Guild Wars 2

Not sure why people wax nostalgic about LS so much. I guess the “bi-weekly” advertisement worked well when in reality it was 4 “bi-weekly” episodes of LS every six months.

If that meagre amount of content was what they were able to produce back when LS was the thing, do you really think they have the resources to put out new content while they are working on an expansion?

I believe the title “Core Game Abandoned” is misleading, but I agree with the point.

GW2 has long been built on transparency and fair intent. While I understand that development time is being put towards the expansion (and I’m fine with that), I do not like how they continually claimed they were churning out bi-weekly releases and championing the “living story”. They were not bi-weekly released. They averaged at about 1 release per 3.5 weeks over the year.

The content when it did show up was great, and I’m not complaining about the intervals at which it came (i seem to have more life stuff to do now then I used to, so the slower release is actually relaxing to me). I just find their advertising over the whole thing to be intentionally misleading.

The living-world section of the forums should be renamed to the dead-world. As it is. If content can not be delivered while expansions are being produced, I’m okay with that, but I find the inaccurate hyping while content is arriving and the awkward silence when content isn’t arriving to taint the overarching intent of Anet – and thats my favorite part about this game and company :/

PS: Apologies if I did not agree with the intent of this topic in any way whatsoever ^^

rapthorne.7345:

Rebound.3409:

No..for an mmo and for the CONSTANT demands and expectations of an mmo that IS a micro team. For a single player that’s an OK team…but even then not that big.

The vast majority of f2p mmo’s have developer employee numbers barely in the 10’s, let alone the hundreds

Unless you’re Dota, Starcraft, League or Smite.

CodeHavoc.7926:

rapthorne.7345:

Rebound.3409:

No..for an mmo and for the CONSTANT demands and expectations of an mmo that IS a micro team. For a single player that’s an OK team…but even then not that big.

The vast majority of f2p mmo’s have developer employee numbers barely in the 10’s, let alone the hundreds

Unless you’re Dota, Starcraft, League or Smite.

None of those are MMOs.

DarkOcean.8746:

rapthorne.7345:

Rebound.3409:

No..for an mmo and for the CONSTANT demands and expectations of an mmo that IS a micro team. For a single player that’s an OK team…but even then not that big.

The vast majority of f2p mmo’s have developer employee numbers barely in the 10’s, let alone the hundreds

I honestly wouldn’t be super surprised if Anet was working on GW3 at this point…

They better do their best to keep me hooked to GW2 if they want to keep earning my money. I wouldnt buy a GW3 at this point. The payment model is too disgusting to buy another game with this payment model, it costed me tons more than a subscription so far.

I doubt it cost more than 30 account subscriptions. You really spend more than $450/month on GW2?

There’s been no substantial updates since January. There’s your answer. The expansion has overwritten everything else. This will continue until the expansion is released at some undisclosed time.

We have no idea when. Next month or next year is anyone’s guess.

And yes, this is what people wanted. The loudest people anyway. Nothing for months on end as opposed to something every few weeks or months instead. Yes, they rather pay for some unknown as opposed to a free and sure thing.

Don’t ask. I still can’t wrap my mind around it either.

It’s time to vote again. Gnashblade vs Kiel , ROUND 2.

Cut-throat Politics redux pls Anet, while we wait for HoT.

lordkrall.7241:

Wasn’t this exactly what those of us that preferred the Living Story system warned about when people demanded an expansion?

And the expansion people claimed that it would in no way or form change the content flow.

It is simply not feasible for a company of ArenaNets size and resources to focus on both and expansion and other content at the same time.
It is simply one or the other.

And yes, I know people will bring up the whole: “But they can re-release stuff that is already created!”. But that is assuming that it works 100% with all the new changes that have been made, something that takes time and resources to check, and if it does not work it could take weeks if not more to find and fix the issues so that it once again becomes playable.
Weeks that needs to be taken from the expansion.

Not that it really matters, because it would still only lead to people complaining about how lazy they are to only release old stuff instead of new (just look at Halloween, Wintersday and Chinese New Year).

QFT.

I’ve been watching this debate with some interest. Like many of you, I wish there were more content in the game. By the same token, I think those who think 2 week updates and an expansion can be maintained at the same time are fooling themselves. Particularly those who compare Guild Wars 2 with Guild Wars 1. They’re completely different games. MMOs are not lobby games. Games that are pathed are easier to right anyway. And everyone knows the number of people who are going to show up at each encounter.

Propechies had 209 quests and 25 missions. That was prophecies. Guild Wars 2 had 1500 dynamic events at launch. If you add all the quests together from all four Guild Wars 1 products, you still have more dynamic events at launch than Guild Wars 1 had quests. So comparing these games is pointless. Not to mention, many will say having more programmers slows things down, rather than speeds it up.

From my point of view, the only reasonable thing people ask for is the content that was previously cyclical. I’m not sure why Anet can’t open SAB or the Queen’s Pavillion, I have no idea, but I’m firmly against them opening the Bazaare of the Four Winds. That ship has sailed (literally). Without spoilers, the game’s story simply doesn’t permit that to happen.

While I certainly agree that work on the expansion has created next to nothing in regards to content. I think another reason for a stagnant world is that HoT is meant to pick up directly after the end of LW season 2. We can’t have certain events moving the world forward, like Lion’s Arch being rebuilt, if the expansion is intended to pick up right after the last episode. If I recall correctly, even when a Living World season went on break the world froze. These story breaks have been one of my biggest issues with the story telling in the game.

Granted we had the New Year event, but it contained no real story/world advancement. And I see no reason NOT to reopen SAB. That’s just an activity. Anyways, that’s my take.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve been watching this debate with some interest. Like many of you, I wish there were more content in the game. By the same token, I think those who think 2 week updates and an expansion can be maintained at the same time are fooling themselves.

Players believed their “A team” was working on the expansion for 2 years now, while the other teams were working on the living story. If this was so, the expansion would’ve been in beta already.

By your logic, they weren’t working on an expansion this whole time. So which was it? An expansion being worked on for 2 years, or was it shortly after Season 2 started? We just don’t know. That blows the whole theory apart if you’re correct.

In my opinion, they announced HoT way too early, and now all the hype it generated is deflated, and it’s causing the playerbase to get anxious without any content in the interim period.

nexxe.7081:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve been watching this debate with some interest. Like many of you, I wish there were more content in the game. By the same token, I think those who think 2 week updates and an expansion can be maintained at the same time are fooling themselves.

Players believed their “A team” was working on the expansion for 2 years now, while the other teams were working on the living story. If this was so, the expansion would’ve been in beta already.

By your logic, they weren’t working on an expansion this whole time. So which was it? An expansion being worked on for 2 years, or was it shortly after Season 2 started? We just don’t know. That blows the whole theory apart if you’re correct.

In my opinion, they announced HoT way too early, and now all the hype it generated is deflated, and it’s causing the playerbase to get anxious without any content in the interim period.

There’s more to the expansion than the expansion itself. Some things from the expansion are being introduced before the expansion, which was also stuff being worked on.

Nothing you’ve said blows apart my theory because there’s nothing really specific in the theory.

Anet said they’ve been working on big projects in the background all along. I believe that. We’ve seen some of them. Anet also said they didn’t know how those things would be delivered.

For example the specialization system is actually coming before the expansion but it still takes people to work on it. Only the elite specializations are coming with the expansion.

You should spend less time trying to disprove me (because I’m making extremely general statements that really can’t be disproved) and more time paying attention to what I’m replying to, because usually that’s why I post. I reply to people who say there’s no expansion being worked on.

There were several side projects also worked on at the same time. Now, the team that has been doing Living Story might be needed for other things, like the new story that’s coming in the expansion.

So I don’t really know what you’re on about.

Edit: The announcement of Hot might have been for any number of reasons, including annoucing it before ESO went free to play or because there was so much pressure from the fan base to announce SOMETHING.

We’ll never really know any of this stuff. It’s ALL just speculation unless Anet tells us.

It all comes down to “will the expansion deliver at the level of expectations&amount anet created for us or not” and that will be the deciding factor for a big shift in the player base numbers. Till then we just have to wait and see. It’s what i personally asked for….a bigger break so they can work on big content not just 30/60min-of-lackluster-gameplay pieces.

That being said i am not very impressed with the 2year+this year work they openly said they put into this. If it’s not up to my personal standards i will just end my GW2 jurney and jump to better things..mmo or not. For me personally this expansion is a pivotal point regarding the game and the time i may or may not invest in it.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve been watching this debate with some interest. Like many of you, I wish there were more content in the game. By the same token, I think those who think 2 week updates and an expansion can be maintained at the same time are fooling themselves.

I don’t really see why. In the past two year about 10% of the company worked on the living world project, meaning the rest was working on what we seen in the past two year other than LS, or on not revealed stuff. Now since we got biweekly-ish updates, it’s understandable that the expansion takes longer than it should, but the vast majority of the company had plenty of time while the living world team kept us occupied.

It’s not like arenanet didn’t divide their resources effectively in the past before. Like you said, they managed to create a very large amount of content between 2007-2012 in GW2, yet they had a small team creating content for GW1 til the GW2 beta testings(2007-2012) and as far as I know the company was way smaller then.

VaLee.5102:

serenke.4806:

The Witcher 3 is coming out in a week, you could play that meanwhile.

Is that the official Anet statement?

It might as well be one.

Malediktus.9250:

Rebound.3409:

ANet is not a small team but a micro team if you think about it. You want a good expansion AND continuous content. That can’t happen with the numbers they have.

That being said..after all the reveals for HoT, the hype for the expansion died for me.

300 employes is more than a micro/small team.

I would bet you that at least half their employe have been working on their next game since GW2 was released. Probably the moment they got the Unreal engine license.

rapthorne.7345:

Rebound.3409:

No..for an mmo and for the CONSTANT demands and expectations of an mmo that IS a micro team. For a single player that’s an OK team…but even then not that big.

The vast majority of f2p mmo’s have developer employee numbers barely in the 10’s, let alone the hundreds

For MMOs that are effectively in maintenance mode or free-to-play, you’re right. For an MMO in active development at the scale GW2 is trying to do… 300 is pretty much the bare minimum you can get away with.

This is how it works. Even Blizzard with their staff will have long droughts of content as they gear up an expansion. And even there (where they should be well used to that phenomenon), they have players complain about it and their sub numbers drop off a cliff.

There’s nothing to see here. Move along. We’re getting what we claimed we wanted.

Xillllix.3485:

Malediktus.9250:

Rebound.3409:

ANet is not a small team but a micro team if you think about it. You want a good expansion AND continuous content. That can’t happen with the numbers they have.

That being said..after all the reveals for HoT, the hype for the expansion died for me.

300 employes is more than a micro/small team.

I would bet you that at least half their employe have been working on their next game since GW2 was released. Probably the moment they got the Unreal engine license.

So who would buy their next game after seeing how GW2 turned out? A lot of people only bought GW2 because they liked GW1. The only reason GW2 is still going strong is that the alternatives are even worse.
I know I would definitely not pre order it because the credit of trust from GW1 is gone.

Rebound.3409:

No..for an mmo and for the CONSTANT demands and expectations of an mmo that IS a micro team. For a single player that’s an OK team…but even then not that big.

Its not… 300 – 350 people is actually one of the largest MMO teams I am aware off.

The problem that I see is that the number of releases they do (wiki – A release is a game update that introduces content pertaining to a theme or event.) are lessening and the time between releases are getting longer and longer.

In 2013 they released 21 updates according to the wiki. In 2014 it was 17 and now in 2015 they have so far released one (1). The year is over one third gone and we have one release update?
Yes, people are exited that there will be expansion. But the expansion isn’t done and it seems they are not doing anything other than working to get the expansion done. This causes the problem that the “living world” is getting stagnant, there is nothing new happening and nothing is moving forward.

It’s the same two and half year old events over and over again, with nothing making a difference. Is that living world? No it isn’t. There are no new events and no new bosses trying to get a foot in. After over two years since the defeat (death?) of Elder Dragon Zhaitan, there has been no movement in the battle lines (except his lieutenant Tequatl is even stronger than two years ago, but still getting it’s tail kicked between his legs). Is that the living world, where players actions can be seen? No it isn’t.

I have been waiting for the expansion for almost two years now and was happy doing the other release updates as they at least brought something new, even if temporary, to the world. It worked that some of them was temporary as the story was moving forward. I really thought they had been working on the expansion since the start of LS2 , but now it seems they had only rough ideas and only started after LS2 had ended.

It can’t be money issue as Anet is doing nicely, so they should be able to hire more people if they need them. Also the coming expansion will be bringing them truck loads more, as it will be bought no matter what. So the only reason I can see is that they only work on one item at time as they have minimal crew and want to keep stockholders and investors happy with maximum profits for them.

Malediktus.9250:

Rebound.3409:

ANet is not a small team but a micro team if you think about it. You want a good expansion AND continuous content. That can’t happen with the numbers they have.

That being said..after all the reveals for HoT, the hype for the expansion died for me.

300 employes is more than a micro/small team.

But how many of them are janitors? Didn’t think about that did you :P

Lord Kuru.3685:

Not sure why people wax nostalgic about LS so much. I guess the “bi-weekly” advertisement worked well when in reality it was 4 “bi-weekly” episodes of LS every six months.

That’s how nostalgia works though.