Guild Wars 2

I know ANET promised new content every two-weeks… But does it really count when they get take a list of info, lock it, then release the info consecutively within 2 weeks? I mean the purpose of the new content every two weeks was to get me c’mon back to the game at a regular basis… But really? Locked info? I remember the first time they did this with the major patch that changed the traits and skin system, so I let it go at the time… Now they do it again I just can’t help but say it seems silly I’m going with this considering I KNOW they could just release all that info in one shot.

Listen, I"m not trying to offend ANET in anyway, but c’mon ANET that just seems like a cheap thing to do. I liked coming to this game because there was always something new to DO in Guild Wars 2 rather than READ about. New quests, events with rewards (like Dragon Bash, that was awesome), or maybe just a new simple mini-game that was added.

Also, people might say the the black lion market sale may count as the event, but I don’t think it keeps things interesting, especially if you consider that the gold to gem conversion is 4x as much as it was a little over 1 year ago (goes even higher during a sale like this.} This only benefits people who pay real money… Which makes this situation to me even more peculiar.

You mean the LS content “every two weeks?” We’ve had, what, 4 total in the past 5 months?

I think with the previous feature patch it made sense because the concept was new, and there were lots of big changes. This time it has just overhyped a load of minor changes and made people speculate about really exciting things that could have been in there. Having a whole week dedicated to “a fresh start” and not doing anything about the trait system with 40 pages of negative feedback just on this forum seems to me a particular misstep. As does focussing on changes that don’t actually affect most people who read such blogs.

If this had been announced like the patches used to be about a year ago (informative, a week in advance, and in one go) I think it would have come across a lot better.

I’m…not entirely sure about this complaint. Neither the trickle of information about the feature pack nor the anniversary sale are meant to be taken as “new content.” The anniversary sale is just a sale, and the blog posts are just build-up to the next release, the September Feature Pack. None of this has anything to do with the two-week schedule the Living Story releases have used in the past.

I mean, I don’t know exactly where you’re looking for a promise of new content every other week, or what language they used, but I’m sure it was talking about the Living Story releases, and I think they’ve been acceptably good about communicating the timing on that. (Even if their communication in other areas isn’t always the best.)

Are they using a promise of new content every other week in currently-running advertising? I don’t really see them as doing anything misleading otherwise.

(I might have my own complaints about things, but the OP’s complaint seems to be picking a problem out of its reasonable context.)

It clearly hasn’t been an effective way to manage player expectations. But if it gets people excited, then I guess it’s worth it for them, from a marketing standpoint.

At this point, I would just like to see the rest of it laid out before me, so that I know what to expect from the feature pack. Something tells me they’re not done with it though, and the staggered release is just as much a marketing ploy as a way to give them room to finalize certain features.

Just a guess.

Having returned to the game about a month ago I thought I had read that they had changed their minds concerning the rapid content updates and were throttling back (I can’t remember the reasons, I assume quality?). Maybe I read something else and this just happened to be what I thought I was reading….

The information regarding the Feature Pack is not content, it is a weekly list of what is coming on 9/9 update.
The Living Story is on hiatus , probably so that the staff can have a vacation.

I can’t remember ever reading a promise about delivering content every 2 weeks. What I do remember is the Devs speaking about the Living Story cadence being usually 2 weeks, with breaks for Feature Packs, Festivals, time down, etc.

Announcements, blogs, videos, etc. are not game content nor have anything to do with the LS 2-week cadence.

Are you somehow confusing the two?

Think of the living story as a comic book. Small chunks of story on a periodic basis. Currently its on hiatus for the feature pack and the WW tournament. Once the tournament is finished, the story will resume.

When they released stuff every two weeks, people were upset that the changes came too rapidly. They said, “game feels like a treadmill” and “I’d like some time to absorb some of these changes.” Now that they’ve slowed down the pace (a few updates, a break, a few more updates, …), others are complaining that it’s too slow.

There’s no way to please everyone; ANet is going to try to balance those who want to go fast with those who want to go slower.

No company can create content faster than people can consume it. If you expect that to happen, you should give up on games now. Because it can’t happen. It takes weeks and months to program something that gamers consume in a matter of hours. It’s not feasible what you’re asking for.

There are relatively frequent updates, but there will be breaks as well. I’d lower my expectations if I were you OP.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

When they released stuff every two weeks, people were upset that the changes came too rapidly. They said, “game feels like a treadmill” and “I’d like some time to absorb some of these changes.” Now that they’ve slowed down the pace (a few updates, a break, a few more updates, …), others are complaining that it’s too slow.

There’s no way to please everyone; ANet is going to try to balance those who want to go fast with those who want to go slower.

The original complaint was that it’s too fast for temporary content.

Now that the content is permanent, however, there’s a different matter entirely. The issue I see most is that players have grown to expect a biweekly content release rate, but ArenaNet having realized they cannot bring such out perpetually decided to go with sets of biweekly releases with periodical breaks. People have yet to break out of the expectancy and mentality of the “temporary, perpetual biweekly releases” in a multitude of cases – or just simply “perpetual biweekly releases” – that they end up feeling like they’re not getting content “fast enough.”

I, in all honesty, would prefer a system akin to Winds of Change – an entire campaign’s/expansion’s worth of content (give or take) released in three major chunks a few months apart. But I digress.

Actually, all their adds feature the words on the “such and such and 12 other friends like this” on Facebook, but here is an article as well:
http://www.gamesradar.com/guild-wars-2-ramps-new-content-every-two-weeks/

And another:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/67575636

I’m perfectly content with the game, but the OP is correct in their statement : )

thomdane.3670:

Actually, all their adds feature the words on the “such and such and 12 other friends like this” on Facebook, but here is an article as well:
http://www.gamesradar.com/guild-wars-2-ramps-new-content-every-two-weeks/

And another:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/67575636

I’m perfectly content with the game, but the OP is correct in their statement : )

Not sure where in either of those links Devs said anything about a promise of a 2-week content delivery system. The article talks about it, but the quotes from Chris don’t say anything specific, really. The second link doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Devs, unless it’s on some other page, or something.

And still, what has that to do with announcements on blogs? It seems the OP is concerned about time interval with the release of information, and using a ‘promise’ of two-week content delivery to demonstrate some kind of broken promise.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

thomdane.3670:

Actually, all their adds feature the words on the “such and such and 12 other friends like this” on Facebook, but here is an article as well:
http://www.gamesradar.com/guild-wars-2-ramps-new-content-every-two-weeks/

And another:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/67575636

I’m perfectly content with the game, but the OP is correct in their statement : )

Not sure where in either of those links Devs said anything about a promise of a 2-week content delivery system. The article talks about it, but the quotes from Chris don’t say anything specific, really. The second link doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Devs, unless it’s on some other page, or something.

And still, what has that to do with announcements on blogs? It seems the OP is concerned about time interval with the release of information, and using a ‘promise’ of two-week content delivery to demonstrate some kind of broken promise.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/living-world-in-guild-wars-2/

This is from their own news page, July 2 2013, scroll down and you’ll see the quote and explanation…

Regardless, though, everyone, please don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t expect a promise like this to actually be kept or have a MAJOR event every two weeks. It’s pretty unrealistic. Thing is, what I don’t like ANET doing is “hiding” their hiatus behind a “locked-info” list of their next major patch.
That’s just stupid.
I"d rather have them release the entire info in one shot, be honest and say something like, “We need a two-week break to double check the upcoming patch. However, here’s a list of the updates and a few examples that we think will enhance the game further in the future. We hope you like it.”

I would’ve been happy with that, they deserve a break. They’ve done a phenomenal job in releasing all this content for the past year, and introducing a Living story system I’ve never seen any MMORPG do. But did they have to lock the info and release them staggered within two weeks to keep us coming here in the next 14 days after "The Shadow Falls? Like I mentioned, that seems peculiar.

AVM.5746:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

thomdane.3670:

Actually, all their adds feature the words on the “such and such and 12 other friends like this” on Facebook, but here is an article as well:
http://www.gamesradar.com/guild-wars-2-ramps-new-content-every-two-weeks/

And another:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/67575636

I’m perfectly content with the game, but the OP is correct in their statement : )

Not sure where in either of those links Devs said anything about a promise of a 2-week content delivery system. The article talks about it, but the quotes from Chris don’t say anything specific, really. The second link doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Devs, unless it’s on some other page, or something.

And still, what has that to do with announcements on blogs? It seems the OP is concerned about time interval with the release of information, and using a ‘promise’ of two-week content delivery to demonstrate some kind of broken promise.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/living-world-in-guild-wars-2/

This is from their own news page, July 2 2013, scroll down and you’ll see the quote and explanation…

Regardless, though, everyone, please don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t expect a promise like this to actually be kept or have a MAJOR event every two weeks. It’s pretty unrealistic. Thing is, what I don’t like ANET doing is “hiding” their hiatus behind a “locked-info” list of their next major patch.
That’s just stupid.
I"d rather have them release the entire info in one shot, be honest and say something like, “We need a two-week break to double check the upcoming patch. However, here’s a list of the updates and a few examples that we think will enhance the game further in the future. We hope you like it.”

I would’ve been happy with that, they deserve a break. They’ve done a phenomenal job in releasing all this content for the past year, and introducing a Living story system I’ve never seen any MMORPG do. But did they have to lock the info and release them staggered within two weeks to keep us coming here in the next 14 days after "The Shadow Falls? Like I mentioned, that seems peculiar.

If you don’t like it, don’t follow it and wait for the patch notes. Then you’ll get it all at once.

This sort of system is for people who digest things more slowly or don’t want to see a whole wall of text.

Yep, they sure did say that in that blog post. And said they were going to be taking breaks from that cadence in another blog post.

Still, what has that to do with announcement delivery cadence? I just don’t see the connection. If you are saying that because they deliver announcements more often than once every two weeks sometimes, they are breaking their ‘promise’, I would think the weeks with neither announcement nor content/feature delivery broke that way back when they announced they were going to take breaks. /shrug

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yep, they sure did say that in that blog post. And said they were going to be taking breaks from that cadence in another blog post.

Still, what has that to do with announcement delivery cadence? I just don’t see the connection. If you are saying that because they deliver announcements more often than once every two weeks sometimes, they are breaking their ‘promise’, I would think the weeks with neither announcement nor content/feature delivery broke that way back when they announced they were going to take breaks. /shrug

Let me try to chop it in pieces to show you what I mean. Please forgive me if my tone offends anyone…
What I find strange was the previously locked info (some still locked) within this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

My question is: Why lock it and release it through out 14 days?
And my guess is, this locked page is our current new content (or better yet, our EVENT) between the gap of “The Dragon’s Reach part2” and the September feature patch in order to keep us coming here.

And I find that kinda cheap and peculiar, cause, ya know, I was expecting game content. Not blog posts.

This isn’t an event, this is a hiatus during which they (very slowly) tell us (some of) what to expect in the next set of game changes. It seems you have a different idea of what to expect from their break than they do.

AVM.5746:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yep, they sure did say that in that blog post. And said they were going to be taking breaks from that cadence in another blog post.

Still, what has that to do with announcement delivery cadence? I just don’t see the connection. If you are saying that because they deliver announcements more often than once every two weeks sometimes, they are breaking their ‘promise’, I would think the weeks with neither announcement nor content/feature delivery broke that way back when they announced they were going to take breaks. /shrug

Let me try to chop it in pieces to show you what I mean. Please forgive me if my tone offends anyone…
What I find strange was the previously locked info (some still locked) within this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

My question is: Why lock it and release it through out 14 days?
And my guess is, this locked page is our current new content (or better yet, our EVENT) between the gap of “The Dragon’s Reach part2” and the September feature patch in order to keep us coming here.

And I find that kinda cheap and peculiar, cause, ya know, I was expecting game content. Not blog posts.

See, the problem here is you think everyone thinks like you. Some people like getting stuff in bits that isn’t out yet…being teased in other words.

It’s not like that patch is out till September 9. You can’t play it. So Anet is going to talk about it in the way that gets them the best bang for the buck.

If it annoys you, you don’t even have to look at it until it’s all up and then you can read it all once, but these aren’t patch notes.

There are very good business reasons to release things in sections (and frankly this time I think Anet has overdone it. It might have been better to have one release a week with all the stuff for that week in it.

But businesses thrive on publicity and by announcing something every day, every one of the MMO websites out there is going to cover it every day.

They’re going to say this is new in Guild Wars 2, that is new in Guild Wars 2 and like it or not, advertising is good for the game. That is to say, more people will see the name on other sites every day for a period of time, which is what advertising is about…repetition.

To players of the game, the information changes nothing. The patch and patch notes will be here on September 9. But the amount of free publicity they get by announcing this way is gold.

Why wouldn’t they do it?

Vayne.8563:

AVM.5746:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yep, they sure did say that in that blog post. And said they were going to be taking breaks from that cadence in another blog post.

Still, what has that to do with announcement delivery cadence? I just don’t see the connection. If you are saying that because they deliver announcements more often than once every two weeks sometimes, they are breaking their ‘promise’, I would think the weeks with neither announcement nor content/feature delivery broke that way back when they announced they were going to take breaks. /shrug

Let me try to chop it in pieces to show you what I mean. Please forgive me if my tone offends anyone…
What I find strange was the previously locked info (some still locked) within this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

My question is: Why lock it and release it through out 14 days?
And my guess is, this locked page is our current new content (or better yet, our EVENT) between the gap of “The Dragon’s Reach part2” and the September feature patch in order to keep us coming here.

And I find that kinda cheap and peculiar, cause, ya know, I was expecting game content. Not blog posts.

See, the problem here is you think everyone thinks like you. Some people like getting stuff in bits that isn’t out yet…being teased in other words.

It’s not like that patch is out till September 9. You can’t play it. So Anet is going to talk about it in the way that gets them the best bang for the buck.

If it annoys you, you don’t even have to look at it until it’s all up and then you can read it all once, but these aren’t patch notes.

There are very good business reasons to release things in sections (and frankly this time I think Anet has overdone it. It might have been better to have one release a week with all the stuff for that week in it.

But businesses thrive on publicity and by announcing something every day, every one of the MMO websites out there is going to cover it every day.

They’re going to say this is new in Guild Wars 2, that is new in Guild Wars 2 and like it or not, advertising is good for the game. That is to say, more people will see the name on other sites every day for a period of time, which is what advertising is about…repetition.

To players of the game, the information changes nothing. The patch and patch notes will be here on September 9. But the amount of free publicity they get by announcing this way is gold.

Why wouldn’t they do it?

You sir have hit the mark. And I think your right, I gotta remind myself everyone doesn’t think like me (Some one once told me I have a practical sense of mind).
Can’t get a movie noticed without previews and trailers I guess. I just hope they don’t do this same stunt a 3rd time.
…But who am I kidding? As your say, it’s gold.

I particularly enjoy having something to look forward to each day (that they release information).

I understand some people like the information released in a different manner, but for me? This is right up my alley! =)

AVM.5746:

Vayne.8563:

AVM.5746:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yep, they sure did say that in that blog post. And said they were going to be taking breaks from that cadence in another blog post.

Still, what has that to do with announcement delivery cadence? I just don’t see the connection. If you are saying that because they deliver announcements more often than once every two weeks sometimes, they are breaking their ‘promise’, I would think the weeks with neither announcement nor content/feature delivery broke that way back when they announced they were going to take breaks. /shrug

Let me try to chop it in pieces to show you what I mean. Please forgive me if my tone offends anyone…
What I find strange was the previously locked info (some still locked) within this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

My question is: Why lock it and release it through out 14 days?
And my guess is, this locked page is our current new content (or better yet, our EVENT) between the gap of “The Dragon’s Reach part2” and the September feature patch in order to keep us coming here.

And I find that kinda cheap and peculiar, cause, ya know, I was expecting game content. Not blog posts.

See, the problem here is you think everyone thinks like you. Some people like getting stuff in bits that isn’t out yet…being teased in other words.

It’s not like that patch is out till September 9. You can’t play it. So Anet is going to talk about it in the way that gets them the best bang for the buck.

If it annoys you, you don’t even have to look at it until it’s all up and then you can read it all once, but these aren’t patch notes.

There are very good business reasons to release things in sections (and frankly this time I think Anet has overdone it. It might have been better to have one release a week with all the stuff for that week in it.

But businesses thrive on publicity and by announcing something every day, every one of the MMO websites out there is going to cover it every day.

They’re going to say this is new in Guild Wars 2, that is new in Guild Wars 2 and like it or not, advertising is good for the game. That is to say, more people will see the name on other sites every day for a period of time, which is what advertising is about…repetition.

To players of the game, the information changes nothing. The patch and patch notes will be here on September 9. But the amount of free publicity they get by announcing this way is gold.

Why wouldn’t they do it?

You sir have hit the mark. And I think your right, I gotta remind myself everyone doesn’t think like me (Some one once told me I have a practical sense of mind).
Can’t get a movie noticed without previews and trailers I guess. I just hope they don’t do this same stunt a 3rd time.
…But who am I kidding? As your say, it’s gold.

I don’t really think the blogs on the websites are meant for hard core fans anyway. We just get swept up in it.

If you didn’t play this game every day and you were visiting Massively or MMORPG.com every day and you saw Guild Wars 2 name every day, you might start to think…wow, look at all this stuff.

Spreading it out actually makes it look like it’s more…if you’re not already playing. It’s an old retail trick.

In general, it’s a great approach for Anet to announce new features in this way. Such a simple thing like locking the announcements can garner a lot of hype and word of mouth without Anet even doing anything. It keeps people constantly talking and spreading information to various websites. However, if we’re talking about this feature pack specifically though, I’m pretty sure Anet dug themselves in real good. This is probably one of those situations where it would have been ideal to hit a magical “undo everything” button and just announce a bunch of the “features” at once and finish the announcements within a week. It probably would have preemptively squashed a lot of the raging. It’s important to consider what exactly you’re creating hype for.