Guild Wars 2

Why are people surprised? There was a break between chapters to make room for Halloween, didn’t everyone expect this would be case with Christmas and New Years as well?

I feel like I should be annoyed by having yet another big break in the story, and I suppose I am. But I’m not sure how much I care anymore.

Rehashed Halloween and Wintersday content holds little interest for me. The story will resume whenever it does, all 2 hours of it. And I’ll be there to play it. But GW2 has already fallen to secondary-game status for me, and this sort of “planning” only further reminds me why.

They produce such little content, and even when they are actually putting anything out, they only do it for a few little patches, and then stop again for a long time. This “bi-weekly” Living Story could have been up to 26 “expansion-like” updates in a year. But obviously that would be too much to hope for. Fair enough. So how about 12? Nope, that’s also too much to hope for. Apparently even 8 is pushing it. And the ones we do get are pretty tiny.

So much time is passing with so little expansion-like content to show for it. It’s getting hard to take any of this very seriously. The game, the story, the company, whatever. It all just seems so un-focused and amateur. I don’t like “being negative”, I really don’t. I liked being a fanboy better, but those days feel so far gone by now. I hope they have some seriously amazing stuff in store for 2015, because so far it seems like disappointment after disappointment.

FYI, I have no issue with people taking time off for the holidays. By all means you should get to chill out for a while. I’m fortunate enough this year to get to take a whole week off myself. My issue is what has (hasn’t) been delivered all year prior, and the year before that, with no indication of that changing in the future.

It isn’t worth an awful lot of drama because this was predictable. The pace of the story has been slow from the start and fairly disjointed too. Stories need a beginning and end and each chapter too. That’s not happening.

The content of some chapters hasn’t been much fun along the way either. Glint’s Lair was beautiful, but obnoxious to play particularly if your main is a mesmer. Playing as Caithe wasn’t all that much fun either. I’m with those guys who want to play their own character. I could go on about this but I wont.

Not being able to complete a set of gear has obviously gotten a few peoples noses out of joint too, and the grind to get the sinister recipes is not much fun at all.

“Oh, what was I thinking? Anet does make grindy games!” – a quote we’ll never see.

So, Anet can do a lot better, no matter what they have on their plate, no matter what’s on or off the table. A closer look at a calendar would obviously help.

A passage from a Christmas Carol:

First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.

Ebenezer: Are there no prisons?

First Collector: Plenty of prisons.

Ebenezer: And the union workhouses – are they still in operation?

First Collector: They are. I wish I could say they were not.

Ebenezer: Oh, from what you said at first I was afraid that something had happened to stop them in their useful course. I’m very glad to hear it.

For some reason, this comes to mind when I read this thread.

Jaken.6801:

coglin.1867:

What is all if this “it is” and “it isn’t”, and this “we” and “us” junk?

You do not speak for me, or anyone else as far as I am concerned. As well your *opinion,", of what is or isn’t is an opinion, not some fact of any kind. Why don’t you stop presuming to speak for the rest of us for one? Because as far as I am concerned, you doing a poor job, just speaking for yourself. you post every thing you say as a statement of fact, then use “we” and “us” as if you are some elected official.

Just because you think something is filler, or you think something is a cliff hanger and don’t like it, doesn’t mean you have the right to claim to speak for anyone else in some bad attempt to give your own opinion more weight.

sigh , read again.

I put things in quotes, I used the word “I”, even said so towards the end.
I was speaking about general feelings, which were reflected on the forums in massive threads, etc…

People were complaining about these things and I never said that everyone does it.

If you mixed up what I was saying and what were a generalisation, then I don`t know,

I never asked to be a spokesperson and I wrote that there as well.

May i ask you to carry on then, if you got nothing constructive to the topic to say of course…

(btw. Is it just because I got a reaction by Gaile? Maybe she is busy right now and comes back later. The Thread was still young there)

btw. you will tell me that the endings of these episodes were no cliffhanger? They weren`t cut and mysteries were created to be possibly concluded in the next episode?
It is a deliberate choice by the writers and not always a bad one.

I have previously stated my opinion o the LS. I do not mind how they are handling it. My opinion on the matter differs greatly from yours, based on how I play the game. Unlike yourself, I was not dismissive of your opinion on it. I read your post. Yes in one single sentance, in parenthesis, at the and, you stayed “I”. If my dislike of the rest of your use of “we” upsets you, that is your provlem. Personally I find it very misleading and disingenuous. If you do not like my views on that, then do not post in a manner that suggest you are trying to represent anyone other than yourself.

So, another rehashed holiday event replaces the Living Story release? Who would have thought…
They need to pad out the little content they already have I guess.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, definitely, Wintersday should be released concurrently with Episode 8. That would both make sense (4 episodes, break, 4 episodes) and would provide more content for the Winter vacation time that all companies have around this time of year (4 week break). This would also be consistent with pretty much every holiday/LS release combination of the past.

While I understand company limitations, staff limitations due to holidays, and so forth, I very much feel that this should’ve been planned for well in advance and that releasing them concurrently would’ve been the best.

May I ask why you feel that way? Why have two conflicting or competing things going on in a time period when many people have a lot going on in their lives — family obligations, travel, parties, events — which leaves them with less time to log in to their favorite game? Why not have each release get the spotlight and the player attention that each so richly deserves? And why roll out content (some are suggesting just days before a holiday break) that would be difficult if not impossible to maintain with holiday travel, developer unavailability, etc.? We pride ourselves on addressing issues as promptly as possible, but if an issue arises over a holiday break, it can be very challenging to take care of a problem. (I know this from personal experience: I worked with a server programmer through a full New Year’s Day to address an issue years ago. He was able to get things back to normal, but it was asking a lot to do that.)

Saying “This is what I want” is fine. But is what you want really logical? In my opinion the decision of the two release dates makes sense on several levels.

And that dear Gaile, is exactly where you are right..people on fora tend to write first and not think about it
Now, you and your colleagues enjoy your well earned holidays

Kartel.2561:

I feel like I should be annoyed by having yet another big break in the story, and I suppose I am. But I’m not sure how much I care anymore.

Rehashed Halloween and Wintersday content holds little interest for me. The story will resume whenever it does, all 2 hours of it. And I’ll be there to play it. But GW2 has already fallen to secondary-game status for me, and this sort of “planning” only further reminds me why.

They produce such little content, and even when they are actually putting anything out, they only do it for a few little patches, and then stop again for a long time. This “bi-weekly” Living Story could have been up to 26 “expansion-like” updates in a year. But obviously that would be too much to hope for. Fair enough. So how about 12? Nope, that’s also too much to hope for. Apparently even 8 is pushing it. And the ones we do get are pretty tiny.

So much time is passing with so little expansion-like content to show for it. It’s getting hard to take any of this very seriously. The game, the story, the company, whatever. It all just seems so un-focused and amateur. I don’t like “being negative”, I really don’t. I liked being a fanboy better, but those days feel so far gone by now. I hope they have some seriously amazing stuff in store for 2015, because so far it seems like disappointment after disappointment.

FYI, I have no issue with people taking time off for the holidays. By all means you should get to chill out for a while. I’m fortunate enough this year to get to take a whole week off myself. My issue is what has (hasn’t) been delivered all year prior, and the year before that, with no indication of that changing in the future.

This.

I’m becoming more and more disillusioned by GW2. The “fortnightly” content is not substantial enough.

So, a rehash of last years Wintersday with a few small bank clutter rewards to make the tedium of playing very old content worth while.

I am fine with the living story hiatus as the story is kinda bad and I am not looking forward to it, but what I am not okay with is every festival being a clone of the last. Especially when so many other great MMO’s offer fresh festival content each year.

Guild Wars really is not standing up to other games when it comes to the quality and quantity of fresh content per year.

Honestly, I prefer that there’s no living story update during Wintersday. It gives us time to do Wintersday events at our leisure without feeling pressured to do living story events at the same time.

Aside from that though, I do hope there will be new stuff to do and new items to acquire this Wintersday to make up for the gap. I am excited that it will take place in DR this time (I think Halloween should have been there as well, because it would have looked epic), so maybe that means it will feel fresh this year.

At least now, hopefully people will finally have some perspective on what Anet means when they said they’re working on big projects, since they’ve said some of the big project would be released this year.

I think where the brunt of the frustration on this is coming from is that we have had all this momentum leading up to episode 8 only for it to be put on hold for a month… We’re tired of the cliffhangers and then the only reward we have is to have the story held off again?

Look, we all get it, the holidays are busy, blah blah blah. But it comes down to this, Had there been a month shorter break between the first four episodes and the last four episodes of Season 2, then Episode 8 would’ve been released before Wintersday and there wouldn’t need to have been this break for one more episode…

To say that you guys have this master schedule, to me, means that you intentionally planned on holding back Episode 8 months and months in advance and that is extremely frustrating that you intentionally had two cliffhangers episode after episode with no real progress of storytelling only to intentionally keep us on hold.

We are NOT impressed.

Once again, our frustration is not at Wintersday, but at the grand master schedule you guys have that intentionally put the last episode of Season 2 on hold for a month.

Mavis.1463:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfey.3407:

The only thing that really annoys me with this note….
Veteran players are stuck for a few weeks with nothing to do but re-re-play wintersday content with the added bonus of most likely not being able to unlock anything from season one, unless it’s stuck behind another lottery. And the possible chance of some super adorable mini being locked behind wintersday gifts at a drop rate equivalent to precursors with the added insult of not being able to be sold or traded to other players.

Whereas veteran players in World of Warcraft waited a year while paying a subscription with no new content and just repeating stuff.

And I know people who’ve already beaten the new WoW and returned to Guild Wars 2. There’s no game alive that can keep people in content as much as they want.

FF14.
“Baaah, I don’t like THAT game, it sucks! therefore, the fact that they produce more content is irrelevant!”

Did I get that right?

According to a Developer interview the stuff in the game was supposed to be in there at launch and they just finished adding it. Sounds to me like you don’t read stuff about a game you’re touting. It also sounds like you’re deliberately trying to mislead people.

Or did you not read the bit where the developers of that game said the game is now complete with that last patch?

Edit: Aside from which my comment is about WoW, not Final Fantasy. I didn’t bring up Final Fantasy here, you did. So not only is your comment off topic, but as I’ve said above, it’s also misleading. It’s okay to like whatever game you like. No real reason to invent stuff about it.

webtoehobbit.4201:

I think where the brunt of the frustration on this is coming from is that we have had all this momentum leading up to episode 8 only for it to be put on hold for a month… We’re tired of the cliffhangers and then the only reward we have is to have the story held off again?

Look, we all get it, the holidays are busy, blah blah blah. But it comes down to this, Had there been a month shorter break between the first four episodes and the last four episodes of Season 2, then Episode 8 would’ve been released before Wintersday and there wouldn’t need to have been this break for one more episode…

To say that you guys have this master schedule, to me, means that you intentionally planned on holding back Episode 8 months and months in advance and that is extremely frustrating that you intentionally had two cliffhangers episode after episode with no real progress of storytelling only to intentionally keep us on hold.

We are NOT impressed.

Once again, our frustration is not at Wintersday, but at the grand master schedule you guys have that intentionally put the last episode of Season 2 on hold for a month.

I don’t think episode 8 is the last one. At least i haven’t read that it is. I’m also not sure this last one could be called a cliff-hanger.

As far as the OP goes, i would much rather them not have to work overtime to crank out buggy content before the holidays. Yes, the master schedule does seem flawed, almost unorganized, but i’m almost completely unsure how they could fix it at this point. I definitely feel the master plan needs about as much fixing as the rest of the game.

How is this last one not a cliffhanger? It ended right as we were about to go in the door…. If that’s not a cliffhanger, then I don’t know what is.

As others have said, Anet employees work hard and deserve some time off to be with their families.

I hope everyone at Anet has a great holiday (those that are off) and that they come back recharged and feeling rested.

munkiman.3068:

As far as the OP goes, i would much rather them not have to work overtime to crank out buggy content before the holidays.

You know, the same argument was given for the final of Season 1. Anyone remember the final episode, how it took them one week after releasing it to fix the most gamebreaking bugs.

What I see from ANet is just way too many excuses for not delivering what they advertise.
Great stuff is coming, they say. They just don’t say when for a reason. Because I am fairly convinced that a) they do not know when it will be done if ever or b) they are not even convinced that what they produce right now is great stuff.

Too little too late, as seems to be the whole philosophy of the content updates for GW2.

Last year there was a six week break in the Living Story due to Winterday. This year it’s only four.

As the devs have pointed out, there is a schedule, set months in advance about when things are due so they can be released. The knowledge of when the Halloween and Winterday events are fixed to the calendar, other content has to be worked around them and their deliverable are scheduled accordingly.

It’s not like some guy is sitting in the server room with a pile of LS episodes ready to be released.

While I understand with the holiday and all, and the staff is also human and need their time off too, for me, this is still a poor attempt just to make January have a fresh new content so people have something to log in to the game and not go ‘oh noez it’s already 2015 and we have nothing to do Q.Qs’
You could have just start the content 2 weeks early but no, lets wait January .. sigh ..
If you think the cliffhangers will make people go Ooohh the cliffhangers makes me angry. no, this is not game of thrones. don’t compare it to that epic series. i am sure most people just want the full armor and forget about all this hot mess grind behind and never look back ever again to that hell hole.
For me it’s a really bad design. but meh .. enjoy your holiday while we do the not so new wintersday grind content still need to farm that 100000 box for a 0.000001% chance of glowing ascended ring now do we?

Behellagh.1468:

Last year there was a six week break in the Living Story due to Winterday. This year it’s only four.

As the devs have pointed out, there is a schedule, set months in advance about when things are due so they can be released. The knowledge of when the Halloween and Winterday events are fixed to the calendar, other content has to be worked around them and their deliverable are scheduled accordingly.

It’s not like some guy is sitting in the server room with a pile of LS episodes ready to be released.

I do not know, other companies have updates ready weeks if not monthes ahead of release. They put them on a PTS for 2 weeks+ before going live. It is not like it is good business to get stuff done right before it has to be put on the live servers, as it will only cause burn out for your employees.

Bad time management, that is all it is.

Seriously would’ve been happy if they released the last (probably 2 hour content) at the same time as the wintersday content and just delayed whatever they are planning (again probably not much at all) till the end of January. As a student I’ve got some time during the christmas break, but I’ll be too busy in begin-mid January because of exams. So what I’ll be getting is crappy rehash content from last year, that I didn’t enjoy, and another huge personal delay of the LS till end January.

So yeah, thank Anet for another (not unexpected) disappointment. Keep up the good work! /sarcasm

Gaile Gray.6029:

Donari.5237:

As unfortunate as the timing of this break may be, it’s not like they have everything in the can and are just picking release dates. Imagine your response if you were working on a large project — say, a term paper, or a mural on the side of a building — and someone said “I know your due date is in six weeks, but I’d really like you to finish next week instead.” You wouldn’t be able to do it, not with any reasonable quality.

Thank you for a reasonable comment that really stands out for its logic and perception. It’s true: The team can’t roll out content a month in advance on request. There is a plan and a master schedule, and with the much-loved and keenly-anticipated Wintersday Festival, Episode 8 will receive its full due in January, as intended. And as outlined in Colin’s blog post, there are other nice things coming, too!

Please, if this thread is going to continue, I ask you to think before posting. This is a forum, sure, but let’s all do our part to tamp down the DramaBeast with his +5-gazillion to Hype Attacks.

On one hand, I understand the desire to tamp down the hype, whining, and general illogic that seems to run rampant on the forums. The “DramaBeast,” as you put it.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that while non-critical responses such as Donari’s get lavishly praised for their “logic” and “reason,” criticisms of major decisions affecting the game or the forums—even legitimate criticisms—tend to get brushed off or treated as “illogical” by the devs who reply.
There is a lot of silliness on these forums, but legitimate criticism should not be dismissed out of hand. Perhaps it was never intended as such, but a number of people on the forums perceive a condescending aspect, at times, to dev feedback.
That said, I do understand—and even agree with—your decision to put the Living Story off for the holidays. However, the pacing of the living story has been, and is, flawed. Even though it makes sense to take a holiday break, these players have been dealing with pacing issues for a long time—and it is equally logical for them to be frustrated. Even if you cannot cede to their want for the living story to continue, you could (and, I think, should) recompense them somehow, for the wait.
Recompense could come in many forms. Hints; written short stories that offer us another angle to the current living story; the release of living story-related skins and goodies over the holiday; ect. This would help ease the legitimate frustration of those being made to wait, without putting those who will be gone for the holidays behind.

webtoehobbit.4201:

How is this last one not a cliffhanger? It ended right as we were about to go in the door…. If that’s not a cliffhanger, then I don’t know what is.

While i’m sure the door is important, we really don’t even know why. Same thing with the egg. There just isn’t enough cohesive backstory to have me feeling like i have to know what’s behind that door. If anything, Cathe stealing the egg is at least more substantial.

I’ll have to admit I haven’t read through every single post in this thread but just want to add my 2 cents as a software developer myself. Rule of thumb is never EVER release big new content shortly ahead of public holidays unless it is absolutely crucial. The reasons for this have already been highlighted in this thread.

Now you may also complain that Wintersday is a “rehash” of last year/the year before. From my point of view (I could be wrong), this is simply because the content has already been used and thus thoroughly tested in a production environment, therefore will require minimal support over the festive period.

Please forgive me if you feel I am stating the obvious, but given the variety of ages of forum users some may not find this that obvious.

So LS 2 Chapter 8 will be released on January 13th 2015? Well, that’s… I don’t know what to say… this is just so….

HOOOORAY!
So much to do in this weird real live before christmas, so little time to play- reading that the next LS chapter is 5 more weeks ahead makes me chime!

I mean, trying to get the Lumeniscent Armor is already a *beep*load of grind -and even worse: grind with built in rng- but at least now there’s some time I can invest in that. Thinking about chapter 8 being released next week, adding another part or two of the Lumeniscent Armor…. nah, I just don’t want to imagine that.

Happy Holidays everyone!

There is an additional reason for this long break: China! It is the first Wintersday over there. Everything is new for the majority of the players. With LW on pause they can enjoy Wintersday to its full extent.

In addition the Chinese Qualifiers for the 2nd WTS final in Boston start at Dec 22nd and end at Jan 9th. Chinese players are simply to busy to play LW.

http://arena.kongzhong.com/new/20141203/5801.html

Vayne.8563:

Mavis.1463:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfey.3407:

The only thing that really annoys me with this note….
Veteran players are stuck for a few weeks with nothing to do but re-re-play wintersday content with the added bonus of most likely not being able to unlock anything from season one, unless it’s stuck behind another lottery. And the possible chance of some super adorable mini being locked behind wintersday gifts at a drop rate equivalent to precursors with the added insult of not being able to be sold or traded to other players.

Whereas veteran players in World of Warcraft waited a year while paying a subscription with no new content and just repeating stuff.

And I know people who’ve already beaten the new WoW and returned to Guild Wars 2. There’s no game alive that can keep people in content as much as they want.

FF14.
“Baaah, I don’t like THAT game, it sucks! therefore, the fact that they produce more content is irrelevant!”

Did I get that right?

According to a Developer interview the stuff in the game was supposed to be in there at launch and they just finished adding it. Sounds to me like you don’t read stuff about a game you’re touting. It also sounds like you’re deliberately trying to mislead people.

Or did you not read the bit where the developers of that game said the game is now complete with that last patch?

Edit: Aside from which my comment is about WoW, not Final Fantasy. I didn’t bring up Final Fantasy here, you did. So not only is your comment off topic, but as I’ve said above, it’s also misleading. It’s okay to like whatever game you like. No real reason to invent stuff about it.

Question is why did you feel the need to bring WoW into the topic either…. this topic has nothing to do with WoW or FF14 it is to do with GW2 LS2 going on another 6 week sabbatical veiled by the holiday season and lack of staffing…. which personally only spells out poor planning resulting in preference to rehashed content over story progression at a time when many people will also be enjoying that festive holiday whilst being able to spend a chunk of extra time playing the game for a whiles.
What I see happening is that Wintersday will pull its crowd until it begins to ware thin, but like the Halloween event I will put side bet on it that there will be another RNG farm item to be gotten in the hope it can keep players logging in.

I have enjoyed LS2 but experience suggests that confidence in releasing the next episode without faults, bugs and a plethora of issues is low so its be rescheduled after the holidays when they will likely have more people around to sort it out rather than letting things fester…. add to that some things will be outsourced and perhaps beyond the control of ANET to cover adequately.

Anyhow the 2 week schedule they initiated, I feel, has been a constant source of issue with quality of content maybe they should consider a rescheduling next LS (if indeed there is to be another LS).. I mean the last few episodes have not exactly been much of a much, in fact it almost feels they have been cut apart from each other to pad out time and hope the tunnel maze/puzzle keeps people interested long enough to get to the holiday season before having to ramp up the fir engines for the next instalment.

The analogy of Game of Thrones and cliff-hangers (added by a red post (forget by who without looking back more) .. yeah I love a good cliff-hanger, as frustrating as they are but if that series cut each episode length in half, watered down the story and threw in a set of things for the viewer to do to win a “best viewer achievement” sticker in order to pad the season out, add in marginal cliff-hangers each episode and then once a holiday period approaches just stop the current series in favour of rerunning various season 1,2,3 episodes before continuing on 6 weeks later.. pretty sure ratings might slump not increase, but hey that’s just my opinion.
To me it merely suggests ANET are struggling to keep up with the promised schedule and are having to cut many corners to keep it up then add in gaps whenever they become saturated in bugs and issues, forcing them into catching a breath and reschedule, reschedule things again.
So why not just push out an announcement that its not working as well as they hoped and a new 3-4 week schedule devised to try and deliver something more polished, with more meaningful content that has greater depth to each episode which pushes us for a much greater chunk of the scheduled period, not 30mins of talking to NPC’s, swing a sword to kill a trash mob, then kill a few more then.. come to a door STOP! (kinda sounds like everything they wanted to avoid in their original outline of the game to me).

ANOTHER break? and more 2nd hand content, great.

Guess its time to put GW2 back on the shelf again until January.

On the plus side, SWTOR has just had another expansion.

I’m sure they can’t keep up with the pace they promised: I could bet a lot that they don’t test the patches (if I was given 1€ for each typo in French…)

I’m getting really disappointed, because for every up we get several downs. I’ve always been positive about the game, now I just let it be, I don’t advertise it to friends anymore. The schedule is bad, so are the updates (or at least the last ones are bad because too short and soooo predictable). One cliffhanger is good, but a cliffhanger every time without answering any question… Who cares about Ritlock or the egg?

Too bad that this supposed-to-be-awesome game is just an average cash-grabbing bunch of pixels.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I feel the same way at the end of each season, too. Darn that Game of Thrones! :)

No offence, but I hope you guys don’t end like GoT :)
Season 1 GoT large content was awesome (GW1 was awesome)
Last Season of GoT was full of something and nothing special at the same time.. We had this popping head and that was nearly it, just like GW2 recently, it’s getting shorter, with a few here and there interesting things, but more or less not satisfying content.

I feel you guys fade away slowly, because you put too much effort to Living Story, which is kind of not satisfying.

They can’t even stick with their 6 months / 4 LS episodes. We already have low quality-low quantity work ; how deep will they dig ?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Donari.5237:

.

. There is a plan and a master schedule,

So if there is a plan and master schedule, can you tell us what’s on it for wvw? (I’m avoiding stating the obvious flippant remark here).

For everyone complaining about this:
Would you really prefer to have a (potentially big) release now with potential progression breaking issues that would not be fixed for weeks due to holiday?

I can almost guarantee that the same people complaining about the short break would also be the loudest if they did release it just before the holidays and something broke and couldn’t be fixed until after the holidays.

lordkrall.7241:

For everyone complaining about this:
Would you really prefer to have a (potentially big) release now with potential progression breaking issues that would not be fixed for weeks due to holiday?

I can almost guarantee that the same people complaining about the short break would also be the loudest if they did release it just before the holidays and something broke and couldn’t be fixed until after the holidays.

From what we’ve seen from the “big” releases anet brought out, yeah I would rather have them bring it out now. LS chapter 5 was supposed to be a “big” release, but it only brought mediocre content that involved more farming, farming, farming that got boring real quick. Heck, even the first chapter felt more like a mini-update. I don’t really care if I’m unable to complete an achievement till after the holidays if I actually had new content to play with.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, definitely, Wintersday should be released concurrently with Episode 8. That would both make sense (4 episodes, break, 4 episodes) and would provide more content for the Winter vacation time that all companies have around this time of year (4 week break). This would also be consistent with pretty much every holiday/LS release combination of the past.

While I understand company limitations, staff limitations due to holidays, and so forth, I very much feel that this should’ve been planned for well in advance and that releasing them concurrently would’ve been the best.

May I ask why you feel that way? Why have two conflicting or competing things going on in a time period when many people have a lot going on in their lives — family obligations, travel, parties, events — which leaves them with less time to log in to their favorite game? Why not have each release get the spotlight and the player attention that each so richly deserves? And why roll out content (some are suggesting just days before a holiday break) that would be difficult if not impossible to maintain with holiday travel, developer unavailability, etc.? We pride ourselves on addressing issues as promptly as possible, but if an issue arises over a holiday break, it can be very challenging to take care of a problem. (I know this from personal experience: I worked with a server programmer through a full New Year’s Day to address an issue years ago. He was able to get things back to normal, but it was asking a lot to do that.)

Saying “This is what I want” is fine. But is what you want really logical? In my opinion the decision of the two release dates makes sense on several levels.

Since when does holiday mean less time for gaming?

holiday = 16h gaming / day
work = 4h gaming / day

If we had more content for that 4 weeks that would be pretty cool.
you should do some surveys with the community on the forums probably.
Anet asks things – community answers.

I hate this new Living World series.
Guild Wars 2 is a game, an MMO; not a TV show. I wish they would cut the annoying Game of Thrones wannabe type of content. They need to stop treating it like some TV series which has “All the critics raving!”
If I wanted to watch a show, I could turn on my TV and watch Supernatural.

Belenwyn.8674:

There is an additional reason for this long break: China! It is the first Wintersday over there. Everything is new for the majority of the players. With LW on pause they can enjoy Wintersday to its full extent.

In addition the Chinese Qualifiers for the 2nd WTS final in Boston start at Dec 22nd and end at Jan 9th. Chinese players are simply to busy to play LW.

http://arena.kongzhong.com/new/20141203/5801.html

This is the first logical response to this thread that I have seen. I could actually see this as a valid reason for not wanting to release the LS at the same time.

It seems to me that a lot of the players here have never actually held a job in America. They seem to have this grand fantasy that Anet gives all its employees 4 weeks off for the Holiday’s… I hate to break it to you guys, most people get Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New years Day off, that is it. You go to work on the 23rd, you come back to work on the 26th. Anything other than those 3 days are personal vacation days. Life goes on, you still need a paycheck in the month of December, so you still have to work.

Vayne.8563:

Mavis.1463:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfey.3407:

The only thing that really annoys me with this note….
Veteran players are stuck for a few weeks with nothing to do but re-re-play wintersday content with the added bonus of most likely not being able to unlock anything from season one, unless it’s stuck behind another lottery. And the possible chance of some super adorable mini being locked behind wintersday gifts at a drop rate equivalent to precursors with the added insult of not being able to be sold or traded to other players.

Whereas veteran players in World of Warcraft waited a year while paying a subscription with no new content and just repeating stuff.

And I know people who’ve already beaten the new WoW and returned to Guild Wars 2. There’s no game alive that can keep people in content as much as they want.

FF14.
“Baaah, I don’t like THAT game, it sucks! therefore, the fact that they produce more content is irrelevant!”

Did I get that right?

According to a Developer interview the stuff in the game was supposed to be in there at launch and they just finished adding it. Sounds to me like you don’t read stuff about a game you’re touting. It also sounds like you’re deliberately trying to mislead people.

Or did you not read the bit where the developers of that game said the game is now complete with that last patch?

Edit: Aside from which my comment is about WoW, not Final Fantasy. I didn’t bring up Final Fantasy here, you did. So not only is your comment off topic, but as I’ve said above, it’s also misleading. It’s okay to like whatever game you like. No real reason to invent stuff about it.

You brought up WoW in a topic about GW2 and he’s the one posting off topic ?

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Mavis.1463:

Vayne.8563:

Wolfey.3407:

The only thing that really annoys me with this note….
Veteran players are stuck for a few weeks with nothing to do but re-re-play wintersday content with the added bonus of most likely not being able to unlock anything from season one, unless it’s stuck behind another lottery. And the possible chance of some super adorable mini being locked behind wintersday gifts at a drop rate equivalent to precursors with the added insult of not being able to be sold or traded to other players.

Whereas veteran players in World of Warcraft waited a year while paying a subscription with no new content and just repeating stuff.

And I know people who’ve already beaten the new WoW and returned to Guild Wars 2. There’s no game alive that can keep people in content as much as they want.

FF14.
“Baaah, I don’t like THAT game, it sucks! therefore, the fact that they produce more content is irrelevant!”

Did I get that right?

According to a Developer interview the stuff in the game was supposed to be in there at launch and they just finished adding it. Sounds to me like you don’t read stuff about a game you’re touting. It also sounds like you’re deliberately trying to mislead people.

Or did you not read the bit where the developers of that game said the game is now complete with that last patch?

Edit: Aside from which my comment is about WoW, not Final Fantasy. I didn’t bring up Final Fantasy here, you did. So not only is your comment off topic, but as I’ve said above, it’s also misleading. It’s okay to like whatever game you like. No real reason to invent stuff about it.

You brought up WoW in a topic about GW2 and he’s the one posting off topic ?

I know you don’t agree with me, but it’s no excuse to be disingenuous. Comparing the content of how this game is released to another game isn’t off topic. People are complaining they’re not getting content fast enough. There is no conceivable way that pointing out that another game, a popular game, a game with a sub, doesn’t necessarily have a better track record.

You can’t play in a vacuum. People compare games all the time. If people are saying Anet is releasing content too slow, this is a completely valid response.

And if anyone else had posted it you wouldn’t even be responding and you know it.

Personally, it’s not a bad thing for me. I’ve missed the last two wintersdays because of travels. First one because my grandmother died and the second one because I had to move house then went on holiday with my gf. So this time will be my first Wintersday where I’ll actually be able to do the content.

As for the living story, I’ll finally be able to catch up on all the episodes I’ve missed. Given I’ve had to move countries and have been without internet or PC for 2 months, this break in the story will be an excellent chance to catch up.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Sorry, but this is just very, very poor scheduling.

Doesn’t ANet work with time tables? Who in any meeting would have thought, that splitting up the LS again was a good idea?

This probably made sense given the cliffhanger (again, compare a TV series and their winter/summer breaks), but the cliffhanger was of very poor quality, that’s what is hurting it.

I don’t really mind it – December is busy enough as it is, plus tons of new video games to play since mid-November – but it could have been done better by just using a more sensible cliffhanger. As long as that feedback goes back to the writing team…

cheshirefox.7026:

i know there are some dire issues with the game and lion’s arch burned and torn asunder.. but when concerns about scheduling arose, i decided to assemble the pact, voltron, duelwield caladbolg and excalibur, and waypointed in some red paint
    – sincerily, lord master of all things tyria and second
       only to caithe and her awesomeness
p.s. i said arose.. it’s funny, because i’m a plant.. though i have no personality and can not laugh, i leave that task to you commander

I totally read that in Trahearne’s voice.

Verificus.4320:

You could however have planned this more proper in advance.

At least it was planned in advance. From what I have read in the german forum “episode 8 = january 13” was written on papers since last summer in A-net offices.

Greetings.

The best part is that ArenaNet specifically promised that these holiday breaks would happen. They even went so far as to state that the entire REASON for the recurring holiday content was to give them a break in the Living Story schedule.

Sometimes you can’t have everything you want exactly when you want it. Adults are equipped to deal with that scenario.

That would be great time to open up SAB… but no, that won’t happen, it’s too much fun :C

Mark Katzbach.9084:

There isn’t much different between this break and the break we took last year, or the year before, for the same reasons. I understand you’re all excited for episode 8, but it wouldn’t make much sense for Wintersday to happen after the new year.

The break for Wintersday wasn’t really unexpected, but i think it would have been received far better if the LS didn’t already managed to get a history of long breaks. And if the Episode 6 didn’t end up on cliffhanger, that the episode 7 not only didn’t resolve, but also added to.

Basically, if you plan on a break, it is a bad form to do it just after a cliffhanger followed by a filler episode. It’s also not good to get in the habit of taking breaks too often. Even if every single one seems reasonable.

While I completely understand that it’s the holidays coming up, and both Anet employees should get time off with their families and likewise expect the game population to drop a little over Christmas, it’s also very natural that for this 2 week period many people have time off, little to do and might find more time than usual to play.

Having Episode 8 release on Dec 16 along with Wintersday would mean giving everyone 4 weeks to experience this content in due time and not having to rush about.

After all, the Wintersday festival we’re getting has no new content, does it? I mean, it’s the same event as the past 2 years, only a new location? Plus achievements have been reset so I must ferry the same dolyaks around, throw snowballs, jump in the Winter Wonderland, play the musical bells… I’ve done this 2 years previously; I’ll probably either a) be done quickly or b) not bother. I’ve had 2 years to do this before; and your reasoning for not changing Halloween or Wintersday this year and last year respectively was the China launch and giving everyone a chance to experience it first hand.

So… given that there is no new content coming Dec 16 (apart from seeing DR dressed up for Wintersday), that means another 4-week break since the last patch with new content. Plus there’s a PvP ladder test season and informal WvW challenge – sounds pretty much like your Sept+Oct break you had earlier this year.

And that leads me to planning your roadmap of releases; if you saw this clinch and the obvious “uproar” this would cause, how come that Sept+Oct break couldn’t have been 2 weeks shorter so you’d reach your goal and we’d be playing Episode 8 now just before Wintersday comes along.

To me, it sadly seems planned out all along to buy yourself time and have until Jan 20 before we see what’s next after Episode 8. Jan 20 because usually there’s a teaser/post a week after a patch gets released.

Sadly, it turned out as I expected and don’t get me wrong; I like the content patches, it’s just coming along a bit too slowly this past few months, but I’ve learned to live with this disappointment now.

Astralporing.1957:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

There isn’t much different between this break and the break we took last year, or the year before, for the same reasons. I understand you’re all excited for episode 8, but it wouldn’t make much sense for Wintersday to happen after the new year.

The break for Wintersday wasn’t really unexpected, but i think it would have been received far better if the LS didn’t already managed to get a history of long breaks. And if the Episode 6 didn’t end up on cliffhanger, that the episode 7 not only didn’t resolve, but also added to.

Basically, if you plan on a break, it is a bad form to do it just after a cliffhanger followed by a filler episode. It’s also not good to get in the habit of taking breaks too often. Even if every single one seems reasonable.

That’s the spirit: a break is logical because we all need one, but a break after that…

But if you go work on holiday you will get more money. The point of job is to collect huge amount of money in a short period of time, so you can enjoy and live your life.

Gaile Gray.6029:

May I ask why you feel that way? Why have two conflicting or competing things going on in a time period when many people have a lot going on in their lives — family obligations, travel, parties, events — which leaves them with less time to log in to their favorite game? Why not have each release get the spotlight and the player attention that each so richly deserves? And why roll out content (some are suggesting just days before a holiday break) that would be difficult if not impossible to maintain with holiday travel, developer unavailability, etc.? We pride ourselves on addressing issues as promptly as possible, but if an issue arises over a holiday break, it can be very challenging to take care of a problem. (I know this from personal experience: I worked with a server programmer through a full New Year’s Day to address an issue years ago. He was able to get things back to normal, but it was asking a lot to do that.)

Saying “This is what I want” is fine. But is what you want really logical? In my opinion the decision of the two release dates makes sense on several levels.

I will speak only for myself, but I believe that it is actually healthier for the game to have these two patches occurring concurrently. Not only was the way that the last LS chapter finished pretty poor-tasting, and waiting over a month for its conclusion very, very disheartening, but there is also another issue to consider.

Historically, the holiday patches are not new content, but instead the first year’s content. Accompanying this are commonly extremely grindy achievements. The AP hunters among us, or the ones who are even close to a next-AP reward tier, are compelled to do these. Not because we are enjoying it (looking at you, lunatic inquisition regular/snowball mayhem participant/winter wonderland mastery), but because these are one-shot chances at this stuff. We either do it now, or miss out on hundreds of points.

If we had the next patch, then I believe that developers wouldn’t need to unnecessarily pad out the recycled holiday content. I’ve been there, I’ve done that.

Look, I get it if they’re saying that ‘we want to draw out the season as long as we can’, by not stacking these two. That’s fine. Tell me that, instead of saying that we’ll miss out on all this super-duper Wintersday content if we have both at once.

Not to mention, LS2 is all permanent. So, anyone who is traveling too much to do both (…all of the month and more…), could just do Wintersday. Either that or they could just not artificially pad Wintersday for another year. OR they could tell us that they just aren’t in a good spot to come back and push out more content after New Year’s. I don’t really care which, but this facade is pretty annoying.