Guild Wars 2

My tuppence worth:

Cards on the table: I have one legendary and am quite unlikely to make another, simply because I am casual enough that it’s probably not worth the effort for me. I love the look of Nevermore and Astralaria, but at the current time I’m not actively working towards either. This is partly because I’m not actually playing much at the moment, part out of just being more interested in other games and partly because of issues with GW2/HoT.

As far as HoT goes, I have been disappointed with some aspects. I still get hit with the crashing bug however many months in, and after having upgraded to the 64-bit client. Spending 1-2 hours in a map only to have it crash just before, during or after the meta – thus losing out on my rewards and progress – is immensely frustrating. Combined with the relative solo-unfriendliness of the Maguuma maps and the need to use the LFG tool, this has kept me from playing as much as I otherwise might have done. Obviously, Anet is not in any way obligated to cater to my particular playstyle; I just prefer to do map exploration stuff solo and have found less opportunity for this in HoT.

Ultimately I agree with the people who feel that if resources are so tight, the priority ought to be on completing HoT as advertised and expected before moving on. Known issues like the crashing bugs, the way HoT maps and grouping are working in practice (and how that was not the intention), etc. should IMO be a priority, and we should be getting regular communication on how work on them is progressing, on official Anet channels like these forums and the website. It’s one thing to ‘know’ that the company is aware of the issue and wants to fix it, but I feel like a lot of times we are left to guess at what the actual state of play is on them. I can only hold my breath and wait for good news in patch notes for so long.

A more clear grasp and communication on priorities and timescales would be very welcome. LOTRO, for example, has put out an annual Producer’s Letter for many years and by and large, from what I can remember, they have been able to deliver on what they anticipated doing in a given year. (The quality of it varies, of course, but that’s just how things go.) When there are delays (e.g. with the recent server merges due to hardware issues) these were relayed on a regular basis. Turbine and LOTRO are by no means perfect, but a general statement of intent like they have seems not unrealistic. By contrast, a lot of the things I can remember as ‘planned’ or ‘in development’ for GW2 seem to get cut, which is why the communications embargo started in the first place. We didn’t even have a date or timescale on HoT release for a long time after it was announced that the expansion was coming, which is unusual in my experience with MMOs (which is now, hmm, 17 years?! Oof, I’m old.)

I also agree with the people who feel that Anet’s focus seems to shift rapidly and sometimes unpredictably. We don’t have access to your data on what is ‘working’ from a time and money investment POV, so I have no idea if the decisions are good or bad for the game overall. As a player, though, it’s frustrating to feel like I have no real idea of what is actually, concretely planned and being worked on; and worse, how likely any of those things are to actually materialise. These six developers have obviously been doing ;something for the last year or so; now it seems all that time and effort is, from our perspective, going to waste, because we won’t see the fruits of it.

I’m not emotionally devastated by this news, just mildly disappointed. More regular Living Story/content updates are likely to keep me logging in more regularly, true. By the same token, not delivering expected content (even content I personally may not fully experience), seeming lack of progress on problems with current content, unexpected focus changes and poor communication are all likely to make me wary of spending money or investing much time in the game. So, make cuts and prioritise as you see fit, but I’d be pretty dang sure it’s worth it before making that call, basically.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/

“With our timeframe to the launch of the expansion, and the sheer size of this project—in which we would build precursor crafting for the core twenty legendary weapons in addition to setting up the new system for crafting a legendary weapon—we needed to have really solid preproduction and work as efficiently as possible. By the time we were able to start implementing, we were all really pleased with what we had laid out. From brainstorming to testing and bug fixing, building everything for a new legendary weapon reasonably takes about a month, not including the art for the weapon. That’s about a week per themed collection and a week for the economics, recipes and other random tasks. When you do the math for twenty existing precursors and three brand new weapons, plus development time at the front end for the base system…let’s just say that we had to get clever to get everything done to the high quality bar we were setting.”

Siobhan.5273:

Galen Grey.4709:

skullfaerie.7203:

Galen Grey.4709:

once very 100 years is a regular interval just saying.

If I may butt in, and I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect you’ve never heard of terms such as ‘reasonable expectations’? Sorry for interrupting. Please continue arguing semantics

no please interrupt away, I dont mind

of course the 100 years was an exaggeration to prove the point, I am not expecting a legendary weapon every 100 years nor have Anet indicated they have the intention of doing it.

was merely meant as a reply that Anet commited to a timeline by using the word regular interval which clearly is not the case.

Wrong.

They committed to reasonable timelines for release of “items” they advertised before launch of the expansion, for this expansion, yet they already have a team working on the next expansion? A bigger team than is allocated for the deployment of the content of this NOT yet finished expansion content. I call phooey on that… and phooey on what they both (Colin and Mr. O’Brien) stated as their “expectations” for this one according to this video. Watch from: 6:50 to end.

I disagree,

1. where did they commit to a reaosnable timeline exactly?

2. they have 70 people working on the expansion, 120 people working on the current game + 30 people supporting both teams how exactly do they have more people working on the next expansion?

I guess everyone hears what they want because what I hear in that interview is “is stay true to who we are as a game” “having a truely living breathing involving world” "everything together builds 1 cohesive unit and any one piece not being that doestn bring it all together "

isnt this doing exactly that? clearly they hoped HoT would keep people busy until the launch of Season 3, clearly it isnt, shouldnt they do something about it?

FYI since this morning they have removed 4 pages of comments, all of them negative as far as I can tell. If you are wondering why more people aren’t mad about this the answer is they are, and Anet is just banning them.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

But for goodness sake, why did you announce this now Mo? Why didn’t you wait till at least after April patch to give players some good news first, or even till closer to LWS3? It may have softened the blow for those disappointed with this decision.

I was discussing that point yesterday with some friends and we figured it was because Friday was likely when the final decision was made and it was important enough news to tell the players right away. Just look at all the complaints from those who had pre-made Gifts in anticipation of coming legendaries. The sooner players knew that what we have is pretty much it, the sooner they could stop grinding for something they won’t be able to make after all.

I can think of no other sane reason to drop this news at the end of a work week leading into a family holiday weekend.

Galen Grey.4709:

Siobhan.5273:

Galen Grey.4709:

skullfaerie.7203:

Galen Grey.4709:

once very 100 years is a regular interval just saying.

If I may butt in, and I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect you’ve never heard of terms such as ‘reasonable expectations’? Sorry for interrupting. Please continue arguing semantics

no please interrupt away, I dont mind

of course the 100 years was an exaggeration to prove the point, I am not expecting a legendary weapon every 100 years nor have Anet indicated they have the intention of doing it.

was merely meant as a reply that Anet commited to a timeline by using the word regular interval which clearly is not the case.

Wrong.

They committed to reasonable timelines for release of “items” they advertised before launch of the expansion, for this expansion, yet they already have a team working on the next expansion? A bigger team than is allocated for the deployment of the content of this NOT yet finished expansion content. I call phooey on that… and phooey on what they both (Colin and Mr. O’Brien) stated as their “expectations” for this one according to this video. Watch from: 6:50 to end.

I disagree,

1. where did they commit to a reaosnable timeline exactly?

2. they have 70 people working on the expansion, 120 people working on the current game + 30 people supporting both teams how exactly do they have more people working on the next expansion?

I guess everyone hears what they want because what I hear in that interview is “is stay true to who we are as a game” “having a truely living breathing involving world” "everything together builds 1 cohesive unit and any one piece not being that doestn bring it all together "

isnt this doing exactly that? clearly they hoped HoT would keep people busy until the launch of Season 3, clearly it isnt, shouldnt they do something about it?

I won’t break down your whole post, but what don’t you understand about “not wasting the players time” or that removing a large chunk of the advertised content of Hot, 5 months in, is going against what they stated was their plan, making it one cohesive unit? It ALL goes together. Legendaries are part of that piece, as masteries show (and was stated).

They have 6 people working legendaries, right? If they can’t finish content, NONE need to be working on an expansion.

Donari.5237:

I was discussing that point yesterday with some friends and we figured it was because Friday was likely when the final decision was made and it was important enough news to tell the players right away. Just look at all the complaints from those who had pre-made Gifts in anticipation of coming legendaries. The sooner players knew that what we have is pretty much it, the sooner they could stop grinding for something they won’t be able to make after all.

I can think of no other sane reason to drop this news at the end of a work week leading into a family holiday weekend.

How about “let’s drop it on friday so most of the rage is over when we get back next week”?

Siobhan.5273:

They have 6 people working legendaries, right? If they can’t finish content, NONE need to be working on an expansion.

Semantics, and all that.. but I think you’ll find that the correct term is they had 6 people working on legendaries

ZudetGambeous.9573:

FYI since this morning they have removed 4 pages of comments, all of them negative as far as I can tell. If you are wondering why more people aren’t mad about this the answer is they are, and Anet is just banning them.

You are talking kitten, as proven by the 26 pages of mostly-negative feedback that remain uncensored, the fact that multiple people have virtually torn them a new one over this without repercussions, and the fact that ultimately, what you are accusing them of doing doesn’t even make any kittening sense. They would gain absolutely nothing by censoring people merely for saying things that they don’t like, and everybody knows it.

Ashandar.2570:

Donari.5237:

I was discussing that point yesterday with some friends and we figured it was because Friday was likely when the final decision was made and it was important enough news to tell the players right away. Just look at all the complaints from those who had pre-made Gifts in anticipation of coming legendaries. The sooner players knew that what we have is pretty much it, the sooner they could stop grinding for something they won’t be able to make after all.

I can think of no other sane reason to drop this news at the end of a work week leading into a family holiday weekend.

How about “let’s drop it on friday so most of the rage is over when we get back next week”?

if that is how their planning process goes, I am in no way surprised that we are in the mess we are currently in.

evilunderling.9265:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

FYI since this morning they have removed 4 pages of comments, all of them negative as far as I can tell. If you are wondering why more people aren’t mad about this the answer is they are, and Anet is just banning them.

You are talking kitten, as proven by the 26 pages of mostly-negative feedback that remain uncensored, the fact that multiple people have virtually torn them a new one over this without repercussions, and the fact that ultimately, what you are accusing them of doing doesn’t even make any kittening sense. They would gain absolutely nothing by censoring people merely for saying things that they don’t like, and everybody knows it.

Only post i saw vanish earlier was one of the troll-ish, unconstructive kind. A salty 2 liner at best. Other than that, i havent noticed much being removed.

Simply get the people working on the new expiation to finish the old one first. The solution is so crazy simple I am dumbfounded as to why this post was even made by Mike O Brien. They are making themselves look so bad with this post. it’s just craziness. Simply deliver what was promised and what everyone thought that were buying at the time.

This post is even more damaging to their reputation, that has been getting worse and worse over the years. And it could have all been averted so easily. I’m just dumbfounded.

big fat DISLIKE !!! can i have my money back?

Shahanayana.3781:

big fat DISLIKE !!! can i have my money back?

Did you already make the currently available legendary weapons and have no more to create? If not, you still have plenty to do

((disclaimer: No I do not work for Anet or Nsoft, no I am not a fanboi, or have any friends involved with them in any way, and no I do not desire to come out of retirement and become involved with them, or get special shinies for being a kiss up.))

I have been on both sides of the fence in a very long history of gaming. I have been apart of a community that raged against the game godz, and been apart of those that were raged against. Its never comfortable for either party, and in fact threatens the very thing both sides love. The game.

Most people are aware of the fact that games are created to make a profit by providing entertainment. What most are not aware of are all the complexities that go along with it.

When you sign up to work for a major label (contract or salaried) there are many pages that read like you are going to work for the CIA with things like non disclosure, trade secrets, industrial espionage warnings (depending on the type of contract), and of course liability warnings.

Often what a gaming community ask for in transparency simply cannot be supplied due to many things that are bundled in the agreements “they signed” to safe guard and shield the company from theft and liability. Its not that they don’t want to communicate with their playerbase. You see out of the millions of players in the game not all are here just to play. Some are also apart of the industry. legitimately or illegitimately (hackers, gold sellers ect).

I was shocked Mike O’brien himself walked out on a plank to address this community. It was a bold and brave move in more ways than most will ever realise. To say I’m not a little bit in awe of his leadership on this is an understatement when I’ve seen so many over the years take the easier route by sending someone lower down on the ladder to face an angry community or just hide and ignore it. You can call him many things but the man is certainly not a coward by any stretch of the word.

That’s why I’m writing this. I respect what he did, and why he did it.

I’m going to say what they probably can’t say, or try to explain all this in terms I hope everyone “gets”. I’d also like to add that I’m not saying that mistakes were not made. They were, but its not easy trying to be perfect when capturing such a broad market with players as savvy and diverse as a swiss army knife.

Game changes: They happen in every mmo striving to be better.

Fact: They don’t always turn out to be as good as they looked in the boardroom and appeal to the gaming community.

When this happens usually one of two things take place. Its ignored or addressed. Historically most in the industry just ignored the negative impact and continued to push forward in a new direction. I have to say I’ve never once seen an about-face. Have any of you? I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen a lot, but I’m not claiming that I know it all or had the pulse of every game that has ever launched. I do not recall any MMO taking their communities distain seriously enough to stop and switch directions. I’ve witnessed tons of talk and attempts at damage control, even splitting of a community by launching what is called a classic server to appease part of an angry community, but never a sincere switch-back at the communities urging.

I have witnessed many angry gaming communities. This one is no exception to that fact. In my opinion most were also justified in their anger including this one.

Which is another reason why I’m stepping up for this team. Unlike so many over the years they stopped and responded to their community. /respect.

In doing so there is a myriad of things that will have to be fixed and changed. It doesn’t matter if it was a mistake or not. At this point its water under the bridge. Its done, but it is essential from a companies standpoint to do whatever it is they are going to do without loosing money, or more of their established playerbase, or investors. That right there is one heck of a juggling act. Its also why M.O. stepped out on that plank.

Resources have to be moved around, but not all resources are able to be moved. Some are locked in by contract to specific projects, not to mention when monies are claimed in quarterly statements for certain things they cannot be reallocated to another project. Its a delicate dance, and a “delay of something” is inevitable to execute such a bold move.

They heard you, they stopped, and they listened. They don’t have a magic wand to make it all better over night, and most of you realise this, so please grasp the very positive in what is happening here. I’ve seen community rage trains drive games into the sunset along with bad calls, but I’ve never seen the potential for both sides of a games community to do the unexpected and change history by coming together and getting it right.

By the way; delayed inevitably equates to “don’t know a timeline and can not give you one for sure”. However it does not mean that something is never going to happen.

It is also the correct response and answer to cover ones tail from liability when attempting to discuss things that are in the works but are not yet developed.

I hope this helps both sides. I really do, and Mike if you don’t follow through I’ll lead the torches and pitchforks in the forum next time…but somehow I don’t think that there will be a need to.

Shahanayana.3781:

big fat DISLIKE !!! can i have my money back?

Very likely you can. People have gotten refunds before during previous PR issues. However, the corollary is that you don’t want the product any more, so they delete your account. If you’re willing to give up all your progress in the game and start from scratch (possibly paying for another account later if you decide you like the game after all) the next time you get an itch to play, or really never want to play a day of this game again, that is a choice you can make.

Some people might ask for your stuff before you get it all deleted, but it’s your stuff. Take it to oblivion with you if you so desire (IF you go for the refund/delete option. I hope you and others will continue to populate this game so I have people to play with).

Silverstone.4539:

Simply get the people working on the new expiation to finish the old one first. The solution is so crazy simple I am dumbfounded as to why this post was even made by Mike O Brien. They are making themselves look so bad with this post. it’s just craziness. Simply deliver what was promised and what everyone thought that were buying at the time.

“There is a well-known solution to every human problem. Neat, plausible, and wrong.”

The fact that it’s supposedly so simple should have set off alarm bells right from the start. And plenty of people both here and on Reddit have taken the time to explain why that suggestion wouldn’t work.

It’s true that working on a new expansion with the existing one in its current state looks bad, but stopping work on the next expansion won’t help — it would actually result in massive delays to the fixes you want, and at the same time, it would doom the next expansion to be just as much a flop as this one.

A better solution would be to give HoT purchasers a copy of the next expansion for free or at a discount, once that releases (which is, in fact, the accepted protocol in the games industry for this sort of situation, as seen with FFXIV:ARR, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, Act of Aggression, etc., and, going back to the restaurant analogy, not unlike a restaurant offering you free dessert as compensation for screwing up your order).

evilunderling.9265:

Silverstone.4539:

Simply get the people working on the new expiation to finish the old one first. The solution is so crazy simple I am dumbfounded as to why this post was even made by Mike O Brien. They are making themselves look so bad with this post. it’s just craziness. Simply deliver what was promised and what everyone thought that were buying at the time.

This has been brought up many times by many armchair game developers before you, and the reality is that it is not even remotely as simple an answer as you think it is.

no one said that it was simple. but it would have been the right thing to do, most likely. the way it is handled now comes across as the only thing that matters is cash, and not customer satisfaction.

Ophidia Moonstone.2587:

Manoa.5897:

Ophidia Moonstone.2587:

This went through my mind today

First they came for the dungeons, but I didn’t say anything because I don’t play dungeons

Then they came for world v world and still I said nothing because I didn’t play world v world

Then they came for player v player and still I said nothing because I didn’t play player v player

and then they came for legendaries and I said nothing because I don’t want a legendary

And when they came for my content, there was no one left to stand up for me.

As much as I disagree with the development direction GW2’s taken in the recent past, I’d hardly compare it to the Holocaust.

I wasn’t comparing it to the holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…

Congratulations you have been officialy bamboozled and somehow im not surprised at all. (yeah you that pre-something this season pass)

I would give a kitten but my kitten ’s are to valuable to waste.

Now im going to feed on all this hate – it makes me stronger.

And there I was thinking that however bad things might be, at least the doom-sayers from before the expansion released hadn’t stopped by to gloat yet.

evilunderling.9265:

Silverstone.4539:

Simply get the people working on the new expiation to finish the old one first. The solution is so crazy simple I am dumbfounded as to why this post was even made by Mike O Brien. They are making themselves look so bad with this post. it’s just craziness. Simply deliver what was promised and what everyone thought that were buying at the time.

This has been brought up many times by many armchair game developers before you, and the reality is that it is not even remotely as simple an answer as you think it is.

if that is the case. Why would they promise something they can’t deliver on. I understand sometimes things can blow out, problems, other things come up that might make it harder than you initially thought, but you work through it. You don’t throw up your arms and put it in the too hard basket. I, along with many others brought HoT with the promise of new legendry’s. it came out. nothing, then they say every 3 months or so we’ll add them, ok I think. now this. indefinitely stopped. I never brought HoT thinking I would get more LS, or another expansion down the line. I was buying what was listed, and new Legendry’s was one of them.

I know, you can’t tell someone how to run their company. And I don’t want to see GW2 die either, but doing this to their paying customers is a sure fire way to drive away any future business and erodes trust horribly.

Mike O Brien.4613:

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.

It’s not just recent – there has been no new content (besides HoT, which doesn’t count as it was paid for) since January 2015. The only new content since then is Heart of Thorns.

WoW: Warlords of Draenor: Shipped with 17 raid bosses (with 4 difficulty levels), 8 new dungeons (with 3 difficulty levels), 40+ full armor set skins (versus 3 in HoT), over 100 new weapon skins, 6 new full zones, and quite a lot of other stuff (mounts, pets, etc.). + a major patch 8 months later with 13 new raid bosses (again, with 4 difficulties each), a new dungeon difficulty level, a new zone…

HoT: 4 new zones, a short story campaign, elite specs, Revenant, guild halls, and that’s about it.

5 months later, there have been 5 out of 10 raid bosses released, no new dungeons, no new fractals, legendary skins planned but now cancelled at 4 out of 16, no living story, no legendary armor, 1 of 3 legendary backs actually available…

I’m not trying to be toxic, merely stating facts objectively. This really isn’t fair on people who purchased HoT.

And as for spreading yourselves too thin, it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth that new sets of weapon skins/armor sets/gliders/pets appear in the gem store like clockwork every couple of weeks. The development is always there when it comes to cash shop items. But people who paid for HoT are basically told to wait longer and longer to get the content that was advertised.

evilunderling.9265:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

FYI since this morning they have removed 4 pages of comments, all of them negative as far as I can tell. If you are wondering why more people aren’t mad about this the answer is they are, and Anet is just banning them.

You are talking kitten, as proven by the 26 pages of mostly-negative feedback that remain uncensored, the fact that multiple people have virtually torn them a new one over this without repercussions, and the fact that ultimately, what you are accusing them of doing doesn’t even make any kittening sense. They would gain absolutely nothing by censoring people merely for saying things that they don’t like, and everybody knows it.

I left my computer this morning with this thread open on page 25 I had skipped ahead to read the latest posts. I re encountered the same posts again tonight when I wanted to read the whole thread, but they were shifted 4 pages back. I agree it makes no sense, though then again, nothing Anet does makes sense, so not really a surprise there.

ozma.3498:

Mike O Brien.4613:

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.

It’s not just recent – there has been no new content (besides HoT, which doesn’t count as it was paid for) since January 2015. The only new content since then is Heart of Thorns.

WoW: Warlords of Draenor: Shipped with 17 raid bosses (with 4 difficulty levels), 8 new dungeons (with 3 difficulty levels), 40+ full armor set skins (versus 3 in HoT), over 100 new weapon skins, 6 new full zones, and quite a lot of other stuff (mounts, pets, etc.). + a major patch 8 months later with 13 new raid bosses (again, with 4 difficulties each), a new dungeon difficulty level, a new zone…

HoT: 4 new zones, a short story campaign, elite specs, Revenant, guild halls, and that’s about it.

5 months later, there have been 5 out of 10 raid bosses released, no new dungeons, no new fractals, legendary skins planned but now cancelled at 4 out of 16, no living story, no legendary armor, 1 of 3 legendary backs actually available…

I’m not trying to be toxic, merely stating facts objectively. This really isn’t fair on people who purchased HoT.

And as for spreading yourselves too thin, it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth that new sets of weapon skins/armor sets/gliders/pets appear in the gem store like clockwork every couple of weeks. The development is always there when it comes to cash shop items. But people who paid for HoT are basically told to wait longer and longer to get the content that was advertised.

This and someone else’s post earlier on pretty much sums it up. I understand the focus on specific content and letting something that you could consider less important. But the price we paid for the content just doesn’t add up. I do feel burned especially for the money I’ve put into this game and spending the extra money to pre-order the expansion. But now the shift of focus, pretty much tells me that the product will never been complete and it is just a continuation of the game which was something that should have been done, and in some aspects has been, but should progress…..

Silverstone.4539:

if that is the case. Why would they promise something they can’t deliver on.

Overconfidence, I guess. Ultimately, it is what it is.

I know, you can’t tell someone how to run their company. And I don’t want to see GW2 die either, but doing this to their paying customers is a sure fire way to drive away any future business and erodes trust horribly.

I’m not saying that it’s OK. I’m saying that it can’t really be helped.

Personally, I think they ought to follow the example set by Square Enix with FFXIV:ARR and Stardock with Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. In both cases, anyone who bought the original flawed product was given a free copy of the follow-up. Of course, the difficulty there is making sure that the money guys are on board with it.

Among other things, anyone accusing them of engaging in a cash grab would end up without a leg to stand on.

I’m thinking the gemstore outfits, skins, etc. are created well in advance, and released periodically as the decision-making suits see fit.

On a side note, it would be very helpful if someone in the know shared whether or not the legendary weapon skins are complete/mostly complete, and the devs were just hung up on the collections, hunts, lore etc.

/notbitterjustjaded

6 months of work suggests a lot of work should have been done. Based on the idea that 1 takes 1 month of work (as quoted in guide chat), they should have been able to release 1 every 4-6 weeks fairly easy.

I mean they seriously didn’t work on ALL of them at once, thus leaving them all just half complete….. right?

Major Domo.9250:

I’m thinking the gemstore outfits, skins, etc. are created well in advance, and released periodically as the decision-making suits see fit.

You are probably right. But that doesn’t mean that it looks good when gemstore stuff gets released every two weeks and content that we were supposed to have already still has yet to arrive.

Major Domo.9250:

I’m thinking the gemstore outfits, skins, etc. are created well in advance, and released periodically as the decision-making suits see fit.

I agree.
I also sincerely hope that the suits realise that the absolutely worst decision they could make right now is to release a new set of those within the coming 2 weeks.
Unfortunately I don’t think they will realise this, and the immediate result will that the amount of kittens here on the forum will increase to the point that the crazy catlady seems like a bastion of sanity.
The long-term result will be further loss of credibility which will lead to a decrease in sales.

Harddrive.2738:

6 months of work suggests a lot of work should have been done. Based on the idea that 1 takes 1 month of work (as quoted in guide chat), they should have been able to release 1 every 4-6 weeks fairly easy.

I mean they seriously didn’t work on ALL of them at once, thus leaving them all just half complete….. right?

Nothings off the table! thats mostly likely because its full to the brim with unfinished kitten.

ozma.3498:

Mike O Brien.4613:

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.

It’s not just recent – there has been no new content (besides HoT, which doesn’t count as it was paid for) since January 2015. The only new content since then is Heart of Thorns.

WoW: Warlords of Draenor: Shipped with 17 raid bosses (with 4 difficulty levels), 8 new dungeons (with 3 difficulty levels), 40+ full armor set skins (versus 3 in HoT), over 100 new weapon skins, 6 new full zones, and quite a lot of other stuff (mounts, pets, etc.). + a major patch 8 months later with 13 new raid bosses (again, with 4 difficulties each), a new dungeon difficulty level, a new zone…

HoT: 4 new zones, a short story campaign, elite specs, Revenant, guild halls, and that’s about it.

5 months later, there have been 5 out of 10 raid bosses released, no new dungeons, no new fractals, legendary skins planned but now cancelled at 4 out of 16, no living story, no legendary armor, 1 of 3 legendary backs actually available…

I’m not trying to be toxic, merely stating facts objectively. This really isn’t fair on people who purchased HoT.

And as for spreading yourselves too thin, it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth that new sets of weapon skins/armor sets/gliders/pets appear in the gem store like clockwork every couple of weeks. The development is always there when it comes to cash shop items. But people who paid for HoT are basically told to wait longer and longer to get the content that was advertised.

Please, don’t even bring Warlords of Draenor up, if you don’t know what you are talking about. There are plenty of reasons why that expansion was a massive flop. It certainly didn’t launch with 17 raid bosses. Highmaul was the first WoD raid, which was release about 1 month after WoD launch and had 7 bosses. BRF was supposed to be released straight after with 10 bosses, but was delayed for about 4 months iirc.
Certainly, WoW still released raid bosses quicker than GW2, but WoW is a raid-focused game.

In fact, there have been massive complaints that raids were the only meaningful content in WoD. I’m not even going to argue about most of the other points you posted about WoW, because it would take too much time. The only thing that I will say it that WoW armor sets aren’t dyable, which means that they release many recolors.

As for your gem store comment, I completely agree. The gem store does need content to keep the game alive, but there have been too many additions lately. Outfits and BL weapon skins are coming out so quickly, that they have reached a saturation point. The more work you put into outfits and weapon skins the less it pays off, because it makes people care less. People used to be excited to see what the ne BL weapons set would be, but now no one thinks they are special. I believe that some of the gem store artists should be moved to making actual skins that can be obtained in-game. That way we might get a decent amount of armor set by the end of HoT’s lifetime. Seriously, 3 sets is a pretty pitiful amount.

As for the legendaries, I never liked the grinding aspect of them and I have never completed one. Most of them don’t seem to be worth the effort, as the skins aren’t amazing imo. Maybe I’ll craft Nevermore, because that seems decent, but that is still only one legendary, out of all 22 currently available. I can understand how people feel misled, but in my opinion, focusing on content is the best thing Anet can do now. They always focus too much on massive collections and revamps. This definitely makes them look bad and untrustworthy, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they have anything decent in April. It’s not like I have to pay a subscription to keep playing the game…

The longer I go without logging in, the more I realize that HoT sucked the fun out of my play experience. What we got was a hollow shell of what we were led to expect. Don’t worry though, I’m sure we’ll all pre-purchase Ex-Pac 2. I hear it’s going to be LEGENDARY.

Harddrive.2738:

6 months of work suggests a lot of work should have been done. Based on the idea that 1 takes 1 month of work (as quoted in guide chat), they should have been able to release 1 every 4-6 weeks fairly easy.

I mean they seriously didn’t work on ALL of them at once, thus leaving them all just half complete….. right?

It sounds to me as if they felt they had a system down where they could quickly lay down the framework of the quest/collection, and then fill it in to complete it.

When the first wave hit, it became clear that this did NOT work as expected, as seen by all the problems and bugs. I’m guessing that their system had to be scrapped, and everything pretty much done from scratch each time. The “one month” estimate went right out the window. I’m guessing that another part of the delay on the shortbow was them trying to salvage the system they had, and realizing that it needs to be reworked from the ground up to avoid making another mess.

evilunderling.9265:

Major Domo.9250:

I’m thinking the gemstore outfits, skins, etc. are created well in advance, and released periodically as the decision-making suits see fit.

You are probably right. But that doesn’t mean that it looks good when gemstore stuff gets released every two weeks and content that we were supposed to have already still has yet to arrive.

Whatever it looks like, keep in mind that they did promise something each day in March (either old or new) and one new glider a week. Thus we should get the last of those gliders this Tuesday (bubble most likely) and so the crazy cat lady should hold onto her kittens regarding that one. After all, the main complaint of this thread, the leit motif, is that ANet said something was coming and now has yanked it after people acted in reliance on that statement — so best not to complain if they deliver a gem shop item or anything else they previously promised to deliver.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but then again so is common sense and the ability to prioritize.

If the ‘legendary journey’ part of the development process was/is the most time consuming, why on earth was the decision made to spend all of that development time implement it for the existing set of pre cursors for HOT release?

Given that we already had a method for acquiring those, surely the sensible thing to have done, would have been to utilize all that development time to design, code and where artwork was complete; Implement ‘the journey’ for the new legendary weapons we will now probably never see and leave the current crop of pre-cursor journeys until after HOT launched.

Had that road been taken, we would probably have a full set of new legendary weapons in game by now and it would be existing pre-cursor crafting that would be getting cancelled.

Palador.2170:

Harddrive.2738:

6 months of work suggests a lot of work should have been done. Based on the idea that 1 takes 1 month of work (as quoted in guide chat), they should have been able to release 1 every 4-6 weeks fairly easy.

I mean they seriously didn’t work on ALL of them at once, thus leaving them all just half complete….. right?

It sounds to me as if they felt they had a system down where they could quickly lay down the framework of the quest/collection, and then fill it in to complete it.

When the first wave hit, it became clear that this did NOT work as expected, as seen by all the problems and bugs. I’m guessing that their system had to be scrapped, and everything pretty much done from scratch each time. The “one month” estimate went right out the window. I’m guessing that another part of the delay on the shortbow was them trying to salvage the system they had, and realizing that it needs to be reworked from the ground up to avoid making another mess.

This is sorta another problem I have. HoT basically introduced a lot more systems, or updated some, so they could get us content out faster.

Yet….it doesn’t seem to be working…

Be honest, did the decision to release raid content hurt the development of legendary weapons and the amount of general content that the overwhelming majority of GW2 playerbase want to see?

Oogo.4083:

Are legendaries so important to the point that most players should be forced to replay old content over and over just so a small niche is happy?

I understand the frustration, but content should always have higher priority than 12 skins.

How do you know it’s small niche of people? Every 6th person I have met have a legendary weapon or is working on one. Unless anet realease how many player actually have legendary weapon or working for one u can’t say it’s small or big grp of people. So stop saying it’s small niche. And also if someone is not interested in legendary weapon doesn’t mean they won’t be intrigued in future but now thanks to it’s cancellation we never know.
[/quote]

There’s no content.4 maps with 5 events each,every event has its own chain,7 mini events,long progress to meta,and that’s it.Same kitten,and i bet,people consider SW gold getting zone,which HoT maps are designed for.

Ok,first expansion,they added gold farming maps(If you can call them farming,because you getting 90% less gold than you would farm in SW)

What for next expansion?I am pretty sure i don’t want new gold farming maps.

When comes to legendary items,they promised those,and that’s what i was farming gold for past 5 months,because i could never even dream,they will scam us and lie to us.

But,when you look bigger picture,its not about events or items,its about what they promised and what they gave to us.

Who can assure me,next expansion i wont get lied to again?Look just at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E Manifesto,and look at situation now.I will never trust them again,because who stops them from adding subscription?No one,and you cant even complain to no person alive.Everyone is going to laugh at you,and tell you “dude its game…” But what not many people understand is Arena Net did multi million dollars scam.They sold us lie.

Me personally i do not like when people lie to me or when they scam me,but judging by all these comments here,some people do like when someone telling them lies,and they keep defending that person.They should not promise single thing if they know they cant do it.They lied tons of stuff just to grab money,and now its too late for us to get it back…I just hope they know they f***ed up,and next expansion,no one is going to believe them.

Who knows,maybe they did not even planed 3 legendaries every 3 months,maybe it was only lie,one of many they told us…

Personally I don’t even care about the legendaries themselves, but abandoning content to focus on something else is kind of becoming a trend for them (dungeons, actual armor, super adventure box…), this shows that there is a very apparent management or staffing problem at Anet. I think they shouldn’t be working on new features until they finished the old ones, and definitely shouldn’t be making a new expansion until they finish developing this one, otherwise who knows what they’ll have to stop development on next (expect cash shop items, those are obviously a priority no matter what :p ).

Manoa.5897:

Ophidia Moonstone.2587:

Manoa.5897:

Ophidia Moonstone.2587:

This went through my mind today

First they came for the dungeons, but I didn’t say anything because I don’t play dungeons

Then they came for world v world and still I said nothing because I didn’t play world v world

Then they came for player v player and still I said nothing because I didn’t play player v player

and then they came for legendaries and I said nothing because I don’t want a legendary

And when they came for my content, there was no one left to stand up for me.

As much as I disagree with the development direction GW2’s taken in the recent past, I’d hardly compare it to the Holocaust.

I wasn’t comparing it to the holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…

yes, yes very nice gotcha there, but it doesn’t at all invalidate the original point. There has been a track record of under-delivering and frankly bizarre decisions over the course of this game, which try as Anet might to spin it otherwise point to deep structural and leadership problems within their company. I don’t blame people for being disillusioned or alarmed by this turn of events as it begins to look very much like the writing is on the wall for this game….

about time to stop raid…

Mirta.5029:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Mirta.5029:

reported you to the trading standards of UK and hopefully the rest of the people in this topic will report you to their country trading standards too.

On what grounds? Do you know the meaning of the word indefinitely? It means on hold for an undetermined length of time, in its most basic use. Mo has had the brass ones to tell us this. They could have just given us a, it’s taking longer than we though, they’ll be here “when it’s ready”, then just given us “soon” .

Trading standards are not going to tell ANet they have to make the new legendary weapons asap.

All ANet have to tell trading standards is that its a technical design problem, and they full intend to honour what they said, and point out that they did not give us a time frame of when we would be getting them all, only that they would start after the launch of HoT. So in legal terms they have done nothing wrong.

ANet have not said they will never go back to them, and the dream is dead. What they have said is that after the next one, they have no time frame on when we will be getting more, as the team that was working on them has been pulled to work on other projects.

There is nothing trading standards can or will do.

on regular intervals. The first one took 4 months, meaning the next one has a max of 4 months to be released, else the interval is not regular.
That being said you can say that your kickstarter project development is on hold indefinitely. That doesn’t mean that you’ll escape a trade ban. The moment you’re not keeping your word with what is inside the product that you shipped you’re a prime target for a trade ban.

Not quite regular intervals is not a “good” enough reason for TS to step in. The whole product has not stopped. Just one small part has been suspended. Key word, suspended, not dropped. There’s a difference between a kickstarter not delivering what it promised, such as the one that made the news a few months ago. They made promises that they have not kept at all, and basically lied about what there product could do as they had not developed a proto type that could do all the things they clamed they could do.

ANet have put on hold one thing to be looked at at a later date. They have not said they cannot deliver what they said they will, it’s just going to take longer than they thought. And they where up front about it.

Do you go running to trading standards because a train is late? The company said it would be there at a specified time. But it was not. That late train could make some.one late, could cost them there job. Don’t see trading standards coming down on them for not keeping to there time tables.

Not keeping their time tables is a little different when they have 70 employees working on another expansion. The “stretched too thin” argument is very lame when work on the new expansion continues. Anet has an obligation to their customers. They are ditching content customers paid for to speculate(new expansion) on future sales.

New set of legendaries was the main reason i bought Hot Expansion. Now I feel totaly betrayed and fooled by empty promises of You guys. Have no reqason to play this game now nor to support Your job buying gems anymore. Very dissapointing ArenaNet…

Silverstone.4539:

if that is the case. Why would they promise something they can’t deliver on.

What better way is there to make money than by selling something that doesnt exist and not only getting away with it but have consumers defend you?

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

Over the years, since before launch and shortly afterward, you have said “soon” to guild halls, “soon” to more fractals, “soon” to more legendary weapons. This did not start with HoT, and it unfortunately did not end with it.

The reason why people feel it is half an expansion pack, aside from half-finished features, is because it utterly lacks sustainable new content. Every last major “content” drop in GW2, including HoT has been feature heavy and content light. Everything listed, excluding your beautiful new maps, are FEATURES, not content! You know this but as ever, you hope we do not.

On a lighter note Colin probably owes Mike a drink or ten for bailing right before this announcement.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Not keeping their time tables is a little different when they have 70 employees working on another expansion. The “stretched too thin” argument is very lame when work on the new expansion continues. Anet has an obligation to their customers. They are ditching content customers paid for to speculate(new expansion) on future sales.

The problem is that the implementation of them is a lot more complicated than they realized. They have not ditched, they are not currently working on it. They have been up front about it. They could have just said “it’s taking longer than we thought it would.” Then said “they’ll be released when they are ready” or “soon”. Would you rather they just string us along for months? Or tell the truth?

I’m not defending the decision. I think it sucks for the people who got HoT for this alone, no matter how foolish a reason I find it personally.

We ask ANet tell us things, we ask they be up front about things. They do both of these things and we rake them over the coals for it? As I said, not defending them, but I for one would rather they tell us thing’s, be honest about it, and we in turn convey what we think in a respectful way.

The facts of the matter are simple. They are not currently working on legendary weapons. They want to start getting the content that everyone can enjoy out the door. Legendary weapons are not gone for good, they just no longer have a set window of when we will have them, but we will have them at some.point. The first hint we had at precursor crafting was back in 2013(?) so it took them 2 years to get the initial legendary weapons done and to start on the new ones. It’s quite conceivable that it will take them another 2 years of working on them on an as and when basis. I have no proof that this is what would happen, but I would hope that once they have a brake, or people get done with what they are working on, people could be moved back to get a little done, before they are moved back.

Legendary weapons are such a small part of the game. I only have one because I had nothing to spend my gold on. And I figured the Flameseeker prophecies would look good on my rev when HoT launched. If they had not done Revenant I probably still would not have made mine. They offer nothing but a shiny skin that some people will want, and others never want. Where was new content aimed at everyone will be far more beneficial, would you not agree?

Really? Wow. This is one of the things I was waiting most for. I actually thought most of them were ready and just not out yet. That’s very dissapointing. Since you promised 16 new ones, which is one of the reasons so many people bought the expansion. (Ofc among other things as well, but that was one of the biggest excitements for me). I hope you re-concider it if you see a lot of people are upset.