Guild Wars 2

It should be most obvious by now.
We’re going to the Crystal Desert next.

We’ve got TWO Crystal-related outfits now, and the world map scrolls a great deal south east towards the Crystal Desert with a big purple streak where the Dragon that killed Glint and a member of Destiny’s Edge went.

Crystal Savant outfit is underwhelming. The Crystal Nomad outfit is far better.
But who wants more outfits? Not me. Bring real armour pieces, not these cop-outs.

If that is a WHOLE Expansion – NO NO NO….

We need more than 4 maps this time – The Desert is 4 maps.

They could include the Deldrimor front as well, or expand the map south into Elona.

And you would honestly pay for 4 maps?

My point was exactly that they could easilly do more than 4..

4 maps with 2 sublevels, sliding is included and gliding disabled. Sliding means that you can slide down a slope at a controlled pace. Also add crystalmudsplashing, a special ability that makes you invisible for monsters who use thermovision. Sounds legit for me if you look at HoT.^^

TPMN.1483:

And you would honestly pay for 4 maps?

Yes I would honestly pay for 4 maps.

Vayne.8563:

TPMN.1483:

And you would honestly pay for 4 maps?

Yes I would honestly pay for 4 maps.

I would also honestly pay for 4 maps.

What I don’t think people understand is that this game is a quality game; games (in general) are one of the cheapest forms of entertainment. Quality entertainment that is a value at less than $1 per hour is extremely rare.

Do you remember the days when Nintendo games were like $70 each? NINTENDO. During a time when $70 was worth much much more than it is today.

There is nothing to complain about regarding pricing… You can do it, but it holds no water and I’m done listening. If you can’t afford to play guild wars, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate priorities (or interests) and take a break.

Burn-out is real; games (especially Arenanet games) are constantly in flux. Guild Wars 2 has changed from when it was launch, and will continue to expand and change over the course of its life. It won’t always be in a direction that satisfies all of your hopes and dreams for an MMO. You either take it as it is, or walk away. But, pricing? This game is probably one of the BEST values for our money (even the expansion) that gaming has to offer unless you just absolutely love free to play games for some inexplicable reason.

Also, the crystal desert would be cool, but I seriously hope it’s not just more sand dunes and crystal caves. I’d like to see something interesting. I’d rather save the endless sand dunes for Vabbi when and if we ever get there. I loved that setting.

What I don’t think people understand is, YOU do not determine what they feel they should spend their money on. If they say they don’t want to pay for 4 maps, they don’t have to pay for 4 maps.

While this is highly theoretical, if i would pay for 4 maps depends on a few factors.

The price, the design and purpose of the maps (all about metas or actual maps). The size of the maps. And the visuals of course.

Now if the question is if i would pay for 4 maps again blindly… then no. Not after HoT.

“This game is probably one of the BEST values for our money (even the expansion) that gaming has to offer unless you just absolutely love free to play games for some inexplicable reason.”

I read this, and it gave me found memories of back in the day, when people thought the world was flat, and the moon was made out of cheese. So cute!

Some day, you will come to a realization about just how wrong you are, and on that day, i hope it hits you harder than anything you’ve ever felt before. lol

TPMN.1483:

And you would honestly pay for 4 maps?

Some people would, others not. I am pretty sure that it will be much less casual people who will buy the next expansion if it is only 4 maps deep and the gameplay is like HoT. Even NcSoft admitted that numbers, especially from f2p to HoT conversions, were not as good as expected.

Of course there could be various reasons for this, maybe people are still laughing over the idea that every wvwer is also a pver in hearth or something. But in my personal opinion, HoT is neither attractive or casual enough to convice the more laid back of people.

We have 3 Canthan inspired outfits (Ancestral, Imperial, Shadow Assassin), does that mean were going to Cantha first?

The new outfit is great. Gonna get it.

Maybe we will ascend properly, since the place of ascension is there. And i wouldnt be suprised to see Turai Ossa return yet again. And a desert place might bring a revised dervish.

Though in hindsight the scythe wielding reaper pretty much stole the dervish’s role. ITs almost dead on if you get the light bladed armor, and you can pretend to be a dervish. Heck, you even take an avatar form.

Bear in mind, guys…Kralkatorrik rose in the desert, but it’s Ascalon that he menaces…and we’ve already got those maps. Don’t you want to do something about all those dang Branded?

Tanith.5264:

Bear in mind, guys…Kralkatorrik rose in the desert, but it’s Ascalon that he menaces…and we’ve already got those maps. Don’t you want to do something about all those dang Branded?

It’s the opposite: Kralk rose in Ascalon but then flew to the desert (where we presume he still is, though we don’t know for sure).

Seems a good conclusion, given the outfits, wings, and the like added to the store. Still, I hope we get to get those two areas in Dragon Stand that won’t allow map completion. . . .

Can’t believe that still hasn’t been fixed.

CobaltSixty.1542:

slamfunction.7462:

“This game is probably one of the BEST values for our money (even the expansion) that gaming has to offer unless you just absolutely love free to play games for some inexplicable reason.”

I read this, and it gave me found memories of back in the day, when people thought the world was flat, and the moon was made out of cheese. So cute!

Some day, you will come to a realization about just how wrong you are, and on that day, i hope it hits you harder than anything you’ve ever felt before. lol

I’ve got a couple thousand hours of entertainment for ~$100. Pretty good value for money.

Moron.

Give it time.

Kralk didn’t rise in Ascalon.

Ayrilana.1396:

Kralk didn’t rise in Ascalon.

Somewhat to the north of Ascalon, you’re right, my mistake. He flew south over Ascalon towards the desert, which was my main point.

Diovid.9506:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kralk didn’t rise in Ascalon.

Somewhat to the north of Ascalon, you’re right, my mistake. He flew south over Ascalon towards the desert, which was my main point.

Yeah, for some reason I was looking at that big purple blot in the desert and thinking that was where he rose. I should have remembered you can see part of his sleeping form in EotN.

Still, however, I think a lot of the content involving him could be set in the parts of Ascalon we already have explored. And if they want to add mini-zones as they did during the previous LS installments…well, there is the Desert Gate…

Where are people getting 4 maps from? Is it simply assuming that because HoT had 4 maps that is now fixed as the formula for every single expansion GW2 will ever have? (Like all the people assuming the first expansion would take us to Cantha and the second to Elona because that’s what GW1 did.)

With some companies that might be a logical assumption but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Anet it’s that they love to do things differently. Whether it’s different from other games or different from what they’ve done before. I’d be genuinely surprised if they were going to copy the format of HoT for their next expansion.

In GW1 the Crystal Desert had:

• 7 explorable maps,
• 4 mission maps (although Augury Rock doesn’t really count because it’s tiny),
• 3 outposts and 1 town.

(For those who didn’t play GW1 mission maps are like a cross between PvE maps and story instances – bigger than GW2 story instances and often with hidden things to find, only accessible by replaying that part of the story. Outposts are like small towns/staging areas for entering PvE maps because you couldn’t change your skills, access the bank or do many other things in the explorable maps.)

But GW2 maps are typically much, much bigger than GW1 maps. Queensdale covers something like 3 and a half GW1 maps and Plains of Ashford is bigger than the entire of Pre-Searing.

So if we did go to the Crystal Desert there would have to be more to it. It’s a relatively short walk from Ebonhawke to Kralk’s last known location (and the Elder Dragons don’t seem to move around much without a good reason) and Destiny’s Edge has already got a handle on how to kill him, we just need a new distraction and everyone to show up and do their job.

And if it wasn’t for the Rites of Ascension and the Forgotten the rest of the Desert would be pretty empty. It just doesn’t seem like enough to justify an expansion, even one copying HoT.

I think if we ever do go in that direction it’s more likely we’d be going into Elona, because that brings Palawa Joko and the whole mess with the former Sunspears into play, which makes for a much more interesting storyline, more variety AND a bigger area to cover.

But personally I hope we don’t do that. I’d really like to go somewhere we’ve never gotten to go before instead of re-visiting old territory again. I don’t know where exactly, but Woodland Cascades (which we’ve only seen 1 tiny corner of) and the Isle of Janthir seems like the likely place. Plus we’re already heading North from the Maguuma in the Raid storyline, so why not keep going?

more maps, plus more stat spreads and crazy recipes that require super rare drops to make them. Hybrid damage is the in thing now, what’s next?

TPMN.1483:

If that is a WHOLE Expansion – NO NO NO….

We need more than 4 maps this time – The Desert is 4 maps.

How is the desert 4 maps? There’s no information regarding that whatsoever.

TPMN.1483:

If that is a WHOLE Expansion – NO NO NO….

We need more than 4 maps this time – The Desert is 4 maps.

The “Desert” is as many maps as they want to make it.

Also: I don’t care if it’s 4 maps or 44 — I only care if they deliver fun, engaging content. I’ve played boring games with tons of maps, tons of professions, and/or tons of skills — none of that matters if the gameplay is tedious.

The quality of the map matters.

You can’t just compare number of maps, since maps can vary in size and quality. I like that they are building interesting maps, though I am sick of verticality at the moment.

Imagine the design team deciding between 1 large map and 4 smaller ones to cover the same content (say, the desert). Splitting 1 large map into 4 smaller ones is not adding content, though it technically does introduce 3 more maps. So, more maps is not necessarily better and does not necessarily mean more content.

Diovid.9506:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kralk didn’t rise in Ascalon.

Somewhat to the north of Ascalon, you’re right, my mistake. He flew south over Ascalon towards the desert, which was my main point.

Yeah. From playing EotN, you’ll see he was resting in Charr Homelands. You can actually see part of him there. He then flew south to the Crystal Desert. The large purple area you see there was where Glint’s Lair was located.

Maybe they will have a lot of quicksand in the Crystal Desert expansion that serves as a metaphorical reference to gold sinks.

TPMN.1483:

If that is a WHOLE Expansion – NO NO NO….

We need more than 4 maps this time – The Desert is 4 maps.

But all the maps will probably have multiple stages, like Dragons Stand.

TPMN.1483:

If that is a WHOLE Expansion – NO NO NO….

We need more than 4 maps this time – The Desert is 4 maps.

Bruh…there are multiple biomes in each map. We aren’t ready to discuss how many biomes are in each map at this time and a few of them may not have multiple biomes, but the more we market this expansion, the more we want you to treat each biome like it’s a whole map.

Lame thread title.

Pure Heart.1456:

We’ve got TWO Crystal-related outfits now

No, we have three. Remember the Crystal Arbiter one that came in a pack with a matching glider and stuff?

Even more proof!

Just like the brew of the month for February was proof that we were getting Dragon Bash this month.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just like the brew of the month for February was proof that we were getting Dragon Bash this month.

We did get Dragon Bash in the form of the Lunar New Year, so it’s not proof, but an indication that it is being thought about. That counts for something.

The expansion is: Elona + maybe Cantha. That is expansion not only crystal desert with 4 maps and for 45 €. Noone would buy it after HoT fiasco.

ekarat.1085:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just like the brew of the month for February was proof that we were getting Dragon Bash this month.

We did get Dragon Bash in the form of the Lunar New Year, so it’s not proof, but an indication that it is being thought about. That counts for something.

The Lunar New Year festival is not Dragon Bash. Nothing is the same, except the availability of the Jade weapons.

ekarat.1085:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just like the brew of the month for February was proof that we were getting Dragon Bash this month.

We did get Dragon Bash in the form of the Lunar New Year, so it’s not proof, but an indication that it is being thought about. That counts for something.

As stated by another poster, they’re not the same. This is evidenced by the GW1 special events. You’re being confused because Anet decided to move Dragonball (a Dragon Bash activity in GW2) to to the Lunar New Years.

ekarat.1085:

Ayrilana.1396:

Just like the brew of the month for February was proof that we were getting Dragon Bash this month.

We did get Dragon Bash in the form of the Lunar New Year, so it’s not proof, but an indication that it is being thought about. That counts for something.

As stated by another poster, they’re not the same. This is evidenced by the GW1 special events. You’re being confused because Anet decided to move Dragonball (a Dragon Bash activity in GW2) to to the Lunar New Years. Technically it was in both special events in GW1.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Canthan_New_Year
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lunar_New_Year

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dragon_Festival
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon_Bash

TPMN.1483:

And you would honestly pay for 4 maps?

For me to buy another GW2 expansion at $50. It would need to be minimum of 3 to 4 times the content.

For the next expansion, I need 15+ maps, new dungeons, another raid and all of these things available on day one. Otherwise I would likely just not purchase it an move to another game. That is if it is $50. If it is less then I would take that into account.

As a reminder to folks, ANet was rather upfront about Heart of Thorns being on the light side of content due to being so focused on setting up systems for the future.

Now, however, those systems are in place. The next expansion won’t have to devote nearly the resources to those and will most likely be delivering significantly more content as a result.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As a reminder to folks, ANet was rather upfront about Heart of Thorns being on the light side of content due to being so focused on setting up systems for the future.

Now, however, those systems are in place. The next expansion won’t have to devote nearly the resources to those and will most likely be delivering significantly more content as a result.

I don’t recall this. Got a source?

narwhalsbend.7059:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As a reminder to folks, ANet was rather upfront about Heart of Thorns being on the light side of content due to being so focused on setting up systems for the future.

Now, however, those systems are in place. The next expansion won’t have to devote nearly the resources to those and will most likely be delivering significantly more content as a result.

I don’t recall this. Got a source?

Multiple streams and I believe at least one of the blog posts pre-HoT launch. Sorry, I didn’t save the links, nor do I have the time to watch 20+ hours of streams at the moment, but it was mentioned on multiple occasions.

narwhalsbend.7059:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As a reminder to folks, ANet was rather upfront about Heart of Thorns being on the light side of content due to being so focused on setting up systems for the future.

Now, however, those systems are in place. The next expansion won’t have to devote nearly the resources to those and will most likely be delivering significantly more content as a result.

I don’t recall this. Got a source?

All of the streams that and also on the website that went live. Information was out well before HoT released.

narwhalsbend.7059:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As a reminder to folks, ANet was rather upfront about Heart of Thorns being on the light side of content due to being so focused on setting up systems for the future.

Now, however, those systems are in place. The next expansion won’t have to devote nearly the resources to those and will most likely be delivering significantly more content as a result.

I don’t recall this. Got a source?

Not specifically what you’re asking for, although I remember that comment also, but here is where they talk about how the work they’ve done for this expansion sets up how the game is going to be from now on and how it sets the framework for future expansions.

http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-interview/#page-2

“It’s also laying a permanent groundwork for us that we can use to expand and build on in the future, and that’s a common theme with everything you’re going to find in this expansion. Every decision we made, and the entire reason we made this expansion, was so that when this expansion releases we have the framework. We have the pillars we need so that we can regularly grow the game in the future. Specialisations is one of the key components of that.”

We already have enough ugly desert maps. I don’t want to see 4 more. How about the shiverpeaks Anet? or maybe that woodlands area….. anything but more desert maps

Pure Heart.1456:

It should be most obvious by now.
We’re going to the Crystal Desert next.

We’ve got TWO Crystal-related outfits now, and the world map scrolls a great deal south east towards the Crystal Desert with a big purple streak where the Dragon that killed Glint and a member of Destiny’s Edge went.

Crystal Savant outfit is underwhelming. The Crystal Nomad outfit is far better.
But who wants more outfits? Not me. Bring real armour pieces, not these cop-outs.

The crystal outfits are because of the ties to Glint and the Zephyrites and Glint’s Egg, which is all relevant to S2 and HoT and has nothing to do with the Crystal Desert in the current story. It’s got nothing to do with the Crystal Desert which has no crystals in it.

You want to use outfits as proof of where we go? The evidence shows Far Shiverpeaks.

Jungle Explorer came out, and that’s what the guild hall NPCs use.

Arctic Explorer came out a month later, guess what guild hall NPCs will use when we go to Far Shiverpeaks?

Dashingsteel.3410:

We already have enough ugly desert maps. I don’t want to see 4 more. How about the shiverpeaks Anet? or maybe that woodlands area….. anything but more desert maps

Remember that the Elon river was diverted, making large parts of the desert lush. In addition, parts of the desert were flooded by the ocean, making parts of the desert underwater.

How do we have “enough ugly desert maps”? There is maybe two, Dry Top and the Silverwastes…. Those aren’t even actual deserts just canyons. We have no desert maps at all. If anything i am tired of the kitten jungle.

“not after HoT”, “HoT fiasco” .. i dunno what you have guys, but i really like HoT.

the price was also okay, ive played dozens of hours in HoT areas and still enjoy it. loved making the map completion in HoT as it is very challenging (and i mean making map completion by yourself, not following dulfys guide) and the adventures which have a high replayability. havent even played the raid yet.. then we also got masteries and and and..
this all for what, 44 bucks or something like that? i have bought AAA games for 60-80 bucks and after 5-6-8h ive seen the whole game. or look at expansions in other games, battelfield/battlefront for example. you get expansions that cost more than 44 bucks and instead of giving you new content they just complete the game, add stuff youd expect to be in there from release.
so i totally cant see why this is fail or fiasco, the only fail from anet is that you kinda had to buy the whole gw2 again and cant even use it as second copy.
i also disliked that you have the option to upgrade from basic to deluxe but not to the next tier (the 99.- one).

so yes, i would absolutely pay that amount again for such an expansion, id even love to!