Was it Really a Good Trade?

Was it Really a Good Trade?

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Posted by: Machiavel.6042

Machiavel.6042

So it’s been over a year. If this game had followed the same path they took in GW1, around this time we would have had a whole new expansion added to the game full of new PERMANENT content, new classes, new races, furthering the dragon story line, maybe added UW, or Cantha, or Elona.

Instead of that however, we’ve gotten a ton of gimmicky, slightly entertaining but overall underwhelming content (most of it reused with scavenger hunts, etc) that is totally removed from the main dragon plot, and injects random sub plots that are pulled out of the devs butts and are killing GW lore.

Was the living story experiment really worth it? I don’t think it was a good trade at all…

For all we know everything that has been happening could have been done by some dragon we do not know about. For all we know Scarlett could be an avatar of a dragon. Or not. Either way, not sure how this stuff is killing GW lore.

Anyways, IMO it has been a really good trade.

This would be absurd simply from the lore standpoint and would pretty much be the most direct way for GW2’s Lore Enthusiasts that Lore isn’t important in this game anymore.

Waaaaiiiiiiiittttt…. they cared ?

Huh….

-I don’t suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it- Edgar Allan Poe

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Posted by: Chewablesleeptablet.3185

Chewablesleeptablet.3185

How long should we the players give Anet until they actually do what they promised and add content that would come from an expansion?

So far each living story has not reached expansion properties. They are more like DLC $5 episodes for a steam game. Maybe a hat thrown in there as well.

This game needs new zones. New skills and traits. The ability to use all weapons for every profession.

Its kind of funny envisioning a ranger trying to pick up a rifle and all of a sudden it jerks out of his hands and slaps him in the face.

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Posted by: Smith.1826

Smith.1826

For those who haven’t seen it yet:

According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.

Third’d.

Personally, I would’ve preferred an expansion pack because what they’ve been doing has not been of much interest to me, and has been failing to sate my interest.

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Posted by: Xcom.1926

Xcom.1926

According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.

But if you look at their quarterly sales report, it isn’t looking good as time moves on. They have to do something. They can’t keep losing 30% in sales every quarter.

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.

But if you look at their quarterly sales report, it isn’t looking good as time moves on. They have to do something. They can’t keep losing 30% in sales every quarter.

GW2 is a year old, it’s not unusual for software to decrease in sales in that amount of time. Perhaps you should have listened to the conference call where they talked about revenue from the cash shop. I suspect you did, but try to ignore it because it doesn’t support your world view.

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Posted by: Xcom.1926

Xcom.1926

According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.

But if you look at their quarterly sales report, it isn’t looking good as time moves on. They have to do something. They can’t keep losing 30% in sales every quarter.

GW2 is a year old, it’s not unusual for software to decrease in sales in that amount of time. Perhaps you should have listened to the conference call where they talked about revenue from the cash shop. I suspect you did, but try to ignore it because it doesn’t support your world view.

I know software decreases as time goes on. THAT IS THE POINT. You need an expansion to rejuvenate sales and the game itself. I did see ANet’s overall revenue and it keeps going down. They need some sort of big expansion to bring it back up.

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Posted by: redhand.7168

redhand.7168

So it’s been over a year. If this game had followed the same path they took in GW1, around this time we would have had a whole new expansion added to the game full of new PERMANENT content, new classes, new races, furthering the dragon story line, maybe added UW, or Cantha, or Elona.

Instead of that however, we’ve gotten a ton of gimmicky, slightly entertaining but overall underwhelming content (most of it reused with scavenger hunts, etc) that is totally removed from the main dragon plot, and injects random sub plots that are pulled out of the devs butts and are killing GW lore.

Was the living story experiment really worth it? I don’t think it was a good trade at all…

For all we know everything that has been happening could have been done by some dragon we do not know about. For all we know Scarlett could be an avatar of a dragon. Or not. Either way, not sure how this stuff is killing GW lore.

Anyways, IMO it has been a really good trade.

This would be absurd simply from the lore standpoint and would pretty much be the most direct way for GW2’s Lore Enthusiasts that Lore isn’t important in this game anymore.

The fact of the matter is, everything that is happening in GW2 at the moment is almost completely detached from the original GW1 Lore. The White Mantle have all but been forgotten (except in one story mission on the human “Lost Parents” chain, and even then, they were referred to as a “cult group”), the Mursaat… never seem to have existed along with the Titans, Shiro? Abbadon? almost completely left out. At least the Searing is referenced a couple of times.

Sure there are a couple of nods, but this is a whole new game, and quite frankly one that doesn’t deserve to bear the title of Guild Wars. BECAUSE IT IS SO DETACHED.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The White Mantle have all but been forgotten (except in one story mission on the human “Lost Parents” chain

You must have missed the DE in Brisban involving the Ghost of the Demagogue.

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Posted by: redhand.7168

redhand.7168

I must have. Make that two references to the White Mantle.

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Posted by: Dante.1508

Dante.1508

To me its like this.

You get what you pay for…
You pay nothing you get very little and quite a generic experience with living story.
Pay for an expansion you get expanded content with classes, races and world additions.

To me i would have paid for an expansion any day over the horrible living story freebees.

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Posted by: Chuo.4238

Chuo.4238

For all its flaws, Guild Wars was fun to play, and I never felt like ArenaNet was trying to force me to log on by offering grindy, temporary content. I wanted to log on because it was fun.

GW2 is a job – and to be honest, it’s more annoying than fun. I’ve missed so much of the Living Story that I just stopped caring and left to play something else.

Before you ask why I’m still here, it’s because I loved Guild Wars and I regularly check this and other sites to try and get a feel for if they’ve changed tack and are trying to make a game that attracts people because it’s fun, not because they’ll miss out if they don’t log on.

Not yet, I see.

Edit: to answer the OP’s question – I would have preferred expansions over short-term, temporary content, for the reasons above that have driven me away from GW2.

(edited by Chuo.4238)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I don’t know…that’s the truth of it.

I quite like the Living Story but I also like Expansions. However, the Living Story is just getting started. Today we had a dungeon release. It’s a good dungeon. I’ve beaten it twice already. It was fun. I have most of the achievements.

If they can keep adding stuff like this to the game, over time this will give me more content than an expansion….content I’m not paying for.

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Posted by: haviz.1340

haviz.1340

I don’t know…that’s the truth of it.

I quite like the Living Story but I also like Expansions. However, the Living Story is just getting started. Today we had a dungeon release. It’s a good dungeon. I’ve beaten it twice already. It was fun. I have most of the achievements.

If they can keep adding stuff like this to the game, over time this will give me more content than an expansion….content I’m not paying for.

It’s a good dungeon path but it was designed as story mode.

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Posted by: Vaxx.3178

Vaxx.3178

People keep saying the Living World added a dungeon. Let me clear this up for you guys….

1. Replacing one path in an existing dungeon is not adding a dungeon to the game.
2. This content was finished for me personally in one run through, more or less in an hour.

yawn

I stand by my view on expansions. A good expansion gives more than all the temp content we have been given so far.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

I prefer the expansion model with perhaps one or maybe two “living world” type events thrown in between to keep our appetites whetted.

Well, the problem I see with this is that “one or two living world type events” wouldn’t cut it. Hell, the player base was moaning about nothing to do with the prospect of TWELVE such events planned a year.

Well, maybe it had something to do with the quality of those events.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: UrMom.4205

UrMom.4205

I prefer this model. Let be honest mmo players usually devour content. Think if 6 months of living story content came out at once, me personally would probably devour it in a week or so. Then i’d be left with 6 more months of waiting for more content. This two week model allows me to get new content but then after I finish it i get the feeling of “oh that was awesome, wonder what will be out next, only got to wait a week or so!”

Team Raven [TR](Dead)
Wu Táng Financial [Táng] – YB

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Posted by: Thereon.3495

Thereon.3495

I like the idea of the Living Story and think that it is a good trade. With that being said im not saying the Living Story is perfect. There are two things I feel need to be improved:

1) More emphasis needs to be placed on the story itself. Time and time again I find myself popping over to WoodenPotatoes youtube channel to have him explain the story to me in full. Maybe a way of doing this in game would be great?

2) I think more new and interesting ideas are needed. At times it does feel like a bit of an achievement grind. I do enjoy a lot of the content but I feel new and interesting ideas can be implimented without the need to attach achievement points to them.

Oh and FYI ANET have never said they will never release an expansion. It is one of the things open to them. They have only said that, technically, they dont NEED to because they could release everything an expansion entails in the Living Story. Just wait and see what happens.

Thereon Avenrise – former [Noes] Officer – Piken Square (EU)
Retired and living in a shack. Relaxing!

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Posted by: Lafiel.9372

Lafiel.9372

It’s a good trade because at this stage, I don’t think i’ll be spending another dime on this game.

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Posted by: Mirta.5029

Mirta.5029

MoP brought at least 1 million additional subscribers. Eventually the subscribers went lower but MoP did bring them back.

The market is too competitive for games to retain players. No MMO is doing it, every MMO is losing players.

Did Mop really bring in one million players? Because all I’ve seen from blizzard since a bit after Cataclysm is a never ending drop.

People keep saying the Living World added a dungeon. Let me clear this up for you guys….

1. Replacing one path in an existing dungeon is not adding a dungeon to the game.
2. This content was finished for me personally in one run through, more or less in an hour.

yawn

I stand by my view on expansions. A good expansion gives more than all the temp content we have been given so far.

If you finish the path and don’t want to run it again, you would be one of those people that would finish an expansion in half a month and stand there demanding more.

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Posted by: The Spiral King.2483

The Spiral King.2483

If you had asked me nine months ago or so, I would have probably said I would prefer an expansion. Now that I’ve experienced the living story crap, I can emphatically say I would prefer an expansion like Factions or Nightfall (honestly either is fine, Cantha and Elona are both ten times more interesting than Tyria is or ever was).

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

People keep saying the Living World added a dungeon. Let me clear this up for you guys….

1. Replacing one path in an existing dungeon is not adding a dungeon to the game.
2. This content was finished for me personally in one run through, more or less in an hour.

yawn

I stand by my view on expansions. A good expansion gives more than all the temp content we have been given so far.

It did add a dungeon. It also took away a dungeon. You can see those two things as related, but I don’t, since I experienced both dungeons (and hope to never have the pleasure of experiencing F/U ever again).

It would be like a theater having two shows in it, one after the other and seeing both shows. You don’t say that the new show doesn’t exist because the old show left.

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Posted by: dcypher.2590

dcypher.2590

MoP brought at least 1 million additional subscribers. Eventually the subscribers went lower but MoP did bring them back.

The market is too competitive for games to retain players. No MMO is doing it, every MMO is losing players.

Did Mop really bring in one million players? Because all I’ve seen from blizzard since a bit after Cataclysm is a never ending drop.

People keep saying the Living World added a dungeon. Let me clear this up for you guys….

1. Replacing one path in an existing dungeon is not adding a dungeon to the game.
2. This content was finished for me personally in one run through, more or less in an hour.

yawn

I stand by my view on expansions. A good expansion gives more than all the temp content we have been given so far.

If you finish the path and don’t want to run it again, you would be one of those people that would finish an expansion in half a month and stand there demanding more.

Mop pushed subs from 9 million to 12 million and started dropping off again. You can google their revenue reports if you’d like though it’s a very messy read unless you’re into all that jargon.

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Posted by: Meglobob.8620

Meglobob.8620

You have to view WoW separate from every other MMO because WoW is awesomely successful and no other MMO as ever got near it.

WoW’s subscription base does show a constant decline over a period of years but every time a new expansion comes out they regain several million players. So expansions, at least in WoW ATTRACT players.

Last time I checked WoW still had 8 million subscription players which is AWESOME and any other MMO would love…

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Posted by: Atlas.9704

Atlas.9704

If this game followed the route that GW1 had, their first expansion would have been like Factions and I would have hated it then loved the second expansion.
(badumtish)

In all seriousness I like this system better than the expansion system of old.
First and foremost I don’t feel like I’m behind on the game if I joined up now.
I’ll use GW1 for example. I remember, and still see it in some forums, when newbies to GW1 would ask “What package/Expansion should I get?”

Then comes the breakdown of each package, expansion, bundled edition, whatever.

With this system step 1 is “Purchase GW2 and download”. Boom. Done deal you don’t need to worry about picking up Prophecies because the storyline wasn’t so rushed compared to Factions or pick up Nightfall if you want heroes.

There’s less confusion and the player can just go play.

Secondly with the current system you have reduced the amount of “old” content and catching up that way. If someone is dead in the Living Story during Chapter #(blabeededah) then he/she is dead afterwards. I remember buddies joking how they miss Rurik after Prophecies was over, but if they wanted all they needed to do was “time travel” to Fort Ranik and there he is!

Does this pose a problem for people missing a chapter or two in the current system? Yeah, but with the proper lore system in game (which we really do need) you could catch up.

Does this infuriate the folks who “feel forced” to play every release? Probably, but that isn’t really the problem of the game designer but more on the players and their expectations. If you feel forced then chances are you should re-evaluate your priorities in gaming life. I’ve never liked the idea that some missions or some lands are verboten to mess with because it would mess with a previous expansion.

I’m not saying this system is absolutely perfect. When they announced the two weeks release schedule, I just grabbed my popcorn and said that this will be an interesting experiment. We still don’t have a lore system in place to catch people up in game. I’m glad to read that they are trying to implement such a thing.

I just wished that for the big ticket items in the continuing story they could dedicate a whole month of releases to it, then do the two week releases for minor things in story.
That way the stuff doesn’t feel incomplete at times and could tell a full story within a few months then move to the next.

Elona, Land of the Golden Sun….and undead…and poison. The travel brochure lied okay?!

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Posted by: Mirta.5029

Mirta.5029

You have to view WoW separate from every other MMO because WoW is awesomely successful and no other MMO as ever got near it.

WoW’s subscription base does show a constant decline over a period of years but every time a new expansion comes out they regain several million players. So expansions, at least in WoW ATTRACT players.

Last time I checked WoW still had 8 million subscription players which is AWESOME and any other MMO would love…

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1325466-WoW-MoP-down-to-only-6-15-million-active-subscribers

Well currently it’s 7.7 million subscriptions and 6.5 million players that logged in at least once a week.

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Posted by: dcypher.2590

dcypher.2590

You have to view WoW separate from every other MMO because WoW is awesomely successful and no other MMO as ever got near it.

WoW’s subscription base does show a constant decline over a period of years but every time a new expansion comes out they regain several million players. So expansions, at least in WoW ATTRACT players.

Last time I checked WoW still had 8 million subscription players which is AWESOME and any other MMO would love…

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1325466-WoW-MoP-down-to-only-6-15-million-active-subscribers

Well currently it’s 7.7 million subscriptions and 6.5 million players that logged in at least once a week.

yea thats still pretty good and thats after an entire year + of the expansion being out. Whent he expansion hit it was well over 12 million. I wouldn’t expect Arenanet to copy these kinds of numbers because its an anomaly, but it still shows expansions bring in plenty of people, plus their other incentives like recruit a friend, battle chest, etc..

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Posted by: Xcom.1926

Xcom.1926

You have to view WoW separate from every other MMO because WoW is awesomely successful and no other MMO as ever got near it.

WoW’s subscription base does show a constant decline over a period of years but every time a new expansion comes out they regain several million players. So expansions, at least in WoW ATTRACT players.

Last time I checked WoW still had 8 million subscription players which is AWESOME and any other MMO would love…

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1325466-WoW-MoP-down-to-only-6-15-million-active-subscribers

Well currently it’s 7.7 million subscriptions and 6.5 million players that logged in at least once a week.

Yeah it went down after the expansion, but the expansion did boost them up 1 million. But it wasn’t good enough for them to stay. Without an expansion I would argue it would be down even more than it is currently.

At the end of every WoW expansion there is a huge decrease in players. Then after the expansion it goes back up. I think that is true for most MMOs. People need something big to look forward too. Small living world updates aren’t going to cut it.

(edited by Xcom.1926)