Guild Wars 2

The amount of threads on the forums and reddit related to expansion talk is absolutely out of control. It echoes the amount of blabber there was about this during the middle of 2013. A lot of people want an expansion because its what they are used to in MMO’s. I think wanting gw2 to be a boxed expansion game just like every other MMO would be pushing it into another cookiecutter MMO. I also think that if Anet saved all content they had now and kept working for the next 6 months to release an expansion in 9, that gw2 would plateau dramatically within the waiting period for this expansion. Players can’t have both frequent 2 week or 1 month updates and an expansion. Unless you want to wait another 18 months for an expansion since they would have to devote less people to this big project which would take them more time.

I don’t exactly know what anets playing for LS 2 are, and I expect the Living World to play out differently after listening to an interview with Colin. I think going back to 1 month updates may be a good idea. I do know though that feature updates will be completely separate from content updates after listening to Colins interview in January. This could mean that the updates we get are more chunky. I think the problem with 2 week updates is that you can only produce so much content for 1 months when you have a team of devs working for 4 months on it. 2 week updates make the updates feel to sparse, however they are frequent. Expansions are generally a bad idea because of how long you have to wait. I can’t imagine waiting nearly a year to get an expansion and then wait for 4 months inbetween more periodic updates.

I think the only reason certain people want expansions is because they are alienated by the experience of LS season 1 or they just have been shouting expansion since launch. LS season 1 could have gone immensely better if Anet just decided to put in more permanent content. If one of the four dev teams that worked in the living story content cycle was able to produce a new dungeon path, I dont see why the others can’t.

LS is just zerging around and they don’t bother making it interesting enough to be permanent content. We want interesting content. If it’s permanent, they have to make it more interesting then pressing 1 for an hour straight.

Pretty much anything more substantial to replace LS is a bonus. The current sorry excuse for game updates we’re getting feel so meaningless and insignificant that I just stopped bothering. I’d much rather see mechanics updates and real thought going into class changes/updates than the blather we get bi-weekly.

And not to mention how quickly they move so they do not fit well with a tight schedule.

It is what players are used to and they can’t imagine a world without expansions. If people aren’t liking the LS then I don’t know why they’d think they would like what Anet might put out in an expansion. I don’t mind either way, LS or expansion (or both).

My playstyle is explorer. Since launch, exploration content added has been Southsun, a very simple zone with little to discover, and the Sanctum of the Winds. GW campaigns and the one expansion featured entire continents to explore. That’s the kind of expansion I’d like to see. If that level of new areas to visit can come via the LW initiative, then so be it, but it hasn’t so far.

A less obvious reason I’ve heard:

Some people want them to quit the living story and go back to traditional expansions because they can’t keep up with it. Everyone I personally knew in Gw1 played it very differently compared to a traditional MMO. They would only play for a month or two after an expansion was released and only as a break away from their main MMO. It wasn’t until the HoM that I saw these people come back, after years of inactivity.

Now that new MMOs (or any game really) are coming out, some people want to move on and treat GW2 as a side game again, yet still 100% it, which is hard to do due to the living story.

The game has grown stale to a lot of people. Just maybe an expansion will help with that.

If Anet has promised to do expansion like content through the Living Story, and they still havent, why do you think the content in an expansion would be any different? I mean pretty much youd just be waiting much longer for a lot more of the same content.

SkylightMoon.1980:

If Anet has promised to do expansion like content through the Living Story, and they still havent, why do you think the content in an expansion would be any different? I mean pretty much youd just be waiting much longer for a lot more of the same content.

If any developer offered an expansion to an existing MMO that consisted only of what we’ve seen with the LW, they’d be a laughing stock. Hopefully, ANet would realize this and a paid expansion would actually include at least some of the changes to a game that the fan base have become accustomed to paying for.

SkylightMoon.1980:

If Anet has promised to do expansion like content through the Living Story, and they still havent, why do you think the content in an expansion would be any different? I mean pretty much youd just be waiting much longer for a lot more of the same content.

Maybe by the end of LS season 2 we will have like 75% of an expansion’s worth of content, but I fear that is being a bit too hopeful. The problem with such a long development cycle and the nature of the LS system is that half of the patches won’t really be connected to each other. Take Halloween, Wintersday, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and SAB. None of those have anything to do with the whole Scarlet arc. I’m not even sure either of the southsun events had anything to do with her. An expansion contains content that is overall related to each other. Half of what we got since launch have been disjointed singular things that come and go just as quickly.

Not to mention in order to develop the staples of a true expansion such as new playable Races and classes, they would need to take off 8+ months just to focus on it. Those things are waaaaaaay larger orders than anything Anet has put out since launch.

IndigoSundown.5419:

SkylightMoon.1980:

If Anet has promised to do expansion like content through the Living Story, and they still havent, why do you think the content in an expansion would be any different? I mean pretty much youd just be waiting much longer for a lot more of the same content.

If any developer offered an expansion to an existing MMO that consisted only of what we’ve seen with the LW, they’d be a laughing stock. Hopefully, ANet would realize this and a paid expansion would actually include at least some of the changes to a game that the fan base have become accustomed to paying for.

Well then that makes it seem like Anet released lesser content during LS season 1 due to revenue which I dont think is the case. I think LS season 1 just had to do with Anet attempting to perform a certain idea they had and realizing it failed in some aspects.

Xenon.4537:

SkylightMoon.1980:

If Anet has promised to do expansion like content through the Living Story, and they still havent, why do you think the content in an expansion would be any different? I mean pretty much youd just be waiting much longer for a lot more of the same content.

Maybe by the end of LS season 2 we will have like 75% of an expansion’s worth of content, but I fear that is being a bit too hopeful. The problem with such a long development cycle and the nature of the LS system is that half of the patches won’t really be connected to each other. Take Halloween, Wintersday, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and SAB. None of those have anything to do with the whole Scarlet arc. I’m not even sure either of the southsun events had anything to do with her. An expansion contains content that is overall related to each other. Half of what we got since launch have been disjointed singular things that come and go just as quickly.

Not to mention in order to develop the staples of a true expansion such as new playable Races and classes, they would need to take off 8+ months just to focus on it. Those things are waaaaaaay larger orders than anything Anet has put out since launch.

In 2014 LS 2. I hope for new maps, new features, new dungeons, new weapons perhaps but new weapon/class matchups before anything else. Extremely ballsy yet cool types of dynamic events which we have not seen yet. Anet has continually pushed DE’s to their limits, I think they don’t necessarily need to go bigger but more sophisticated instead. I doubt new races will come, or new classes, even though this is expansion content. I think that they are cool but not at the top of guild wars 2 priority list. Believe it or not, gw2 still needs some work in gw2 to survive. Certain meta’s need to be erased or revamped, etc.

SkylightMoon.1980:

I hope for new maps, new features, new dungeons, new weapons perhaps but new weapon/class matchups before anything else. Extremely ballsy yet cool types of dynamic events which we have not seen yet. Anet has continually pushed DE’s to their limits, I think they don’t necessarily need to go bigger but more sophisticated instead. I doubt new races will come, or new classes, even though this is expansion content. I think that they are cool but not at the top of guild wars 2 priority list. Believe it or not, gw2 still needs some work in gw2 to survive. Certain meta’s need to be erased or revamped, etc.

Devs already said a few times new races are a possibility. As for hoping… That’s the thing. With an expansion you KNOW those things are included, with LS is just continuously hoping and more hoping, disappointment after disappointment.

For a lot of people it’s the only way the game is going to move forward. For even more people (voices heard on the LS CDI), it’s an even worse way to treat the game like a big expansion in story, without providing expansion content.

Another reason is the continuance of the lore/story from GW1, ie. Cantha and Elona. These should be expansions themselves just like they were back then. I guess there’s a precedent that’s been set with GW1 and the fact that in the same year they’d brought out Prophecies and Factions. Not long after, Nightfall and then in 2007 Eye of the North was available. That trend isn’t being followed here, and a lot of people are wondering why. The big reason for me is, this isn’t the same Anet and the same dev’s that made GW1. A lot of the soul of that game has gone along with them. The ideology of expansion content isn’t in the current GW2 dev’s plans and only they know why.

cranos.5913:

SkylightMoon.1980:

I hope for new maps, new features, new dungeons, new weapons perhaps but new weapon/class matchups before anything else. Extremely ballsy yet cool types of dynamic events which we have not seen yet. Anet has continually pushed DE’s to their limits, I think they don’t necessarily need to go bigger but more sophisticated instead. I doubt new races will come, or new classes, even though this is expansion content. I think that they are cool but not at the top of guild wars 2 priority list. Believe it or not, gw2 still needs some work in gw2 to survive. Certain meta’s need to be erased or revamped, etc.

Devs already said a few times new races are a possibility. As for hoping… That’s the thing. With an expansion you KNOW those things are included, with LS is just continuously hoping and more hoping, disappointment after disappointment.

I should clarify I doubt new races or classes will come in 2014. I think we all still feel like we’ve heard arenanet talk about these big features multiple times but are at the point where we have to see it to believe it. There are some things they have done that I think completely changed the scale of the Living Story, like when the clockwork chaos came out, and we encountered scarlet events. That was pretty cool, the sheer scale of it very refreshing to the game.

There is one thing I believe has been of benefit from the living story. I think this may sound like a terrible idea. But the reason the living story, season one, has operated the way it has, is that the living story is, in fact, throw away content. In some respects, this means the whole point of the living story is to entice us to be beta/gameplay testers for Anet. These events are experiments, ways to expand on Anet repertoire of reliable and fun encounters. And you can’t make an expansion if you don’t have the means to make new an interesting content.

Let me ask you this. with respect the open world content. If Anet focused on creating more content by making a whole bunch of content that is only a marginal iteration over the kind of things we had prior to the living story, what would the major release have comprised of? I would guess it would just be another batch of zergable content, perhaps that introduces the idea of event scaling for the first time, that we probably would have noticed only marginal differences from the original content. In other words, more of the same stuff but polished a little more.

Now, the proper way to work on improving content is the have a section of play-testers to try out this experimental content. But that would mean that the community at large will not see any content at all. I think quick throwaway content is a great idea to try out things. But Anet has been quite peculiar with how they handle it. No one should be made to feel compelled to do these events on a daily basis. No one should feel compelled to farm a single event. But that is, apparently, what Anet wants us to do. So instead we have a handful of events, some good, some bad, but all which we have burned to death farming. I think it is hard to appreciate the things Anet has put out, since we have ground it so much. Also, if Anet is looking for feedback about experimental and untested content, what good is it to have players play it to the point of uncovering its flaws, then play it 10x more? Why not, “thanks for playing living story” (aka experimental temporary content), “here is some currency, spend it on living story themed items to be spent at your leisure” (and if you don’t want to help be a tester? well why don’t you help finance our poor designers working long hours to create these events. A.K.A buy more gems!)?

I think living story can be a great way to generate new content, as long as we aren’t so burned out by it to appreciate the things Anet has accomplished with it. Unfortunately I think Anet still have a long way to go to fill their repertoire to the point of being able to create a big meaningful bag of content. And until then, I don’t see the point in trying to create expansion like content. Because doing so at this point will more than likely be a big bag of disappointment. I mean, what if we got a whole bunch of the living story style events as a big content update? What if we got a large heaping of assault knights, scarlet invasions, crown pavilion, and karka queen style events…

Bartle profile: 3-way perfect blend of Achiever/Explorer/Socializer here.

I have been a gamer since the original D&D pen and paper came out in the 70’s.

Not going into a long involved post about why I and my guild want an expansion, I’d end up quoting a lot of our previous posts.

I will sum up our feelings very briefly:

An MMO has as its very foundation the concept of persistent world.

An MMO adds content. It does not take away content. MMO’s that have done this in the past suffered attrition and corresponding revenue loss.

ANet and their Living Story concept constantly throws content over the wall, as a means to keep non-subscribers involved with the game. Then ANet removes the content. Constantly.

We advocated (please note the past tense) for the addition of permanent content that could be explored, used, and reused on an on-going basis, within our time frame, with the understanding that it would remain a part of the persistent world.

In other words: we wanted an “expansion”.

However: ANet has said repeatedly that this is their game and they will do whatever and whenever they want with it.

Hence our current stance:

We have stopped advocating for an expansion.

We have finally internalized that ANet does not want us as customers.

We have stopped calling GW2 an MMO.

Although it makes for some awkwardly worded posts.

We have lost all trust and loyalty in and for ANet as a developer.

(Is the fault theirs for promoting GW2 as an MMO, or ours for assuming it was? Does not matter, the end result is:)

We are continuing to look for an MMO because that is our preferred playstyle.

We have enjoyed some aspects of GW2, and are also still trying to get what we can from this game.

And to all those players who actually enjoy the concept of the LS: we wish you enjoyment of your game.

Is the world outside your window persistent, never changing? Are you living in the Fringe altverse where the twin towers are still standing? No. Then stuff happens and its over never to return. Certain patterns may form and repeat. Untimely drug deaths of notable actors, badly behaving former teen star, politician caught in a scandalous affair but it’s hopefully different people every time.

Stuff happens, it gets resolved, new stuff happens. The alternative to that is adding more levels that go hand in hand with new previously undiscovered landmasses so the X year old content remains unchanged. But didn’t WoW have some big dragon event that completely redid the original areas? So it’s not persistent there either.

On one hand players complain about DEs as not changing anything but when the devs add content that has a permanent resolution players complain that the world isn’t persistent.

Devs can’t win, so why should they try to please anyone other their own sense of story telling.

The whole reason I want one is because its quite literally the ONLY way we will ever see new armor in the game (aside from future legendary which will probably be reskins with fire effects) outside of the gem store.

Behellagh.1468:

Is the world outside your window persistent, never changing? Are you living in the Fringe altverse where the twin towers are still standing? No. Then stuff happens and its over never to return. Certain patterns may form and repeat. Untimely drug deaths of notable actors, badly behaving former teen star, politician caught in a scandalous affair but it’s hopefully different people every time.

Stuff happens, it gets resolved, new stuff happens. The alternative to that is adding more levels that go hand in hand with new previously undiscovered landmasses so the X year old content remains unchanged. But didn’t WoW have some big dragon event that completely redid the original areas? So it’s not persistent there either.

On one hand players complain about DEs as not changing anything but when the devs add content that has a permanent resolution players complain that the world isn’t persistent.

Devs can’t win, so why should they try to please anyone other their own sense of story telling.

At 56 years old, I’m very aware that the world outside is not persistent. My grandparents, who were born in the 1800’s, ended up having telephones and televisions. My father, who was born in 1915, remembered the addition of cars and airplanes. I watched space launches and the first landing on the moon. And was part of the (“emerging”) computer industry that ultimately led to the internet and all that followed.

And yes, WoW did have a one-time destruction of part of their persistent world. Blizzard realized, too late, the financial impact they had from resulting playerbase attrition and never repeated their mistake.

Developers make trade-offs.. They can listen to too many customers (see: issues with DAoC), they can publically insult them for “not playing the game correctly” (see: Jeff Kaplan’s widely published NYT interview blunder), they can ignore their customer’s playing experience (see: multiple examples).

All have consequences.

-retired software dev

Behellagh.1468:

Is the world outside your window persistent, never changing? Are you living in the Fringe altverse where the twin towers are still standing? No. Then stuff happens and its over never to return.

In the world outside my window, I can get new armours, I can learn to make them myself, I can get new haircuts more or less whatever I want/my hair allow it and I can build a lot of stuff. I can experience the fresh air on the top of a mountain and the joy of sex with a lover, and I can contribute to the way things change.

If we start to compare real world with game world, game world will not have a chance to win.

Game worlds are compared, for convenience, with other game worlds, the same way you don’t compare a burger with fries with the joy a having a child or with the sadness of seeing your parents die. You compare it with other meals.

I’m 52, semi-retired software dev.

The problem with persistent content is while it allows new players to play events that long time players have already experience months or years ago, to those long time players that content is stale. One way to fix that is to provide an alternate area to start and level up a character in for older players while newer players can play in the old content.

The problem with that of course is diluting the playerbase across more zones. New players would choose the join the older players because that’s where everyone is. Now the persistent old zones are dead. And if so few players go to them then why keep them around? or persistent?

You pick a vision and stick with it. After 4 months of a rather static game with traditional “holiday” events, the devs decided to tell a grand adventure using their world as a canvas. Yes, it’s terrible if you missed out on some event that have unique awards that are now long gone. But for those who do commit to showing up at least weekly they are presented a constant stream of every changing content.

ANet needs players who show up every day or week. Everytime they log in ANet can wave some new Gem Shop item in front of them to see if they bite. And I’m not talking about this month’s daily sale. It’s “Buy Now! Available for a Limited Time!” and some of those players that go for it will spend cash on the gems they need to buy it.

It all boils down to DPS Vs Burst income model. They’re trying DPS this time around.

Those expansion topics keep popping up because people want something substantial added to this game for a long time now, they’re tired and nearly burned out of the existing content in this game, and frankly living story just doesn’t cut it. LS can be an awesome addition to the regular expansion type add ons, but in it’s current form it can’t possibly replace an expansion. It’s a nice little bonus content, nothing more, and AN been feeding us it for 1,5 years now, and will continue to do so. Happened exactly what i was afraid will happen, when the news about AN focusing on LS and not planning expansion in near future had arrived. I would’ve been out of this game, at this point, long time ago if there was another decent MMO out there, unfortunately there isn’t, and it doesn’t look like one is coming in near future… so yeah.

Just a notice, Anet announced before that they have been working since a while on projects with expansion-like content, they also stated that LS and An Expansion are two seperate projects, not connected to eachother. Which means that the statement saying that Anet can’t work on both is false. Not only that, it is literally so that Anet have been working on content for an expansion for a long time now.

On the other hand, Anet said clearly that the content may not be introduced as an expansion and that there are alot of options. Looking at the player-base however, they may as well release it as an expansion.

LS content and Expnasion content are seperate and Anet have been working on both with two different teams. It is already stated by Anet.

One thing AN really good at is announcing. One can just look to what original GW had after 1,5 year and make conclusions. There’s nothing to talk about here, everything is obvious at this point.

nGumball.1283:

Just a notice, Anet announced before that they have been working since a while on projects with expansion-like content, they also stated that LS and An Expansion are two seperate projects, not connected to eachother. Which means that the statement saying that Anet can’t work on both is false. Not only that, it is literally so that Anet have been working on content for an expansion for a long time now.

On the other hand, Anet said clearly that the content may not be introduced as an expansion and that there are alot of options. Looking at the player-base however, they may as well release it as an expansion.

LS content and Expnasion content are seperate and Anet have been working on both with two different teams. It is already stated by Anet.

That’s weird, because they announced first that no expansions were made or even in the list of things to be made. Then they announced in offsite (eurogamer interview) that yes, of course, tons of new expansion-like materials were being made, and they just needed to find if give it for free or release an expansion or what.

So, one of the two announcements was a lie, but we don’t know yet which one. And they managed to put them in interviews so they can always declare “this was misinterpreted” as is not coming directly from their mouths/keyboards.

GW1 had awesome expansion with Factions. I was able to buy factions 2 years after release and play all the content. I can even play it now if I want.

If they release a LS-like expansion stuff that is only playable when they want.. well, it can be weird. They already have a method to release story-like content that can be playable at will (personal story) and that resolves around missions, story and doing stuff, not getting achievements and collect random junk limited materials only usable for two weeks, and bosses scaled to be done with 150 participants at maximum DPS.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem with persistent content is while it allows new players to play events that long time players have already experience months or years ago, to those long time players that content in stale.

How is fighting largely the same foes, surrounded by the same scenery, using the same classes, using the same skills, using the same game play as you’ve been doing for months or years less stale to long time players than having exactly those options plus new zones, classes, skills, game play options as well ?

Randall.7306:

nGumball.1283:

Just a notice, Anet announced before that they have been working since a while on projects with expansion-like content, they also stated that LS and An Expansion are two seperate projects, not connected to eachother. Which means that the statement saying that Anet can’t work on both is false. Not only that, it is literally so that Anet have been working on content for an expansion for a long time now.

On the other hand, Anet said clearly that the content may not be introduced as an expansion and that there are alot of options. Looking at the player-base however, they may as well release it as an expansion.

LS content and Expnasion content are seperate and Anet have been working on both with two different teams. It is already stated by Anet.

That’s weird, because they announced first that no expansions were made or even in the list of things to be made. Then they announced in offsite (eurogamer interview) that yes, of course, tons of new expansion-like materials were being made, and they just needed to find if give it for free or release an expansion or what.

So, one of the two announcements was a lie, but we don’t know yet which one. And they managed to put them in interviews so they can always declare “this was misinterpreted” as is not coming directly from their mouths/keyboards.

GW1 had awesome expansion with Factions. I was able to buy factions 2 years after release and play all the content. I can even play it now if I want.

If they release a LS-like expansion stuff that is only playable when they want.. well, it can be weird. They already have a method to release story-like content that can be playable at will (personal story) and that resolves around missions, story and doing stuff, not getting achievements and collect random junk limited materials only usable for two weeks, and bosses scaled to be done with 150 participants at maximum DPS.

Nah, that’s not a lie at all. That sort of thing is quite easy to understand.

If you ask one person if an expansion specifically is being made, and they haven’t actually made anything for an expansion, and didn’t plan one, he might say no. That doesn’t mean that stuff that could be released as part of an expansion wasn’t being worked on.

In other words, they’re working on bigger projects which at the time the first question was answered wouldn’t have been in an expansion. The fans heard that interview and starting chanting “expansion, expansion!”. So they hold some kind of meeting and say, maybe we will have an expansion.

Unless the two statements were released at the same time, it’s not only entirely possible, but also quite likely, that saying they weren’t working on an expansion caused enough negative response that they changed their mind.

I’m pretty sure when the first guy said it, an expansion wasn’t actually on their radar.

Nage.1520:

Randall.7306:

nGumball.1283:

Just a notice, Anet announced before that they have been working since a while on projects with expansion-like content, they also stated that LS and An Expansion are two seperate projects, not connected to eachother. Which means that the statement saying that Anet can’t work on both is false. Not only that, it is literally so that Anet have been working on content for an expansion for a long time now.

On the other hand, Anet said clearly that the content may not be introduced as an expansion and that there are alot of options. Looking at the player-base however, they may as well release it as an expansion.

LS content and Expnasion content are seperate and Anet have been working on both with two different teams. It is already stated by Anet.

That’s weird, because they announced first that no expansions were made or even in the list of things to be made. Then they announced in offsite (eurogamer interview) that yes, of course, tons of new expansion-like materials were being made, and they just needed to find if give it for free or release an expansion or what.

So, one of the two announcements was a lie, but we don’t know yet which one. And they managed to put them in interviews so they can always declare “this was misinterpreted” as is not coming directly from their mouths/keyboards.

GW1 had awesome expansion with Factions. I was able to buy factions 2 years after release and play all the content. I can even play it now if I want.

If they release a LS-like expansion stuff that is only playable when they want.. well, it can be weird. They already have a method to release story-like content that can be playable at will (personal story) and that resolves around missions, story and doing stuff, not getting achievements and collect random junk limited materials only usable for two weeks, and bosses scaled to be done with 150 participants at maximum DPS.

Nah, that’s not a lie at all. That sort of thing is quite easy to understand.

If you ask one person if an expansion specifically is being made, and they haven’t actually made anything for an expansion, and didn’t plan one, he might say no. That doesn’t mean that stuff that could be released as part of an expansion wasn’t being worked on.

In other words, they’re working on bigger projects which at the time the first question was answered wouldn’t have been in an expansion. The fans heard that interview and starting chanting “expansion, expansion!”. So they hold some kind of meeting and say, maybe we will have an expansion.

Unless the two statements were released at the same time, it’s not only entirely possible, but also quite likely, that saying they weren’t working on an expansion caused enough negative response that they changed their mind.

I’m pretty sure when the first guy said it, an expansion wasn’t actually on their radar.

I have to agree here. Anet, from the start stated that they gonna be dividing their team to work on different projects and later on we started hearing about bigger projects or to be more specific two huge projects being worked on. However, I don’t believe that they actually wanted to release it as an expnasion.

However, it is actually quite clear by now that people do want an expansion with permenant content and the anger of lack of expansions is quite large.

At the end of the day, I see alot of those feature updates coming to fix game mechanics before an expansion is gonna be released which will be hugly hyped brining us back to the GW2 hype-train, ready to compete with the coming Everquest next year.

Obviously people are giving up on this game. It needs an expansion badly.

Living story has the same “quality” of the free monthly patches we get in about every other game on the market, adding near nothing to the game itself and being filler content itself.

But contrary to GW2, those other games also bring expansions (either paid or free), with new features, not the same old, same old, over and over again, recycled so it looks ‘new’.

This game would actually be better without the living story: no crappy achievement grind, no money beating out of the gem store (look at Scarlet shoulders and gauntlets LOL).

Sirendor.1394:

Obviously people are giving up on this game. It needs an expansion badly.

Living story has the same “quality” of the free monthly patches we get in about every other game on the market, adding near nothing to the game itself and being filler content itself.

But contrary to GW2, those other games also bring expansions (either paid or free), with new features, not the same old, same old, over and over again, recycled so it looks ‘new’.

This game would actually be better without the living story: no crappy achievement grind, no money beating out of the gem store (look at Scarlet shoulders and gauntlets LOL).

It is the opposite, people have faith in the game and want something new. It is true though that things are getting stale. Guild Wars 2 wasn’t designed afterall to be 24/7 MMO but a casual one and people who wanna enjoy it for longer want more content of the same quality we got via release.

goldenwing.8473:

Bartle profile: 3-way perfect blend of Achiever/Explorer/Socializer here.

I have been a gamer since the original D&D pen and paper came out in the 70’s.

Not going into a long involved post about why I and my guild want an expansion, I’d end up quoting a lot of our previous posts.

I will sum up our feelings very briefly:

An MMO has as its very foundation the concept of persistent world.

An MMO adds content. It does not take away content. MMO’s that have done this in the past suffered attrition and corresponding revenue loss.

ANet and their Living Story concept constantly throws content over the wall, as a means to keep non-subscribers involved with the game. Then ANet removes the content. Constantly.

We advocated (please note the past tense) for the addition of permanent content that could be explored, used, and reused on an on-going basis, within our time frame, with the understanding that it would remain a part of the persistent world.

In other words: we wanted an “expansion”.

However: ANet has said repeatedly that this is their game and they will do whatever and whenever they want with it.

Hence our current stance:

We have stopped advocating for an expansion.

We have finally internalized that ANet does not want us as customers.

We have stopped calling GW2 an MMO.

Although it makes for some awkwardly worded posts.

We have lost all trust and loyalty in and for ANet as a developer.

(Is the fault theirs for promoting GW2 as an MMO, or ours for assuming it was? Does not matter, the end result is:)

We are continuing to look for an MMO because that is our preferred playstyle.

We have enjoyed some aspects of GW2, and are also still trying to get what we can from this game.

And to all those players who actually enjoy the concept of the LS: we wish you enjoyment of your game.

Then don’t play the game lol go quit right now if you really feel that way. What you sound like you want is a cookie cutter MMO, another carbon copy of WoW. You make Anet sound a lot worse than they actually are. I don’t think they are bad at all actually, I just think they have changed direction too much. They wanted to do something innovative by doing the LS and doing two week releases, and its really the first time anyone has done such a thing, to release content so frequently. Could it have gone better? Yes. I think one problem may have been that Anet put themselves in a position where they couldn’t turn back because they already the exact content they wanted to do for the exact storyline dating back to january 2013. Im just guessing, I don’t really know though.

Some people have already commented that the LS alongside an expansion would be nice. Id like to wish for something like that but I don’t know if Anet has the resources. I do know however that even during last year in the LS, Anet did state bigger projects were in the works in the background. The only problem is I wonder about the content in these bigger projects since Anet started them so long ago, maybe they learned many things from LS season 1 and the playerbase and perhaps the idea doesn’t sound so amazing now. I think people need to read the interview Colin made back in January.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

There are some good statements there from Colin. I’ll highlight a couple quotes.

This was in response to “And also as some of the really big projects we’re working on in the background come to fruition, we’re going to see a spike again in users.”(one chunk of a long response to a drop in sales, the projects they refer to are content).

“We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background,”(In response to a question about Anet having so many employees yet so little to show in large impact content added to the game).

There is also more Colin says in reply to that question along with others about the future of LS and how it is delivered may not be the same.

Xenon.4537:

Many of us want an expansion because it would mean far more substantial content than what the living story seems capable of.

I’ll try to list what we have gained since launch (in terms of permanent stuff), please correct me if I forget anything:
- ascended gear
- crafting to 500
- a new dungeon path to TA
- 1 new unique dungeon; fractals
- the LFG tool
- a smattering of QoL improvements such as the currency wallet
- 1 new wvw map
- 1 new zone
- a very scarce few new weapon and armor skins that weren’t temporary/gem store
- 1 new world boss (and one revamped old one)
- a couple new spvp maps

Looking back I’m actually kind of surprised by the list, but it’s still not what people expect in an expansion. Personally I (and I think most people) expect something like:
- a whole new continent
- a whole new personal story chain just as long (or close) as the original
- at least 10 new zones
- at least 5 new dungeons
- new armor and weapon skins for each of those dungeons and/or new events
- new open world dynamic events
- at least 3-5 new spvp maps
- a new (relevant to the new campaign) wvw map
—-And above all—-
- New playable race
- New class (or at least a slew of new weapon and utility skills, like 8-10 new skills and/or traits per class)

Not to mention all of this should be wrapped together in an overall package with a unifying theme, story, experience, etc. Not a disjointed series of unrelated patches that have nothing to do with each other until the last 4 or 5 patches where we find out the main villain is this crazy chick who we find out doesn’t even matter what her motives were…

I’ve said it before, but I think Anet simply doesn’t have the revenue to pursue such an expansion. NCSoft probably takes the lionshare of their gem store profits. I’m not mad at NCSoft though. I just wish they would see that GW2 has a passionate fanbase that deserves more and will pay for more if the content is up to par. But NCSoft is more interested in Wowstar it seems…

To answer the question of the title of this thread, we shout for an expansion because if we don’t, it might never happen. The higher-ups need to see demand before they invest the funds to create the supply.

You said it perfectly. +1

People are shouting that they want an expansion because we are tired of the little crummy story telling bits that the two week cadence and living story provide. We are tired of the poor story telling, the achievement grinding, the mindless and non engaging gameplay of blobbing and zerging around. Its boring.

Yes, there are people that genuinely like Living Story. Either they really do like it, for reasons I cannot understand, or they do not know any better and have not experienced the amount of content and QUALITY that comes with a true expansion.

But the majority of us are tired of the sub par content releases that arenanet touts as quality and substantial to both us and media.

And I would rather pay box price for the full meal of an expansion, than get the free crumbs of Living Story.

Pip.2094:

Xenon.4537:

Many of us want an expansion because it would mean far more substantial content than what the living story seems capable of.

I’ll try to list what we have gained since launch (in terms of permanent stuff), please correct me if I forget anything:
- ascended gear
- crafting to 500
- a new dungeon path to TA
- 1 new unique dungeon; fractals
- the LFG tool
- a smattering of QoL improvements such as the currency wallet
- 1 new wvw map
- 1 new zone
- a very scarce few new weapon and armor skins that weren’t temporary/gem store
- 1 new world boss (and one revamped old one)
- a couple new spvp maps

Looking back I’m actually kind of surprised by the list, but it’s still not what people expect in an expansion. Personally I (and I think most people) expect something like:
- a whole new continent
- a whole new personal story chain just as long (or close) as the original
- at least 10 new zones
- at least 5 new dungeons
- new armor and weapon skins for each of those dungeons and/or new events
- new open world dynamic events
- at least 3-5 new spvp maps
- a new (relevant to the new campaign) wvw map
—-And above all—-
- New playable race
- New class (or at least a slew of new weapon and utility skills, like 8-10 new skills and/or traits per class)

Not to mention all of this should be wrapped together in an overall package with a unifying theme, story, experience, etc. Not a disjointed series of unrelated patches that have nothing to do with each other until the last 4 or 5 patches where we find out the main villain is this crazy chick who we find out doesn’t even matter what her motives were…

I’ve said it before, but I think Anet simply doesn’t have the revenue to pursue such an expansion. NCSoft probably takes the lionshare of their gem store profits. I’m not mad at NCSoft though. I just wish they would see that GW2 has a passionate fanbase that deserves more and will pay for more if the content is up to par. But NCSoft is more interested in Wowstar it seems…

To answer the question of the title of this thread, we shout for an expansion because if we don’t, it might never happen. The higher-ups need to see demand before they invest the funds to create the supply.

You said it perfectly. +1

I’d agree almost completely, but 10 new zones is a bit much and 3-5 new sPvP maps is a bit much. Probably a whole continent with 5 zones and two or three sPvP maps would be good. Along with some more additions to WvW such as new siege weapons or something?

consumer conditioning

Xenon.4537:

Many of us want an expansion because it would mean far more substantial content than what the living story seems capable of.

I’ll try to list what we have gained since launch (in terms of permanent stuff), please correct me if I forget anything:
- ascended gear
- crafting to 500
- a new dungeon path to TA
- 1 new unique dungeon; fractals
- the LFG tool
- a smattering of QoL improvements such as the currency wallet
- 1 new wvw map
- 1 new zone
- a very scarce few new weapon and armor skins that weren’t temporary/gem store
- 1 new world boss (and one revamped old one)
- a couple new spvp maps

Looking back I’m actually kind of surprised by the list, but it’s still not what people expect in an expansion. Personally I (and I think most people) expect something like:
- a whole new continent
- a whole new personal story chain just as long (or close) as the original
- at least 10 new zones
- at least 5 new dungeons
- new armor and weapon skins for each of those dungeons and/or new events
- new open world dynamic events
- at least 3-5 new spvp maps
- a new (relevant to the new campaign) wvw map
—-And above all—-
- New playable race
- New class (or at least a slew of new weapon and utility skills, like 8-10 new skills and/or traits per class)

Not to mention all of this should be wrapped together in an overall package with a unifying theme, story, experience, etc. Not a disjointed series of unrelated patches that have nothing to do with each other until the last 4 or 5 patches where we find out the main villain is this crazy chick who we find out doesn’t even matter what her motives were…

I’ve said it before, but I think Anet simply doesn’t have the revenue to pursue such an expansion. NCSoft probably takes the lionshare of their gem store profits. I’m not mad at NCSoft though. I just wish they would see that GW2 has a passionate fanbase that deserves more and will pay for more if the content is up to par. But NCSoft is more interested in Wowstar it seems…

To answer the question of the title of this thread, we shout for an expansion because if we don’t, it might never happen. The higher-ups need to see demand before they invest the funds to create the supply.

Very good points there Xenon, all of which I agree with. I would also add that one of the biggest disadvantages of the LS content is that we cannot go through it at our own paces. Some like to go through it as fast as possible, but they cannot. Some don’t have time to go through it quickly enough, so they miss out.

If it was an expansion, players could make their way through it ata pace that suits them.

I do give Anet a lot of credit for trying something new, and the LS content is exactly that, but in the way ot has been implemented it just isn’t working very well for many, and that is why a lot of players are crying out for an expansion instead of LS updates.

There’s a couple of factors, I suspect.

1) Simple familiarity. MMOs by and large are the only major genre of games that still cling to the expansion model. Most others have moved on to the DLC model that Arena.net is trying to modify for their use. Gamers don’t like it, because they don’t like change, and never really have. I’m sure there are a good many who reject the LS/DLC model for this reason (though they’ll never admit it).

2) For those that ARE willing to give this a legitimate shot… the problem is that while there’s no real reason the Living Story CAN’T provide expansion like content, the truth is that so far it HASN’T. Gamers are not only stagnant by nature, they are also IMPATIENT. They want more of the same, and they want it now NOW NOW!

They’re like the bratty 5-year old in the toy aisle in the supermarket, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I WANT THIS! I WANT THAT! I’M GONNA HOLD MY BREATH!!!” Temper tantrums are their go to response whenever they don’t get everything they want. Arena.net should ignore them and let them play something else, but they can’t afford to.

We’ll see an expansion. Question is will it be soon enough.

Yes an expension would be nice, however, what size expension would be good for you all? The issue is if they brougth an expansion with 5 new zones, a few more dungeons and some other items, how long would it be until people get bored of that. Most of these people would take a week to get through it all and then be right back where we are at now.
I am not saying there should not be one. Anet is trying to do something different which this game was supposed to be about. It was not meant to have raiding, which people are still wanting and I venomously appose, but a dynamic world that changes.
Has the LS been done well. Yes and no. There are issues with it that need to be cleaned up. The living story should be brought out new once a month which more to it and be more dynamic and detailed in it’s story and what needs to be done playing it.

Just my two cents

chemiclord.3978:

Gamers are not only stagnant by nature, they are also IMPATIENT. They want more of the same, and they want it now NOW NOW!

They’re like the bratty 5-year old in the toy aisle in the supermarket, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I WANT THIS! I WANT THAT! I’M GONNA HOLD MY BREATH!!!” Temper tantrums are their go to response whenever they don’t get everything they want. Arena.net should ignore them and let them play something else, but they can’t afford to.

I just wanted to add a comment on this. While there are, and always will be, players like this, some players are just able to naturally get through content much faster than others. Not everyone players at the same pace, and certainly not at the developer’s chosen pace (which I assume is partly balance to cover a wide selection of players). The problem is, there are too many factors to consider when determining the pace of content. It’s not a simple case of seeing how long the average player takes to complete the average amount of content. Because firstly how to you determine what is average level content? What you find easy other may find hard, and therefore take longer, and visa versa.

I think the problem is, Anet has taken it upon themselves to pace the content, when really it should be the individual player that determines that, and that is something the current LS model cannot provide and an expansion can.

Personally, I do not see why they cannot create a mix of both. Create a largeish expansion (maybe not as big as a normal expansion but still substantial), with an whole personal story arc, new zones, skills, mobs, etc., but also add periodic LS elements such as changing dynamic events, temporary mobs, quests, etc.. Choosing to use a LS model is good, but discarding the tried and tested, and successful, expansion model is not such a good idea.

They dived head long into unexplored waters and abandoned the safe option completely, and it has suffered because of that. Like I said before, I think it’s commendable that they want to try new things, but in the MMO genre, where there is the widest selection of player types, they really should tread a little more carefully.

Hopefully though, they have learned a lot from the LS model and can provide something much better next time round.

Sirendor.1394:

Obviously people are giving up on this game. It needs an expansion badly.

Living story has the same “quality” of the free monthly patches we get in about every other game on the market, adding near nothing to the game itself and being filler content itself.

But contrary to GW2, those other games also bring expansions (either paid or free), with new features, not the same old, same old, over and over again, recycled so it looks ‘new’.

This game would actually be better without the living story: no crappy achievement grind, no money beating out of the gem store (look at Scarlet shoulders and gauntlets LOL).

What makes it obvious that “people” are giving up on the game?

There’s a host of reasons want a traditional expansion, but ultimately the Living Story’s inability to deliver quality content is the only one that matters. The Living Story has been little more than a year of lackluster content. The quality of the content hasn’t been up to par. The story has been disjointed. The level of substance has largely been filler. The level of polish has been downright embarrassing at times. Very little of it has had a lasting impact on the game (as opposed to the lore). And there’s been virtually nothing added that expands the game. It’s all been a redecorating of the same room with the same furniture and an occasional new coat of paint on the walls.

Edit: And if you don’t acknowledge the truth in what I’ve said, then you’re not being objective about the Living Story.

I was originally hopeful about Wildstar, but I think it’s going to crash and burn. Same goes for ESO.

I’ve played both betas, and although neither game is truly terrible, I think that GW2 just has better mechanics. The fact still remains that this game has grown a bit stale, but I hope ANet can remedy that in the near future.

chemiclord.3978:

There’s a couple of factors, I suspect.

1) Simple familiarity. MMOs by and large are the only major genre of games that still cling to the expansion model. Most others have moved on to the DLC model that Arena.net is trying to modify for their use. Gamers don’t like it, because they don’t like change, and never really have. I’m sure there are a good many who reject the LS/DLC model for this reason (though they’ll never admit it).

2) For those that ARE willing to give this a legitimate shot… the problem is that while there’s no real reason the Living Story CAN’T provide expansion like content, the truth is that so far it HASN’T. Gamers are not only stagnant by nature, they are also IMPATIENT. They want more of the same, and they want it now NOW NOW!

I can give ANet any numbers of opportunities they want to prove that LS model model can provide the same content or similar than a traditional expansion would provide.

So far, they didn’t delivered anything close to 5% of an expansion the size of Eye of the North, I won’t start comparing with Factions to not cry.

And, as you said, technically they could have delivered a lot more of content aimed to stay in the game in a permanent way, so newer and older players can join it. But they decided (on purpose, we have to assume) otherwise, to release mainly temp content, or just change a permanent content for another permanent content (like LA destruction).

The hints in the interviews is that they aim to a tv-series, book-series, comic-book release pace, in which every release wants the spectator to known a little more, and stay tuned for next release.

If this model is a huge success, a middle success or a fail only they can tell. For me, as spectator-player, is a fail. Because I know that, technically (and story-wise) they could do better.

For example, let’s take Prometheus film. For me it’s a big mistake. If my small brother do the same film, without budget and in his spare time, then I would claim it a success. But for Ridley Scott? With those casting? Horrible, and much more horrible once you see they had a good script at hands and decided to throw it in favour of… well, of nothing.

So, now we don’t know what else could ANet had delivered instead of the LS-1, but we can look at the past and expect something, at least, similar to EOTN.

That amount of content, released over a year? Fine, where I a have to sign?

The amount of content delivered by LS-1, released over a year? mmhh for PvW, southsun cove, change LA map and slightly change some other zone. And some story not very much attractive in which I’m forced to miss elements (real life: wedding, honeymoon, house moving, job change, and soon I’ll factor parenting on it).

They could have delivered the LS-1 content with a epic, good, engaging story. Then (more) people would have been engaged to it. For this you need writing and character developing that aim to quality: Game of Thrones, Heroes S1, Breaking Bad, Battlestar Galactica, Cryptonomicon, Bone, True Detective, Buffy… even Lost managed to, using cheap tricks, make people to follow the series.

Would you follow a show or book or comic that consist on the LS stories? They might be some good story content hidden in those releases, but hiding it doesn’t make it good.

So, the current implementation of the LS doesn’t provide what some players were expecting, compared to GW1 expansions, and doesn’t deliver a brand new way of exciting content that make us vibrate.

Nage.1520:

Sirendor.1394:

Obviously people are giving up on this game. It needs an expansion badly.

Living story has the same “quality” of the free monthly patches we get in about every other game on the market, adding near nothing to the game itself and being filler content itself.

But contrary to GW2, those other games also bring expansions (either paid or free), with new features, not the same old, same old, over and over again, recycled so it looks ‘new’.

This game would actually be better without the living story: no crappy achievement grind, no money beating out of the gem store (look at Scarlet shoulders and gauntlets LOL).

What makes it obvious that “people” are giving up on the game?

I wouldn’t say giving up, but deep displeasure. People are hoping that the game improves. If they continue on the path with the two week crummy story telling via living story, this game will fall to that stigma..the grindy game that released sub par content every two weeks. People are getting tired of it. Im already done with it. People in all of my previous guilds have stopped playing because of it, and people inmy current guild simply don’t like it and view this as nothing new added to the game that they like. Arenanet put all its eggs into one basket, and I could not support a statement that says the game is flourishing because of it.

Xenon.4537:

Many of us want an expansion because it would mean far more substantial content than what the living story seems capable of.

I’ll try to list what we have gained since launch (in terms of permanent stuff), please correct me if I forget anything:
- ascended gear
- crafting to 500
- a new dungeon path to TA
- 1 new unique dungeon; fractals
- the LFG tool
- a smattering of QoL improvements such as the currency wallet
- 1 new wvw map
- 1 new zone
- a very scarce few new weapon and armor skins that weren’t temporary/gem store
- 1 new world boss (and one revamped old one)
- a couple new spvp maps

Looking back I’m actually kind of surprised by the list, but it’s still not what people expect in an expansion. Personally I (and I think most people) expect something like:
- a whole new continent
- a whole new personal story chain just as long (or close) as the original
- at least 10 new zones
- at least 5 new dungeons
- new armor and weapon skins for each of those dungeons and/or new events
- new open world dynamic events
- at least 3-5 new spvp maps
- a new (relevant to the new campaign) wvw map
—-And above all—-
- New playable race
- New class (or at least a slew of new weapon and utility skills, like 8-10 new skills and/or traits per class)

Not to mention all of this should be wrapped together in an overall package with a unifying theme, story, experience, etc. Not a disjointed series of unrelated patches that have nothing to do with each other until the last 4 or 5 patches where we find out the main villain is this crazy chick who we find out doesn’t even matter what her motives were…

I’ve said it before, but I think Anet simply doesn’t have the revenue to pursue such an expansion. NCSoft probably takes the lionshare of their gem store profits. I’m not mad at NCSoft though. I just wish they would see that GW2 has a passionate fanbase that deserves more and will pay for more if the content is up to par. But NCSoft is more interested in Wowstar it seems…

To answer the question of the title of this thread, we shout for an expansion because if we don’t, it might never happen. The higher-ups need to see demand before they invest the funds to create the supply.

The above bold and quoted lines are the exact reason why people are asking for an expansion.

GW2 – to date has released far less content then any other current AAA mmorpg.

LS releases were nothing more then temp. mini zerg games with horrible cliche writing. The conclusion was about as underwhelming as you can get.

Once again in an entire year – Anet provided a laughable small amount of content in comparison to it’s competitors.

That is the entire reason the forums as well as many players are livid.

I love GW2 it is the best game I’ve played since 1999, and is something I would love to continue to play going forward. The hard pill to swallow at this stage is how monetization, a fact I except as necessary to maintain longevity seems to have become the priority for all content development, which in time will bury this franchise.

The other issue that continues to spur these threads to be repeated so often is the absolute absence of any real information regarding the future plans for GW2. Sure I have delved into every CDI and to be quite frank that is primarily the only thread the receives any regular attention but we are closing out the fist quarter and haven’t been given any concrete information regarding the path forward. This is something most people are confused and concerned by because it leaves most with two impressions, a) they don’t really have a clearly defined path forward or b) they just don’t feel a necessity to talk about what it is. The first I doubt to be reality because after all it is a business, it’s the 2nd one that has me very concerned, because lack of real information leads to bitterness and mistrust.

My hope is that they actually lay things out clearly and honestly sooner rather than later.

Sorudo is on the right track with those links regarding expansion content. Good start. More personal store, continents, skills, races/classes, etc. The whole 9 yards.

Love how my posts in a previous thread were deleted without any notification sent to my account…