Guild Wars 2

Obtena.7952:

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;

No. The point is that we bought HoT which was promoted to have specific features. Features that are now canceling. With the purchase of the HoT expac, a customer signs the deal. 50€/$ for the promoted features. That’s the deal.

Obtena.7952:

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.

As a more than 10 years old online gaming company, they should have known that way earlier – before they announced, promoted, ignored the dificulties they had, and accepted our money for an expac they already knew they won’t be able to deliver.

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.

Which is none of your business. Everyone sets their own goals and everyone has different likes and dislikes.
However, if ANET promoted a specific set of features that players should get with HoT, then that’s exactly what should be developed first.

People with HoT didn’t spend their money on the LW which everyone will benefit from. We spent money for HoT features. In theory, this money is now being used for something that that has nothing to do with HoT.

Obtena.7952:

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.

It should be obvious to you, especially after being explained by myself and at least a few others, that the “classes of players” interested in legendary weapons is a wide spectrum with varying amounts of weapons desired. And even wider ranges in the determination, drive, and ability to achieve those goals. However, the actual issue is not with the “class of player”, but with the fact that the goalpost is a static one. No matter how many weapons a player wants, or how fast they are able to attain them, the simple fact exists that as long as the number of weapons remains the same every player working toward them will, at some time, run out of those goals.

Despite your unwillingness to accept or comprehend this idea, a number of players have already reached this point, or are very near to it. I’m a “living example”of this, myself. There are 8 or so weapons out of the original set of 19 that I like, and 6 out of those that I had actual use for and had enough desire for to complete. Over the last 3 and a half years I have, with various other goals and activities providing distraction along the way, exhausted that list of 6 weapons. In fact, the 6th of those weapons was completed last summer. I was waiting for the set of weapons that was sold to me with HoT to provide an extension to that list. And extension that is now not coming, a fact that leaves me without a comparable long-term goal for the foreseeable future.

Of course, there are other goals and activities in the game, but none of them are on the scale of legendary weapons. Those weapons were designed to be the ultimate endgame goal. In a game where power is fairly easily capped out, the endgame goal becomes style. There is a good reason many players refer to this game as “Fashion Wars 2”. Cosmetic items/skins, the pinnacle of which is legendary weapons, were Anet’s intended end-game goals. So as players exhaust their list of legendary goals, the need for new goals being added arises.

And that is where we are right now. As should be apparent by this thread, many of us are out of, or running out of, long-term goals. Even Anet had acknowledged the growing need to extend that list of goals going all the way back to 2013. But despite their acknowledgement of it, and promises to add more weapons, they decided it was too much trouble for them to actually finish. If Anet had already seen the desire for more weapons and a need to fulfill that desire way back in 2013, don’t you think that it would be an even more pressing issue in 2016?

You can’t really stand in the middle of a group of players that are already out of endgame goals, and expect them to agree with you saying the existing endgame goals are enough to last them….forever? I still don’t know how long you actually expect a finite list to be enough, but simple fact that it is finite means that it certainly will not last forever for anyone. Even the most casual player, taking their time with a long list of goals, will inevitably complete that list someday.

Now, we could go back and forth till the end of time over whether this existing list is enough for most players, or whether the number of players that have exhausted it warrants its extension. But those are things that we don’t know, and facts we probably never will be privileged to. I, obviously, belong to the group that wants to see more added, and you to the group that think what we have now is enough. And I know that there are still many players that are still working on the “old” list and will be for some time. However, you seem to be determined to deny the very existence of the group that is in need of more, despite the fact that you have been conversing with many of us in this thread.

But, again, all of this isn’t even on track of the point. Anet did decide that more legendary weapons were needed, and sold us an expansion that promised to deliver that. Their decision to abandon it because it was too hard doesn’t change the fact that they saw the need, and accepted our money on the promise of fulfilling it.

mrstealth.6701:

But, again, all of this isn’t even on track of the point. Anet did decide that more legendary weapons were needed, and sold us an expansion that promised to deliver that. Their decision to abandon it because it was too hard doesn’t change the fact that they saw the need, and accepted our money on the promise of fulfilling it.

You don’t seem to understand what you are actually paying for when you purchased HoT but I doubt I’m going to convince you otherwise. It’s the whole reason these arguments are flawed to begin with. Just to keep it simple .. you bought access to a service that has ongoing developing features; their priority was not specified, nor the timeline. I get that no one expected delays, indefinite or not. Well, it’s happening. You need to be more realistic about what that means for you. Finish your legendaries and quit or decide there is more to the game than that.

Spira.4578:

Which is none of your business. Everyone sets their own goals and everyone has different likes and dislikes.

Actually, it’s very much our business since you’re willingly and openly discussing in on a public forum. … so no, if people aren’t ready to talk about the goals they set for the endgame and how it relates to Legendary development, they shouldn’t use that as point for discussion and probably exclude themselves from the whole discussion in the first place.

Well I just realized why they did this… I didn’t make the connection before but it is pretty obvious in hindsight.

The decision was made for the same reason they make most decisions in the game.

Esports!

They remove all legendary weapons from PvE, while simultaneously releasing new legendary items in PvP, thus driving a significant portion of the playbase into PvP for their long term goals. They conveniently mask this decision by pretending to give other game modes a legendary item as well (fractals) but they will never complete it and ultimately it will be scrapped for not having enough resources or interest.

They have already promised to release a new legendary item for PvP every year, and they are now boasting over in the PvP forums how they have grown PvP by 130% this year.

You can bet that legendary armor will only be for the first raid and after that it will be too much work to continue, but magically they will then release a special PvP only armor set after that.

This is all part of their plan to push Esports more and more it seems.

Obtena.7952:

Spira.4578:

Which is none of your business. Everyone sets their own goals and everyone has different likes and dislikes.

Actually, it’s very much our business since you’re willingly and openly discussing in on a public forum. … so no, if people aren’t ready to talk about the goals they set for the endgame and how it relates to Legendary development, they shouldn’t use that as point for discussion and probably exclude themselves from the whole discussion in the first place.

I’m willing to mention it as part of the argument, but the only thing we actually need to know are the answer to 2 questions
Did we pay full price for the expansion? Yes
Did ANET provided with EVERYTHING they were promoting as part of HoT? No

Obtena.7952:

Probably exclude themselves from the whole discussion in the first place.

Lol!
The main issue here is the fact that the customer didn’t get what they paid for.

If there’s anyone who should be excluded from this debate, it’s the players who don’t even own HoT, as this is a matter of resources aquired from the delivery of the expansion and not the core game.

I…can’t believe anyone is actually trying to argue about whether or not ANet actually announced a full set of 16 weapons and used that announcement as a selling point for HoT. Talk about arguing in bad faith.

This is cut and dry. They said, in essence, “Here is what we will be delivering in this expansion”, they took money for said expansion, and then they declined to deliver what they said they were going to.

Given ANet’s insistence over the years that they never discuss content until they are 100% certain it is deliverable, it was entirely reasonable for people to expect the delivery of the entire new set of legendary weapons.

Arguing anything to the contrary is an argument supporting unethical behavior, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand what you are actually paying for when you purchased HoT but I doubt I’m going to convince you otherwise. It’s the whole reason these arguments are flawed to begin with. Just to keep it simple .. you bought access to a service that has ongoing developing features; their priority was not specified, nor the timeline. I get that no one expected delays, indefinite or not. Well, it’s happening. You need to be more realistic about what that means for you. Finish your legendaries and quit or decide there is more to the game than that.

It’s you that doesn’t seem to understand that it being viewed as a service doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to deliver what was advertised. Those consumer protection laws aren’t just magically inapplicable to services.

The fact that it is a service, and has ongoing development, allows for the game to evolve over time and is a disclaimer that it might not always be the exact product that was originally advertised. A key difference between this and the failure to deliver legendary weapons is that HoT was never at any point the product that was advertised. A set of 16 legendary weapon weren’t added, and then altered at some later time. They were just never added.

And I’ll likely continue playing the game a little, largely because I still have friends that play. I’ve already been playing far less than I did even in the content drought before HoT’s release. There are still fun and entertaining things to do, but long-term goals are sorely lacking, and that impacts the desire to play. WvW kept me playing for a huge portion of the last 3 and a half years, but I’ve almost entirely ignored it since the new borderland gutted the game mode. The return of the alpine border land will likely see some renewed interest. But things to do are still just that, and do not make up for the lack of long-term goals for some of us.

This is so simple.

Everything that was announced with the expansion is a promise that has been paid for and needs to be delivered, that includes legendary weapons and living story 3. Those are things that should be delivered before the next expansion. You can argue all you want about they didn’t say it would all be delivered at release, oh it would be months to years after because they didn’t give a timeline. It doesn’t matter, one way or another they need to deliver everything for that expansion before bringing the next one.

Everything else are extras to the game that Anet chooses to develop with revenue from gem store sales, they can choose what to create, can remain quiet about, can refuse to make promises on, can cancel it at any time, like for example super adventure box. I have no problems with this, this is how they operated for the 3 years before the expansion.

What if this happened to the last raid wing, or living story 3, would all players finally be angry and stand up about this? There are two routes that Anet could have gone with this, postpone/cancel a feature or buckle down and get it done. They have a large number of their staff not working on current content, they are obviously making future content the priority.

After YEARS of not telling us what’s coming out, telling us it’s company policy to not say anything because stuff can be cancelled at any time, they come out and announce a bunch of stuff for the expansion 10 months ahead. Wouldn’t it be safe to assume at this point that hey it’s stuff they are committed to fully producing to the end and not canceling once again in mid production? Now they’re even getting paid to get away with this stuff.

Mo obviously knew about the timing of legendary weapons and sab, he’s the guy in charge, I’m sure he reviewed both for a while and this isn’t an instant decision. He knew sab was in the pipeline and placing the news of legendary weapons delay a week before was a good way to minimize the damage it would cause. If they planned on releasing the legendaries before the next expansion, why bother telling us about delaying/canceling them right now?

I am fine with anet reallocating resources and changing design direction, but this is something that was a selling point of the expansion. This is content they told us directly that we would get if we purchased their product. It is absolutely not okay to suddenly say that they will not be providing what it was that we purchased without issuing refunds to everyone that purchased the expansion specifically because of this reason.

If I were to design a jacket with a hood among other features, sell that product to someone before it was finished, but assure them that I would design it the way I had described, I would not be able to suddenly say sorry, but it turns out the hood was actually too time consuming and expensive to make so I reallocated my time to enhance the other features I had promised. That would not even be legal for me to do. Now maybe that customer might actually like my hoodless jacket and be fine with the direction I took it in, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am no longer selling what it was that I had described and have completely changed the product which the customer had already purchased based on what I told them they were buying.

No matter how you look at this scenario the customer is entitled to a refund of their purchase because I am no longer selling what it was that they had purchased. Maybe GW2 has some legal mumbo jumbo stating that when you purchase our game we don’t actually have to deliver any of the things we’ve told you were going to be in that game and by purchasing our product you are agreeing to that and forfeiting your money, but that doesn’t change the fact that on a consumer satisfaction level this is going to leave a lot of people feeling incredibly salty and that GW2 has verily ripped them off and scammed them out of their money. This approach can and will destroy people’s faith in the development of this game and their ability to provide them with what it is that they are supposedly selling.

If the legendary team was not properly managing what it was they were supposed to be doing then they should have altered their approach to legendaries, not completely scrapped a selling point of the expansion.

I just realized something..
Many users said that the main issue of creating the legendaries is the implementation of the journey… But. Here’re 2 facts:
In one of the Guild Chats it was revealed that all 3 legendary weapons were already ingame for a long time (meaning, they had models ready before HoT), so visually they didn’t really do much, while.. at the same time, they actually did 23 journeys in aprox 2 years tops (giving them the benefit of the doubt of them starting working on it back in 2013, even if in 2014 they announced that their old system wouldn’t work so they had to start to design a new system ect)…
This makes it at least 1 journey per month.
Presuming that since we had 3 weapons at the beginning they also had only 3 journeys done, they would only have to do 13 – which they could do in one year.
So journeys are NOT the problem.

minbariguy.7504:

I…can’t believe anyone is actually trying to argue about whether or not ANet actually announced a full set of 16 weapons and used that announcement as a selling point for HoT. Talk about arguing in bad faith.

This is cut and dry. They said, in essence, “Here is what we will be delivering in this expansion”, they took money for said expansion, and then they declined to deliver what they said they were going to.

Given ANet’s insistence over the years that they never discuss content until they are 100% certain it is deliverable, it was entirely reasonable for people to expect the delivery of the entire new set of legendary weapons.

Arguing anything to the contrary is an argument supporting unethical behavior, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.

Me either.

Every time I come into this thread and see someone white knighting the same, tired defense on behalf of ANet, all I can do is shake my head.

It’s a sad sight.

Spira.4578:

I just realized something..
Many users said that the main issue of creating the legendaries is the implementation of the journey… But. Here’re 2 facts:
In one of the Guild Chats it was revealed that all 3 legendary weapons were already ingame for a long time (meaning, they had models ready before HoT), so visually they didn’t really do much, while.. at the same time, they actually did 23 journeys in aprox 2 years tops (giving them the benefit of the doubt of them starting working on it back in 2013, even if in 2014 they announced that their old system wouldn’t work so they had to start to design a new system ect)…
This makes it at least 1 journey per month.
Presuming that since we had 3 weapons at the beginning they also had only 3 journeys done, they would only have to do 13 – which they could do in one year.
So journeys are NOT the problem.

You have a point. Though, the new legendary weapons also have that sort of journey attached to the last stage final weapon itself, that was supposed to be on-par with the precursor collections. It does however make it look like they should at least be able to provide a full set new of precursor journeys with the final stages being mostly crafting/forging. This is similar to what myself and others have suggested, implementing a toned-down, more manageable journey on order to get the feature into the game.

But, as you pointed out, it looks like they did manage to make a 22 (not counting the new shortbow) precursor journeys and 3 legendary journeys in what was likely not much over 1 year. So creating the remaining 26 journeys (13 pre + 13 legendary) should not have taken them much longer, almost surely not the “years” that was claimed. Even at their original estimates, completing the legendary set was still going to take more than a year beyond HoT’s releaese date.

In any case, I’m not really sure how Anet thought not delivering on a paid-for feature at all was somehow a better solution than shipping it in a slightly less legendary state than was initially expected. I suppose some would still be disappointed in it, and blame Anet for falling short of expectations, but that is surely better than shipping nothing and satisfying no one.

They claim the journey is the hard part. Which is ironic because they don’t actually develop new content for that, just place triggers in already created content.

I’m wondering where the 6 months went, give 1 person half a week and they could probably sketch out a event paths for ALL the legendary weapons. Add 5 more people and I don’t think its that hard to think it could be fully implemented within 1-2 months. Add animation developments and troubleshooting and reviews, and 6 months seems very plausible for all the weapons, or at least the core ones (know one cares about water weapons).

If they really only have one weapon to add after 6 months, they should fire that team. More like they probably did and are now moving the replacements to other area’s.

That said, their whole argument is fundamentally incoherent. They want to make it hard but because its hard they don’t have time to do it. If the current ones are any indicator they are for the most part flavorless anyway. Make a flask to hold electric charges, 90% of the events have no relation to electricity.

Harddrive.2738:

They claim the journey is the hard part. Which is ironic because they don’t actually develop new content for that, just place triggers in already created content.

I’m wondering where the 6 months went, give 1 person half a week and they could probably sketch out a event paths for ALL the legendary weapons. Add 5 more people and I don’t think its that hard to think it could be fully implemented within 1-2 months. Add animation developments and troubleshooting and reviews, and 6 months seems very plausible for all the weapons, or at least the core ones (know one cares about water weapons).

If they really only have one weapon to add after 6 months, they should fire that team. More like they probably did and are now moving the replacements to other area’s.

That said, their whole argument is fundamentally incoherent. They want to make it hard but because its hard they don’t have time to do it. If the current ones are any indicator they are for the most part flavorless anyway. Make a flask to hold electric charges, 90% of the events have no relation to electricity.

Or, I dont know… bring back the weapon design contest from gw1 … but having your community design the stuff they love to have ingame… for free even, maybe… oh no, we cant do that, that would be too much work. according to the TOS atleast. gg anet.

Harddrive.2738:

They claim the journey is the hard part. Which is ironic because they don’t actually develop new content for that, just place triggers in already created content.

As some posters here have said, some difficulty could have cropped up in adding additional features to the old/core game code. Which does make sense, especially if the people that built those old parts of the game are no longer with Anet. But there are also issues with that theory.

If you go back to some of the posts about GW2’s development, Anet was supposedly making a game that was built from the ground up to be easy to later add events and other content to. I believe it was stated specifically that the more complex code was in the underlying engine and systems, and that pretty much all content was handled with much simpler scripting. A somewhat rough comparison would be to say that adding events, items, and most playable content was stated to be more akin to the process an Elder Scrolls/Fallout modder would use to add a quest than the process of coding a new game.

This doesn’t mean that everything is easy, and that problems don’t crop up that require complex solutions, but it shows that the game’s older content shouldn’t be a mess that is overly difficult to work with.

Spira.4578:

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)

Really? Life has taught you that this is how you get your way: expressing your anger loudly, being salty and cynical? Cynicism is not constructive and throwing a tantrum most likely won’t lead to your desired results. Most children in the world (the ones whose parents/guardians actually have a backbone, that is) can tell you this. Just imagine how you would respond to someone treating you that way, whether you’ve actually wronged him or not. Is this the only way to get through to you if the roles were reversed? If so, I can understand your point of view, but it also comes off as pretty closeminded. Whether you’re justified or not, it’s best to take the high ground and show some maturity. People are much more likely to take you serious and listen to you then.

Also, game developers asking players if they’re allowed to fix bugs? You have quite a warped sense of reality, in my opinion. There are bugs in every MMO and there are always developers working on fixing those bugs. Name one MMO in the history of MMO’s that never had bugs. Never have I seen a player demanding that developers ask their consent for fixing those bugs; it’s assumed to be part of the deal, to keep the game working, and that means fixing bugs that unavoidably will turn up throughout the years. You pay for continued access and for a game that has events, instances and mechanics that work. Keeping the game free of bugs as much as possible is part of that deal. You do not directly pay a game developer’s employees and therefore do not decide what they should or shouldn’t do or, looking at it from your perspective, are or aren’t allowed to do. That is not what the price of a game stands for and you know that very well. No matter that your words hold some truth to them, that does not hide the fact that you’re overreacting, which is an emotional response. Emotional responses are good, in a way, because that probably means you care about the game. But don’t leave reason by the wayside.

And no, I am no white knight. I, too, am of the opinion that ANet owes us more than just an apology and content they’re working on for the near future. That content was always going to come sooner or later so it has no bearing on their decision to indefinitely cancel (and we all know what that means in business terms) new legendary weapons. No matter their intention, by marketing a priced product with certain aspects, you create the expectation that said aspects will be part of the package you decide to pay for, even if those aspects are said to come later and not at the release date. And that makes you responsible to uphold the image you created, whether it was meant to be carved in stone or fluid. Heart of Thorns was marketed as introducing 16 new legendary weapons to be released at regular intervals. It wasn’t marketed as setting up a system that would enable them to easily add new legendaries with future patches/expansions. That is how they advertised the Mastery system, for instance, but not the new legendary weapons. I don’t find this decision a healthy one in the short term, but I’m sitting back and waiting to see how this will play out in the long term (because any planning done for a MMO is a long term plan, which means you can only reasonably pass your final judgement on it when that term has passed). New legendary weapons were part of the reason I bought Heart of Thorns, but by no means the only one. I feel like I’ve had more than my money’s worth in the almost 6 months the expansion has been live, despite the disappointment of no more legendary weapons, but that’s an entirely personal judgement only I can make. But please, don’t act like this is the end of the world or any other sort of traumatic experience that would actually merit an emotional overreaction. It is just a game, after all, and it should have no bearing on your life or person. If it does, well, that’s an entirely different discussion.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Spira.4578:

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)

Really? Life has taught you that this is how you get your way: expressing your anger loudly, being salty and cynical? Cynicism is not constructive and throwing a tantrum most likely won’t lead to your desired results. Most children in the world (the ones whose parents/guardians actually have a backbone, that is) can tell you this. Just imagine how you would respond to someone treating you that way, whether you’ve actually wronged him or not. Is this the only way to get through to you if the roles were reversed? If so, I can understand your point of view, but it also comes off as pretty closeminded. Whether you’re justified or not, it’s best to take the high ground and show some maturity. People are much more likely to take you serious and listen to you then.

Anet has shown again and again that they don’t react and don’t communicate unless the community explodes in anger. It’s the only thing that works when dealing with this company.

Lord Kuru.3685:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Spira.4578:

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)

Really? Life has taught you that this is how you get your way: expressing your anger loudly, being salty and cynical? Cynicism is not constructive and throwing a tantrum most likely won’t lead to your desired results. Most children in the world (the ones whose parents/guardians actually have a backbone, that is) can tell you this. Just imagine how you would respond to someone treating you that way, whether you’ve actually wronged him or not. Is this the only way to get through to you if the roles were reversed? If so, I can understand your point of view, but it also comes off as pretty closeminded. Whether you’re justified or not, it’s best to take the high ground and show some maturity. People are much more likely to take you serious and listen to you then.

Anet has shown again and again that they don’t react and don’t communicate unless the community explodes in anger. It’s the only thing that works when dealing with this company.

They’re right, nothing short of a complete meltdown seems to get their attention.

And, honestly, if I had taken someone’s money for a product/service knowing that I was not going to be able to deliver it, I would expect an irate response. Not a calm discussion and willingness to accept my excuses.

Am I really to believe that when I bought HoT back in November that Anet was not aware of, after already developing 19 precursor crafting journeys and 3 full pre-through-legendary journeys, the amount of effort involve in creating the remaining 13 weapons?

After having done this 25 times already, Anet should be quite familiar with the process of making these journeys/collections. They most certainly had to know by October, and probably even before they started accepting cash for pre-orders in June, how long it was going to take the finish the new set of weapons. They had likely already decided they weren’t going to finish the job before the game launched, but had no issue continuing to take money for it.

TheNecrosanct, I won’t quote the whole message because it’s too long. but here’s my reply to it.

What you are saying is that when someone takes your money, you should smile at them and ask them if they want your credit card as well?
What you said is a nice but idealistic view of life. It works only when both sides are being equaly caring and on a similar morale level.
The Company:customer relation is not based on morales but on laws and trading standards. And same as ANET won’t kindly message the user who bought a key on a webpage that is not a legitime provider (but will rather simply ban the account), the customer also doesn’t have to show any kind of affection toward the company. And since in this case ANET is using the money that their customers paid for the FULL HoT expansion, to work on something else (due to their internal problems), they breached their trading agreement. What makes things worse is that ANET simply told them “Hey, we’re not gonna give you what you paid for, but work on something else. trust us, it’s for the greater good” without even asking their customers if they are okay with that.

You also called basic and most common marketing procedure a warped reality. I’m trying to understand why.
It seems like you don’t see players as individuals but rather as a group; and consequently the money they individualy gave for HoT as a collective amount of money that ANET can use for whatever they want.
Customers buying the client, was a deal/trade in the first place. Even if some generous players will say that they bought it to support ANET, the bare reality is, we used that money to buy the expansion – that’s why players that didn’t buy it also didn’t get masteries and other features that made in the live game. Therefore, if the company decides to take a different course of action for something that they were selling and were still supposed to deliver, it is not just nice but mandatory (yes, even for internet goods, thanks to the trading laws update from 2015) to offer their customer another solution (the actual promised item, a full refund, a partial refund, ect..).

So it’s not about ANET asking us if we allow them to fix bugs, it’s about ANET asking us if we want something in return for not providing the product in the form that was promoted.

You said that the price of the expansion doesn’t stand for the features but rather for the developments work. If that would be the case, HoT features wouldn’t be locked for players who didn’t buy HoT.

Maybe you are not a white knight, you are however a dreamer. Which is refreshing to see in the world we live in. The world would be a better place if everyone would act like this, for which I salute you.
Sadly tho, the world doesn’t work like that and this pure kindness in most cases gets eventually exploited by companies and other greedy people.

I lived by this principles and I’ll continue to do so, standing behind the philosophy I kept developing troughout my life.
I give what I recieve. I won’t be kind to people who are waiting for an opportunity to exploit my kindness.

I’m curious about this legendary team. Just how many people were part of it during HoT’s development…the parts of it that were actually being worked on before they released?

If it has taken 6 people 6 months to produce a single legendary weapon, this can’t be the same team that built the precursor crafting that shipped with HoT and the 3 weapons that came shortly after. It would have taken them taken them about 4 years to complete that task at this pace.

It looks like this team either had a lot more people on it during that time, or a different team was in charge of the original set precursor journey while this team was struggling to produce 3 weapons. In either scenario, it would have been obvious to Anet that these 6 people were not going to be able to finish the remaining weapons in any reasonable time frame, and that Anet had the people needed to finish the job and chose to use them elsewhere knowing the job would go unfinished.

mrstealth.6701:

I’m curious about this legendary team. Just how many people were part of it during HoT’s development…the parts of it that were actually being worked on before they released?

If it has taken 6 people 6 months to produce a single legendary weapon, this can’t be the same team that built the precursor crafting that shipped with HoT and the 3 weapons that came shortly after. It would have taken them taken them about 4 years to complete that task at this pace.

It looks like this team either had a lot more people on it during that time, or a different team was in charge of the original set precursor journey. In either scenario, it would have been obvious to Anet that these 6 people were not going to be able to finish the remaining weapons in any reasonable time frame, and that Anet had the people needed to finish the job and chose to use them elsewhere knowing the job would go unfinished.

The had to fix a bunch of issues relating the all the precursor collections. There had been Dev repainted about this like back in December. My guess is the team did not focus on the short bow development until January. Of course there’s no way to tell but that team was I charge of fixing collections issues and possibly bugged event chains preventing precursor collections. And revamping collections so that they do not rely on events failing.

mrstealth.6701:

I’m curious about this legendary team. Just how many people were part of it during HoT’s development…the parts of it that were actually being worked on before they released?

If it has taken 6 people 6 months to produce a single legendary weapon, this can’t be the same team that built the precursor crafting that shipped with HoT and the 3 weapons that came shortly after. It would have taken them taken them about 4 years to complete that task at this pace.

It looks like this team either had a lot more people on it during that time, or a different team was in charge of the original set precursor journey while this team was struggling to produce 3 weapons. In either scenario, it would have been obvious to Anet that these 6 people were not going to be able to finish the remaining weapons in any reasonable time frame, and that Anet had the people needed to finish the job and chose to use them elsewhere knowing the job would go unfinished.

Well to be fair they first announced we were getting revamped precursor journey in early 2013… so it may have actually taken almost 4 years… Of course you think they would have figured out it was not sustainable sometime long before now.

It’s pretty obvious that the problem is incompetence, and only incompetence.

Andraus.3874:

mrstealth.6701:

I’m curious about this legendary team. Just how many people were part of it during HoT’s development…the parts of it that were actually being worked on before they released?

If it has taken 6 people 6 months to produce a single legendary weapon, this can’t be the same team that built the precursor crafting that shipped with HoT and the 3 weapons that came shortly after. It would have taken them taken them about 4 years to complete that task at this pace.

It looks like this team either had a lot more people on it during that time, or a different team was in charge of the original set precursor journey. In either scenario, it would have been obvious to Anet that these 6 people were not going to be able to finish the remaining weapons in any reasonable time frame, and that Anet had the people needed to finish the job and chose to use them elsewhere knowing the job would go unfinished.

The had to fix a bunch of issues relating the all the precursor collections. There had been Dev repainted about this like back in December. My guess is the team did not focus on the short bow development until January. Of course there’s no way to tell but that team was I charge of fixing collections issues and possibly bugged event chains preventing precursor collections. And revamping collections so that they do not rely on events failing.

You’re right about that. During the couple months after release, they were also dealing with issues from 19 other precursor collections that were released shortly before. So if the unforeseen difficulties of 25 collections can be resolved in a couple months, the “difficulties” of adding the remaining 26 collections probably don’t present much more of a problem. And similar issues that came up with the those initial 25 collections should be more easily avoidable or faster to resolve for subsequent weapons, unless this team really is incompetent and would have continued requiring events to fail in order to obtain items for a collection.

This is all, of course, assuming that this small team was also the same group fixing all of these issues. It’s likely that at least some of them were resolved by other people/teams.

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand what you are actually paying for when you purchased HoT

And you seem to think that apparently i should just accept that what i actually paid for were empty promises, and i shouldn’t have expected any of them to be fulfilled at all. And like that, for some reason.
No, sorry. A major part of expansion is a major part of expansion. if i have paid for it, i expect all the major parts to actually be delivered. Or i won’t be prepurchasing anything from Anet again.

Because if i accept the premise that Anet can (and will) change the deal after getting the money, and is not actually expected to deliver any major features, then i’d be stupid to give them any money before actually confirming that everything they advertised have already made it into the game.

In a thread started to offer transparency, I think some actual transparency is in order. There seem to be a couple likely (but not the only, of course) explanations for the supposedly massive issues with adding the remaining legendary weapons.

1 – The team is abysmally incompetent, and spent a year or more to implement 3 new legendary weapons, while another (apparently amazing) team completed 19 precursor collections (a task that should be similar to 10 new weapons) in the same time. This team then spent several months fixing issues with their 3 weapons, while the theoretical 2nd team had their 19 collections sorted out within the same time frame.

2 – The team is quite impressive, and managed to implement 19 precursor collections and 3 new weapons, mostly within the confines of HoT’s development period (due to the 2014 restart on the pre collections). They then managed to resolve the issues with all of these collections within a couple months, and were ready to start working on the remaining weapons.

If it’s #1, then I have to wonder how this could possibly go on for so long without being resolved. It absolutely had to have been known that this team had no chance of delivering long before HoT was released, or even being sold. Why not hand this off to the clearly better team that would be capable of finishing it?

If it’s #2, why has development been stopped over what would be a delay of a couple months, at most? A couple months of bugfixing a project that would be done in a little over a year (a time estimate from just before HoT’s release, after already making 3 weapons) is not the job “taking years” to complete. It’s 6 people, out of a company with a couple hundred employees taking a couple more months to polish their project. The only “reason” to to this is because you decided that you simply do not want to finish the job and wanted these few people working elsewhere.

In either of these cases, why keep selling the expansion with the claim of these weapons being deliverable? There is no way that these problems were not known at or before HoT’s release. You don’t work on 25 collections for over a year, then suddenly discover afterwards that the remaining 26 collections are too hard to make.

Neither of these, nor any other explanation I can think of give a good reason for this decision. Anet has already shown that they are in fact capable of delivering 25 collections of precursor/legendary content in a time frame seemingly consistent with their claimed schedule of 1 month per, with a fairly small margin of error for dealing with issues/difficulties. Whether this was the job of the stated 6-dev team, or some other/larger group, really doesn’t matter. It shows their claim of being incapable of delivering the remaining weapons is purely a product of their own decisions and resource mismanagement, which is by no means a valid excuse for not providing what was sold.

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand what you are actually paying for when you purchased HoT

And you seem to think that apparently i should just accept that what i actually paid for were empty promises, and i shouldn’t have expected any of them to be fulfilled at all. And like that, for some reason.
No, sorry. A major part of expansion is a major part of expansion. if i have paid for it, i expect all the major parts to actually be delivered. Or i won’t be prepurchasing anything from Anet again.

Because if i accept the premise that Anet can (and will) change the deal after getting the money, and is not actually expected to deliver any major features, then i’d be stupid to give them any money before actually confirming that everything they advertised have already made it into the game.

No, you have options … you can either accept that Legendary crafting was unsustainable content, forget it and enjoy the other aspects of the game or decide that it’s such a big deal to you that you quit the game.

Despite what people think … QQing on the forums is not an effective avenue for changes, especially ones that are business related. While I do think Anet listens to players, I think decisions that affect the bottom line are communicated to us as a courtesy in the interest of open communication, not to open a debate with players to compel them to rethink the decision.

Obtena.7952:

While I do think Anet listens to players, I think decisions that affect the bottom line are communicated to us as a courtesy in the interest of open communication, not to open a debate with players to compel them to rethink the decision.

That sure wasn’t what happened with the HoT/core game bundling/price fiasco last summer. Anet didn’t make a drastic shift in their business decisions, but it was a decent change in showing good will and appreciation to customers.

The current issue is about a “business decision” that should not have even existed. The decision was already made when Anet decided to commit to completing this project and proceeded to market their expansion based on that decision.

I have to question the competence of those in charge when a decision to anger a large number of your customers, turn your previous current marketing into a lie, and essentially have you running off with your customers’ money is considered to be good for the company.

Obtena.7952:

While I do think Anet listens to players, I think decisions that affect the bottom line are communicated to us as a courtesy in the interest of open communication, not to open a debate with players to compel them to rethink the decision.

“Anet listens to players and they want open communication, but that doesn’t mean you can call them out when they go back on their word!”

Honestly it doesn’t matter even matter why they suspended development. The precursor collections have been a mess since they were implemented, but implemented they were and that was anet’s decision and fault. Content was promised and will go undelivered indefinitely and that is wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s incompetence or lack of manpower or just a plain bad idea to start with; any failings they have that prevent them from delivering this content is not an excuse and this does not shift the blame away from them. Understanding why the decision was made does not make it right and does not mean they shouldn’t endeavor to make it right.

It is OK to say this to anet.

Obtena.7952:

No, you have options … you can either accept that Legendary crafting was unsustainable content, forget it and enjoy the other aspects of the game or decide that it’s such a big deal to you that you quit the game.

If anything were to be labeled as unsustainable content, it’s living world/story content that we’ve seen for the past two seasons. A couple hours of content that takes weeks to months to develop, followed by weeks or months of nothing new to do. It’s just not possible to make content at the rate players are able to go through it.

But I’m not going to argue for the suspension of that type of content. Even though I was far from impressed with the majority of Anet’s installments, I understand the value of such content. It offers change and growth to the world, and the ability to progress the game’s narrative. It keeps players interested and involved with the game’s world.

I’d prefer spend my time on long-term reward goals over more episodic story but I do not want to see living world content sacrificed for it. I don’t have the right to tell players that content that is important to them shouldn’t be made because I think the content that matters to me is more important.

minbariguy.7504:

I…can’t believe anyone is actually trying to argue about whether or not ANet actually announced a full set of 16 weapons and used that announcement as a selling point for HoT. Talk about arguing in bad faith.

This is cut and dry. They said, in essence, “Here is what we will be delivering in this expansion”, they took money for said expansion, and then they declined to deliver what they said they were going to.

Given ANet’s insistence over the years that they never discuss content until they are 100% certain it is deliverable, it was entirely reasonable for people to expect the delivery of the entire new set of legendary weapons.

Arguing anything to the contrary is an argument supporting unethical behavior, no matter how much lipstick you put on the pig.

To be fair, min, they’ve “postponed indefinitely.” That means that they have not failed to deliver, they’ve just increased the intervals between releases by an indeterminate number. I’m pretty sure that means they aren’t legally at risk. I’m also pretty sure that they have a lawyer on staff or on call who vetted this process, or that the clause in the ToU/UA which states that game conditions may change covers their butts.

What they have also done is disappointed yet another segment of their player-base. Just like they’ve disappointed lots of other segments of said player-base. What remains to be seen is how many remain in their corner.

I feel like im being betrayed. So much right now its almost unbearable. I want to play, yet every time I see the dragon, even on some of my favorite youtubers I just … I just cant. Ive been playing since, since the first beta weekend. Ive been playing since the first beta weekend, almost 4 years ago… Hell more. I dont even remember. I dont have high AP, I always just appreciated teh game. But now I cant even do that. I just. I payed 60$ for the HOT update. ALL OF THE UPDATE. Im missing 2 parts. WVW and LEgendaries. You said they were coming. I waited. You said they were close. I waited. Amazon Hired people, you said it wouldnt change anything. You lied. I never got a legendary, becuase since 2013 Ive been waiting for teh “soon to be coming Gen 2 Legendaries” . I saw collections and was like WOW HERES THE SYSTEM FOR LEGENDARIES. I saw precurser crafting later and was liek WOW THEY CAN DO THIS REALLY . I saw the new legendaries and I was so happy, so exited. I feel betrayed.
You betrayed us Anet.
I cant even play your game becuase I feel betrayed.
You put out SAB in a form of “maybe youll forget if u play” I cant even log in.
This game got me through the hardest times of my life. Im about to let it go.
I cant. You betrayed me anet.
I dont think Ill play again.
BTW:
ONLY 2 CLASSES USE SHORTBOW

I as a player am willing to skip everything, I just want the weapons. Ill mystic forge them if I have too. I dont want living world. I want endgame content. I dont want SAB, I want my weapons. I dont want black lion skins, I want Lore developement. I dont want infinite picks, I want lore. I dont want glider skins, I want Characters and story.
I cant even look at my charr plushie and Rytlock Brimstone model without frowning lately.
Anet, why?
I could have waited for even another year, as long as you delivered.
Dont break your promises.
With a weary heart I saw its been fun… I dont know what itll take for me to even play again. I hope I do.
-Ljeytl

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

No, you have options … you can either accept that Legendary crafting was unsustainable content, forget it and enjoy the other aspects of the game or decide that it’s such a big deal to you that you quit the game.

If anything were to be labeled as unsustainable content, it’s living world/story content that we’ve seen for the past two seasons. A couple hours of content that takes weeks to months to develop, followed by weeks or months of nothing new to do. It’s just not possible to make content at the rate players are able to go through it.

But I’m not going to argue for the suspension of that type of content. Even though I was far from impressed with the majority of Anet’s installments, I understand the value of such content. It offers change and growth to the world, and the ability to progress the game’s narrative. It keeps players interested and involved with the game’s world.

I’d prefer spend my time on long-term reward goals over more episodic story but I do not want to see living world content sacrificed for it. I don’t have the right to tell players that content that is important to them shouldn’t be made because I think the content that matters to me is more important.

I guess that’s a matter of opinion. Anet has the data to make these decisions, we don’t.

Obtena.7952:

I guess that’s a matter of opinion. Anet has the data to make these decisions, we don’t.

During the past history, Anet proved to us time and time again that they are extremely bad at interpreting their metrics.

It still doesn’t matter. The simple truth is, they got the money, and then didn’t deliver. No amount of sugarcoating or sidestepping the issue will change that.

The fact that they have shown that once they get their money they no longer care whether promised goods get delivered is going to bite them in the behind once the next expansion prepurchase time arrives. Because only a dumb person is ever going to trust their promises again.

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

No, you have options … you can either accept that Legendary crafting was unsustainable content, forget it and enjoy the other aspects of the game or decide that it’s such a big deal to you that you quit the game.

If anything were to be labeled as unsustainable content, it’s living world/story content that we’ve seen for the past two seasons. A couple hours of content that takes weeks to months to develop, followed by weeks or months of nothing new to do. It’s just not possible to make content at the rate players are able to go through it.

But I’m not going to argue for the suspension of that type of content. Even though I was far from impressed with the majority of Anet’s installments, I understand the value of such content. It offers change and growth to the world, and the ability to progress the game’s narrative. It keeps players interested and involved with the game’s world.

I’d prefer spend my time on long-term reward goals over more episodic story but I do not want to see living world content sacrificed for it. I don’t have the right to tell players that content that is important to them shouldn’t be made because I think the content that matters to me is more important.

I guess that’s a matter of opinion. Anet has the data to make these decisions, we don’t.

Which type of content we like is and feel is more important to us is indeed our personal opinion. But story-driven non-repetitive content being unable keep players occupied is a fact of game development. If that were possible, games would be produced at the same rate players complete them.

We have seen some LW content that was designed to be repeated, and was well-received by a lot of players (Dry Top, Silverwastes, Marionette to name a few). But those releases also didn’t carry much story with them, or had their story elements as shorter bits of content within the same areas. Content designed to be repeated is less suited to having story elements built into it, as the storytelling is something players usually don’t want repeated over and over.

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

No, you have options … you can either accept that Legendary crafting was unsustainable content, forget it and enjoy the other aspects of the game or decide that it’s such a big deal to you that you quit the game.

If anything were to be labeled as unsustainable content, it’s living world/story content that we’ve seen for the past two seasons. A couple hours of content that takes weeks to months to develop, followed by weeks or months of nothing new to do. It’s just not possible to make content at the rate players are able to go through it.

But I’m not going to argue for the suspension of that type of content. Even though I was far from impressed with the majority of Anet’s installments, I understand the value of such content. It offers change and growth to the world, and the ability to progress the game’s narrative. It keeps players interested and involved with the game’s world.

I’d prefer spend my time on long-term reward goals over more episodic story but I do not want to see living world content sacrificed for it. I don’t have the right to tell players that content that is important to them shouldn’t be made because I think the content that matters to me is more important.

I guess that’s a matter of opinion. Anet has the data to make these decisions, we don’t.

Which type of content we like is and feel is more important to us is indeed our personal opinion. But story-driven non-repetitive content being unable keep players occupied is a fact of game development.

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways. It’s a waste of resources and the decision to put those resources to better use is a good one.

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific. As I’ve pointed out a few times, legendary weapons are the premier long-term goal Anet has given us, but they are not the only one. I’m not the one that decided they were the “ultimate” endgame goal, it was Anet that made that choice when they created them.

As for other types of endgame what content, most of what we have seen added over the past 3 years falls into just a few categories of content.

One-off instance based story releases that have limited repeatability, usually based around achievements (every instanced part of LS1 and LS2)

Open world events designed to be repeated to obtain rewards/currencies to buy rewards with (Silverwates, Dry Top, Tequatl/Shatterer overhauls)

Repeatable instanced content with similar reward structure to the above (fractals, raids)

Item rewards earned as long-term goals (ascended gear, back items such Mawdrey, collections)

With the initial release of GW2, endgame content was essentially limited to dungeons (which have now just been replaced by fractals), repetition of open world events/bosses, legendary weapons, wvw, and pvp. I believe the general consensus is that the majority of players seem more pve focused, but wvw and pvp are still endgame content for a good number of people. That leaves most of the player base with a limited selection of endgame content.

Even Anet quickly recognized the fact that endgame content was very lacking. Legendary weapons were the only goal that wasn’t quickly attainable, and players were asking for more. There were other things to do, but little reason to actually do them for many players that lacked goals. Players that were not interested in legendary weapons were actually in the worst position.

Anet’s answer to that problem was adding ascended gear and fractals very soon after launch. A single move that added the two types of endgame content designed to keep players active. A long-term goal to work toward and consistently rewarding repeatable content. We did already have repeatable content, but the difference with fractals was its progressive reward system encouraging players to do it.

Aside from story-driven releases, pretty much every bit of endgame content we’ve had since launch or seen added over the last 3 years has been either repeatable content for rewards or a long-term goal. I’m not trying to belittle the importance of story-based content, but the fact remains that the time it takes to produce story content versus the time it takes players to consume it makes that type of content alone unable to keep players playing. Nor am I trying to limit what I see as qualifying endgame content. These are simply the types of content Anet has given us.

edit – some added thoughts for the futre

What I’d like to see for future content is more story instances combined with the continued addition of repeatable open-world content. This is essentially what HoT gave us. New, fresh additions to the selection of repeatable content, and its associated rewards, helps to ensure that players don’t burn out on content and have new rewards to work on. New long-term goals as a part of those rewards that can keep many more players interested in that content for an even longer time, and legendary weapons just happen to still be the premier long-term reward. But their ability to remain a viable goal to sustain interest is in a steady state of decline as more and more players attain them.

Well if its the collections and tieing them to events that take to much time to develop its quite simple scrap em and tie the new skins of legendarys to the old ones.

Just as we can switch stats we can now switch skins.

People who have made the 2 gen legendarys get gold refunded to bring it in line with 1 gen legendary of same type.

If you made both gold refunded equal to the material cost of 2 gen one.

Im guessing the system to make a second non flashy legendary is scraped aswell?
As luck would have it this solves that problem to since all the first gen legenarys are still avaliable in game so you can get two of the same kind.

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific.

If that’s the case, then why do we keep seeing arguments for continued development of Legendaries based on keeping players occupied at the endgame?

As a matter of fact … if we are so concerned for content to keep people occupied endgame, then that’s an argument FOR stopping Legendary development because those devs could be placed on more pertinent and sustainable content development.

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific.

If that’s the case, then why do we keep seeing arguments for continued development of Legendaries based on keeping players occupied at the endgame?

As a matter of fact … if we are so concerned for content to keep people occupied endgame, then that’s an argument FOR stopping Legendary development because those devs could be placed on more pertinent and sustainable content development.

Because legendary weapons are a key part of the game’s endgame content. Their importance isn’t a concept constructed by myself or other players to support their continued development. It’s an idea established and continually reinforced by Anet since well before GW2 launched. An idea that they kept pushing until development was unceremoniously dropped a week ago.

Contrary to what was said by MO in this thread, it doesn’t really seem that legendary development is much less doable than Anet thought it was going to be during the time they were accepting money based on the promise to finish it. If it was really that difficult, they would have known it long before HoT released. Sure, there were issues that cropped up after launch, but they also included problems from an entire set of precursors for the old legendaries in addition to the 3 new ones. Problems are to be expected with the addition of a major system to the game, and that set of them was resolved in a time frame not unlike other major additions. Similar difficulties with the remaining weapons should still leave them reasonably on-track with their stated estimate. To put it bluntly, their reasons for suspending development don’t make any sense, and seem like a flimsy excuse for not doing it.

I don’t think anyone is actually trying to argue for legendary weapons as sustainable content. That idea seems to be of your own creation in order to support their suspension. The sustainable, continually developed, content to keep players in the game is most likely going to be repeatable open-world events/bosses, supplemented with story-based instances. Legendary weapons are a type of content you’d more often see as an occasional addition, as they create a longer lasting goal. Occasional is more often than “indefinitely suspended”, and it’s been 3 and a half years since the initial set of weapons. What’s being argued for is the completion of the single set of weapons we were sold.

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific.

If that’s the case, then why do we keep seeing arguments for continued development of Legendaries based on keeping players occupied at the endgame?

As a matter of fact … if we are so concerned for content to keep people occupied endgame, then that’s an argument FOR stopping Legendary development because those devs could be placed on more pertinent and sustainable content development.

Because legendary weapons are a key part of the game’s endgame content. Their importance isn’t a concept constructed by myself or other players to support their continued development. It’s an idea established and continually reinforced by Anet since well before GW2 launched. An idea that they kept pushing until development was unceremoniously dropped a week ago.

That’s debateable. What exactly makes them a key part of the endgame content? They don’t unlock anything. They aren’t a step up in performance over Ascended weapons. The stat swapping function isn’t useful. They aren’t tied to a story or an event in the game. There isn’t even too much achievement associated with them.

On the other hand, there are several indicators to suggest they AREN’T key to the game; Anet has only been able to release 4 of them in those 6 months, If legendaries didn’t exist at all, very little would be different in this game. They are a distraction for the dev team with big cost and small returns and a very limited audience. Even now that they are associated with a series of activities, those activities are just random events. This is hardly key content.

They are a key part of the endgame because the system of goals set by Anet is based on style and cosmetics, instead of the unending power treadmill most other MMOs use. Legendary weapons are the shiniest of the shiny things in the game, items that Anet has held up on a pedestal for years saying “look at these pretty shiny things we put in for you to work toward”.

They aren’t a specific activity (even the new ones still require a lot of non-specific-activity effort) and that is part of their design. They create a general drive and desire to play the game, a reason to play any other content whether it be new or old. They are a compliment to other content as much as, or maybe more than, they are content themselves.

As for the time frame of releases we’ve seen since launch, some others did point out a few issues with the supposed difficulties. It’s easy to look at the development time of HoT and think Anet spent well over a year making 3 weapons, but there was more going on during that time. They had 3 weapons nearly done at launch, and we don’t know if there was work being done on all 3 at them, or they were just holding the first 2 while the other was being completed. The time daily between those 3 and the upcoming 4th was filled with fixes and polish for those weapon, in addition to another 19 precursor collections. The framework of the journey/collection system also had to be laid out. So the delay in getting weapon 4, and the rest of the set, shipped is likely not as severe as their statements indicate.

It would be far easier to accept these projects as not viable to finish if their reasons actually made some sense, or were explained at a time when they would have made sense. You don’t spend well over a year making that many collections and weapons, then suddenly decide that the other half of the job is too much work.

mrstealth.6701:

They are a key part of the endgame because the system of goals set by Anet is based on style and cosmetics, instead of the unending power treadmill most other MMOs use.

Then you could say that about ANY piece of gear … they are all a system of goals set by Anet based on style and cosmetics. Such a broadly defined think can hardly be considered ‘key’.

For those that argue that it’s not a big part of the game or they don’t care because they weren’t planning to do Precursor crafting or that it was done for the good of the game and therefore it’s ok, they should look at long term financial impact of this decision for ANet if ANet doesn’t put it in before the next expansion.

There’s no way that this won’t be an issue from now on. It brings up issues of trust, promises, money taken but services not provided, expansions begun but not completed. These are all red button issues and it’s going to be brought up over and over. Just think how it’s going to look when ANet publicly announces its next expansion, takes questions from the audience and gets a series of very public questions from the audience about how they stole money, how they broke promises, how the last expansion was never finished, and why should anyone trust them to not lie or steal again. There will be questions there and there will be questions on the forum about this while ANet is trying to build hype. This is the sort of this that will impact the sales of the next expansion and even if if you don’t care about precursor crafting, if you care about the game you should care about the Devs having a reputation for promising, taking money and not delivering and the impact of a bad reputation on sales and the population of players.

Arguments about financials from players that have none of them is pretty presumptuous. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that people are suggesting that Anet has not first and foremost considered this factor; it’s a business, it impacts employees in significant ways and obviously affects us as players. The suggestions here people make indicate Anet have taken this decision lightly. I can assure you they have not.

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific.

If that’s the case, then why do we keep seeing arguments for continued development of Legendaries based on keeping players occupied at the endgame?

As a matter of fact … if we are so concerned for content to keep people occupied endgame, then that’s an argument FOR stopping Legendary development because those devs could be placed on more pertinent and sustainable content development.

Because legendary weapons are a key part of the game’s endgame content. Their importance isn’t a concept constructed by myself or other players to support their continued development. It’s an idea established and continually reinforced by Anet since well before GW2 launched. An idea that they kept pushing until development was unceremoniously dropped a week ago.

That’s debateable. What exactly makes them a key part of the endgame content? They don’t unlock anything. They aren’t a step up in performance over Ascended weapons. The stat swapping function isn’t useful. They aren’t tied to a story or an event in the game. There isn’t even too much achievement associated with them.

On the other hand, there are several indicators to suggest they AREN’T key to the game; Anet has only been able to release 4 of them in those 6 months, If legendaries didn’t exist at all, very little would be different in this game. They are a distraction for the dev team with big cost and small returns and a very limited audience. Even now that they are associated with a series of activities, those activities are just random events. This is hardly key content.

Nothing personal dude but what the kitten makes you think you can determine what content I should receive after I paid for it. I’m glad your happy, go play and stop telling me what I should want for my money.

Obtena.7952:

Arguments about financials from players that have none of them is pretty presumptuous. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that people are suggesting that Anet has not first and foremost considered this factor; it’s a business, it impacts employees in significant ways and obviously affects us as players. The suggestions here people make indicate Anet have taken this decision lightly. I can assure you they have not.

They’ve miscalculated responses before to financial decisions, such as the decision to not include an extra character slot with all expansion packs pre purchase. That miscalculation hit the gaming magazines and slowed down sales because of negative player response, and had to be changed.

So, no. I don’t think ANet is all wise and knowing and incapable of making a mistake when it comes to player reactions.

cosmicegg.8502:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

mrstealth.6701:

Obtena.7952:

Again, you seem to be limiting what you consider endgame content to make your argument that very specific endgame content is necessary or that it’s bad to stop development of very specific endgame content. Legendary crafting and non-repetitive story-driven content are not the only things you can do at end game. If a person CHOOSES to limit themselves to very specific things, they have very little reasonable ground to argue that other bits of content aren’t being made or given the level of attention they desire.

Anet thought they could make Legendary content and they couldn’t; it’s not that they cancelled it, it’s that it took so long to produce anything with it that they couldn’t deliver the Legendary weapon content anyways.

I’m not limiting what I consider to be endgame content to anything so specific.

If that’s the case, then why do we keep seeing arguments for continued development of Legendaries based on keeping players occupied at the endgame?

As a matter of fact … if we are so concerned for content to keep people occupied endgame, then that’s an argument FOR stopping Legendary development because those devs could be placed on more pertinent and sustainable content development.

Because legendary weapons are a key part of the game’s endgame content. Their importance isn’t a concept constructed by myself or other players to support their continued development. It’s an idea established and continually reinforced by Anet since well before GW2 launched. An idea that they kept pushing until development was unceremoniously dropped a week ago.

That’s debateable. What exactly makes them a key part of the endgame content? They don’t unlock anything. They aren’t a step up in performance over Ascended weapons. The stat swapping function isn’t useful. They aren’t tied to a story or an event in the game. There isn’t even too much achievement associated with them.

On the other hand, there are several indicators to suggest they AREN’T key to the game; Anet has only been able to release 4 of them in those 6 months, If legendaries didn’t exist at all, very little would be different in this game. They are a distraction for the dev team with big cost and small returns and a very limited audience. Even now that they are associated with a series of activities, those activities are just random events. This is hardly key content.

Nothing personal dude but what the kitten makes you think you can determine what content I should receive after I paid for it. I’m glad your happy, go play and stop telling me what I should want for my money.

Nothing makes me think that, other than the fact that Anet has done that for you. I just understand why they did it.

@Just a flesh wound

I guess you can assume that a big company is not bothered to much by a bunch of disgruntled customers asking true but inconvenient questions in an open round. These kind of questions are smiled away or answered with platitudes, general statements and press chatter.

On a WWE press conference with shareholders, a true neckbeard wrestling fan with some shares called out Mr. McMahon, the owner of the company, for booking nonsense endings and catering to children instead of true wrestling fans. The CEO was stunned for a moment, then answered with something plain unfitting for the question and just went on to silence the asking shareholder who probably was a minority holder anyway.

On an Eve open panel, a “true” EVE player and alliance leader showed private messages players had sent him on a big screen, even trying to coerce another player into suicide in the process. It was a PR nightmare for CCP that even made the news and the guy received a ban for a meager month and he offered voluntarily some compensation, but CCP just tried to waltz over the situation and just did not ask alliances for the next meeting.

I am with you when you say that they SHOULD be concerned by stuff like this. But they probably won´t.

Torolan.5816:

@Just a flesh wound

I guess you can assume that a big company is not bothered to much by a bunch of disgruntled customers asking true but inconvenient questions in an open round. These kind of questions are smiled away or answered with platitudes, general statements and press chatter.

On a WWE press conference with shareholders, a true neckbeard wrestling fan with some shares called out Mr. McMahon, the owner of the company, for booking nonsense endings and catering to children instead of true wrestling fans. The CEO was stunned for a moment, then answered with something plain unfitting for the question and just went on to silence the asking shareholder who probably was a minority holder anyway.

On an Eve open panel, a “true” EVE player and alliance leader showed private messages players had sent him on a big screen, even trying to coerce another player into suicide in the process. It was a PR nightmare for CCP that even made the news and the guy received a ban for a meager month and he offered voluntarily some compensation, but CCP just tried to waltz over the situation and just did not ask alliances for the next meeting.

I am with you when you say that they SHOULD be concerned by stuff like this. But they probably won´t.

Oh I’m sure they know how to “short answer then go to next” for inconvenient questions. That doesn’t mean it won’t be asked and if asked often enough that it won’t affect sales. Or if asked often enough to be written up as a magazine article by someone looking for a hot angle to write about that brings it to more people’s attention and refreshes the memories of others,