Guild Wars 2

Very well put. I don’t personally care about the legendary weapons (I find them flashy, unnecessary and I don’t enjoy chasing the carrot), but they have structured a lot of new content around them and then didn’t release them.

I’ve heard that Leagues is pretty much just the marketing team, and now they cancelled 2nd generation legendary weapons. I wonder what they have everyone working on? It sure as hell isn’t profession balance

Not living up to your name there, friend.

(Not knocking or disagreeing with you, just mildly amused by your name)

Antinegative.4872:

As a long time MMO player, I’d like to remind you the most important thing in a RPG game is not the story, not the combat, not the social system, it’s the reward.

As a long time gamer, I’d like to fix that for you:
The most important thing is the entertainment value, which is a combination of reward, story, combat, social system, customization, progression, and more.

ANet made a number of mistakes, in terms of managing our expectations, using moderation when gating content & rewards, understanding that tedious achievements feel as ‘grindy’ as any gear treadmill, and leaving enough staff to work on the evolving world and fixing bugs.

However, they did deliver an expansion that has entertained lots of people for endless hours.

The problem to me is that they failed to sufficiently entertain the skeptical fraction of the community that was willing to cut them some slack. People understandably feel let down.

The good news is that Mike O’Brian seems to understand this and is willing to risk his and his franchise’s reputation to make things better. I don’t expect everyone to wait patiently for ANet to get it together. I do expect that in 3-6 months, we’ll see some interesting changes — I will wait til then to formulate my own opinion about whether the expansion is falling apart, since so far, I’m still having fun.

Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary.

cant disagree with you OP.
ive sensed a sinking ship ever since the stab changes created a rift in which a ton of wvw players left (although the problems go further back then that). didnt think to apply this to the pve side of things as well.

I wouldn’t say its the reward that’s the most important, its the “fun” towards.

While I know its subjective, you can at least figure out what ISN’T fun and try to avoid it. Like doing the same meta over and over, while praying you don’t DC or keep spamming LFG to get into a good map to get 500+ of a currency to go for a single skin when completing the long timed event nets you maybe a quarter of that, if lucky on drops.

I would say that isn’t “fun”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

…for endless hours.

Not sure about that.

The expansion is fine except for WvW, which got pushed way back and legendary weapons, which are now put off indefinitely. There’s already an legendary backpack in the game via PvP and the Fractal one will probably be along shortly. The fractal leagues were pushed back too but I’m not thinking people really care about that.

If the WvW beta starts soon and if it’s a success that’s half the battle right there. A lot hinges on the WvW overhaul. Raids have been fairly well received, more work needs to be done on Fractals and my guess is they’ll revert or at least improve dungeon rewards.

Once the living story hits (in July?) very few people will be worried about pushing legendary weapons back indefinitely. Some will, but not enough to affect numbers.

The real issue is that the company wasn’t running as well as it could and they need to get stuff running better sooner, rather than later. Mike O’Brien made a judgement call on what could be cut to make that happen. It was never going to please everyone. It’s definitely a controversial decision, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad one.

April patch should address some of the complaints about HoT (not all of them but some) and we move on from there. Based on how well that patch is received and what’s in it, we can go from there.

The expansion isn’t falling apart, because the stuff it’s missing won’t affect everyone, or even most people.

I really hope for the sake of the game that the WvW beta and the changes to the new zones soothe some ruffled feathers.

OP, you have it bang on… especially with: “Everyone keeps playing the same content again and again because we are all chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”

I’ve stopped playing now- I only have logged in recently to grab the wizard’kitten and bunny ears, because I know if I started playing again I’d want to use them.

After completing most of the achievements from the expansion, I realised I was playing out of habit rather than enjoyment and that there were plenty of more wholesome, enjoyable and constructive things for me to do with my time.

This is in no way a negative critique of the game (well, pre-expac, maybe)- I got a few thousand hours worth of enjoyment out of it, there’s just only so much replayability a game has. The expac-hype made me stick around probably longer than I would’ve- I was waiting for that pot of gold.

Looking at the expac from a more objective standpoint (now I don’t play GW2 much), the idea of standing around for hours on end for a meta event in the new maps seems crazy. It wasn’t so bad when you had things to do, achievements to complete, but after that it felt like just filling the time.

The amount of time put in for the rewards (not just loot) received is much too low. 3-4 hours for a meta event? I could clear a regular map in 1-2 hours, which was a perfect bite-size amount of time and 1/25th of world exploration (something that I found rewarding, at least). 1-2 hours could’ve been a dungeon tour or a high level fractal run- other very focused game-play with a good sense of completion and reward.

Of course people will disagree- videogames are an artform and subjective. I don’t think that GW2 or HoT is bad, I just think that it wasn’t properly finished and that some of the design choices don’t suit many in the community.

After playing BDO since release earlier this month (not here to talk about BDO vs GW2 or anything.. yet) I have to say the sheer amount of GW2 players in this game is astounding. I have recognized so many players in game and partied up with people that I know from GW2 that its honestly dumbfounding. I cannot imagine how much the gw2 population is currently dwindling, kitten many people are in BDO (and I imagine other mmos as well?).

I NEVER thought id find an mmo, or another game for that matter, that would take any decent amount of time from me besides GW2. Over 7000 hours and im not tired of the game at all, but I do see the game completely different now. Colin leaving was huge to me, and I defended the expansion beyond belief, but now looking at it without touching the game for the better part of a month, I have a MUCH different opinion on the state of the game. I was in the middle of typing up basically an essay on how I feel about GW2 currently and saw this thread. I agree with everything you said OP

With hindsight, adding crafting for the old legendaries was probably a mistake. From what I can deduce, it’s the collections and trying to integrate those into existing content that requires a lot of work (rather than the design/art).

After 3 years, the old legendaries aren’t as desirable as they once were, and that effort should have been used to have the full set of new legendaries with their collections at launch and leave the old legendaries as they were.

I blame NCSoft. all day.. all night..

The expansion is not fine. It is a disaster. The whole advertising scheme was built around the whole “we won’t have x content ready at launch but here’s what your are eventually going to get”. This is a PR disaster. Couple that with the fact that they can afford to hire 70 employees to work on a future expansion when this one is not even finished.

Anet, please don’t show us any previews of the upcoming expansion. Don’t give us any details or “selling points”. I mean this is a fantasy role playing game but I didn’t know the make believe started with game features.

Well, I agree that the expansion is “fine”. Its not good, its not great, its certainly not amazing as it was hyped up to be, its just, “eh, its fine”.

If I were to put it on terms of a scale of 1 – 10, its like a 4.5. “Fine”. It just feels less than that because of the hype they generated and fell flat on.

Which, it being “fine” just has me telling friends who are interested to just play for free for now and wait till the expansion goes on sale or something. Get it cheaper. Full price isn’t worth it

Seems like many of us share the view that core GW2 is/was excellent and that HoT soured it.

Do you guys think that things would’ve been better if they had just followed the LS/feature pack plan that was present before expac?

Maybe people would’ve left in a slow trickle rather than the mass exodus a little while expac released?

Hearing that we won’t get a new LS until q3 definitely (according to a WP video) made me more sour towards the expac and changes to the schedule. It was the steady flow of casual/do when you want content that was keeping me interested in the game. Maybe free updates isn’t sustainable, but honestly I would’ve been willing to pay a little bit to unlock those episodes.

The main problem here is not about whether we need new legendaries, whether we deserve new legendaries, or whether HoT was worth the money we spent, but how HoT was advertised and made.

Do we have to have another 16 new weapons? Probably not, the vast majority of people don’t, and will never come close to owning all of the original ones in this game’s lifetime, let alone get any of the new ones. Do we deserve new weapons/armors/backpacks? No, we don’t have to have them, there are enough newly released outfits/weapons/armors in the gem store for us to upgrade our looks with. Do I think HoT was worth it’s money? For me, I think so. $50 is nothing for me, and I got quite a few hours of entertainment out of it. My problem with this is the way HoT was advertised and designed, and how it turned out.

First of all, many aspects of HoT advertisement was either about legendaries or directly related to it. If you remember the pre-order advertisement page set up for HoT, many sections were dedicated to advertising new legendary weapons and armors, and how the content relates to them. I also remember one of the few advertising videos released was just a video showing off the new legendary backpack, so it’s sending players a clear message this is one of the major aspects they wanted to focus on in the expansion.

Then, when the game was released, literally every aspect of PVE in the new zones are geared toward getting the new legendary items, from map completion, to masteries, to raids, to meta events, to achievements, and so on. So when you suddenly pull out on the final rewards, suddenly these zones/events/raids make no sense for us to participate in. Every new zone’s gold income is inferior to silverwastes/world bosses, and experience gain, karma, quests, and just general exploration fun is not as good as the old zones, so when you pull out on legendaries, you gotta ask, what are we playing these new zones for? For me this is comparable to a Mario game that had the level end flagpole removed, where you have a fun and interesting level that you play through, but is unable to claim your reward by exiting the level itself. Was the journey fun? Yeah, but why would I play it again if I’m just stuck at the end with nothing to do? Just something to think about.

Me and some guild members talking about this last night. A lot of people are in the four new zones farming the mats for the new legendary weps (myself included), however there is no point now! Very poor management of the game, yet this is Anet I expect nothing else.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Seems like many of us share the view that core GW2 is/was excellent and that HoT soured it.

Do you guys think that things would’ve been better if they had just followed the LS/feature pack plan that was present before expac?

Maybe people would’ve left in a slow trickle rather than the mass exodus a little while expac released?

Hearing that we won’t get a new LS until q3 definitely (according to a WP video) made me more sour towards the expac and changes to the schedule. It was the steady flow of casual/do when you want content that was keeping me interested in the game. Maybe free updates isn’t sustainable, but honestly I would’ve been willing to pay a little bit to unlock those episodes.

I am not sure. I was undecided about making an expansion, then I was suffering through HoT which gets only better piece by piece after you claw your way through the same metas again and again to fully utilize the hidden fun in HoT.

Either the ls concept was not running good enough or the suits were talked into changing it to make it even better, and now as it fell flat on the face at least at bringing in a large number of new players from F2P, they are backpedalling and realizing that bringing in raiders and more hardcore players is not sufficient enough to keep numbers rising while people that fled from raiding and hardcore content have left GW2.

It is speculative if Mr. Johanson wanted out or was shown the door, but I personally cant fend off the impression that Mr. O´Brien pulled the plug and now takes more responsibility and micro management from the captains seat himself.

A game should be entertaining first. I have never got a game because the quests give you “phat loots!”. You would not play a game that is dull as a broken light bulb but the armor looks cool.

To me HoT was not a success in my eyes. Other love it, I do not. I’ve spent very little time.in HoT maps. The only time I’m on them is to do the story. Running around Ina zurg for 2 hours is not my idea of fun.

I think “falling apart” is a rather weird choice of words, considering it’s not getting worse as time goes by. Sure, if the main reason you play is to build up materials for legendaries that don’t exist yet (I won’t even pretend to understand that, but people do it) then not getting any for a while is going to mean there’s less to do, but seriously, it’s playing for content that doesn’t exist. That’s the risk you take.

Personally I’m quite happy that we’re looking at more regular content that has wider appeal. Brings a lot more friends back to the game than being able to grind for more aesthetically unappealing weapons ever did.

Azure.8670:

Colin leaving was huge to me

And I personally more and more have the impression that it was a necessary step to start solving the issues. MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence. Things are changing. Things are adressed. Not all is going to be well immediately, but it seems that finally the ship is moving again.

There will still be more unpleasant news coming up and things may be advancing too slowly. But the only way out is to move ahead.

My take? I’m kinda hopeful now, actually. The whole “Cancelling the Legendary Weapons” is a clear surrender on ANet’s part, but that doesn’t mean they can’t come back for it.

Personally, I think ANet might’ve gotten a bit comfortable with GW2. I mean, look at the competitors that have come and gone without leaving much of a lasting impression on their IP. Wildstar, ESO, BnS… The list goes on.

I think ANet just got a bit conceited for their own good, they felt safe and like they could weather a storm with relative ease. Only that the storm hit a little harder than anticipated.

Perhaps this will urge them to work harder on the game, to push people back into it. Everyone is allowed to dip now and then, and to be fair this was the first major XPac released for GW2, after they had run an entirely different business structure for some time. Mistakes were bound to made, only a bunch of humans working on this game.

I don’t feel like giving in to cynicism and salt just yet, and I don’t really have a reason to. I’ve already paid my due, and gotten a lot of entertainment back from the money I spent. So maybe I play less these days, doesn’t mean I won’t be coming back when something new and shiney shows up on the Forums.

If you’re tired of the game, you’re tired of the game. No more to it, take a break and play something else. GW2 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, pop on by after a few weeks or months and check back on it, won’t cost you a dime to have a look. Even if it’s going downhill now, it doesn’t mean that will always be the case. Things can get better, can get worse, might not change at all. Still gotta wait and see.

I’d have to agree that the issues started eariler and those prior issues

Also Colin leaving means nothing since Mike was higher up than him after all

This is the same company that did the whole SAB coin debacle after all, hasn’t launched a new dungeon, and ignores there consumers they even flocked to reddit forums but did nothing to address anything. Even now the reddit forums are just as toxic as these boards if not more so.

Anet doesn’t fix they deflect instead of fixig and improving A or B they go to C. They didn’t balance/fix underwater they removed it and stopped making weapons, the devs didn’t address the community they moved to another forums, they didn’t want to reduce inflation so they set pre-crafting to pres set at the highest point of inflation in an auction house were auctions never have to be renewed.

They have so few employees apparently and spend resources pretending to be youtube stars, esport leaders, and so forth instead of investing in the game. These things are viewed and targeted to existing players already and there is but one Guildwars so their is no bleed over into other products either.

Guild Wars fell apart due to leadership not merely an expansion and an internal change in leadership does nothing to ease the masses so things are bound to only get worse from here on out. Especially given the show we saw the other day against people claiming HoT wasn’t a full experience. Even full on supporters who think things will get better were disgusted by that show put on by the new director and brought everything down to new lows for everyone.

Doam.8305:

I’d have to agree that the issues started eariler and those prior issues

Also Colin leaving means nothing since Mike was higher up than him after all

This is the same company that did the whole SAB coin debacle after all, hasn’t launched a new dungeon, and ignores there consumers they even flocked to reddit forums but did nothing to address anything. Even now the reddit forums are just as toxic as these boards if not more so.

Anet doesn’t fix they deflect instead of fixig and improving A or B they go to C. They didn’t balance/fix underwater they removed it and stopped making weapons, the devs didn’t address the community they moved to another forums, they didn’t want to reduce inflation so they set pre-crafting to pres set at the highest point of inflation in an auction house were auctions never have to be renewed.

They have so few employees apparently and spend resources pretending to be youtube stars, esport leaders, and so forth instead of investing in the game. These things are viewed and targeted to existing players already and there is but one Guildwars so their is no bleed over into other products either.

Guild Wars fell apart due to leadership not merely an expansion and an internal change in leadership does nothing to ease the masses so things are bound to only get worse from here on out. Especially given the show we saw the other day against people claiming HoT wasn’t a full experience. Even full on supporters who think things will get better were disgusted by that show put on by the new director and brought everything down to new lows for everyone.

What show? Link please.

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

Loxias.2375:

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

I spent nearly 4k hours in this game, truly entertained. I don’t know what you are talking about.

Halvorn.9831:

Loxias.2375:

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

I spent nearly 4k hours in this game, truly entertained. I don’t know what you are talking about.

How many hours in HoT ? Personally i spent 7000 hours in game, but only 4-5 hours
in HoT … so thats why HoT was a scam .. and in the end it was only ok because i
played the game for free so long .. so paying 100€ for HoT was more or less a
present to ANet for the good days in GW2 before HoT.

Ben K.6238:

I think “falling apart” is a rather weird choice of words, considering it’s not getting worse as time goes by.

Hmm, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

In terms of community and community faith, I think “falling apart” is a fairly reasonable description, maybe a bit on the dramatic side, but covers it. It is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy too; the more consistently negative people are, the more people believe it and follow suit.

I think maybe it also suits in terms of what they claimed and what they delivered. Legendaries, “LS3”, the backpiece and a bunch of other promises made are being postponed (indefinitely) or just… sort of forgotten. It does feel like plans for the game made around expac announcement are indeed falling apart.

But yes, the game still works and functions, so in that sense it is still intact. ANet are still developing the game, so it’s not like it’s disappearing and fading away entirely.

EDIT:

I think Doam is right- a lot of the decisions seem to be the best business move/easiest rather than what would be most entertaining/“better” for the game. In fairness, it is a business so they’re not going to spend huge wads of cash trying to improve on something that has little benefit/return. It is a shame that underwater combat (and now other things) have been neglected, but I still see it as time better spent elsewhere.

Maybe they’ll release information about some new feature, or reworking an older/broken one. I think the community needs to hear something constructive and tangible? I dunno

Beldin.5498:

Halvorn.9831:

Loxias.2375:

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

I spent nearly 4k hours in this game, truly entertained. I don’t know what you are talking about.

How many hours in HoT ? Personally i spent 7000 hours in game, but only 4-5 hours
in HoT … so thats why HoT was a scam .. and in the end it was only ok because i
played the game for free so long .. so paying 100€ for HoT was more or less a
present to ANet for the good days in GW2 before HoT.

But I’ve put 200 hours into HoT, and I’ll be putting more after the new Xpac hits and more after the Living Story comes out again.

You playing less doesn’t make it a scam. It just makes it something you didn’t like.

MashMash.1645:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

…for endless hours.

Not sure about that.

You cutoff my quote. I was speaking for myself, not for others.

Halvorn.9831:

Azure.8670:

Colin leaving was huge to me

And I personally more and more have the impression that it was a necessary step to start solving the issues. MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence. Things are changing. Things are adressed. Not all is going to be well immediately, but it seems that finally the ship is moving again.

There will still be more unpleasant news coming up and things may be advancing too slowly. But the only way out is to move ahead.

Im not going to argue with you because I hope youre right. I love this game, but in the state it is in now, im just going to play BDO. I will NEVER truly quit GW2 as long as new content continues you roll out, but in its state now, im going to ride with you and hope its getting better

Dashingsteel.3410:

I mean this is a fantasy role playing game but I didn’t know the make believe started with game features.

This is honestly one of the best quotes I’ve ever seen. I’ve played GW2 since launch and GW1 for half a dozen years before that, and always bought every campaign/expansion. Compared to the 3 stand-alone games from GW1, HoT is pretty pathetic. Granted, that’s not a fair comparison as HoT is an expansion, but those stand-alone games were released within MONTHS of work, not years. A fairer comparison would certainly be the Eye of the North expansion, which still included many different explorable areas and quite a wealth of new playable content.

To sum this up, as a loyal player for almost 10 years of Guild Wars now, I am so incredibly disappointed in the direction this game is going. It has become so much about the money now (frequent gem store additions being a prime example) that our game is suffering. I don’t care if you’re a WvW player looking to finally see another player in the borderlands, a PvPer in need of actual profession balancing, or a PvEer wanting more than three and a half explorable areas or some new legendary weapons to go after. Your content is suffering. IF I purchase the next expansion, it will only be when I see the content Anet has promised ACTUALLY IN THE GAME, not just empty promises.

Antinegative.4872:

As a long time MMO player, I’d like to remind you the most important thing in a RPG game is not the story, not the combat, not the social system, it’s the reward.

Last time I checked my own opinion, I was a believer that a role playing game needs a good story and/or characters which help you immerse yourself into the world you are roleplaying in.
Rewards are a primary incentive for replayability, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are tied to the role playing part of RPGs. Though these days the defining RPG element seems to be character progression for some reason.

That being said, the rest I can agree with more or less (and rewards are pretty kittenty in GW2 across the board). We’ll see what the immediate future will bring.

Halvorn.9831:

Loxias.2375:

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

I spent nearly 4k hours in this game, truly entertained. I don’t know what you are talking about.

I’m talking about the expansion, the subject of this thread. Don’t derail with generalizations.

The hype for this expansion was duplicitous, the over-arching nerfs to multiple game modes was devastating, and the fact that they’ve started hype for another expansion after failing so miserably to implement the original promised content, coupled with a tight-lipped denial of issues far too long to be reasonable, is a startling clear signal that the game’s massive and obvious population losses are not a big concern to physically address.

The scam is the fact that they oversold the rewards and methods of obtaining rewards without acknowledging up front the huge gameplay changes, necessary or frivolous, that would accompany the content, if it ever even manifested. And my opinion, which seems to be widely shared, is that the loss will make it impossible to ever have anything but those lonely experiences that don’t satisfy or reward that plague every mmo that’s ever had such a terrible upheaval.

Yes, every game has a shelf life, but it’s rare in a modern game so widely popular to both wait 3 years for an expansion and have the first expansion be the franchise-killer.

Antinegative.4872:

No storyline is amazing enough that it will keep players coming back day after day, months after months…

Speak for yourself. It’s the storyline that makes me want to play, because it’s the story and the lore that make combat more than “I swing a sword, I swing a sword again” and instead make it “I am fighting a genuine threat to this immersive, believable world.” And it’s the storyline that makes the rewards worth it too, because I am not a skritt that hoards shinies just because they are shiny. Else, it’s just meaningless grind. Flashy rewards, pretty skins, bragging-rights rewards and all are nice, but having all that without backing it up and tying it together with world-building is like walking into a restaurant starving and being brought a still life. Pretty to look at, but no flavor, and it fails to satisfy.
They need to bring everything, but the thing that ties it together will be advancing the world, lore, and storyline. Everything else builds on that foundation, or we’re just rats in a featureless, blank maze.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Antinegative.4872:

As a long time MMO player, I’d like to remind you the most important thing in a RPG game is not the story, not the combat, not the social system, it’s the reward.

As a long time gamer, I’d like to fix that for you:
The most important thing is the entertainment value, which is a combination of reward, story, combat, social system, customization, progression, and more.

ANet made a number of mistakes, in terms of managing our expectations, using moderation when gating content & rewards, understanding that tedious achievements feel as ‘grindy’ as any gear treadmill, and leaving enough staff to work on the evolving world and fixing bugs.

However, they did deliver an expansion that has entertained lots of people for endless hours.

The problem to me is that they failed to sufficiently entertain the skeptical fraction of the community that was willing to cut them some slack. People understandably feel let down.

The good news is that Mike O’Brian seems to understand this and is willing to risk his and his franchise’s reputation to make things better. I don’t expect everyone to wait patiently for ANet to get it together. I do expect that in 3-6 months, we’ll see some interesting changes — I will wait til then to formulate my own opinion about whether the expansion is falling apart, since so far, I’m still having fun.

Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary.

Nothing more entertaining than playing a meta for an hour for some currency that there’s nothing interesting to buy with. Rewards.

Loxias.2375:

Halvorn.9831:

Loxias.2375:

It was a scam from the first hype and this game will never recover, quit kidding yourselves.

I spent nearly 4k hours in this game, truly entertained. I don’t know what you are talking about.

I’m talking about the expansion, the subject of this thread. Don’t derail with generalizations.

That was not clear to me from your wording.

OK then. Spent several hundred hours in HoT. Truly entertained. Still don’t know what you are talking about.

I find it very interesting how somebody who brings up unproven phrases like “scam from the first hype” and “never recover” requests that others please should not “derail with generalizations”.

HoT is fine. Everything is gonna be alright after April patch.

Halvorn.9831:

MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence.

MO is the one who set the policy of silence in the first place. Colin wasnt hiding behind silence, he was following his boss’ (MO) directions.

Ashen.2907:

Halvorn.9831:

MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence.

MO is the one who set the policy of silence in the first place. Colin wasnt hiding behind silence, he was following his boss’ (MO) directions.

How do you know? Has this been announced somewhere?

MadVisions.4529:

I blame NCSoft. all day.. all night..

yet tons of ppl cry “anet anet anet” seemingly without knowledge of who their boss is.

Halvorn.9831:

Ashen.2907:

Halvorn.9831:

MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence.

MO is the one who set the policy of silence in the first place. Colin wasnt hiding behind silence, he was following his boss’ (MO) directions.

How do you know? Has this been announced somewhere?

Last I checked, you have to follow your boss’s instructions. They’re the ones who either create policy decisions or who decide which policy decisions the company must follow.

Here was Mr. O’Brien’s statement on communication policy:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Communicating-with-you/first
Including:
“We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development.”

So yes, that was from the President, not the Game Director.

Halvorn.9831:

How do you know? Has this been announced somewhere?

ArenaColin

While as game director I didn’t set communication policy, I am really excited to see the things happening like this AMA. It’ll be a great advantage having Mo in this role as he can both set policy, and game direct simultaneously.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0o6cyn

Vayne.8563:

The expansion is fine except for WvW, which got pushed way back and legendary weapons, which are now put off indefinitely. There’s already an legendary backpack in the game via PvP and the Fractal one will probably be along shortly. The fractal leagues were pushed back too but I’m not thinking people really care about that.

If the WvW beta starts soon and if it’s a success that’s half the battle right there. A lot hinges on the WvW overhaul. Raids have been fairly well received, more work needs to be done on Fractals and my guess is they’ll revert or at least improve dungeon rewards.

Once the living story hits (in July?) very few people will be worried about pushing legendary weapons back indefinitely. Some will, but not enough to affect numbers.

The real issue is that the company wasn’t running as well as it could and they need to get stuff running better sooner, rather than later. Mike O’Brien made a judgement call on what could be cut to make that happen. It was never going to please everyone. It’s definitely a controversial decision, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad one.

April patch should address some of the complaints about HoT (not all of them but some) and we move on from there. Based on how well that patch is received and what’s in it, we can go from there.

The expansion isn’t falling apart, because the stuff it’s missing won’t affect everyone, or even most people.

I really hope for the sake of the game that the WvW beta and the changes to the new zones soothe some ruffled feathers.

+1

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Halvorn.9831:

Ashen.2907:

Halvorn.9831:

MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence.

MO is the one who set the policy of silence in the first place. Colin wasnt hiding behind silence, he was following his boss’ (MO) directions.

How do you know? Has this been announced somewhere?

Last I checked, you have to follow your boss’s instructions. They’re the ones who either create policy decisions or who decide which policy decisions the company must follow.

Isn’t a game director a management position? A company is very often not led from the front, but by delegation. Too much work for a CEO to do every decision, therefore there are other executive employees, who have their own responsibilities. At least that was the case in all companies I worked for so far (and I am a software architect, so also tech companies).

Halvorn.9831:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Halvorn.9831:

Ashen.2907:

Halvorn.9831:

MO is definitely changing the way the company responds publicly, he is not hiding behind silence.

MO is the one who set the policy of silence in the first place. Colin wasnt hiding behind silence, he was following his boss’ (MO) directions.

How do you know? Has this been announced somewhere?

Last I checked, you have to follow your boss’s instructions. They’re the ones who either create policy decisions or who decide which policy decisions the company must follow.

Isn’t a game director a management position? A company is very often not led from the front, but by delegation. Too much work for a CEO to do every decision, therefore there are other executive employees, who have their own responsibilities. At least that was the case in all companies I worked for so far (and I am a software architect, so also tech companies).

If you look back in this thread you’ll see posts where they showed MO has made the policy decision, so I’m not sure why you’re bothering to debate this anymore.

Antinegative.4872:

As a long time MMO player, I’d like to remind you the most important thing in a RPG game is not the story, not the combat, not the social system, it’s the reward.

I got a mental image of us as rats in a Skinner Cage with this.

I feel the discussion has gone off topic, so I’d like to reiterate my personal view point on the problem and what I gathered from the community as a whole in other forums.

By removing most coming legendaries, this took purpose away from the portions of the expansion that are already finished. A whole mastery track in regular world, and many smaller masteries in HoT, are dedicated to nothing but working toward new legendaries. This also includes meta events, completion rewards, and other things, as they are useless for any other reason(they can not be used to achieve other skins, experience, achievements, or otherwise useful things). It’s fine that many people don’t play for legendaries, but they designed the mechanics in this expansion toward ultimately getting them, so you now suddenly have zones/masteries/items that are useless from a design perspective.

By removing legendaries weapons, this also created the fear that any current ongoing projects for the expansion will be axed at a moment’s notice for more profitable alternatives. It seems at this point that it’s likely legendary armor, legendary backpacks, wvw revamp, HoT zone revamps, etc might also get cancelled, something everyone’s waiting for.

Finally, this move is also going to make people very hesitant to trust further advertised features on future expansions/paid content, since it has become clear Arena.net advertises planned concepts and ideals as definite, existing features to sell their game. So when you get excited about the next big thing they announce, you will find yourself questioning, will this really be in the game?

People are mostly arguing about whether they want new legendaries versus new story content, but the truth is what they are doing is causing much more problems on multiple levels such as business conduct and game philosophy than the simple question of which route will be more fun to the players. Totally not worth it in my opinion.

Well regardless of Mo setting the policy, he was open in the AMA and he was open about legendary weapons. Hopefully he continues to do so. He did the right thing in that regard at least, where he could have just stayed silent and taken advantage of that instead.