Guild Wars 2

MashMash.1645:

Dashingsteel.3410:

If you are spread to thin it is time to drop the next expansion idea.

They should not be working on a new expansion when they still haven’t finished the current one.

Yeap. Except now they’ve stopped working on finishing the current one and is focusing on the new one.

Also, in terms of communication in case, it might be a huge moral booster and pr move to do somekind of webcast or behind the scenes guild chat/forum blog about the next living season update. Of course you can’t go into huge detail because it will be a bit spoilery, but it might be nice to have some sense of where the development is of it right now and little bits and pieces to keep us hopeful about the future. I for one can’t wait, but then again I’m used to a different approach for this company than say, Blizzard, who releases content seemingly every 12 months these days. :-P

I think the most fun I had in the game was during the Scarlet Invasion. If we can get back to updates like that, I can forget about new legendaries (though I am pretty disappointed that I won’t get a crack at the new ones- been waiting for the new longbow).

You don’t build sustainability for the game by misleading your customers. If your focus is truly sustainability, you need to build a bond of trust between you and your customers. You are ditching legendary weapons because you are “spread too thin” yet you have 70 employees working on a new expansion. ARE YOU SERIOUS????

Deliver on your hype. Quit misleading your customers.

cptaylor.2670:

Apparently I’m playing a Blizzard game now.

I won’t rant and bash for 3 paragraphs because frankly I think it was a “good” decision if it actually yields a positive result in terms of living story release time. I was severely annoyed that it was going to take so long to get the new living story season out, especially when raids are getting so much attention and I’ve yet to actually actively try to get through a genuine wing run.

I’m happy for the communication but I have to agree with some of the people above that it seems a little odd that you’re moving 6 devs that couldn’t finish more than one legendary in 6 months to speed up a living season update that is much larger than a weapon and quest chain. We haven’t seen the chain so it may be really interesting and a better way of obtaining legendaries than the collection system, but only one? And this team is supposed to boost living story production enough that it’s worth sacrificing advertised content?

After obtaining HOPE I’m in no hurry to obtain another legendary, so again, it isn’t a huge deal to me, it just seems a little nonsensical to move 6 devs from current already paid for content vs. Gem Store items or an expansion that may still be 2 or more years away. I don’t mind having a large team working on the next expansion, but would it really halt the process of making the expansion that much to move a few devs from there to work on the living story instead? It just seems like the priorities are a little shallow and the transparency also comes with a jarring epiphany that you’re more concerned about pushing out gem store items and another $100 dollar expansion quickly than current expansion content and living story.

I don’t know. It’s not a huge deal to me but it’s still a little surprising to hear how resources are being allocated and where priorities seem to be given the current state of the game and already lackluster amount of content. Again, I guess most of us got spoiled with the 2 week updates oh so long ago that we aren’t used to this new business model.

I do hope for the sake of the community that this living story 3 will be the best and biggest one to date with multiple new maps and story arcs.

Also hope this expansion in progress isn’t so dismally far away that the resources that are being allocated to it aren’t being wasted in the process.

“IF”

MashMash.1645:

Two things:

1) Can we can have an assurance that the remaining Legendaries will not be locked behind Expansion #2.

2) Other gametypes such as raids (less players do these than do Legendary weapons) and gemstore resources (we have enough stuff in the shop!) should be scaled back / suspended until all of HoT’s promised and advertised content can be implemented, and LS3 can be done properly.

you want to scale back raids? it has a team smaller than the legendary team. can everyone please get over the fact that they can’t raid

Testudo.4620:

MashMash.1645:

Two things:

1) Can we can have an assurance that the remaining Legendaries will not be locked behind Expansion #2.

2) Other gametypes such as raids (less players do these than do Legendary weapons) and gemstore resources (we have enough stuff in the shop!) should be scaled back / suspended until all of HoT’s promised and advertised content can be implemented, and LS3 can be done properly.

you want to scale back raids? it has a team smaller than the legendary team. can everyone please get over the fact that they can’t raid

Exactly, if Legendary team is moved, so should the raid team – LS3 needs all the people it can get. I think all other gametypes should be scaled back / suspended so that LS3 can have it’s best shot – that is the bread and butter of the game. Not all that other stuff.

Seeing as they didn’t pull those people from either the expansion or gem store team, i wouldn’t be particularly surprised if the actual reason that pushes them to speed up development of LS3 is just to have more gem store items to sell.
They seem more concerned about ways to gain more money, rather than actually providing what was already paid for.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I said three weeks ago I’d focus on sustainability and quality. I want to reiterate the part about sustainability. Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but how about the recent drought of content? That kind of thing happens when we spread ourselves too thin, and when we let the content development pipeline empty out so we can fight fires. What I think we actually owe you is sustainable, predictable, high-quality content. I’m making a decision that’s painful in the short-term so we can position ourselves to deliver that.

Akuni.8604:

Consider this… HoT currently has: 3 new maps (which are still buggy looking at DS) which are grindy as hell, Elite Specs which are heavy powercreep (pay to win in PvP…), a Story which is short but at least good (if you ignore the myriad of bugs f.e. in the Mordi battle), Guild halls, 2 Raids with 5 1/2 bosses, a new PvP map (which is quite unbalanced) and now only 4 legy weaps (3/4 being rarely used thanks to being underpowered or buggy)… That’s it?

I previously addressed the “half an expansion” thing, and I can point you to pages like this one and this one (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns), but that doesn’t matter because it’s just arguing. My job is to entertain you, not to argue with you.

I strongly believe that we will in fact entertain you. We’re a team of people who love the game that you love, and are working on things we’re confident you’ll love. But I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

Mike, I support your decision and will continue to support the game, even I see why people are upset about legendaries. I don’t have any interest in them, but I know those who do.

I have some suspicions about how recent changes at ANet came about. I like the new direction and know others who do. I’m a pro author, and know how cutting material hurts.

So where do I go to get refunded some of my money that I paid for HoT? I mean since not all of it was delivered as promised and is clearly not going to be…

More broken promises… I think I have pretty much lost all respect for this company now.

I don’ know why so many people are accepting of the fact that they haven’t and won’t give what was promised in the first expansion and claim it to be manpower related but have a team working on a second expansion pack.

The only thing I can think is that they are only getting funding based off future sales of the second expac and if it was not coming none of those 70 people would be there at all. Otherwise it’s absolutely appalling that they are not working on the current content.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

So MO, how does your foot taste?

Here’s a piece of advice, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I said three weeks ago I’d focus on sustainability and quality. I want to reiterate the part about sustainability. Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but how about the recent drought of content? That kind of thing happens when we spread ourselves too thin, and when we let the content development pipeline empty out so we can fight fires. What I think we actually owe you is sustainable, predictable, high-quality content. I’m making a decision that’s painful in the short-term so we can position ourselves to deliver that.

I really agree with this. The last real new content we got was the expansion itself, and lets face it, it wasn’t enough to last us 5 months. I even tried taking my sweet time doing it, not rushing at all, and STILL managed to run out of fun things to do! So while losing the new legendaries does suck (my first one though I even wanted is the backpiece from fractals, still waiting on it sadly), I do agree I rather the content come faster so I can spend more time in game.

Akuni.8604:

Consider this… HoT currently has: 3 new maps (which are still buggy looking at DS) which are grindy as hell, Elite Specs which are heavy powercreep (pay to win in PvP…), a Story which is short but at least good (if you ignore the myriad of bugs f.e. in the Mordi battle), Guild halls, 2 Raids with 5 1/2 bosses, a new PvP map (which is quite unbalanced) and now only 4 legy weaps (3/4 being rarely used thanks to being underpowered or buggy)… That’s it?

I previously addressed the “half an expansion” thing, and I can point you to pages like this one and this one (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns), but that doesn’t matter because it’s just arguing. My job is to entertain you, not to argue with you.

I strongly believe that we will in fact entertain you. We’re a team of people who love the game that you love, and are working on things we’re confident you’ll love. But I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

On one end, I’m the kind of guy when dealing with a gaming company, when they say they want to do something, THEY REALLY DO WANT TO DO IT. But then reality hits with coding, design, or time…and its either pushed back or discontinued.

On the OTHER END though, I’m also the kind of guy that when I am told something over and over, that it becomes “don’t just tell me, SHOW ME you can do it”.

DemonNinja.1602:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

So MO, how does your foot taste?

Here’s a piece of advice, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Well at least he didn’t take your jedi away. And if you were on starsider you should get that

This game suffers massively since release date on significant integrity issues, so this change of direction now absolutely doesn’t surprise me.

ANet already struggled totally with implementing the new legendaries WAY TOO LONG when you all remember on the point that they were already announced basically for 2013 originally!!!
And now we have 2016 and only a tiny part of them got so far implemented.

The failure of not being able to deliver through HoT the content for what people paid for is rowing itself in now just onto the many integrity problems of this game, that Anet has accumulated over the time under Colins Game Direction.

Don’t misunderstand me, I absolutely have nothing against him, but somehow I believe we all didn’t get to know the true story behind of it, why he left Anet.
We simple players will always get to know about them only as much, as far we “have to know”, but I think many real reasons why some people left the company over the last years were covered just behind “fake reasons” to prevent panic among us players simply, that the game’s going down the hill, because more and more people that were responsible for the game and GW1 are leaving Anet and that not just among the developers, also among other depeartments, like customer relationship management, like for example our earlier long known German CRM Martin Kerstein and I doubt until today, that he left ANet not really in good terms and that the reasons we got shown were nothing but fake to prevent just bad player reactions and keep everything quite, because in the end we received instantly a replacement for Martin, which is a reason why I believe until today that things didn’t escalate back then.

However, regardless of what reasons are now true or not, in the end we can beleive, what we wan,t it doesn’t change anything about the fact, that this game has sadly become over the yeasrs a CHEESE FULL OF HOLES and with holes I mean clearly obvious and not assessable design gaps in this game in regard of either incomplete content, disrupted content, destroyed content, removed content, missing content that should be already there since game release and still isnt there and so on..

Legendary Weapons Set 2 rows itself in now into the category of Incomplete Content for GW2, like also Super Adventure Box, like the Living Story Season 1 Integration to Season 2’s Gameplay Mechanics, like the still incomplete Crafting System that is still since Ascended Equipment introduction missing Jeweler and Chef Lvl 500, just to name some of the most known examples of other incomplete content in GW2 as comparison.

I guess we will mostly never get to see them getting ever completed, if ANet isn’t even able to complete other things before of that, like SAB, the Crafting System and the Season 1 integration into Season 2’s gameplay mechanics, lets just be honest here …
——

Personally I don’t care really much at the moment about Legendary Weapons, because making them is way too grindy than it is good for this game and the journy implentation that was supposed to make making legendariy precursors “easier” than before, is just a complete joke, because it did actually the complete opposite..its still alot easier and ridiculous to buy precursors just from the TP, than to make them self, because you NATURALLY hatd to put into these journys again total ridiculous high gold sinks into the making progress that make the whole thing in certain cases significantly more expensive, than just to buy the precursor directly from TP without having to waste tons of time, because mind numbingly grindign the gold goes faster, than to go on a personal journy to make your precursor.
I seriously hope, that the april Update will adress this grind also.

However, I absolutely can understand everybody here now, who is rightfully disappointed about the fact, that a huge part, that was a planned feature of the expansion that everybody paid for, is now put on ice indefinitely.

Do you honestly believe, that just changing the game direction to living story again will make people satisfied. Maybe those people, that like Living Story, when this change in direction would mean, that Season 3 would come now alot sooner and not first in like 6 months and when Season 3 would deliever then all that content, that people have expected to find actually in the the expansion that is Heart of Thorns.

So if the intention was with this decision to buy yourself just some time, then this will maybe satisfy people as a reason for some time until LS3 comes.
But this won’t work surely for anyone who basically buyed the expansion solely due to the new legendaries, which were said to be released through HoT and were until that already LONG OVERDUE.

This direction change is dangerous, I tell you honestly, I’m quite impressed that the people are still so quite, I would have expected already a much bigger outcry here, but I guess, that simply not enough people have read this information yet for the real ****storm to arrive here.

I get lately more and more the impression, that Anet is currently running around like a beheaded chicken, that doens’t know by itself, where it wants to go.

At this point of this game, and to end my posting, I can give you only one last advice Anet:

Give people now some direly needed insight of this games near direction.
The best thing you should do now is making now a blogpost that will give us a PREVIEW of the April Patch…
At times where the community must take such a jeremiad like this, its best to show the community the nearest light at the end of the tunnel that is ahead of us which guides us to where the game is going to ….

dAcIaW.5107:

So where do I go to get refunded some of my money that I paid for HoT? I mean since not all of it was delivered as promised and is clearly not going to be…

Look into the laws of your country. You may be entitled to compensation/refund because they decided not to give us a major selling point of the expansion after many people bought it.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/advertising-marketing-internet-rules-road has been linked a few times.

This is absolutely and utterly unacceptable. We were promised when we paid 50 bucks for what you called an expansion that these things were included. Now you’re telling us it’s just not happening??? What exactly are you going to bring to the game? How do you plan on dealing with all of the customers you cheated out of content that they purchased? Three years and you still get every single anticipated thing wrong in some way or another. It’s one blunder or broken promise after another.

MashMash.1645:

Testudo.4620:

MashMash.1645:

Two things:

1) Can we can have an assurance that the remaining Legendaries will not be locked behind Expansion #2.

2) Other gametypes such as raids (less players do these than do Legendary weapons) and gemstore resources (we have enough stuff in the shop!) should be scaled back / suspended until all of HoT’s promised and advertised content can be implemented, and LS3 can be done properly.

you want to scale back raids? it has a team smaller than the legendary team. can everyone please get over the fact that they can’t raid

Exactly, if Legendary team is moved, so should the raid team – LS3 needs all the people it can get. I think all other gametypes should be scaled back / suspended so that LS3 can have it’s best shot – that is the bread and butter of the game. Not all that other stuff.

LS2 was bad. The story instances have little to no replay value. Just some ultra casual content. It is fine to have content like that, but it should not be at the expense of people who play for more than 2 hours every 1-2 weeks.
An MMO does not need much content, it needs quality content with a lot of replay value. Story instances have 0 replay value except the artifical replay value of achievements you can only do after you completed the instance before.

Mike O Brien.4613:

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.

Don’t legendaries fall within this category? Legendaries are massive projects players can pursue at their leisure, and take many, many hours to complete. They’re one of the major pillars of the core game, they’re one of the biggest pieces of content GW2 has. We were told plans for more of these projects, this content, in HoT, and our decisions for purchasing the expansion were considered with this in mind, among the other features, some of which are also unsatisfying in their current state.

I’m with the people who say we only got half an expansion. We never should’ve gotten an expansion in the first place.

I just want to say that while I’m personally a little disappointed that they’ve suspended development on these new legendaries I am so happy to hear that it’s because you’re focussing on producing more content. I’ve long felt that you guys seemed to be spread too thin and I’m glad to see that this is being addressed. I feel happier about GW2 than I have for some time.

I appreciate that others are angry about this, I can see why, but for me it’s a positive step and no matter what anyone may feel I think we all need to thank Mike O’Brien for letting us know what they’re doing here. They could have said nothing like they did with cancelled/suspended features in the past but Mike is being open and frank here, and I really, really appreciate that and hope it continues in the future.

So this is disappointing but thanks for letting us know. I hope the backlash doesn’t deter you from communicating with us again, Mike (you picked a real doozy to start with! ).

personally i dont know why everyone is so outraged, to know they are working on something for april, and the fact they are being more open and honest about what they are doing currently isnt such a bad thing, few hours ago everyone was quite contempt in knowing one day there will be legendary weapons in the future, nobody gave a date of when. Im still happy with the game i play and the virtual world i live in, one day i will look forward to more Blogs about future updates and the updates themselves. i have no issues with this post because i still have 15 more legendaries to collect and catch up to, i also have the two backpacks and many many more collections to complete, im not gonna grind it out instead im gonna sit back, relax, have some apple cider and play the game the way it was created to be played. =]

Kamara.4187:

DemonNinja.1602:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

So MO, how does your foot taste?

Here’s a piece of advice, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Well at least he didn’t take your jedi away. And if you were on starsider you should get that

No I actually work for the guy that did though, ironically!

Seriously though, this level of professionalism being demonstrated in this forum post alone by the Game Director is just appalling.

Was really looking forward to a new Sword but oh well. At least the plague called The Dreamer is being cured before going on hiatus. Hope new one is amazing.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “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

Sorry? I read your response as somewhat indignant while not outwardly disrespectful. I’m not convinced that was your intent, but you might want to choose your words more carefully lest others share my interpretation.

I understand your decision, disagree with it, and will probably pay less as a result of it (I’m glad all that time I spent in HoT map metas was worth it!). Worse yet, I’ll probably still play GW2 and now just draw on the server without paying my share.

And while the precise fraction of the promised content released with HoT is subjective and debatable, with all due respect this is precisely about your company shipping an incomplete expansion pack and you reneging on what was a clear selling point in the HoT marketing materials.

DemonNinja.1602:

Kamara.4187:

DemonNinja.1602:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

So MO, how does your foot taste?

Here’s a piece of advice, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Well at least he didn’t take your jedi away. And if you were on starsider you should get that

No I actually work for the guy that did though, ironically!

Seriously though, this level of professionalism being demonstrated in this forum post alone by the Game Director is just appalling.

More than that Mike O’Brien is the president and a co-founder of anet. That means there is no recourse, hes gutting the companies reputation from the top.

cptaylor.2670:

Apparently I’m playing a Blizzard game now.

I won’t rant and bash for 3 paragraphs because frankly I think it was a “good” decision if it actually yields a positive result in terms of living story release time. I was severely annoyed that it was going to take so long to get the new living story season out, especially when raids are getting so much attention and I’ve yet to actually actively try to get through a genuine wing run.

I’m happy for the communication but I have to agree with some of the people above that it seems a little odd that you’re moving 6 devs that couldn’t finish more than one legendary in 6 months to speed up a living season update that is much larger than a weapon and quest chain. We haven’t seen the chain so it may be really interesting and a better way of obtaining legendaries than the collection system, but only one? And this team is supposed to boost living story production enough that it’s worth sacrificing advertised content?

After obtaining HOPE I’m in no hurry to obtain another legendary, so again, it isn’t a huge deal to me, it just seems a little nonsensical to move 6 devs from current already paid for content vs. Gem Store items or an expansion that may still be 2 or more years away. I don’t mind having a large team working on the next expansion, but would it really halt the process of making the expansion that much to move a few devs from there to work on the living story instead? It just seems like the priorities are a little shallow and the transparency also comes with a jarring epiphany that you’re more concerned about pushing out gem store items and another $100 dollar expansion quickly than current expansion content and living story.

I don’t know. It’s not a huge deal to me but it’s still a little surprising to hear how resources are being allocated and where priorities seem to be given the current state of the game and already lackluster amount of content. Again, I guess most of us got spoiled with the 2 week updates oh so long ago that we aren’t used to this new business model.

I do hope for the sake of the community that this living story 3 will be the best and biggest one to date with multiple new maps and story arcs.

Also hope this expansion in progress isn’t so dismally far away that the resources that are being allocated to it aren’t being wasted in the process.

Honestly, I didn’t like the 2 week update. I think it was too ambitious and didn’t have enough polish now that I look back at it. Don’t get me wrong, if going by story telling standards:

Vanilla: good till Pact arc
S1: Eh…
S2: Decent
HoT: Good

As for the LS game play, I can call it Good, but it just leaves me to wonder “man, if they had more time, imagine how it could’ve been better!”

Final nail in a coffin that is already buried deep for months….

- xpac did not deliver on many product features explicitly advertised
- xpac delivered advertised features in an obviously harshy cut down state
- xpac delivered advertised features in a fundamentally broken state
- xpac delivered advertised features in a fundamentally bugged state
- xpac delivered features advertised for staggered release far slower than initally made to be believe
- xpac delivered objectively far less for same price than the base product
- xpac features in a defective or defunct state have not been adressed within months
- some xpac features that even blocked progress from the very start for some players took several months to fix/unblock player progression
- xpac did actually break existing previously well functional features

As you can see the xpac was delivered in a bad state, we’ve seen no substantial fixing to this in months now. So seeing that another largely advertised prominent featured gets killed off after being late for months kinda fits a large trail of not fulfilling advertised product features.

When I look back I actually now regret most of them hundreds of euros I threw at this developer in good faith that the product would of comparable quality as the base package and that I as a customer would be treated well and be delivered a value equal to the monetary compensation already paid.

This isn’t about one feature like some Leg Weapons anymore…
This is just the very cherry on top of a long chain of not delivering an adequate value for the price paid…
This is now about this developer not having any reputation left to build on…

Even if you maybe in the distant future happen to make a good new xpac or LS season, which looking the recent months’ performance is highly doubtful, why should anyone ever care again ?
There are other vendors now, that took your spot as a respectable MMO developer that had more than delivered on what could be expected.
Competitors have already placed new products that are now as fresh and innovatively new as GW2 base release was, and they happen to actually deliver quality, quantity and meet promises.

But in your defense there also have been other AAA-super lackluster releases from other even bigger publishers these days. So nothing really catastrophic in comparison.

Just from a customer point of view there objectively simply is no reason to stick with a dead horse, or ever come back to see if it got revived by some necromancer.

Rayleigh.4082:

It’s time for some serious damage control. You need to show your player base that we are valued and important to you and not just the money. Businesses have costs and we all have to make do with the funding we have but it’s very clear that you guys do have the resources but are allocating them in the wrong places and doing so inefficiently. Mo you’re the new face of Anet and you’ve inherited a crap ton of broken things but instead of instilling confidence you’re essentially telling us you’re not the right man for the job. I and all these others may be ultimately inconsequential to you but there’s a lot of things that look shady here with your commendably transparent announcement. Talk about trade-offs then maybe move over some resources from the gem store weapons to your legendary weapon sector (which obviously doesn’t exist in this moment in time). You could have even gone as far getting some feedback from the community so we could tell you what we want to see moving forward before making this decision. Get us involved we are the heart of what makes the game what it is, without us you don’t have a game, you have barren lands you have, for want of a better word…nothing.

Some suggestions for damage control:

Scrap the journey/collection part and revert back to giving us the legendary skins how we originally acquired them on release. Skins aren’t hard to make as is made very clear with your gemstone weapon onslaught.

Buff dungeon rewards so they’re not left barren and unused.

Improve fractals, introduce the leaderboards, improve the drops.

PvP can’t afford to have a meta shift every so often it needs to be balanced and stable all classes need to be viable and left up to player skill to dictate the flow of a game.
There are some ridiculous cash prizes up for grabs in the ESL but how many actually tune in to watch them?

If you go back to release a lot of the legendary skins were not as cool as the greatswords but the team eventually went back and fine tuned them/made them flashier. Just deliver the skins, any skin and you can fine tune them after they don’t have to be amazing just deliver something.

We want the game to succeed we aren’t brainless zombies that don’t know what we’re talking about so probably best to not treat us as such.

Sad thing is I wholeheartedly defend this game and am the first to jump at anyone who tries to say it’s bad or dying, as a long time fan I guess all I can say of significance is get your kitten together and make this game be what it is destined to be, I.e. awesome.

Bad idea Mike.

I’m mostly left confused.
Im not really upset… i understand important decisions and all. But im a bit confused as to how it takes a 6 man team half a year to make one legendary. Given three of them shipped with HoT, did you have 18 people working for the half year leading up just for those three legendary weapons? And… if so, when the team was reduced to 6, why didnt we hear anything? It sounds like this was a decision one could have seen coming a long time ago, because in this timeframe i’m not sure how anyone working on it could’ve expected to have the full set out in the timeframe i assume it was clear most people expected them to be, i.e. sets of three every few months.

Hey, at least finish Ad Infinitum! The precursor is done all you have to do is slap in a formula to let us make the item? 250 of x, 250 of y, 250 of Z, precursor, done?

The biggest part on legendaries is the precursor crafting and the looks, and Ad Infinitum has those implemented. Pls let us make that heh.

I do feel bad, people are going to quit. I myself love this game to death and will keep playing it even if no release ever was done starting now. It looks too good with sweet fx and the game’s great :P Just keep the servers up pls :P

I just want to add the worst of this is they’d rather cancel content promised than take 6 developers off their 70man team for the next xpac to finish what they started and promised, what a joke.

4/16 legendaries in 1 expansion. 3 more expansions to go.

Seriously, I paid for an unfinished product and you said you would finish it, instead I see you releasing new gem store items every 2 weeks (gliders, outfits ….). Now you tell me that you won’t finish (at least in a reasonable amount of time) what you promised to deliver.

I guess marketing for next expansion will be:
– New legendaries
– New WvW
– More maps, hours of fun
– New specializations
– New skins (YAYY!)

Talk about adding salt to the wound, the last legendary they’re giving us is a Short Bow.

Err…

I’m glad you let us know this instead of being silent about it, but this news only reinforces what an underwhelming bummer Heart of Thorn is. It was shipped incomplete, we were told to wait while being given a partially completed project, and now the rest of one of its selling points is now on indefinite hold.

What else will be cut? Do we have anything to look forward to?

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I said three weeks ago I’d focus on sustainability and quality. I want to reiterate the part about sustainability. Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but how about the recent drought of content? That kind of thing happens when we spread ourselves too thin, and when we let the content development pipeline empty out so we can fight fires. What I think we actually owe you is sustainable, predictable, high-quality content. I’m making a decision that’s painful in the short-term so we can position ourselves to deliver that.

Akuni.8604:

Consider this… HoT currently has: 3 new maps (which are still buggy looking at DS) which are grindy as hell, Elite Specs which are heavy powercreep (pay to win in PvP…), a Story which is short but at least good (if you ignore the myriad of bugs f.e. in the Mordi battle), Guild halls, 2 Raids with 5 1/2 bosses, a new PvP map (which is quite unbalanced) and now only 4 legy weaps (3/4 being rarely used thanks to being underpowered or buggy)… That’s it?

I previously addressed the “half an expansion” thing, and I can point you to pages like this one and this one (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns), but that doesn’t matter because it’s just arguing. My job is to entertain you, not to argue with you.

I strongly believe that we will in fact entertain you. We’re a team of people who love the game that you love, and are working on things we’re confident you’ll love. But I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

Then how about you take the needed devs from the 70 devs that are working on the next exp and not from the team that works to get the promoted, promised and sold features in game? We literally paid for something you just canceled. No matter how draught the current content is… This is NOT the costumers problem. It is yours for having a issues with plan realization. If you promote an article and people buy it, they expect ALL of the promised and promoted features to be available to them. If they aren’t then you are selling air.. Which, in this case is considered a fraud. You might have removed the post with the link to the marketing laws that I posted before, but the fact will continue to stand… With this action you became a company that is ripping off their customers. And yes we got many features with the xpac, but not all of them.
And don’t give us the “you got a lot” comment again. You wouldn’t tell an angry car buyer who is complaining that his car came with only 1 tire that he shouldn’t complain because he got the breaks, windshields and the backsits…. For which the staff had to work hard to make…. Don’t treat us like kids. I expect a response.

WvW shutdown incoming soon. Too many resources on it, make every1 work on new expansion

DemonNinja.1602:

Kamara.4187:

DemonNinja.1602:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Thanks for all the comments. I know there’s nothing I’m going to say that will make you feel better, but I’ll share some final thoughts for the night.

I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

So MO, how does your foot taste?

Here’s a piece of advice, don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Well at least he didn’t take your jedi away. And if you were on starsider you should get that

No I actually work for the guy that did though, ironically!

Seriously though, this level of professionalism being demonstrated in this forum post alone by the Game Director is just appalling.

I think he’s handling it 100% better than SOE (Smedley) handled their train wreck.

By not addressing the community, and shutting down their negative post only generated more anger and garnered them the worst talked about MMO in history… though it was one of the most innovative for its time.

They should have listened to Raph Koster. He tried to tell them.

I hope all these people who reacted like this to Mike O’Brien saying he’d take some of the grind out of the game took a couple more seconds after commenting to cool down and think. You have to work really hard to get these legendaries, and i’m lazy. I don’t want to do that! I don’t even want to get ascended stuff! The collections for the legendaries were kinda cool. It was exactly like it sounded like to me. It was a journey. Yet when Mike says “Hey let’s give the player-base less to grind out and just let them have more content!” You, the player base who said “There’s too much grinding in this game now!” are mad? Make up your mind! I enjoy this game exactly the way it is because I know A-net could just say “Nah!” and shut it down. Think about that.
They made it easier for you. The legendaries don’t even look that cool, so just get the old ones! (Except for Nevermore I give it a 9/10!) Now don’t get me wrong if he had chosen Sheild, or Sword, the new legendary would’ve gotten used more. Sword and Sheild are really commonly used. I just really thought you all could go about it more constructively considering Mike’s position. But now you’ve all made ME angry, so maybe I’ll go play some of this game that they (I repeat) made, and are still working on. Just try to remember the game is still going to be changed in the future, since this is the first expansion. How many elder dragons are left? 4 that I know of (counting the allegid Deep-Sea Dragon.) There’s a lot of stuff that’s gonna happen in the future!

In the past we wouldn’t hear about this until months after the decision was made and devs were moved. Now they are trying to tell us they bit off way more than they can chew, because they decided they wanted this legendary journey for the new legendary pre-cursors and now realize it’s taking WAY more time, which is the primary resource in software development, and make the hard decision to shift those resources to other aspects which is likely also taking more time than expected.

If you haven’t figured, developers don’t apply the Scotty rule when guesstimating the time required to do X. Maybe they thought once they figured out the first couple the remaining “journeys” would be quicker to do. But whatever the reason they are telling us NOW and the reasoning behind it instead of players asking “what ever happen to …” 6 to 9 months down the road. And ANet IIRC doesn’t encourage death marches to meet deadlines.

ANet can’t win for losing. If they keep quiet until they are sure they have something to deliver, we complain about the communications black out. If they tell us upfront as they pivot resources because they need to get content for a wider player base done, we throw a fit.

Either way, it’ll be done when it’s done. It’s not canceled, just delayed.

Surely it is a bit disappointing but when you have to make for this tradeoff, I am all for the decision.

HelenaeSara.1562:

You owe us a refund. That is how I feel. I love this game, but I spent my money for the advertised expansion that per you comments will never happen.

I just hope that when the remaining Legendaries drop at some far off time, they aren’t packaged into the next expansion. That would mean paying again for them, when they were promised as part of HoT, and we have already paid for them.

I imagine that the new LS is falling behind schedule, requiring the additional devs to work on it.
I can also see a big problem with trying to weave precursor collection events into the many different areas of the game when those same areas are likely to be involved with the new LS, neither of which are in place yet.
It has the makings of bug hell.

Can’t win for losing give me a break. They got 70 employees working on a new expansion when they can’t even deliver on the current one.

Behellagh.1468:

In the past we wouldn’t hear about this until months after the decision was made and devs were moved. Now they are trying to tell us they bit off way more than they can chew, because they decided they wanted this legendary journey for the new legendary pre-cursors and now realize it’s taking WAY more time, which is the primary resource in software development, and make the hard decision to shift those resources to other aspects which is likely also taking more time than expected.

If you haven’t figured, developers don’t apply the Scotty rule when guesstimating the time required to do X. Maybe they thought once they figured out the first couple the remaining “journeys” would be quicker to do. But whatever the reason they are telling us NOW and the reasoning behind it instead of players asking “what ever happen to …” 6 to 9 months down the road. And ANet IIRC doesn’t encourage death marches to meet deadlines.

ANet can’t win for losing. If they keep quiet until they are sure they have something to deliver, we complain about the communications black out. If they tell us upfront as they pivot resources because they need to get content for a wider player base done, we throw a fit.

Either way, it’ll be done when it’s done. It’s not canceled, just delayed.

Exactly.

Though its news we didn’t want to hear, at least we were told it. I’m hoping that despite the negativity being dished out, communication isn’t cut as well.

Exciton.8942:

Surely it is a bit disappointing but when you have to make for this tradeoff, I am all for the decision.

How many times are they going to change things though? Will it be OK in 6 months when they alter direction again? And 6 months after than when they change direction again? Always design and direction changes, BUT WHERE IS THE CONTENT?

Has anybody noticed how none of the people defending this because “it makes sense to focus on LS content” keep ignoring the fact that there are people developing a new expansion when they haven’t even finished this one that came out 6 months ago and are starting to cut features?

MOVE YOUR DEVELOPERS TO ALREADY BOUGHT CONTENT AND FINISH IT BEFORE STARTING NEW PROJECTS.

Maybe I’ll tell my clients that I took on too many websites and my time will be better spent working on another clients print design so I will not be working on their projects for an indefinite amount of time.

Behellagh.1468:

.

Just delayed… You sound new. Anything delayed in gw, gets eventually forgotten. And the main problem here is not the preheated but rather the fact that ONCE AGAIN they simply cut away a promoted feature (which might not be interesting to you, but to many legy crafting is the one reason they bought this expac.) to work on something else that is also overly delayed. While we are got 130 bltc weapon skins since the release of hot.. Not to mention that they have a team of 70 people (1/3 of their staff) working on a NEW expac while the current is not just unfinished but clearly being taken the resources away for them to be able to finish it (with all the advertised features)

I am extremely happy with this news.

I will never ever get a legendary weapon. I feel that the amount of time and effort on them is a big waste and should be allocated somewhere else.

I don’t care for legendaries, but I can’t agree with this decision. It’s a terrible precedent to set.

It was an advertised feature, people accepted the fact that it wouldn’t be ready on release and pre-purchased on the good faith that it would be delivered, this is a violation of that trust.

And you know what? If you’re not going to deliver features that were already paid for, then a partial refund is in order. You can charge for it when it’s done.