Guild Wars 2

Personally I think HoT overall is pretty decent. I like parts of it a lot. It also has some serious flaws. A lot of people have made countless forum threads about these so I won’t go into to much details. Instead I want to look at what makes a good expansion to a mmo and I personally believe one of the best examples is actually the first gw1 expansion Factions. I realize some may find it comparing apples to oranges since gw2 is a different beast than gw1, but as both are the first expansions to their respective games it also seems logical to compare them.

1) The number of zones: Currently HoT has 4 zones, 12 max if you count the multiple tiers. (though canopy and underground aren’t nearly as big as the main) Factions has 4 distinct regions, all with a ton of zones/maps. Included here is a link to just one of the regions Kaineng Center just to give a small glimpse of the major difference.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kaineng_City

I’m not even going to bother adding up all of the maps/zones/outposts/missons/challenge missions/pvp zones etc for each of the 4 regions, but as you can clearly see from just one of them the huge difference in the size of the expansion.

2) Story. Personally I loved the story in factions. Shiro is an iconic legend that still has influences today, everything from Kormir becoming a human god and the revenant invoking his powers. While the story was not received as well as say Prophecies (the core game) Nothing really compares to prophecies story, the searing alone had huge emotional responses for a lot of people that still linger to this day as many gw2 players side with the separatists and still don’t like charr. But we aren’t comparing the factions story to prophecies we are comparing it to HoT. I actually think the story of HoT is one of HoT’s stronger points, except that it could have been a lot bigger (again the size of the expansion) Failon at one point says “you know little of the nightmare court, we seek freedom and mordremoth is worse than the pale tree.” A lot could have been done with that. Including a temporary alliance with them to bring him down, later betrayed of course by them. Just an idea, but fleshing out the story more would have helped. Maybe see Braham actually become a dragon hunter instead of just alluding to it. Maybe have the choices of say mission 1 of helping the sylvarri or not go past mission 1, but instead unlock different missions for a bit much like gw2 core’s “my greatest fear” mission line. In one of the last missions in factions each class gets buffed by a dragon and not like a “might buff” but each owns unique skills that were very awesome and fun to play. Similar to HoT’s mission with the egg where you get a few new cool skills to run away with. Well what if we got a mission like that but we got to fight and enjoy it, different cool OP skills for each class. Like in gw2 core game where we retake that island, one of which got to channel balthazaar and got awesome op skills and made it a very cool and unique mission. Something like that for each class would have been very well received. Or what if we got to see more from the sylvarri’s traitors point of view. Currently we just see them as traitors. But technically since mordremoth made them the ones fighting for the pact are the real traitors to him. In the same way as the humans worship their gods or the asuran believe in the eternal alchemy, or the norn their spirits. Someone like a tragic hero fighting for mordremoth with good intentions and ideals would have been very interesting. Like the random dwarf that fought for the god Tash in the last narnia book. Again just throwing out ideas I’m just saying the story had so much potential if it was just fleshed out more. Instead of what many people are calling it as a “living story” that we would have got anyways.

3) PvP: With factions we saw a huge upgrade to the pvp system. We saw new match types for casuals and average players with very different type of map objectives. We had 2 faction specific maps that had completely different gameplay mechanics as well as alliance battles that were extremely popular for years even for pve players that normally didn’t care for pvp.

4) Classes: Factions introduced 2 new classes, the assassin and the ritualist. The assassin being the forerunner to the modern day thief and the ritualist according to the books being a forunner to the modern day guardian (along with the warrior and monk) Don’t get me wrong the revenant is pretty cool. And adding in elite specializations helps. But in reality its still not even close. GW Nightfall also had 2 new professions the dervish and the Paragon, both highly requested in gw2. Elite specializations may “change” the way professions play and give them more options but so did the hundreds of new skills in factions, if anything that had much more of a major change. Speaking of skills.

4) Skills: According to the wiki gw factions had 570 new skills total.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Factions#4_distinct_regions
(scroll down to see it)

Now with gw2 each new class has what? 3-5 maybe. Along with elite specialization changes. That’s nothing compared to the sheer amount of skills in factions. Granted again different game different combat mechanics, but adding a few wells for say the mesmer and a shield is still very small in comparision. This doesn’t even factor in the fact of having dual classes and the countless combinations that brings since again different battle mechanics. Still worth mentioning though.

5) New weapon and armor skins. I haven’t bothered adding up the total new armor or weapon skins for factions, but just remembering the green items alone I know its a lot. Adding in both the normal and the 15k versions of armor too even more. That’s sure a lot more than say the couple we got in HoT (leyline, mistward, bladed) its not even close. But hey we keep getting new gemstore items at least lol. (sarcasm)
————————————————————————

I’m not saying factions was perfect, it maybe unfair to compare them b/c to me except the idea of dynamic combat and graphics I find gw1 superior in almost all ways. The later expansions even improved it further with heroes, and eotn had over 20 new dungeons/paths I believe. (compared to HoT’s zero…it has raids but so did factions) Just using examples of the past to hopefully shed some light on how to make a great expansion. Obviously anet can do it they’ve done it several times before. Really hoping in future expansions we get a lot more content. I think if anet goes back to their roots, really digs deep as far as creating content, having a very strong focus on story, and also goes back to their manifesto that was mostly abandoned in almost all ways but still strongly supported by their players we could have some more amazing expansions in the future.

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

I understand what you are saying and your comparison is reasonably fair in the context you are aiming for, however I personally speaking, would dearly hope Factions would never be an example to their team on how to deliver an expac for GW2. For me, it was one of the worst campaigns I have ever played. The overarching story and lore was fine, but the writing, the dialogue, the cutscenes were so abominable, I can see why it released so soon after Prophecies. It was a bit of a mess compared to what was to come later.

The map itself was divisive. Shing Jea Island was a superb starter area and then you hit Kaineng City, which was essentially one giant indistinct zone, whose supreme ugliness began to wear me down after a while, especially since there was so little significant content in it. I know it had quests and it wasn’t a true MMo, but I rarely felt engaged.

Jade Sea and Echovald were gorgeous to look at, but of all the campigns, I found this area to be the least memorable and impactful. I can’t even recall much of what happens around this section of the campaign up until the charge into the Palace. EVen Prophecies, as dire as the narrative was, hangs firmly in my memory for all of it.

The mission structure was weaker than either Prophecies and Nightfall as well and the bonus/challenges were more involving for those campaigns as well, rather than Factions which just went down the route of just using timers.

It wasn’t all bad of course. 2 excellent classes as you say and the over arching lore has been impactful to the franchise in a positive way..

If I was to look at where they got things right with expanding their game, Nightfall is the first place they really started to nail it. Heroes, solid storytelling, an outstanding starter area, some excellent challenging areas, better ai (which EOTN expanded upon), gearing those heroes with some fun missions and a central city you didn’t get lost in…
Again, you couldn’t compare Elona’s map content to GW2 due to so little being in it, but NF got more right than it got wrong. I don’t agree Factions did the same.

And yes EOTN, whilst extortionately grindy for some of those titles and tracks, took the previous improvements and raised the bar to a whole new level.

I loved GW1, but I love GW2 even more. It’s flawed, of course. Admittedly. storytelling and lore have gone backwards as are well documented and they still seem to be “experimenting” or finding their feet with the game 3 years in. But, HoT was a decent expac. Not a great expac, but a solid first effort by the team. Big lessons to be learned and I’d be interested to see if they have picked up and identified those for the next time.

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

I’d forgotten how big Kaineng was.
Now I’m having flashbacks of boss hunting in Kaineng for all the elite skills.

Randulf is right on how ugly it was. But I remember that feeling of finally reaching the southern exit. The anticipation building up while working through all those slums and temples and missions. The excitement of finally leaving to see green again!

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

As others have said, Factions wasn’t really an expansion.
It was also my least favourite of the GW1 series. I really did not like the confines of Kaineng City (I have a similar problem with HoT).
I took lots of toons through Kaineng and I can still remember the relief I felt when I finally got out to that rolling countryside. Nightfall, on the other hand, really floated my boat. Maybe Anet are like MS Windows where they follow a pattern of “good release, bad release” so we should all look forward to the next instalment.

Regardless of all that, it’s pointless making these comparisons with other expansions. HoT is what it is. Like it or lump it, no amount of complaining is going to magically double the number of maps.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Two people have talked about how they disliked the confines of Kaineng, and were so glad to escape it. . . but I thought that was part of what made it great. The atmosphere was so claustrophobic and oppressive I felt more immersed than anywhere else. It was wonderful.

That being said, I have two replies to this general thread:

First; IMO, GW2 has been a more progressive game; they have worked to release content over time more than GW1 did; Between living story and the trait revamps, GW2 has been constantly changing and expanding. That being said, it is my hope that HoT is just a milestone in that; what has been released now isn’t The Expansion, but rather the START of the expansion, if that makes any sense.

Second; while I’ve enjoyed most of what they have released with HoT, I do feel like they have shipped an incomplete product which has done more to reduce my enjoyment of the game than anything else.

The story was fantastic but so brief; meeting, trusting, and helping the Exalted took 2 missions. People raved about how playing a sylvari changed the story. . .but it really didn’t. a couple extra growls in my head. Minor alterations to the final fight. And I think it knocked me over once or twice. As much as I disliked aspects of the Vanilla Story (mainly Trahearne and the letdown of a boss fight at the end), the story itself was abundantly complex, and I STILL haven’t finished all of the branches and options (racial or otherwise). HoT story seemed so rushed, and not in the ‘urgent to save the world’ way. And then you get to play Bug Roulette to see if you can actually continue the story.

Guild Halls / Scribing where parts were literally broken; scribing which finally got a basic material added yesterday in a patch (Bag of Mortar). Some guild hall upgrades that required an item that they pretty much took out of the game (Heavy Supply Bags) which they re-added a week or two ago. Countless bugs and missing items.

Elite specs just randomly happened; you have Marjory as a necro with a greatsword and Braham as a guardian with a bow. . .but what about the rest?

TD Meta was broken until last night; Chak Gerent scaled so aggressively I’d never heard of one succeeding.

PvP is extremely unbalanced, and then they started a tournament.

TL;DR; I have hope for GW2 / HoT, but right now it feels like EA published it.

Manthas.6234:

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Anet has already said that HoT is an expansion like EoTN, any comparisson with standalone campaigns will be unfair. One requires a base game and one doesn’t, one adds as much as the base game and one doesn’t.
That’s like comparing Diablo 2:LoD with Diablo 3, or Diablo 3:RoS with Diablo 2, it’d be pointless we all know the result before we even start, we’d have to compare Diablo 2 LoD with Diablo 3 RoS.

There’s an old post comparing the gw1 expansion with the gw2 expansion, I’ll repost it now.

Old post from maddoctor comparing the Gw1 & Gw2 expansions.

Raziel.4216:

Let’s compare, with real numbers!
Someone already did it, from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-living-world-season-3/first#post5764319

maddoctor.2738:

Let’s talk exploration:
Map Exploration
EotN adds 4 new regions which include 13 towns/outpots, 33 landmarks, 18 dungeon entrances and 11 mission entrances for a total of 75 items to explore/find.
HoT adds the following on maps:
VB: 7 Waypoints, 26 Points of Interest, 11 Hero Challenges, 5 Vistas
AB: 7 Waypoints, 22 Points of Interest, 11 Hero Challenges, 6 Vistas
TD: 7 Waypoints, 20 Points of Interest, 11 Hero Challenges, 6 Vistas
DS: 11 Waypoints, 24 Points of Interest, 7 Hero Challenges, 7 Vistas
Total: 195, just the Points of Interest alone (92) are more than what you can find in the entire EotN.
Also, there are 15 Strongboxes to find, 2 Dive Master achievements, 23 Mastery Insights and 3 Jumping Puzzles (at least I know of 3 there might be more) for a total of 43 more things to do while exploring HoT. There are also other achievements to do but I will keep those for another point of comparison.
So the difference in exploration is staggering… HoT is much better for explorers than EotN, many more things to find and do there, although it has less zones in number.
You want to add the 18 dungeons of EotN in the list? Still HoT has way more to explore, that’s objectively proven.
Let’s talk about skills:
EotN added 150 new skills (100 profession skills and 50 pve-only skills)
Before counting skills in GW2, I must say that they work in a different way than skills in GW1. There are no “chain” skills that take different slots, but they are grouped in actual chains, this means chain skills will have to be counted twice (or more), there are also no long lasting buffs, instead we get Traits, so traits can easily count as GW1 “skills”. Because some of you might be weird I give two versions, one counts only unique buttons, the other counts all skills in the game.
Berserker: 18 / 30
Chronomancer: 9 / 23
Daredevil: 11 / 33
Dragonhunter: 14 / 26
Druid: 17 / 36 /
Reaper: 17 / 35
Scrapper: 12 / 38
Tempest: 18 / 30
Revenant: 62 / 155
Ranger pets: 4 / 12 (8 new pet skills, not F2 skills)
Total: 182 / 418
Just the Revenant alone gives more skills than the Entire EotN, but if you want only unique button presses (which is horribly wrong) HoT provides 182 skills compared to 150 EotN skills.
There are also 36 Mastery points which can change your gameplay and provide new skill-like abilities or other benefits.
So in terms of skills and character customization HoT provides loads of more options than EotN that it’s not even funny to compare the two in that regard.
Let’s talk about skins:
HoT
There are 3 weights, light/medium/heavy, 3 racial versions, Human/Sylvari/Norn, Asura and Charr for a total of 9 varieties of each armor set.
Bladed, Leystone, Guild have all the above requirements for 27 armor sets
Mistward has only heavy version for 3 new armor sets
Total armors = 30, multiply multiply by 6 for the different pieces = 180 total unique armor pieces
back pieces:
6 Scribe back skins, Bough of Melandru, Auric Backplate, Luminate’s Backplate, 3×3=9 Order back items, 4 Legendary backpiece skins, 2 achievement backpieces
Total: 24
Also, 9 Elite Spec skins
16 Auric Weapons, 16 Chak Weapons, 16 Reclaimed Weapons, 16 Plated Weapons, 16 Machined Weapons, 16 Shimmering Weapons, 16 Tenebrus Weapons, 19 Gold Fractal Weapons, 18 Elite spec weapons, 21 unique weapons
Total: 170
There are 20 Legendary Weapons + 3 upcoming new ones = 23, 3*Precursor Skins per Legendary Weapon (excluding Eternity), for a total of 69 new skins, plus the 3 new Legendary Weapons = 72 Legendary Precursors + Weapons
Although we haven’t seen it yet, it has been announced that we will get Legendary Armor, that’s 3 (weight) x 3 (racial) = 9 different sets 6 = 54 unique armor pieces. Another 54 for the Precursors for a total of 108 skins from Legendary armor
Total skins: 563 unique pieces of weapon/back/armor skins
EotN added 416=246 unique armor pieces
There are also 157 Unique weapons although lots of them are using old skins but I will add them to the list because I’m too lazy to count how many. Total of 403. I bet the unique gloves are less than the re-skinned weapons so it’s a good count.

tl;dr:
Exploration: HoT: 238, EotN: 98
Skills: HoT: 418, EotN: 150
Skins: HoT: 563, EotN: 403
Want more?
i am against all this gw1, gw2 comparison, but seriously if you’re gonna do, get it right.

So no, when talking with numbers, instead anecdotal evidence, EoTN does not blow HoT out of the water.

Factions was a great expansion, but let’s also take off the rosy-colored glasses for a second.

As great kitten many of the features of Factions were, the inclusion of the Assassin profession caused a lot of problems in PvE. They were incredibly squishy melee class and often were more of a liability than a benefit to a group because of this. This was made even worse by enemy mechanics of the Afflicted (the most prevalent enemy mob in the expansion) which would cause an AoE explosion on death.

The end result was an expansion with a new profession everyone wanted to play, but also one that no one wanted in their groups. While the assassin became a viable profession later on at max level and even became a big part of the meta in areas like FoW, there was a really rocky path that killed a lot of players enjoyment early on.

Ah Factions… the campaign that GW1 players either loved, or hated. There never seemed to be any middle ground for those one. Personally, I think it was my favorite, despite its flaws.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Anet has already said that HoT is an expansion like EoTN, any comparisson with standalone campaigns will be unfair. One requires a base game and one doesn’t, one adds as much as the base game and one doesn’t.
That’s like comparing Diablo 2:LoD with Diablo 3, or Diablo 3:RoS with Diablo 2, it’d be pointless we all know the result before we even start, we’d have to compare Diablo 2 LoD with Diablo 3 RoS.

There’s an old post comparing the gw1 expansion with the gw2 expansion, I’ll repost it now.

That’s what I’m talking about, it’s not even fair comparing those two. Yeah, Anet said that we shouldn’t expect expansion to be like Factions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask “why not?”

I can’t really comment about that Diablo example, since it haven’t played them, but I can see where its flaw is. No one is comparing Diablo2:LoD with Diablo 3. It’s more like comparing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening to Dragon Age 2: Legacy. Awakening, just like Factions, has different story, companions, but uses same engine, old and new skills and can be played as standalone or as another part of Wardens story. However, it doesn’t mean it is a different game. My point is, Factions was never an entirely different game. Same engine, same skills, same characters, same classes + a lot of new content. Yes, you could have bought just Factions and ignore Prophecies, but that’s more of the marketing thing.

About that quote where expansions are compared, it’s so flawed, that even commenting on it feels insulting.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ah Factions… the campaign that GW1 players either loved, or hated. There never seemed to be any middle ground for those one. Personally, I think it was my favorite, despite its flaws.

I’m not sure this was my favorite expansion back when I played GW1, but it’s the one I’m most tempted to go back to now. Sadly, I rolled an Assassin and Vizunah Square is pretty much a wall to progression as this is near impossible to do with nothing but henchmen (I don’t have hardly any heroes since my old account got hijacked and the player population is…sparse).

Urgoz’s Warden and the Deep were also some of the most fun high-end content I think GW1 ever had…

/nostalgiatrip

Dahkeus.8243:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ah Factions… the campaign that GW1 players either loved, or hated. There never seemed to be any middle ground for those one. Personally, I think it was my favorite, despite its flaws.

I’m not sure this was my favorite expansion back when I played GW1, but it’s the one I’m most tempted to go back to now. Sadly, I rolled an Assassin and Vizunah Square is pretty much a wall to progression as this is near impossible to do with nothing but henchmen (I don’t have hardly any heroes since my old account got hijacked and the player population is…sparse).

Urgoz’s Warden and the Deep were also some of the most fun high-end content I think GW1 ever had…

/nostalgiatrip

Ouch fodder… I mean Assassin. Although, I didnt have too much of an issue with hench when I did it “back in the day” Though, yeah, heroes definitely make it easier. If you decide to go back and play through it, drop me a pm on here regarding when, I’d be more than happy to lend a hand if I’m free.

I think I preferred FoW and UW over the Deep. Urgoz was fun though. It was just so kitten hard to get enough people…

Raziel.4216:

Old post from maddoctor comparing the Gw1 & Gw2 expansions.

That comparision is not well done. For example the comparision of “exploration stuff”: you can compare the amount of maps. But you can’t take dungeons entrances and compare them with POIs. Landmarks are afaik also no official term in GW1. For example HoT’s “the falls” are also in GW Prophecies. Without any “POI”. It’s the same location. Maybe its also a landmark, idk. Every tree could be defined as a landmark.

Hero challenges are mostly small bossfights. But he didn’t tried to count all bosses spreaded around EoTN which you needed to kill to gain their eliteskills.
He counts waypoints but doesn’t count “rezzshrines” (the places where you would be revived when your party wiped, similar to waypoints).
He even compares traits to skills. Some traits add a new functionality, so he is right for these traits (for example the trait switching guardians F1-3 into new ones), but faster trap reloading? More damage when X? Thats not a new skill.
GW1 also offers items which increase the duration of buffs, do more damage when your health is above 50%, reload skills faster, reduce casting time, increase armour etc. Nobody would count these items as new skills.

I think a fair comparision is very difficult.
Point is: its about the feeling. Does the player got the feeling of “i’ve seen everything” and how long does it take till he feels so. HoT has very little content variety and goes more into the depth. Good for people who are farming AP or love repeating open world events. Bad for people who just want to explore. They might be done with HoT after a weekend or two.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

Old post from maddoctor comparing the Gw1 & Gw2 expansions.

That comparision is not well done. For example the comparision of “exploration stuff”: you can compare the amount of maps. But you can’t take dungeons entrances and compare them with POIs.

He compared it in exploration aspects, you had to explore to reach dungeons, please read carefully before comenting on something.

Jockum.1385:

Landmarks are afaik also no official term in GW1. For example HoT’s “the falls” are also in GW Prophecies. Without any “POI”. It’s the same location. Maybe its also a landmark, idk. Every tree could be defined as a landmark.

Landmarks can be meassured, you can look’em up in GW1 wiki, same for GW2 POIs
No other way to compare exploration aspects, feel free to provide one just as objective.

Jockum.1385:

Hero challenges are mostly small bossfights. But he didn’t tried to count all bosses spreaded around EoTN which you needed to kill to gain their eliteskills.

He’s comparing’em in a different category, feel free to make a “boss” category to compare those, this is irrelevant to the numbers presented.

Jockum.1385:

He counts waypoints but doesn’t count “rezzshrines” (the places where you would be revived when your party wiped, similar to waypoints).

Finally a fair point, even with those I doubt EoTN would reach HoT, feel free to add’em up.

Jockum.1385:

He even compares traits to skills. Some traits add a new functionality, so he is right for these traits (for example the trait switching guardians F1-3 into new ones), but faster trap reloading? More damage when X? Thats not a new skill.
GW1 also offers items which increase the duration of buffs, do more damage when your health is above 50%, reload skills faster, reduce casting time, increase armour etc. Nobody would count these items as new skills.

GW2 adds a lot of consumables too, wonder why you didn’t mention those.
This does not refute the point made to count traits there, so I don’t see how this is relevant.

Jockum.1385:

I think a fair comparision is very difficult.
Point is: its about the feeling. Does the player got the feeling of “i’ve seen everything” and how long does it take till he feels so. HoT has very little content variety and goes more into the depth. Good for people who are farming AP or love repeating open world events. Bad for people who just want to explore. They might be done with HoT after a weekend or two.

The feeling is subjective, the comparisson made with numbers tries to be as objective as posible.
Point is: when comparing raw data GW2’s expansion added a lot more than GW1’s expansion. If you want to refute this feel free to provide numbers that prove otherwise.
Remember, this post is comparing objective, real, verifiable content added, not how much people like it, I’m sticking to the objective stuff.

Be aware that people complained about factions like they are about HoT.

People hate HoT’s final instance. Here’s just one complaint thread as example about how some people disliked Faction’s final mission.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/factions-worst-last-mission-ever-t10249312.html

Also…

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/why-do-so-many-hate-t10213433.html
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/expansion-for-factions-t10254858.html
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/prophecies-vs-faction-t10114478.html

Manthas.6234:

That’s what I’m talking about, it’s not even fair comparing those two. Yeah, Anet said that we shouldn’t expect expansion to be like Factions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask “why not?”

I can’t really comment about that Diablo example, since it haven’t played them, but I can see where its flaw is. No one is comparing Diablo2:LoD with Diablo 3.

You are, you see Factions is a stand-alone game, it can be played without the base GW1 campaign.
D2 is a standalone game, so this is like comparing it with D3: RoS.

It’s more like comparing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening to Dragon Age 2: Legacy.

Does awakening require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does legacy require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does HoT requite the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does factions require the base game? No. It’s not an expansion, it’s a stand-alone campaign.
Far from the same

Manthas.6234:

About that quote where expansions are compared, it’s so flawed, that even commenting on it feels insulting.

Objective stuff compared vs your unsupported claim that it’s flawed (unsupported because you did not specify any flaws)
I’ll stick to the objective stuff.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

That’s what I’m talking about, it’s not even fair comparing those two. Yeah, Anet said that we shouldn’t expect expansion to be like Factions, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t ask “why not?”

I can’t really comment about that Diablo example, since it haven’t played them, but I can see where its flaw is. No one is comparing Diablo2:LoD with Diablo 3.

You are, you see Factions is a stand-alone game, it can be played without the base GW1 campaign.
D2 is a standalone game, so this is like comparing it with D3: RoS.

It’s more like comparing Dragon Age Origins: Awakening to Dragon Age 2: Legacy.

Does awakening require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does legacy require the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does HoT requite the base game? Yes. It’s an expansion
Does factions require the base game? No. It’s not an expansion, it’s a stand-alone campaign.
Far from the same

Manthas.6234:

About that quote where expansions are compared, it’s so flawed, that even commenting on it feels insulting.

Objective stuff compared vs your unsupported claim that it’s flawed (unsupported because you did not specify any flaws)
I’ll stick to the objective stuff.

Well, all Dawn of War expansions can also be played without original game, but yet, since they use the same engine in the same universe, they are expansions of essentialy the same game. Expansion is an expansion, standalone or not. Read the definition, it’s free on the internet.

That “objective stuff” you stick to, are nothing more than uncomparable numbers compared. I don’t really feel like supporting claim, which has already been supported in the original thread.

Manthas.6234:

Well, all Dawn of War expansions can also be played without original game, but yet, since they use the same engine in the same universe, they are expansions of essentialy the same game. Expansion is an expansion, standalone or not. Read the definition, it’s free on the internet.

Did that game’s devs call it an expansion?
Did that game’s devs state that it had ONE expansion only and that all the other ones were stand-alone campaigns?
What characterizes an expansion is that it adds content to an already released game, it expands and improves an already existing product.
Notice an already released game, it’s an addition, not something you can play on your own without taking the previous game into account.
Can you play legacy without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play awakening without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play HoT without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play factions without taking the already released game into account? Yes. Even the games you use support my argument instead of yours, lol.

It gets even better, did the company that created both Factions and HoT clearly state that HoT is an expansion like EoTN and not it’s other stand-alone campaigns? Yes.
In other words, did the devs themselves tell you that factions & nightfall are different from HoT? Yes.
Why you insist on comparing’em is beyond me.

Manthas.6234:

That “objective stuff” you stick to, are nothing more than uncomparable numbers compared. I don’t really feel like supporting claim, which has already been supported in the original thread.

According to whom? based on what evidence?
It’s the best attempt at comparing different expansions taking into account all the stuff they provided, feel free to provide (on a case-by-case basis) a complete argument that disproves it.

Factions could be played by itself or as added content.

Regardless of how anyone played it, the amount of content it gave for it’s purchase price puts HoT to shame.

NayNay.7680:

Factions could be played by itself or as added content.

Regardless of how anyone played it, the amount of content it gave for it’s purchase price puts HoT to shame.

Like any standalone game does to any expansion.

Then consider EotN

Still more content than HoT

Raziel.4216:

He compared it in exploration aspects, you had to explore to reach dungeons, please read carefully before comenting on something.

So why does he add up POIs and compares them to dungeonentrances when it is nonsense? He can compare the amount of dungeonentrances of HoT with the amount of dungeonentrances of EoTN. But you can’t compare them to POIs. Yes, you have to walk into the dungeongate, same as in GW2. But why are dungeonentrances comparable to POIs? Why didn’t he counted NPCs and used this number? Or trees?
His numbers are nonsense.
To give you another example:
You agreed on rezz shrines. Afaik there are ~5-8 on each map and there are (i think) ~15 maps with shrines? So lets say ~75 points to explore. There are also rezz shrines in dungeons. As a rough estimation: the average dungeon has three levels and at least one rezz shrine per level (usually more). So 18*3*1. This would be at least ~50 shrines. “world” and dungeons would add 125 Points to his “EoTN Score” of 75 to a total of 200.
And i think my estimation is conservative, it could easily be 200 rezz shrines or more. When you can easily add such numbers which he totally missed to one side his numbers are completly flawed. It’s not changing his result by 5% which would be acceptable. Its a ~270% difference to his results.
Thats only one detail. He missed other points as well:

Why does he add up landmarks when there no such thing official in GW1?
Landmarks are defined by players. The wiki is maintained by players. Landmarks are “do you remember this cool tree”. For example the lone vigil is listed as a landmark. In arid sea there are two landmarks listed: lone vigil and the city. The dino/dragon-skull (http://i.imgur.com/vkcfwZ3.png) isn’t. There are like one or two landmarks on each map. And on most GW2 maps I can remember a similar amount of “remarkable landscapes” on each map.
GW1 maps offer more places to explore than just landmarks. And not every GW2 POI/Vista is so remarkable that you can still remember it after a few years. “yeah, those 20 POI on map X”. You might remember stuff like “shards of war” – a landmark in GW1, too. But most POIs are not very remarkable. If you compare the german wiki to english: 4 landmarks for crystal desert in the german wiki, 9 in the english version – on 7 maps. As you can see: the amount of landmarks isn’t set into stone. So its useles to base an argumentation on it.

If you sum up nonsense, leave half of the content out, add another half of fictive content…well….you can spell the word beer when take the word house, change some letters, leave some letters out and add new ones.

Raziel.4216:

He’s comparing’em in a different category, feel free to make a “boss” category to compare those, this is irrelevant to the numbers presented.

So its nonsense to sum up the heropoints and mix them up with POIs and vistas. If he wants to compare hero points to anything he has to compare them to bosses. There are afaik ~150 bosses in EoTN. You have to kill them to get access to eliteskills. Why does he compare hero points which are made for unlocking traits/skills with landscapes, but ignores skill unlocking in GW?

It’s like: “EoTN has 124 Quests, HoT has none.” So I got “objective numbers”, proof is HoT has zero content.
Does that give any proof about HoT having “0% content compared to EoTN”? No, it doesn’t. When you want to compare content you have to avoid cherry picking. If you leave out half the content your results are nonsense. When you sum up irrelevant numbers you get irrelevant results.
For relevant results you would have to compare the time needed to explore the stuff. Without time or level gates. And even this results can be influenced by a low movement speed or labyrinth like maps.
Gran tourismo offers like 500 cars, NFS like 20. So gran tourismo has 25 times the amount of content NFS offers? Might be true. But not because of the amount of cars.

Raziel.4216:

GW2 adds a lot of consumables too, wonder why you didn’t mention those.

Because its useles to compare the amount of skills or traits. You have to compare build variety. There is a reason why GW had hundreds or thousands of threads in forums to discuss even more builds. You can still find people debating about GW1 builds. There is basically a build for each teamcomposition and each area. Don’t run a prot-monk in an ench removing area. Avoid minions when there are tons of AOEs. Destroyers are good against fireeles, so run an air or waterbuild. Etc.
I didn’t mentioned consumables because it the same point: they don’t change your playstyle. A +10% dmg mod won’t change your playstyle. You wont start pushing different buttons, use skills in different situations just because you used another buffood. So its the still the same build.

NayNay.7680:

Then consider EotN

Still more content than HoT

Only in respect to armor.

Jockum.1385:

So why does he add up POIs and compares them to dungeonentrances when it is nonsense? He can compare the amount of dungeonentrances of HoT with the amount of dungeonentrances of EoTN. But you can’t compare them to POIs. Yes, you have to walk into the dungeongate, same as in GW2. But why are dungeonentrances comparable to POIs? Why didn’t he counted NPCs and used this number? Or trees?
His numbers are nonsense.

Because you had to explore to reach dungeons, you had to kill mobs and go go out of your way to reach’em.
We can’t compare HoT Raids to EoTN Dungeons, one simply doesn’t exist in the other.

Jockum.1385:

To give you another example:
You agreed on rezz shrines. Afaik there are ~5-8 on each map and there are (i think) ~15 maps with shrines? So lets say ~75 points to explore. There are also rezz shrines in dungeons. As a rough estimation: the average dungeon has three levels and at least one rezz shrine per level (usually more). So 18*3*1. This would be at least ~50 shrines. “world” and dungeons would add 125 Points to his “EoTN Score” of 75 to a total of 200.

Feel free to count’em and get back at us, noone is “estimating” the HoT points, I’d expect the same of those who claim EoTN added more.

Jockum.1385:

Why does he add up landmarks when there no such thing official in GW1?
Landmarks are defined by players. The wiki is maintained by players. Landmarks are “do you remember this cool tree”. For example the lone vigil is listed as a landmark. In arid sea there are two landmarks listed: lone vigil and the city. The dino/dragon-skull (http://i.imgur.com/vkcfwZ3.png) isn’t. There are like one or two landmarks on each map. And on most GW2 maps I can remember a similar amount of “remarkable landscapes” on each map.

Once again, there is no other way to compare exploration, feel free to provide another measurable method.
Remember: measurable, something we can all check just like landmarks.

Jockum.1385:

GW1 maps offer more places to explore than just landmarks.

Meassured how? Bellyfeelings? rose-colored nostalgia glasses?

And not every GW2 POI/Vista is so remarkable that you can still remember it after a few years. “yeah, those 20 POI on map X”. You might remember stuff like “shards of war” – a landmark in GW1, too. But most POIs are not very remarkable. If you compare the german wiki to english: 4 landmarks for crystal desert in the german wiki, 9 in the english version – on 7 maps. As you can see: the amount of landmarks isn’t set into stone. So its useles to base an argumentation on it.

It is set on stone, you can check it in the wiki, it is an objective source of information, so we can base argumentation on it.
We can’t base argumentation on how memorable each part of the game was for you because it might not be the same for other people.
Remember: measurable, something we can all check just like landmarks.
Still waiting on a valid point here dude.

Jockum.1385:

If you sum up nonsense, leave half of the content out, add another half of fictive content…well….you can spell the word beer when take the word house, change some letters, leave some letters out and add new ones.

Don’t see what nonsense we’re adding, don’t see the half of fictive content, I see an attempt @ objective comparisson and you’re just trying to refute it with non-objective means.
Can’t say it wasn’t expected, when raw data favors another position people resort to the special pleading fallacy a lot.

Jockum.1385:

So its nonsense to sum up the heropoints and mix them up with POIs and vistas. If he wants to compare hero points to anything he has to compare them to bosses. There are afaik ~150 bosses in EoTN. You have to kill them to get access to eliteskills. Why does he compare hero points which are made for unlocking traits/skills with landscapes, but ignores skill unlocking in GW?

Never said it was nonsense, I only said this category you’re referring to does not exist, so you should make one.
While you’re at it make sure you count every champion or challenging veteran in HoT, good luck.

Jockum.1385:

It’s like: “EoTN has 124 Quests, HoT has none.” So I got “objective numbers”, proof is HoT has zero content.

Not sure we’re reading the same post here.

Jockum.1385:

When you want to compare content you have to avoid cherry picking.

Did not leave any non-measurable content out, you’re cherry picking non-objective stuff and trying to invalidate all the comparisson, one missing category does not refute everything.
Not only special pleading, but now straw-man too, kitten we’re on a roll today!

Jockum.1385:

For relevant results you would have to compare the time needed to explore the stuff. Without time or level gates. And even this results can be influenced by a low movement speed or labyrinth like maps.

Subjective, depends on player skill. Feel free to try, don’t see how this invalidates anything tho.

Jockum.1385:

Because its useles to compare the amount of skills or traits. You have to compare build variety.

Adding stat points that increase skill numerical values is not more build variety than traits.
Either way, he’s comparing total content added, HoT simply added more.

Jockum.1385:

I didn’t mentioned consumables because it the same point: they don’t change your playstyle. A +10% dmg mod won’t change your playstyle. You wont start pushing different buttons, use skills in different situations just because you used another buffood. So its the still the same build.

It doesn’t have to cause a dramatic change to count as content.

Raziel.4216:

the comparisson made with numbers tries to be as objective as posible.

Not really.

It looks an awful lot more like an attempt at justifying a subjective bias. Not really far from how Fox news and certain demagogues present their facts.

Ashen.2907:

Raziel.4216:

the comparisson made with numbers tries to be as objective as posible.

Not really.

It looks an awful lot more like an attempt at justifying a subjective bias. Not really far from how Fox news and certain demagogues present their facts.

Nice, you just refuted a wall of text that compares content from 2 different expansions with two lines.
Since we’re not providing anything to back-up whatever we say (like Fox News, the irony lol….) , I’ll just go ahead and say you’re wrong.

Raziel.4216:

Ashen.2907:

Raziel.4216:

the comparisson made with numbers tries to be as objective as posible.

Not really.

It looks an awful lot more like an attempt at justifying a subjective bias. Not really far from how Fox news and certain demagogues present their facts.

Nice, you just refuted a wall of text that compares content from 2 different expansions with two lines..

No I did not.

I refuted a dozen words with a couple dozen.

And, for what its worth, I did not consider EoTN to be even among Anet’s best work. Kudos to those who liked it better than HoT and kudos to those who prefer HoT.

Ashen.2907:

Raziel.4216:

Ashen.2907:

Raziel.4216:

the comparisson made with numbers tries to be as objective as posible.

Not really.

It looks an awful lot more like an attempt at justifying a subjective bias. Not really far from how Fox news and certain demagogues present their facts.

Nice, you just refuted a wall of text that compares content from 2 different expansions with two lines..

No I did not.

I refuted a dozen words with a couple dozen.

A dozen words that refer to a post that’s comparing data obtained from objective and verifiable sources.
Refuted by a dozen words that provide no data whatsoever.
Mmmk, cool story.

Let’s compare replay value of the two. Factions- great to replay, titles to get, pvp areas to fight in, other titles to work on, huge number of elite skills (that matter to your builds) to go and cap. Lovely pve skills that added a lot of variety to pve builds. Endless hours of replay value and huge build variety, and very easy to switch builds without spending an arm and a leg and carrying around 16 different armor sets and 20 pages of paper where you have to write down a build in GW2

H0T. Do chest, done. Do HP point, done. complete map. done. Gated/locked/timers force you to do things at certain times or else. Switching armor very expensive, runes lost every time, switching builds means finding that bit of paper you had the build on then trying to find the other one when you want to switch back.

H0T- feel like standing around waiting for event to start, missing taxi to last map, wait 2.5 more hours. 4th map is basically a no go map except when running around during meta event, so basically it’s 3 maps and an open air dungeon instance for many people.

One raid compared to many dungeons with two difficulty settings.

Whoever said they were thinking of going back to Guild Wars, there are still plenty of players, we all play on the USA servers and if you want a Kurzick alliance pm me and we’ll get you going (we own Hzh).

Baldrick.8967:

snip

Ayrilana.1396:

NayNay.7680:

Factions could be played by itself or as added content.

Regardless of how anyone played it, the amount of content it gave for it’s purchase price puts HoT to shame.

Like any standalone game does to any expansion.

Been there, done that.

Feel like comparing content added by DA: Origins and DA: Awakening now? that’d be just as fair

Well I felt the story fot HoT was good, but it could have been fantastic if they added more to the story and fleshed it out expansion or no GW at its roots was an MMO with story at its Core, HoT does have story but I feel there is more focus on the meta events for the new areas instead of the actual story. I had such high hopes for Faolin, give us a reason to feel for her instead of just seeing her and a bad guy but they sorta just rushed past it and this is where I feel they truly missed out.

Then compare HoT to EOTN then?

I like they have introduced Advanced Specs as eventually when they add more we will see more party variations.

As for Spirit Vale, I have played this game alot, More over the past months that before I admit but still, but a raid? they could have worked on more dungeons like before with actual story significance, maybe instead of destinys edge going into them have your new team, here is an example of how raids went down, immidiately after launch: LFG/P Raid, 30 mins after Raid launch, LFG Raid exp + however much AP and armour inspection before you join squad. So now all the reasons I hate other games have appeared in force now, the worst part is what reason do I have for going in apart from that it is new content, is it story related? I had high hopes for this and when they said you’d need an actual tank I had high hopes thinking people would finally use tank gear ad not just Zerk, I was wrong >_< plus the needing specific damage types and skills makes it even more of a challenge because you may need to kick people just to fill fill in on say boon strippers or condi users.

Well lets hope 2016 can regain my faith in GW 2 xD

Raziel.4216:

Because you had to explore to reach dungeons, you had to kill mobs and go go out of your way to reach’em.

you didn’t get why I was critizising the dungeonentrances. You have to walk to GW2 dungeonentrances too. Why did he left out the raid entrance but did count GW1 dungeonentrances?
Why did he starts counting fictive fan-declared landmarks but didn’t count GW2 landmarks as a comparision? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Landmarks
Why does he count outposts/cities but not maps?
It is quite obvious he wanted to proof his point. His intent was not to make an objective comparision. So he cherrypicked some numbers to create a comparision.
You can see that by the numbers he uses and numbers he doesn’t mention. Its completly pointles to start counting POIs of GW2 with a game without any POIs, Vistas etc. Thats what I’m critizing. His numbers are nonsense.

Raziel.4216:

Feel free to count’em and get back at us, noone is “estimating” the HoT points, I’d expect the same of those who claim EoTN added more.

104 rezz shrines in open world. I think I missed some since i wasn’t concentrating. My estimation was 75 shrines for open world. For dungeons you can use this one: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dungeon
For example: http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c5/Ooze_Pit_Level_1.jpg -> 6 shrines.
I know each level has at least one rezz shrine. Otherwise it would be a gameover when you die, which only happens in elite-areas like UW. I’m counting 49 dungeon levels. So my estimation of ~50 wasn’t bad. On some cards you can’t see the rezz shrines, feel free to do the dungeons and count them yourself. I checked 7 dungeons on a quick research I’m at 52 rezz shrines. There are 18 dungeons, so i didn’t even checked half of them. My estimation seems to be solid. There are now 156 “proven” shrines.
As I said: those numbers are nonsense. He tried to score a goal and killed a whale at the northpole while beeing in southafrica. His numbers are completly wrong. Do you say after elections “president XY gained 50 Billion votes, there are 7 billion people on earth so the results might be slightly wrong but its the best result we got?”.
Why does he even start counting outposts, but doesn’t count maps?

Once again, there is no other way to compare exploration, feel free to provide another measurable method.
Remember: measurable, something we can all check just like landmarks.

A simple and more objective way would be to count the amount of maps. Ofc GW2 maps are more detailed, are bigger and even got several levels. I would double the amount of HoT maps because of that. I think open world content is comparable. There is a bit a lack of variety (less maps with reduced options, no snowy maps for example) in Hot, and a bit a lack of “easy going” maps. But it is still roughly comparable. But there are no dungeons. EoTN has 18. That makes a difference. And there is no hardmode.

Raziel.4216:

Meassured how? Bellyfeelings? rose-colored nostalgia glasses?

I linked you a screenshot of a unique place which is no landmark. As you would formulate it: those landmarkes are defined as landmarks measured by bellyfeeling.

If you want to make an objective comparision you would have to leave the landmarks out. And because there is no such thing as a POI or Vista in GW you would have to leave them out, too. In the end you would compare the emount of waypoints with the amount of rezz shrines. Which is not very helpful. I spend hours (maybe 6?) on my first FoW run. There is not a single rezzshrine.

Don’t see what nonsense we’re adding, don’t see the half of fictive content, I see an attempt @ objective comparisson and you’re just trying to refute it with non-objective means.

GW1 dungeon entrances, landmarks and mission entrances cannot be compared to POIs or Vistas.
On the other hand outposts (maps) were counted. But world maps weren’t. So its quite obvious here is somebody just making numbers up to prove his point without even trying to be objective. A whole city like LA or rata sum equals a POI?
To be honest: thats so obviously wrong. He didn’t even count GW2 “mission entrances”. I think he just tried to make some numbers for GW1 up. Would look bad if he says “195 for HoT, zero for GW”. So invent a few numbers for the GW side, leave comparable “dangerous” numbers out and gg. There is a reason why he didn’t counted the numbers of rezzshrines. Or why he counted heropoints but left skillcaps in EoTN out.

Raziel.4216:

While you’re at it make sure you count every champion or challenging veteran in HoT, good luck.

I was refering to “hero challenges”. Not to bosses. You can’t start counting skill unlocks on one side and don’t count them on the other side. That’s very obvious. So you would have to remove the hero challenges from HoT’s score. So 155 points for HoT.

Raziel.4216:

one missing category does not refute everything.

It does when this categorie adds more than 150 points to you result of 75.
It’s, as I said, not only one missing category. You have to remove hero points. Basically you have to remove vistas and POIs and landmarks and dungeon/missionentrances too. No one would compare 4 maps with 116 (!!!) POIs and Vistas to 33 landmarks on 77 (!!!) maps. (15 world maps, 13 outposts, 49 dungeon maps). It’s quite obvious that you can’t compare 29 points per map with 0,4 points per map. This is why it was summed up. Otherwise no one would take this comparision serious.

It doesn’t have to cause a dramatic change to count as content.

So a new buffood is new content for you? And can be compared to new skills?

NayNay.7680:

Then consider EotN

Still more content than HoT

Maybe armor sets depending on how you want to count them. HoT still had far more content and awards.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Anet has already said that HoT is an expansion like EoTN, any comparisson with standalone campaigns will be unfair. One requires a base game and one doesn’t, one adds as much as the base game and one doesn’t.
That’s like comparing Diablo 2:LoD with Diablo 3, or Diablo 3:RoS with Diablo 2, it’d be pointless we all know the result before we even start, we’d have to compare Diablo 2 LoD with Diablo 3 RoS.

There’s an old post comparing the gw1 expansion with the gw2 expansion, I’ll repost it now.

Except EoTN had what over 20 new dungeons? HoT has umm zero and 1 raid.

Chrono.6928:

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Chrono.6928:

azizul.8469:

err.. Faction is a stand alone campaign, not an expansion.. you can play it on its own, no need Prophecies….

It was BOTH a standalone game and an expansion. Ha another thing they did right over HoT no one would say its a stand alone game, even if it could not enough content.

Nah, it was just straight up a standalone campaign. EOTN was the only expansion GW1 got.

Oh, who cares anyway? This fact only gives more credit to how superior Factions as an expansion (yeah yeah, “standalone campaign”) was compared to HOT.

Anet has already said that HoT is an expansion like EoTN, any comparisson with standalone campaigns will be unfair. One requires a base game and one doesn’t, one adds as much as the base game and one doesn’t.
That’s like comparing Diablo 2:LoD with Diablo 3, or Diablo 3:RoS with Diablo 2, it’d be pointless we all know the result before we even start, we’d have to compare Diablo 2 LoD with Diablo 3 RoS.

There’s an old post comparing the gw1 expansion with the gw2 expansion, I’ll repost it now.

Except EoTN had what over 20 new dungeons? HoT has umm zero and 1 raid.

I’d consider a single map since those dungeons were copy and pasted. Many parts in one dungeon was identical to that of another.

Jockum.1385:

you didn’t get why I was critizising the dungeonentrances. You have to walk to GW2 dungeonentrances too. Why did he left out the raid entrance but did count GW1 dungeonentrances?

We didn’t have raids back then.
Add one point to HoT then.

Why did he starts counting fictive fan-declared landmarks but didn’t count GW2 landmarks as a comparision? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Landmarks
Why does he count outposts/cities but not maps?

Feel free to provide another objective source of exploration content, remember, something we can all check, not how much you liked each map.

It is quite obvious he wanted to proof his point. His intent was not to make an objective comparision. So he cherrypicked some numbers to create a comparision.
You can see that by the numbers he uses and numbers he doesn’t mention. Its completly pointles to start counting POIs of GW2 with a game without any POIs, Vistas etc. Thats what I’m critizing. His numbers are nonsense.

Or he stick to the numbers available instead of bellyfeelings and since the numbers don’t support your position you call it out without providing any objective source of information to replace it.
Still waiting on a valid point here mate.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

Feel free to count’em and get back at us, noone is “estimating” the HoT points, I’d expect the same of those who claim EoTN added more.

104 rezz shrines in open world. I think I missed some since i wasn’t concentrating. My estimation was 75 shrines for open world. For dungeons you can use this one: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dungeon
For example: http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c5/Ooze_Pit_Level_1.jpg -> 6 shrines.
I know each level has at least one rezz shrine. Otherwise it would be a gameover when you die, which only happens in elite-areas like UW. I’m counting 49 dungeon levels. So my estimation of ~50 wasn’t bad. On some cards you can’t see the rezz shrines, feel free to do the dungeons and count them yourself. I checked 7 dungeons on a quick research I’m at 52 rezz shrines. There are 18 dungeons, so i didn’t even checked half of them. My estimation seems to be solid. There are now 156 “proven” shrines.
As I said: those numbers are nonsense. He tried to score a goal and killed a whale at the northpole while beeing in southafrica. His numbers are completly wrong. Do you say after elections “president XY gained 50 Billion votes, there are 7 billion people on earth so the results might be slightly wrong but its the best result we got?”.
Why does he even start counting outposts, but doesn’t count maps?

104 rez shrines in open world or in EoTN, he is not counting the WPs and POIs from the rest of Tyria.
Even if it’s EoTN only, then you’d have (finally, grats!) 1 of the compared elements in favor of EoTN, while the rest still favor HoT.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

Once again, there is no other way to compare exploration, feel free to provide another measurable method.

Remember: measurable, something we can all check just like landmarks.
A simple and more objective way would be to count the amount of maps. Ofc GW2 maps are more detailed, are bigger and even got several levels. I would double the amount of HoT maps because of that. I think open world content is comparable. There is a bit a lack of variety (less maps with reduced options, no snowy maps for example) in Hot, and a bit a lack of “easy going” maps. But it is still roughly comparable. But there are no dungeons. EoTN has 18. That makes a difference. And there is no hardmode.

Not objective, you’d double it, I’d multiply it by 10, someone else would multiply it by 15, heck someone might even divide it by 3.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

Meassured how? Bellyfeelings? rose-colored nostalgia glasses?

I linked you a screenshot of a unique place which is no landmark. As you would formulate it: those landmarkes are defined as landmarks measured by bellyfeeling.

And we could just as easily cherry pick places from HoT, where would that end? once again, not objective.

Jockum.1385:

If you want to make an objective comparision you would have to leave the landmarks out.

Sure, the second you provide an objective source of info to replace it. Since we don’t have anything better I’ll stick to what we have.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

Don’t see what nonsense we’re adding, don’t see the half of fictive content, I see an attempt @ objective comparisson and you’re just trying to refute it with non-objective means.

GW1 dungeon entrances, landmarks and mission entrances cannot be compared to POIs or Vistas.
On the other hand outposts (maps) were counted. But world maps weren’t. So its quite obvious here is somebody just making numbers up to prove his point without even trying to be objective. A whole city like LA or rata sum equals a POI?

It’s on the exploration aspect, I already explained this point above, feel free to go to the original topic (the one with maddoctor’s post in it) where almost everyone who didn’t like the numbers tried to use this argument and it was shot down multiple times.

Jockum.1385:

To be honest: thats so obviously wrong. He didn’t even count GW2 “mission entrances”. I think he just tried to make some numbers for GW1 up. Would look bad if he says “195 for HoT, zero for GW”. So invent a few numbers for the GW side, leave comparable “dangerous” numbers out and gg. There is a reason why he didn’t counted the numbers of rezzshrines. Or why he counted heropoints but left skillcaps in EoTN out.

You think he made it up? you can check these on the wiki, once again, we’re talking about an objective source of info here, reality not being on your side doesn’t make it made up.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

While you’re at it make sure you count every champion or challenging veteran in HoT, good luck.

I was refering to “hero challenges”. Not to bosses. You can’t start counting skill unlocks on one side and don’t count them on the other side. That’s very obvious. So you would have to remove the hero challenges from HoT’s score. So 155 points for HoT.

Why would you remove these bosses? this makes no sense.
He counted GW1 skills and GW2 HPs, why would he… but… I don’t even…..

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

one missing category does not refute everything.

It does when this categorie adds more than 150 points to you result of 75.

The missing EoTN bosses category adds 150 points? please provide your source.

Jockum.1385:

It’s, as I said, not only one missing category. You have to remove hero points.

Because it’s not good for you, you’ve not provided a valid reason.

Basically you have to remove vistas and POIs and landmarks and dungeon/missionentrances too.

Same as above.

Jockum.1385:

No one would compare 4 maps with 116 (!!!) POIs and Vistas to 33 landmarks on 77 (!!!) maps. (15 world maps, 13 outposts, 49 dungeon maps). It’s quite obvious that you can’t compare 29 points per map with 0,4 points per map. This is why it was summed up. Otherwise no one would take this comparision serious.

This is the 3rd or 4th topic where these numbers show up, plenty of people have taken it seriously, noone has refuted it with numbers yet, everyone ends up using special pleading (your post is full of this fallacy) to support the “EoTN rules!” crowd.

Jockum.1385:

Raziel.4216:

It doesn’t have to cause a dramatic change to count as content.

So a new buffood is new content for you? And can be compared to new skills?

Putting words in my mouth- after filling your post with 2 of the most commonly used logical fallacies out there- does not make your reply look better.

Last reply here if the next post is filled with more special pleading, gotta deal with plenty of that in the anti-vax fb pages, don’t need it in GW2 forums too.
Going in circles makes the topic boring.

Some people loved Factions. Some people hated Factions (we even see that in this thread).

I finished Factions on well over 20 characters. It was my second favorite expansion. I actually liked Eye of the North better.

That said, Factions was far far smaller than the original game, it included some pretty bad grinds, and there were a number of smaller annoying things about it (I’m looking at you Kaineng Center).

I didn’t really like the city bits much, but I loved the Jade Sea.

The bottom line is, its’ all just a matter of taste. A lot of people complained about Factions being too small btw, or beating it to fast.

It looks to me like Anet has the tendency to overcompensate. Complaints about the first game was that it was too long/too slow. Factions came out and leveling was MUCH faster and the game was much shorter. A complete over-reaction to the criticism.

People complained that core tyria was too easy. Anet over-compensated by raising the difficulty on everything. Again, you can see it.

Hell even people complained Guild Wars 1 had no jumping…and look at what they did with jumping in Guild Wars 2.

Some people claim Anet doesn’t listen to the fan base. I think sometimes they listen a bit too much.

Vayne.8563:

Some people loved Factions. Some people hated Factions (we even see that in this thread).

I finished Factions on well over 20 characters. It was my second favorite expansion. I actually liked Eye of the North better.

Maybe I should rename this thread to “How to do an expansion: Just look at gw1” and use examples from Nightfall and EoTN too. Just used factions because it was the first expansion thus logically the easiest to compare it too. Not really fair to compare it to say eotn or nightfall b/c of all the previous content.

Personally I think factions story was second after prophecies, maybe tied or slightly ahead of eotn, with nightfall last. Varesh was just meh. Classes were cool and DoA was epic but story wise not to great till you get till about the end. Though EoTN did bring in the destroyers and the asura so that was cool.

However you look at it, each of the gw1 expansions had way more content, skills, skins, weapons, armor, dungeons, etc than HoT does.

Personally wouldn’t mind another “stand alone game” type of expansion, at least then the size of the game would be a “full game’s” worth.

Oh well here’s hoping for more living world/story content later to keep the expansion going.

Raziel.4216:

Manthas.6234:

Well, all Dawn of War expansions can also be played without original game, but yet, since they use the same engine in the same universe, they are expansions of essentialy the same game. Expansion is an expansion, standalone or not. Read the definition, it’s free on the internet.

Did that game’s devs call it an expansion?
Did that game’s devs state that it had ONE expansion only and that all the other ones were stand-alone campaigns?
What characterizes an expansion is that it adds content to an already released game, it expands and improves an already existing product.
Notice an already released game, it’s an addition, not something you can play on your own without taking the previous game into account.
Can you play legacy without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play awakening without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play HoT without taking the already released game into account? No.
Can you play factions without taking the already released game into account? Yes. Even the games you use support my argument instead of yours, lol.

It gets even better, did the company that created both Factions and HoT clearly state that HoT is an expansion like EoTN and not it’s other stand-alone campaigns? Yes.
In other words, did the devs themselves tell you that factions & nightfall are different from HoT? Yes.
Why you insist on comparing’em is beyond me.

Manthas.6234:

That “objective stuff” you stick to, are nothing more than uncomparable numbers compared. I don’t really feel like supporting claim, which has already been supported in the original thread.

According to whom? based on what evidence?
It’s the best attempt at comparing different expansions taking into account all the stuff they provided, feel free to provide (on a case-by-case basis) a complete argument that disproves it.

Basically, you say, that Factions is not an expansion because the devs said so. Yeah, devs love customers like you, because they can do the thinking for you. Everybody wins, you don’t have to think and developers are not hearing complaints.

The ability to play the expansion without the original game was never the deciding point whether the Factions is an expansion or not. The deciding point (at least to me) is: the game engine, gameplay mechanics and the game universe. Yes, Factions gives new campaign, but it still uses the engine, gameplay mechanics, classes, skills, etc. from Prophecies. Take all that away and Factions can’t really stand on it’s own.

To further my point even more, lets take EotN. On which of these 3 stand-alone games (Propchecies, Factions, Nightfall) does the EotN improve? At first, you could say that it expands Prophecies map, so it’s a Prophecies expansion. But then, take into account, that is also gives more skills and armor to classes not featured in Prophecies, which means that EotN improves GuildWars as a whole game. Whole game, which already had two expansions.

About that quote, ok, I’ll be generous and explain a few things which seems like a common knowledge to me.
First of all, when you are comparing different things, you can’t compare absolute numbers. It may seems objective, but it only gives false conclusions. It’s like saying that India’s population is more literate than Italy’s just because it has more literate people, while it only mean that India has bigger population.
Secondly, that quote compares waypoints like it has any indication at all. The number of checkpoints could only describe game’s difficulty level, not the level of content.
My suggestion would be: take vanilla GW2 and HoT, set the ratio on the numbers of maps, armor, whatever you like, and compare to the ratio of GW1 and any of its expansions. That ratio difference would determine how content rich each expansion is compared to their vanilla version.

Manthas.6234:

Basically, you say, that Factions is not an expansion because the devs said so. Yeah, devs love customers like you, because they can do the thinking for you. Everybody wins, you don’t have to think and developers are not hearing complaints.

Also according to the very definition of expansion and the comparison with other game’s expansions, including the ones you mentioned.
Small inconvenient detail that you forgot to mention there.
You’ve yet to refute any of that btw.

Manthas.6234:

The ability to play the expansion without the original game was never the deciding point whether the Factions is an expansion or not. The deciding point (at least to me) is: the game engine, gameplay mechanics and the game universe. Yes, Factions gives new campaign, but it still uses the engine, gameplay mechanics, classes, skills, etc. from Prophecies. Take all that away and Factions can’t really stand on it’s own.

The deciding point is the definition of the word “expansion”, the comparison with other game’s expansions, the very definition of videogame expansion and what the devs themselves say. Not one of the expansions mentioned in your first post support your position
That’s what decides it, not your bellyfeelings.

Manthas.6234:

To further my point even more, lets take EotN. On which of these 3 stand-alone games (Propchecies, Factions, Nightfall) does the EotN improve? At first, you could say that it expands Prophecies map, so it’s a Prophecies expansion. But then, take into account, that is also gives more skills and armor to classes not featured in Prophecies, which means that EotN improves GuildWars as a whole game. Whole game, which already had two expansions.

Easy! from the steam sale page:
“Guild Wars: Eye of the North is the first true expansion for the Guild Wars franchise, providing new content geared exclusively for level 20 characters.
Return to the battle-scarred continent of Tyria, home of the original Guild Wars campaign….”

Again, is the first true expansion for the Guild Wars franchise
From the factions release page:
Guild Wars Factions™, the second stand-alone release from developer ArenaNet®, features a new world, new mechanics, and new professions.
Stand-alone release.
Re-read, stand-alone.
Does not say expansion.

Again, Arenanet, the makers of the games you’re trying to compare disagree with you, but oh well you know better than the devs themselves right?
They call’em stand-alone releases, they make it clear that HoT is the first expansion to GW2 just like EoTN was to GW1, we even compared expansions to other games and none support your position, again:

Raziel.4216:

Why you insist on comparing’em is beyond me.

Manthas.6234:

About that quote, ok, I’ll be generous and explain a few things which seems like a common knowledge to me.
First of all, when you are comparing different things, you can’t compare absolute numbers. It may seems objective, but it only gives false conclusions. It’s like saying that India’s population is more literate than Italy’s just because it has more literate people, while it only mean that India has bigger population.

Like saying one expansion has more content than the other because it has more maps, instead of looking @ what’s in those maps?
No, we’d compare literacy rates that take into account the % of people in each country, likewise we’d compare stuff to do in each map, instead of saying “this one has 50 maps and that one has 4!”

Secondly, that quote compares waypoints like it has any indication at all. The number of checkpoints could only describe game’s difficulty level, not the level of content.
My suggestion would be: take vanilla GW2 and HoT, set the ratio on the numbers of maps, armor, whatever you like, and compare to the ratio of GW1 and any of its expansions. That ratio difference would determine how content rich each expansion is compared to their vanilla version.

Comparing GW2 (videogame) and HoT (expansion) is just as flawed as averything you’ve proposed so far.
Btw you’d have to compare GW1 with it’s one true expansion – according to Arenanet, the very definition of expansion, their marketing team on steam, their release page on GW, pretty much every official source of info – which is EoTN, not “any of its expansions”, it is not plural.

Raziel.4216:

104 rez shrines in open world or in EoTN, he is not counting the WPs and POIs from the rest of Tyria.

Ofc only EoTN. And as I said, there are still missing several shrines.

To be honest: I doubt any player who really got into GW1 buildcreating would doubt the bigger variety of GW1. There are hundreds of skills. Most veterans got huge lists of builds for different situations and are ofc still changing some smaller stuff. Even if they like GW2 more.
In GW2 I’m ok with way less builds. Maybe two for general PVE for a class. I’m not running like 10 different damage builds on my necro and 3 healing and 2 support builds for general PVE. Yes, that proves nothing. Its anecdotal. But I know both games pretty well. And I already gave you examples why I think the skill comparision is flawed.
I could add different new points like “you can use all 150 skills on your charakter which gives you a bigger variety than just 20 new skills on your charakter” Or “you can combine these skills and are not forced into a fixed skillset by your weapon or traitline”. Or “GW1 skills are more unique”.
You don’t need to agree on it and we both can agree on “we disagree”.

Raziel.4216:

And we could just as easily cherry pick places from HoT, where would that end? once again, not objective.

If you want to compare landmarks pick all HoT landmarks (I already linked you a GW2 landmark list) and compare them to EoTN landmarks. Then you can start a debate about it to see if there are locations which should be added to the wiki. Afaik the wiki-team is always glad about helpful hands and I know for at least the german wiki that forum debates have lead to changes to the german GW1 wiki. After this process you can start to compare the amount of landmarks. I tried to find HoT landmarks in the wiki. I might have missed some by fast clicking through it.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Landmarks
But I only found one landmark for HoT. In the end your result would be “HoT/EoTN offers more landmarks than HoT/EoTN”. More unique locations are an important factor, so this would be a strong argument pro/contra HoT. Other factors like the amount of maps or dungeons or story-parts are, ofc, also important. You can just say that Game XY is in this aspect better/has more to offer.

Raziel.4216:

It’s on the exploration aspect, I already explained this point above, feel free to go to the original topic (the one with maddoctor’s post in it) where almost everyone who didn’t like the numbers tried to use this argument and it was shot down multiple times.

The “exploration” effect is questionable. For an explorator a city like rata sum (even in GW1) has a bit more to offer than a simple POI. He spends more time to explore a whole city than he spends to explore a single POI. If you want to put such stuff in numbers it is common to add “weight factors”. For example when you measure inflation. There are weight factors on products. And the results are not as objective as the numbers try to tell you. Everyone who works a little bit with numbers can tell you that you can easily manipulate numbers to make them good looking. Drop all the people who gave up on searching a job out of the unemployrates. “only X% are searching for a job”. But maybe twice as much are unemployed. Put people into schooling programs when they are unemployed – and define them as “in schooling” and not “searching for a job” and you halfed your numbers again. Sometimes units are missing. Or you see people saying “we halfed our CO2 footprint”. Yes, but your Car is still producing twice as much as every other car. Numbers are easy to manipulate.

Raziel.4216:

You think he made it up? you can check these on the wiki, once again, we’re talking about an objective source of info here, reality not being on your side doesn’t make it made up.

I think he choosed what to compare with what. He selected. I doubt there is a wikipage telling him to compare POIs which towns.
He choose to compare these selected stuff. So what is the result of is comparision? HoT offers more POIs, Vistas, heropoints and waypoints while GW1 offers more landmarks, dungeonentrances, and towns? That is the result of his comparision. Great.
Anything else is caused by a false conclusion.
There is a simple saying “garbage in, garbage out”. If you add the wrong data your results are garbage. You cannot enter temperature values instead of velocity.
To come back to GW2: if you add instead of POIs (temperature) whole towns (velocity) you will get garbage results. That’s what I’m trying to tell you since my first post here. And you have to be careful with the other comparisions too.
For example the skins. It is ok to compare the amount of different skins for each race. Your result is the amount of skins Anet produced. But for many players it doesn’t matter. They are looking for a new outfit and only one small aspect of these produced outfits is available for them. So it is true that Anet produced a lot of different skins for HoT. But it can also be true, that EoTN offers for a single player a bigger variety (idk, I haven’t checked the numbers). So: both can be true at the same time. That’s something you have to be aware of if you do such a comparision.

Why would you remove these bosses? this makes no sense.
He counted GW1 skills and GW2 HPs

I think you don’t know GW1. To explain it: to use an eliteskill you have to unlock it. To do so you have to go to a boss, kill him and then you can unlock the eliteskill for this charakter. It is very similar to heropoints where you have to do the same.
It is very difficult to compare since there are bosses with double elites, you don’t have to kill all of them. But you also don’t need to do all heropoints. Here is a list (german, all bosses on the linked side are EoTN bosses) of the EoTN bosses: http://www.guildwiki.de/wiki/Bosse_%28Eye_of_the_North%29
But as you already said: from an exploration view you would want to experience every boss. So we would have to compare it to all HoT Bosses. So:
you can compare all bosses of EoTN with all bosses of HoT and come to the conclusion that one side has more bosses to offer. But you can’t start counting skill unlocking mechanisms for one side and don’t count if for the other side. Either don’t count skill unlocking for both side or count it for both sides – but then you have to start counting HoT bosses.

Raziel.4216:

The missing EoTN bosses category adds 150 points? please provide your source.

I was refering to the missing 156 rezz shrines. But there are also ~150 bosses in EoTN which are used to unlock elite-skills. Which are also left out in his comparision while he counted skill unlocking for HoT.

This is the 3rd or 4th topic where these numbers show up, plenty of people have taken it seriously, noone has refuted it with numbers yet, everyone ends up using special pleading (your post is full of this fallacy) to support the “EoTN rules!” crowd.

I counted these number myself. You can check them yourself. If you don’t own EoTN I gave you a rough estimation. An estimation is always good to check if results are reasonable. You can also check the dungeon numbers yourself. I linked you the page from which you get access to each dungeonmap and where you can count them yourself.

I think you got me wrong.
To make it clear: I’m sure EoTN offers more content. BUT I’m here just trying to show you, that your quoted comparision is garbage. I’m not here to say that EoTN is superior.
If you go back to my first post you will see that I’m basically saying “you cannot compare it in such a manner” and “its about the feeling”. Players don’t care about numbers. When you feel entertained you enjoy the game. When you feel there is much to explore you are satisfied. You can try to put it into numbers to make a comparision. But your quoted comparision is flawed. So it doesn’t prove anything. Neither that HoT offers more content, nor that EoTN does.
My point is: don’t use such flawed comparisions. No numbers are still better than completly wrong numbers.

I do not get why it is flawed to compare expansion and “stand-alone” game when both actually cost the same (HoT was not cheaper than Factions or GW2 initially).

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

BrbTea.3805:

I do not get why it is flawed to compare expansion and “stand-alone” game when both actually cost the same (HoT was not cheaper than Factions or GW2 initially).

Because an standalone has to offer low-level areas. This is (imho) the reason for the fast leveling in factions: Anet didn’t want to create many low-level areas which tend to be boring for max. level chars.
So: a standalone offers more low-level content, an expansion can focus on endgame content. The amount of maps, dungeons etc. can be the same, but its usually max. level content.
The advantage of a standalone is: you don’t have to buy the original game. Expansions are usually only bought by your active playerbase, an standalone can add new players. This is why Anet was loudly announcing Factions and Nightfall as standalone. “hey, you don’t have to buy prophecies. You can only buy factions and play the game”.
This is also the reason why Anet added GW2 classic to HoT. New Gamers are not scared away by a huge paywall, they don’t have to buy two games. So basically HoT is a bundle of a standalone and a expansion.

Manthas.6234:

What the devs say about their game is marketing. A business plan. Anyone can advertise a glass of juice as an elixir of youth and raise the price. Thing is, while you are drinking an elixir of youth, I am drinking a glass of juice.

We agree to disagree then, I follow objective & verifiable evidence.
Does faction meet the criteria for expansion, when compared to expansions from many games, including the ones you mentioned? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes
Does faction require an original game (base characteristic of any expansion)? No
Do EoTN and HoT? Yes

You’ve not refuted anything, not even your own examples which were easily turned to support my position, instead of yours. It all adds up to “screw the facts, I say it’s an expansion so it has to be one!”.

The whole GW1 series, whether you call them expansions or not, were basically more of the same. There was no huge change in difficulty level or game meta. Hence, they were popular and well-received by the bulk of the regular players. HoT seems to have been a month ’s worth of distraction for a portion of the player base and then lots of them seem to have gone back to core.