Guild Wars 2

Notice the dev never actually said that it wasn’t coming any time soon like the title of the article claims. “We’ll look into it” and “no timetable” just means they aren’t ready to talk about it yet. They definitely have people working on it. Last I heard they split the team in half and are hiring for the expansion. I would not be surprised if the end of year rumors were accurate.

Fernling.1729:

That’s kind of what I was thinking. Didn’t they say that they have a live team and a team that solely works on expansion content?

Not only that, but they said they split their staff 50/50, which is a substantial number. Did the expansion team get laid off, consolidated into the live team, or are they enjoying a year paid vacation?

Interdasting…

ASB.4295:

Fernling.1729:

That’s kind of what I was thinking. Didn’t they say that they have a live team and a team that solely works on expansion content?

Not only that, but they said they split their staff 50/50, which is a substantial number. Did the expansion team get laid off, consolidated into the live team, or are they enjoying a year paid vacation?

i was about to post something similar, i’m surprised it’s already been brought up. but yeah, i agree. i believe Anet would be lying if they outright stated “we are currently not working on an expansion.” if they include all of Anet, not just the live team.

if i remember correctly, they said a long time ago, way before launch, that they would split the live team and the other half of the company would start working on the expansion as soon as the game was launched. we haven’t heard anything from Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee in a very long time, and i’m positive they’re busy with building the expansion.

i can understand that they can’t talk about it though, because people just wouldn’t understand and blow everything out of proportion.

I want an expansion badly. I seriously want more skills added instead of monthly content updates. To me it doesn’t matter if we get ascended gear, southsun cove, fractals, or anything else, when my ability to interact with the game world isn’t changing.

Nemui.6753:

Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee

Add the lead game designer(?) Eric Flannum to that list.

Yargesh.4965:

Airien.4798:

Excellent news! Good to know.

Asking questions like that about a game just 6 months after launch is merely shoddy reporting and a lack of creativity.

It is reporting on what people want to know. How is that shoddy?

Who “wanted to know”? Everyone in the entire gaming world (except, apparently, this reporter) knew that there wasn’t going to be an expansion this soon. MMOs don’t tend to release expansions this early into the game’s life.

WoW went three years before its first full paid expansion. Aion went for about two years. SWTOR’s first paid expansion is coming out about a year and a half after it’s initial release. And TERA still hasn’t released a paid expansion.

MMOs don’t tend to release expansions in the first year of the game’s lifespan, much less the first six months. So any reporter asking this sort of question is, indeed, being a rather shoddy journalist, as they are demonstrating their lack of knowledge about their chosen field of employment.

However, to this reporter’s credit, at least he’s not purposely and grossly misinterpreting Colin’s statements to mean something sensationalistic….

No, we leave that kind of shoddy reporting to the fine folks at the Escapist.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122516-Guild-Wars-2-May-Be-The-End-Of-The-Franchise

I was shocked by this. The live content, mixed bag that it has been, was still sort of impressive, assuming that only a quarter of the company was working on Live Content. I assumed half the company was hard at work on an expansion. If all of Arenanet has been working on Live Content, then that makes what we’ve seen since launch look pretty pathetic.

Every excuse I’ve made for the lack of progress on Professions, the lack of new DEs, the lack of armor and weapon skins in the store and in the game, the lack of bug fixes, etc… hinged on the assumption that most of the company was working on an expansion.

Well, now I know we need to be demanding much, much more from Arenanet than we’ve been getting.

ASB.4295:

Nemui.6753:

Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee

Add the lead game designer(?) Eric Flannum to that list.

Yeah, there are a number of key developers we haven’t seen hide nor hair of in some time and I figured they were working on an expansion. If not, where the heck are they?

Fiontar.4695:

ASB.4295:

Nemui.6753:

Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee

Add the lead game designer(?) Eric Flannum to that list.

Yeah, there are a number of key developers we haven’t seen hide nor hair of in some time and I figured they were working on an expansion. If not, where the heck are they?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-teams-that-work-on-PvP-WvW-Balance/first

About which members do what etc.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

This isn’t actual news, it is something we have mentioned multiple times before. As the original interview says, and I quote:
“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future,” he explained. “We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

No one said we will never do an expansion, all Colin says (again) is that we are currently focusing on Living Story and other ongoing to the live game.

No worries man, I love Guild Wars 2 and it’s really the best MMO I’ve played thus far. However, someone needs to look into the World Event lag issues and overflow.

Yes guys, stop pestering them for expansions. They’re too busy providing 10 minutes of story content and a new achievement every month with the game we already have. There’s no time to fix 5 month old bugs, add name changes, re-add outfits available in beta(masquerade/tribal, the female corset dresses townswomen wear,feathered bustle dress,etc). They need to add backpack skins and hair colors that nobody asked for! Gosh, guys.

Geotherma.2395:

Fiontar.4695:

ASB.4295:

Nemui.6753:

Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee

Add the lead game designer(?) Eric Flannum to that list.

Yeah, there are a number of key developers we haven’t seen hide nor hair of in some time and I figured they were working on an expansion. If not, where the heck are they?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-teams-that-work-on-PvP-WvW-Balance/first

About which members do what etc.

Jon Peters, Jonathan Sharp and Isaiah Cartwright are the only ones on that list that we heard from years before launch. Doesn’t change the fact that we haven’t heard from other key developers in a long time now.

It’s obvious that they have the largest part of the studio working on expansion content. They don’t want to say that or give any information in that direction at all so they don’t have to meet any unwarranted player timelines. It will also be more of a ‘surprise’ to everyone when they finally announce it.

I think it has more to do with the fact they want to have a more seamless approach to building the world and opening new parts of it up rather than making us wait for months just for a paid expansion. Just because they don’t have a timetable for expansions right now, doesn’t mean we’re gonna be waiting forever to see the rest of Tyria. They can do that gradually in the updates.

Shanna.4762:

I think it has more to do with the fact they want to have a more seamless approach to building the world and opening new parts of it up rather than making us wait for months just for a paid expansion. Just because they don’t have a timetable for expansions right now, doesn’t mean we’re gonna be waiting forever to see the rest of Tyria. They can do that gradually in the updates.

This ^

Plus…why this thread?

ASB.4295:

Fernling.1729:

That’s kind of what I was thinking. Didn’t they say that they have a live team and a team that solely works on expansion content?

Not only that, but they said they split their staff 50/50, which is a substantial number. Did the expansion team get laid off, consolidated into the live team, or are they enjoying a year paid vacation?

Interdasting…

PR.

If Colin said “yeah we’re working on an expansion, but we don’t want to talk about it yet”, the headlines become GUILKDL WAR 2 EUXPANDION DCOMING!!!!!!

By leaving it ambiguous, the attention (theoretically anyway) can stay on what they want people talking about: the monthly content releases. Those are the things that will encourage people to keep playing the game right now, rather than something that might tempt players to come back a year from now.

blakeryan.2018:

Yes guys, stop pestering them for expansions. They’re too busy providing 10 minutes of story content and a new achievement every month with the game we already have. There’s no time to fix 5 month old bugs, add name changes, re-add outfits available in beta(masquerade/tribal, the female corset dresses townswomen wear,feathered bustle dress,etc). They need to add backpack skins and hair colors that nobody asked for! Gosh, guys.

My thoughts exactly! It’s sad that so little has been done with the cash shop in this game and instead of using it to it’s full ability to generate revenue we get DR and loot nerfs to stabilize the game and generate gem sales. Oh and the new AC to slow people grinding tokens.

GW2 still needs a lot of work and fixes, it makes sense they’d want to finish developing the main game before announcing expansions.

Darn…. I wanted my 2 handed Axe for my Warrior and Ranger… ;-)

One of the few good things i read recently by anet……

At least it means no increase in level cap in the short period.

In my opinion, which honestly doesn’t matter in the grand scheme, I’d like a focus put to the living story and bug fixes. That’s all I’d like to see for the next year. Get the general world bugs ironed out, the class bugs worked out, the pvp and wvw bugs worked out, all while expanding the living story is all I expect until Q4.

Make progress, substantial progress that betters the game, in those areas and I personally believe the playerbase will be more than happy to hear about what’s next.

Performance and bug fixes, those are the things this game really needs. We have already got Lost Shores and other great new things and they will surely keep adding those things in future too without the need of expansion.

Great news

Even if an expansion was announced I wouldn’t look at it too negatively. The bugs will always be fixed and new ones will always appear as in most games. Games in general need new content to keep players playing. A lot of the new free content is supported by player transactions in the gem shop. That can only go so far. If the amount of content is substantial enough to warrant a price tag then there’s nothing wrong with that. It would definitely keep the game going for a lot of players.

If they just don’t want to call it expansion, but instead want to e.g. open a new zone in Far Shiverpeaks to contain major new events in the Living Story, that’s fine.
But if the Living Story and the next stories to come – seeing as this first one will probably be wrapped up in April update – are just as limited, and Anet continue to just focus on making core game stronger, then I think they’ve done a poor job releasing the game with too much stuff needing fixing.

People want new stuff – what’s already there should be working – that Anet now have to backtrack and fix alot of stuff that’s gone wrong can be tolerated to a certain degree, but for ‘want to make core game stronger’ to be primary focus of most resources just seems like poor planning.

I’m glad it’s B2P so people can come back later at any time of their choosing, but I fear GW2 will become a ghost town when the next big, anticipated MMOs hit the market if the game doesn’t get new, large content updates like zones, professions, races, skills, etc., then like Zeromius above says, people won’t keep playing, games need new content to retain that novelty effect.

Dondarrion.2748:

I’m glad it’s B2P so people can come back later at any time of their choosing, but I fear GW2 will become a ghost town when the next big, anticipated MMOs hit the market if the game doesn’t get new, large content updates like zones, professions, races, skills, etc., then like Zeromius above says, people won’t keep playing, games need new content to retain that novelty effect.

I don’t think it’s the lack of expansions that are going to make this game a ghost town. Despite the B2P, you can’t leave and come back and still be relevant because they’ve time-gated the heck out of tier gear. If you’re not up to speed on dailies, monthlies, and guild missions, you’re behind. That’s not only going to drive some gamers off, it’s going to keep them from coming back.

I’m happy with this decision of theirs to work on the game and not to expand yet, but I still think they’re missing the point. It’s the tier-geared, grindy philosophy that’s going to kill them in the end. Yes, time gates will keep people playing…for a little while. And when they get tired of it, they’ll leave…and won’t see any reason to come back and be behind the power curve.

I’ve said it in other threads and I’ll say it here: no more Ascended gear attached to your game, guys. Keep what you have – people have worked for it – but don’t add any more. Take what little time you have left here to rework your philosophy. It’s not too late…yet.

That’s fine and all. I mean even before we bother looking into Cantha, Elona and onwards ( the entire world of tyria is disgustingly huge) we still need to kill the other 3 Elder Dragons running amok within Tyria still.

After that is said and done we’re taking over Cantha! One festival at a time

I will buy any expansion as long as it doesn’t increase the level cap, gear cap or otherwise destroys my character.

Chuo.4238:

I don’t think it’s the lack of expansions that are going to make this game a ghost town. Despite the B2P, you can’t leave and come back and still be relevant because they’ve time-gated the heck out of tier gear. If you’re not up to speed on dailies, monthlies, and guild missions, you’re behind. That’s not only going to drive some gamers off, it’s going to keep them from coming back.

Not really, the only place you really need Ascended gear is higher level(scale, whatever…) Fractals – and that’s basically what you can purchase for all those Laurels or Guild Commendations that will set you apart from your peers.
I could drop out of this game for one/several month(s) and come back and not feel a bit daunted by others’ progress compared to my own, it’s casual-friendly that way. But if I drop out and come back after that time and there’s still nothing to do, maybe a few conversations with a handful of Living Story NPCs, you’ll see my back quickly again.

Ofc – not happening yet, still playing but I can already feel this game is trying my patience and if it hadn’t been for The Secret World/Skyrim (or insert other game name to suit your own fancy) to spend my time in as well, I’d feel very bored these days.

To be honest, I don’t like this decision at all.

All I want is a big new content update, so that you can play for months again (like with an expansion), new classes, new personal story (!!!, no open world) and Cantha or Elona. This just won’t happen in live updates.

And if really the whole studio is working on these (compared to the team size) really small monthly content updates then I’m a little bit concerned about how long they’ll need for an expansion. 3 years?

Guild Wars 2 is an unfinished product and is technically still in beta. Classes are a complete mess.

-There are very few viable builds and the majority of traits are down right terrible.

-Condition damage is completely broken in group environments.

-99% of the world is empty and it took them 5 years to build it.

-Content is not challenging enough to satisfy skilled players so they gate content with daily tokens.

-Player culling

Not to be a brat, but GW1 had the same problem with there only being a “few” “viable” builds.

That should be read thus: there are actually plenty of GOOD builds, but people are much too focused on having tons of OPTIMAL builds. Which is fair enough, but let’s not pretend that there isn’t any variety out there at all. I’ve seen several different variations of the most common build choices, usually based on personal preference.

So when I head this me and my guildies had a little talk and the a few things became apparent. First, everyone thought they were working on one. As to how far in development is up to debate, but everyone thought one was in the works. The second thing was how people reacted, almost all were disappointed. It seems we thought a new one would come out at some point, be it in a year or in six months. It just did not sound like good judgement that they would not have at least started working on one.

My point of view is, okay you have been busy fixing the game. Bugs, content and all sorts of stuff: however they are always talking about a lack of programmers and this always made me thing they have most working on new content. Now we know they are not, I have to wonder what are they doing? If they are all doing this living story, then my opinion of it is low! I was always disappointed by it, but gave it the benefit of the doubt because I sort of assumed they have a small team working on it.

Anyway, I hope they soon start to look at adding new big content to the game: such as a area the size of Ascalon maybe the crystal desert. I would love to see them give us £20 or £30 expansions with some story evolving in a giant area, through a few maps. Maybe the area where the Blood legion call home.

Also, I want to point out that I love GW2 atm but we need some new things to expand the PvE side of it: and they could use expansions as a way to give us new WvW maps.

I wonder how long it is going to take them to make a expansion, once they start?

Considering how long an expansion would take to create, I agree they probably started working on it already. I don’t think it makes sense to refer to the timetables of expansion releases for games that are subbed (or have only recently gone F2P) in terms of predicting when a B2P title will release its first expansion. P2P can afford to take their sweet time with expansions, after all. Considering the dearth of desirable items in the gem store, I think GW2 will need timely paid expansions to stay afloat.

Okay so most say there won’t be any new weapons for each class until expansion comes out. If expansion comes out in 4 years do i have to spam same weapons we’re using for the past 6 months until then!?!??!!?

Don’t worry once they’re satisfied they’ve catered to pvp enough and made enough new maps for it, they’ll start to fix up pve. Once that’s all done they’ll soothe the angry pvp’ers some more then finally work on an expansion.

I totally agree with them not coming out with any type of expansion to this yet. The game is STILL way too new and there is still a lot to come. I’ve always seen this game as a painting (for REALLY obvious reasons), once the “artist” starts working on it. He/she takes their time, being it fast or slow, will add detail over time.

If anyone speculates about anything. I personally feel they should definitely go the route of the 1st game. Were they worked on the “stand-alone” part. You weren’t required to have GW1 or any of the other games to still enjoy Cantha or Elona. If you had the other games, that just makes the game bigger for you, if not then you still got a great game by itself.

Lord Kreegan.8123:

A lot of us (based on people I’ve talked to in-game and posts in the forum) believe the game is, in effect, still in Beta; that is, it was rushed out the door with inadequate testing. There are far too many broken mechanics and other fundamental issues to even be considering for a moment any kind of expansion…

…not that I see them fixing any of the bugs; not even the most obvious bugs…

Such is the case for any complicated software project. Software products like GW2 are never “done”.

Well on the one hand yay, I guess. On the other, how much money is ANet pulling in from the gem store? Usually those box sales recoup the cost of content production so I’m afraid that the amount of money to make new content might not be there and we’ll keep seeing small content patches which in total don’t match what we would have gotten from an expansion, and a fixed expansion also puts pressure on the developers to do something new or interesting.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

This isn’t actual news, it is something we have mentioned multiple times before. As the original interview says, and I quote:
“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future,” he explained. “We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

No one said we will never do an expansion, all Colin says (again) is that we are currently focusing on Living Story and other ongoing to the live game.

Then one would have to file away as, if there is an expansion and if they aren’t working on it already… It’s a long ways off.

Will.9785:

Notice the dev never actually said that it wasn’t coming any time soon like the title of the article claims. “We’ll look into it” and “no timetable” just means they aren’t ready to talk about it yet. They definitely have people working on it. Last I heard they split the team in half and are hiring for the expansion. I would not be surprised if the end of year rumors were accurate.

Then it falls back to trust. My company does the same kitten and then they wonder why we don’t fully trust them either. They don’t get it, right over their head. “No Comment” is a safer answer. If there is a team working on it and they want to share, “We are working on one, but there is no timetable”. But how you allude it’s about playing with words… which then transfers over to trust.

Whenever I see people say “I’m glad, the game still needs lots of work and bug fixes” I sigh irl. I just can’t even handle comments like that, anymore lol….I feel like I’m playing a different game than those people. I mean, yeah sometimes there’s bugs but it’s not really anything big or noticeable on a regular basis…And I don’t think that has anything to do with why there’s no timetable for expansions, or why they’re doing what they are.

Hold off on time-gated equipments, and focus more on the expansion. Patches seem to worsen the state of the game. -_-

Leo Paul.1659:

Hold off on time-gated equipments, and focus more on the expansion. Patches seem to worsen the state of the game. -_-

I think they are doing a lot of exploratory things here. This games open world is quite a bit different imo from any other mmo. They are seeing a lot of people are simply going to where the loot is, as like at least half the active base playing does this. Fractals sucked them in like no one’s business, now the open world is thinned a lot. Now we give bosses some loot to go hunt them, no we have overflow because a lot of people want that loot. They are still figuring and balancing this all out.

Drew.1865:

blakeryan.2018:

Yes guys, stop pestering them for expansions. They’re too busy providing 10 minutes of story content and a new achievement every month with the game we already have. There’s no time to fix 5 month old bugs, add name changes, re-add outfits available in beta(masquerade/tribal, the female corset dresses townswomen wear,feathered bustle dress,etc). They need to add backpack skins and hair colors that nobody asked for! Gosh, guys.

My thoughts exactly! It’s sad that so little has been done with the cash shop in this game and instead of using it to it’s full ability to generate revenue we get DR and loot nerfs to stabilize the game and generate gem sales. Oh and the new AC to slow people grinding tokens.

I would probably buy some of the costume items if it didn’t force me into a weird red colored karate gi when I equip them. We should be able to put on a hat or pair of glasses with out that crap and be able to wear it outside town imo,

I don’t mind. Despite it being 7 months since release, my characters are still only in the 15 – 25 zones. :/ I’ve got a way to go yet before I finish all of the “normal” content! Plus, I’ve got other games to play too!

Can we at least get Maguuma wastes, Fissure of Woe, Underworld and the Crystal Desert in updates with the original music from GW1 then? I am missing those zones.

No.

We should get at least one proper event for ALL the major cities.
The new “Crab Island” has to be kinda fleshed out this year too. Also there´s no telling how far they will take Flame&Frost and if it´s gona get a “sequel”.

I think some people tend to overreact to the idea of there being new content in general. There is a bug fixing team and there are teams creating new content. They are not mutually exclusive. No, I don’t think the game is perfect as it is but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an expansion. The buy to play model actually favors frequent expansions because it works with something we all know to be true. That the being that people will pay for new content if it is substantial enough. There is uncertainty though when it comes to paying for vanity items like skins, make up kits, minis, etc.

I said this on Reddit, but I feel it fits this thread as well (if not even better than reddit)

~~~

Around launch, Arena Net said they were splitting their dev team between steaming updates and boxed expansions. Does this mean that the team working on expansions is gone or merged with the other team? No.

~~~

Look at this from a business prospective.

If they came out and said “we are currently working on an expansion, but it’s not ready yet,” that means that it’s far enough along that they feel comfortable telling people that it’s coming their way which sets expectations.

Setting expectations too early puts pressure for things to be hastily released instead of time taken on them, something I’m sure ArenaNet is heavily looking to avoid. ANet would get a lot more bad press if they said it was coming, then changed their answer to NOT coming any time soon than the other way around.

The other aspect is that they likely chose to keep focus on the current updates instead of dissolving interest into what might be coming later. Keep the hype on what’s coming soon, not what’s coming in the distant future…that’s basic business. ANet doesn’t want us to get this mindset: “Oh cool, more Flame and Frost TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE EXPANSION.” They want us to stay thrilled about what might be in the final two parts of Flame and Frost

If a new expansion is on its way, I highly doubt we’ll hear ANYTHING about it until the Flame and Frost series is over with. And to be honest, I think an expansion is already in the works.

This isn’t actual news, it is something we have mentioned multiple times before. As the original interview says, and I quote:
“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future,” he explained. “We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

No one said we will never do an expansion, all Colin says (again) is that we are currently focusing on Living Story and other ongoing to the live game.

That actually is news though. I, like many other players, assumed that at least some people were already working on an expansion for the game. The Living Story may well become interesting (it hasn’t yet, of course), but there are a lot of people waiting for the game to take some big strides, not just baby steps.

We want to see a new Elder Dragon become available, Jormag or Kralkatorrik, we want more expansion of the map, into places like Elona or Cantha, not just in small zones, but in whole regions of zones. These are unreasonable expectations for a free update, but they are perfectly reasonable for a paid one, and we want to pay you for them.

It was the community’s assumption that there was a plan for the first expansion before launch, and that before launch, or soon after, work had begun on making it happen, so that hopefully by summer, or late fall at the latest, we’d have something truly epic added to the game. The Living World content is all well and good, keep that up if you like, but a significant expansion of the game would be worth a thousand times more than all the “Living World” content so far, and so far the only hope you guys have given us is in our own assumptions, so please don’t take those assumptions away.