Guild Wars 2

No, I said it a thousand times no MMO can survive without a full expansion or full campaigns. The LS story philosophy is exactly what’s gonna kill this game unless we see regular expansion or mini expansions in the store. I figure something in the neighborhood of 10 zones every 6 months would do it. Anet was already doing more than what I suggest with half the staff in the GW 1 days.

GW 2: 25 zones, 5 cities in 5 years.
That’s 30 zones in sixty months,
or the equivalent of one full and finished map every 2 months.

Vayne.8563:

OP, there are currently three software sites I know that track MMO popularity and google trends tells you how many people have searched for a specific name.

In every single place where game popularity is mentioned, the #1 MMORPG is almost always WoW. And the number 2 or 3 MMORPG is almost always Guild Wars 2.

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

can u give that 3 website plz i have been searched for that datas for months and only thing i know is google trends.u can send me ingame mail.ty very much!

I don’t think GW2 will get better or see an increase in people unless we start getting regular expansions. The living story is much too little content for an mmo imo.

I think the addition of raids increase the chances of GW2 having a positive future. I find easy content not very fun to replay. I am hopeful that raids will offer difficult content for large groups with a high replay value.

Here’s my account of Guild Wars 2. I left gw2 about a year+ ago and played Final Fantasy XIV till last 2 weeks, got bored of the constant disbandment of endgame dungeon raid group which requires really good reflexes, team coordination and VoIP communication. Endgame dungeon there punishes mistakes really hard and there is a hard enrage timer.

Came back to Guild Wars 2 for 2 weeks now. Logged in everyday and it feels like a breath of fresh air. No stress on catching up and no steep vertical gear progression. Unlike FFXIV, with every x.1 patch our previous endgame gear are no longer BiS.

P.S.: I started gw2 since beta weekend 1.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer… not sure.

Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.

Basically, it was a very, very good base game, the population is still good, and the game is still fun. However, a lot of the decisions that have been made since launch have been, in the opinion of many, poor. Many players have left, or are highly frustrated, and no one really knows where the game is going. If the quality of the game is going to be enough to carry it long term, especially if we see more of the same controversial decisions, I don’t know.

This is how I feel about it. +1

I sincerely hope the get their act together after they finish whatever feature they feel new players still need…

Will GW2 “have a future”? Yes, of course it will. The real question is what kind of future will be be? What new and wonderful things will this future bring? (or otherwise, will it continue the trend of a LACK of new and wonderful things)

Nobody can know the future, but we can take available info / observation give a reasonably educated guess. We can look at the direction things have been going thus far and, fairly enough, look a bit further down that path and envision what lies ahead for us.

Because of Anet’s policy of silence, we have nothing to get hyped about. Nothing to follow with excitement. Nothing to give valuable feedback on before it’s too late. Nothing to look forward to. All we’re left with is observations on what they have delivered so far (and NOT delivered ..or even acknowledged). For more of us, as more time passes, that track record seems increasingly disappointing. Until shown otherwise, with the “path” we’ve spend the past 2yrs on, we can only understand that the future holds more of the same.

The Guild Hall CDI is great, but this is something that really should have been settled prior to launch. Now, only after 2yrs, are they even acknowledging one of the many things we’ve been expecting since the very beginning. This does NOT mean they are actually doing anything about it. IF they even do, I’d be surprised if another couple years doesn’t pass before we see anything.

Also, the story / geography expansion via LS has been absolutely pitiful compared to what they previously did in GW1. At this rate, and given how long MMOs tend to run (or be relevant), I don’t expect we will EVER see Catha / Elona or much of anything else. “Content similar to what you get with an expansion”? I’d say that’s a joke, but it’s really not funny. (I’d love the LS if it really had delivered like an xpac).

Anet proved themselves capable of making substantial quantities of really awesome themepark content in GW1, so this should be just as good or better right? Except it didn’t end up that way. Two years, and we only have little Southsun and little Dry Top? When we had actual CONTINENTS before by this time?

Some of us were hoping this would be more of a sandbox, at least to the extent of players being able to actually make a difference in the world, like they implied. Instead we got just another straight themepark where we’re “along for the ride”. Except they’ve utterly failed to deliver on new expansive themepark content and the “ride” has really just not been going anywhere. At least not very far or fast, at all. Been sitting on the tracks and in 2yrs it’s barely moved a few feet. Their last ride was a pretty epic adventure. Is this one broken? Did the operators all quit or are they just goofing off? In any case, we’ve been sitting here for a long time with a pretty stale experience and it’s giving us time and motivation to take a closer look at the other rides.

If this is all I have to go on when I imagine what the game will be like in another year or so, I have to say it doesn’t seem very compelling.

GW2 does have a future, but it’s all up to Anet how this future will be. I could be very bright, or it could be a couple of more years of loosing players.

Basically Anet have to step up their game. Players that already left and existing players basically want an official game update… the kind of update that they were making in GW1 with factions, nightfall and EoTN. When you have such updates coming out for your MMORPG, each of those update is actually a mini game relaunch – if you managed to convince the public that the update carries enough new features. And I know Anet could bring A TON of people back to the game if they just already announced and made an official update.

The update model that Anet has chosen is bad for the game I think. It never creates the feeling of big changes and it never hypes up the public. That is what MMORPGs need to survive and to keep their player base.

Anet has to realize that and act on it while there’s still time. Otherwise the future of GW2 is shorter and not as bright and all blame falls either on Anet (bad plans?) or NCSoft (for not giving enough funds).

Players are still out there, waiting for something to make them log in again…

phys.7689:

In terms of new things gw2 future will remain unknown. Its not their company policy to discuss future plans.

What you can expect is living world season 2 to end.

Is this actual company policy? Appaling if true.

Royale.5863:

phys.7689:

In terms of new things gw2 future will remain unknown. Its not their company policy to discuss future plans.

What you can expect is living world season 2 to end.

Is this actual company policy? Appaling if true.

It’s not exactly that simple. What the policy is, says more like “we’re not going to talk about what’s coming up until we know it’s ready” as opposed to “let’s tease ‘precursor scavenger hunt’ and hear about it for eighteen months”.

Glory.1493:

Vayne.8563:

OP, there are currently three software sites I know that track MMO popularity and google trends tells you how many people have searched for a specific name.

In every single place where game popularity is mentioned, the #1 MMORPG is almost always WoW. And the number 2 or 3 MMORPG is almost always Guild Wars 2.

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

can u give that 3 website plz i have been searched for that datas for months and only thing i know is google trends.u can send me ingame mail.ty very much!

Xfire – http://social.xfire.com/games
Raptr – http://caas.raptr.com/
Overwolf Most popular game – http://www.newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-20-core-pc-games/

There you go.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

No, I said it a thousand times no MMO can survive without a full expansion or full campaigns. The LS story philosophy is exactly what’s gonna kill this game unless we see regular expansion or mini expansions in the store. I figure something in the neighborhood of 10 zones every 6 months would do it. Anet was already doing more than what I suggest with half the stats in the GW 1 days.

GW 2: 25 zones, 5 cities in 5 years.
That’s 30 zones in sixty months,
or the equivalent of one full and finished map every 2 months.

Hybarf Tic has said it, praise be to all who have read his words!

On a more serious note:
While I would prefer expansion content (with the appropriate price tag), I do admit that Anet has released a good amount of content since release. It’s not the same amount as in GW1 with expansions, but they also spend a lot more time making smaller patches and fixing exploits relatively fast (unless it revolves around Warriors, teehee).

Jski.6180:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What the game needs is character progression. A huge part of a MMORPGS is seeing your character become more powerful over time, and I don’t just mean in the sense of getting bigger numbers, we got enough of that with ascended hear and then infusions.

No matter how much content you have, it gets boring going about it the same way over and over. Our characters stopped growing in terms of gameplay at 80. We need new traits and new skills to change things up.

As for if the game has a future, look to the NCSoft financial reports.

The report has more to do with WS a game with “character progression” see how that worked out…

No one complained about the actual character progression in WS (ie not gear grinding for straight stats). No one said ‘LAS is too annoying, you should just give us one set if skills and that’s it’, or ‘remove AMPs, too confusing’.

What people complained about was the RNG on rune slots and the reward structure of a lot of content making no sense. Basically the same problem this game has when it comes to rewards.

That wasn’t even the main reason WS is going south, because Carbine is taking good measures to correct it. The reason why WS flopped was because it was basically a game catered to the 1%: everything was funnelling players towards raids and the raids are kitten hardcore and gave normal guilds huge rooster problems on top of that.

That was nothing to do with character progression.

rogerwilko.6895:

Hi,
I do not know the current state of the game.
I do know that issues that were back then were not ‘fixed’ (hobo sacks and others) so this can mean that AN does not want to fix them or it is unable to do so (not enough developers / etc).

Hobo sacks will clearly kill the game .. 99% of the player have left because of hobo sacks .. true story

I’d easily give this game another 5-7 years of being up and healthy. Easily.

It’s health and population fluctuates but it’s F2P. It’s always been a “jump in-jump out” kinda game for many but Anet knows what they are doing and even if they fluff things up for me personally this game is just going to get cheaper and cheaper and at release it was already a steal for the content offered. It’s just going to become more and more of a bargain especially while they polish it off in many respects and keep adding content.

Gaming forums are skewered in this respect, especially in regards to asking such a question here. Like moths to a flame the disenfranchised and vocally critical minority will always be the first to respond. On any given day here you would think the game is dead and the world is ending but never forget it’s a minority opinion.

Just jump in and have another go, if you don’t dig it re-roll, if you don’t dig that check back in 6 months. The games not going anywhere.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Royale.5863:

phys.7689:

In terms of new things gw2 future will remain unknown. Its not their company policy to discuss future plans.

What you can expect is living world season 2 to end.

Is this actual company policy? Appaling if true.

It’s not exactly that simple. What the policy is, says more like “we’re not going to talk about what’s coming up until we know it’s ready” as opposed to “let’s tease ‘precursor scavenger hunt’ and hear about it for eighteen months”.

Nah, they pretty much said its not their policy to discuss things until its in game. Even when the NPE changes were being discussed, which they knew would be released within a week. People asked for an overview of what type of changes were going in/being planned.
They basically said they dont want to talk about it till its in game.

So to put it clearly, here is what the policy is.
They will not talk about any future plans, other than marketing promos for the next release, a couple weeks before release.

do you find that last bit in bold to be accurate?

Does it have a future? Defintely.
Does it have the future most people wanted to see? At this rate, I highly doubt so.

Too bad it doesn’t live up to 1/10 of our expectations.

If the game was doing as well as many like to think, what was the point of megaserver and the NPE?

Tachenon.5270:

If the game was doing as well as many like to think, what was the point of megaserver and the NPE?

NPE is actually really, really great for the health of the game. There are some parts that still need tweaking cough traits cough, but it’s healthier for the survival since it eases players in better. The people who got hit from the NPE were people rushing to level 80 by skipping PvE content. Because Tomes of Knowledge and Scrolls of Experience aren’t a thing.

Megaservers have tons of advantages and disadvantages. They reduce overall server load, thus potentially cutting costs, while individually (each instance of a map) costs more (resources). However, players are now able to play with each more often (remember trying to level in level 30-60 zones where it was typically empty and seeing a passerby was a rare occurrence?) regardless of partying up.

There are disadvantages to both systems, and some problems that need to be ironed out, but if you expected everything to be perfect on release then I’d be using Windows 8 right now. (Wooo tangential velocity!)

Tachenon.5270:

If the game was doing as well as many like to think, what was the point of megaserver and the NPE?

Megaservers: Even back when the game first came out (I’m from early release), there were zones that were dead. It didn’t matter what server you were on, you could wander around, let’s say Field of Ruin, or Timberline and not see a soul, or see merely one or two others. And that was when populations were at their highest. The majority of players hung out in the same starter zones / cities leaving some of the other zones completely abandoned.

With the megaserver, as I understand it, if one person is in a less popular zones on, let’s say, Fort Aspenwood server, and there’s only one person in that same zone on, let’s say, Henge of Denravi server— before they would be the only people in those zones, but now instead of both of those people being alone in that unpopular zone, both players are put into the same instance, so now there are two people in that unpopular zone. You can extend that further for each other server. So instead of 10 people being alone in that random zone on their server, now there are 10 people in the same zone.

The megaservers were less about populations dying and more about areas being ghost-towns and how best to combat the fact that people tended to hang out in the same few areas. Thus the megaserver system was born. I mean, even before megaservers existed you could go to LA and pretty much were guaranteed to go to Overflow because of how many players there were.

Vayne.8563:

Glory.1493:

Vayne.8563:

OP, there are currently three software sites I know that track MMO popularity and google trends tells you how many people have searched for a specific name.

In every single place where game popularity is mentioned, the #1 MMORPG is almost always WoW. And the number 2 or 3 MMORPG is almost always Guild Wars 2.

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

can u give that 3 website plz i have been searched for that datas for months and only thing i know is google trends.u can send me ingame mail.ty very much!

Xfire – http://social.xfire.com/games
Raptr – http://caas.raptr.com/
Overwolf Most popular game – http://www.newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-20-core-pc-games/

There you go.

I don’t doubt GW2 has lots of players, it may well be one of the most played games out there. However, those figures don’t show revenue, I remember reading a report some time ago about cash shop revenue of various companies, I’ll see if I can find the link.

LoL was top on the list, and Swtor was even above WoW in terms of cash shop sales. Guild Wars 2 was nowhere on the top list and from some NCSoft reports it doesn’t look like the game is doing so great in terms of income, maybe I’m reading it all wrong, but the recent sales and free trial didn’t convince me that the game is doing super great.

For a game that’s on the top10 most played game, on most lists, it sure is quiet. No announcements, no discussions about upcoming content etc

I think it was Chris Whiteside who posted some links from press websites that mentioned the Guild Halls CDI, but is this enough? Those GH might appear next year (if ever) so what’s coming up in the near future?

There is nothing about new gameplay coming in the near future, we have Halloween, which wasn’t that great the second time around (Shadow of the Mad King was an awesome release though) and the next part of the LS2… Nothing really substantial to cause an uproar and lots of talking over the internet. It doesn’t have to be expansions, just <something> more than a tiny bit of new story

Fernling.1729:

I don’t think GW2 will get better or see an increase in people unless we start getting regular expansions. The living story is much too little content for an mmo imo.

I think the addition of raids increase the chances of GW2 having a positive future. I find easy content not very fun to replay. I am hopeful that raids will offer difficult content for large groups with a high replay value.

At this point i do not think ppl even understand what an expansion is and what it means for a game. An expansion is content that puts out at a given time and has ANY content you can even call LS a type of expansion. The talk about LS ways of expansion vs the longer time expansion (say 6 months) is only different in time NOT content.

Your right mmorpgs cant live with out updates and GW2 is getting a lot of them all the time even ones that are not talked about so yes there is a future as things stands from your point of view.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Jski.6180:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What the game needs is character progression. A huge part of a MMORPGS is seeing your character become more powerful over time, and I don’t just mean in the sense of getting bigger numbers, we got enough of that with ascended hear and then infusions.

No matter how much content you have, it gets boring going about it the same way over and over. Our characters stopped growing in terms of gameplay at 80. We need new traits and new skills to change things up.

As for if the game has a future, look to the NCSoft financial reports.

The report has more to do with WS a game with “character progression” see how that worked out…

No one complained about the actual character progression in WS (ie not gear grinding for straight stats). No one said ‘LAS is too annoying, you should just give us one set if skills and that’s it’, or ‘remove AMPs, too confusing’.

What people complained about was the RNG on rune slots and the reward structure of a lot of content making no sense. Basically the same problem this game has when it comes to rewards.

That wasn’t even the main reason WS is going south, because Carbine is taking good measures to correct it. The reason why WS flopped was because it was basically a game catered to the 1%: everything was funnelling players towards raids and the raids are kitten hardcore and gave normal guilds huge rooster problems on top of that.

That was nothing to do with character progression.

Ppl raid because it IS character progression so ya it had every thing to do with progression with WS.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

Glory.1493:

Vayne.8563:

OP, there are currently three software sites I know that track MMO popularity and google trends tells you how many people have searched for a specific name.

In every single place where game popularity is mentioned, the #1 MMORPG is almost always WoW. And the number 2 or 3 MMORPG is almost always Guild Wars 2.

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

can u give that 3 website plz i have been searched for that datas for months and only thing i know is google trends.u can send me ingame mail.ty very much!

Xfire – http://social.xfire.com/games
Raptr – http://caas.raptr.com/
Overwolf Most popular game – http://www.newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-20-core-pc-games/

There you go.

I don’t doubt GW2 has lots of players, it may well be one of the most played games out there. However, those figures don’t show revenue, I remember reading a report some time ago about cash shop revenue of various companies, I’ll see if I can find the link.

LoL was top on the list, and Swtor was even above WoW in terms of cash shop sales. Guild Wars 2 was nowhere on the top list and from some NCSoft reports it doesn’t look like the game is doing so great in terms of income, maybe I’m reading it all wrong, but the recent sales and free trial didn’t convince me that the game is doing super great.

For a game that’s on the top10 most played game, on most lists, it sure is quiet. No announcements, no discussions about upcoming content etc

I think it was Chris Whiteside who posted some links from press websites that mentioned the Guild Halls CDI, but is this enough? Those GH might appear next year (if ever) so what’s coming up in the near future?

There is nothing about new gameplay coming in the near future, we have Halloween, which wasn’t that great the second time around (Shadow of the Mad King was an awesome release though) and the next part of the LS2… Nothing really substantial to cause an uproar and lots of talking over the internet. It doesn’t have to be expansions, just <something> more than a tiny bit of new story

Actually you need to compare MMORPGs with MMORPGs. Guild Wars 2 comes in around 5 on a list of subscription MMORPGs. It’s not on the list, but from the earning report, it would slot in at about five.

How many MMORPGs were on the list you saw? WoW and what else. We know how much Guild Wars 2 earns because NCsoft released earning reports. It’s doing well even there…particularly for a 2 year old game.

Tachenon.5270:

If the game was doing as well as many like to think, what was the point of megaserver and the NPE?

All businesses want more players, even if they have a lot of players. That’s normal business. You don’t say, okay we have enough players, we’re not getting more, so let’s stop.

The megaserver was for a lot of reasons. One of them was that there are a lot of servers, but not a lot of people in every zone. There were always people at big events, but a lot of people don’t like to go to underused zones.

Do you know WoW is the most popular MMO of all time, the most successful, the most populated, and people in WoW still complain about dead zones. It happens in all MMOs, so Anet fixed the problem.

On top of that, they said they didn’t want to add a lot of new areas until the megaserver was released. And it’s more efficient anyway.

According to the NCSoft 2013 Audited Report [src]

NCSoft owns 100% of ArenaNet stocks as a subsidiary and merged it into the child company NC West Holdings (along with NC Interactive Inc [NC US]).

The two companies with the most stock were NC Interactive Inc followed by ArenaNet. NC West Holdings has the most stock after the company was founded (in 2013).

In 2012:
ArenaNet Inc made ?68,142,392,000 in Sales, the third highest (NC Europe was second, NC Japan was fourth).

Operating Profit was listed at ?32,708,713,000 which was the most profit made by ~300% of the second highest. (NC Interactive Inc [Nexon US] only had ?4,816,330 profit).

Net income was highest at ?28,025,063,000, highest by over 300% the second highest. Nexon US had ?6,233,096,000 Net income.

In 2013 (combined with Nexon US)
NC West Holdings…

Sales: ?130,489,260,000
Operating Profit: ?15,312,068,000
Net Income: ?12,606,653,000

Conversion to USD is roughly ?1,000 -> $1.

Welp, TIL Anet is 100% owned by NCSoft.

EDIT: Sorry, all of the “?”’s are Won symbols (Korea currency).

Esplen.3940:

Welp, TIL Anet is 100% owned by NCSoft.

And has been since before Guild Wars 1 launched.

I’d always been denying it but I guess it does make sense as to why there’s an upper management in such a “small” company.

Regardless, Vayne, now there’s a good post detailing ANet’s profitability in comparison to other full-blown companies (not just games, although Maplestory is a pretty big cash cow, but apparently GW2 is larger)!

As for everyone else, $28m net income is pretty darn good for a game that’s “dying”.

Vayne.8563:

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

Well you guys should know better than me, I’m just a random guy looking for information. I asked here because, as far as I know, during the last 2 years (I have been in gw2 since day one but I left at some point because I got kittened about a random patch that added skins and kitten and did not fixed any necro bug – long ago) AN did not:
- learn to talk more with it’s public / fanbase / gamers / whatever you want to call them
- add new dungeons / class / skills /traits (minor details like dhuumfire… come on)
- many of the issues are STILL HERE after 2 (TWO) years.

Now the thing is I have been working in the software business for the past 9 years. What I see here it’s… not normal
So IMO, either they lack funds / people to ‘fix’ what I (and many others apparently) think needs fixing, or they just don’t care (the game is running, funds are comming in from time to time, low investment as people / money & decent output.)

It’s more… Fun for me to play a game that I feel it’s not going down; that the developers / mother company still cares about, if you know what I mean.

Maybe I’m a niche, or whatever (random casual noob). Still. Asking here for opinions rewarded me with points of view so far, so it’s all good.

Esplen.3940:

I’d always been denying it but I guess it does make sense as to why there’s an upper management in such a “small” company.

Regardless, Vayne, now there’s a good post detailing ANet’s profitability in comparison to other full-blown companies (not just games, although Maplestory is a pretty big cash cow, but apparently GW2 is larger)!

As for everyone else, $28m net income is pretty darn good for a game that’s “dying”.

I think it does more than that, because China sales/income doesn’t come under that. It’s listed under Royalties.

That’s just from the US and Europe.

good then
In my mind:
money to AN / NCSOFT / GW2 team = more content / fixes for me.
now to run a fast dungeon until I get summoned by the wife!
<3

So you’ve got your answer, most of the answers are YES, including mine. Maybe you like more “hardcore” content or something like this, then try do a search in game, you will find some hardcore content, even if the game is a semi hardcore/casual.
And don’t worry, this game will last at least 5 more years, maybe even more.

nah, my raiding days are over
RL took over.
It’s all good.

Vayne.8563:

It’s likely Guild Wars 2 is the second most popular MMO on the market right now.

How can it not have a future?

If “have a future” means continue for a significant time without shutting down, then yes, it clearly has a future. Enough people are playing to keep it going.

Whether being the 2nd most popular MMO right now means much… I’m not so sure. I think that has as much to do with the failure of ESO and Wildstar, and Archeage being a mess as GW2’s intrinsic ability to keep an audience.

There are, undoubtedly, plenty of people happily playing GW2. It is my perception, however, that there are also plenty of people playing GW2 because it’s the best option at the moment, even though it doesn’t excite them much.

1. It’s possible that GW2 is due for a shakeup that will reinvigorate the game and give it a new upswing.

2. It’s possible that it’s going to keep chugging along as it has been for the last two years, never quite getting the excitement back up to anything like shortly after launch, but still be the “best non-WoW mmorpg available”.

3. It’s also possible that EQNext or Camelot Unchained are going to really click and be the next MMORPG industry darling.

From my viewpoint, the second scenario is by far the most likely, though I hope the first or third come to pass. I’d love for GW2 to have a renaissance, or failing that, CU to get RvR right, or if nothing else EQNext to find the sandpark sweet spot.

Unless something major happens to WvW or Camelot Unchained fails miserably, I do expect WvW to finish dying off toward the end of next year as anyone interested in 3-way mass warfare moves to CU.

EQNext is the only game i have some interest in .. especially since i heared that SOE
also finally goes away from raiding.
However i don’t really like their character models .. and that Engine .. it lagged even
when i ran around alone in Landmark when i tested it a day .. and chances are it may
have the same problems than EQ2 where a lot of people had not good enough PCs
and so they played the low-graphics EQ-Clone called WoW.

It has a future if they release tons of new replayable content.

Right now the game is dying, most of my friends are leaving and their reason is always the same: because there is nothing new to do, they say they are focusing on the Living Story yet we barely get any of it.

Yes GW2 Has a future. Is it going to be a future you want? Only you can answer. The game is amazing as is, but after 2 years of the same Ole same Ole. It becomes monotonous. The little sprinkles of LS content isn’t enough.

Vayne.8563:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer… not sure.

Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.

Basically, it was a very, very good base game, the population is still good, and the game is still fun. However, a lot of the decisions that have been made since launch have been, in the opinion of many, poor. Many players have left, or are highly frustrated, and no one really knows where the game is going. If the quality of the game is going to be enough to carry it long term, especially if we see more of the same controversial decisions, I don’t know.

There’s some misinformation in this post. Much of the content WAS (not is) temporary, since the stuff that’s come out for season two is all permanent. We haven’t had temporary content added to the game since, what, March? People are living in the past and stating it as the future. The company tried an experience that didn’t work. They switched directions since.

But the rest of this is mostly true.

I don’t see how season 2 of the LS being permanent makes what I said false. That content comprises a very small portion of the content we’ve been given. The seasonal updates are still temporary (justifiably), as is SAB (being generous), heck even activities have gone from constant to being on rotation. So, even in the present tense, much content is temporary. In the broader sense of “content we’ve been given”, LS2 is a fraction of the content that has been put out.

But even looking at LS2, what has it given us in terms of permanent content? Dry Top, which is excellent, though small. Story chapters which, while nice, might as well be temporary given their intrinsic replay value is so low that ANet locked achievements for the first play through. Broken waypoints that have made playing other parts less convenient (Fort Mariner being a particular pain).

ANet have put in a LOT of work compared to what we’ve actually received. As I’ve said previously, even the permanent changes to LA involved the building of two hubs (Vigil and new LA) to give us exactly the same amount of hubs as we already had.

Heck, they haven’t even always progressed in the non-content updates without taking the same size steps backwards. In April they improved the alt experience massively with the dyes and wardrobe, then crippled it with the trait system change. Last month they massively improved the mini collection system, whilst making it incredibly difficult to actually see the mini collection.

Even Fractals, the most prominent permanent content update we’ve had, they went and reset the progress of its biggest fans for a leader board they didn’t even introduce.

I love the game, and admittedly I’m glossing over some positives, but it’s painful to watch some of the decisions that have been made since launch.

Yes! I believe it does. I just recently came back to this game after leaving to play SWTOR and then after that WS (don’t get me started on this train wreck of a game) and I have fallen back in love with GW2’s beauty, optimization, and game mechanics – it’s a breath of fresh air.

Someone above summed it up perfectly.. it’s a jump in/ jump out game. I created a couple of new characters to experience the new leveling experience and it is definitely a lot friendlier to someone who is new or is coming back after a long hiatus such as myself. I like a lot of the QOL changes such as account wide wardrobe, dyes, mini’s etc.

I’d love to see more wardrobe options – the selection hasn’t changed much since release…and a new playable race or class.

Blaeys.3102:

The game is as good as its ever been.

Disagree. Unlocking traits sucks now. Traits are what makes playing/building a character fun.

Everquest next will send this game into the oblivion where it belongs, blame arenanet and their lazyness

In addition to what Vayne said: Bioware basically made a carbon copy of WoW to make SWOTOR and its still going strong, even after losing a bazillion subs. MMOs don’t die easy. People get invested and dig in for the long haul.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Vayne.8563:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer… not sure.

Guild Wars 2 is great. It’s worth playing, and very fun. HOWEVER, the update model that has been adopted is highly controversial. Much content is temporary, many fundamental changes to progression have been problematic, and the Living Story + Gem sales business model is receiving mixed reviews at best.

Basically, it was a very, very good base game, the population is still good, and the game is still fun. However, a lot of the decisions that have been made since launch have been, in the opinion of many, poor. Many players have left, or are highly frustrated, and no one really knows where the game is going. If the quality of the game is going to be enough to carry it long term, especially if we see more of the same controversial decisions, I don’t know.

There’s some misinformation in this post. Much of the content WAS (not is) temporary, since the stuff that’s come out for season two is all permanent. We haven’t had temporary content added to the game since, what, March? People are living in the past and stating it as the future. The company tried an experience that didn’t work. They switched directions since.

But the rest of this is mostly true.

I don’t see how season 2 of the LS being permanent makes what I said false. That content comprises a very small portion of the content we’ve been given. The seasonal updates are still temporary (justifiably), as is SAB (being generous), heck even activities have gone from constant to being on rotation. So, even in the present tense, much content is temporary. In the broader sense of “content we’ve been given”, LS2 is a fraction of the content that has been put out.

But even looking at LS2, what has it given us in terms of permanent content? Dry Top, which is excellent, though small. Story chapters which, while nice, might as well be temporary given their intrinsic replay value is so low that ANet locked achievements for the first play through. Broken waypoints that have made playing other parts less convenient (Fort Mariner being a particular pain).

ANet have put in a LOT of work compared to what we’ve actually received. As I’ve said previously, even the permanent changes to LA involved the building of two hubs (Vigil and new LA) to give us exactly the same amount of hubs as we already had.

Heck, they haven’t even always progressed in the non-content updates without taking the same size steps backwards. In April they improved the alt experience massively with the dyes and wardrobe, then crippled it with the trait system change. Last month they massively improved the mini collection system, whilst making it incredibly difficult to actually see the mini collection.

Even Fractals, the most prominent permanent content update we’ve had, they went and reset the progress of its biggest fans for a leader board they didn’t even introduce.

I love the game, and admittedly I’m glossing over some positives, but it’s painful to watch some of the decisions that have been made since launch.

You don’t see how it’s false.

Watch this example.

Last year, I had a contagious disease. This year I was cured. You tell people not to go near me because I have a contagious disease. Your use of words indicated that Anet continues to put temporary content into the game, which is at the very least misleading. Misleading is misinformation, because since the start of Season 2, nothing that’s been added has been taken out.

You didn’t say Anet said they weren’t going to do the temporary content thing anymore and so far they haven’t. I’m not sure how that isn’t misleading.

Yes a lot of people didn’t like that the first Season of the Living Story was temporary. But since then Anet added the journal so that not only is it something you can always do, it’s something you can repeat, I’m not 100% sure why it was added at all.

You can say there isn’t enough content now because in the past they did something. You can’t say the content is now temporary.

Obviously as time goes on we’ll now have more and more content as they’re releasing stuff. The living story season 1 is definitely the reason we’re in the boat we’re in now, but it’s done and dusted. If you haven’t moved on mentally, you’ll just keep thinking temporary content is a thing.

Vayne.8563:

The living story season 1 is definitely the reason we’re in the boat we’re in now, but it’s done and dusted. If you haven’t moved on mentally, you’ll just keep thinking temporary content is a thing.

LS1 was great for me .. the problem actually for me is more that in the last 9 months
we got a whole of 4 LS updates .. that is more or less down to 1 update in 2 months
instead of 2 weeks that we had in LS1.

And i take things like Battle in LA still 1000 times over instanced stuff with no drops
no exp, not stacking sigills and no renewed justice.

So since i have no interest in playing that stuff more than once those 4 LS2 episodes
were maybe 8 hours of content .. while i clearly spent 100s of hours in LS1.

Vayne.8563:

You can’t say the content is now temporary.

You can’t say any of the current content isn’t temporary. With NPE they removed content from the starting zones and from the personal story. It was permanent content. Now it’s gone. Which means, no matter how you try to wiggle out of it, it was only here — temporarily. Therefore: temporary content. Not originally intended as such, sure, but it sure as heck turned out that way, eh?

What content will become temporary next?

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

You can’t say the content is now temporary.

You can’t say any of the current content isn’t temporary. With NPE they removed content from the starting zones and from the personal story. It was permanent content. Now it’s gone. Which means, no matter how you try to wiggle out of it, it was only here — temporarily. Therefore: temporary content. Not originally intended as such, sure, but it sure as heck turned out that way, eh?

What content will become temporary next?

This is bull and you know it. That’s true of any game. The revamped starting areas levels 1-10. They changed stuff. But that was never what the conversation about temporary content was about and you know it.

This is completely disingenuous. Every MMO I’ve ever played has removed something at some point, so therefore, every MMO has temporary content by that definition. That’s not what we’re talking about with temporary content.

Tachenon.5270:

You can’t say any of the current content isn’t temporary. With NPE they removed content from the starting zones and from the personal story. It was permanent content. Now it’s gone. Which means, no matter how you try to wiggle out of it, it was only here — temporarily. Therefore: temporary content. Not originally intended as such, sure, but it sure as heck turned out that way, eh?

What content will become temporary next?

This really seems like a nitpicking that’s just grasping for straws in all the wrong places. Most every MMO has removed some content at some point with their updates; that doesn’t mean their contents would be considered temporary. I think what you need to understand is that when people say “temporary content”, it is supposed to mean content that the developers have intended to be in the game for a limited time, not content that was there but is not anymore.

If you’re using the second of the two definitions, then there is no way to know which content is permanent or ‘temporary’ until after it is confirmed to be ‘temporary’. This makes it so that ALL content is potentially temporary, which is just a ridiculous way to look at things.

Lack of transparency makes the people doubt whether this game “has” a future or not.
Arena Net can’t expect people to stay loyal forever.

Brave Mallyki.1563:

Shen Slayer.3058:

If Anet don’t start releasing new content soon, there’s going to many people abandoning this sinking ship. It’s shame, GW1 had such a long run and people still play it, whereas GW2 is already dying after 2 years.

Guild Wars 1

Guild Wars: Prophecies – April 26, 2005 (6 classes, Tyria, 4 Elite Missions)

Guild Wars: Factions – April 28, 2006 (added 2 new classes, Cantha, skills, 2 Elite Missions)

Guild Wars: Nightfall – October 26, 2006 (added 2 new classes, Elona, skills, heroes, 1 Elite Mission)

Guild Wars: Eye of the North – August 28, 2007 (introduced Norns and Asurans, added new areas to Tyria, skills, new heroes, 18 dungeons)

A lot for its first 2 year and 4 months.

Guild Wars 2

…

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here.

You’ve chosen a game that, by your reckoning, hasn’t been updated in 7 years yet is still being played. That means if Anet did nothing more with GW2 then it has at least another 5 years of life in it.

Unless you think that GW1 is dead. Then nothing can save GW2, if GW1 had all those updates in the first two years and died anyways.

Personally, I think there’s a lot of life left in GW2. But then I also think that on Nov. 4, we’ll find out that the new pact forward camp is located in a new zone.

It has a future…………………on life support (the thilly people who keep buying gems/trading gold for gems cuz reasons).
But as regards the game’s survivability in the long run, not really.

GW2 has a future, it is just some game modes that will die because of neglect from Anet (WvW) apart from that yes.

The people that are saying it has no future and mention life support make me laugh. There’s no actual argument anywhere that says the game is anywhere near dying.

It’s the #10 game on Xfire. It’s the number 12 game on Rapter. It’s the number 7 game on Overwolf. It’s the #2 most searched MMORPG on google. It’s the number 2 most successful reddit. There haven’t been massive layoffs and Anet has been hiring all along. And the game is still profitable according to the quarterly reports.

Saying it doesn’t have a future because you don’t like it is ridiculous. I don’t like opera, but it probably has a future.

Does that mean it’ll be mainstream? Nope. I’m not sure that matters, though. It has a future. Enough people like it. Pretty much the end of the discussion.