Guild Wars 2

Putting the living story on hold until the expansion was a terrible idea.

You should have placed more filler episodes before the finale to tide people over.

With WvW in my tier not moving in 2-3 months, limited dungeons and fractals. There’s simply no content to keep things fresh.

With an uncertain period of time before the expansion and no comment on content to keep us entertained, the games going to get even more stale, fast.

Maybe its time to take a break then you can do that to recharge your joy of the game you know.

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

Linken.6345:

Maybe its time to take a break then you can do that to recharge your joy of the game you know.

Needing to go on a break from a game you enjoy isn’t a good sign.

I’m just saying, having a living story with updates fortnightly and never have breaks in story for longer than a month or two then all of a sudden stopping everything until an expansion is released with an undetermined date is a terrible idea.

And since my main game mode is WvW, not updating matchups (relying on a broken system) and lumping us with not so pleasant people for 2-3 months isn’t helping.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

After last month’s patch fiasco with many things still need fixing from that patch alone along with several other things need to be fixed, I’d say they have their hands full already.

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

And how was the living story recieved?

3/5 people hated it and wanted an expansion instead.

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

Blame the people who didn’t want new content every 2 weeks, but larger chunks of content every few months.

I think a definitive date on the expansion would alleviate a lot of this.

Even a game you love can get old if you play it too often.

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasn’t the original selling point however.

The current plan is what so many on these forums asked for – a stop to the living story system and an expansion. Those people should be pretty happy right now.

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

At best I could agree on more festival content returning – Gauntlet and SAB seem good examples. But, I personally have plenty of in game content to play and plenty of alts to enjoy it all on.

Didn’t you know there is no such thing as a lack of content only a lack of water.
All my characters now drink bottled water because Tyria is becoming a Dune type of planet. Easy come easy go. I swung my trident I swung it again!!!

maddoctor.2738:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

Blame the people who didn’t want new content every 2 weeks, but larger chunks of content every few months.

Do you really think they decided to release an expansion cuz some people wanted it, give me a break

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

You do realize that’s not how this MMO worked, until the expansion announcement, right? (laugh) But seriously, people warned about this very thing. No one wanted to listen. And here we are.

The natives are restless.

TallBarr.2184:

maddoctor.2738:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

Blame the people who didn’t want new content every 2 weeks, but larger chunks of content every few months.

Do you really think they decided to release an expansion cuz some people wanted it, give me a break

No, I’m absolutely sure they decided to release an expansion predicated on the idea that absolutely nobody wanted it or would buy it.

psizone.8437:

Linken.6345:

Maybe its time to take a break then you can do that to recharge your joy of the game you know.

Needing to go on a break from a game you enjoy isn’t a good sign.

Disagreed. Especially when it comes to games like this. There are too many good games in the world to focus on always playing the specific ones you know you like. Taking a break to play something else then coming back to what you know you’ll enjoy helps you to appreciate what each game has to offer!

Not commenting on lack of content though…I took a break a while back and coming back, I have some Living Story I still haven’t played >_>

Randulf.7614:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasn’t the original selling point however.

The current plan is what so many on these forums asked for – a stop to the living story system and an expansion. Those people should be pretty happy right now.

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

At best I could agree on more festival content returning – Gauntlet and SAB seem good examples. But, I personally have plenty of in game content to play and plenty of alts to enjoy it all on.

Gauntlet and SAB are what I meant by filler content. There’s absolutely no reason they couldn’t reuse old content such as those to keep the game fresh whilst the living story is on hold.

psizone.8437:

Randulf.7614:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasn’t the original selling point however.

The current plan is what so many on these forums asked for – a stop to the living story system and an expansion. Those people should be pretty happy right now.

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

At best I could agree on more festival content returning – Gauntlet and SAB seem good examples. But, I personally have plenty of in game content to play and plenty of alts to enjoy it all on.

Gauntlet and SAB are what I meant by filler content. There’s absolutely no reason they couldn’t reuse old content such as those to keep the game fresh whilst the living story is on hold.

I won’t disagree with that. I don’t understand it either.

While I don’t know the details of anets work, based on what I’ve read and having no new content lately anet is putting all its work into an expansion. I feel like they should just hire more people. That way they can have one team working on the living world and one team working on expansions(cause farming the same stuff is getting really old). And anet’s team can get all their vacations, breaks and not work so hard cause they have more people working on the game. Why not hire more people so they can get more done faster? In the end it will be a profit for them cause people wont get bored and start playing other games while waiting for the expansion. More people playing= more probable gem sales as well. This is mostly speculation on my part XD

OMNIBUS.2913:

Why not hire more people so they can get more done faster? In the end it will be a profit for them cause people wont get bored and start playing other games while waiting for the expansion. More people playing= more probable gem sales as well.

Hiring people costs money. You don’t know whether the profit will outweigh the cost of hiring additional people. Nobody except Anet would be able to quantify how many “more” actually means in real numbers, so it’s unfair to assume that … oh wait

OMNIBUS.2913:

This is mostly speculation on my part XD

Indeed. And it’s incorrect.

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

didn´t even exist at launch.

Why should they give us intermediate Living Story chapters till the start of the expansion when so many threads in the forum kept saying how they disliked the living story and how they much preferred an expansion? There were frequently threads expressing such sentiments and almost no one saying different.

Well, people should be careful what they ask for. They might get it.

Algreg.3629:

didn´t even exist at launch.

I didn’t say it did, but it did release a few months after the game came out and has been the focus of the game since.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Why should they give us intermediate Living Story chapters till the start of the expansion when so many threads in the forum kept saying how they disliked the living story and how they much preferred an expansion? There were frequently threads expressing such sentiments and almost no one saying different.

Well, people should be careful what they ask for. They might get it.

I know people posted a lot asking for an expansion but I doubt many thought of the consequential lack of other content until the pack came out.

First you say it was the main selling point, then you say it didn’t exist at launch.

How can it be a selling point if the devs hadn’t talked about it until months after the game launched?

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

First you say it was the main selling point, then you say it didn’t exist at launch.

How can it be a selling point if the devs hadn’t talked about it until months after the game launched?

Like I said, as soon as the living story released, it was their main selling point.

You’re nitpicking.

They could just re-release all the content they removed until the launch of the expansion.

SAB world 1 and 2
Living Story season 1
Sanctum area and other special events…

The problem boils down to its an unknown release date. Meaning we might have no content for a month or a year. If they would simply just give a release date it would help with a lot of the worries. At least for me its not the month or two with no updates, its the undetermined amount of time with no updates that gets me worried. Because undetermined can last a very very long time.

Yeah, SAB should have been turned on. Maybe Gauntlet as well.

People complained about the Living Story being temporary, and not “an expansions worth of content”, they didn’t hate its existence outright.

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasnt the main selling point for me. Dont think it could be the main selling point for the 3+ million people who bought the game before the living story was announced. If it wasnt a selling point at all for the majority of people who bought the game (I am certain that if GW2 had doubled its launch era sales Anet would have announced it so the launch era sales are still the majority) then how could the living story be the main selling point?

psizone.8437:

Algreg.3629:

didn´t even exist at launch.

I didn’t say it did, but it did release a few months after the game came out and has been the focus of the game since.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Why should they give us intermediate Living Story chapters till the start of the expansion when so many threads in the forum kept saying how they disliked the living story and how they much preferred an expansion? There were frequently threads expressing such sentiments and almost no one saying different.

Well, people should be careful what they ask for. They might get it.

I know people posted a lot asking for an expansion but I doubt many thought of the consequential lack of other content until the pack came out.

Yep. They didn’t think.

Any company only has a set amount of money, time and personnel to put on available things they want to do. If people call for the company to focus on something that is costly in time, personnel and money then if the company does so, they shouldn’t be surprised when other content no longer is in the budget.

Ashen.2907:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasnt the main selling point for me. Dont think it could be the main selling point for the 3+ million people who bought the game before the living story was announced. If it wasnt a selling point at all for the majority of people who bought the game (I am certain that if GW2 had doubled its launch era sales Anet would have announced it so the launch era sales are still the majority) then how could the living story be the main selling point?

I’ve said a few times in the thread already, I should have clarified at the beginning but didn’t think it would be that confusing.

When the living story released it was their main selling point, it’s what they used to keep people interested in the game and to entice new players to join.

psizone.8437:

Ashen.2907:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

It wasnt the main selling point for me. Dont think it could be the main selling point for the 3+ million people who bought the game before the living story was announced. If it wasnt a selling point at all for the majority of people who bought the game (I am certain that if GW2 had doubled its launch era sales Anet would have announced it so the launch era sales are still the majority) then how could the living story be the main selling point?

I’ve said a few times in the thread already, I should have clarified at the beginning but didn’t think it would be that confusing.

When the living story released it was their main selling point, it’s what they used to keep people interested in the game and to entice new players to join.

Afraid that I have to disagree. Something is not a main selling point if it is only used to sell a small minority of the product units moved.

It was the primary method of content addition, of course, but some portion of the player base pushed for a new direction in this regard. I dont know the numbers but it seems unlikely that Anet would have switched direction unless the numbers indicated that a change was in order.

Not much of a main selling point if it wasnt selling sufficiently well to be sustained.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The natives are restless.

The natives are always restless irrespective of what Anet do or don’t do.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Yeah, SAB should have been turned on. Maybe Gauntlet as well.

People complained about the Living Story being temporary, and not “an expansions worth of content”, they didn’t hate its existence outright.

I think there is a definitive lack of planning ahead. WvW had no substantial updates for an eternity, EotM was never fixed to be anything else than a karma train for upscales, they should make new costumes available on pvp reward tracks and dungeons instead of Gem store items, SAB should be back, the gauntlet as well as the Marionette fight, etc…

The feeling I have with Anet is that they are always trying to see how much players they can keep while giving us as little as possible; The the good stuff they do is removed immediately because of the living story philosophy that everything has to be temporary. They seem to forget that it is only a game, and that story is secondary to gameplay.

maddoctor.2738:

psizone.8437:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

You do realize this is how all MMOs work, right?

This game has always adopted the “we’re not like other MMO games” way of thinking.

Guild Wars 2s main selling point was the constantly updating living story, and for an unknown period of time, that’s gone.

Blame the people who didn’t want new content every 2 weeks, but larger chunks of content every few months.

They will likely go a lot longer than a few months. Its already been 3 months since Point of no return, and without a release date announced, it will likely be at least another 3 months before HoT (though probably longer)

so, two months betweeen sizable updates? sure 6-9 months? thats a bit long for the size of the last content release.

well GTA V is releasing soon for PC with 1st person view soooo i think i will be fine.
also playing Heroes of the Storm.

play some other games while waiting for the expact.

ALSO the majority of people wanted BOTH living story and an expansion hand to hand.

but it seems anet is incapable of doing that.

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Why not? Wasn’t there a small team working on living story stuff while the rest of anet was allegedly working on something BIG? What’s different now?

Tachenon.5270:

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Why not? Wasn’t there a small team working on living story stuff while the rest of anet was allegedly working on something BIG? What’s different now?

The something BIG must have been the expansion and the Living Story people now are working on the Living Story line inside the expansion. They can hardly be expected to drop that to work on a living story line made up for the time before the expansion and leave the expansion one partly done. The rest of the people are still working on the expansion, which isn’t finished obviously or it would be available to buy.

Tachenon.5270:

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Why not? Wasn’t there a small team working on living story stuff while the rest of anet was allegedly working on something BIG? What’s different now?

What’s different is it is all hands to the pumps for an expansion. It takes more than a few behind the scenes when development is at this stage

Maybe the LS team uses the time before HoT (while there’s no point on a 3rd season before the HoT story is settled) on remodeling season 1? It would be the right timing for it in my opinion – no direct connection to the expansion, plus the timing after HoT would be bad because everyone would cry for S3.

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Really?

Because the last we heard from ArenaNet, they had more than 250 people.

And the Living World team was just a few people.

Meanwhile, while they were working on a project called Guild Wars 2 (which was slightly bigger than an expansion), they still left a few people working on the original Guild Wars so it would have some new content. It was called the Live Team (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).

Speaking about the original Guild Wars, three years after release they had already published 2 full new campaigns, more than doubling the size of the original game, released 4 new professions, released a huge number of new skills, were about to release the first real expansion, AND were already working on Guild Wars 2. That, with a much smaller team than they have today.

Sounds like asking for more content than what we have today isn’t only “feasible”, it’s logical and obvious.

Test.8734:

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Really?

Because the last we heard from ArenaNet, they had more than 250 people.

And the Living World team was just a few people.

Meanwhile, while they were working on a project called Guild Wars 2 (which was slightly bigger than an expansion), they still left a few people working on the original Guild Wars so it would have some new content. It was called the Live Team (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).

Speaking about the original Guild Wars, three years after release they had already published 2 full new campaigns, more than doubling the size of the original game, released 4 new professions, released a huge number of new skills, were about to release the first real expansion, AND were already working on Guild Wars 2. That, with a much smaller team than they have today.

Sounds like asking for more content than what we have today isn’t only “feasible”, it’s logical and obvious.

These companies have to think many years ahead of time. There is really no doubt that a good portion of their team is working on GW3 or another franchise now that GW2 is released, and that only fraction of their full team is working on the GW2 expansion. This is the only explanation why successful items like SAB are dropped.

There’s no need and no logical reason for GW3. They did GW2 because they had too many ideas that weren’t working in GW1, so they did GW2. I don’t think that there are many “new ideas” now that aren’t working for GW2, so I see no reason to develop another game. (Plus, 4 1/2 elder dragons still alive – another time jump wouldn’t seem right)

Test.8734:

Randulf.7614:

There is absolutely no way a company of Anet’s size could produce content to fill the gap whilst making an expansion. It is simply too much work and too many resources. It isn’t feasible for them, nor is it feasible to request it of them.

Really?

Because the last we heard from ArenaNet, they had more than 250 people.

And the Living World team was just a few people.

Meanwhile, while they were working on a project called Guild Wars 2 (which was slightly bigger than an expansion), they still left a few people working on the original Guild Wars so it would have some new content. It was called the Live Team (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).

Speaking about the original Guild Wars, three years after release they had already published 2 full new campaigns, more than doubling the size of the original game, released 4 new professions, released a huge number of new skills, were about to release the first real expansion, AND were already working on Guild Wars 2. That, with a much smaller team than they have today.

Sounds like asking for more content than what we have today isn’t only “feasible”, it’s logical and obvious.

Unless one assumes that they are paying people to sit around, it should be obvious that the people they have are all busy.

It may well be that it is a lot easier to make instanced content for no more than a handful of people at a time than it is to make content that could have a hundred or more people on that map doing things at the same time. With the one group in Guild Wars 1, they are only doing the very few things available to them, usually at most a couple of quests and those done sequentially. With an mmo like Guild Wars 2, there are events starting and stopping at the same time and people moving all over the place and influencing how things go.

The Guild Wars 1 instances were more like static set pieces. Less complex and much easier to design.

Xillllix.3485:

These companies have to think many years ahead of time. There is really no doubt that a good portion of their team is working on GW3 or another franchise now that GW2 is released, and that only fraction of their full team is working on the GW2 expansion. This is the only explanation why successful items like SAB are dropped.

Major speculation. Companies think ahead, yes, but they do not factor entire new games into that equation until they’ve either reached a time period of when that is actually appropriate. Or software development tools have reached a point where they NEED the benefit of those new tools that require new game development from scratch AND sufficient time has passed in which the studio has cultivated the fruits of their labor over the previous product’s lifetime. For a largely successful game like GW2 that’s only 3years old, GW3 is not happening anytime soon.

Depending on how many hours you put in per day, any game will start to get stale after a while. Play something else! I started playing GW1 yesterday (never played before) to see what all the fuss is about and start earning some HoM stuff. I was surprised at how many festivals there are, and kind of sad that they all didn’t make it into GW2. Sweet Treats starts April 10!

Scipio.3204:

It just feels like it’s not the same anet since GW2’s release.

Exactly. Feels like becoming bigger actually made ArenaNet less productive.

A LOT of people left, too. I saw a discussion at reddit mentioning some names:

Former Staff:

• October 2014 Jonathan Sharp -Game Design Lead

• August 2014 Martin Kerstein – Community Team Lead

• August 2014 Kate Welch -UI Designer

• April 2014 Allie Murdock -PvP Community Coordinator

• August 2013 Josh Petrie – Engineering/Programmer

• August 2013 Robert Hrouda – Content Designer, laid off on August 20, 2013

• April 2013 Habib Loew, -Programmer

• July 2012 Kevin Ehmry – Programmer – of Ehmry Bay fame

Not to mention a lot of other important people who left – Christopher Whiteside, Kekai Kotaki, Horai Dociu, Katy Hargrove, John Hargrove, John Stumme, and so on…

ArenaNet doesn’t feel the same. They actually feel less…

OMG, 14 people have left in three years! The company is clearly dying!!!

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

OMNIBUS.2913:

Why not hire more people so they can get more done faster? In the end it will be a profit for them cause people wont get bored and start playing other games while waiting for the expansion. More people playing= more probable gem sales as well.

Hiring people costs money. You don’t know whether the profit will outweigh the cost of hiring additional people. Nobody except Anet would be able to quantify how many “more” actually means in real numbers, so it’s unfair to assume that … oh wait

OMNIBUS.2913:

This is mostly speculation on my part XD

Indeed. And it’s incorrect.

How do you know for sure its incorrect? You know whats going on over there with anet i guess? Fill us all in. And i already admitted its speculation i made, so there is no need to quote it and point it out again….
I know one thing forsure. They will definitly not be profiting if too many people stop playing their game out of boredom.

lordkrall.7241:

OMG, 14 people have left in three years! The company is clearly dying!!!

So, are you saying that no one else left ArenaNet?

Or that you think those 14 individuals I mentioned are not talented enough that the game feels different due to their departure?

Test.8734:

So, are you saying that no one else left ArenaNet?

Or that you think those 14 individuals I mentioned are not talented enough that the game feels different due to their departure?

I am just pointing out that 14 people in 3 years is a very low number in this market.

And no, I don’t think their departures changed the game all that much. Especially considering that not even half of them were designers.