Guild Wars 2

Dante.1508:

Never ever understood the whole legendary drag out grind thing people seem to worship, even at release it seemed over done, i am glad they are focusing on content over some grindy shinies..

I think legendary weapons qualify as content just as much as a lot of HoT, and even the rest of the game. Content that is designed to be repeated for the purpose of earning rewards. Unique story content with little/no reason to repeat is important, and I’m not trying to downplay the need for it. But, that type of content does not keep players in the game. It’s a reason to come back for a short while (often very short, as in a matter of hours), but it’s typically not been a reason to stay.

A developer will never be able to create content at the pace players consume it. This creates the need for long-term goal oriented content like legendary weapons. Like them or not, they are important to a lot of players, and to the game’s ability to retain a viable customer base.

Nonoka.7028:

I can really imagine the executives and the people monitoring the forums rubbing their hands, being like “oh yeah, our little SAB-stick really distracted them from our Legendaries kitten-up.” lol.
I am really really sad. And there isn’t even a real april fools joke this year, no being turned into a puppet, or stickman, or running around with your arms stretched out like a pilot…
Im not really surprised by that tbh, and Im really looking forward to how long it will take until this thread is burried, dead and forgotten by players and mods alike. :/

Opinions differ, but I find the April 1st bobblehead and airplane “jokes” extremely lame. And remember, SAB was the original (i.e. first) April Fools joke GW2 introduced back in 2013, the only one they put in a considerable effort for (they did build entire worlds for you to traverse, instead of just adding some lame effect).
Also, they made it into a festival. SAB will not be disappearing for an indefinite amount of time. Expect to see it every year at April 1st. Personally I would’ve liked to be able to do SAB the entire year, if only to get away from the doom and gloom that is the threat of Elder Dragons and allies dying (and I don’t mean this in a negative way, I do enjoy the story, even though it’s not the best story ever written; but then again, I never look for the best story ever written in a computer game to begin with). But knowing that there are a few weeks each year that I can enter SAB and let the nostalgia and fun flow through me, is better than nothing.
Oh, and this doesn’t detract from indefinitely cancelling the legendary weapons. Nice try, ANet, but I’m not so simple as to fall for that. I’ll still play the game, I’ll still play SAB and I’ll still collect legendaries over time, but my opinion on indefinitely cancelling the future legendaries remains the same.

Dante.1508:

Never ever understood the whole legendary drag out grind thing people seem to worship, even at release it seemed over done, i am glad they are focusing on content over some grindy shinies..

And what do you do in Fashion Wars 2 if not grind for shinies?

Dante.1508:

Never ever understood the whole legendary drag out grind thing people seem to worship, even at release it seemed over done, i am glad they are focusing on content over some grindy shinies..

What part of doing various different parts of a collection is defined as grindy to you? I spent more time crafting HOPE than I ever spent playing any part of LS2 and I feel ready to work on a new legendary (which I’ll never get to do now) while I have no interest in ever touching LS2 again because it was ultimately short content with no substance. LS3 will probably be the same, an hour of content dribbled out once every 2 weeks (with random 4-8 week breaks in between) Account for probably about 10 hours of content over the span of months and people will eat it up like its substantial. Legendaries are much more sustainable than LS with bad writing, bad implementation and no replay value.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Also, they made it into a festival. SAB will not be disappearing for an indefinite amount of time. Expect to see it every year at April 1st.

As said before, I will believe that when I see it next year, and the year after, etc. Right now, the promise of it returning each year has the same credibility as the promise of a new full set of legendary weapons.

Anet has a long road of rebuilding trust, and anyone accepting their statements as the truth at this point is being the fool they are hoping we all are.

Ah, but the genius part is that SAB will divert a chunk of the legendary complainers for a few weeks and then the much-anticipated quarterly update will land and continue the distraction. Just imagine it. A whole new set of stuff to complain about…..

At this point a compromise should be made. Let the staff working on the “quest” portion of the legendary journey work on new content. Put the completed legendary skins in as drops in HoT.

What really should happen is that the legendaries should be in as drops for everyone across the entirety of the GW2 game as the legendaries were supposed to come out in 2013 without an expansion purchase. They were supposed to be for everyone.

There is a complete lack of integrity in what is happening with all of this across the board.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

2 years ago was the last time. Times passed. Years passed. Multiple requests are made that Sab get released and it’s always one day, some day but not today.

When is it released? It’s released after they admit they are so shorthand that they have to pull Devs off a heavily advertised feature of the first expansion. It’s interesting that they are so short handed that they had to pull people off the crafting but not so short handed that they had the manpower to update and debug a feature that is guaranteed to make many forget about that announcement and reduce their anger, and release it 5 days after the announcement, after a 2 years abscence.

I don’t think the L. team was disbanded and re-purposed because ANet was short-handed. I think the re-purposing is a cost-effectiveness move. I think it was taking way too much time and effort to add the collections. This is possibly because the old code is a mess, that those who wrote it are no longer there, that it is poorly annotated, etc. The telling point is the statement that the L. team could “take years” to complete that project. There often comes a time when a businessman has to say, “This is costing more than it’s worth. We need a new plan.”

If SAB is live now, what are the odds that it was ready — or almost ready — before Mr. Johanson left and before the decision to postpone L. weapons (indefinitely) was made?

What if the plan is to rethink the process of getting L. items once the process of adding content/XPac’s regularly is more under control? What if they would like to replace the Precursor collections with a more manageable process while also avoiding RNG drops — which have been reviled for years? Based on the communications policy, which Mr. O’Brien has reiterated recently, they aren’t going to say anything about that until they know what they’ll do.

Why do I think this is possible? L. items represent too much of the game’s endgame goals to be abandoned permanently.

Am I going to bet? No, this is ANet. However, since this is ANet, it’s virtually guaranteed that there’s something going on that we don’t know about.

They’re releasing nunchuk legendary daggers (purely nunchuks, “dagger” classification is a purely mechanical one so we can have nunchuks without creating a whole new weapon category and the balancing complexities that would go with it) and a three section staff as an alternative to Evermore…April Fools! :D

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t think the L. team was disbanded and re-purposed because ANet was short-handed. I think the re-purposing is a cost-effectiveness move. I think it was taking way too much time and effort to add the collections. This is possibly because the old code is a mess, that those who wrote it are no longer there, that it is poorly annotated, etc. The telling point is the statement that the L. team could “take years” to complete that project. There often comes a time when a businessman has to say, “This is costing more than it’s worth. We need a new plan.”

If SAB is live now, what are the odds that it was ready — or almost ready — before Mr. Johanson left and before the decision to postpone L. weapons (indefinitely) was made?

What if the plan is to rethink the process of getting L. items once the process of adding content/XPac’s regularly is more under control? What if they would like to replace the Precursor collections with a more manageable process while also avoiding RNG drops — which have been reviled for years? Based on the communications policy, which Mr. O’Brien has reiterated recently, they aren’t going to say anything about that until they know what they’ll do.

Putting the project on indefinite hold would have been a fine decision if this were part of a feature pack/quality of life/other free update. Sure, it’s disappointing and a blow to credibility/reputation, but there is less of a case to be made when the feature being dropped has no price attached to it. However, that is not what legendary weapons are. They are an advertised feature of a paid expansion.

There should be no “what if” about re-working the legendary journey into something more manageable that they can deliver. It’s something that needs to happen, because this was/is a key marketing point for HoT. They should have made sure their promise was deliverable before they started taking money for it. They had up to June (16th, I think?) 2015 to determine that and alter their marketing.

Now Anet needs to either deliver the feature in some form approximate to how it was advertised, or compensate their customers for their failure to provide what was bought.

DoctorDing.5890:

Ah, but the genius part is that SAB will divert a chunk of the legendary complainers for a few weeks and then the much-anticipated quarterly update will land and continue the distraction. Just imagine it. A whole new set of stuff to complain about…..

And then the next expac will come, and people will still remember.

Sigh. Another one.

I think the re-purposing is a cost-effectiveness move. I think the re-purposing is a cost-effectiveness move. I think it was taking way too much time and effort to add the collections. This is possibly because the old code is a mess, that those who wrote it are no longer there, that it is poorly annotated, etc. The telling point is the statement that the L. team could “take years” to complete that project. There often comes a time when a businessman has to say, “This is costing more than it’s worth. We need a new plan.”

Of course. However, they have 70 people working on the next expansion. If they have so many problems with their main code that they can’t add in the features they promoted 1 year to 5 months ago, why would they even work on a new exansion – what is it based on? The same code that is causing so many issues?
At the same time, SAB was also created on the same old code and had to be fixed – that’s why they didn’t release it last year – that’s what they said.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If SAB is live now, what are the odds that it was ready — or almost ready — before Mr. Johanson left and before the decision to postpone L. weapons (indefinitely) was made?

Pretty kitten high? Considering that they were able to produce 1 weapon since the release of HoT (taking in consideration that they had 3 weapons practically ready to ship 1 month after release) and only 3 weapons since 2013 (yes, even if the journey takes time to create, there were 3 years that passed since they talked about it – so they needed 1 year per weapon), it would be an insult to believe that MO wouldn’t be tackling this issue sooner than 5 months after the release their expansion in which they were promoting Legendaries as a key feature.

IndigoSundown.5419:

What if the plan is to rethink the process of getting L. items once the process of adding content/XPac’s regularly is more under control? What if they would like to replace the Precursor collections with a more manageable process while also avoiding RNG drops — which have been reviled for years?

They were already planning to do this since 2013. In 3 years they were unable to come up with the content they were so eager to promote even back than, yet alone with a plan that would stick and work. You hope too much.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Based on the communications policy, which Mr. O’Brien has reiterated recently, they aren’t going to say anything about that until they know what they’ll do.

They reiterated the communications policy a few times – from transparent,to less transparent, to transparend based on hype, totally honest-transparent-with no hype. They cried wolf too many times.
They tackled various parts of the game and made a big deal out of it in a blog post, but at the end nothing got really better – as a matter of fact, it got worse.
-Fractals max level 80 \o/, Fractal update \o/ max level 30, fractal update \o/ max level 50, Fractal update max level 100.
New fractals coming soon! okay maybe not soon, someday, New fractals with the expac, No new fracs anytime soon.

-Dungeons \o/, Have more gold, Have less gold, we’re thinking about adding more gold.

-WvW, overhaul, overhaul again, here’s a very awesome change of map, here’s the old map since you don’t like the new map.

-In gw2 you won’t have to farm, exp release: The game is a farm fest now and full of gold sinks, less-farm balance

-Legendaries, new legendaries in 2013, no new legendaries in 2014 – too hard gyuz, New legendaries with the expansion!!, no new legendaries – to hard gyuz.

The list is endless

IndigoSundown.5419:

Why do I think this is possible? L. items represent too much of the game’s endgame goals to be abandoned permanently.

That’s what we think – What they think – which MO clearly stated, is that that’s not what he thinks his game should be about.

ANET lost all of my respect. I must admit that in the past I was bouncing between being a white knight (been defending GW2 and ANET on many websites where people were kittentalking it) and a salty customer, of who’s frustration was coming from seeing the game dying with every day more and more. My hope was restored when they announced HoT – I remember myself and 2 other friends watching the live announcement and with popcorn and all – practically squeeling with various parts of their reveals.
Then the hype settled down and reality hit me. – well more like, HoT hit me.
Not soon after the release, I started to realize how small this expansion actually is especially for the amount of money we had to spent for it. I expected more content. But I kept going on, knowing that we would get legendaries, fractal leaderboards, awesome guild hall management, ect – all important aspects when it comes to end game.
You can imagine how sad I was when I realized that guild halls are HUGE gold sinks and that a small guild wouldn’t be able to get everything upgraded (not to mention the scribe costs to personalize your guild hall) unless if all of the members are big farmers.
Then the fractal leaderboards got delayed and delayed again… Until the latest AMA where they told us they canceled their development. They also said they are not working on other features like guild anthem and that they “tweaked” the mastery system – and with tweaked they meant scrapped some of the cool masteries like downward gliding and such.
And then.. THIS. Literally NONE of the content that was promoted in such a nice manner, got delivered properly – and nothing will be done about it.

mrstealth.6701:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Also, they made it into a festival. SAB will not be disappearing for an indefinite amount of time. Expect to see it every year at April 1st.

As said before, I will believe that when I see it next year, and the year after, etc. Right now, the promise of it returning each year has the same credibility as the promise of a new full set of legendary weapons.

Anet has a long road of rebuilding trust, and anyone accepting their statements as the truth at this point is being the fool they are hoping we all are.

This, too, is personal. I have no problems believing SAB will return every April 1st, since it’s the most successful April 1st GW2 has had. ANet’s reputation has been marred, yes, but for me they haven’t lost all credibility. They’ve seen how popular SAB is in the past 2 years and they’ve put work into it, fixing it up. And as a naturally positive and hopeful person I choose to believe it will return next year, and the years after. But I don’t expect a jaded person to believe that, and that is clearly what you show yourself to be with your last sentence, at least when it comes to this particular situation. Branding people who choose to believe otherwise as fools also says a lot about your perspective. I understand your point of view, but whatever point of view you take, realize that it is a choice to believe what you believe.

When you failed to get the new legendaries, fractal leader board, etc, etc the first time around it was bleh, but they were just plans.

When you put them in the expansion content and advertised as major points in some cases, it sent the message that if you had the direct financial support to do these things, they would get done.

When you postpone the legendaries indefinitely after it got the funding (part of the price of the xpac included these legendaries, otherwise its false advertising), you are postponing core content of the xpac that was paid for, as it was a part of the xpac features. It doesn’t matter what your definition of core content is for the game, HoT core content was what was on the figurative box advertised.

But everyone will forgot this within a month, just like everything else. Maybe you’ll even have a flash HoT sale a month or two before making it f2p, just for old times sake, eh?

Forum salt best salt <3

I still think it will just be a matter of time before they consider SAB too much work to maintain, in same way that legendary weapons became too hard, or how SAB’s own world 3 was too much to take on. But that will be dependent on just how much the game engine and other systems change over time. Next year’s return will be the most likely to come true, what about after another expansion sees more underlying changes like the ones that had to be fixed in this iteration of SAB?

I would say that I’m more than slightly jaded when it comes to Anet’s promises and failures to deliver on them. But I think that is to be expected when features repeatedly fail to materialize, or new systems do get implemented only to never be fully fleshed out, and eventually get replaced with yet another new system that never gets finished. It becomes very difficult to accept their statements at face value when so many of them have proven to be nothing more than hype and smoke.

As the saying goes…Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

We’ll get world three next year, I’m sure of it. Now that SAB is an annual “filler” content, they can schedule it.

The problem with the New Legendary Journeys is they wanted to make every one of them a memorable adventure. Sadly I think too many players simply don’t care about that. It’s a purely mechanical process to get the item at the end. That’s the conflict. ANet could spend a ton of time making each of these great but if a fair portion of those going for it simply don’t care, then is it worth the devs time.

A lot of the anger I’m seeing are from players who want “Push Button, Recieve Bacon” rewards where story doesn’t matter. They actual content might as well be the stark white room/low poly models of SuperHot. At the very least, the reward is more important than the story behind why you get the reward.

Behellagh.1468:

We’ll get world three next year, I’m sure of it. Now that SAB is an annual “filler” content, they can schedule it.

The problem with the New Legendary Journeys is they wanted to make every one of them a memorable adventure. Sadly I think too many players simply don’t care about that. It’s a purely mechanical process to get the item at the end. That’s the conflict. ANet could spend a ton of time making each of these great but if a fair portion of those going for it simply don’t care, then is it worth the devs time.

A lot of the anger I’m seeing are from players who want “Push Button, Recieve Bacon” rewards where story doesn’t matter. They actual content might as well be the stark white room/low poly models of SuperHot. At the very least, the reward is more important than the story behind why you get the reward.

I have to agree with you. I remember how much fun the black moa chick was to get in GW1. Not that was a journey. Same with the M.O.X. Missions. All gear journeys. That’s what I was hoping the legendary collections would be. Not a go to X place do X event(or wait for it to start) to get a shinny. I was expecting “quests” scavenger hunts, kind of like how you do the things with mawdry. But from what I can tell.it’s just a shopping list or events list to take you to different game modes.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem with the New Legendary Journeys is they wanted to make every one of them a memorable adventure. Sadly I think too many players simply don’t care about that. It’s a purely mechanical process to get the item at the end. That’s the conflict. ANet could spend a ton of time making each of these great but if a fair portion of those going for it simply don’t care, then is it worth the devs time.

I feel like what they actually created was somewhere in between. A lot of the “journey” is just a to-do checklist of events to do, items to collect, or objects in the world interact with. The only story along with it is tucked away in flavor text within collections or item tooltips. To the player that cares about lore, it feels tacked on and not immersive. And to the player that just wants to farm for their reward, it’s bunch of pointless running around the world. I would say that it’s catering more to the “press button, get reward” crowd, because the lore aspects are so easily ignored.

I’m not really sure which camp I’d put myself in. I’ve always had interest in GW’s lore, and most other games I’ve gotten really into. But when I’m working toward a goal in the game, I don’t always want that aspect slowing down the pacing or feeling like it’s in the way. I think I would be more interested in the lore aspect of the journey if it was presented in a more immersive way.

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Behellagh.1468:

We’ll get world three next year, I’m sure of it. Now that SAB is an annual “filler” content, they can schedule it.

The problem with the New Legendary Journeys is they wanted to make every one of them a memorable adventure. Sadly I think too many players simply don’t care about that. It’s a purely mechanical process to get the item at the end. That’s the conflict. ANet could spend a ton of time making each of these great but if a fair portion of those going for it simply don’t care, then is it worth the devs time.

A lot of the anger I’m seeing are from players who want “Push Button, Recieve Bacon” rewards where story doesn’t matter. They actual content might as well be the stark white room/low poly models of SuperHot. At the very least, the reward is more important than the story behind why you get the reward.

We’ll get world three next year, I’m sure of it. Now that SAB is an annual “filler” content, they can schedule it.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Guild Wars 2 is a huge game, and keeping it strong means making tough decisions about where to spend our time to best serve the most players. We decided we couldn’t justify the sacrifice to Guild Wars 2 to make more new worlds for SAB. But we did have time to dust off the cobwebs (we had to fix a lot of stuff that breaks as the engine evolves and improves) and make sure SAB has a great, regular home in Guild Wars 2. As a yearly festival, SAB will now be a dependable fixture in Tyria, and that makes us very happy. Just check out Rata Sum to see how happy we feel!

Most festivals have the same content year after year with only the rewards changing each year. Since this is now a festival they might just change the rewards to keep the interest but not add new worlds.

Behellagh.1468:

We’ll get world three next year, I’m sure of it. Now that SAB is an annual “filler” content, they can schedule it.

The problem with the New Legendary Journeys is they wanted to make every one of them a memorable adventure. Sadly I think too many players simply don’t care about that. It’s a purely mechanical process to get the item at the end. That’s the conflict. ANet could spend a ton of time making each of these great but if a fair portion of those going for it simply don’t care, then is it worth the devs time.

A lot of the anger I’m seeing are from players who want “Push Button, Recieve Bacon” rewards where story doesn’t matter. They actual content might as well be the stark white room/low poly models of SuperHot. At the very least, the reward is more important than the story behind why you get the reward.

I like lore stuff, even if it’s simple flavor text, but the Legendary Collection didn’t even have that so it didn’t seem very in depth anyways. It’s like the “book” (collection grid) told you to go here and get this item by doing this, but what really even is the item and why do I need it? Just shows an image and says “trophy” for the majority of it and some are pretty strange items. I guess they’re just all tossed into a bucket though off screen and fused into a weapon, idk.

Writing a whole story about the acquisition of a precursor is a pretty big expectation so a scavenger hunt for ‘related’ items is about the most we can expect. Nevermore actually had a pretty cool ‘story’ where you had to get a Raven egg, build a nest for it, hatch it, feed it, teach it to fly, capture it’s spirit, and so on.

Even the lamest scavenger hunt is INFINITELY better than spending countless hours and gold dumping stuff into the Mystic Toilet which is COMPLETELY unfair and soul crushing to most who try it. Hoping for one to ‘drop’ while playing the game is also a pipe dream. Buying off of some other lucky player is also really lame.

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

I don’t know about you but I think making 20ish Legendary weapons is a large goal itself, and not the only endgame goal that exists … so the idea that GW2 is going to come crashing down on people because ‘nothing to do endgame" isn’t really a sensible one.

if u could chill a bit on the amount of mats needed it would be nice.

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

I don’t know about you but I think making 20ish Legendary weapons is a large goal itself, and not the only endgame goal that exists … so the idea that GW2 is going to come crashing down on people because ‘nothing to do endgame" isn’t really a sensible one.

I never said GW2 was going to come crashing down right now because of it. But an old, unchanging list of goals will eventually run out of players left to attain them.

And for how many people are all 20 an actual goal? Sure, there are people that will (or already have) make all of them just because they are legendary, purple, and shiny. But for most players, the ones we like and will use get made.

I have 6 of them, and there are 1 or 2 more that I might consider. The rest I have no interest in. They aren’t goals for me, as I don’t like them and won’t use them. A new set of weapons brings with it a fairly good chance of new goals. I’m probably not going to want all of them, but I’m very likely to want some.

mrstealth.6701:

But for most players, the ones we like and will use get made.

For sure. And this number for most people is likely to be far less than the total. I’d rather make a legendary I can actually use rather than make one just for the sake of making legendaries. So, if a player has made all the ones they like/can use, then having new legendaries they like/can use is going to be more valuable than the other 10-14 or whatever that they simply haven’t made before of the old set.

Not sure this has been mentioned yet, but uhh hey Arena net!

https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/mastery/

You are aware that the website for the expansion still has a whole new set of legendaries listed as a feature and still links to a now out of date article correct? I really hope that you aren’t this incompetent as to do this but continue to falsely advertise to people

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

I don’t know about you but I think making 20ish Legendary weapons is a large goal itself, and not the only endgame goal that exists … so the idea that GW2 is going to come crashing down on people because ‘nothing to do endgame" isn’t really a sensible one.

I never said GW2 was going to come crashing down right now because of it. But an old, unchanging list of goals will eventually run out of players left to attain them.

And for how many people are all 20 an actual goal? Sure, there are people that will (or already have) make all of them just because they are legendary, purple, and shiny. But for most players, the ones we like and will use get made.

I have 6 of them, and there are 1 or 2 more that I might consider. The rest I have no interest in. They aren’t goals for me, as I don’t like them and won’t use them. A new set of weapons brings with it a fairly good chance of new goals. I’m probably not going to want all of them, but I’m very likely to want some.

Again, I don’t think that it’s a genuine argument to say we need continuous development of Legendaries because an old, unchanging list of goals will eventually run out of players left to attain them. Isn’t a continuous provision of new Legendary weapons in fact, and old, unchanging list of things to do just by it’s very nature of being a repetitive process? OK, the output is different, but make no mistake, there is nothing interesting about obtaining the mats for your 20th Legendary weapon. It’s simply mechanical at that stage.

It think what is more realistic is that 1) you get players who make the Legendaries they like and 2) you get players who make as many Legendaries as possible. Unless you can think of some other player that doesn’t fit those descriptions, I don’t actually see the current number of Legendaries as unreasonable to satisfy the desires of the former kind of player or see a reason for Anet to sink a large number of resources into Legendary development for the latter kind of player.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Most festivals have the same content year after year with only the rewards changing each year. Since this is now a festival they might just change the rewards to keep the interest but not add new worlds.

That was my thought when I read that as well. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that, especially if they communicate clearly that it won’t be updated every year.

Obtena.7952:

Again, I don’t think that it’s a genuine argument to say we need continuous development of Legendaries because an old, unchanging list of goals will eventually run out of players left to attain them. Isn’t a continuous provision of new Legendary weapons in fact, and old, unchanging list of things to do just by it’s very nature of being a repetitive process? OK, the output is different, but make no mistake, there is nothing interesting about obtaining the mats for your 20th Legendary weapon. It’s simply mechanical at that stage.

It think what is more realistic is that 1) you get players who make the Legendaries they like and 2) you get players who make as many Legendaries as possible. Unless you can think of some other player that doesn’t fit those descriptions, I don’t actually see the current number of Legendaries as unreasonable to satisfy the desires of the former kind of player or see a reason for Anet to sink a large number of resources into Legendary development for the latter kind of player.

Who said anything about continuous development of legendaries?

Yes, the game needs new goals to be added to give players things to do in the game. But that is not saying that continuous development is required. You’re just distorting the point from one extreme to the other.

This is about a single 2nd set that was marketed and sold as being part of HoT. That’s it, 16 weapons. Not a never-ending stream of them being constantly developed. If anything beyond that, maybe 1 new set of them per paid expansion would be a reasonable expectation. But the current issue has nothing to do with anything beyond the 16 weapons HoT’s price was supposed to have brought us.

And yeah, some aspects of legendary weapons are repetitive. But so are a lot of other things in this, and any other MMO. Like all the events you have to do over and over to max masteries or earn map currencies.

Should I argue that we already have enough maps to do events in, so might as well stop adding those, as well?

But, this entire debate is pointless and isn’t even about the actual issue. It doesn’t matter how many legendaries you think count as enough of an endgame goal. It doesn’t matter how many I think should be added. What matters is that we were sold an expansion under the premise of it getting us a full set of weapons, and now that product has been changed post-purchase.

I’m pretty disappointed in this announcement as I have been looking for a new goal to work towards, something to keep me logging into the game. Legendaries are a way to do that.. but it only really works if I want the skin in question. Like I’m not going to go through all the work for something I’ll never use.

I was waiting on a new longbow skin, new greatsword, and new 1h sword skins, weapons I could conceivably want to have a legendary of, and didn’t feel like using the existing legendaries for, but was looking forward to what the new skins would be like.

I guess with the “indefinite” posteponing I go back to an “indefinite” period of logging in, doing dailies if they’re not too much hassle, and logging out.

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.

[…] 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

Dear Mr. O Brien,

I’m sorry to see the qouted posting from you, because it show me someting, i hoped never to see from ANet, namely a kind of denying reality.

You right as far as you shipped all the above listed things. But the reality is, that those things were broken, bugged and partially just non existent at the time of delivery. You can read all the patch notes about all the broken things, missed components, missed part of the maps and so on, so there is no need to list them here.

Regadless the fact, that i like some of the new things very much (e.g. i like the mapdesing of Tangled Depths the most in the game, and if i could, i would pay the beer for it’s dev team for a month) i can not say, that the delivered content was a full package.
I belive that the people at ANet have been working very hard on every byte of code of HoT. But HoT was and still is a banaware. And this is the fact, what you don’t want or don’t like to see as your post point this out very clear.

I don’t care much about the new legendary weapons – but i was expecting them to! – and i’m not really sure about your motives to change the direction about what should be developed and what not.
I just wonder if the declining of the new legendaries also connotes, that ANet developed here a grind-system, whose desing at the end even for ANet itself is just to much?

I’m also not sure what do you mean with “sustainability” & “drought of content”. For me are dungeons content, but you don’t have a dongeon-team, so there will be no new content of this type. A Map would be new content, but we got allready 4 new maps, yes? So no new content of this type.

Fractals level 100+? No, thanks. I run them more than enough already.
New Fractals? You can develop new Fractals but you can not develop new Dongeons? Hard to belive.

Well the Living Story remain … that Living Story …

I’v hated all of them. (Maybe not the stories, but the kind they have been delivered)
Pushing out a new Story every two week made me feel as i would be in the rush-hour. Run, run, run to be able to do the events, to have some of the achivments etc. and at the same time not having time for anything. That is not content for me. That is something caused me to click on the “log out”-button.
My definition of sustainability don’t include that a player is rather clicking on the log out-button than play the game but it is include the fulfill of a promise. Even if it is a tough decision.

With best Regards

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

I don’t know about you but I think making 20ish Legendary weapons is a large goal itself, and not the only endgame goal that exists … so the idea that GW2 is going to come crashing down on people because ‘nothing to do endgame" isn’t really a sensible one.

first 3 years there wasn’t an end game. year 4, Collections are the end game and the game is still going semi-strong.

So you just might be right :-)

Honestly I think the user base should be complaining about the content release schedule instead of one offs like Legendary weapons. We knew going in that HoT was a hacked together expansion due to how they released previews about it. I am not surprised stuff that was to be included was dropped.

What I AM surprised about is the lack of fresh content. we waited from Jan3rd 2015 until Oct 2015 for what HoT brought to the table. We played it and got what we wanted out of it. Many were disappointed (myself included) so now we are waiting on the next release (LS3?!). Are we going to be waiting until Oct 2016 for the next batch release like we did in 2015?

That is what everyone should be focusing on here.

Sitael.4680:

I’m also not sure what do you mean with “sustainability” & “drought of content”.

Hi! I just want to clarify that a drought of content refers to the fact that we have not gotten any content updates other than HoT and festivals. Mr. O’Brien is trying to distract people from being angry about the lack of legendary weapons by suggesting they be angry about a different failure. It is a pretty curious tactic, in my opinion.

I’m clarifying because the rest of your response seems to be working under the assumption that it means the opposite of that. In short- you’re right. Content does not seem to be a priority.

The ironic part is that MO didn’t reply for the last 40 pages.
He cares THAT much about his community being angry.
He practically dropped the bomb, said that HoT, in his eyes is perfect, and that we’re all wrong and then put us on ignore.

Guhracie.3419:

Sitael.4680:

I’m also not sure what do you mean with “sustainability” & “drought of content”.

Hi! I just want to clarify that a drought of content refers to the fact that we have not gotten any content updates other than HoT and festivals. Mr. O’Brien is trying to distract people from being angry about the lack of legendary weapons by suggesting they be angry about a different failure. It is a pretty curious tactic, in my opinion.

I’m clarifying because the rest of your response seems to be working under the assumption that it means the opposite of that. In short- you’re right. Content does not seem to be a priority.

Do you mean we haven’t gotten any content since HoT, or that all the content we got is HoT related?

Spira.4578:

The ironic part is that MO didn’t reply for the last 40 pages.
He cares THAT much about his community being angry.
He practically dropped the bomb, said that HoT, in his eyes is perfect, and that we’re all wrong and then put us on ignore.

I don’t blame him. What has this thread really accomplished? He could come out with all of the reasons behind the decision and he would still be crucified. If he decided to cut something else instead people would still scream for murder.

I’m not happy with HoT by a long shot. In fact it broke the game for me in a lot of ways so I play less. What I am willing to do though is give MO a chance now that he is back in the trenches closer to what’s going on that he can keep things in check.

Things that I believe they are moving towards that have been sorely needed:
1. No promises
2. Open communication

Those lack of those 2 things are why we are in the current situation.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Spira.4578:

The ironic part is that MO didn’t reply for the last 40 pages.
He cares THAT much about his community being angry.
He practically dropped the bomb, said that HoT, in his eyes is perfect, and that we’re all wrong and then put us on ignore.

I don’t blame him. What has this thread really accomplished? He could come out with all of the reasons behind the decision and he would still be crucified. If he decided to cut something else instead people would still scream for murder.

I’m not happy with HoT by a long shot. In fact it broke the game for me in a lot of ways so I play less. What I am willing to do though is give MO a chance now that he is back in the trenches closer to what’s going on that he can keep things in check.

Things that I believe they are moving towards that have been sorely needed:
1. No promises
2. Open communication

Those lack of those 2 things are why we are in the current situation.

They’ve been getting the flak over legendary weapons since they failed to deliver on the end of 2013 promise. And going back even farther over the scavenger hunt aspect they were talking about right around the core game launch.

What’s different in this round is that it’s not just a promise. It was used to get money. When you take someone’s money, then don’t deliver what you marketed, you should expect (and deserve) an angry mob. The explanations and attempts to justify don’t really matter after you’ve decided to commit to the promise and accept your customers’ money. The only options he should have are to deliver what was advertised or offer some sort of monetary compensation.

Instead, what MO tried to do was create some absurd third option, and talk his way out of his company’s obligation to its customers. That’s just not how this works, and he knows it. It’s actually pretty insulting that he seems to think excuses and reassurances that it’s “better for the game” are justifications we should begrudgingly accept while he runs off with our money to make another expansion.

Spira.4578:

The ironic part is that MO didn’t reply for the last 40 pages.
He cares THAT much about his community being angry.
He practically dropped the bomb, said that HoT, in his eyes is perfect, and that we’re all wrong and then put us on ignore.

It’s frustrating but I don’t think it’s in the least big ironic. He framed the by saying he knew people were going to be upset, and that he’d watch the thread for a couple hours.

mrstealth.6701:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Spira.4578:

The ironic part is that MO didn’t reply for the last 40 pages.
He cares THAT much about his community being angry.
He practically dropped the bomb, said that HoT, in his eyes is perfect, and that we’re all wrong and then put us on ignore.

I don’t blame him. What has this thread really accomplished? He could come out with all of the reasons behind the decision and he would still be crucified. If he decided to cut something else instead people would still scream for murder.

I’m not happy with HoT by a long shot. In fact it broke the game for me in a lot of ways so I play less. What I am willing to do though is give MO a chance now that he is back in the trenches closer to what’s going on that he can keep things in check.

Things that I believe they are moving towards that have been sorely needed:
1. No promises
2. Open communication

Those lack of those 2 things are why we are in the current situation.

They’ve been getting the flak over legendary weapons since they failed to deliver on the end of 2013 promise. And going back even farther over the scavenger hunt aspect they were talking about right around the core game launch.

What’s different in this round is that it’s not just a promise. It was used to get money. When you take someone’s money, then don’t deliver what you marketed, you should expect (and deserve) an angry mob. The explanations and attempts to justify don’t really matter after you’ve decided to commit to the promise and accept your customers’ money. The only options he should have are to deliver what was advertised or offer some sort of monetary compensation.

Instead, what MO tried to do was create some absurd third option, and talk his way out of his company’s obligation to its customers. That’s just not how this works, and he knows it. It’s actually pretty insulting that he seems to think excuses and reassurances that it’s “better for the game” are justifications we should begrudgingly accept while he runs off with our money to make another expansion.

If you read my post you would see that developer promises are part of the problem I have with the game atm. If Anet had not kept us in the dark and had let us know how much difficulty they had with the journey we wouldn’t be in this position. In addition marketing made this even worse since they left their statements are open to interpretation. Maybe it was because I didn’t care about them but I didn’t get hyped up about new legendaries I got hyped up about alternate ways of getting them.

I still disagree with the decision to “suspend” legendary development. I can see how a lot of people could interpret the marketing to include a whole set. Marketing. It’s the same thing as the borderlands being included in the expansion (you can play them ftp or core). If we can get to no more hype and semi-open communication on what is or isn’t off the table we don’t have to be in a position this bad again. That is the make or break point right now.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

If you read my post you would see that developer promises are part of the problem I have with the game atm. If Anet had not kept us in the dark and had let us know how much difficulty they had with the journey we wouldn’t be in this position. In addition marketing made this even worse since they left their statements are open to interpretation. Maybe it was because I didn’t care about them but I didn’t get hyped up about new legendaries I got hyped up about alternate ways of getting them.

I still disagree with the decision to “suspend” legendary development. I can see how a lot of people could interpret the marketing to include a whole set. Marketing. It’s the same thing as the borderlands being included in the expansion (you can play them ftp or core). If we can get to no more hype and semi-open communication on what is or isn’t off the table we don’t have to be in a position this bad again. That is the make or break point right now.

I agree with you that the promises have been a problem. They need to be absolutely sure they can deliver something before they make statements indicating that we are “for sure” getting it. I don’t think looking for feedback on new ideas they are considering is a bad thing, but it does become a problem when they start making statements about these features like “coming soon”, “we’re working on it”, “by the end of the year”. Don’t try to hype it and tell us how exciting it is, just present it as the idea that it is.

As for their marketing, there isn’t anything left open to interpretation. The HoT website explicitly states that “Additional legendary weapons will be released in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of 16 has been added to this game.” There isn’t any question about them committing to deliver that feature.

mrstealth.6701:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

If you read my post you would see that developer promises are part of the problem I have with the game atm. If Anet had not kept us in the dark and had let us know how much difficulty they had with the journey we wouldn’t be in this position. In addition marketing made this even worse since they left their statements are open to interpretation. Maybe it was because I didn’t care about them but I didn’t get hyped up about new legendaries I got hyped up about alternate ways of getting them.

I still disagree with the decision to “suspend” legendary development. I can see how a lot of people could interpret the marketing to include a whole set. Marketing. It’s the same thing as the borderlands being included in the expansion (you can play them ftp or core). If we can get to no more hype and semi-open communication on what is or isn’t off the table we don’t have to be in a position this bad again. That is the make or break point right now.

I agree with you that the promises have been a problem. They need to be absolutely sure they can deliver something before they make statements indicating that we are “for sure” getting it. I don’t think looking for feedback on new ideas they are considering is a bad thing, but it does become a problem when they start making statements about these features like “coming soon”, “we’re working on it”, “by the end of the year”. Don’t try to hype it and tell us how exciting it is, just present it as the idea that it is.

As for their marketing, there isn’t anything left open to interpretation. The HoT website explicitly states that “Additional legendary weapons will be released in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of 16 has been added to this game.” There isn’t any question about them committing to deliver that feature.

“The first handful being introduced in HoT and others released at regular intervals”. Listen we could fight about the marketing and wording all day and not get anywhere.
My main point is that as far as MO is concerned no more promises and more open communication. Do you have the right to be mad? Sure. Does that give forum goers the right to be so caustic? No. What I’m trying to get across is that Anet is at a cross roads. One branch is promises with no implementation and the other is where they let us know “hey we worked on this and it didn’t work out”. I would prefer the truth no matter how uncomfortable.

mrstealth.6701:

Who said anything about continuous development of legendaries?

Who? It’s the topic of the whole thread.

I think my point is pretty clear so I won’t continue to argue with you about who said what or useless things like that. With the current state of Legendaries, there isn’t any reason either of the two kinds of players I described can’t be satisfied with what we presently have.

People need to get over it; No, Anet did not deliver Legendaries .. and at least they were smart enough to know to stop wasting their time on them.

sirsquishy.8531:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

I think SAB will just be a momentary distraction. After the initial hype settles, and especially after SAB has gone away for another indefinite period of time, the community is not going to let go of the fact that the most prominent items on the already short list of endgame goals just got canned.

Except you can still make creating a Legendary an endgame goal so whatever the fact is that the community isn’t letting go of, it’s not that one.

Yeah, we can still make legendary weapons that have already been available for over 3 years. Weapons we’ve had 3 years to work toward, and have been acquiring for 3 years. For a lot of players, those aren’t goals anymore because we have everything we want out of the old set of legendaries.

An MMO isn’t going to last forever on a small set of endgame goals. As time goes by, people will accomplish those goals and new ones need to be added. HoT was sold to us under the premise that it was going to do that.

I don’t know about you but I think making 20ish Legendary weapons is a large goal itself, and not the only endgame goal that exists … so the idea that GW2 is going to come crashing down on people because ‘nothing to do endgame" isn’t really a sensible one.

first 3 years there wasn’t an end game. year 4, Collections are the end game and the game is still going semi-strong.

So you just might be right :-)

Honestly I think the user base should be complaining about the content release schedule instead of one offs like Legendary weapons. We knew going in that HoT was a hacked together expansion due to how they released previews about it. I am not surprised stuff that was to be included was dropped.

What I AM surprised about is the lack of fresh content. we waited from Jan3rd 2015 until Oct 2015 for what HoT brought to the table. We played it and got what we wanted out of it. Many were disappointed (myself included) so now we are waiting on the next release (LS3?!). Are we going to be waiting until Oct 2016 for the next batch release like we did in 2015?

That is what everyone should be focusing on here.

I think there is some truth to what you say, though we have to remember, endgame here isn’t typical for an MMO, it’s a wardrobe of skins. There is much misguided complaining in this thread. Why anyone would advocate continuing to develop what amounts to a skin with an effect over anything else … just wow.

mrstealth.6701:

I agree with you that the promises have been a problem. They need to be absolutely sure they can deliver something before they make statements indicating that we are “for sure” getting it. I don’t think looking for feedback on new ideas they are considering is a bad thing, but it does become a problem when they start making statements about these features like “coming soon”, “we’re working on it”, “by the end of the year”. Don’t try to hype it and tell us how exciting it is, just present it as the idea that it is.

And they need to decide on their “new ideas” BEFORE customers have already paid for them as part of an expansion. IMO, once you take peoples’ money for something, at that point it’s too late to decide that you’re no longer going to do it.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

“The first handful being introduced in HoT and others released at regular intervals”. Listen we could fight about the marketing and wording all day and not get anywhere.

I’m not sure where your quote is from(not doubting it, as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen something to that effect in their blogs/etc), but the HoT website states precisely what was in my post. It explicitly says that a set of 16 legendary weapons will be added.

It’s on this page
https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma/

There’s nothing to fight about over what it says. It’s a direct quote copied from their own marketing page, and its meaning is extremely obvious. The only thing not specified is a time frame, but I don’t think “regular interval” and “indefinitely suspended” are even remotely similar. Something can’t be coming at regular intervals if it’s not even being worked on because its development was halted.

Obtena.7952:

I think my point is pretty clear so I won’t continue to argue with you about who said what or useless things like that. With the current state of Legendaries, there isn’t any reason either of the two kinds of players I described can’t be satisfied with what we presently have.

I think it was described pretty clearly by several people that it’s quite possible to not be satisfied with what we currently have. Anyone that would like to make a legendary weapon, but has no use or desire for the ones currently available that they do not already own, has a good reason for wanting more of them to be added to the game.

And your personal preferences for story content over long-term goal oriented content is just that. Your own personal preference. I like story content too, but I also realize that story content releases will never be able to keep up with players’ ability to consume it. That’s one of the reasons why long-term goal-oriented content is important. It keeps players active and interested in the game during the breaks between content releases.

If you want a steady stream of story-driven unique content, then an assortment of single player games is the best bet for that. You won’t find any single game that can deliver that, unless your available playtime is extremely limited. Even at their fastest pacing, Anet’s LW content was still only 1-2 hours of content every 2 weeks.

I believe Anet’s current plan is to do quarterly LW releases, which won’t be starting for several more months. I don’t see any way that each of those releases is going to fill the 3 month gap in between them. Even the “full expansion” worth of story content didn’t manage that. And players’ lists of long-term goals will continue to grow shorter, or empty, as more time passes and those goals are achieved.

Do you think the existing set of legendary weapon will forever be able to serve its purpose for a growing number of players that continue checking things off of that list?

A lot of players have already ran out of things to do out of that list, despite your assertion that what we have now should keep them satisfied.

[edit] time for a little fun math
I’ve made 6 legendary weapons to date, and it took me somewhere around 2-3 months to complete each of those with fairly steady effort. Assuming I want every legendary in the original set of 19 (which I do not), that would mean between 38 and 57 months, if that same rate were sustained. Averaging that out, it would be just under 48 months for me to make them all. 4 years, which just happens to be the age GW2 is coming up on in a few months. Even with the 4 (3 so far, with1 assumed to actually be coming) HoT legendary weapons, that number is still under 5 years. And I think it’s likely that we won’t be seeing any new legendary weapons by August 2017, seeing as their development is at a stand still.

So, even looking at the best case scenario, I’m out of legendary weapons (the game’s primary long-term goal, that doesn’t really have anything else comparable) in just over 1 year from now. Of course the reality is that if I were to start today and make the remaining weapons that I’m just somewhat interested in, I’d be done before the game’s 4th anniversary.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

“The first handful being introduced in HoT and others released at regular intervals”. Listen we could fight about the marketing and wording all day and not get anywhere.

Argue about wording? There’s nothing to argue about the wording. Their HoT specific website with all the features that a player will (not) get states that they "will be releasing new legendary weapons in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of sixteen has been added to the game. No mentioning of doing that after their first 3 weapons + 1 weapon 4 months after would be added to the game. I also came along this part..
“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.” Same topic – so basically the team was able to create 1 legendary weapon per month…. You do the math

bloodletting wolf.2837:

My main point is that as far as MO is concerned no more promises and more open communication.

They already tried that after the first legendary fiasco in 2013. They said they won’t be telling us about their ideas anymore, because some will end up not getting implemented in game for various reasons. They said they will only tell us about things when they will be 100% certain that we will get – which caused the lack of transparency.
Now, MO is literally playing the same tune again. And players believe him.
No. Transparency was never an issue. Working and executing plans was. Taking this in consideration – the new legendary weapons were closer to an idea than they were to a realized project – knowing how competent their team was so far, they still went with promoting this feature (in the same way as they promoted it back in 2013).

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Do you have the right to be mad? Sure. Does that give forum goers the right to be so caustic? No.

No? Why not? This forum goers paid for something and didn’t get what was promoted in return.
They held their end of the deal, the provider didn’t. They can and should be as cynical, salty, angry and loud as they are – and more, until they get what they paid for or at least until they would be pesented with a solution to the broken trade. (the customer didn’t pay for the development team to work on bugs. They paid for the expansion with the promoted features- so it’s only fair they would CONSULT with the customer, before using their money for other purposes. Instead they said "oh yea, sorry guys, we’re gonna use that money to fix the bugs and issues – which were present prior to the expac)

bloodletting wolf.2837:

What I’m trying to get across is that Anet is at a cross roads. One branch is promises with no implementation and the other is where they let us know “hey we worked on this and it didn’t work out”. I would prefer the truth no matter how uncomfortable.

Transparency was the 3rd issue, and shouldn’t be used as an excuse for their actions.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

“The first handful being introduced in HoT and others released at regular intervals”. Listen we could fight about the marketing and wording all day and not get anywhere.

It’s not only that. There’s also the whole HoT reveal show, where MO and Colin named every major part of the newly announced expansion. One of those parts was a set (full set, there was no mention of underwater weapons missing from it at that time) of new legendaries. Any informations about this set being incomplete (without underwater ones) or delayed in coming happened after the first wave of people prepurchased the expansion.

For me that means i should never prepurchase anything from Anet again. Because after i do that, and they’ll get my money, they might change the deal on me.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I would prefer the truth no matter how uncomfortable.

I’d prefer them not taking my money for things that won’t be delivered.

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

I think my point is pretty clear so I won’t continue to argue with you about who said what or useless things like that. With the current state of Legendaries, there isn’t any reason either of the two kinds of players I described can’t be satisfied with what we presently have.

I think it was described pretty clearly by several people that it’s quite possible to not be satisfied with what we currently have.

Well, I guess that goes to prove that in a game of millions of players, it’s hard to satisfy everyone which is sort of the point in the first place; some people just never satisfied, regardless of the effort and it would be folly for Anet to try … I think they are learning that now as are we. If there are players that exist where this decision significantly impacts their gameplay and enjoyment, they will leave and Anet understands that consequence.

I don’t think what I said changes; I described two kinds of players and a reasoning why the change shouldn’t really impact them. If you think there exists some other class of player that exists, go ahead and describe them and say why this is a major impact on them. You describe making 5-6 legendaries a year … if making legendaries is your WHOLE purpose in the game, I guess you will be done playing in a year or so. I don’t see a problem with that actually. You’re limiting your end game goals because there are lots of other things to do other than make Legendaries.