Guild Wars 2

Stopping legendary weapon development? It isn’t 1st of April yet… and this joke isnt funny.

This is great news. Scrap new Legendary Weapons and focus on actual content instead.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

In the upcoming Spring 2016 Quarterly Update, we’ll launch the new legendary short bow, Chuka and Champawat. The team outdid themselves on this one. This new precursor journey takes you through a memorable experience inspired by a real-world story, and the bow you craft at the end is the perfect commemoration of that journey. I hope you all check it out.

Last year we talked about plans to gradually build out a second set of legendary weapons through live content updates. That’s a big responsibility. We have a team of six developers working on that, who could work on it for years to come.

As game director I have to make tough trade-offs. One thing I believe is that we have to focus on the core game first before taking on additional responsibilities. I wrote in the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto in 2010 that our vision was to create a living, dynamic world, where there’s always something to do. Let’s ensure we succeed on that front.

So, after shipping Chuka and Champawat, I’ve asked that we indefinitely suspend work on new legendary weapons. This team of developers will instead shift their efforts back to Living World style content, building new journeys and events for everyone to participate in.

I know this will be a controversial decision. I’ll hang out with you here on the forums for a little while today to discuss it. And I’m always available by email.

Mo

I’ll add my comment on this; I’m a little disappointed that the work to 2nd generation legendary weapons is cut short so early. However it’s great that the team will be focusing more on living world content. Personally I was looking forward to seeing the full range of 2nd generation legendary weapons anet was going to offer, but clearly living world does holds more priority.

Further more upon reading some of the reply to messages one caught my eye about a half shipped expansion; I do feel this is unfair towards anet staff! Adding to your list you also forgot to mention you also shipped; raid wings 1 and 2 with a full collection chain for building precursor armor! That’s alot of work alone to contend with!

I my self am still way behind on experiencing all of what Hot has to offer! So I think these folk who have gripes about a half shipped expansion want experience some of anets rivals on expansion content, without naming any, anet has managed alot of content for a one off price! And people don’t forget this.

Great respect for the team, I know first hand the length of time it takes to push out some of the content at hand we have! Coming from a BSc Computer Science Dev!

Looking forward to playing further into the lore of Guild Wars 2.

~Millssta

maddoctor.2738:

This is great news. Scrap new Legendary Weapons and focus on actual content instead.

As others have said, 70 people working on the second expansion. They couldn’t have left the 6 working on legendaries alone and pulled some from the 70?.

Mike O Brien.4613:

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

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

Akuni.8604:

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

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

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

Mo

Re the bold part: Like when you put 70 Devs on a new Xpac when the first is not fully implemented and fixed.

It’s not cool to take one side point and ignore the Elephant in the room. No one asked for that expansion. Concept and planning (which should come first) doesn’t need 70 people. You seriously lost credibility here and I for sure won’t get the next expansion until it’s been out and confirmed as full, bugfree package. If it’s HoT all over again I am not bothering to play gw2 anymore. And that I say freely after playing years and supporting the game where I could.

I vote with my money and it ain’t going there now.

Sird.4536:

Legendary weapons are content and guess what Mike, it will give us more content than your pathetic living story. It took me a day to go through Season 2, how long will your Season 3 last?

I supported you from GW1 and now you have destroyed the last bit of hope and respect I had for your company. There should be grounds for a compensation because I payed for legendary weapons and I am not getting them. I wish I could truly vent my frustration but I would get banned with the amount of expletives.

Scrap that expensive Pro League, scrap new money grabbing gem store skins and scrap the new expansion. Finish this half shipped expansion first!!!!!!!!!!

Same here. I believed what Colin and you Anet told us. I´ve waited 1 years without any content to have HOT, preordered it and guess what? It was a crap. What happened with “there will allways be more ways to acheieve a goal”? HOT was shipped and the main items i paied for werent ready….16 legenderys were promissed…and we only got 3. You are now cancelling the projekt….BUT IT WAS A CONTENT OF HOT. I wanna have a big conpensation as you guys betraied us. I never ever buy a new addon. You guys are a peace of ******;(

MadVisions.4529:

Wielder Of Magic.3950:

I feel this is another sad day for this game.
You promise as a full 2nd set of legendaries, advertise with them to bait people who love legendaries into buying the xpack..and now you don’t deliver…after you have taken their money.
I have no words for this that would actually get through the “kitten” filter.

No legendaries, yet you manage to release Black Lion Skins and Gliders almost weekly.
It’s clear that these generate easy cash, and that cash is becoming more and more important to ArenaNet.

Same with HoT.
The expansion is already rushed, systems are bugged or half in place, story is rushed out with gaps, we got 4 maps…we had to pay the full price for this…and instead of giving priority to fixing the problems we have now, you almost proudly tell us the amount of devs you have working on the “next expansion”.

And then I am not even mentioning actually actively destroying content.
Destroying dungeons, killing of WvW, PvP is still a nightmare as well…

Wake up Anet.
If you guys are going for the cashgrab nobody will be around to actually play the next expansion.
Such a different company since Guild Wars 1, even so much change since the start of GW2, or even pré HoT…
What happened to you people…

This.
Game is NCSoft’s.

Completely agree. Some form of compensation is absolutely required for the false advertising. Hopefully ANet will sort that out themselves before things get ugly.

However, supporting GW2 right now is like supporting a failing football team – you have so much invested that you can’t let go no matter how bad things seem to get – you continue to support with blind faith that things will get better. ANet know that and will continue to take advantage of that fact and extract the maximum cash from those loyal supporters whilst delivering the minimum in return to keep stringing them along.

I appreciate your honesty but what you should have said was that there would be no more extra things added to the game that require people to pay for them until what they have already paid for has been delivered. That would have been far more honourable.

I would gladly accept 30 € compensation for undelivered content on my Paypal acc cause I will invest it in buying BDO.

Can you guys please at least release the recipe for the legendary fractal back piece??? I have been waiting for months with the precursor.

I believe that this is a good thing. Tough decision but it was made for good reasons.

Sird.4536:

Legendary weapons are content and guess what Mike, it will give us more content than your pathetic living story. It took me a day to go through Season 2, how long will your Season 3 last?

I supported you from GW1 and now you have destroyed the last bit of hope and respect I had for your company. There should be grounds for a compensation because I payed for legendary weapons and I am not getting them. I wish I could truly vent my frustration but I would get banned with the amount of expletives.

Scrap that expensive Pro League, scrap new money grabbing gem store skins and scrap the new expansion. Finish this half shipped expansion first!!!!!!!!!!

You know for players like me grind and farming isn’t content. Story, maps to explore, new skills, new weapon types (Skills), Elite Specs and new mechanics are content. The weapons/skinns are content in it self but counting the ammount of time it takes to compleate content does not count as content, many MMO developers are putting up walls that you have to grind for months to get over just too make us play the game longer. Anet made clear that this is not what they want with the game and I loved that, with the release of HoT GW2 started too look more like all other MMO’s with alot of grinding, new stuff you have to grind over and over again to get (like the festivals shoulder armors), events that takes hours, raids and no update to the living world. This game started crumble in my eyes. With the AMA and these news I have once again hope for this game.

It is sad to hear that People who have hoped for more Legendary weapons wont get more and I feel sorry for you all but it changes nothing to be rude to the devs.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Not to play devil’s advocate, but we should give these guys a rest.

Of course I am also saddened we won’t get new legendaries (aside from the bow) anytime soon. But this way, you can hope to craft all the ones we already have?

Joking aside, if they decided to focus on something bigger, let them do so! As Mo said, we are ALWAYS complaining about lack of content (not just a shiny new skin), and now they’re focusing on content (leaving skins aside), we’re not happy. Are we such spoiled rotten brats?

While I agree with you regarding the gemstore flooding us with skins (some could be delivered as collections), the rest is just pure emotions talking.

Think, do you want some new shiny greatsword, or some story that would bring you to new regions? Imagine: just the 6 devs that were working on the new legendary collections could create new maps. So, which one do you pick, a sword or a map? I would honestly content myself with the legendaries we have now if it means Cantha or Elona (or even new and unknown regions!), yet in the end they will be released. Not as soon as expected, but they will in the end.

Also, there were things that were advertised as coming with the xpac but didn’t make it, but we also had new things that weren’t advertised: new system, new animations, new bases… The xpac wasn’t only to add content, it was to modify GW2 as we knew it for it to become better. Now the bases are set, maybe things will go faster?

I’ve been bored because of the lack of content, just like you. I’ve been upset by the new WvW, just like you. But they are saying things are changing, they talk about reverting back to Alpine Borderlands, they are talking about focusing on rich content. They’re not deserting a sinking ship, they’re sustaining our anger and disappointment to show us we’re heading to a better place. Mo is reading this topic, he is answering your questions, and he agrees his decisions upset people. But he’s no rookie, he knows what he does.

So stop acting as if it were the end of the world, GW2 is just a bunch of code and pixels and, just like in real life, kitten happens and some things are now what they were supposed to be. If you are so upset, change game for a while to see if it’s better, and if it is, good for you (not to be condescending, but some people want GW2 to be like the rest while being different: as rich as a charged game, but for free, and faster, and more often, and better…)

So thank you Mo for the heads up, angry and upset people, please think of the great possibilities that sacrificing new legendaries mean…

We dont want them to work on xPac3 when the current one is not even half finished thats simple … There shouldnt be any sacrifices, we paid for something and they produce an other patch which gonna be again under a paywall AND unfinished too !!!

This is a really wong decision they take and gonna impact hard the futur of this game. #Ls3 Failure incoming.

Mitch.4781:

Well, at the very least this explains Colin’s exit. I don’t believe for ONE second the "being closer to home " excuse now.

Question is, is there a future? I know it’s only a game but this news has shaken my confidence in the game.

This ^

This is what happens when you have no competition. The MMO market has been dead since the release of GW2 with no real good games coming out so far. This results in the already established names like gw2 taking it easy with not real pressure of losing players to other titles. Sure, people might take a break but they can always go back. Besides this, the resource management in the company has been one of the worst I’ve seen. I honestly believe that the devs are not the ones at fault, they just do what they are told to do, and when you change the teams and reassign them all time you simply can’t have a working structure. Seriously, for 5 people working on raids these guys are doing incredible. Now imagine if they had 10 more devs to work with. We would probably get one whole raid every 3 months instead of a wing. The constant shifting and change in direction results in nothing being done. Make a plan and try to stick to it for once and make sure you consult with the community about it, because most of the times you don’t.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Sird.4536:

Legendary weapons are content and guess what Mike, it will give us more content than your pathetic living story. It took me a day to go through Season 2, how long will your Season 3 last?

I supported you from GW1 and now you have destroyed the last bit of hope and respect I had for your company. There should be grounds for a compensation because I payed for legendary weapons and I am not getting them. I wish I could truly vent my frustration but I would get banned with the amount of expletives.

Scrap that expensive Pro League, scrap new money grabbing gem store skins and scrap the new expansion. Finish this half shipped expansion first!!!!!!!!!!

You know for players like me grind and farming isn’t content. Story, maps to explore, new skills, new weapon types (Skills), Elite Specs and new mechanics are content. The weapons/skinns are content in it self but counting the ammount of time it takes to compleate content does not count as content, many MMO developers are putting up walls that you have to grind for months to get over just too make us play the game longer. Anet made clear that this is not what they want with the game and I loved that, with the release of HoT GW2 started too look more like all other MMO’s with alot of grinding, new stuff you have to grind over and over again to get (like the festivals shoulder armors), events that takes hours, raids and no update to the living world. This game started crumble in my eyes. With the AMA and these news I have once again hope for this game.

It is sad to hear that People who have hoped for more Legendary weapons wont get more and I feel sorry for you all but it changes nothing to be rude to the devs.

It is still something they marketed upon, that players paid for, and that the developers should deliver.
They shouldn’t have to cut people from working on content we’ve already paid for – that “tradeoff” shouldn’t even happen to start with. If they lack people, they should get them from the expansion team or the gem store one. If that means they’ll have to delay the expansion (thus delaying future revenues as well) or that they’ll have less gem store content (and less revenue for the time being) so let be it. It’s not our concern. We aren’t shareholders, we are customers that paid for a product that was marketed with certain features, and we deserve to get all of them.

Sinzaku.2980:

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Not to play devil’s advocate, but we should give these guys a rest.

Of course I am also saddened we won’t get new legendaries (aside from the bow) anytime soon. But this way, you can hope to craft all the ones we already have?

Joking aside, if they decided to focus on something bigger, let them do so! As Mo said, we are ALWAYS complaining about lack of content (not just a shiny new skin), and now they’re focusing on content (leaving skins aside), we’re not happy. Are we such spoiled rotten brats?

While I agree with you regarding the gemstore flooding us with skins (some could be delivered as collections), the rest is just pure emotions talking.

Think, do you want some new shiny greatsword, or some story that would bring you to new regions? Imagine: just the 6 devs that were working on the new legendary collections could create new maps. So, which one do you pick, a sword or a map? I would honestly content myself with the legendaries we have now if it means Cantha or Elona (or even new and unknown regions!), yet in the end they will be released. Not as soon as expected, but they will in the end.

Also, there were things that were advertised as coming with the xpac but didn’t make it, but we also had new things that weren’t advertised: new system, new animations, new bases… The xpac wasn’t only to add content, it was to modify GW2 as we knew it for it to become better. Now the bases are set, maybe things will go faster?

I’ve been bored because of the lack of content, just like you. I’ve been upset by the new WvW, just like you. But they are saying things are changing, they talk about reverting back to Alpine Borderlands, they are talking about focusing on rich content. They’re not deserting a sinking ship, they’re sustaining our anger and disappointment to show us we’re heading to a better place. Mo is reading this topic, he is answering your questions, and he agrees his decisions upset people. But he’s no rookie, he knows what he does.

So stop acting as if it were the end of the world, GW2 is just a bunch of code and pixels and, just like in real life, kitten happens and some things are now what they were supposed to be. If you are so upset, change game for a while to see if it’s better, and if it is, good for you (not to be condescending, but some people want GW2 to be like the rest while being different: as rich as a charged game, but for free, and faster, and more often, and better…)

So thank you Mo for the heads up, angry and upset people, please think of the great possibilities that sacrificing new legendaries mean…

We dont want them to work on xPac3 when the current one is not aven half finished thats simple … There shouldnt be any sacrifices kitten we paid for something and they produce an other patch which gonna be again under a paywall AND unfinished too !!!

This is a really wong decision they take and gonna impact hard the futur of this game. #Ls3 Failure incoming.

I rather have them work on expac 2 (It is not expac 3 it will be the second expac) than putting dev time on (in my opinion) useless grind for skinns that clutters the screen more and at that are usually pretty ugly anyway. Now as I said before, I don’t know what difference it makes becouse how could I know? I don’t work there. But I know that if what they say is true that not working on Legendary can be good for the LW work, so be it.

Well I love living world, it the thing in GW2 I love the most, and about legendary weapons I would probably only make 1, so there are no problems with me about what content gets out, but having to choose between both things i paid for when i bought your game… THAT is the huge problem here. You are canceling (“delaying for undefinite time”, its the same thing in community’s eyes) content people paid for so you can deliver other content they paid for… ok, but you are not willing to halt the next expansion that people have NOT PAID for… really? With things going this way you should really spread those 70 devs wornking on next expansion so that you finish EVERYTHING unfinished in HoT first because there will be a ton of people not buying the next expansion fearing it will be the same pile of dissapointments as in HoT. The result of that scenario: you start 2 expansions and finish none. <— this will be extremely bad for both you and us players.
In other words: FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED
I know many many people already said similair things but im saying it too anyway and will keep saying until you come you yor senses and deliver what you promise on time for once.
Im saying this all as a player who loves GW2 and thats why I care. If I didnt care I would just leave the game and probably never buy a new expansion (as many people are starting to do already).
Still despite all this I wish you the best and a happy easter at ANet

Sincerely
A player who loves and cares about the game (and hopes to keep it that way)
Rahkylus

Sird.4536:

Legendary weapons are content and guess what Mike, it will give us more content than your pathetic living story. It took me a day to go through Season 2, how long will your Season 3 last?

I supported you from GW1 and now you have destroyed the last bit of hope and respect I had for your company. There should be grounds for a compensation because I payed for legendary weapons and I am not getting them. I wish I could truly vent my frustration but I would get banned with the amount of expletives.

Scrap that expensive Pro League, scrap new money grabbing gem store skins and scrap the new expansion. Finish this half shipped expansion first!!!!!!!!!!

I needed a bit more.. Because their patch introduced this progress blocking bug which made any progress impossible for.. idk, 2,3 weeks?

Well. it seems like the eyes were bigger than the stomach? Please dont promise kitten you cant deliver. and first repair stuff thats old and, even if its trickling, deliver WHAT YOU PROMISED please…
I mean, ugh, do it even like the backpack atm, over time.. and pull people from doing new stuff until you fixed the old..

I mean you cant build a house on still not hardened ground or put a door into a crumbling wall. And you cant say that we get a house and then just deliver the raw stuff, walls, ground and such, but no insulation so its too cold and warm water isnt working either.. the winds flowing through the cracks in the wall, some of which even break up after each step of building (because the wall arent ready yet and cant hold enough weight…)and need to get fixed needing time and resources.

Dont start to buy a greenhouse or a new house yet after you havent finished the old one^^

Mike O Brien.4613:

Last year we talked about plans to gradually build out a second set of legendary weapons through live content updates.

Not really.

You have not “talked”.

You have promised it as a part of the living update of hot.

This is false marketing.

And you are a liar.

To be honest I dont really care if no new legendary weapons come out, 3 was enough given the length it takes to make even one of the new ones.

Frankly, I am ALL for seeing more LS over raiding and pvp tournaments “any” day.

Maybe Anet need to suspend nex extension undefinitly and focuse more on what they promise us for HOT: legendaries, fractals, wvw, living season 3,( and i’m really hoping they are doing to do better than HOT story which is the worse even see), core balance pvp…
I don’t really a big amateur of legendaries but being take for a sheep really make me all of me. Look at gw1 expansion and now look at HOT expansion. The comparison is stunning.
I am no more going to buy an expansion(and neither gem store money grab) for this game if it’s not going to change and we don’t going to have real content in it.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Sinzaku.2980:

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

Not to play devil’s advocate, but we should give these guys a rest.

Of course I am also saddened we won’t get new legendaries (aside from the bow) anytime soon. But this way, you can hope to craft all the ones we already have?

Joking aside, if they decided to focus on something bigger, let them do so! As Mo said, we are ALWAYS complaining about lack of content (not just a shiny new skin), and now they’re focusing on content (leaving skins aside), we’re not happy. Are we such spoiled rotten brats?

While I agree with you regarding the gemstore flooding us with skins (some could be delivered as collections), the rest is just pure emotions talking.

Think, do you want some new shiny greatsword, or some story that would bring you to new regions? Imagine: just the 6 devs that were working on the new legendary collections could create new maps. So, which one do you pick, a sword or a map? I would honestly content myself with the legendaries we have now if it means Cantha or Elona (or even new and unknown regions!), yet in the end they will be released. Not as soon as expected, but they will in the end.

Also, there were things that were advertised as coming with the xpac but didn’t make it, but we also had new things that weren’t advertised: new system, new animations, new bases… The xpac wasn’t only to add content, it was to modify GW2 as we knew it for it to become better. Now the bases are set, maybe things will go faster?

I’ve been bored because of the lack of content, just like you. I’ve been upset by the new WvW, just like you. But they are saying things are changing, they talk about reverting back to Alpine Borderlands, they are talking about focusing on rich content. They’re not deserting a sinking ship, they’re sustaining our anger and disappointment to show us we’re heading to a better place. Mo is reading this topic, he is answering your questions, and he agrees his decisions upset people. But he’s no rookie, he knows what he does.

So stop acting as if it were the end of the world, GW2 is just a bunch of code and pixels and, just like in real life, kitten happens and some things are now what they were supposed to be. If you are so upset, change game for a while to see if it’s better, and if it is, good for you (not to be condescending, but some people want GW2 to be like the rest while being different: as rich as a charged game, but for free, and faster, and more often, and better…)

So thank you Mo for the heads up, angry and upset people, please think of the great possibilities that sacrificing new legendaries mean…

We dont want them to work on xPac3 when the current one is not even half finished thats simple … There shouldnt be any sacrifices kitten we paid for something and they produce an other patch which gonna be again under a paywall AND unfinished too !!!

This is a really wong decision they take and gonna impact hard the futur of this game. #Ls3 Failure incoming.

I rather have them work on expac 2 (It is not expac 3 it will be the second expac) than putting dev time on (in my opinion) useless grind for skinns that clutters the screen more and at that are usually pretty ugly anyway. Now as I said before, I don’t know what difference it makes becouse how could I know? I don’t work there. But I know that if what they say is true that not working on Legendary can be good for the LW work, so be it.

Yea u still hope i get it, with all we have seen from this company, after such news, its just impossible for them to be trusted anymore by most of the community.

I was defending HoT hard especialy cuz i main necro and the patch affected something i love in a better way but you can be sure this was temporary and it will get rekt soon or later which will definitly make me leave this game for good and tons of people too ofc.

Hanzlo.3148:

insomnia.3178:

Let’s see what happened to this game after HOT release:

WvWvW—->destroyed

PvP—->Unbalanced(only 1 new map/gamemode released)

Dungeon’s rewards—->destroyed

Fractals—->nothing changed

Raid—->2/3 wings released (still not full)

New Legendary Weapons—->3/16 (only another 1 will come )—>cancelled

Legendary Armor—->Not available yet

Legendary backpack—->1/2 (only the pvp one, no eta for the other)

Open world—->4 new maps ,masteries etc etc

New class—->1 (revenant)+9 subclasses (specializations)

New races—-> 0

Weekly free story updates—-> 0

GW2 E-Sport—->giant fiasco

GEM kittenING STORE—-> 1 kittening kittenty item every day!!!

I leave this on the table for your consideration.

^^ THIS!

^^ so much

Basically I was hoping for some really nice alternative legendaries beyond the initial 3 which were pretty promising, especially for the “Hippie” Kudzu.. and what do we get ? A shortbow ? a SHORTBOW ? …..While the “Dreamer” is utterly terrible/niche and needed some alternative…., who is actually using shortbows ? It is still damage-nerfed on rangers (after more than 16 months because of… reasons ?) and thieves use it to move faster… Who is really going to go through the monumental process of phase II in Legendary collection for a freaking Shortbow ?

Where is an alternative Longbow, Sword, Greatsword, Dagger Scepter or Mace ? You know stuff most players actually USE !

Basically here goes the last hope I had for some useful stuff to work towards from HoT after the short and lame story .
We once more get “we will do this promises” which you will redact six months hence, and tell us it is only for your own good and “more story” (looking at how weak the story in HoT was….. no thanks )

The big concern I have hear, really, though, is “Why has it taken 6 months to create a single new legendary weapon?”

gannondorf.7628:

Maybe Anet need to suspend nex extension undefinitly and focuse more on what they promise us for HOT: legendaries, fractals, wvw, living season 3,( and i’m really hoping they are doing to do better than HOT story which is the worse even see), core balance pvp…

They HAVE TO do this.

It’s not possible they promise stuff to sell expansion and 6 month after they come out with “ei guys it’s hard to say but they stuff we promise you to sell hot… well we haven’t done them and we won’t.”

This is not legal.

And there’s law for that.

For sure they will have to dream a lot before see my money again

Can’t trust this Anet anymore..

Sartharina.3542:

The big concern I have hear, really, though, is “Why has it taken 6 months to create a single new legendary weapon?”

Because they havent started yet. Its the same kitten they pulled with the wvw overhaul. Claimed to be working on it for a year and now its cancelled yet they have nothing to show for it, never existed in the first place.

I remember the fanboying and backlash i received when I claimed they hadnt started working on the expansion at all when they announced it, turns out it took ages to finally release despite how early it was announced and only a quarter of it was released, now we see half is cancelled.

Mike O Brien.4613:

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

Mo

Wait, really? So you’re basically saying “screw what we promised, you’ll have to live with what we give you.”

…what the f

Sartharina.3542:

The big concern I have hear, really, though, is “Why has it taken 6 months to create a single new legendary weapon?”

This I can agree with actually :P

I can think of Iether Legendary weapons is a realy hard thing to make or they have actually allready but the team on something else and just worked a little on the “last” Legendary.

fredler.7450:

GUYS this has to be an april fools joke !! even Isis woundnt do such a thing …. we believe in you Collin !

Colin stepped down and left. This is not on him.

Sartharina.3542:

The big concern I have hear, really, though, is “Why has it taken 6 months to create a single new legendary weapon?”

The cynic in me says… “wings”

There will always be nutters out there who think every last thing you do is a flagrant attempt to milk consumers for as much money as possible while giving them as little as possible in return. And you’ve just spent the last six months handing them a metric kittenton of ammunition, haven’t you? Yeah… oops.

The Heart of Thorns release and its follow-up patches have been utterly shambolic. Yes, you had money siphoned off to support Wildstar, yes, some strategic genius decided that you needed to launch prematurely in order to go head-to-head with Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3 (I’m sure this sounded like a great idea at the time, although I have suspicions about what that time was), yadda yadda. Ultimately, there is no excuse for failing to deliver on what you promised (well, maybe if there was some force majeure to deal with, but the nutters probably wouldn’t accept even that).

On the other hand, whatever the reasons behind this shambles, it is what it is. I’m willing to believe that you realise that the state of the game is an absolute disgrace, I don’t have any desire to start scrutinising everything you do in order to make you look bad, I’m not about to play armchair game director, and I know that taking much input from any of the armchair game directors in this thread would make things orders of magnitude worse.

Although I guess you could stop with the glider skins and outfits for a bit. Even if I don’t think there’d be any practical benefit to redirecting those resources elsewhere, at least nobody would be able to claim that you’re just milking people.

Zetsumei.4975:

You realise the scrapped wvw overhaul and legendaries most likely never existed in the first place? Its one of the biggest cons in the mmo industry this year.

To still believe their bluffs and PR nonsense, you either havent been playing long enough or have stockholm syndrome.

I’m just not making a drama out of one of my hobbies. I’ve been playing WvW since day 1, I’m also kittened at how it is but hey, can I change something? If that’s how it works, so be it: I can’t change anything, and screaming on a forum doesn’t help. They know they screwed big time, and if the next thing doesn’t live up to our expectation, they’ll suffer severe backlash. What has to happen will happen, but so far, I don’t think anything will change the course of the events.

It might be one of the biggest cons in the mmo industry, but that’s what happens everyday in the video game industry. That’s how it is. Now people won’t pre-order/buy xpac2, they’ll just wait.

Sure they didn’t do what they told us they would, but at least they’re trying to do something. I don’t need to get emotionally shattered because I didn’t get something I was supposed to: I keep in mind I’ve played thousands of hours for just the price of 2 console games. People don’t mind paying $60 for buggy games they’ll finish in less than 20 hours, why would I complain paying $120 for a game I haven’t finished in thousands of hours on a 3-year span and with some free updates?

Mike says it’s a choice between content and legendaries. How about it’s a choice of not starting to work on a new expansion before hot is finished, balanced, and fixed. Here is a thought, maybe have the 70 people that are working on the new expansion help with fixing the old one, then they can move on.

Zaseka.7182:

Mike says it’s a choice between content and legendaries. How about it’s a choice of not starting to work on a new expansion before hot is finished, balanced, and fixed. Here is a thought, maybe have the 70 people that are working on the new expansion help with fixing the old one, then they can move on.

ha, they already moved on from HoT, it’s a mess and they want to create a new expansion so we forget about HoT, they gonna treat us like Skritts, oh look new shiny, forget about the crappy shiny…

Hey, so you have enough recources to create hundreds of gemstore casino weapons and outfits but not enough resources to actually give us what we already paid for? Great… If it is such a big problem to create that acquisition journey, then leave the journey, just give us the skin and recipe for making it like the vanilla legendaries.

Aidan Savage.2078:

ozma.3498:

Is there not a legal obligation to provide paying customers with the things that were advertised as being part of the expansion but to be released at a later date?

No, not really. You paid for /access/ to the full game.

That’s not true. There is actually a legal obligation – I’ve looked into it.

From the Consumer Rights Act 2015:

*"Every contract to supply digital content is to be treated as including a term that the digital content will match any description of it given by the trader to the consumer."

“A change to any of that information, made before entering into the contract or later, is not effective unless expressly agreed between the consumer and the trader.”*

Since HoT was described as having various features that have not been implemented (and in the case of legendaries, it has now been publicly announced that it won’t be implemented), ArenaNet has breached the “contract” between themselves and people who purchased Heart of Thorns and as such we should be entitled to a refund.

By the way mods, I know you infracted one of my other posts, but if you read what I’m saying, I’m talking objectively about the legalities of what’s going on here. I’m not being offensive about ArenaNet or anyone who works for ArenaNet.

Zetsumei.4975:

I remember the fanboying and backlash i received when I claimed they hadnt started working on the expansion at all when they announced it, turns out it took ages to finally release despite how early it was announced and only a quarter of it was released, now we see half is cancelled.

Actually, it didn’t take ages to finally release. You have some really naive expectations about how long making an expac takes. It was released way too early, which everyone paying attention has known the moment they mentioned launch date.
And we’re now paying the consequence.

Hey Mike, you said “Indefinitely suspend” – does this mean that, in a perfect Tyria, if all goes well with the LS3 & Expac2 progress, we may still get the rest of the Legendary Weapons — Eventually? The way you worded it implies it’s scrapped, never ever again will we get these things.

Thanks c:

Berelious.3290:

Aidan Savage.2078:

Hardly. You paid for access to it. Do you get it if you didnt pay? No. In pretty much ANY mmo in existence, you’ll find that there’s language in the EULA/ToC that amounts to “you paid only for access to the service/product,” not “you paid for something you THINK you should get.”

edit: In fact, from Section 2.a from the gw2 EULA:

You further acknowledge that Your full or partial access to Content, including one or more Message Boards, Teams or Items is conditioned upon Your compliance with the provisions of this agreement and the Rules of Conduct. ArenaNet may modify, remove, or add Content in its reasonable discretion.

Bolding my own to highlight the point soooooooooooooooo many of you people miss.

edit2: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/ for any of you who think I’m lying.

Thank you Aiden, I was looking for this myself to post.

One thing that’s amusing is when private companies think they can rewrite the law by putting stuff in their terms and conditions. Ultimately, consumer laws are above ArenaNet’s terms and conditions, and ArenaNet will still be liable to abide by them regardless of what they put in their T&C documents.

In the past it’s been a bit of a grey area due to it being a digital purchase, but that changed a few weeks before HoT launched. Digital goods are now covered too. Anyway, I’ll see on Tuesday when I contact Citizen’s Advice/Trading Standards about it. They are the actual authority on the matter (in the UK at least), not ArenaNet.

Here are my 2 cents – I don’t think the whole problem is about some shiny skins or expanding the work of the LS-team. It’s about how trustworthy ANet is going to look, after advertising something that won’t come for a long, long, long, long time… I like more story content, sure who doesn’t? But I also own quite a few legendaries, even a 2nd gen one and guess what? I love the “road” to get one. The shifting of staff from one team to another seems to me just as an excuse; more ppl want story content (and no Mike, there is no recent content drought, it’s been there for over a year – before HoT and shortly after, since the story can be played within hours), so ANet decides to cover the disaster up as the focus on story content.
Why not actually say the concept failled? Why not first fix the problems with Expac1 before starting to event think about Expac2? Wouldn’t it be better to take some of the ominous 70 devs working on Expac2 instead of 6 devs working on an actually already existing, but only partly shipped theme? Are 6 devs really that moer better, skilled, important (whatever) than 70?
I always defended HoT when it came about the stuff, that was offered, but now I’m not so sure anymore. I really want to understand the strategy behind this, I really do, but I can’t see it. With this state of the game, I won’t buy any future expac or anything that comes close to that.
Good luck, ANet. You sure will need it on your path. I hope you know what you do ._.

#ExpacDisaster
#6>70?

(edit: sorry for grammer mistakes, just came from work and English isn’t my native language… found some on my own xDD)

Welp, I’ve been burned then by Heart of Thorns. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you, ArenaNet.

I wanted to see new Legendary weapons, and I wanted to see them developed so I may, may have had the chance to chase after a Legendary that would tickle my fancy. But considering that everything else that was in the pipeworks even before Heart of Thorns is now left to stay in development hell (Fractal leaderboards, Fractal backpiece, continued live updates every few weeks versus the current quarterly-seasonal approach, PVP map updates and game modes, available daily activities), I can safely say that I have been burned by the premise of the expansion pack and what it would deliver.

The gameplay itself has turned people away from Heart of Thorns compared to release months. People are avoiding events towards HoT metas. The EXP and mastery requirements become too much for my casual self to tackle. People would rather run existing pre-HoT content because it is more profitable to do so, and I can’t blame them.

I’ve enjoyed the game. I’ve enjoyed Heart of Thorns opening up. But eventually, I’ve burned out. And all these decisions on not delivering on what was promised to be ‘coming next’ for this expansion pack alone should have made me weary. Considering ArenaNet’s track record with dropped or otherwise (permanently) delayed developments, I should have been weary to begin with.

Guild Wars 2 has an amazing non-competitive open PVE world that feeds and nurtures a generally friendly, casual playerbase. And they’re just building on that without delivering on what may or may not have attracted people in the first place to buy or pre-order the game or the expansion. But maybe it’s not ArenaNet that’s to blame – rather NCsoft. I don’t know.

LoCo.8012:

But maybe it’s not ArenaNet that’s to blame – rather NCsoft. I don’t know.

This could be the case, the biggest thing NCsoft’s done recently is globalize Blade and Soul and it… hasn’t been doing as well. It’s possible Guild wars 2 is being hurt to fill in the gap.

It’d be nice if the devs could SAY SOMETHING to that effect though.

Mike O Brien.4613:

I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

No matter how unpopular your decision was, I’m glad to see things finally changing, and I support it. I’ve been in the same place, and I know sometimes you have to make a very controversial choice to get things going again.

That being said, as much as I have enjoyed some aspects of HoT, I also have the feeling it’s not a finished product. Now it’s basically hit or miss. Deliver us some great content and people will most likely forget about that very unpopular decision you’ve taken. Don’t and I’m pretty sure every teenager playing a Charr will riot and burn Ascalon again… or just drop the game.

One more thing though. I’m a GW1 vet, and I remember when Cantha was released. The amount of negative energy on the forum was comparable to what we have now in GW2. And actually, the complaints were pretty much the same:

- Small expansion: every was expecting to have a world as large as Prophecy’s, it was half the size.

- Gated content: literally. You couldn’t go to new zones unless you had completed a
step in the equivalent of PS (missions).

- High end content only available for a minority of people: people were getting tired of B/P teams in Tombs and FoW, and 55hp / SS in UW and were expecting new high end content. That new content was only available to the owners of the Luxon and Kurzik capitals (aka up to 10 guilds of 100 players each), at least until TC alliance found a way around, and took over Cavalon to taxi as much people in as possible, forcing you to change how players could access to the Deep (yeah… memories… I was an officer of one of the guilds of the alliance).

- Party size increased for the new high end content ( 12 players instead of 8 ), making it harder to fill a party, and increasing the odds to have a leaver / angry kid / anything that could ruin your game.

I could go on. But doesn’t that sound familiar to you? It’s as if I was describing HoT. Yet, 6 months later (if I remember correctly), Anet delivered us an expansion that was applauded by everyone: Nightfall. That’s the one reason I still have faith in them. But I probably won’t anymore if I’m disappointed with the next LS / expac.

Sir Mad.1092:

The main problem is that they keep promising things and in most cases don’t deliver.
In this case it was a bit different.
Before, the features that we were (not) getting were bonus to what we already got with the core game. Now, those features were atributes that convinced many players to buy the expansion. And several months after its release we not just don’t have those features, but their development was indefinitely (which pretty much means permanently in ANETs language) stopped.

if the april update isnt worth while i will be leaving gw2 and demanding a refund for this. i do not care if you close my 4k hour account to refund over this as at end of day anet have been lying cash grabbing kittens from the start.
so many things that were promised at start of gw2 got stripped and added to the “xpac” fro them to tur around and cancle the parts they hadnt already made?
people realise that the current ledgondarys were leaked in first year of the game, is i just me or very coincidental that thease are the only ones released…
people only wanted an xpac because your buisness sucked for LS and you gave us no real content… the xpax just seams like a ls update but with all the leaked stuff finaly added…
i only wish i did not put this many hours in this game as this ship has now sunk

I’ll believe it and respond to it after April 1st

Zaseka.7182:

Mike says it’s a choice between content and legendaries. How about it’s a choice of not starting to work on a new expansion before hot is finished, balanced, and fixed. Here is a thought, maybe have the 70 people that are working on the new expansion help with fixing the old one, then they can move on.

That might make you feel better, but it’s a really bad idea. The expansion teams were set up months ago. Pulling them off the expansion in order to help with the current game sounds like a good idea, but the reality is that the live team’s work would end up even further behind due to having to spend time bringing the expansion guys properly up to speed on what they’re doing. It would take months to realise any benefit.

It’s perfectly understandable to be annoyed that they’re working on another expansion before getting the last one into a decent state, but there’s nothing that can be done about that now, unless you’re proposing to subject dozens of people to unemployment over a balls-up they had basically no part in.

evilunderling.9265:

but the reality is that the live team’s work would end up even further behind due to having to spend time bringing the expansion guys properly up to speed on what they’re doing

Same goes for the legendary weapon team… It doesn’t matter where they pull the devs from.

evilunderling.9265:

Zaseka.7182:

Mike says it’s a choice between content and legendaries. How about it’s a choice of not starting to work on a new expansion before hot is finished, balanced, and fixed. Here is a thought, maybe have the 70 people that are working on the new expansion help with fixing the old one, then they can move on.

That might make you feel better, but it’s a really bad idea. The expansion teams were set up months ago. Pulling them off the expansion in order to help with the current game sounds like a good idea, but the reality is that the live team’s work would end up even further behind due to having to spend time bringing the expansion guys properly up to speed on what they’re doing. It would take months to realise any benefit.

It’s perfectly understandable to be annoyed that they’re working on another expansion before getting the last one into a decent state, but there’s nothing that can be done about that now, unless you’re proposing to subject dozens of people to unemployment over a balls-up they had basically no part in.

This makes sense, but then why pull the legendaries team? if its only a handful of people anyway that will make the difference and they have to be brought up to speed on everything anyway which just takes time, why pull them. If a few people are to be pulled, shouldnt it be from the group working on unknown timeframe future content rather than promised content no matter how primary or secondary it is? And I dont think the entire expac 2 team should be torn down, but I do think that that is the pool from which people should be drawn.

Spira.4578:

The main problem is that they keep promising things and in most cases don’t deliver.

Don’t get me wrong: I 100% agree with you. But I also understand the circumstances: Mike has just taken his seat back, and that’s why I wanna give him a chance. When things ain’t going well, sometimes you have to make controversial choices. That was one. If from now on they manage to deliver enjoyable content, fine, I will forget about those broken promises. If not… That will be it for me I guess.