Guild Wars 2

I believe the general impression is that if Anet releases x-pacs too soon before more news from competition, than they risk the chance of losing consumers to the new MMO hypes out there on the way.

But this game is B2P. Who cares about that. Sell interesting x-pacs. Some people will leave regardless. and some will stay if the content is interesting enough.

Whats your thoughts on this?

Customers you lose to hype were pretty much gone already. The real risk is more like when pre-orders start. That’s when I’d launch my own big reveal.

I’d say it depends on where their current money is coming from. Assuming most of it comes from ascended hunters – they did go through a lot of flak to implement it – how would those people feel about pursuing these bigger stats if an expansion came raising the level and gear cap? That’s one reason I feel they’d be “hush hush” about it.

Box sales don’t matter, player retention does, and they don’t need an expansion to do that no matter how much the armchair CEO’s disagree.

Why would someone think this game is buy to play?

I kind of think Anet’s comments concerning them adding an expansion is mostly to shut the people that want one up. I don’t see them really going through with it.

Time will tell.

how can anet reveal an expansion that doesnt exist?

who cares about that? i care about that. content release is already terribly slow. only recently they started releasing ‘permanent’ content and not some event based crap. I think they’re moving in the right direction and as a consumer i’d be mega kitten ed if they suddenly directed these resources towards an expansion that they cannot afford.

Shockwave.1230:

Why would someone think this game is buy to play?

Because you buy to play it. . .

Jae.5138:

I think they’re moving in the right direction and as a consumer i’d be mega kitten ed if they suddenly directed these resources towards an expansion that they cannot afford.

wut.

There is no expansion pack right now. There’s been word of one in 2014, but that’s all it is. Small talks. Until then, we have the Gem Store which more than makes up for extra sales. Possibly more than what an expansion pack is doing. Besides; ANet makes more profict from Gem Store, and players get more content via living story. Ergo, Expansion not needed.

I don’t think they have the manpower to create a big expansion while releasing living stories every two weeks.

An expansion would only separate the player base and potentially destroy the living story. For example, what if the crystal desert was an expansion which only introduced cosmetic progression and now, the living story is taking place there. Not everyone would buy the expansion if it’s cosmetic only, so the player count for that entire living story would go down. Now what if expansions weren’t cosmetic and did something like an increased level cap or new weapons, skills or traits, or even classes. The PvP player base would be disrupted. People already complain about ascended gear in WvW. Imagine the complaints about fighting level 100s, or overpowered spear chucking warriors/paragons.

Expansions are really only used for marketing to make the game look new to those that have either quit or haven’t played. Anything an expansion can do the living story could also. There’s nothing stopping them from making a bigger living story event every several months and combining it with a big press release to make it look like a mini expansion.

You guys have this mindset that we can only get new zones through an expansion, when southshore clearly shows that’s not true.

Healix.5819:

Expansions are really only used for marketing to make the game look new to those that have either quit or haven’t played. Anything an expansion can do the living story could also. There’s nothing stopping them from making a bigger living story event every several months and combining it with a big press release to make it look like a mini expansion.

If an expansion cant do anything that LS can, why on earth I feel more excited about expansion to WoW (which I am almost certain I wont even play) than the entire Living Story combined? Expansion can do one thing pretty well. Build hype. Build anticipation. This can always bring some players back or even some new ones. Living Story? Even though I play GW2 pretty much every day, I dont have a feeling of aniticipation towards those LS releases at all. I just dont care since the entire LS is shallow is kitten. And it will remain to be as long as they will try to meet this crazy release schedule. There is something seriously wrong if an expansion to a game which I dont play and most likely wont be playing anytime soon is boosting my interest more than a dud which in my opinion LS is.

Not to sure we can blame players leaving solely on another mmo hype. Anet had a vision for this game, some of the customers share it, and some of the customers don’t. Not to sure if a xpac is really what this game needs right now with the current direction of development.

Why do I see more and more ‘xpac’ threads popping up? Arenanet has no plans for it. They are currently entirely vested into the living story.

They have not hinted at any traditional expansion.

cesmode.4257:

Why do I see more and more ‘xpac’ threads popping up? Arenanet has no plans for it. They are currently entirely vested into the living story.

They have not hinted at any traditional expansion.

I believe because of this (and the few threads posted about the earnings) http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx , and what is perceived as a general distaste for temp content (Living story) in a mmo.

Phy.2913:

Box sales don’t matter, player retention does, and they don’t need an expansion to do that no matter how much the armchair CEO’s disagree.

Well they need content. Content for the past pretty much 4 months revolved around a race that I have no connection to (Sylvari).
Expansion pack would really be beneficial. Or new weapons. Or a story with dragons, Or new zones. SOMETHING.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

how can anet reveal an expansion that doesnt exist?

The Expansion does exist. Just because developers tell you there isnt, doesnt mean there really isn’t. thats how development business is handled.

Did you see all those missing zones? those are already made, and need to be developed further and polished.

No MMO developer stops at launch. Even WoW had expansions planned all the way to Cata before vanilla WoW was even launched, even tho they repeated that they didnt.

Knighthonor.4061:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

how can anet reveal an expansion that doesnt exist?

The Expansion does exist. Just because developers tell you there isnt, doesnt mean there really isn’t. thats how development business is handled.

Did you see all those missing zones? those are already made, and need to be developed further and polished.

No MMO developer stops at launch. Even WoW had expansions planned all the way to Cata before vanilla WoW was even launched, even tho they repeated that they didnt.

What makes you believe they are made though? Plenty of games have mapped areas which aren’t actually ever “made” or “playable”. Including GW1 which had greyed out areas on the map, but never actually made. I’m not saying you are wrong, but even if they are made, they could be slotted into Living Story chapters rather than an expac. Right now, I think they are pre=occupied in making Living Story work, hence the Collaborative Development Thread.

Time will tell I guess.

As long as living stories = zergs + content that you finish in a couple days + crappy rewards, they will fail. I don’t understand how Anet can think that it can work.

Zanshin.5379:

As long as living stories = zergs + content that you finish in a couple days + crappy rewards, they will fail. I don’t understand how Anet can think that it can work.

Because a zone that equals zergs + content that you finish in a couple days + crappy rewards is so much better. Most people call it Orr.

Phy.2913:

Zanshin.5379:

As long as living stories = zergs + content that you finish in a couple days + crappy rewards, they will fail. I don’t understand how Anet can think that it can work.

Because a zone that equals zergs + content that you finish in a couple days + crappy rewards is so much better. Most people call it Orr.

That didn’t make any sense…
I know you must have been trying to make a point because otherwise you wouldn’t have posted but I don’t get the similarity between Orr and living stories.

1) I’ve spent way more time in Orr than 2 days.
2) The zerg only came with the champion bags.
3) Even the devs said that failing the event on purpose isn’t what we were supposed to do and they’re goin to change how it works.
4) In Orr, you could exchange karma for exotic armor, which was a big deal in the beginning when people didn’t have that much money and means to get exo. That was pretty good reward for the time.

Zanshin.5379:

I don’t think they have the manpower to create a big expansion while releasing living stories every two weeks.

Looking at the quality ( terrible ) of the LS they release fortnightly, I’d be surprised if most of them didn’t work on something else at the same time.

I think the LS is doing good a tiding over some of the player base, and if this was it’s purpose I would say good job. However as of right now, this isn’t it’s purpose. It’s purpose it the drive for the game.

When I read the forums I see players asking for:
New Race
New Profession
New Zones (fully fleshed out, not south sun)
New Classes
New Weapons
New Skills
New WVW and sPVP maps
The list goes on

Some of these have been met with the LS in some form or another, but none of them have been met in greater detail. We get small snip its of this and that. Maybe players in general are ok with this but the vocal group on forums, reddit, etc, seem to want a content dump, something much larger and they are willing to pay for it.

It will be interesting and I am hopeful to see how arena net reacts to this other MMOs getting released. Normal practice is that there is some huge patch to try and combat a release, but arena net has been anything but normal when it comes to this game. (I mean that in a good way)

I could easily play for another 1-2 years without an expansion (and without any new content).
But again. I’m not the typical “rush to the end, whine about lack of content, never play it again” kind of player.

Why do you need an expansion for a new playable race? I’d rather be constantly fed with new stuff than wait until eternity for an x-pac (which is always delayed a few times, and usually manages to kill off a large portion of the player base during the long wait).

No, I like it like this. All they really need to add at this point is skill-based rewards, including armors.

daimasei.4091:

I could easily play for another 1-2 years without an expansion (and without any new content).
But again. I’m not the typical “rush to the end, whine about lack of content, never play it again” kind of player.

There are always a couple of groups of players, some of them are easily satisfied and undemanding, others are demanding and like the rewards systems, the others are the typical farmers etc. It’s difficult to satisfy each one of the groups.
But the thing here is, the LS would appear to be something at the core of the game, something that devs are extremely proud of. The truth is, and it’s not any kind of an opinion, that the LS has been more than disappointing. Why is this a fact and not an opinion? Logic: if 1) a 14-day long bi-weekly content has its dialogue and a story at the complexity level of a 10-year old child + 2) it can be completed by some chilled out folk, without any rushing, within the 3-5 hours time, then there is clearly something wrong with this “amazing” LS.
Sure, the idea of the LS is indeed amazing, for which I am grateful to ArenaNet. Nevertheless, quality-wise, there’s some vast improvement needed if they really want people to be satisfied with it. Notice that I am strictly referring to PvE/LS content, not WvW or sPvP.

Best regards

Corpus… (say what? your account name is “the body of Christ”?) Please don’t state your opinion as fact. I strongly disagree with your opinion. And saying things like “complexity of [snip]” really does absolutely nothing to foster a qualitative discussion on this topic. It shows your extreme bias, and will only make the devs zone out of this thread like a speedboat on steroids.

I don’t think a traditional xpac is needed. One thing shown through the LS so far has been that without doubt, it has the capacity to bring an xpac’s worth of content. What is has so far failed to do, putting aside any story/glitch/bug/zerg complaints, is “expand” the world. That is part of what made the labyrinthine cliffs so popular. It was new territory. Even if it was only a fraction of the size of a normal zone.
I’d like to see several LS updates work that way, and, maybe after a month or 3 of updates, we might have a full zone revealed. Sure the LS would take us there, but perhaps as it concludes, it leaves behind new DEs and heart quests.
In short, however they go about it, I just want to see something expand. If not the story, then at least the setting so we can have more places to run around in.