Guild Wars 2

I believe it is time for a paid expansion; although the two week updates and storyline are great (in my opinion they lack substance). Updates don’t come for free of course so a paying for an expansion (like other game models) will be the right move and will make more revenue. Players paying for such on large expansion will guarantee the players that developers will deliver something new to the table, something that have substance and not just another rush storyline update to keep players busy, to mindless play and not have fun.

The kind of expansion I’m talking about is not just another two week update but a large scale one, an example of which is World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade -> Wrath of Lich King -> Cataclysm -> Warlords of Draenor (Each of these expansion offered a large overhaul of profession improvements, game mechanics, new and RELEVANT lore, new professions, new areas to explore, new dungeons and in generally NEW things to do).

You may argue that “Well improvements come to the game, with the two week updates they put out.” and to this I’ll say, how much of such updates is actually useful to you? And how much of the Living World relate to the CORE lore of GW2? Don’t get me wrong some problems and issues ARE fixed by these updates (but they took almost forever) an example of which would be the Trading Post, the trading post needed fixing from the launch of the game and such fixes barely came so recently.

The current updates in my opinion mostly/ only cater to the PVE population of the game. My PvPing brothers and sisters will agree that, PvP and WvW alike don’t get love from these weekly updates.

And an expansion that is being paid for WILL take sometime (which is a good thing) this will assure the community of an in depth improvement of the game; nothing comes for free, so paying for such expansion (maybe $60) will assure Anet and NCsoft a money back guarantee and more money to gain when player base grow from returning and new people.

*This is merely an opinion and prior knowledge of mine. So feel free to express what you think about this topic and lets have a conversation to let the Developers know what we want.

Personally I’m under the assumption that a paid expansion is in the works somewhere. The living story content updates are pretty good overall lately, but not ‘the whole of Arenanet working on it’ good.

For example, I can’t believe it would take ~200 people (apparently about 300 people work at Anet, but I’m taking a wild stab in the dark based on my experience of mid-large software houses and assuming about 1/3rd of the staff don’t directly work on the game in any form) to make a replica of Pacman over two weeks :P Especially now that, after two years, the tools for designing content will be a lot more refined than they were whilst they were building the game.

There’s got to be something else being developed in the background too!

To be honest, i’ll tell it straight, I didn’t read your wall of text, but i’ll make a reply on your title. I’ll just drop this here, just in case if ArenaNet will ever want to hear opinion of 9y GW player.

a) Living story, is just some lore which gives you 30min play time every 14-21days. And to be honest, I skip every talking scenario, I couldn’t care less about lore and play time is to short. All it matters to me is the reward and actual play time, not talking scenarios.

b) I miss GW1 for one reason, you enjoy large content, and you know every 2 years there will be new one, with totally new stuff.. and no limited armour/weapon in GEM store..

c) I pay for the game, and can’t get all the stuff that i would desire if It happens that you put game on pause because of job or college for one month.

d) Expecting PvP changes for 2 years, I’m not excited about recent news, because it’s bit late to fix things that should be fixed in first 3 months of the game. It feels like BETA for GW2 actually never ended.

Mostly B and C are big MINUS for GW2 as a 9 year loyal to ArenaNet player…

NOTE to ArenaNet: There is no Living story, that would make me more exciting than releasing expansion.. As a matter of fact, I’m a PvP person, but because of PvP lack of content, I occasionally come to PvE. I hope you guys change back to GW1 game development model.

Regarding expansions: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/List-of-Common-Controversial-Forum-Topics/first#post4584452

The Comfy Chair.7265:

Personally I’m under the assumption that a paid expansion is in the works somewhere. The living story content updates are pretty good overall lately, but not ‘the whole of Arenanet working on it’ good.

For example, I can’t believe it would take ~200 people (apparently about 300 people work at Anet, but I’m taking a wild stab in the dark based on my experience of mid-large software houses and assuming about 1/3rd of the staff don’t directly work on the game in any form) to make a replica of Pacman over two weeks :P Especially now that, after two years, the tools for designing content will be a lot more refined than they were whilst they were building the game.

There’s got to be something else being developed in the background too!

In fact we know it doesnt. Angel McCoy said it herself that the entire living world team is about 20 members.

There are actually 350 people give or take working at Arenanet

Expansions are high cost-high risk-medium reward.
Gem store is low cost-low risk-high reward.

For these reasons, an expansion is not likely.

mtpelion.4562:

Expansions are high cost-high risk-medium reward.
Gem store is low cost-low risk-high reward.

For these reasons, an expansion is not likely.

how would that assessment change if you combine the two together?

Cause there is nothing that says you can either have expansions or gem store you know!

Makes sense to do them both really they even synergize… Expansions gets you new and old players back which in turn boosts your gem store sales. Gem store sales at the same time finances you while you build your expansion. They’re made for each other.

I actually would like them to do the living story as the gateway to new content. The amount of it has to be done this way because that is the way it is done on the forums and elsewhere though leads me to believe they will do it the payed expansion route. GW2 took 5 years from announcement to delivery, I am sure they started on material for expanding areas before release 2012, I am also fairly sure they will release in a paid expansion roughly what they released with the game. So next year roughly until announcement.

I wouldn’t mind if they did release an expansion, but I also think they’d be capable of adding everything that would normally be in an expansion (including new continents, new races, professions etc.) to the game via the Living Story.

I also don’t think there’s any reason to think they will release an expansion just because that’s what other companies do. Considering Anet has always gone out of their way to do things differently if they think there’s a better way. When GW1 was released making an MMO without a subscription was considered a guaranteed failure, but they did it anyway.

Having said that there are two things that make me think they might be working on one:
1) Most of their development staff are unaccounted for. The Living World team and the people making updates to WvW and PvP don’t account for all the development staff they have (even allowing for the fact that a lot of their total of 300 or so employees won’t be directly involved in making content).
2) They’ve got to pay all these people somehow.

Combine the two and the logical explanation is that they’re working on one or more big projects and in order to fund that they’re going to be something all players have to buy if they want it. Which is basically an expansion.

But it still wouldn’t surprise me if all this stuff eventually gets folded into their existing release schedule and the gem store is used to fund it.

Hey look another “this game needs an expansion” thread.

Can anyone tell me when we are getting mounts? Maybe I’ll start another thread and ask about it.

mtpelion.4562:

Expansions are high cost-high risk-medium reward.
Gem store is low cost-low risk-high reward.

For these reasons, an expansion is not likely.

I’ve said it before, but I think that this argument is fairly irrelevant.

As a new expansion (featuring, for the sake of the conversation, a new continent, classes, races, etc) would not only, as Galen said, bump the revenue of the Gem Store by bringing back old players, but would also open up a whole range of possible new items for the store.

NO paid X-Pac. I will never understand why people want to spend money for at best 30 days of Playing new Content. Remember they stop to work on a X-Pac all other updates stop until they get the X-Pac done.

Stopped reading at “World of Warcraft”

Sorry, this game is not a WoW clone.

Some of us came here for something other than the box expansion content format. I prefer the living story format as it provides a continuous experience of something new to do every few weeks. As apposed to picking up an expansion burning through it in a few weeks, if that, then have nothing to do for another 6 months to a year.

People rant and rave about Guild Wars 1 Expansions, but they stopped putting out new content after 2 years. I played it from beta until gw2 release, almost a decade. Anyone that played after GW1 content peak of 2 years could tell you that 90% of the non-end game towns and mission content was completely dead. You HAD to have heroes to play by yourself.

Living story is much more conducive to a community than a expansion because it encourages people to stay active in the game to keep up with it. Not that I would mind an expansion but if I had to pick one over the other I would pick the living story 2 week episode format.

Scrivs.4501:

mtpelion.4562:

Expansions are high cost-high risk-medium reward.
Gem store is low cost-low risk-high reward.

For these reasons, an expansion is not likely.

I’ve said it before, but I think that this argument is fairly irrelevant.

As a new expansion (featuring, for the sake of the conversation, a new continent, classes, races, etc) would not only, as Galen said, bump the revenue of the Gem Store by bringing back old players, but would also open up a whole range of possible new items for the store.

Or it would not, and thus cost a ton of resources that result in a net loss.

Having an expansion does not guarantee that old players will buy it, nor does it guarantee that new players will buy in.

That’s why it is a high-risk option. You are committing a LOT of resources to something that can very easily flop hard. Gem store is safe. It takes very little resources to add new content so if they flop you aren’t losing much money.

mtpelion.4562:

Scrivs.4501:

mtpelion.4562:

Expansions are high cost-high risk-medium reward.
Gem store is low cost-low risk-high reward.

For these reasons, an expansion is not likely.

I’ve said it before, but I think that this argument is fairly irrelevant.

As a new expansion (featuring, for the sake of the conversation, a new continent, classes, races, etc) would not only, as Galen said, bump the revenue of the Gem Store by bringing back old players, but would also open up a whole range of possible new items for the store.

Or it would not, and thus cost a ton of resources that result in a net loss.

Having an expansion does not guarantee that old players will buy it, nor does it guarantee that new players will buy in.

That’s why it is a high-risk option. You are committing a LOT of resources to something that can very easily flop hard. Gem store is safe. It takes very little resources to add new content so if they flop you aren’t losing much money.

Not to mention that players that burn through content and leave are not likely invest in gemstore items. Bringing back players that normally wouldn’t have stayed doesn’t equate to gemstore sales. Its the players that are attached to the game and their characters that buy that stuff.

Anets revenue model depends more on keeping players invested and logging in on a regular basis than bringing players in mass bursts to earn a subscription fee.