Now, just to state the positive here:
1. We are getting the short bow very soon!
2. LW S3 and beyond will be developed faster, better, and maybe release sooner!
3. April update confirmed still coming, and with actual new content, not just “balance”
4. It said indefinitely postponed. Not great, I know, but it doesn’t say canceled or deleted.
Honestly, this is ludicrous.
The new set of Legendaries was part of what we purchased when we purchased HoT. Re-negging on that promise is tantamount to a breach of contract. I get that it means you’ll be able to get other content out faster, but we already paid for those developers to spend their time on this. You are, essentially, robbing us and using the proceeds to find ways to extract even more money out of us.
For shame.
(edited by Blaine Tog.8304)
Well I am ready for the next expansion, if by expansion you mean no legendaries, broken pvp, and a dragon boss that gets killed by automated turrets. Where can I deposit my 60 dollars?
You produce new “buyable” content in auction house almost every week. Is it not profitable to meet your announced content of the new expansion?
What about the months people have been spending in the new world farming the mats, getting map completions and all of Mastery Points required to get a new legendary?
If this was a “real world” item and not a “virtual world” item, would you be able to tell your customer “sorry”, I can not deliver what you paid for in advance?
What is your opinion?
Thank you
By the way, I don’t really care about the legendaries, I care A LOT that I was lied to.
Hey Mo, it’s nice to see such transparency on a controversial announcement like this. I enjoy Living World myself and only just crafted my very first legendary a few weeks ago despite playing the game since launch, so these news are actually kind of nice to hear for me. I understand a lot of people will be angry though, even out of principle.
I understand “indefinitely” sort of means “for the time being”. Is it then reasonable to assume that once the team has the bandwidth again, work on legendary weapons will resume?
it is unfortunate that there wont be a full set of new legendaries, but then again, almost no player ever had the intention of crafting all of them anyway. i myself already made the Flameseeker shield and Juggernaut hammer before HoT, and didnt have any intention of making the new set anyway (unless the 1h sword looked better)
but i would gladly take new content updates over a weapon skin i wasnt going to grind for anyway
Rapid reaction:
- I’m glad you’re actually communicating openly and honestly about this.
- I’m unexpectedly disappointed. I have 0 legendaries until the Teq watery grave gets un-mucked and I can get my Gloom, but I liked working on the collections.
- If I had to pick legendaries that I would’ve liked to have seen new versions of, the top of the list would probably be pistol (Quip was too goofy) and shortbow (too many whinnies), so I’m glad they’re out there before the promise was abandoned.
- After being told that it’s too much work over the upcoming months to make 13 more shiny weapon skins that we receive through collections, it’s going to sting a bit when you release 19 shiny new weapon skins that we can buy with real money every other week.
- I’d be curious how many people have actually made HOPE/Nevermore/Astralaria. Is this affecting people’s aspirations (“one day I might…”) or is it actually something many people do?
If this ends up making LW3 episodes arrive sooner, with fewer bugs and a better experience, I’ll look back at “new legendaries” as a “it would’ve been nice…” rather than a “I can’t believe they didn’t…”
If we get scattered episodes with long layoffs in-between, it’ll be a substantially bigger negative.
Now, just to state the positive here:
1. We are getting the short bow very soon!
2. LW S3 and beyond will be developed faster, better, and maybe release sooner!
3. April update confirmed still coming, and with actual new content, not just “balance”
4. It said indefinitely postponed. Not great, I know, but it doesn’t say canceled or deleted.
Thank you.
On the topic of point 4:
I’m still confused about the use of “indefinitely” and “postponed” together. Does that mean canceled? Or does that just mean delayed until they feel they can back to it later?
“AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.”
I didn’t say this, nor did I even really imply it. I merely mentioned the fact that Legendaries were an advertised part of HoT and in no way insinuated that the expansion is unfinished because we haven’t gotten them.
I’m just merely asking we get some candid, design-sided discussion about the situation. What portions of Legendary design make them more difficult to implement? What problems did you face and what led to the realization that they couldn’t be completed? These are more questions for artists and designers, really.
Additionally, I asked only that we have something explicit to look forward to. We know five things, essentially: Living World is coming back, an Expansion is in the works, there will be four quarterly patches a year, there’s a Raid wing coming out, and Legendary Weapons will be trickling out. One of those is now gone. Why not replace it with something else, some other piece of attention-grabbing information for players to look forward to?
Hi Mike,
Thank you for taking the time to post on the forums.
I have one question that I believe is relevant, please… I’m curious.
How many legendary weapons did you craft, and which one(s)?
You guys need to spend some money on employee management instead of Esports. Dungeons/Pvp/WvW are nothing but broken promises or poor implementation. Now canceling advertised, promised content is just another layer of disappointment >.>
Have to ask Mike, but…does this also apply to legendary armor? Are those of us currently doing the collection achievements for raids going to one day suddenly find out that all of that effort is meaningless because you are not releasing legendary armor? Reaaally hope not…
I sincerely hope that this has something to do with what a week from today’s date is.
That’d only work if they managed to actually finish the entire HoT legendary collection, and released all of it on April 1.
If they pull this for 3 weapons? bad move. Almost as bad as cutting the weapons entirely for a series of shallow story instances that only take a few hours to finish.
THIS GAME IS NOT ABOUT LEGENDARIES kitten .
Wake up. Content is more important than shooting mobs with flowers, kittenes or other weird things. You have lots of legendaries, other ones can wait. Living Story vol 3 Please! :*
Malyck! :* Rata Novus :*It’s more about what we were promised. We were promised new legendaries and basically now it’s not going to happen. This is a TRUST issue and a LYING issue and a BUSINESS ETHICS issue.
You got three legendaries. Promise is done. More will be coming sooner or later.
Moaning and impatience of people like that made kill Trahearne or other characters that were important to some players.
THIS GAME IS NOT ABOUT LEGENDARIES kitten .
Wake up. Content is more important than shooting mobs with flowers, kittenes or other weird things. You have lots of legendaries, other ones can wait. Living Story vol 3 Please! :*
Malyck! :* Rata Novus :*It’s more about what we were promised. We were promised new legendaries and basically now it’s not going to happen. This is a TRUST issue and a LYING issue and a BUSINESS ETHICS issue.
Indeed. At this point, it wouldn’t really matter if they delayed one or the other (though yes indeed, legendaries feel like the lesser of two evils); the issue is that they are delaying the promised stuff people paid for again.
And yes, in this light having a lot of people to work on the next xpac before they could even deliver what they promised in this one looks like… well, the whole thread shows how it looks.
So since legendary WEAPONS are now postponed, there is no sense in working on the 2 BACK PIECES or raids for ARMOR either? If you can’t deliver on the weapons I don’t see how those can be implemented any time soon.
As this is another thing ArenaNet promised with HoT and has failed to deliver (the list is growing), I think I’ll look into the legalities of getting a full refund for HoT and post my findings on this forum and Reddit. I know the the Consumer Rights Act was recently expanded to include online/digital goods, including games, and frankly I feel ripped off with my HoT purchase. As far as I’m aware, ArenaNet has a legal responsibility to provide the goods that were advertised (with regards to new legendaries, see the forum post “Hot New Legendary Weapons” where it says a full set of 16 will be released in HoT) and failing to do that should entitle people to their money back.
Hello. Yes, please let us know. $100 is not a small amount of money. Please do post to here and reddit.
The legendaries are like the carrot that drives us donkeys on playing.
Knowing there is some use for all the loot keeps us going in whatever we play.
Content itself is like a video we can easily leave. without loot integrated.
I imagine new weapons/armour will need the living story you now create to make it compelling to buy?
THIS GAME IS NOT ABOUT LEGENDARIES kitten .
Wake up. Content is more important than shooting mobs with flowers, kittenes or other weird things. You have lots of legendaries, other ones can wait. Living Story vol 3 Please! :*
Malyck! :* Rata Novus :*
What’s great about gw2 is there’s a little bit of everything. There’s something for everyone to do. While legendaries might not be what gw2 is about for YOU, it might just be the most important thing about the game for someone else.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/advertising-marketing-internet-rules-road
I feel like you guys forgot to read this.
We’re definitely owed some form of compensation if we purchased HoT. This is absolutely treading in the realm of misleading consumers.
Quoting this so others can see and read the link. Thanks for finding this.
“We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.”
While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.
Mo
Inb4: “We never promised you’ll get all of the new legendaries with HoT itself.”
Inb4:“We’ll launch the remaining legendaries with next expansion, which would only cost 75$ for the basic pack.”
Inb4:“No legendary armour to be introduced year 2016, but instead we’ll add more collections for the precursor to it.”
And
“We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons” <—Lmao if you put in half the effort you put in designing and launching 3 or more different sets of black lions skins since HoT we could’ve had a few more legendaries in already but hey gotta lie to my homies and milk that money yo!
I absolutely appreciate the honest, simple communication about this. It’s fantastic. Thank you.
I am bummed that something like new Legendaries are being suspended right when we thought they were getting a second chance after such a long and terrible delay prior to this. You know your company better than I do, but I can’t say as I agree that moving six people elsewhere that could be working on new Legedaries which are what most people consider the ultimate in end game progression is the best idea.
I will however reiterate my total appreciation for the transparency. I really hope this kind of honest communication continues.
I appreciate the open communication regarding this. Its a nice change of pace compared to what we have gotten used to.
Guys, remember that one time Anet just flat-out removed one of their answers on the webpage?
Lets all go and screenshot the instances where Anet PROMISED the new legendaries as part of HoT. You know, before they just delete it and pretend it never happened.
Honestly, I’m okay with this trade-off. I’ve been dying for a non-silly shortbow legendary for EVER, since I tend to play shortbow ranger a lot. This will hopefully fill that need for me.
Thank you for being able/willing to release one more and I really hope your team can get back to the rest of them ASAP. I’m still excited to see what you guys come up with in the future.
What’s the next step? “indefinitelly pause the living story to distribute the devs to work on the next exp?”
Really – this is a rip off and people will riot – and in this case – there is a reason. It has nothign to do with the game. It has to do with false promises and broken trust as well as the obvious rip off- which anyone would complain about.
Just wanted to say that I was super stoked to hear about new legendaries that couldn’t just be bought outright with gold. I’ve been playing since beta weekends, but I mostly played WvW and by the time I could afford a legendary, they were so commonplace that it didn’t really feel worth it. They weren’t prestigious anymore.
The new greatsword / hammer would have been, though. I’d be logging in every day to complete it (whichever I thought looked better). It was a major factor for me in buying the expansion. And now to see them get scrapped…
Between this and the current state of WvW, I don’t have any incentive to log in anymore.
“We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.”
While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.
MoInb4: “We never promised you’ll get all of the new legendaries with HoT itself.”
Inb4:“We’ll launch the remaining legendaries with next expansion, which would only cost 75$ for the basic pack.”
Inb4:“No legendary armour to be introduced year 2016, but instead we’ll add more collections for the precursor to it.”
And
“We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons” <—Lmao if you put in half the effort you put in designing and launching 3 or more different sets of black lions skins since HoT we could’ve had a few more legendaries in already but hey gotta lie to my homies and milk that money yo!
Please go and screenshot their promises of a new set of legendaries for HoT release. 90% chance Anet will try to remove those comments and pretend they never happened/were never promised.
I appreciate the open communication regarding this. Its a nice change of pace compared to what we have gotten used to.
Exactly. This is a big bummer, but at least it’s an informed big bummer.
Hi all,
In the upcoming Spring 2016 Quarterly Update, we’ll launch the new legendary short bow, Chuka and Champawat. The team outdid themselves on this one. This new precursor journey takes you through a memorable experience inspired by a real-world story, and the bow you craft at the end is the perfect commemoration of that journey. I hope you all check it out.
Last year we talked about plans to gradually build out a second set of legendary weapons through live content updates. That’s a big responsibility. We have a team of six developers working on that, who could work on it for years to come.
As game director I have to make tough trade-offs. One thing I believe is that we have to focus on the core game first before taking on additional responsibilities. I wrote in the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto in 2010 that our vision was to create a living, dynamic world, where there’s always something to do. Let’s ensure we succeed on that front.
So, after shipping Chuka and Champawat, I’ve asked that we indefinitely suspend work on new legendary weapons. This team of developers will instead shift their efforts back to Living World style content, building new journeys and events for everyone to participate in.
I know this will be a controversial decision. I’ll hang out with you here on the forums for a little while today to discuss it. And I’m always available by email.
Mo
Here’s a thought hire more people instead of cutting your staff.
Well, you’re right about people being upset about this, and I think it’s totally fair for them to be upset. I’m not that interested in legendary weapons, so more devs elsewhere is actually good news for me, personally, but I’d be a lot less happy if, say, new fractals were being put on hold, or LS3 was getting scoped down, or something else that I’ve been anticipating alongside HoT, or even before it.
Thank you for giving it to us straight, at least. We like news, even if it’s bad news, because we all care about the game.
This is a real bummer. Even if the legendary journey is a complete pain in the butt, it would have been nice to start working on a new one. I hope you guys that start working on living story don’t spend as much time on them as you did before. A lot of wasted effort two years ago when content was coming regularly but it was done in 20 minutes. A lot of hard work was overlooked.
Just give me WvW fixes and I’ll be happy. I don’t even know how to feel anymore about decisions you guys are making. Do I laugh? Do I cry?
So, after shipping Chuka and Champawat, I’ve asked that we indefinitely suspend work on new legendary weapons. This team of developers will instead shift their efforts back to Living World style content, building new journeys and events for everyone to participate in.
Does that mean we can also forget about an alternate Legendary Armor set for non-raiders, or are you maybe planning on opening the raid set to everyone in that situation?
I really hoped for the expansion to give me some more long-term goals to work on, but so far the more i hear, the smaller those plans get.
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
My biggest problem here is the delivery. I have run a business. I understand sometimes difficult decisions need to be made at times. I also understand many times these are very unpopular.
I also understand you want to keep a commitment to a level of quality. So you do not want to release things without them being up to the level you want. That being said, it feels like a betrayal.
We were sold something, promised something. And you are going back on your word. Something of that gravity should be delivered in a much different manner.
If I had a client or customer that had paid me for something and I was unable to deliver. I would be profusely apologizing, and likely offering a partial refund.
I am not saying I want a refund. I am also not saying that this takes away from what the rest of HoT is. But the bottom line is you are going back on a contract. In exchange for money we were promised a good/service.
You cannot just say “What we gave you already is really good. So it shouldn’t matter that we go back on this other thing”
Well I guess you can. But if I deal with a company like that, I usually don’t return to them the next time.
THIS GAME IS NOT ABOUT LEGENDARIES kitten .
Wake up. Content is more important than shooting mobs with flowers, kittenes or other weird things. You have lots of legendaries, other ones can wait. Living Story vol 3 Please! :*
Malyck! :* Rata Novus :*It’s more about what we were promised. We were promised new legendaries and basically now it’s not going to happen. This is a TRUST issue and a LYING issue and a BUSINESS ETHICS issue.
You got three legendaries. Promise is done. More will be coming sooner or later.
Moaning and impatience of people like that made kill Trahearne or other characters that were important to some players.
actually, the promise was 16 legendaries, not three.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/
“Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns heralds the beginning of the first new set of legendary weapons to be added to the game since its original set of twenty included in the launch of Guild Wars 2. The first three we’ll release are a celestially themed axe called Astralaria, an experimental energy themed pistol called H.O.P.E., and a raven spirit themed staff called Nevermore. It takes a lot of work to craft these legendary journeys for release, so rather than take the time to develop the full set before releasing any of them, we will be releasing new legendary weapons in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of sixteen has been added to the game. Collections for the existing legendary weapons will be available on launch day, while the first three new legendaries will become available shortly after launch, alongside raids.”
So…dumb question, may’ve been asked before…but can you put an extra bank/material space for gifts for legendaries then? Some of us built gifts of x for legendary y and now will have that sitting in our banks forever, or have to remake them when legendary y is released? Perhaps limit the number to 5 or something? Thanks for reading!
Can’t describe how disappointed i am right now. I’m 2 days away from finishing astralaria, and was planning to make the new mace next.
I will say my opinion about this, every fan is entitled to bring his/her opinion to the table.
The living story should all have been part of the HoT expancion and should not have been release in a monthly or tri-monthly manner. People are under the impression that HoT didn’t deliver enough content or promises/balance or whatever they feel is lacking. If all the monthly or tri-monthly content was released in one gaint expancion package, this would not have been the case. I liked the way content was released in gw1, a whole new continent with tons of stuff to do and explore. Now HoTs feels like we got 4 maps (because we got dry top, silverwastes and karka island for free) and a bit of story. It might al have been different if those living stories where all included in the expancion. Perhaps the living story stretched the team so thin that it feels to people you didn’t deliver enough with the expancion. Don’t get me wrong. I do think you deliverd alot across the years, but i can see where the other players stand.
Now, my parents always taught me, you should finish what you started. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to finish the legendaries that you started working on already, or even keep working on some but on a longer release schedule. 6 months, a year, something like that. Having to deliver each 3 months might be a bit too crazy…
edit: I got a great idea. Because you can’t finish the 12 other legendaries that where promised for HoT, give all players a legendary ring with an effect you where planning for new shoulders (like nightfury or the snowglobe). It would be like vaseline … for the wound we are now suffering from.
Please take this into consideration.
(edited by Witte.3160)
Please go and screenshot their promises of a new set of legendaries for HoT release. 90% chance Anet will try to remove those comments and pretend they never happened/were never promised.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all. They have no ethics at all. All that matters is gem sales.
Y’know, the name of the shortbow is the name of a village in India…
Lotus shortbow? Or something else inspired by Hindu mythology?
While it’s not the end of the world in itself, it is yet another thing to add to the long list of disappointing things about GW2 post HoT.
If you’re in the mood for a little honesty and contrition, could we maybe get an explanation how it came to pass that you somehow built a structure of complex nested multi-tiered collection-grindfests so mind bogglingly elaborate that six people working full time have only managed to complete one new weapon in six months?
Then contrast that with the gemstore turning out new entire sets of weapons like clockwork.
And then maybe a word on the armor/outfit fiasco.
Seriously, I’d like to believe you that the game is changing course for the better, but there’s a LOT more to that than just “Whoops, I guess we’re dropping a feature”.
Keeping absolutely everything behind the curtain is NOT serving you well. Just one more of many things I hope you’ll rethink as the numbers for this game’s playerbase and income continue to come in.
Well suspend can be temporary or permanent, i would like to know, or atleast get a hint, if u will get back to them after you got some work done and reached a good working speed or will you not get back to them anytime soon? I’m having mixed feelings about this atm, a part of me is happy to maybe see the LW earlier, but a part of me is sad at the same time as i was really hoping to get some nice new skins
THIS GAME IS NOT ABOUT LEGENDARIES kitten .
Wake up. Content is more important than shooting mobs with flowers, kittenes or other weird things. You have lots of legendaries, other ones can wait. Living Story vol 3 Please! :*
Malyck! :* Rata Novus :*It’s more about what we were promised. We were promised new legendaries and basically now it’s not going to happen. This is a TRUST issue and a LYING issue and a BUSINESS ETHICS issue.
You got three legendaries. Promise is done. More will be coming sooner or later.
Moaning and impatience of people like that made kill Trahearne or other characters that were important to some players.actually, the promise was 16 legendaries, not three.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/
“Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns heralds the beginning of the first new set of legendary weapons to be added to the game since its original set of twenty included in the launch of Guild Wars 2. The first three we’ll release are a celestially themed axe called Astralaria, an experimental energy themed pistol called H.O.P.E., and a raven spirit themed staff called Nevermore. It takes a lot of work to craft these legendary journeys for release, so rather than take the time to develop the full set before releasing any of them, we will be releasing new legendary weapons in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of sixteen has been added to the game. Collections for the existing legendary weapons will be available on launch day, while the first three new legendaries will become available shortly after launch, alongside raids.”
Thank you for finding this. Remember that debacle where Anet tried to deny something they said by erasing it? Thanks for finding this. Screenshotted in case they just delete that page and tried to say HoT was completed and we got what we were promised/payed for.
It’s just bad business to promise something and not give it. That’s pretty much lying.
Just think it’s very sad that so much dev time has gone into something with so little to show for it. Really do hope you don’t throw out new legendary weapons and find a more suitable approach to releasing them.
As 6 devs working for 6 months for 1 legendary is laughable.
I feel like this Shortbow legendary was made because of how abrasive and flamboyant the original legendary SB is (Dreamer)… but.. if that was the case, why not give us a cool new Longbow too? It suffers the same issues as far as legendary aesthetic is concerned… and also… a shortbow and not a longbow feels wrong idk.
As someone who was incredibly excited for LWS3, has been looking up every day hoping for an update, a fan since day 1, a self-declared “Black Lion Whale”(spend $10-20 a month on gems) and an ardent advocate and apologist for this game:
This is an absolutely horrible idea. This is “supposed” to be good news for me, but I don’t want it at the cost of new Legendaries being suspended. If it gets the Legendaries back on track, I’m absolutely willing to accept a delay in LWS3.
Aside from appealing to my opinion, which has been made for my section of the fanbase, I’m going to appeal to your finances. Honestly, pull everyone but concept and narrative off the new expansion, and schedule a timetable to revisit that. That expansion is a disaster waiting to happen as of this announcement. There is no point in having people work on it if you have to suspend advertised features of the current product. Nobody will have an ounce of faith in what you market for the next expansion. It’s throwing money away, at the moment.
In addition, I would be worried about a class action suit for false advertisement if I were in your shoes.
What a big kitten pile of kitten. I can’t believe they are doing this, i am honestly and deeply disappointed, month after month i get disappointed again and again, this is never going to end guys, we are being tricked and we are always getting our hopes up and then we end up sucking a big kittent kitten.
[img]http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/i-dont-know-what-i-expected.png[/img]
I’ve been a long time fan of Guild Wars in general. I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 for three years now and not delivering upon the promised content that was supposed to be released in intervals with Heart of Thorns is undeniably very much full of bullkitten and irresponsibility.
Players PAID for new legendary weapons as a selling point of Heart of Thorns and not delivering upon such is false advertisement as well just another lie that we’ve all been spoon fed by your company for a long time now involving this kitten expansion that the company took pre-orders for.
Do the smart thing and take people off of the expansion 2 team to fix this one and deliver the content you promised us! You’re making a really bad decision with this and ultimately; the general disregard you’ve been pushing upon the players of your game will come to a head in a manner that will cause a massive firestorm around you.
More reason to not come back.
Tired of the lack luster/half-baked content
Tired of the failed promises.
Tired of waiting and hoping for things to get better.
In a way i’m glad to see Mike make this post. It was kind of the nail in the coffin for me.
Thanks for a fun two and a half years, Guildwars 2.
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