Guild Wars 2

This restless fan must have forgotten this is free2play without a subscription — and the last time I’ve checked they continue to roll out content.

Hopeless.5403:

This restless fan must have forgotten this is free2play without a subscription and yes they have added content the last time i’ve checked.

Admission to the park isn’t free. One must purchase a ticket if one wishes to enter the park. Granted, the ticket is a lifetime pass; but the ticket is not free.

The funny thing is, Zero Punctuation also refers to Gw2 as a theme park ^^

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

Oh, this is code for wanting large gaps of time with no content updates followed by a huge burst of new content.

You should make how you want your content more clear. Say something like, “Where is my mindless grinding of months old content with occasional expansion packs?”

But seriously, this isn’t a content issue. This is more of a delivery issue it seems.

Everytime I tried to make a cool themepark I went bankrupt and lost the game.

Nageth.5648:

You should make how you want your content more clear. Say something like, “Where is my playing months old content with occasional expansion packs?”

There fixed. Don’t act like waiting for an expansion is suddenly a bad thing. If guild wars 2 had a traditional expansion model we would have had an expansion by now before the game became a “boring grind”. Which is exactly what the game is now because of LS.

Besides, with expansions you at least CAN play months old content, with LS most of it is temporary.

Nageth.5648:

But seriously, this isn’t a content issue. This is more of a delivery issue it seems.

It is both.
Notice how even one expansion has 10 times more content than al LS patches combined?

I like that the LS is temporary. It’s different. for newer players, it means there isn’t tons of stuff they have to do to catch up.

It keeps things moving, .. I don’t want an expansion, I like how they patch it as it is.

What you’re asking, is for a different game.

When will people realise this?

Taygus.4571:

I like that the LS is temporary. It’s different. for newer players, it means there isn’t tons of stuff they have to do to catch up.

It keeps things moving, .. I don’t want an expansion, I like how they patch it as it is.

What you’re asking, is for a different game.

When will people realise this?

If it’s for a different game they should have announced that before releasing it.

Hopeless.5403:

This restless fan must have forgotten this is free2play without a subscription and yes they have added content the last time i’ve checked.

That’s no longer a valid excuse when older titles like LOTRO and STO continue to add free permanent content in expansion like patches every year sometimes twice a year. They are just as F2P as GW2 is the difference is they haven’t given up on improving and they haven’t thrown out useless temporary content that goes away after the 3rd month to keep people playing.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

You should make how you want your content more clear. Say something like, “Where is my playing months old content with occasional expansion packs?”

There fixed. Don’t act like waiting for an expansion is suddenly a bad thing. If guild wars 2 had a traditional expansion model we would have had an expansion by now before the game became a “boring grind”. Which is exactly what the game is now because of LS.

Besides, with expansions you at least CAN play months old content, with LS most of it is temporary.

Nageth.5648:

But seriously, this isn’t a content issue. This is more of a delivery issue it seems.

It is both.
Notice how even one expansion has 10 times more content than al LS patches combined?

I never said it was a bad thing. I was merely flipping the exaggerated complaint in the other direction in an effort to illustrate how exaggerated it was.

If you want non-themepark stuff, that’s what the Mists are for.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

Ahh yes this again, after how many years did you get this content?

Zypher.7609:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

Ahh yes this again, after how many years did you get this content?

We got it after 1 year for the first, then 6 months for the second, and 6 months for the third.

Any one of the expansions puts the entirety of the LS in gw2 to shame.

Faction was released about a year after the game launched.

Not really stale, gw1 doesn’t have nearly as much to do. And it was less interesting to do it.

To clarify from my last post. In GW1, at 18 months, we had:

Prophecies
-they added Sorrows Furnace
-they added FoW and UW

Factions was out
- Hundred of new skills, complete new continents, two new professions

Nightfall was only 2-3 months away.
- hundreds of more skills, another whole continent, two new professions.

Compared to GW2, where after 18 months we have.

- Fractals
- two new skills
- one new dungeon path, but they removed the old one.
- nothing else that’s been permanent.

This is the complaint.

stale.9785:

We got it after 1 year for the first, then 6 months for the second, and 6 months for the third.

Any one of the expansions puts the entirety of the LS in gw2 to shame.

You can keep the once a year content, I will stick with my bi-weekly updates.

Zypher.7609:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

Ahh yes this again, after how many years did you get this content?

About a year after the expansion before that. Waiting a year for 10 times the amount of content LS has released overall is more than worth it. Period.

LS could work if it at least released some meaningful content that doesn’t disappear a month later.

emikochan.8504:

Not really stale, gw1 doesn’t have nearly as much to do. And it was less interesting to do it.

Speak for yourself. I had far more fun in GW1 than I’ve had so far in GW2. I’m still waiting because the potential is there. Soon enough alternatives will be on the market, and lots of folks won’t have to wait – they’ll just move on.

Zypher, if there was anything to the biweekly update – you know, actual content, I’d be thrilled. There’s not.

We have no new builds, because there’s been almost no new skills (two new skills per profession, to be precise – one being the universal heal) There have been no new zones since Southsun. The story is horrible, just bad, and doesn’t really connect with the lore of the GW universe.

So, our biweekly content has brought, for me, nothing at all of value. Just a way to farm AP.

If they’d been adding dungeons with each LS update, and a few new skills per profession, it’d be a different story. As it is, for me, it’s a whole world of fail.

I agree that the added content is lacking some real depth.

The Living Story stuff is nice and all, but ultimately superficial. The 4 core pillars of every-day GW2 game-play are still.

• Dungeons (incl. Fractals)
• PvE boss events
• sPvP
• WvW

And very little has truly changes about that.

Even when there are changes made, these changes often don’t account for much in the long-term. Look at WvW for example. It really isn’t much better now than it was at release.

For people who actually think LS is better, lets go through this for a minute.

Now lets divide this over 12 months. (not 100% correct since not everything can be devided by 12, but you get the idea) Then each month we would get:
-3 new armor sets
-8 new profession specific skills (1 per profession)
-4 new PvE only skills
-1 new hero (2 months won’t have a hero)
-1 new dungeon
-10 new quests (as opposed to 1 we have with LS)
-2 new zones

And all of this PERMANENT!
If LS did this each month, then it would be awesome. So even if the LS delivery method is better, it’s still inferior to the expansion model.

And if I have to wait longer to get this level of content, so be it! Making quality content takes time, if you are going to roll out content on a bi weekly basis you will never recieve the same amount of quality. And it shows.

-3 new armor sets
-8 new profession specific skills (1 per profession)
-4 new PvE only skills
-1 new hero (2 months won’t have a hero)
-1 new dungeon
-10 new quests (as opposed to 1 we have with LS)
-2 new zones

-All Gem Store/ $$$ .
-4? More like 1.
-Hero?
-FOTM mini dungeon.
-Quests?
-One which is completely dead.

Nick.6972:

-All Gem Store/ $$$ .
-4? More like 1.
-Hero?
-FOTM mini dungeon.
-Quests?
-One which is completely dead.

Indeed that’s what we have now, and not even each month. Not even all of it permanent.

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Besides, with expansions you at least CAN play months old content, with LS most of it is temporary.

This is my only problem with the current model. I, personally, think that temporary content is a waste of development time and resources. I don’t understand why they want to release content that will be gone in a couple weeks or a month, why not add long lasting content instead. Even if they added the temporary content as something like a new fractal or even a new type of dungeon where you can play the old living story elements after they move on to the next part of the story. Obviously for fractals it would have to be on a smaller scale but at least it wouldn’t be totally wasted.

stale.9785:

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Not as black and white as these are different games.

Zypher.7609:

stale.9785:

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Not as black and white as these are different games.

Yep – same developer, same fanbase, same lore (kind of) just one has a vastly inferior delivery method for content – and that content is temporary. Put out the way Windu did, it’s plain that we’re getting far less from GW2 and the LS than we would from boxed expansions.

Zypher.7609:

stale.9785:

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Not as black and white as these are different games.

Completely irrelevant.
Even if the games were completely different and had no correlation with eachother whatsoever (which is not the case), the expansion model is still vastly superior, which is what this argument is about.

stale.9785:

Zypher.7609:

stale.9785:

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Not as black and white as these are different games.

Yep – same developer, same fanbase, same lore (kind of) just one has a vastly inferior delivery method for content – and that content is temporary. Put out the way Windu did, it’s plain that we’re getting far less from GW2 and the LS than we would from boxed expansions.

Don’t ever become a developer, because by your logic once you make something you are never able to make anything else. I’m out.

Zypher.7609:

stale.9785:

Windu, I like you dude. That’s a breakdown that makes it black and white.

Not as black and white as these are different games.

No… No not really. Imagine if all the effort they put into LS was put into enriching and extending existing content instead of the monthly children’s television show they have now.

Zypher.7609:

you are never able to make anything else. I’m out.

Again completely irrelevant. This isn’t about making something else, this is about doing something right. I’m not against taking a different approach at all.
If Arenanet came with something else that’s just as good as expansions (or better) I would have embraced it. But it isn’t.

Claiming that LS gives us more than an expansion’s worth of content is a freaking joke. With that logic, every expansion every game (including GW1) should give us, should be taken away in a few months right before the next expansion.

Early on I was all for the living story changes until I learned that just about 90+ percent of all changes in every patch note was temporary. The other 10% was a mix of gem store items which may or may not also be temporary.

stale.9785:

To clarify from my last post. In GW1, at 18 months, we had:

Prophecies
-they added Sorrows Furnace
-they added FoW and UW

Factions was out
- Hundred of new skills, complete new continents, two new professions

Nightfall was only 2-3 months away.
- hundreds of more skills, another whole continent, two new professions.

Compared to GW2, where after 18 months we have.

- Fractals
- two new skills
- one new dungeon path, but they removed the old one.
- nothing else that’s been permanent.

This is the complaint.

You can keep comparing these two games all you want, but one of them is an MMO and another is not. That’s a big difference in design.

Vol.7601:

stale.9785:

To clarify from my last post. In GW1, at 18 months, we had:

Prophecies
-they added Sorrows Furnace
-they added FoW and UW

Factions was out
- Hundred of new skills, complete new continents, two new professions

Nightfall was only 2-3 months away.
- hundreds of more skills, another whole continent, two new professions.

Compared to GW2, where after 18 months we have.

- Fractals
- two new skills
- one new dungeon path, but they removed the old one.
- nothing else that’s been permanent.

This is the complaint.

You can keep comparing these two games all you want, but one of them is an MMO and another is not. That’s a big difference in design.

Guild Wars 1:
Requires online connection
Has interaction with other people around the world
Not considered an MMO.

Logic. I know Anet said it wasn’t an MMO themselves, but to use that as a basis for your argument is just silly. You can make the claim all day, and the claim is correct, but that doesn’t change anything about the pace or frequency of updates in GW1 compared to GW2.

They chose to go the “temporary content every 2 weeks” route instead of the “permanent, long lasting content every 6 – 12 months.”

I’d have preferred the latter.

Also, let’s not forget that ArenaNet did what far too often many developers do. They tried to cater to too many different types of players while alienating the fans and type of player that made their games popular in the first place. If GW1 had not been successful, there’d be no GW2.

So logically, they went the route of screwing over the very players that made their first game popular and enjoyable in favor of players who wouldn’t stick with the game anyway. Had GW2 actually been as advertised and been a sequel to GW1, been everything we loved about GW1 but improved upon, then GW2 would have a booming playerbase of people who loved GW1 and are now content with GW2 replacing the first game for them.

What they got instead is a bunch of peeved veterans and fans of the first game leaving GW2 because they tried to make it too much like (insert other MMO here), while the players who came from that other MMO have already gone back because GW2 doesn’t cater to them like their old game did.

Vol.7601:

stale.9785:

-snip-

You can keep comparing these two games all you want, but one of them is an MMO and another is not. That’s a big difference in design.

It doesn’t matter wether it’s a different game or not!
The expansion model works a lot better than the LS model, wether we are talking about guild wars or any other game.

TehPwnerer.7215:

They chose to go the “temporary content every 2 weeks” route instead of the “permanent, long lasting content every 6 – 12 months.”

I’d have preferred the latter.

They chose to go the “temporary free content every 2 weeks” route instead of the “permanent, long lasting paid content every 6 – 12 months”.

The difference between the two delivery systems is more than “how often” and “how much”.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

And you paid full price for it…

maddoctor.2738:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

And you paid full price for it…

I gladly did. It was well worth it. I rather have top content for a price, than garbage for nothing.

If Living Story was a Bonus Mission pack (like in GW1) I would never buy it, even if it was 5$.

maddoctor.2738:

TehPwnerer.7215:

They chose to go the “temporary content every 2 weeks” route instead of the “permanent, long lasting content every 6 – 12 months.”

I’d have preferred the latter.

They chose to go the “temporary free content every 2 weeks” route instead of the “permanent, long lasting paid content every 6 – 12 months”.

The difference between the two delivery systems is more than “how often” and “how much”.

I’d rather pay 30 extra dollars every 6 months to get content that lasts me years instead of sitting there twiddling my thumbs for two weeks on a free update that takes hours to complete.

Also refer to the edit I made to the post you quoted:

Also, let’s not forget that ArenaNet did what far too often many developers do. They tried to cater to too many different types of players while alienating the fans and type of player that made their games popular in the first place. If GW1 had not been successful, there’d be no GW2.

So logically, they went the route of screwing over the very players that made their first game popular and enjoyable in favor of players who wouldn’t stick with the game anyway. Had GW2 actually been as advertised and been a sequel to GW1, been everything we loved about GW1 but improved upon, then GW2 would have a booming playerbase of people who loved GW1 and are now content with GW2 replacing the first game for them.

What they got instead is a bunch of peeved veterans and fans of the first game leaving GW2 because they tried to make it too much like (insert other MMO here), while the players who came from that other MMO have already gone back because GW2 doesn’t cater to them like their old game did.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

maddoctor.2738:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Nageth.5648:

I’m confused where we aren’t getting new content. Eotm was a rather substantial update.

THIS is a substantial update:
-new story
-41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
-100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
-50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
-10 new heroes
-18 Dungeons
-124 new quests
-The Hall of Monuments
-4 new regions (which were comprised of 24 zones, yes that’s right, 24!)

This is what we got for one of the gw1 expansions (eye of the north)

And you paid full price for it…

I gladly did. It was well worth it. I rather have top content for a price, than garbage for nothing.

That seems to be the recurring theme here. GW1 had so much I was WILLING to pay for. Their cash shop items, were very far between and their expansions provided interesting story, setting, and additions to the base game.

I’d gladly shell out cash for something that I wanted than be force-fed a bunch of garbage I don’t want and thank them for it just because “it’s free.”

Know what else is free? Having someone kick me in the groin. But don’t expect me to want it or thank them afterwards just because it was free.

LS defenders don’t want permanent content, and arguing with them is pointless.

Like I’ve said before, I don’t mind the LS at all, as long as there is an expansion being worked on in the background. The LS is something merely to tide you over until substantial and permanent content is added to the game. Which surely HAS to happen at some point, I would hope. I’m not going to begin to say I know the first thing about game development, but would it be crazy to have a Living Story team that added content to GW2 while another much larger team works on an expansion? Maybe that’s what’s going on at Anet. I’d just love to hear it from their mouths.

The problem, I believe, is with the model Anet chose for the living story. They went with episodic TV where after each adventure everything resets and a new adventure begins. This has given us temporary content and grindy temporary achievements.

I am a believer in the concept of an evolving living world. But, it should be an evolving living world. That is, they should have aimed at giving us expansion-like content, but delivered over time. This would give us an evolving world, story, and permanent (non-grindy) achievements to pursue.

Nat.4029:

LS defenders don’t want permanent content, and arguing with them is pointless.

Like I’ve said before, I don’t mind the LS at all, as long as there is an expansion being worked on in the background. The LS is something merely to tide you over until substantial and permanent content is added to the game. Which surely HAS to happen at some point, I would hope. I’m not going to begin to say I know the first thing about game development, but would it be crazy to have a Living Story team that added content to GW2 while another much larger team works on an expansion? Maybe that’s what’s going on at Anet. I’d just love to hear it from their mouths.

You won’t hear anything from them. It really is a shame to see a franchise like Guild Wars, with so much potential, be reduced to what GW2 currently is. I agree LS would be a great addition to tie between expansions. But LS on its own? Waste of developer time, resources, company time and resources, and overall non-enjoyable experience.

Raine.1394:

The problem, I believe, is with the model Anet chose for the living story. They went with episodic TV where after each adventure everything resets and a new adventure begins. This has given us temporary content and grindy temporary achievements.

I am a believer in the concept of an evolving living world. But, it should be an evolving living world. That is, they should have aimed at giving us expansion-like content, but delivered over time. This would give us an evolving world, story, and permanent (non-grindy) achievements to pursue.

Which may have been the goal, but as we can see, the execution was horrible and here is what we have. They wasted a YEAR on this story, and we don’t have anywhere close to “an expansion’s worth of content.”

Nat.4029:

Like I’ve said before, I don’t mind the LS at all, as long as there is an expansion being worked on in the background. The LS is something merely to tide you over until substantial and permanent content is added to the game.

I agree. If Living Story was just something to keep you busy in between expansions, I wouldn’t mind at all. But until we have confirmation this is the case, I have to assume it isn’t.

I agree that the overall amount of content from updates could have been much larger.

The fact is Anet wasted a lot of content, resources and time on temporary content that could have easily been designed to be permanent. Simply by allowing access via a “trip down memory lane” dialogue like The Nightmare is Over instance would have been a start. I would have preferred to not have any temporary content, because I personally believe that they didn’t use temporary content to its potential so far. It allows you to really “break” things like cities and towns unlike permanent content. We could have had half the cities in Tyria overrun with new fresh and exciting enemies and shown the rebuilding over time in the aftermath. The update today may do something along these lines for Lions Arch, but its the second last LS update… Other things like Super Adventure Box should just be permanent. There’s no reason why it has to disappear after every SAB update.

I honestly thought by now we would have had a whole new region of Tyria, about a dozen new skills per professions, two new races and a couple more weapons for each profession. So far we only have one healing skill per profession, 1 universal one and maybe (unconfirmed I think) 1 new elite skill per profession, with no new races. We don’t have any new maps or regions either. We should have been well on our way to the second dragon by now.

That said, listing all the stuff updated in GW1 compared to GW2 doesn’t always make sense or seem fair, because the game mechanics are vastly different. You can’t compare how many skills and heroes we got in GW1 compared to skills and heroes (?) in GW2. The professions and game mechanics were designed around balancing/imbalance of hundreds of skills for GW1, while GW2 is designed around a few dozen per profession. GW1 was designed around trinity, 4-12 man groups and 100% instanced content which allowed for NPC henchmen. GW can’t, shouldn’t and probably never will support heroes/henchmen in the game.

Although we don’t have many new full armor sets, we have plenty of new weapon skins in addition to new backpiece/helm/shoulder skins from LS and gem store. GW2 has a much more extensive gear system, including crafting, and the ability to have any skin you want. So new shiny skins in my opinion are less important. Not to mention GW2 armor sets mix and match much better than GW1 armor sets, which often had gaps, or serious clipping, vastly different dye diffusions etc.

Personally my main (Necro Sylvari), decked out in t3 culture with Ghostly Visage helm + Toxic Shoulders/Gloves and HoM weapons, will probably look the same for a very, very long time. I’m ok with that since somehow, I have my character looking like what I imagined it since launch which never happens in MMOs.

Quests don’t really compare, since quests come in the form of dynamic events and the game needs more maps/regions in order to implement them (which again is needed. I believe GW1 quests were inferior content since they couldn’t be repeated 95% of the time.

After this LS “Season 1” and the new WvW Leag… I mean Tourny, Anet really needs to start focusing on new permanent content. First and foremost being new regions with a new dragon plot and dungeons, unlocking weapons across all professions, adding new skills/traits and hopefully reworking normal WvW to be more like EotM (slipped the last one in).