never happening punk.
Expansions, Ah who cares we give you enough in our events that no one wants to play.
New classes or abilities, maybe someday but they are not needed, it will cause decent in the community if some new class comes out and prevents people from grinding.

So all they do is keep the same and dress it up with new skins of LAMENESS. This interview is PROOF that NCSoft has abandoned western markets and ANET is stuck in a downward spiral of ignoring consumer request and dwindling population.
Generally Gamers do not want to be in grind in perpetuity to get an item that is no better then a general drop from an average creature.

We Want new areas to explore, new creatures to destroy, and new dungeons to vanquish and loot. We are willing to pay for these DLC expansions but short of THAT, there is little to no reason to continue playing Guild Wars 2 where its neither a war or has guild halls to gather our friends within for internal commerce. GW2 days are as numbers as was Paragon Studios when they were trying to say Oh no we got lots of plans on the table in the works but nothing is happening right now… all along they knew they were closing cause NCSoft demanded it to be so. The same is true of Anet at this point unfortunately.

actually its 300 now, they hired more people since launch and are still hiring.

What we know for sure is they’re working on some raiding like mechanics and content for group larger then 5 people.

the others are probably working on stuff you’re asking for like new zones, new dungeons etc…
Just cause we were not told what they’re working on specifically yet it doesnt mean they’re not doing anything!

And somehow I doubt ncsoft are planning to close their second most profitable game.
CoH was unfortunately the’re least profitable game by quite a bit thats why they closed it down. Ncsoft dont close studios just for fun. As long as Gw2 is profitable and so far both arenanet and ncsoft claim gw2 is performing beyond their projections they’re not going to kill it. For starters they’re be laying people off not hiring more. So I think you can rest your mind. Gw2 isnt going anywhere.

HawkMeister.4758:

Krosslite.1950:

Be glad that Arenanet is not follow the models of the traditional MMOs or we may not have seen ANY new content at all till maybe Christmas of this year.

That is a non-argument.
Of course ANet couldn´t have done nothing for a year, so that they can release their next expansion pack.
If they would´ve been “like that other” MMO then we instead would´ve seen CRITICAL bugfixes and gasp polish of already released content much earlier.
Instead the very first thing we see is a frikken humongous temporary content release so everybody can be a witch for it seems their favorite Holiday.

BTW guys, please try to get it right.

It´s GUILD AIRSHIP.

I don´t want no boring Hall.
That thing better be airborn with lazors for making us wait so long!

I am not even going to try and list all the fixes and polish items from the patch notes cause I am afraid I might actually crash the server due to the size of the post … Come on they’ve been doing that too.

Ohh and +1 for the guild airship with lazors!

There are a lot of assumptions being made here:

1. There will NEVER be expansions, even though the wording in the interview is “we’re not thinking about it right now.”

2. ALL Living Story content will be the exact same in volume.

3. There will not be any safeguards or procedures to insure quality of new content, including the devs playing their own game.

4. The Living Story content teams will only and always take only two weeks to make content, and that ANet doesn’t have a rotating schedule.

5. Living Story content is the ONLY new content that has ever or will ever be developed.

Now, I know the internet is a great place to panic, but seriously, folks, let’s think this through. Do ANY of those above assumptions sound reasonable?

Living Story is OK, but generally not enough to pull me back in. Been on a break for a while now. Checking on the news from time to time, but really kind of waiting for that big update that does a lot of stuff at once, such as:

-Continuation of the Personal Story with a focus on an important piece of lore (the Six Gods, Elder Dragons, Mursaat, Canthan/Elonian stuff).
-New areas that are meaningful, permanent additions, instead of temporary filler material that we get with Living Story
-A set of new armours that we can get by playing the game instead of paying real moneys.
-A huge skill split between PvE and PvP to fix problems in higher end PvE content.
-A massive overhaul of all current dungeons.
-New dungeons (Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Realm of Torment).

At the moment I feel that PvE is in such a bad state that it’s simply not worth playing at the moment, which is a kitten shame, because I want to like this game. Half of the professions are so bad off they might as well not even exist when it comes to dungeon content, only due to constant balancing around PvP. Living Story feels meaningless because it’s temporary, and doesn’t focus on big established lore points.
None of this is going to get fixed with Living Story, this is why I’d much rather see an expansion coming out.

Eddie G.8731:

There are a lot of assumptions being made here:

1. There will NEVER be expansions, even though the wording in the interview is “we’re not thinking about it right now.”

2. ALL Living Story content will be the exact same in volume.

3. There will not be any safeguards or procedures to insure quality of new content, including the devs playing their own game.

4. The Living Story content teams will only and always take only two weeks to make content, and that ANet doesn’t have a rotating schedule.

5. Living Story content is the ONLY new content that has ever or will ever be developed.

Now, I know the internet is a great place to panic, but seriously, folks, let’s think this through. Do ANY of those above assumptions sound reasonable?

I think the biggest assumption is made by you making the assumption that people are making these assumptions.

The problem is that if there is no focus on expansion (now) that results in some problems.. for me the focus on the gem-store that results is bad decisions for the game, like the temporary content so many people are complaining about.

To take your 5 assumption.

1 It would not matter.. for now the problem is there and I hope that if many people complain about it there will be a change of focus.. If everybody here believed there is no change it will change many of them will not be here to talk about it but might have already left the game.

2 Would not change a bid about my problem with the non-focus on expansions and also not for most people problem they have with it.

3 Is basically the same as 2

4 Once again.. Would not change a bid about my problem with the non-focus on expansions.

5 Nobody is saying that.. Anet even said they are also working on other stuff but once again it would not change a bid about my problem with the non-focus on expansions.

Eddie G.8731:

There are a lot of assumptions being made here:

1. There will NEVER be expansions, even though the wording in the interview is “we’re not thinking about it right now.”

2. ALL Living Story content will be the exact same in volume.

3. There will not be any safeguards or procedures to insure quality of new content, including the devs playing their own game.

4. The Living Story content teams will only and always take only two weeks to make content, and that ANet doesn’t have a rotating schedule.

5. Living Story content is the ONLY new content that has ever or will ever be developed.

Now, I know the internet is a great place to panic, but seriously, folks, let’s think this through. Do ANY of those above assumptions sound reasonable?

Yes there are a lot of assumptions in this particular post.
A lot of people in this threat haven’t made these assumptions on either side of this debate just you for the most part

Well with two weeks in hands to make something, all they can rly do is just put a new mini game in already existent area and add few crappy skins, and like that to eternity…

if they havent wasted their time making that dead cove island and this dragon & pirate crap, they could actually make something more permanent with more quality…

Velimirius.7018:

Well with two weeks in hands to make something,

this is not actuate. Their work cycles are set at 2 to 4 months. not 2 weeks

Devata.6589:

I think the biggest assumption is made by you making the assumption that people are making these assumptions. snip..

But they are assumptions on either side btw I am not saying those against are making assumptions while the ones in favor are not.

The only difference is we’re trusting what anet are saying you dont seem to be.

You’re basing all your reason around the central concept that no matter what they do it will be entirely designed around the cash shop which will lead to lower quality. That alone carries a number of assumptions that 1. the cash shop stake holder has ultimate say on what happens 2. That arenanet have no forsight 3. that arenanet cannot deliver what they promise / promises are lies.

To elaborate.. I am making the assumption that Arenanet works like many other businesses, IE you got people in charge of several things. Some people are in charge of the cash shop, some are in charge of design, some of development etc.. The cash shop people most likely cannot dictate what game design does etc… but of course they can make requests. This goes both ways as well. I am sure that game design people have seen people’s anger with RNG Boxes etc.. and I am sure they tried to get the cash shop team to change from RNG to buying stuff directly and you can infact see the result there is a whole back and forth on that department. So far we had skins that can only be purchased through random boxes only, some skins that can be purchased directly, some skins that drop from random boxes that can be purchased or harvested. Some skins that drop from random boxes that can be bought and acquired through a token system. If the Gem shop guys had the only say in this you’d only get RNG boxes with no other option cause thats what probably generates the most money and that profit is the cash shop team key performance indicator.

1. We were told that no Expansion meant no Expansion as a delivery mechanism. That the same stuff you’d find in an Expansion could/would still be done just delivered through the living story. This has us (those who are in favor of living story) assume that no expansion will not have us miss anything then if we had an expansion. Only thing different is instead of getting a mountain of content once, we’ll get hills regularly.

2. What problem is that? your issue is you’re afraid you’ll not get content you’d expect from an expansion but rather get small updates with a weak story right? And that believe stems from past experience from the example of LS that have been released so far. But lets assume they release something to the size of War in Kryta over 2 months. Or lets assume they release 6 zones with a elder dragon fight over 2-3 months.. wouldnt that address the problem? You’re making 2 assumption here, 1. That it can never happen and 2. That without an expansion they cant have focused quality content. Why not?

3,4,5 share the same concern

So essentially your issue is the assumption that if they plan to monetize the game through cash shop they can’t produce any good content. I am sorry I just dont see it. They’ve essentially just started (they restructured the teams 2 months ago because of the issue they came across developing flame and frost) and this is essentially the first content from that effort. There first results were quite promising. Aetherblade retreat was a good dungeon, Not so Secret was an excellent JP and this month’s event is amazing on many levels no the least of which the colossal work it must have involved and how they got it finished in 2 months.

Thats not withstanding all the long term stuff that they have been working on for months. If they can do this with a small team in 2 months I am curious what the large teams will come up with in 8 – 12 months.

You’re free to have your own believes of course but if I were in your shoes I would at least wait to see what the long term teams come up with before worrying the cash shop is having a detrimental effect on quality. When you’re pushing for an expansion you’re not going to have any of these small updates or at least very few of them if any. Judging the over all quality of one distribution model over another based on stuff the other distribution model wouldnt even have is unfair dont you think? Multiple new zones, Long term Quality Story lines, New playable races etc.. stuff you typical find in an expansion is a long term goal that can never fit in a 2 month development cycle and No one can argue we should have been seeing that sort of stuff in the first 10 months of an MMO, it just doesnt happen.

Krosslite.1950:

Velimirius.7018:

Well with two weeks in hands to make something,

this is not actuate. Their work cycles are set at 2 to 4 months. not 2 weeks

and even then it would still be inaccurate because quoting Colin again “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.”

Simply speaking the living story team is most likely mainly intended to provide us with content and setting the stage for much larger content that takes longer then 2 weeks to develop. The blog post that comes out sometime this much will hopefully shed more light on this.

Milennin.4825:

Living Story is OK, but generally not enough to pull me back in. Been on a break for a while now. Checking on the news from time to time, but really kind of waiting for that big update that does a lot of stuff at once, such as:

-Continuation of the Personal Story with a focus on an important piece of lore (the Six Gods, Elder Dragons, Mursaat, Canthan/Elonian stuff).
-New areas that are meaningful, permanent additions, instead of temporary filler material that we get with Living Story
-A set of new armours that we can get by playing the game instead of paying real moneys.
-A huge skill split between PvE and PvP to fix problems in higher end PvE content.
-A massive overhaul of all current dungeons.
-New dungeons (Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Realm of Torment).

At the moment I feel that PvE is in such a bad state that it’s simply not worth playing at the moment, which is a kitten shame, because I want to like this game. Half of the professions are so bad off they might as well not even exist when it comes to dungeon content, only due to constant balancing around PvP. Living Story feels meaningless because it’s temporary, and doesn’t focus on big established lore points.
None of this is going to get fixed with Living Story, this is why I’d much rather see an expansion coming out.

I thought Id point a few things out.

On your first issue.

The Living Story has touched on and set the groundwork for exploring at least two of your listed lore interests.

- The character Marjory Deliqua was introduced last month, who’s personal story ties to investigating the corruption in DR. Since theres a strong chance that that said corruption in the Ministry is linked to the White Mantle, that potentially leads on to the Mursaat.

- The Zephyrites are a group that seems to have originated as the evolution of the dwarven Brotherhood of the Dragon from GW1 that worshipped Glint, former champion of Kralkatorik that switched sides long ago. Glint established that order to guard her ‘heritage’ which could either mean her knowledge, her child (a dragon) or both. It’s highly likely that the story of the EDs and secrets such as what the EDs actually are and how they came about could be tied to the future of this organisation when it turns up later.

Its also worth noting that most Zephyrites are of Canthan or Elonian decent and the Zephyr Sanctum has quite possibly been to both these places since they avoid the dragons’ minions by flying over them.

The second point is about the dungeons, new zones and other big addons and changes. Arenanet in their slew of interviews last week said numerous times that they intended to do all these things with the Living Story so many of the issues you have listed COULD be fixed with the Living Story.

I agree with several points but disagree that the framework of the Living Story cant be used to fix them. Arenanet as already stated that they intend to start adding more perminant additions to the game. Game development takes time as do changes. They have clearly heard the concerns of people about lack of perminant content and the ability of people to join into the Living Story after its already started. Im inclined to wait and see what they actually do about it before doubting them right of the bat.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I think the biggest assumption is made by you making the assumption that people are making these assumptions. snip..

But they are assumptions on either side btw I am not saying those against are making assumptions while the ones in favor are not.

The only difference is we’re trusting what anet are saying you dont seem to be.

You’re basing all your reason around the central concept that no matter what they do it will be entirely designed around the cash shop which will lead to lower quality. That alone carries a number of assumptions that 1. the cash shop stake holder has ultimate say on what happens 2. That arenanet have no forsight 3. that arenanet cannot deliver what they promise / promises are lies.
………

And once again some assumptions.

First of all.. I do not reason around the central concept that no matter what they do it will be entirely designed around the cash shop which will lead to lower quality. If I was I would not be here asking for a expansion pack focus. If I did reason that way I would not be here wasting my time asking for that.

I think if enough people complain about it, they might change it and many people are already complaining about the temporary content what can be linked to there current gem-store focus.

About the “cash shop people”. That are the financial people behind the game, and they will, together with the marketing people design tactics to get people to buy gems. The most striking at this point is the creation of the feel of urgency to buy stuff. Thats one, another option is limiting the possibilities of the game of the P2W concept. They combined the feel of urgency tactic with RNG boxes to try to get people to buy even more but even without the RNG the temporary stuff is still bad.

But you almost seem to talk about it like I am talking about some hypothetical possibility that Anet might ever do. But it’s not a hypothetical possibility because it’s already in the game.

1 Still not getting it.. It’s not only about the content you might or might not miss without expansion. I am sure they can make the same content if they deliver it with the living story or with an expansion. But you said cash shop people don’t dictate, but the money does. And if we get it as expansions they can get the money from expansions but if we get it with the living story it has to be paid by the gem-store meaning you get more of a F2P concept where there is a focus on the gem-store and that will make for bad decisions.. No assumptions there as those bad decisions are already in the game. There is a reason why many of the GW2 players went for a B2P game in stead of a F2P game and this sort of decisions are that reason.

2 No thats not my issue. Thats the assumption you already made at point 1 and also made in your first post and even after I already said thats not the reason you still seem to be making that assumption. The rest of what you say at 2 is all about that false assumption so no need to talk about that as I already did so at 1.
However I do like how you make a incorrect assumption and base two more assumptions on that about why I would think that way.

“So essentially your issue is the assumption that if they plan to monetize the game through cash shop they can’t produce any good content.”

No I, know that if they plan to monetize the game through cash shop they need to try and get people to buy gems. Thats no assumption thats a fact. And I do believe the way to do that is bad for the game.. That is a meaning.. but many people seem to agree (and in a way thats makes it correct because it’s not good for the game if many people feel that way). And like said before.. It’s not that I purely base my idea’s on the idea that it will be bad but it’s already in the game and it is already bad.. All the temporary stuff (items, skins, rewards, achievements, dungeons). So once again, no assumptions there.. The only assumption that I might be making that they will never be able to get a cash-shop focus without it being bad for the game.. mind.. bad for the game is an opinion.. but as you can see on the forum, shared by many.

But to summarize it. You made a long comment and I appreciate that you took the time to do that but is was all based on the false assumption that I am against the living story (what I am not btw) because I think they will not be able to release the same amount of content as in an expansion. But thats not what I think nor was it my point.

Galen Grey.4709:

instead of getting a mountain of content once, we’ll get hills regularly.

Molehills. Promptly flattened. With a few mole droppings left behind on occasion.

Lutinz.6915:

I thought Id point a few things out.

On your first issue.

The Living Story has touched on and set the groundwork for exploring at least two of your listed lore interests.
snip…

If I may I suggest you also check cragstead. Was passing from there yesterday and decided to get in, talked abit with the NPCs. not 100% sure but I think there has been quite a few changes and some interesting conversations might suggests things are coming there too.

Devata.6589:

And once again some assumptions.
snip…

I apologize if I wasnt clear, what I tried to say is your seems to be if they continue content releases using the living story model that content will be subpar to an expansion because the design decisions will be focused on maximizing cashshop profit.
Well on this we have to agree to disagree. You feel the reason for temporary content is to instill a sense of urgency in order to drive sales. I do not believe it so, I believe its to drive narrative. More on this below.
Its most definitely a hypothetical situation. We have no idea what the long term content thats being worked on even is, much less of its quality and how its being negatively effected by the cash shop
1. Actually there are some assumptions here. One assumption is that temporary content is bad. Some like it, some dont. Another is that the reason for it is because of the cash shop. it might or might not be. A final assumption is that even if the above is true arenanet will never be willing to change. Gw1 had a cash shop yet it successfully financed the beyond guild wars mini campaigns without any negativity even though it was the sole source of income for them.
2. unless I am misunderstanding you, essentially what you’re saying is I got the facts right (which in a nutshell are you believe that if they finance the game through the gemshop exclusively content quality will suffer due to said content being designed in a way to maximize the cash shop profit rather than game quality) but in your opinion thats not an assumption, correct? if thats the case sorry but I have to disagree. Its most definitely an assumption. Yes obviously if they want to finance the game through cash shop they need to provide incentives for people to buy gems. Thats a fact. But for your whole premise to be true those incentives have to damage the game more than an expansion would. I dont believe thats the case and I will explain why.
Some of these things I already explain so I apologize for repeating it but its very important.
Arguably whats driving the cash shop is currently skins, minis and convenient items like the unlimited use gathering tools as well as gem to gold conversion.
I know you feel strongly about this but I am sorry I just dont see it. People dont buy skins because they’ll be removed at the end of the month. They buy them because they like them. If I want 3 fused skins for my warrior I am going to buy enough chests to get those 3 weapons regardless if they disappear this month or are available forever. I am not going to buy enough chests to get 6 just cause they’re gone next month. So urgency is not going to increasing sales, at best its closing the transaction early but nothing more. (if it takes me $60 to get those 3 skins and there is urgency involved and If I can afford it I will spend those $60 this month, where as if there was no urgency it may take me 3 months to spend those $60 but in then end Arenanet is just getting those $60 nothing more). Thats part of it, the other part is that this in my opinion this has no relation to content delivery. Lets assume you’re right and Arenanet think that urgency helps them sell more but get convinced by players that temporary content is bad. Why cant they make permanent content and still sell a different set of skins every month? Why wouldnt that work in your opinion? you still have the gemshop urgency without affecting the game in any way right? If the answer is you can, which I believe it is then the gem shop has 0 negative effect on your content which also means you are free to focus on delivering the best game possible without loosing out on gem shop sales.
I dont see how minis or the pickaxe affects the game design in any way so I think I can pass on that.
The remaining issue is gem sales. You never mentioned it specifically so not sure if it worries you or not. The only impact it has is with supply / demand of the game. When I look at that seems to me thakittens nearly perfect. (there is a deflation on certain items (any weapon / armor sub rare) but I dont believe thats due to RMT. If you disagree feel free to elaborate) The market in the game is extremely stable. There is hardly any inflation so I am not sure how RMT could be negatively affecting the game.
Finally and most importantly I think that historically Arenanet have shown they’re willing to sacrifice profit for a better game experience. In the first 2x releases we had skins that could only be acquired by buying them off the gem shop. No other way. That never happened again since then. Not only that but release after release they’re making it easier to get skins. This month we even got a bunch for free, I am talking of course about the skins tied to achievements.
I am sorry I just don’t see it. The only think I see them doing to drive people to gemstore is putting out a ton of content to keep people playing. That’s good for the game though not bad.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

And once again some assumptions.
snip…

…

1/2

“I apologize if I wasnt clear, what I tried to say is your seems to be if they continue content releases using the living story model that content will be subpar to an expansion because the design decisions will be focused on maximizing cashshop profit.“

No I don’t say the content will be subpar. I say they will also keep on doing the temporary content to create a sense of urgency. Mainly the temporary stuff in the gem-store but also the temporary rewards, achivements, drops and dungeons.

Next to that it will be possible to have exactly the same content as an expansion could give.. I don;t say it will be just as good and I also don’t say it won’t be so good.

The problem here the the temporary stuff that is there to create a feel or urgency and that needs to go.. Why is that in now? Because thats how they try to get people to buy gems.. How can we get it out.. if they would focus on getting people to buy the expansions in stead on focusing on people buying gems. One way or the other they need to make the money and depending on that there will be marketing tactics behind it to get people o do that. I hate THAT temporary stuff (and like you see, many do) so I prefer expansions.

Do I mind some event that is only one time, and that has no items or achievements link to it? No I don’t. I think it would be good if new players or players who where not there to see it can still see it in a ingame video but thats about it.

It’s the temporary items, dungeons and achievements that I do not like.

And it is not strange people do not like it because it’s build around the idea that people do not like it.. What is it people don’t like about it.. to miss out on it and thats why some people get persuaded to come and play and then also buy the gems.

I will give it as another example.. I would like to have the MF mini and jet-pack (there are available in the TB for insane prices but many items aren’t so for the sage of argument lets say there aren’t as it would also be possible I wanted one of the items that are not in the gem-store) but I can not farm MF again until I have it.. and why? Because Anet needed to create a feel or urgency (by taking them out) so people would play / buy gems because they are focusing on gems in stead on an expansion.

“You feel the reason for temporary content is to instill a sense of urgency in order to drive sales. I do not believe it so, I believe its to drive narrative. More on this below.”

Well I can tell you you are totally wrong. Some events should be temporary for that and I already stated many times before that I have no problem with that. But all the items in the game could easily stay available. No need to take those out to get the drive narrative. The temporary event will bring changes to the event, it would be no problem to link achievement to those changes that have been done and so will stay forever. (Like the achievement with connected to the new jumping puzzle.. you could easily do that with all achievement.. only link them to the part that has changes by the temporary event, not to the temporary thing itself). And for the dungeons you can do exactly the same. You can also build those around the non-temporary stuff. The molten alliance still exist so in stead of saying we need to go in the dungeon to get rid of them we need to get in the dungeon to frustrate there attempts to get to us.

“unless I am misunderstanding you, essentially what you’re saying is I got the facts right (which in a nutshell are you believe that if they finance the game through the gemshop exclusively content quality will suffer due to said content being designed in a way to maximize the cash shop profit rather than game quality) “ Yeah they finance it with the gem-store. Thats indeed a fact when they are not getting money from another source (like expansions). And content will suffer in the way that (for now) it is temporary and I do not like that so yeah for me it does suffer because of that.. Seeing the many complains about it it suffers that way for many.

It’s not an assumption no as it is factually true for me.. You might not mind it being temporary (lets take the MF jet-pack and mini as an example again) and so it might factually not be true for you. The fact that they make part of it temporary purely to create the feel of urgency and so to get people to buy it, is a fact I cannot prove but it’s the oldest trick in the marketing book and like I explained before there is no real other reason to do so, also not to create drive narrative because they can do that with just temporary events without linking items, dungeons and achievements to the temporary part but by linking it to the result (so non-temporary) of that temporary part.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

And once again some assumptions.
snip…

..

2/2

“I know you feel strongly about this but I am sorry I just dont see it. People dont buy skins because they’ll be removed at the end of the month. They buy them because they like them.” You might not see it but like I said many times before it’s the oldest trick in the book. They might buy it if they like it.. when they need it on one of there alts, some day.. But if it’s temporary they need to buy it now if they maybe ever want to use it on one of there alts. They will in both cases not be likely to buy it if they don’t like it but if they do there is a more likely they will buy it if it is now or never. And to top it off. They might now not have the gold to transfer it to gems to buy it but if they have more time they might be able to get the gold to transfer it to gems.. So if they want it now they need to pay with money.
Thats just simply how it works. It’s basic marketing and buy saying thats not how it works you pretty much say that marketing technique (that has be proven to work) does not work.

For your example:
“ If I want 3 fused skins for my warrior I am going to buy enough chests to get those 3 weapons regardless if they disappear this month or are available forever.” Yeah if you want them for your warrior NOW. But what if you don;t have the gold to transfer to gems NOW? And what if you like the shield for your alt guardian but you are not sure yet if you really want to use that shield when you are 80? In those cases the fact that it is temporary might be the reason you will now buy it (with cash). Besides next month there will be a new skin and you might like that better so if you would have more time you might have gone for that skin in stead of the one from this month while now you might go for both.

“Why cant they make permanent content and still sell a different set of skins every month?” That IS permanent content isn’t it? If they sell different set of skins every months then those set’s ARE permanent content.
Once again.. I do not mind temporary events it’s the temporary content like items (your example skins), dungeons and achievements that I do not like. And they work in the same way. Where the temporary achievements and rewards are there to make sure you keep playing (because else you will never be able to complete them anymore) the temporary items in the gem-store are there so you buy them.. And then there is the gold-driven system to buy the money you need.

“Why wouldnt that work in your opinion?” It would work for them.. well because people are not ‘tricked’ in being online to complete the stuff now because they can’t tomorrow there will maybe less people (in the short run.. because in the long run Anet is currently scaring people away) they might sell less but the gem-store trick does still work for those people that are playing. But it’s till temporary content and that is what I was against wasn’t I? And the gem-store is part of the game so then yes it does effect the game. You are still unable to get something afterwards and thats the problem here. Thats why I (and many people) don’t like temporary stuff.

“I dont see how minis or the pickaxe affects the game design in any way so I think I can pass on that.” They affect in a way that they are part of the game. If you like to collect the mini’s or if you like the skin of the pickaxe you are not able to get them anymore.

I don’t have a problem with gem-sales especially when (like in GW2) you can transfer gold to gems. As long as it does not block part of the game, (for example housing) and so far none of the items in the gem-store really do that, thats no problem. Put some nice skins in the gem-store, add some new and I will not complain. Make stuff temporary and here I am.

“Finally and most importantly I think that historically Arenanet have shown they’re willing to sacrifice profit for a better game experience.” I think I don’t even ask this (not sure if there is a big difference between income on gems vs expansions) but I do ask them to stop the temporary stuff.

Devata.6589:

snip legendary explentation

Thanks a lot for the really detailed reply, you really explained it well and I understood some of your point of views that I was really struggling before.

I agree with your assessment that urgency might drive up sales because of a lack of ingame money makes it unfeasible to acquire enough chests without putting in real money while if it was there indefinitely you could just play more and eventually buy stuff using earned gold.. you’re right there. That could very well happen and I am sure it happens. But thats where it ends, I dont think they;re getting any other advantage from this. I am not saying urgency doesnt work, only that it doesnt work in every case and this being one of them. Like the previous example I gave you if a green grocer tries to sell apples to you using urgency s/he will end up loosing money in the long run. Same here. True they might get people to use money because they cant afford the extra chests they need using in game money. But they’re also loosing the sales from people who might need it in the future but its now no longer available.

The alt issue for example I think works against them rather then in their favor. I got 6 alts and a main. I dont play them all equally. In fact only 3 of them are max level though I am focusing on level up a 4th. Even so I am still missing one profession a theif. I know I will get around creating one but I am surely not going to use any energy now to get skins for it. Even for the remaining 2. I know I will get around at playing them eventually but for now I might just play them sporadically just for the fun of it but thats not enough to justify effort (I am not even talking about money here because on principle I just dont support RNG Boxes, I will only farm the stuff). Thing is like you said. New skins are going to be released next month anyway so I feel safe waiting their turn and playing them long enough that I feel I need to well equip them out properly before I would consider spending the effort of getting skins for them. That means If Anet were to sell a skin set that would go great with one of those chars (and I didnt have the no rng boxes principle) I wouldnt considering spending money today but might in a couple of months when I am invested in that alt. Now I know I dont represent all of humanity so I cant pretend to know what others think. But you think people are willing to spend loads of money on characters they’re not going to touch for months? I find that hard to believe to be honest.

Then there is new characters, there is no doubt they lost money there by making items temporary.

The achievements are a problem just for hardcore completionists however. I mean I love achievements and most definitely try my best to complete everything so in a way I guess I am a completionist but I am not going to loose sleep if I dont get them all. (actually I didnt get them all already so there you are…) Actually I think thats a good thing even from a game design point of view. Difficulty can be conquered. Take the clock tower for example. It was very difficult on day one. Relatively easy on the last day. At least for me and others. Thats not because we’ve got super powers its because literally practice makes perfect. The time gating on achievements makes it so you’ll get the achievement while its still relatively difficult which is what makes it an achievement. If you were free to get it when ever it loose its achievement status. Right now it take skill to get 1st in the race. if all content remained in the game in 6 months time it will probably be just a matter of logging in 1 time early morning and you could complete the event on your own at your own pace making the achievement relatively meaningless.

I think calling this content a trick to get people to play isnt really fair. For starters there are 3 possible situation here.

either I can play, I can play but I dont feel like it, I cant play.

What this is doing is converting some of the I can play but dont feel like it set. Why is that a bad thing? A game should motivate you to play it, thats very important. I honestly dont think the majority of those people will play and hate the time they spend playing. IF they’re doing that they should really evaluate their priorities. No in game reward is worth that no matter how good and they should have enough self control to control that.

Galen Grey.4709:

…

I will keep this shorter.

So basically you agree with he first part but disagree that in this case urgency would get people to buy stuff. I think it works from my own perspective (looking at the world) but also from what marketing-people say.

In our country we even have laws that say that if you buy something by phone you have multiple days to change your mind. This is because of pressure and because they used to try and create an feel of urgency.. If you buy it now we will get x % off.

The alts is just one of the examples. That would be a reason for some.. for else it’s because they are afraid they will regret not getting it and so there may be more reasons for more persons.

But maybe the question is not.. is it working but is Anet doing it because they think / know it works?

On another thread you already came up with a compromise where you basically would leave everything available so I guess on that part we are in agreement.

The achievements parts. For you that might be the reason but I also saw somebody literally say that he was a completionist and because he missed something already the aspect of getting achievements was lost for him in GW2 so that would not be a reason to come back anymore. Am I a completionist.. Yes and know.. I hate it to know I would never be able to get a specific thing (achievement or item).. but thats no surprise I guess. However for the items that does not go so far that I will buy it with money and for the achievements.. well after I will have missed one I will also not care anymore about the other. Basically the same as that other guy was saying.

Last the difficulty for something to be conquered. Yeah practice might make you better so if you are willing to practice you might be able to get it.. but then you also urned it.

Now it’s on a time-base. So if you are on vacation now you will also not get some achievements.. that however does not mean you did not earn to get it… if you would be here. So I prefer by far the skill (even if you can learn it) then the time. And I see skill linked to difficulty while I don’t see time linked to difficulty. I do understand your point but can’t you also say that in the beginning everybody needs to learn it so it might be also based on luck.. and then when you a week late many persons have a week more practice as you so you have a disadvantage.

Anyway.. I think we do understand each other and it might be a case of agree to disagree. I however did like you ‘compromise’ in the other thread. Like I said there.. that would work for me. Not my favorite option but it’s fine. (without it being locked behind a month that is)

Devata.6589:

…

At the end of the day its a balance. Urgency will undoubtitly get them some extra sales. You make very good points like people who dont have enough gold and people afraid that not getting that thing will result in them regretting in the future. You’re absolutely right that will generate extra sales due to urgency. But I do think it will result in lost sales too. New players, players who spent as much as they’re willing to spend in a month, players who start a new alt in the future etc.. The question is will they earn more or less. I have a feeling the answer is less because of player turnover and because as time goes buy more and more players will start alts.

Achievements are tricky. I do have a bit of completionists blood and I did miss a few as well. They bug me a bit I agree but on the other hand they also help achievements feel like achievements. I am also the kind of person who wants achievements to mean something which is why I dont use guides. I know I can get them done in a fraction of the time if I do but what would the point be? Like it took me days to get all the 40 sky crystals and I am not even happy with that cause I want to get all of them not just the minimum to get the achievement. I do plan to go hunt for the remaining ones when I complete the rest. But back on subject this is a bit like Dungeons when you could grave rush. People felt they could never loose because they’d just keep grave rushing. I mean People would die 20+ times and still feel they won the dungeon. To me dieing so many times certainly doesnt feel like a success but it got so bad that Anet felt they needed to disable graveyard rush. Simply speaking the possibility of failure makes success meaningful and I do think that applies to achievements. If I had all the time in the world to complete each of the living story event there would simply remain no challenge. Its like the clock tower and Wintersday jumping puzzle. What made them so challenging is that you couldnt stop and study your next jump, you need to keep going straining your reactions. Time adds a difficulty element that means that yes sometimes you’ll fail and you will miss achievements. Why should that be reason to quit or loose interest in the rest?

Yes going on holiday is a bit of a bummer related to achievements, I totally agree there. Its kinda a necessary evil I guess in a way.

As for training for achievements, I do see your point and you’re right. From a personal point of view it will still be an achievement, in a way perhaps more so. I mean lets assume the clock tower remained in game, if you had to repeat that thing for 8 months before you got it, when you do it will feel like a monumentous achievement. But how will other people feel? how much value will titles have? There is a bit of group aspect to achievements too. If you could take all the time in the world to get an achievement I am afraid it will loose its prestige if you know what I mean.

hehe of course we cant all have the same views on everything. I really appreciate the fact you explain your views in great detail. We might not agree on somethings but I fully respect your opinions. We just subscribe to different philosophies I guess. nothing wrong with that

So many words, so I’ll be brief.

Screw expansions.

Here’s the skinny. We know that there are now four teams working on Living Story content in four month cycles. That in itself is a lot. We also know that there are other teams working on the big, juicy stuff as well, things that take longer to refine and deliver. Things worthy of expansions. You all need to realize we’re getting the best of all worlds here… a constant influx of new content to do in between the big releases of major content. Look at games that rely on expansions. They toss you an expansion, you burn through it in a month and wait four or six months recycling the same old stuff waiting for the next release.

We’re getting a constant flow of new things to do while the “big” stuff is being developed. That works for me.

VOLKON.1290:

So many words, so I’ll be brief.

Screw expansions.

Here’s the skinny. We know that there are now four teams working on Living Story content in four month cycles. That in itself is a lot. We also know that there are other teams working on the big, juicy stuff as well, things that take longer to refine and deliver. Things worthy of expansions. You all need to realize we’re getting the best of all worlds here… a constant influx of new content to do in between the big releases of major content. Look at games that rely on expansions. They toss you an expansion, you burn through it in a month and wait four or six months recycling the same old stuff waiting for the next release.

We’re getting a constant flow of new things to do while the “big” stuff is being developed. That works for me.

God I do love brevity. +1

The reiterate what many have already said, people are displaying a ridiculous amount of impatience here. Typical MMO’s would take just as long as this to release any substantial content updates, and the 8 months that people like to bandy around is simply the amount of time ANet has had to develop such content. Expect to hear information towards the end of the year following the games anniversary, not before.

Also I’d like to add that the communication between ANet and fans is superb. How often do major game developers interact so often with the playerbase? I’ve been with them since GW in 06, and hell even I quit GW2 about a month or two following its release, however I came back because I felt that this product was seeing the love and attention of its developers, and I felt that the community was the driving force behind development. We may not get everything that we want immediately, but I’m kitten sure we’ll get it.

I want a full expansion. These quick little events that only last a small amount of time are not equal to a full expansion. At this rate we will never see any new skills, character classes, races or a new full map.

These events every 2 weeks are fine, as long as you are also creating a complete expansion as well.

At this point in GW1’s life, Factions was coming out soon. A brand new campaign, 2 new characters, a whole new map, 100’s of skills, brand new armor sets and new enemies as well as a new a multiplayer mode and challenge missions.

All we have in GW2 a year later, is fractals and some new gem store items.
We want new character classes, new races, new armor and weapons, new weapon types for each character, a new map (just remake Cantha GW2 style), a new multi-player game type with 3-4 maps, more guild features like guild halls and GvG.

If you can deliver this type of core content without an expansion then that’s fine, but these little 2 week mini updates just feel like something to keep us busy for a few hours, rather then a true full expansion experience.

Peter.8047:

I want a full expansion. These quick little events that only last a small amount of time are not equal to a full expansion. At this rate we will never see any new skills, character classes, races or a new full map.

These events every 2 weeks are fine, as long as you are also creating a complete expansion as well.

At this point in GW1’s life, Factions was coming out soon. A brand new campaign, 2 new characters, a whole new map, 100’s of skills, brand new armor sets and new enemies as well as a new a multiplayer mode and challenge missions.

All we have in GW2 a year later, is fractals and some new gem store items.
We want new character classes, new races, new armor and weapons, new weapon types for each character, a new map (just remake Cantha GW2 style), a new multi-player game type with 3-4 maps, more guild features like guild halls and GvG.

If you can deliver this type of core content without an expansion then that’s fine, but these little 2 week mini updates just feel like something to keep us busy for a few hours, rather then a true full expansion experience.

And the amount of content combined between Factions and Prophecies is still considerably less than the amount of content in Guild Wars 2.

That is to say, after Guild Wars 1 was out a year and Factions was released, there was less Guild Wars 1 content than there was Guild Wars 2 content at launch.

Vayne.8563:

Peter.8047:

I want a full expansion. These quick little events that only last a small amount of time are not equal to a full expansion. At this rate we will never see any new skills, character classes, races or a new full map.

These events every 2 weeks are fine, as long as you are also creating a complete expansion as well.

At this point in GW1’s life, Factions was coming out soon. A brand new campaign, 2 new characters, a whole new map, 100’s of skills, brand new armor sets and new enemies as well as a new a multiplayer mode and challenge missions.

All we have in GW2 a year later, is fractals and some new gem store items.
We want new character classes, new races, new armor and weapons, new weapon types for each character, a new map (just remake Cantha GW2 style), a new multi-player game type with 3-4 maps, more guild features like guild halls and GvG.

If you can deliver this type of core content without an expansion then that’s fine, but these little 2 week mini updates just feel like something to keep us busy for a few hours, rather then a true full expansion experience.

And the amount of content combined between Factions and Prophecies is still considerably less than the amount of content in Guild Wars 2.

That is to say, after Guild Wars 1 was out a year and Factions was released, there was less Guild Wars 1 content than there was Guild Wars 2 content at launch.

That maybe so, but I played Prophecies from the day it launched all the way up until the day Factions launched, never stopped and never got bored. I played GW2 until December and stopped because I was completely bored (Came back to check out the event, already bored again. See the problem here?). I feel the smaller amount of content in GW1 was much stronger, especially compared to these little mini updates.

This may also be due to the fact that I have not had to ever change my characters skills (since theres a total of like… 5 per class exaggerating) and the SPvP is complete trash, but those are flaws with the actual game itself and not so much the “content”.

I guess I want an expansion because in my mind that’s the only way ANet can improve all the things I don’t like about the game and also add all the things I want in the game. It feels like since we are just getting these smaller updates, the game is going to stay completely the same (no new skills, no new characters, no new PvP, no new real maps, no permanent changes to the game).

Like I said before, if they can find a way to add these major things through these small updates then fine. If by the end of the year we have a new race and a new character and a new map to explore, I will be happy. And also, I’d be cool with them doing the small updates IF they were also working on a full expansion pack at the same time, then I’d be completely cool with it.

VOLKON.1290:

So many words, so I’ll be brief.

Screw expansions.

Here’s the skinny. We know that there are now four teams working on Living Story content in four month cycles. That in itself is a lot. We also know that there are other teams working on the big, juicy stuff as well, things that take longer to refine and deliver. Things worthy of expansions. You all need to realize we’re getting the best of all worlds here… a constant influx of new content to do in between the big releases of major content. Look at games that rely on expansions. They toss you an expansion, you burn through it in a month and wait four or six months recycling the same old stuff waiting for the next release.

We’re getting a constant flow of new things to do while the “big” stuff is being developed. That works for me.

No you don’t get best of 2 worlds you get worse of 2 worlds. You get a F2P game that you payed for to play. To me thats the worse of to worlds.

I know what you mean.. whats the problem, a nice story leading up to content thats the same as an expansion. Sounds good I agree and they might indeed deliver the same amount of content. Thats not the issue here.

The problem for me (there are some other reasons for other people) is that you also have to think about the business behind it. I signed up for a B2P game because I do not like F2P game because of there focus on cash-shops (like the temporary content, but I will not go further into that now). So now Anet does not work with expansions they are focusing on the gem-store for income.

Thats my problem with it.

It’s not the idea of content overtime that leads to the same amount as a expansion would do. that by itself (forgetting the business behind it) would be fine. But there is a business behind it so we can’t forget about that.

Yargesh.4965:

VOLKON.1290:

So many words, so I’ll be brief.

Screw expansions.

Here’s the skinny. We know that there are now four teams working on Living Story content in four month cycles. That in itself is a lot. We also know that there are other teams working on the big, juicy stuff as well, things that take longer to refine and deliver. Things worthy of expansions. You all need to realize we’re getting the best of all worlds here… a constant influx of new content to do in between the big releases of major content. Look at games that rely on expansions. They toss you an expansion, you burn through it in a month and wait four or six months recycling the same old stuff waiting for the next release.

We’re getting a constant flow of new things to do while the “big” stuff is being developed. That works for me.

God I do love brevity. +1

To bad that is usually means you leave out a big part of the relevant facts.