Guild Wars 2

some times it just feel like a major patch of another game…..?

How about we wait until it is released?

come on anet, i would pay 60 dollars for an actual good content packed expansion

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole week devoted to each one of them.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

To be fair, there may be other reasons for that. Such as that some of them are not yet in a state to be shown (like the Revenant’s other legends). Alternatively this might just be chosen as a strategy to maintain hype.

I’m not saying they won’t be a big deal. I mean with a new weapon, a new healing skill, new utility skills, a new elite skill, new traits and a changed profession mechanic they sound like quite the big deal.

Diovid.9506:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

To be fair, there may be other reasons for that. Such as that some of them are not yet in a state to be shown (like the Revenant’s other legends). Alternatively this might just be chosen as a strategy to maintain hype.

I’m not saying they won’t be a big deal. I mean with a new weapon, a new healing skill, new utility skills, a new elite skill, new traits and a changed profession mechanic they sound like quite the big deal.

They are almost entirely new classes. It pains me when people say things like “Mesmer gets shield, only 2 abilities wtf Anet.”. Clearly, not everyone keeps up with the latest info.

DiogoSilva.7089:

There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

hmm interesting, where was this stated?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

DiogoSilva.7089:

There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

hmm interesting, where was this stated?

Pax East interviews

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

How about we wait until it is released?

100% this.

No possible judgement can be passed until it’s out and being played by the masses. None at all.

We can speculate, we can contribute constructive ideas…but it is simply is not possible to judge the scale or quality of the expansion at this stage when so much detail is yet to come and it isn’t even out yet!

Also, I recommend playing a Lotro expansion and seeing how small and insignificant expansions can really be sometimes..

How about we trust Anet and let them do what they do. You’ve played this long give it time. I’m sure Anet has our and their games best interests in mind.

MiniEquine.6014:

They are almost entirely new classes. It pains me when people say things like “Mesmer gets shield, only 2 abilities wtf Anet.”. Clearly, not everyone keeps up with the latest info.

what? no they’re not. and i seriously doubt that we’ll be getting anything remotely resembling a different class mechanic. we already know that. they went ahead and said it that the druid will have pets. so, no new mechanics, at best, i suspect, it will be variations on the main mechanic. if you seriously think that you’ll get “almost” 8 new classes, to go with that revenant’s 1 full class + 1 almost (rev spec) i fear that you’re in for a huge disappointment my friend.

on another note, why we’re so afraid to say how things are? let’s face it, they took a gamble with the living story, the felt they could sustain the game like that. it didn’t work out, profits went down. so, expansion. but they just don’t have enough time to make a proper one. so we’re getting a feature pack (a very good one i hope), a new class picked from one of their 18 class ideas they had at the early stages of gw2 development, and they rolled the living story season 3 into that. we’ll get the 3 or 4 zones we’d be getting via living story but in a better shape and in higher quality and some nice mechanics to keep us busy while they work on an actuall expansion after this one. don’t get me wrong, it’s gonna be fun and all, but don’t get your hopes up so much. it’s better to be pleasantly surprised, than painfully let down.

A week per specialization reveal doesn’t necessarily mean there’s an entire week’s worth of information to post about each one. Just that the reveals will be spaced out one per week.

Too soon to tell.

I think it’s an expansion more in the sense that it sets up the foundations to expand the game from there on. Not in the sense of actual amount of content, which is not little though, in my opinion.

Khenzy.9348:

I think it’s an expansion more in the sense that it sets up the foundations to expand the game from there on. Not in the sense of actual amount of content, which is not little though, in my opinion.

Isn’t that just a beautiful way of saying you will be paying for nothing.
ill see how many content it actually has on release, if it is only as many content as a major patch that other games get every three month for free but for 60 dollars then i’ll rethink the purchase.

lighter.2708:

Isn’t that just a beautiful way of saying you will be paying for nothing.
ill see how many content it actually has on release, if it is only as many content as a major patch that other games get every three month for free but for 60 dollars then i’ll rethink the purchase.

I would love to see all these other games that give major patches every three months for free actually.

lighter.2708:

ill see how many content it actually has on release, if it is only as many content as a major patch that other games get every three month for free but for 60 dollars then i’ll rethink the purchase.

It has been very strongly implied that we’re supposed to be expecting a quality over quantity deal here. If that doesn’t work for you then so be it.

evilunderling.9265:

lighter.2708:

ill see how many content it actually has on release, if it is only as many content as a major patch that other games get every three month for free but for 60 dollars then i’ll rethink the purchase.

It has been very strongly implied that we’re supposed to be expecting a quality over quantity deal here. If that doesn’t work for you then so be it.

sure i rephrase myself
if it is only as many content (implies quality content) as a major patch that other games get every three month.

If GW2 can actually delivers content that is way superior then other MMO’s expansion, then sure, 3 years after release is fine. But so far, nothing really that interesting.

Scourge.1563:

How about we trust Anet and let them do what they do. You’ve played this long give it time. I’m sure Anet has our and their games best interests in mind.

I would have said the same thing 1.5 years ago.

Now, not so much.

lighter.2708:

some times it just feel like a major patch of another game…..?

One theory is that, after investing so much on the China release last year (I’m sure most here remember how ArenaNet mentioned they were busy with it and so couldn’t make content for us at the time) only to see GW2 underperform in China, and making changes trying to increase the amount of unique log-ins per day (see the current reward for just logging in the game)… ArenaNet became desperate, so they decided to take what was originally intended to be a couple feature patches, plus a sketch of season 3, and expand it into something that would give them more money.

Thus how small the expansion appears to be. It would be more a last, desperate effort while trying to prevent key people (like the Lead Producer) from leaving the company, than something carefully planned and polished.

But of course, that’s just a theory.

Test.8734:

Thus how small the expansion appears to be. It would be more a last, desperate effort while trying to prevent key people (like the Lead Producer) from leaving the company, than something carefully planned and polished.

Chris have not been a lead producer for a very long time. Yes, it is a big loss, but people keep claiming ArenaNet lost something they didn’t actually lose.

They have stated multiple time since more or less release that they have big projects working in the background. It is very likely that this is one of these projects.
We also know that the Sylvari thing was planned from the start and yes, while it is fully possible that they could deliver it with the Living Story system, it is unlikely that it would work out well.

Hmm from what ive seen this isn’t anything as small as people are making it out to be. And speculating at this point seems….pointless.

What we know. There is going to be a specialization for each class as well as a change in how there class mechanic functions. (Druids may have a pet but id be willing to bet f1-f4 arent the same as they were before..or if they are then they will combo with additional factors).

Each specialization will have a new trait line replacing one of the old. (Most likely the class specific train lines such as, Beast Master…Soul Reaping..Virtue..etc.)

Each Specialization will heave a new heal,utility set, and elite tied to it. As well as a new weapon that enables that specializations specific archetypal fighting style. (Note specializations will not be FORCED to use this fighting style.)

There will be a new class. The Revenant along with its own specialization.

The new maps will largely vertical. meaning how it looks on the map will NOT be indicative of how much content the maps contain. The addition of Outposts..map wide meta event chains.. and the vertical nature of the map itself will allow for ALOT of content to be smashed into a relatively small horizontal space without feeling crowded.

Each Map will apparently have its own overriding mechanic in and of itself. (The day night cycle was referred to multiple times. Where the events, enemy strength, and overall feel of the map itself will be radically different from one phase to the other.) Offering additional value provided there done correctly.

The Mastery system itself will actually provide alot of replay value itself. (A map is gonna feel ALOT different trudging along on the ground vs gliding from the canopy down over the battlefields down to kitten in a cliff that will take you down to the roots where additional content is waiting. This also means they can put in even MORE content in relative close distance to other events that can only be reached,completed after youv attained the necessary abilities.)

The new WvW map seems to be quite large in and of itself. With lots of different areas that will promote different fighting styles. (I saw multiple places in the trailer that looked GREAT for zerg fighting and a few places that favored smaller groups as well)

All im trying to say is. If you look at it on paper it looks like were actually gonna have ALOT of content to dig through. But thats only on paper of course. Its impossible for ANYONE to say for certain aside from arena net themselves how much were getting. And anyone claiming they “know” or there “certain” how things are going to turn out are talking out of there kitten unless they have actually played the game.

So lets leave conversations like this until we actually KNOW for sure whats going to happen. As speculation at this point only pushes expectations one way or the other in further extremes. Eventually reaching a point far away from what the truth really is.

they really need to keep the updates interesting.
i mean, the game is amazing, or even the best i would say..a lot of people loved it upon release…but left after, because of the lack of quality updates.

FF14 got it’s first big patch 3 month after release introducing new dungeon, player housing, 24 men raid, new bosses. and they keep getting similar or more content (2 new classes included) every 3 months, while still having small quest story patch/updates, and also an expansion that will be releasing before HoT, even FF14ARR is released 1 year after GW2.

Sure i’m not asking as much quality updates as FF14ARR, because that is sub based.
but i mean come on….at least make the expansion epic..

I’ll be hoping and waiting, don’t disappoint me Anet…

as far as FF14 goes. I imagine they were working on those features before the game even released. And the reason it wasn’t released with the proper is either A. A marketing decision in the hopes of getting people to mention it in exactly the way you just did.
Or B. A practicality issue. The features werent ready by the inteded release date.

Second. Your right in that it being a subscription game impacts how much content they release and how quickly. But in more than the way you think it does. Namely they HAVE to release content that quickly. They don’t have a choice in the matter. Subscription Fees are a double edged sword. If you expect someone to eventually pay 2-3-4 or even 5+ times the box value of the game you have to justify that cost. One of the reasons many people like gw2 is you can actually set the game down when there isn’t large amounts of content you havnt done yet and eventually come back and do it…for free. This “THEORETICALLY” allows them to take the time to make sure what features they DO add are added in the way they need them to be. This expansion I believe is a big example of that.

Third. I have seen no indication that this expac wont be epic. I also havnt seen more than the normal advertisements in support of the idea that it WILL be epic. I will wait until more of the features are explained in full before making my judgement on that. As I feel so should most of us.

However. And most importantly I agree with you 100% on your last line. Im fully HOPING this is as epic as it SHOULD be. Or atleast paves the way to something equally epic. Im hoping my jaw will drop at some point by the end of this road.

lordkrall.7241:

Test.8734:

Thus how small the expansion appears to be. It would be more a last, desperate effort while trying to prevent key people (like the Lead Producer) from leaving the company, than something carefully planned and polished.

Are we in bizarro world now? Are you saying that ArenaNet did not just lose Chris Whiteside, who was Lead Producer?

I am pretty sure Chris Whiteside’s title is (was) and had been Studio Design Director for quite some time.

The position of Production Lead is/was held by:

Production Leads

Jay Adams
David Hasle
Brandon Rose

It seems Chris did formally hold that title, but as long as I have seen him post on the forums, his title was Studio Design Director.

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_credits#Production_2

Test.8734:

lordkrall.7241:

Test.8734:

Thus how small the expansion appears to be. It would be more a last, desperate effort while trying to prevent key people (like the Lead Producer) from leaving the company, than something carefully planned and polished.

Are we in bizarro world now? Are you saying that ArenaNet did not just lose Chris Whiteside, who was Lead Producer?

So Chris is in charge of overseeing a project. That’s what producers do. And you know, I’m going to miss Chris a lot, but I’m not sure that producers ever get heavily involved in the actual work of producing something. Not to mention, I’m not sure that Chris is the lead producer of Heart of Thorns. That is to say, it’s a new expansion.

Chris seems to have been more involved in the original while completely different people were working on Heart of Thorns. Do we even know that Chris was heavily involved in it?

It’s entirely possible that Chris was handing Guild Wars 2 and someone else is lead producer for Heart of Thorns.

Do you know, or are you guessing?

Diovid.9506:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

To be fair, there may be other reasons for that. Such as that some of them are not yet in a state to be shown (like the Revenant’s other legends). Alternatively this might just be chosen as a strategy to maintain hype.

I’m not saying they won’t be a big deal. I mean with a new weapon, a new healing skill, new utility skills, a new elite skill, new traits and a changed profession mechanic they sound like quite the big deal.

Besides what he said about maintaining hype, they could also be stretching out their development cycles.

Think about it, there are 8 classes +1 coming, total of 9… they’re going to spend 9 weeks releasing weekly information about the specs. 9 weeks is just a bit more than 2 months.

Not sure how they will be able to maintain the hype when (I personally believe) game will probably be released mid to end of summer. Weekly information is nice and all but yeah…

Zero Day.2594:

Diovid.9506:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole weak devoted to each one of them.

To be fair, there may be other reasons for that. Such as that some of them are not yet in a state to be shown (like the Revenant’s other legends). Alternatively this might just be chosen as a strategy to maintain hype.

I’m not saying they won’t be a big deal. I mean with a new weapon, a new healing skill, new utility skills, a new elite skill, new traits and a changed profession mechanic they sound like quite the big deal.

Besides what he said about maintaining hype, they could also be stretching out their development cycles.

Think about it, there are 8 classes +1 coming, total of 9… they’re going to spend 9 weeks releasing weekly information about the specs. 9 weeks is just a bit more than 2 months.

Not sure how they will be able to maintain the hype when (I personally believe) game will probably be released mid to end of summer. Weekly information is nice and all but yeah…

But most people don’t follow the game as closely as people who visit forums all the time do. Surely most players seldom visit forums or websites. Not everything is done for us, because we are definitely the minority.

If you have stuff shown once a week or every week, it gets more attention at more fan sites. Which means people who more casually follow stuff are likely to see something that piques their interest.

Having something at MMORPG.com every week for 9 weeks is more exposure, whether it bothers the people that follow religiously or not.

Vayne.8563:

Test.8734:

lordkrall.7241:

Test.8734:

Thus how small the expansion appears to be. It would be more a last, desperate effort while trying to prevent key people (like the Lead Producer) from leaving the company, than something carefully planned and polished.

Are we in bizarro world now? Are you saying that ArenaNet did not just lose Chris Whiteside, who was Lead Producer?

So Chris is in charge of overseeing a project. That’s what producers do. And you know, I’m going to miss Chris a lot, but I’m not sure that producers ever get heavily involved in the actual work of producing something. Not to mention, I’m not sure that Chris is the lead producer of Heart of Thorns. That is to say, it’s a new expansion.

Chris seems to have been more involved in the original while completely different people were working on Heart of Thorns. Do we even know that Chris was heavily involved in it?

It’s entirely possible that Chris was handing Guild Wars 2 and someone else is lead producer for Heart of Thorns.

Do you know, or are you guessing?

Out of curiosity, where have you read anything I have written saying that Chris Whiteside was the Lead Producer of HoT?

Because other than that, everything you said above was just displaying how you really don’t know and are just guessing. It looks like your last question is a good fit for yourself – and we already know the answer, don’t we? It’s always the same.

more like Feature Pack + New Story

Test.8734:

Are we in bizarro world now? Are you saying that ArenaNet did not just lose Chris Whiteside, who was Lead Producer?

I am just pointing out that Chris haven’t been a Lead Producer for quite some time. Thus him leaving now does not mean losing a Lead Producer, seeing as that was not his title.

I have same feeling. For what we seen its like 1-2 living story updates… But we didn’t pay for Living Story.

The explorable zone will not be big. The upper levels have to be full of holes for the Archeage copied glider to fly through.

dennie.9237:

I have same feeling. For what we seen its like 1-2 living story updates… But we didn’t pay for Living Story.

And what exactly have we seen?
Are you really implying that the very bite size demo for show floors encompasses everything there is and thats it?
The lot of you are bit too cynical for your own good.

I am not saying you should be hyped to high heavens but this mooding over “too little content” is just pointless at this point because we have no idea of the scope of the expansion and even when the betas roll out we still won’t have a clear picture so hold those cynical horses of yours and wait.

Ceta.6057:

The explorable zone will not be big. The upper levels have to be full of holes for the Archeage copied glider to fly through.

You don’t know. You haven’t seen anything. They have shown us one tiny corner of one tiny part of a map on one level of said map. You are making assumptions off of virtually no information.

lighter.2708:

they really need to keep the updates interesting.
i mean, the game is amazing, or even the best i would say..a lot of people loved it upon release…but left after, because of the lack of quality updates.

FF14 got it’s first big patch 3 month after release introducing new dungeon, player housing, 24 men raid, new bosses. and they keep getting similar or more content (2 new classes included) every 3 months, while still having small quest story patch/updates, and also an expansion that will be releasing before HoT, even FF14ARR is released 1 year after GW2.

Sure i’m not asking as much quality updates as FF14ARR, because that is sub based.
but i mean come on….at least make the expansion epic..

I’ll be hoping and waiting, don’t disappoint me Anet…

yeah its basically the same as to be happy about a dlc 3 weeks after release and ignore the fact that this could be in the game at release. doesnt people recognize that these examples always are short after release because it is content that just wasnt finished for release or hold back to make short sighted people happy with a fast big content patch a few months after?

If they give us new skills new utilities new traits then ok, but having only 1 weapon with no change to other things 60 € is just too expensive… 20€ should be the price.

Nabbis.8095:

dennie.9237:

I have same feeling. For what we seen its like 1-2 living story updates… But we didn’t pay for Living Story.

And what exactly have we seen?
Are you really implying that the very bite size demo for show floors encompasses everything there is and thats it?

And that’s why I said “For what we seen”.
One new location, with same mechanic as in SW, one class is not counting for hours of gameplay, not a single word about story, no raids, no dungeons.

Ragnarox.9601:

If they give us new skills new utilities new traits then ok, but having only 1 weapon with no change to other things 60 € is just too expensive… 20€ should be the price.

We already know that we will get new skills, new utilities and new traits.

PorceleinEve.2973:

MiniEquine.6014:

They are almost entirely new classes. It pains me when people say things like “Mesmer gets shield, only 2 abilities wtf Anet.”. Clearly, not everyone keeps up with the latest info.

what? no they’re not. and i seriously doubt that we’ll be getting anything remotely resembling a different class mechanic. we already know that. they went ahead and said it that the druid will have pets. so, no new mechanics, at best, i suspect, it will be variations on the main mechanic. if you seriously think that you’ll get “almost” 8 new classes, to go with that revenant’s 1 full class + 1 almost (rev spec) i fear that you’re in for a huge disappointment my friend.

on another note, why we’re so afraid to say how things are? let’s face it, they took a gamble with the living story, the felt they could sustain the game like that. it didn’t work out, profits went down. so, expansion. but they just don’t have enough time to make a proper one. so we’re getting a feature pack (a very good one i hope), a new class picked from one of their 18 class ideas they had at the early stages of gw2 development, and they rolled the living story season 3 into that. we’ll get the 3 or 4 zones we’d be getting via living story but in a better shape and in higher quality and some nice mechanics to keep us busy while they work on an actuall expansion after this one. don’t get me wrong, it’s gonna be fun and all, but don’t get your hopes up so much. it’s better to be pleasantly surprised, than painfully let down.

They have been working on this expansion for years. do you honestly think it took hundreds of anet employees to make the living world season 1 and 2 content over the last 2.5 years? They probably had like 20 developers working on that stuff while the rest focused on the expansion. Living story is just, and will continue to be, stuff we get to fill the gaps between expansions, which I love considering other mmos only release expansions then nothing new for 6-12 months.

Brother Dulfite.5793:

They have been working on this expansion for years.

Well.. not quite. As I understood it from interviews, Anet only seriously started working on the expansion after the chinese release.

do you honestly think it took hundreds of anet employees to make the living world season 1 and 2 content over the last 2.5 years? They probably had like 20 developers working on that stuff while the rest focused on the expansion.

The rest of the developers worked on bug fixes, balance fixes, testing, the chinese release, the feature patches, festivals, pvp tournaments and so on.

lighter.2708:

some times it just feel like a major patch of another game…..?

What game would that be? I’m genuinely curious.

Well, since the expansion is going to be the gate for all future living story content, you can look at it as not only paying for what you get day one of HoT launch, but everything that will be added between then and the next paid expansion.

If it helps.

PorceleinEve.2973:

MiniEquine.6014:

They are almost entirely new classes. It pains me when people say things like “Mesmer gets shield, only 2 abilities wtf Anet.”. Clearly, not everyone keeps up with the latest info.

what? no they’re not. and i seriously doubt that we’ll be getting anything remotely resembling a different class mechanic. we already know that. they went ahead and said it that the druid will have pets. so, no new mechanics, at best, i suspect, it will be variations on the main mechanic. if you seriously think that you’ll get “almost” 8 new classes, to go with that revenant’s 1 full class + 1 almost (rev spec) i fear that you’re in for a huge disappointment my friend.

How can you even claim this when everything they’ve said literally says they’ll be getting new mechanics? They are not a completely new class, but they are not going to be 2-5 new weapon abilities. We’re talking serious changes that would require you to switch between the specialization and the normal class in order to use either of them. We’ve already heard references to a Druid Ranger, we’ve seen the Hammer Engineer with floating drones (things normal engineers have neither of, including anything remotely related to melee skills since they have none), and we’ve seen the Shield Mesmer using their shield to do some butterfly thing, who knows exactly what that is.

Maybe some of the specs are less different from the original class than others, but they are a lot more different than you’re letting on, and there’s nothing backing up your statements, at least not from Anet.

Randulf.7614:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

How about we wait until it is released?

100% this.

No possible judgement can be passed until it’s out and being played by the masses. None at all.

We can speculate, we can contribute constructive ideas…but it is simply is not possible to judge the scale or quality of the expansion at this stage when so much detail is yet to come and it isn’t even out yet!

Also, I recommend playing a Lotro expansion and seeing how small and insignificant expansions can really be sometimes..

It’s understandable for players to have concerns too though. They announced Stronghold and the new WvW Borderlands maps with the HoT announcement and now we know that you won’t have to own HoT to get those. When you announce major features with the HoT announcement only to find out that HoT isn’t required for that it makes it feel like padding for the announcement.

I agree that we need to see the breadth of the release before jumping to conclusions, but healthy skepticism of a product is a good thing as well.

Because its perfectly logical to judge the amount of content the expansion has before we even play it.

dennie.9237:

I have same feeling. For what we seen its like 1-2 living story updates… But we didn’t pay for Living Story.

I feel the same way. But we won’t know for sure until we see it. If true, someone better have a fire extinguisher ready for when the forums ignite.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole week devoted to each one of them.

No they won’t be “bigger” or as grand as you want to believe. Also, doing a weekly review of each one is nothing more than the pr trickle they have always done.

lighter.2708:

some times it just feel like a major patch of another game…..?

I agree with this. If you look at anet’s development record you will see that small amounts of content are implemented, but they try to “stretch it out” with reward track, achievement and progress bar grinds. Even with china not sucking a ton of extra resources now, I don’t see this development philosophy changing anytime soon and certainly not for this xpac.