Guild Wars 2

Are we going to see any information yet?

I am a bit confused, since last releases we had information 2 weeks before the patch, and in this one which is supposed to be big we didn’t hear much besides a Living Story introduction in the main plot.

Thanks!

Short answer: No.

Long answer: They said they need that extra time because they work on patches down to the wire. What you see in patch notes will be what they managed to fix, not what they intended to fix. Even big things like the ‘culling gone’ part of the patch are subject be be delayed if it doesn’t work on patch day.

Agreed. The whole idea of “an expansion worth of content” is sounding really implausible at this point, especially when expansions usually have new races, classes, continents of quests & story lines, a bunch of new armor sets new features like housing or henchmen or something. Right now it sounds like most of that isn’t gonna happen.

so… What IS gonna happen?

@nethykins.7986 @DarksunG.9537

To be honest, they announced already that the 26th is the patch for culling and other changes that are already done, I have no idea why not include them on the pre-patch notes so people can see them.

Meanwhile I understand something can get delayed, the subject that they already announced them and nothing is up yet, does not worry me, but something is not right either.

Alur.7510:

@nethykins.7986 @DarksunG.9537

To be honest, they announced already that the 26th is the patch for culling and other changes that are already done, I have no idea why not include them on the pre-patch notes so people can see them.

Meanwhile I understand something can get delayed, the subject that they already announced them and nothing is up yet, does not worry me, but something is not right either.

Why does it matter anyway? People keep making this type of thread before each patch. This is how they’ve done patches before. There is no benefit for them to announce something very detailed in advance when something can go horribly wrong and they have to pull back.

I posted something yesterday about this… By this time, there would be previews and teasers of what was coming on the next patch. They would put those details on the March 2013 features. There’s no details there other than the Overview.

Two things come in mind — one, they’re very hush-hush about it to avoid any spoilers for the Razing update; we may see something huge that would continue the storyline for it; two, the WvW progression might be delayed, and we might only get the culling update.

My head is itchy because of this tin-foil hat. But I would love to get a preview or snippet of things to come.

I wish they’d add patch notes for the upcoming Flame and Frost update. That way, we will know what to expect (Such as features and other changes in the game’s mechanics)

They said they would put a blog post on it …. be patient
What I hope is that they do the same as last patch, that is patchnotes a few minutes/hours before the update.
That was awesome.

We don’t deserve early patch notes.

Doggie.3184:

We don’t deserve early patch notes.

How come? :S

Patch Notes are not released early for one reason:

They cannot guarantee what will make it into the patch until just before. As some things just might not work, so it may not make it in.

If they released it early and something didn’t make it in that those notes said would: There’d be a dramastorm on the forums.

@KratosAngel.7289
I mean pre patch notes here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/march-2013/

Cowrex.9564:

Doggie.3184:

We don’t deserve early patch notes.

How come? :S

Well look at the TP for ecto they give us a bit of info and we as players are making a ecto bubble and it will burst after the update.

Ppl make too much of any changes its best to put things out there then enplane why and then get ppl reaction after the fact to see how thing work out. What sounds good or bad on paper is not allway the same in real life and the players cant seem to get this in there heads. So “We don’t deserve early patch notes.”

Alur.7510:

@KratosAngel.7289
I mean pre patch notes here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/march-2013/

They only release update content notes on there, not patch notes, the patch fixes and balances things and has never been posted on there prior to release.

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Fixed that thing we fixed latch patch
Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance
Nerfing Theives
Buffing Ele’s
Changing Loot Drops for Chest
Removing Culling….Maybe.
A secondary patches to patch the stuff we broke with the first patch
Subsequent patches to patch those patches
Flame and Frost updates

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

Yep, this is the summary of the patch notes!

Alur, maybe you should change the topic title to use the words “teaser”/ “preview” instead of “pre patch notes”. :P People are getting the wrong idea of what you were trying to say, it seems.

I was also expecting the previews to be up by now. They were shown very early for the last patch. My guess is that Anet is having some trouble in trying to keep their schedule, and are unsure if they should hype some stuff or not.

Anyways, what we’ll probably get:
- Living Story finally kicking up;
- Removal of culling;
- WvW update;
- Balance changes;
(- Leaderboard soon after the patch);

@DiogoSilva.7089
Yea, I thought I could call it pre patch notes :P

Any mod can change the topic name to “Teaser/preview content”? thanks.

Vol.5241:

Alur.7510:

@nethykins.7986 @DarksunG.9537

To be honest, they announced already that the 26th is the patch for culling and other changes that are already done, I have no idea why not include them on the pre-patch notes so people can see them.

Meanwhile I understand something can get delayed, the subject that they already announced them and nothing is up yet, does not worry me, but something is not right either.

Why does it matter anyway? People keep making this type of thread before each patch. This is how they’ve done patches before. There is no benefit for them to announce something very detailed in advance when something can go horribly wrong and they have to pull back.

There’s a ton of benifit. Perhaps not in a raw physical form, but for ANet’s reputation on “priding themselves on communication” and getting people excited and drumming up that anticipation before a patch drops – tad more space for media coverage.

Because reading a 2 paragraph article on “Hey, so this patch is going to be dropping and everything is in vague territory”
…is not as interesting as…
“Hey so this patch is going to be dropping and here are the things that we and many have been exited about – item1, item2, item3”.

Anet is well known now for its vague approach so it would be an improvement on communication and would be the start of better “messaging” in the grand scope of things.

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

Yeah, my thoughts excactly!

KratosAngel.7289:

They said they would put a blog post on it …. be patient
What I hope is that they do the same as last patch, that is patchnotes a few minutes/hours before the update.
That was awesome.

do you even read the blog posts? they are as vague smoke. zero specifics, basically they say something like this:

“like its gonna be awesome, like, like you are going to love it, like the internal testers are smashed by the greatness of this patch like like like aw mah gad just wait and see like…”

P.s. why do devs abuse the word “like” out of context? i started counting the amount of times they said “like” in the last SotG and i got lost at 40+ and still had about 30min of video left o.O

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7169/Guild-Wars-2-What-Marchs-WvW-Patch-Will-Bring.html

Here’s a lil preview of some of the changes.

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Fixed that thing we fixed latch patch
Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance
Nerfing Theives
Buffing Ele’s
Changing Loot Drops for Chest
Removing Culling….Maybe.
A secondary patches to patch the stuff we broke with the first patch
Subsequent patches to patch those patches
Flame and Frost updates

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

Hahahahaha, since for some strange reason I cannot +1 your comment I’ll leave that here.

+1 my good sir, +1 indeed.

Still going to have massive culling in open world, pointless… call me the grinch but why play when you can’t even see what’s going on

Rukia.4802:

Still going to have massive culling in open world, pointless… call me the grinch but why play when you can’t even see what’s going on

I see the dragon events as these server meet-up parties. There really isn’t any strategy involved (I haven’t done any Temple events though), but it’s a fun party. Everyone is there waiting. Some are socializing. Some are in their costumes, brawling it out. Some are dancing. Once the dragon lands, all KITTEN breaks lose.

As what Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation had said regarding GW2, “it’s a party, and everyone is invited.”

Still waiting on that drinking animation though…

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Fixed that thing we fixed latch patch
Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance
Nerfing Theives
Buffing Ele’s
Changing Loot Drops for Chest
Removing Culling….Maybe.
A secondary patches to patch the stuff we broke with the first patch
Subsequent patches to patch those patches
Flame and Frost updates

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

It is sad because it’s funny and also kind of true.

Rukia.4802:

Still going to have massive culling in open world, pointless… call me the grinch but why play when you can’t even see what’s going on

I’d assume the settings will effect all culling.

Pants.8315:

Rukia.4802:

Still going to have massive culling in open world, pointless… call me the grinch but why play when you can’t even see what’s going on

I’d assume the settings will effect all culling.

They said it’s WvW only – so we will still have culling in meta events, cities, etc.

They also said that this won’t be addressed until later this year…

I hope we still have culling in cities. My processor can barely handle LA as it is.

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Fixed that thing we fixed latch patch
Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance
Nerfing Theives
Buffing Ele’s
Changing Loot Drops for Chest
Removing Culling….Maybe.
A secondary patches to patch the stuff we broke with the first patch
Subsequent patches to patch those patches
Flame and Frost updates

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

Thanks for patch note.

Yeah im surprised nothing yet

Yeah, the only blog with “information” this month has been about the end of culling. And since it’s already been told that it was coming, the blog didn’t provide any new information. Well, that and the hasn’t been any updates as to what content will be coming. There’s only been tidbits on the WvW rewards, but again that was mere tidbits. As for any real information, we’ve been in the dark.

At least last month there was some info on the updates to the dailies and the guild missions stuff, plus the monthly update page was updated with features a lot sooner, but this month we’re being left completely in the dark.

To think, the update is less than a week away, and aside from the WvW changes (which were technically moved up from Feb), I have no idea what the “expansion worth of content” is going to be.

Jski.6180:

Cowrex.9564:

Doggie.3184:

We don’t deserve early patch notes.

How come? :S

Well look at the TP for ecto they give us a bit of info and we as players are making a ecto bubble and it will burst after the update.

Ppl make too much of any changes its best to put things out there then enplane why and then get ppl reaction after the fact to see how thing work out. What sounds good or bad on paper is not allway the same in real life and the players cant seem to get this in there heads. So “We don’t deserve early patch notes.”

Hmmmm….. Okay, I see your point. :S

DarksunG.9537:

new features like housing

Truly I hope some day to see that in patch notes. And fishing.

I’d love to know what Anet is working on currently. I’m not frequently on these forums so I’ve probably missed a lot, but they haven’t communicated with fans like they did with their AMA in a while have they?

Latorn.4209:

I’d love to know what Anet is working on currently. I’m not frequently on these forums so I’ve probably missed a lot, but they haven’t communicated with fans like they did with their AMA in a while have they?

Anet and communicate. With fans.
I lol’d.

Latorn.4209:

I’d love to know what Anet is working on currently. I’m not frequently on these forums so I’ve probably missed a lot, but they haven’t communicated with fans like they did with their AMA in a while have they?

Anet’s inability to efficiently communicate with fans must be by far their greatest failure. So many issues of the past could have been avoided had they simply gone the extra mile to extend the courtesy of keeping the player base in the loop. And how many loses have they suffered because of it? We’ll never know, but I am certain they are well aware of the figures.

For the life of me I just can’t understand why it’s still handled so poorly half a year after release. Anet struggles so with this, which is just odd. Even Blizzard, a company I’ve come to view in low regard, has a moderately open approach when it comes to fans, and I see Anet in a far greater light than those guys.

The last AMA was months ago, their interviews are scarce, and we rarely see actual information. I mean, just look at the front page, the scarcity of blogs are scary. I don’t understand why they don’t appoint one or two people with the sole purpose of communicating in fast and effective ways what’s happening behind the scenes. These guys can be the face of the company, and constantly keep a finger on the pulse of the game, while keeping fans in the loop.

Anet hired an entire team to combat bots, and that shows dedication. Well, I’d say keeping the game clean of bots and communicating with the fans are equally important. Both of these aspects, if handled poorly, can spell disaster for a game.

TexZero.7910:

Here you go.

Fixed that thing we fixed latch patch
Cleaned up some tool tips
Still thinking about Ranger / Engineer / Necromancer balance
Nerfing Theives
Buffing Ele’s
Changing Loot Drops for Chest
Removing Culling….Maybe.
A secondary patches to patch the stuff we broke with the first patch
Subsequent patches to patch those patches
Flame and Frost updates

There you go pretty much covered it for you.

You missed a few:

- Portal nerfs
- Warrior buffs
- Undocumented unnecessary “fixes” to dungeons designed to make them as tedious as possible
- Subliminal messaging for all the fanbois to go “Thank you based anet”.
- More boss-breaking features which are never documented.
- More unnecessary hotfixes.

There was also a rumour that mesmer greatsword is getting a buff by making the autoattack AoE of some kind. There was supposedly a link in reddit two days ago with a lot of the upcoming changes.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Fever.9830:

There was also a rumour that mesmer greatsword is getting a buff by making the autoattack AoE of some kind. There was supposedly a link in reddit two days ago with a lot of the upcoming changes.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

It isn’t a rumor, it was stated by the devs themselves on this month’s State of the Game pvp streaming video. Beam attacks will pierce targets, so everyone who is caught inbetween will take damage. This includes GS’ auto-attack, scepter’s confusion beam, elementalist’s air scepter auto-attack, and Guardian’s downed state attack (lol).

Hopefully there’s a name change option in there too… come on Anet, we’ve waited long enough. Just copy+paste the code from GW1.

I want to be teased and surprised. I like the lack of early patch notes. It also leads to less rushing and more polish (see sig)

The “expansion worth of content” really did happen but not like a traditional expansion. Just print out the full patch notes for january and february and you’ll see they take up several pages in word. That’s a ton of changes. Mostly improvements, which is exactly what an expansion is about… fleshing out the game experience.

Azjenco.9425:

Anet’s inability to efficiently communicate with fans must be by far their greatest failure.

Yet by MMO industry standards they communicate more and better (in that they are polite, decent and dignified – unusual in this industry) than literally 95% of MMOs out there. Claiming they don’t is simply counter-factual. So if that is their greatest failure they clearly don’t have many failures!

Blizzard communicate more right now, but it’s strictly one-way and very recent, and most of it is meaningless. Even a year or so ago they would have been behind Anet in that.

Expecting detailed patch previews (and let’s not pretend that isn’t what this is about) when a company does real updates on a monthly schedule isn’t very reasonable. If this were WoW, where a patch with significant changes might come every 2-4 months (or less frequently, even, at times!), then you could expect them. Even a bi-monthly schedule would offer a reasonable expectation. Monthly though? Not reasonable. I’m sure you won’t like to hear that, but I really feel that’s the way it is.

marnick.4305:

I want to be teased and surprised. I like the lack of early patch notes. It also leads to less rushing and more polish (see sig)

The “expansion worth of content” really did happen but not like a traditional expansion. Just print out the full patch notes for january and february and you’ll see they take up several pages in word. That’s a ton of changes. Mostly improvements, which is exactly what an expansion is about… fleshing out the game experience.

If you think a few pages of bug fixes and changes on a patch notes is an “expansion’s worth of content” Then the last 5 patches lol has had were all expansions.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Yet by MMO industry standards they communicate more and better (in that they are polite, decent and dignified – unusual in this industry) than literally 95% of MMOs out there. Claiming they don’t is simply counter-factual. So if that is their greatest failure they clearly don’t have many failures!

Blizzard communicate more right now, but it’s strictly one-way and very recent, and most of it is meaningless. Even a year or so ago they would have been behind Anet in that.

Expecting detailed patch previews (and let’s not pretend that isn’t what this is about) when a company does real updates on a monthly schedule isn’t very reasonable. If this were WoW, where a patch with significant changes might come every 2-4 months (or less frequently, even, at times!), then you could expect them. Even a bi-monthly schedule would offer a reasonable expectation. Monthly though? Not reasonable. I’m sure you won’t like to hear that, but I really feel that’s the way it is.

Well, I wasn’t referring to their politeness or decency. We all know how friendly this group of people are. I was merely pointing out that their methods of communication could be a lot better. The ascended fiasco is a brilliant example of how keeping people in the dark can backfire. I’m also not saying they need to keep a constant flow of information, divulging every speck of detail. No, two interviews, an AMA or QnA a month and a blog post weekly is not asking too much. Far from it, which is why I’ve said that perhaps hiring someone to take on these duties might not be such a bad idea.

Although the company doesn’t have a whole lot of flaws, pointing that out and saying just because of that fact it makes their biggest flaw negligible is rather dumbfounding. To reiterate, I’ll point back to the ascended period. The forums were filled with backlashes, there were blogs and articles pointing out how it diminishes the company’s image, and the AMA that happened a month later was almost entirely filled with ascended concerns. So tell me again how seemingly insignificant said flaw is, and I’ll point out again how silence can harm and cripple a companies image.

Blizzard took upon this newfound openness because of their tarnished image. Like I said, Anet is the better company, so I don’t know why they don’t learn from their competitors missteps.

Because of the nature of their monthly updates, I’d say transparency are more than needed. The game is constantly changing and in flux, which means people, especially those who take a break should hear about what is happening. I can’t quite understand why you fight the idea of strong communications, since it would not only help fans, but also the company.

Kakeru.2873:

marnick.4305:

I want to be teased and surprised. I like the lack of early patch notes. It also leads to less rushing and more polish (see sig)

The “expansion worth of content” really did happen but not like a traditional expansion. Just print out the full patch notes for january and february and you’ll see they take up several pages in word. That’s a ton of changes. Mostly improvements, which is exactly what an expansion is about… fleshing out the game experience.

If you think a few pages of bug fixes and changes on a patch notes is an “expansion’s worth of content” Then the last 5 patches lol has had were all expansions.

An expansion is about fleshing out the game. While most games tack on a few useless levels, and because of that a few areas, that’s not the core idea of an expansion. Filling in gaps of the game is actually the relevant part of an expansion.

Compare to WoW. Obviously, the 40 man raid system didn’t work, and the gear system was hopelessly convoluted leading to meaningless pvp. Instead of rebalancing the existing game, they threw it all out, tacked on 10 levels and made all existing gear with failed stats irrelevant. Not only that, but they had you pay 40 euros for what was basically a service pack to vanilla. If no one does Molten Core, there’s no need to fix it. That is the easy solution which has become the MMO standard.

As such, guild missions, dungeon overhaul, fleshing out Southsun Cove/Consortium, making WvW relevant … those would be core features of an expansion. However, instead of slapping on a few arbitrary levels and creating all that content from scratch, a.net decided to actually work with the existing content. Imho a far superior yet decidedly more difficult position.

The core philosophy of the jan/feb/march patches clearly resembles what an expansion pack is about, minus the active destruction of existing content. I agree 100% with that position.

marnick.4305:

Kakeru.2873:

marnick.4305:

I want to be teased and surprised. I like the lack of early patch notes. It also leads to less rushing and more polish (see sig)

The “expansion worth of content” really did happen but not like a traditional expansion. Just print out the full patch notes for january and february and you’ll see they take up several pages in word. That’s a ton of changes. Mostly improvements, which is exactly what an expansion is about… fleshing out the game experience.

If you think a few pages of bug fixes and changes on a patch notes is an “expansion’s worth of content” Then the last 5 patches lol has had were all expansions.

An expansion is about fleshing out the game. While most games tack on a few useless levels, and because of that a few areas, that’s not the core idea of an expansion. Filling in gaps of the game is actually the relevant part of an expansion.

Compare to WoW. Obviously, the 40 man raid system didn’t work, and the gear system was hopelessly convoluted leading to meaningless pvp. Instead of rebalancing the existing game, they threw it all out, tacked on 10 levels and made all existing gear with failed stats irrelevant. Not only that, but they had you pay 40 euros for what was basically a service pack to vanilla. If no one does Molten Core, there’s no need to fix it. That is the easy solution which has become the MMO standard.

As such, guild missions, dungeon overhaul, fleshing out Southsun Cove/Consortium, making WvW relevant … those would be core features of an expansion. However, instead of slapping on a few arbitrary levels and creating all that content from scratch, a.net decided to actually work with the existing content. Imho a far superior yet decidedly more difficult position.

The core philosophy of the jan/feb/march patches clearly resembles what an expansion pack is about, minus the active destruction of existing content. I agree 100% with that position.

You have sugar coated everything. I’m too tired to come up with a proper response now. but i will later.

nethykins.7986:

Vol.5241:

Alur.7510:

@nethykins.7986 @DarksunG.9537

To be honest, they announced already that the 26th is the patch for culling and other changes that are already done, I have no idea why not include them on the pre-patch notes so people can see them.

Meanwhile I understand something can get delayed, the subject that they already announced them and nothing is up yet, does not worry me, but something is not right either.

Why does it matter anyway? People keep making this type of thread before each patch. This is how they’ve done patches before. There is no benefit for them to announce something very detailed in advance when something can go horribly wrong and they have to pull back.

There’s a ton of benifit. Perhaps not in a raw physical form, but for ANet’s reputation on “priding themselves on communication” and getting people excited and drumming up that anticipation before a patch drops – tad more space for media coverage.

Because reading a 2 paragraph article on “Hey, so this patch is going to be dropping and everything is in vague territory”
…is not as interesting as…
“Hey so this patch is going to be dropping and here are the things that we and many have been exited about – item1, item2, item3”.

Anet is well known now for its vague approach so it would be an improvement on communication and would be the start of better “messaging” in the grand scope of things.

That’s nice and all, but how about when they release these patch notes and then later say, “Sorry but because of complications we will be delaying X changes until a month from now”

Can you imagine the storm that would cause on the forums? People who get excited about the patch will now have to wait a month?

It’s bad enough we have people complaining about tiny little issues.

One of the devs already stated this is the reason why they don’t release pre-patch notes until a few hours before it hits. And I totally understand.

One of the devs already stated this is the reason why they don’t release pre-patch notes until a few hours before it hits.

They really should release the patch notes only when they deploy it. Remember what happened when the Karkaland Ori node was “fixed”?

Mentioned

These changes have been mentioned by ArenaNet, but without any hint of a release date or any specific details.

Activities: includes bar brawl, polymock and a shooting range.⁸
Foes: More variations to creatures. ⁹
Gem Shop:
Name changes will be purchasable with gems.¹⁰
Housing: Guild halls and player housing in their home instance.¹¹¹²
Loot & gear: More Legendary items in the future and an update to existing Legendary weapons.⁵
Social: Improvements to group finding tool.¹³
Structured PvP:
New maps.¹⁴
Objectives other than conquest.¹⁵
Rentable custom arenas in Structured PvP, for customizable scrimmages and duels.¹⁶
World versus World:
Improving the commander functionality: Being discussed, but not being worked on yet.¹⁷

Making Siegeweapons not soul bound: Planned, but currently not possible due to internal programming issues.¹⁷
Dueling: The ability to duel other players in world.¹⁸

Source:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upcoming_changes_and_features