as we know now LV3 only does have six episodes. Episode 5 will be released soon so only episode 6 is left until we either see a) expansion nr. 2 or b) LV4. That means we will have episode 6 some time around July / August and possibly the next huge story content in Autumn.
What do you think, will it be the next expansion or just a new living world season?
1. I assume the last episode of Living Story will hit sometime around end of July, beginning of August.
2. gamescom’s running from August 22nd to August 26th; PAX from September 1st to September 4th.
→ I bet it’s a new expansion :>
Goroth – Necro | Valea – Mesmer
Naneth – Guardian | Brannoc Oakbark – Ranger
Is all that we see or seem just a dream within a dream?
Episode 5 being on may the 2nd, episode 6 should air the soonest on july the 4th. August the 8th the latest. I’m expecting a nice cliffhanger at the end of episode 6, and an announcement for an xpac coming out for christmas.
But I can’t wait to see Kasmeer and Lazarus again !
I think it’s expansion, what will be in it? Interesting
Mb they’ll create a map where players not only capture land from mobs, but also build towers and castles, craft building blocks, drive trucks with supply, and do more non-compat activities?
“near”, chapter 6 will be anywhere between 2nd of July and 2nd of August, after that we’ll probably have a month of silence, then the big announcement, but don’t get your hopes up too high, because once the announcement starts, we’ll be spoon fed information and teasers until the expansion hits probably Q4 this year.
I expect rather that we’ll get Ep 6 in july/early august, with an announcement and teaser of next expansion, and the expansion launches late october/november. Possibly holding into december to go for the holiday sales.
I expect rather that we’ll get Ep 6 in july/early august, with an announcement and teaser of next expansion, and the expansion launches late october/november. Possibly holding into december to go for the holiday sales.
I really hope it won’t be that soon (as i’m pretty sure it’s simply not ready, and would like to avoid next HoT fiasco). Still, the permanent decrease of HoT price suggests that an expac reveal is coming. If i remember correctly the HoT reveal also was preceded by core price reductions/long term offers.
They know nobody’s going to buy HoT if they’ll know next expac (with HoT bundled) is around the corner. So, time to sell as much as possible while they can.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
There are a couple of ways that it could still be a year before we hear of an expansion date:
LS3 ends, we have 2 months of ‘current events’ and LS 4 begins.
LS3 ends, we have 10 months of ‘current events’
LS3 ends, we have another content drought.
I prefer waiting for ANet to say whatever they are going to say rather than tie myself into knots trying to figure out their plans.
You know it’s not often I hope you’re wrong on this forum…but I really hope you’re wrong.
I think we can’t realistically get the expansion earlier than September (as other people said Episode 5 in May, 6 in July/August) and it could easily be much later than that. But I’m hoping they learned their lesson after HoT and had more time to plan, meaning there won’t be such a huge gap between the two this time around.
Personally I also think it was a mistake to release HoT in October because I, and several other people I spoke to, simply didn’t play it until after Halloween was over – Halloween was temporary and HoT was permanent so it seemed like the logical choice. But I feel like it ruined the impact of the launch a bit.
So overall I think November would be a good time to bring it out. But I have a bad feeling we might end up waiting until next year.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
I really hope it won’t be that soon (as i’m pretty sure it’s simply not ready, and would like to avoid next HoT fiasco).
You’ve said this in two places that I’ve noticed. Do you have any particular reason to think that? They will after all have been working on it for two years come this fall, with about 50-60% of their dev staff dedicated to it.
Now, I want to keep my excitement in check too, so I keep reminding myself that we don’t actually have an anouncement yet!
you know July 2nd will be the first window in their 2-3 month schedule? June is just 1 month later
They have 3 teams working on 6 month schedules. If they’re aiming for a specific date, episode 6 could launch as early as June 6 on the original schedule. After all, there is no episode 7, so it doesn’t matter that team 2 was delayed. However, an expansion reveal in June likely isn’t a smart idea, as it’d be competing with ESO’s expansion, which advertisers will likely be focused on. It’d be better if they announced it with episode 5, otherwise episode 6 should be around mid-July to mid-August.
I really hope it won’t be that soon (as i’m pretty sure it’s simply not ready, and would like to avoid next HoT fiasco).
You’ve said this in two places that I’ve noticed. Do you have any particular reason to think that? They will after all have been working on it for two years come this fall, with about 50-60% of their dev staff dedicated to it.
Now, I want to keep my excitement in check too, so I keep reminding myself that we don’t actually have an anouncement yet!
I don’t see how any of us can say how close the next expansion is to being ready for release, we don’t even know what it is they’re making.
Literally all they’ve told us is that it’s an expansion. We can guess at some stuff – it will include 9 new elite specs but probably no new professions or races, it will include new maps and a new story. But there’s much more we don’t know: how many maps will there be? How big are they? Does it include any new mechanics like gliding? How many new weapons/armour sets will there be? Will there be new dungeons/raids/fractals? How long will the story be?
If we don’t know what they’re making we can’t even begin to guess how long it’d take to make it.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
you know July 2nd will be the first window in their 2-3 month schedule? June is just 1 month later
They have 3 teams working on 6 month schedules. If they’re aiming for a specific date, episode 6 could launch as early as June 6 on the original schedule. After all, there is no episode 7, so it doesn’t matter that team 2 was delayed. However, an expansion reveal in June likely isn’t a smart idea, as it’d be competing with ESO’s expansion, which advertisers will likely be focused on. It’d be better if they announced it with episode 5, otherwise episode 6 should be around mid-July to mid-August.
Or they just do episode 6 and announce the expac when it’s ready to be announced. Not everything needs to come with something else. And an anouncement isn’t the same as a release. They can spoon feed trailers and teasers all the way from june to november if they wanted to (which will propably make for some angry posts on the forums).
Remember they have a mini-movie at the end of Season 2 advertising HoT. The assumption is they will do the same for the 2nd expansion, soooo if we see one …
So as we know now, the expansion is coming right after Episode 6. That means we’ll get the expansion in September – November. That’s awesome!
____________
During today’s Guild Wars 2 Flashpoint AMA, Mike O’Brien confirmed that the long-teased expansion (yeah, the one that leaked out of every possible culvert this morning) is indeed on the way following the end of season three.
“We announced that today’s episode, Flashpoint, is the second-to-last episode of the season,” he wrote. “Yes, that means what you think it means: there’s one more episode after this, and then straight to the expansion pack.”
you seem to be a bit overhyped, I can assure you, there will be a little time between episode 6 and Exp2, more than between the LS3 chapters.. I’m going to guess 3-4 months
you seem to be a bit overhyped, I can assure you, there will be a little time between episode 6 and Exp2, more than between the LS3 chapters.. I’m going to guess 3-4 months
Just read what they said. They said either it’s a) going in the usual release schedule or b) with a 2-3 month gap. Even when it’s b) that means we’ll have the expansion before / in November.
…our rough plan is to slot the expansion pack into the release cadence as if it were an episode: episode 5, then episode 6, then the expansion pack, then episode 1. But we’ll make some allowance for the fact that shipping an expansion pack is a big deal logistically and will probably take longer than the 2~3 months we normally allocate between episodes.
I translate that as:
Episode 6 appears late July or August
Expac November or December, but maybe later
LS4 probably launches March (more than 3 months, but ANet is usually lightly staffed in Dec & Jan)
Mind you, none of those dates are “promised” — things can (and probably will) change. Just that for a change, those who are overhyped aren’t exaggerating the release date by much.
That said, ANet has usually had about 5-7 months between official announcement and the actual launch November is 6 months away.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Why? Going by their current 2-3 month release schedule, episode 6 will launch in July or August, and October is within that schedule. Also, HoT launched in October, about the same time the Halloween event had started. If episode 6 launches in August, then November would be the latest for the expansion most likely.
But I’m really betting on October, just so it can be released the same month as the first expansion. Although it was kind of annoying having to hold off on HoT content for a bit so I didn’t miss out on farming ToT bags. HoT was permanent content and I wanted to participate in the limited time event as much as possible.
My theory is: in the Finale of LS3 we will see the death of 2 Dragons, I don’t care about Braham, he is just stupid idiot, if he won’t listen to us, we will be able to kill him. One less idiot in GW2.
In the expansion we’ll see Gods’ Return. Other Gods will tell us why Balthazar lost his divinity and by who. He stole the Lyssa’s mirror, so she will wanna to take it back and punish Balthazar because he stole the mirror of hers. Or we will discover that they are cooperating.
My prediction for the dates:
Finale of LS3- last week of June or first week of July
Expansion 2- September/October are most likely.
…our rough plan is to slot the expansion pack into the release cadence as if it were an episode: episode 5, then episode 6, then the expansion pack, then episode 1. But we’ll make some allowance for the fact that shipping an expansion pack is a big deal logistically and will probably take longer than the 2~3 months we normally allocate between episodes.
I translate that as:
Episode 6 appears late July or August
Expac November or December, but maybe later
LS4 probably launches March (more than 3 months, but ANet is usually lightly staffed in Dec & Jan)
Mind you, none of those dates are “promised” — things can (and probably will) change. Just that for a change, those who are overhyped aren’t exaggerating the release date by much.
That said, ANet has usually had about 5-7 months between official announcement and the actual launch November is 6 months away.
According to the AMA, the expac will fit in the usual 3 month cycle, with the allowance of a small delay
That would put the expac around October/November
“We announced that today’s episode, Flashpoint, is the second-to-last episode of the season. Yes, that means what you think it means: there’s one more episode after this, and then straight to the expansion pack.
A lot of you have been wondering about the upcoming release cadence, given that last time around we took a long break from Living World releases to get Heart of Thorns out the door and then to support that expansion after release.
The good news is that this time around we have two separate fully-staffed teams that are both hitting on all cylinders. So our rough plan is to slot the expansion pack into the release cadence as if it were an episode: episode 5, then episode 6, then the expansion pack, then episode 1. But we’ll make some allowance for the fact that shipping an expansion pack is a big deal logistically and will probably take longer than the 2~3 months we normally allocate between episodes.
Mo”
…our rough plan is to slot the expansion pack into the release cadence as if it were an episode: episode 5, then episode 6, then the expansion pack, then episode 1. But we’ll make some allowance for the fact that shipping an expansion pack is a big deal logistically and will probably take longer than the 2~3 months we normally allocate between episodes.
I translate that as:
Episode 6 appears late July or August
Expac November or December, but maybe later
LS4 probably launches March (more than 3 months, but ANet is usually lightly staffed in Dec & Jan)
Mind you, none of those dates are “promised” — things can (and probably will) change. Just that for a change, those who are overhyped aren’t exaggerating the release date by much.
That said, ANet has usually had about 5-7 months between official announcement and the actual launch November is 6 months away.
I think launching the expac when they are lightly staffed (according to you, I don’t know one way or the other) would be a very bad idea. There are going to be a lot of hot fixes that will need to come with an expansion release, and no matter how much they tested the elite specs, its almost guaranteed that we will need a pretty quick balance patch, along with potentially hotfixing the reward structure/difficulty like they did with HoT. That’s a lot to put on your plate when you aren’t fully staffed due to the holidays.
Lightly staffed? I thought ANet has more employees than ever before. And they’ve got two teams working on 1. Living Story and 2. Expansion. That’s overall a better coordination than for HoT so I’m sure they will do better this time.
“Lightly staffed” was intended to refer to the fact that after working hard all year round, ANet tends to let some staff (especially senior people) take a well-earned vacation. There seem to be fewer updates between Dec 1 and Feb 1 and especially fewer scheduled releases.
All I’m saying is that if the expac doesn’t launch by November, it seems unlikely they’d try to launch in Dec or Jan, by which point they’d be out of the cadence projected by Mike O’Brien.
In other words, November seems likely at this point, rather than a prediction of overly-hyped fanbois.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Since there was the modifier ‘in Dec & Jan’, I, personally, thought the statement was referring to the year-end vacation-time ArenaNet usually announces.
There are a couple of ways that it could still be a year before we hear of an expansion date:
LS3 ends, we have 2 months of ‘current events’ and LS 4 begins.
LS3 ends, we have 10 months of ‘current events’
LS3 ends, we have another content drought.
I prefer waiting for ANet to say whatever they are going to say rather than tie myself into knots trying to figure out their plans.
Fortunately none of those 3 are likely. The plan I saw them state (I think it was in their AMA) was LS4 would be after the expansion. I am guessing they also learned another content drought would pretty much be the end of GW2. I fully expect an announcement with a firm date at (or maybe even a release at) the game cons that fall in the late summer.
