Guild Wars 2

As great as the expansion sounds, the fact is we aren’t getting information fast enough. I was having trouble putting my finger on why I’m slowly caring less and less about the expansion and GW2 in general, but this is it.

We’ve gotten little to no information since they announced the expansion about any of the functionality of the new specializations or mastery system, just small peeks at areas that are insignificant or insubstantial (like WvW maps). All the players have to rely on are bits and pieces datamined from beta patches.

TL; DR: I can’t be excited if I have nothing to be excited about.

McNinja.5417:

TL; DR: I can’t be excited if I have nothing to be excited about.

Who cares? You’re still going to buy the expansion. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The information is probably coming slow because they don’t have anything concrete to give. For example, It wouldn’t be much of a blog post if all they did for the specialization for the Mesmer was “the Mesmer specialisation is the Chronomancer and they use a shield”.

The bits given in the Revenant blog were given because they were happy with them parts.

TheDaiBish.9735:

The information is probably coming slow because they don’t have anything concrete to give. For example, It wouldn’t be much of a blog post if all they did for the specialization for the Mesmer was “the Mesmer specialisation is the Chronomancer and they use a shield”.

The bits given in the Revenant blog were given because they were happy with them parts.

Think about what you’re suggesting, though.

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table. They don’t know that they can really pull off what they expect without breaking the code, they don’t know if they can get it anywhere close to right. Telling us anything at all about an expansion at that stage is questionable at best, and it would also mean that they’re expecting us to just do nothing new in the game while they leave the story stuck on a cliffhanger for … what? A year to make all the stuff and get it working? A year wouldn’t be unreasonable at all for that amount of work.

-or-

They’re further along than they’ve stated. Much, much further. They play up how much they have left to do, to make it sound like the big stuff is still up in the air, but it’s not. It’s decided and mostly coded, with just detail work and testing to do now. They’ll have the expansion out in a few months, instead of the year or more that their statements would suggest. They just don’t want people to realize that they have once again been cut out of any real input into major changes in the game. They don’t want players to realize that the guild CDIs and such were made to fish for people saying what they wanted to hear, so they’d have someone to blame for bad choices when/if the time comes and the design stinks. We might get to inspire a few detail changes, but the big stuff is all set in stone already.

So, which do you think? Are they really only able to say “Mesmer specialization will be Chronomancer, and it uses a shield”, or are they playing us while much further along than they’ve let on?

Or maybe they’re not evil manipulators, and they do have things reasonably far along, but they’ve been burned by announcing things as subject to change that then do change and everyone says “But you saaaaaaid.”

I do wish for more information as well so I can understand the whole “less info = less hype” however I do not want them to start releasing info about things that are not concrete yet. While a lack of information does suck I would hate it even more if one week they release info on druids and 3 weeks later they come around and say “we decided to completely overall the druid” and then we have another wait on what the new info is.

I do wish they will get everything in a decent state to begin releasing info because in all honesty today’s post did feel like more of a recap instead of new info, but I do not want them to rush info and change halfway though.

Donari.5237:

Or maybe they’re not evil manipulators, and they do have things reasonably far along, but they’ve been burned by announcing things as subject to change that then do change and everyone says “But you saaaaaaid.”

Exactly. Look at what happened when Ascended tier gear was introduced. Sooooooooooooo many people moaned and groaned about how they said they wouldn’t introduce a gear grind. Even though Arena Net’s main goal for it was trying to implement items that took people more than just a couple hours (if even that long) to obtain. Exotics were too easy to obtain, and still are, to feel like meaningful progression. Also we have never had a tier increase since.

I’m glad they introduced Ascended because it gives people a sense of progression for obtaining items over a decent amount of time. Some people don’t enjoy it. But the way in which people called out Arena Net for it feels overboard and something they do not want to deal with again.

Palador.2170:

TheDaiBish.9735:

The information is probably coming slow because they don’t have anything concrete to give. For example, It wouldn’t be much of a blog post if all they did for the specialization for the Mesmer was “the Mesmer specialisation is the Chronomancer and they use a shield”.

The bits given in the Revenant blog were given because they were happy with them parts.

Think about what you’re suggesting, though.

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table. They don’t know that they can really pull off what they expect without breaking the code, they don’t know if they can get it anywhere close to right. Telling us anything at all about an expansion at that stage is questionable at best, and it would also mean that they’re expecting us to just do nothing new in the game while they leave the story stuck on a cliffhanger for … what? A year to make all the stuff and get it working? A year wouldn’t be unreasonable at all for that amount of work.

-or-

They’re further along than they’ve stated. Much, much further. They play up how much they have left to do, to make it sound like the big stuff is still up in the air, but it’s not. It’s decided and mostly coded, with just detail work and testing to do now. They’ll have the expansion out in a few months, instead of the year or more that their statements would suggest. They just don’t want people to realize that they have once again been cut out of any real input into major changes in the game. They don’t want players to realize that the guild CDIs and such were made to fish for people saying what they wanted to hear, so they’d have someone to blame for bad choices when/if the time comes and the design stinks. We might get to inspire a few detail changes, but the big stuff is all set in stone already.

So, which do you think? Are they really only able to say “Mesmer specialization will be Chronomancer, and it uses a shield”, or are they playing us while much further along than they’ve let on?

I agree with those two reasonable possibilities, though with perhaps a different outlook. I think it is either:

1) ANet doesn’t want to reveal all of the information before HoT release. This means that they may or may not be nearly done. Their objective could be to further the hype by providing limited-content betas and incomplete feature reveals prior to release, and in doing, so forcing players to buy the expansion to get all of the details.

2) They have a long ways to go before completion and simply don’t have much finalized information to give us yet.

I can hope that (1) is the case, but even so, that would not guarantee a near-future release date for HoT. I agree that, regarding case (2), it may not be reasonable to have announced an expansion with no new in-game content until it releases much later. If I recall correctly from the base game betas, ANet didn’t want to reveal everything and the betas had pretty strict level caps (so things like Orr and Zhaitan were not seen by players until release). In this case, we may be given only an overview of specializations and may not get the full details until HoT releases, for example.

Need I remind you guys that they did the same thing with GW2? Truth be told, I’m surprised.

You’ll probably see one blog post per week revealing something, as long as they aren’t at a Trade Show or other event, such as Pax East and the one in England, then you’ll get nothing new that week, since a portion of the team that might post a blog would be in those locations…and the information they’ve given out isn’t enough for you so far?

Palador.2170:

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table.

Do you really have any doubt that ArenaNet’s situation is exactly what you have described above?

Think about it. ArenaNet is probably under pressure to make profits, after the China release – that made them stop to make content for the existing markets – underperformed. They haven’t figured out how to release new content – the idea of a Living World was shot down when players realized it meant very little permanent content, so ArenaNet changed their model from Season 1 to Season 2. And yet, they didn’t implement many of the things they said they would add to the game through the Living World (such as new legendaries, new professions, regular updates with new skills and traits, and so on). And now, Season 3 has shifted again – after telling us they wouldn’t need an expansion since they could release everything through the Living World, here comes an expansion!

They clearly have no idea of what they’re doing.

ArenaNet is very likely panicking and trying to adapt what would have been Season 3 into an expansion, making a package with what would have been a few Feature Packs, and desperately running to make more content players would strongly desire – like the new profession and specializations – before their money runs out.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the specializations were still in a very early stage, and they didn’t even know how players would unlock them, or what exactly they would change in the existing professions.

I don’t believe they’re panicking, if anything they have said, and it has been shown to be true so far, that they are a very iterative company. I think this is one of their greatest traits.

There’s a reason Ascended armor and how long it takes to craft was introduced into the game, because there’s a large amount of players that enjoy taking a while working towards something, that’s also why they are introducing pre-cursor crafting. People like to be able to work for something in game, even if it takes them a decent amount of time to complete. That adds longevity, which is what a lot of players want (and so does the company).

The non-permanence of Living Story Season 1 was absolutely not working, somebody who hasn’t played for months gets to come back to a game where just a few maps have changes but no actual new content for them to play because they missed it. The only kind of people who benefited from the Season 1 style were players who constantly were available all those times the content was released.

This clashes greatly with Arena Net’s earlier style that you can drop the game for a couple months and come back to new stuff and a changed world to play in, which Season 1 did not have that effect. The only way to get items from season 1 now is to buy from a laurel vendor currently, I doubt many people find that fun.

Season 2 definitely has that intended effect of taking a break and coming back to play. People who took a break from the game get to come back to two new maps since season 1 ended, along with all the story instances and items that become available. And to top it all off one of the biggest changes is Lion’s Arch, probably the most popular hub city for all GW2 players, in a destroyed state.

Also now with the introducion of having an expansion. So many people have been asking for GW2 to include an expansion because expansions come with a lot of new features and content. They revitalize interest in the game for existing players and draw in new ones. It’s almost like a time for festivities in the MMO world.

Arena Net may make a lot of changes to the features and direction of their game but it always ends up being better than before. The Sylvari redesign, account bound dyes, wardrobe system, transmutation overhaul, the TP graphical UI redesign and Idk whatever else they’ve introduced since the last time I’ve played.

Test.8734:

Palador.2170:

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table.

Do you really have any doubt that ArenaNet’s situation is exactly what you have described above?

I’m hoping that’s not the case, because that would be a Very Bad Thing for both ANet and the entire Guild Wars franchise.

Besides, if that was the situation, the higher-ups would have to know how bad it is. We’d be seeing some of the big names getting off of the ship before it sinks, right?

Palador.2170:

Besides, if that was the situation, the higher-ups would have to know how bad it is. We’d be seeing some of the big names getting off of the ship before it sinks, right?

Chris Whiteside, the Studio Designer Director, has just left ArenaNet…

He left so that he could become an independent consultant. I’m sure he makes more money this way (as well as having more say in the matter) and it doesn’t prevent him from working with Arena Net in the future as a consultant. If he left on bad terms I’m sure he would publicly state it, just like Omeed Dariani did when he decided to leave EQ Next.

But that isn’t the case with Chris, he only had good things to say after being free from the company.

Mar, what you’ve just outlined is called professionalism and PR speak. We have zero idea about the actual situation there. Having said that, I have no reason not to take the situation at face value so I will accept his word.

If they don’t have any new or concrete info to give us, fine, but what’s killing the excitement for me is the constant drip of info. Most of the time what they do give us is not really news or is so vague that it’s almost like no news. I get it, it’s an expansion that they are still working on. They don’t want to backtrack and make false promises, fine. Then just leave it be until you have some actual news you are willing to release, because right now I don’t read any of it. If it’s exciting enough news, the forums will tell me I’m missing something.

I thought they will drop it in the store for easter (or just the pre purchase) but i was wrong.
Anet do things as slow as possible with max hype. Its policy and marketing. Maximal profit with the least work. Its not good for players but good for the company

Palador.2170:

TheDaiBish.9735:

The information is probably coming slow because they don’t have anything concrete to give. For example, It wouldn’t be much of a blog post if all they did for the specialization for the Mesmer was “the Mesmer specialisation is the Chronomancer and they use a shield”.

The bits given in the Revenant blog were given because they were happy with them parts.

Think about what you’re suggesting, though.

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table. They don’t know that they can really pull off what they expect without breaking the code, they don’t know if they can get it anywhere close to right. Telling us anything at all about an expansion at that stage is questionable at best, and it would also mean that they’re expecting us to just do nothing new in the game while they leave the story stuck on a cliffhanger for … what? A year to make all the stuff and get it working? A year wouldn’t be unreasonable at all for that amount of work.

-or-

They’re further along than they’ve stated. Much, much further. They play up how much they have left to do, to make it sound like the big stuff is still up in the air, but it’s not. It’s decided and mostly coded, with just detail work and testing to do now. They’ll have the expansion out in a few months, instead of the year or more that their statements would suggest. They just don’t want people to realize that they have once again been cut out of any real input into major changes in the game. They don’t want players to realize that the guild CDIs and such were made to fish for people saying what they wanted to hear, so they’d have someone to blame for bad choices when/if the time comes and the design stinks. We might get to inspire a few detail changes, but the big stuff is all set in stone already.

So, which do you think? Are they really only able to say “Mesmer specialization will be Chronomancer, and it uses a shield”, or are they playing us while much further along than they’ve let on?

I’m going with the second possibility. Mostly because I am hype and want the expansion to come out, but also because they tend to be vague with new releases these days. At launch they gave so many details about upcoming features that it led to lots of “Anet lied to us!” threads if any minor thing changed. Hopefully they are closer to done.

Also… would they really give us a demo/stress test if they had almost a year of coding left?

Ok. Let’s imagine the expansion is going to come out in August. Let’s imagine they gave you absolutely all the information on the first day they announced it. There would then have been a 7 month gap with no new information.

Seriously, think about it before you post. If you’re having only small things to be excited about now, you would have nothing to be excited about the other way.

@Olvendred: That’s true but that’s not what we’re asking for, if for instance they were to release in August and take the suggestion that someone said to reveal one Specialization every other week then that means they will have 18 weeks (just about 4 months and 2 weeks) of steady, hype-filled information. This is not even including things like Guild Halls, Challenging Group Content, and they could even delve into talking about more Adventures.

They definitely seem to have more than enough information to go steady for about 6 months or so. People are just unsure of why they have been so light on providing additional, more in-depth, overviews on topics most requested by the community and why has the last few weeks been so full of recaps and WvW/PvP. Not to dismiss those communities but things like Specializations will affect all aspects of the game. On top of that the majority of topics not yet discussed are fully PvE like Guild Halls, Adventures, and Challenging Group Content.

I mean it could be they wanted to get the WvW and PvP stuff out of the way and will now focus on the PvE aspects but so far in terms of PvE it’s just been a recap of what is known so far and the Personal Story overhaul (which while good, is not very exciting compared to the other things they can talk about).

Exactly, that’s been my problem too. It was this huge todo and then suddenly nothing. There was like this big storm that moved through the area and then nothing but waste afterwards with only the crickets in the background. Even those who were invited to cover the announcement have not posted anything at all about what’s going on in the game since there’s only their general gameplay posts about what it’s like now.

I’m starting more and more to believe that they had Season 3 of LS done, or almost done, but then they made a change of plans and made from Season 3 an expansion, and they just started adding new things like specializations and Precursor.

The info they gave us until now is no info at all. The only new thing we learned was the Revenant…and well some playersa ctually got a chance to play the class.

They are stalling with posts about ArenaNet employes, and recap posts…and the last one? about making most of maguma jungle? nothing new…they already said that much when they announced the expansion.

If you did pay attention you would have noticed that besides the revenant and WvWvW map, everything else they said, was said before at PAX or idk what other game show. Think about it…

And it only makes sense, they had Season 3 or most of it anyway, and they started working on the expansion not so long ago, otherwise there would be no need for stalling like this.

And also “A handfull of legendaries?” they can’t even release all of them? we have 3 skins for the Greatsword Legendary now…and the others have just 1 skin (yes i know that the 3rd one is a combination of the two…but it still counts as a skin)…. and now maybe i won’t get a chance to make a new dagger or sword for few months after the relsease of HoT cause those weren’t in the “handfull”

I was really hyped about the expansion, but now with the hype going down, i’m starting to see more and more of the truth like many other players.

Don’t get me wrong i’ll buy the expansion, even if it is 60 bucks…i got a lot more out of GW2 then i got from any other game i every bought or played(free mmos). I have well over 1000 hours of GW2 and i enjoyed every minute of those.

I just wish ArenaNet wouldn’t treat us like this…deciving the player base.

Akagami.9861:

I’m starting more and more to believe that they had Season 3 of LS done, or almost done, but then they made a change of plans and made from Season 3 an expansion, and they just started adding new things like specializations and Precursor.

I think they had Season 3 planned, not exactly done, but I agree with everything you said. The expansion feels like Season 3, which is basically what they have talked the most about, with a few extras so we feel it’s an expansion. And it’s noticeable how the specializations, one of the things that feels the most like “expansion-like” content, have not been mentioned and likely not well developed yet.

On the topic of the Legendary weapons, I’m going to stick to my theory that they may need some parts of the story released in order to obtain the components for some of the Legendaries, thus why just a handful will be available at launch.

Just look at how WoW has been doing their Legendaries recently, it requires pretty much all raids to become available over the course of an expansion and one simply works toward completing each “phase” or step until the next one is revealed.

Just a theory anyway.

Lack of information is normal around these parts . . . until around the week or so of release.

Mar.4839:

@Olvendred: That’s true but that’s not what we’re asking for, if for instance they were to release in August and take the suggestion that someone said to reveal one Specialization every other week then that means they will have 18 weeks (just about 4 months and 2 weeks) of steady, hype-filled information. This is not even including things like Guild Halls, Challenging Group Content, and they could even delve into talking about more Adventures.

They definitely seem to have more than enough information to go steady for about 6 months or so. People are just unsure of why they have been so light on providing additional, more in-depth, overviews on topics most requested by the community and why has the last few weeks been so full of recaps and WvW/PvP. Not to dismiss those communities but things like Specializations will affect all aspects of the game. On top of that the majority of topics not yet discussed are fully PvE like Guild Halls, Adventures, and Challenging Group Content.

I mean it could be they wanted to get the WvW and PvP stuff out of the way and will now focus on the PvE aspects but so far in terms of PvE it’s just been a recap of what is known so far and the Personal Story overhaul (which while good, is not very exciting compared to the other things they can talk about).

exellent point. take, for example, SWtOR. Last expansion, during it’s development, every Friday they had a dev video where one developer and one customer rep showed a class with its new shiny skills and how they looked/interacted with each other. not only was it fun, not only did it give people currently playing something to look forward too, but it got people excited. this string of extremely thin and veiled glimpses I feel is going a bit too far…they are not giving people enough info to keep them jazzed.

For lack of a better description, they put the carrot too far ahead…the gravy mule has slowed down now, as it doesn’t think it can reach the carrot. they need to dangle a bit more in front of us. I’ve been playing MMO’s for long-um time, and i was actually suprised for the first time with this release. saw some of the info, looked for more stuff coming out…and there was none. makes me feel allot like evercrack 2 the never-releasing…

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years. Development isn’t just coding and artwork, there’s a hundred other things that go into it, starting from a broad generalization of what they’re looking to do with the expansion…then you start working from there. (The following is only used for an example and in no real way describes how a novel is written[though some are written this way])It’s like writing a novel, you write an outline of what the story is going to be in general, then you divide up into chapters and write an outline of what each chapter will entail, then you start the actual writing of each chapter.

Now, take the above and figure out how you would want to release a few detail of said “novel”, enough to entice people to get excited about, but not to much to spoil the entire thing and no one wants to “read” it?

{Answer this yourself, if you’re capable}

McNinja.5417:

just small peeks at areas that are insignificant or insubstantial (like WvW maps).

i’d just like to point out that while insignificant/insubstantial to you, it doesn’t mean it is for everyone. specializations and wvw are literally 90% of my hype for the new expansion. I could absolutely care less if there are no new dungeons however, for example.

Also, directed to where this thread is heading… is it really worth complaining about how subpar an expansion is going to be, before it even comes out? maybe i’m just an optimist, but i’m going to wait until it releases, or we get a lot of information on it before making my judgements. and to be honest, most of the information they HAVE released, excites me greatly

and while i would personally love to get all the information immediately… i’m not going to judge them for not doing it. I’m not a market specialist, I don’t know anything about building hype for the masses, so I don’t know what decisions they’re making either.

Zaklex.6308:

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years.

Source?

Because I doubt very, very much that’s true.

Considering how what we will get doesn’t appear to be more than Living World Season 3 with a few extras, and how ArenaNet claimed they won’t manage to even release more than a “handful” of legendaries, if that’s the best they can do after 30 months, I would be extremely disappointed.

Test.8734:

Zaklex.6308:

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years.

Source?

Because I doubt very, very much that’s true.

Considering how what we will get doesn’t appear to be more than Living World Season 3 with a few extras, and how ArenaNet claimed they won’t manage to even release more than a “handful” of legendaries, if that’s the best they can do after 30 months, I would be extremely disappointed.

I don’t have any source, but I do remember hearing that the expansion had been planned for a very long time. whether it’s actually been in development or not idk, but you have to remember all the temporary content in the form of living world season 1. that was basically an expansions worth of work, at the least.

(it may have been the angryjoe interview with colin? i can’t specifically remember)

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

Test.8734:

Zaklex.6308:

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years.

Source?

Because I doubt very, very much that’s true.

Considering how what we will get doesn’t appear to be more than Living World Season 3 with a few extras, and how ArenaNet claimed they won’t manage to even release more than a “handful” of legendaries, if that’s the best they can do after 30 months, I would be extremely disappointed.

I don’t have any source, but I do remember hearing that the expansion had been planned for a very long time. whether it’s actually been in development or not idk, but you have to remember all the temporary content in the form of living world season 1. that was basically an expansions worth of work, at the least.

(it may have been the angryjoe interview with colin? i can’t specifically remember)

I may be wrong, but i’m almost sure that Colin, or someone from Arena Net stated about a year ago, maybe less maybe more, that they have no Expansion on the table, they did not plan for one, and are not planing to do in the imediate future…and they happend to do after all quite soon.

If you think they have been working on an expansion for 2.5 years, you’re gonna have a bad time. MAYBE they started working on it after the China Release…maybe…

No company works for 2.5 years on an expansion….well no AAA company anyway

Yall trippin, Arena net isn’t gonna give us what we want. They’re going to give us what we need, so get on the welcome wagon and let it happen.

The reason is simple:

If they announce that something will be in the game, such as Mesmer Shield, then they have to commit to it because they said it. So Mesmers MUST have a Shield. If somehow a better idea pops up later for Mesmer, like Mesmer Dagger, then they cant just come in and say Mesmer wont have Shield anymore and have Dagger instead, after getting people hyped about Mesmer Shield.

P.S: A Mesmer wielding a Shield is only seen in the trailer. They never “announced” it. So they can still give Mesmer a different weapon and claim the Shield thing was just “artists having fun animating the trailer”. There are skills in the GW2 trailer from 3+ years ago that are shown and did not make it into the current game.

It isnt wise to commit to something that has not undergone thorough testing and that you are not yet satisfied with to show. The second advantage is that, if they get an unanimous(or majority) negative feedback from something they hinted at, they can still change it and are not committed to putting it into the game.

However, this also gives us a hint as to how much they have worked on so far, and how much they still have to work on. This also gives us an estimate on when HoT will be released.

Akagami.9861:

MAYBE they started working on it after the China Release…maybe…

This is what I heard or at least, that they only seriously started development after the China release.

Diovid.9506:

Akagami.9861:

MAYBE they started working on it after the China Release…maybe…

This is what I heard or at least, that they only seriously started development after the China release.

That would make sense. I got the impression that GW2 is kind of an odd duck in the Chinese market, so going for a more standard expansion is a good way to boost things there. Doing story in one big chunk also allows for less time spent on translation and voice acting (as you don’t need to keep calling them back in every few weeks), which I’m sure their China partners pushed for.

Test.8734:

Zaklex.6308:

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years.

Source?

Because I doubt very, very much that’s true.

Considering how what we will get doesn’t appear to be more than Living World Season 3 with a few extras, and how ArenaNet claimed they won’t manage to even release more than a “handful” of legendaries, if that’s the best they can do after 30 months, I would be extremely disappointed.

My source is Colin Johansen, in, without looking, one of the many interviews he gave after the announcement at PAXSouth, and for those that doubt it’s been in development that long…reread my earlier post: not once did I say it was a main focus, all that time, all I said was that’s in been in the planning stages since just after GW2 was released. Marketing 101, if you’re working on something and you don’t want anyone to know, tell the customers that you have no plans on ever doing the one thing you know they want the most…I know that and I never took Marketing 101.

Palador.2170:

TheDaiBish.9735:

The information is probably coming slow because they don’t have anything concrete to give. For example, It wouldn’t be much of a blog post if all they did for the specialization for the Mesmer was “the Mesmer specialisation is the Chronomancer and they use a shield”.

The bits given in the Revenant blog were given because they were happy with them parts.

Think about what you’re suggesting, though.

If they’re really not all that far along with making the specializations, then they’re talking about an expansion that they can’t promise to bring to the table. They don’t know that they can really pull off what they expect without breaking the code, they don’t know if they can get it anywhere close to right. Telling us anything at all about an expansion at that stage is questionable at best, and it would also mean that they’re expecting us to just do nothing new in the game while they leave the story stuck on a cliffhanger for … what? A year to make all the stuff and get it working? A year wouldn’t be unreasonable at all for that amount of work.

-or-

They’re further along than they’ve stated. Much, much further. They play up how much they have left to do, to make it sound like the big stuff is still up in the air, but it’s not. It’s decided and mostly coded, with just detail work and testing to do now. They’ll have the expansion out in a few months, instead of the year or more that their statements would suggest. They just don’t want people to realize that they have once again been cut out of any real input into major changes in the game. They don’t want players to realize that the guild CDIs and such were made to fish for people saying what they wanted to hear, so they’d have someone to blame for bad choices when/if the time comes and the design stinks. We might get to inspire a few detail changes, but the big stuff is all set in stone already.

So, which do you think? Are they really only able to say “Mesmer specialization will be Chronomancer, and it uses a shield”, or are they playing us while much further along than they’ve let on?

I am not sure about their coding practices but usually I have the general shape of the program early on. Even at the requirements stage you know what the customer wants, even if it is not realistic. I may not know exactly how I am getting there but I have some target to code to and whether or not a major requested feature is probable or not.

Unless they are using the “throw code at the problem and hope something sticks” approach.

Zaklex.6308:

Test.8734:

Zaklex.6308:

For the millionth time, they started design on this expansion as soon as or very soon after(if not maybe slightly before) GW2 was released in August 2 and half years ago, so the expansion itself has been in development for 2+ years.

Source?

Because I doubt very, very much that’s true.

Considering how what we will get doesn’t appear to be more than Living World Season 3 with a few extras, and how ArenaNet claimed they won’t manage to even release more than a “handful” of legendaries, if that’s the best they can do after 30 months, I would be extremely disappointed.

My source is Colin Johansen, in, without looking, one of the many interviews he gave after the announcement at PAXSouth, and for those that doubt it’s been in development that long…reread my earlier post: not once did I say it was a main focus, all that time, all I said was that’s in been in the planning stages since just after GW2 was released. Marketing 101, if you’re working on something and you don’t want anyone to know, tell the customers that you have no plans on ever doing the one thing you know they want the most…I know that and I never took Marketing 101.

I’m just gonna go ahead and say: You are really really really really wrong.

And i’m a nice guy so i’m gonna tell you why too: ArenaNet wanted to try something different, a different aproach for mmo’s, and while i appreciate them for that, and it is one of the reasons why i love GW2 so much…it failed, first they tried the Season 1 of LS, every 2 weeks new content, but it meant that the old content was taken out. THIS WAS A LIVING WORLD, things change, they never remain for late comers…

But that was also the problem, imagine everyone that had an GW2 account when they started with the episodes, started doing them, every 2 weeks…every single player(imagine they were all 80 with at least 1 character) and it could’ve worked quite well(again ignoring personal problems, holidays, school, work…people just found time to play the episodes before being taken out)

The problem consisted in people that were coming in, just like myself at say…idk episode 3?episode 5? 7? They already missed the few episodes, and by the time they learn what’s up with the game and reach 80 they loose 1-2 more episodes.

In a MMO this aproach doesn’t work.

So we got Season 2, ofc it was kinda better, but the world wasn’t so…living anymore, and people complained about the 200 gems, in case they didn’t log in for a whole 2 weeks.

And in this end this plan failed too…but allowed them to test some things, SilverWaste/Dry Top maps…and Luminecent collection…also maybe a new curency? geodes/crests.

The main reason they switched to an expansion like content is this: There is no subscription to the game, besides the few million copies sold, and some players buying some gems…there was no income for ANET….and a MMO of this complexity doesn’t just…make it somehow…it either makes money or fails.

ANET noticed that players feel entitled to everything for free…(OMG HOW DARE THEY ASK ME FOR 200 GEMS TO PAY FOR ONE EPISODES….THIS IS STEALING…OMG) this meant they couldn’t introduce new features for a price…cause they would have a mob with fire and forks and pointy stuff ready to take ANET down…

But you know what people are used to pay for? EXPANSIONS….ignoring the few people that live in a far far fantasy world and they think that Expansion should be free…ingoring them…. most of us are used to paying for expansion…

So it’s like this: 200gems for one episodes? GREEDY CORPORATE kittenS
60$ for an expansion? cool…when can i preorder?

ANET did try to do something different, it didn’t work…i appreciate the effort put into the game…

But one thing is clear, THEY HAD NO INTENTION of making an expansion, they avoided it at all costs, and in lack of any other way they had to go back to the old ways.

This is why i said MAYBE they decided to go with an expansion after the China Release, or during Mid Seasons 2 LS….

You can ignore the facts as long as you can, and close the eyes as hard as you can…but this is the truth…and i’m not saying it’s something bad…but those are the facts…

cheers

They will not post blogs about specializations until they are ready to let us test it in beta or the stress tests. They also do not want to give us everything too soon. They will want to pace the info so that we are not left hanging for ages while they test and iterate things.

The blog posts and the beta content will likely go hand in hand for some time, until they get to a state where they are ready to release the expansion. We will get more info each week, and some of that info will be determined by what we will get to play with in the tests.

I didn’t take the time to read all the replies but I’m sure someone has said this…from a business marketing stand point it would be foolish to open the hype gate this soon..by the time the game released interest would be stymied quite a bit. Marketing is a fine art…while people are saying they are losing interest they are still here talking about it…they are still telling friends,and people have already come back in droves. So now they just have to drip info until youre just about bored then a huge info dump which will tide folks over till release. Also if there is a NDA..once that drops all the sites and podcasts carry they hype train to launch.

Akagami.9861:

I’m just gonna go ahead and say: You are really really really really wrong.

And i’m a nice guy so i’m gonna tell you why too: ArenaNet wanted to try something different, a different aproach for mmo’s, and while i appreciate them for that, and it is one of the reasons why i love GW2 so much…it failed, first they tried the Season 1 of LS, every 2 weeks new content, but it meant that the old content was taken out. THIS WAS A LIVING WORLD, things change, they never remain for late comers…

But that was also the problem, imagine everyone that had an GW2 account when they started with the episodes, started doing them, every 2 weeks…every single player(imagine they were all 80 with at least 1 character) and it could’ve worked quite well(again ignoring personal problems, holidays, school, work…people just found time to play the episodes before being taken out)

The problem consisted in people that were coming in, just like myself at say…idk episode 3?episode 5? 7? They already missed the few episodes, and by the time they learn what’s up with the game and reach 80 they loose 1-2 more episodes.

In a MMO this aproach doesn’t work.

So we got Season 2, ofc it was kinda better, but the world wasn’t so…living anymore, and people complained about the 200 gems, in case they didn’t log in for a whole 2 weeks.

And in this end this plan failed too…but allowed them to test some things, SilverWaste/Dry Top maps…and Luminecent collection…also maybe a new curency? geodes/crests.

The main reason they switched to an expansion like content is this: There is no subscription to the game, besides the few million copies sold, and some players buying some gems…there was no income for ANET….and a MMO of this complexity doesn’t just…make it somehow…it either makes money or fails.

ANET noticed that players feel entitled to everything for free…(OMG HOW DARE THEY ASK ME FOR 200 GEMS TO PAY FOR ONE EPISODES….THIS IS STEALING…OMG) this meant they couldn’t introduce new features for a price…cause they would have a mob with fire and forks and pointy stuff ready to take ANET down…

But you know what people are used to pay for? EXPANSIONS….ignoring the few people that live in a far far fantasy world and they think that Expansion should be free…ingoring them…. most of us are used to paying for expansion…

So it’s like this: 200gems for one episodes? GREEDY CORPORATE kittenS
60$ for an expansion? cool…when can i preorder?

ANET did try to do something different, it didn’t work…i appreciate the effort put into the game…

But one thing is clear, THEY HAD NO INTENTION of making an expansion, they avoided it at all costs, and in lack of any other way they had to go back to the old ways.

This is why i said MAYBE they decided to go with an expansion after the China Release, or during Mid Seasons 2 LS….

You can ignore the facts as long as you can, and close the eyes as hard as you can…but this is the truth…and i’m not saying it’s something bad…but those are the facts…

cheers

I think you are on the money (pun intended). also i agree with you in that they failed to deliver their idea of living word.
Although as i stated some time ago i think this was because they didn’t go for a real living world and they instead tried to do some semi scripted episodes like a if this would be a Tv show.

I said before, if they designed the game as a real living world this could have been much more fun. If the play would have been similar to WvW in Pve but against the AI instead other players (or having like two game factions so even could have other players as enemies) we wouldn’t seen this kind of moves.
It wouldn’t required so much maintenance in terms of scripting once it’s set up, and the team could have been more focused in bugs fixing and art for the gem store.

Other paths could have been used to monetize like no-fixed skills (weapon and utilities) that you could learn the same as traits (defined by the class indeed) , and some skill skins (same as with the weapons) that could give more colour and variety to the game.
Armour and weapons skins are ok but grow old fast, and the lack of skills variety “you are a warrior and you are doomed to use a bunch of skills we all know and see before and won’t change” put together with the grind&respawn standard mechanics makes the game become repetitive really fast.

This is an interesting thread. Anet clearly has internal test servers and builds where these things exist – where else did they get the video footage from months ago? They absolutely have enough information to start sharing some of it.

The only concerning thing to me isn’t that they don’t have things figured out, but that they are intentionally spreading out info because the release date is still a long way out.

Roe.3679:

The only concerning thing to me isn’t that they don’t have things figured out, but that they are intentionally spreading out info because the release date is still a long way out.

This doesn’t concern me, as I would rather they took the time to get it right than rush it and release it with problems. Patience is a virtue, and in good game design its a necessity.

Rin.1046:

Roe.3679:

The only concerning thing to me isn’t that they don’t have things figured out, but that they are intentionally spreading out info because the release date is still a long way out.

This doesn’t concern me, as I would rather they took the time to get it right than rush it and release it with problems. Patience is a virtue, and in good game design its a necessity.

I want the same thing too, but I’d be annoyed that they announced an expansion in January and didn’t release it until November.

The way I see it is the betas don’t have an NDA, and betas will take place roughly 2 months before release. So if the release date is August, they have 2 months from now to give out info on their terms and take credit for all of the work, which I’m sure they want to do. Plus that maintains hype.

Anet is all about not talking about it until it’s ready, but they talked about it months ago. That’s my only point, really.

Rin.1046:

Roe.3679:

The only concerning thing to me isn’t that they don’t have things figured out, but that they are intentionally spreading out info because the release date is still a long way out.

This doesn’t concern me, as I would rather they took the time to get it right than rush it and release it with problems. Patience is a virtue, and in good game design its a necessity.

I agree, i’d rather wait some extra time for some qualtity content instead of a faster rushed out the door just for the sake of getting an expansion out.

What really gets on my nerves is how they made it sound like it’s almost done, and we will be filled with information week after week about every single thing…and how much they have to tell us and share with us…and then go radio silence….this is what annoys me.

They made it sound at the very beggining like the expansion is almost out the door, they were like “You will read a lot of new things in the weeks to come and then get to play it soon” and we get Devs bio, and recap of everything they already said at PAX…

that’s a new low and it was a bad idea…

I think they might have pushed the Expansion anouncement a little too soon just to get some publicity at PAX, and other gaming gatherings…and with the weekend sales they actually got some new ppl interested and some old ones back into the game aswell. But all this at the cost of our morale…the faithfull players, that play daily and enjoy the game…in doing so they kinda ruined our morale a little.

My morale is not dented in the slightest. I am as excited about HoT as the day they revealed it. And in the meantime I continue to enjoy the core game.

I am really keen to read about specializations and guild halls. But I am also ok with waiting for the info to be released, because I know they will release it when they are ready to do so.

I have a feeling we will start to get some more juicy info very soon, we just need to be a little more patient.

Honestly, I’m running out of ideas of filler info they could give us. To be fair though, I didn’t expect a story recap or a summary of all the info we already knew from the past two weeks. It’s just the more they push out the meaty bits, the farther off I assume it’s going to be, or the less hyped I’m going to be because they still haven’t bothered to mention it yet.

1 week of finishing up the rev (still have two more trait lines, the other weapons, and 2-3 more legends, depending if one of the 3 data mined was for the spec)
9 weeks of specialization (they could theoretically do 2 specializations a week though. I really wish they’d give an example of how a profession mechanic will change.)
1-3 weeks of guild halls (how to build them, what can you do with them, what kind of customization, etc.)
2-3 weeks of mastery lines (still haven’t shown any info on fractals, and there has to be more than just 2 lines for the core game)
[~15+ weeks]

“filler-ish stuff”
0.5-1 week for adventures/activities (polymock?)
2-3 weeks of showing off the other biomes, we still only know about the upper? one. I can see them filling a week or two showing off the other ones. I still don’t know if each biome is it’s on “instance” or is it one huge vertical map with no loading in between, can you fall from the tree tops into kitten and end up in the bottom layer? On top of that they’ve still just shown us 1 small area of 1 map, they can also tease us with other maps.
1-2 weeks showing off other wyvern style fights/discussing “challenging group content”
1 week showing off the new legendaries and discussing how we get/craft those
0.5-1 week showing off new armor/weapon skins (glider skins?)
0.5-1 week maybe hinting at what stuff in the core game will give mastery points
0.5-1 week teasing at what the future story will be (outside of the first mission which we’ve seen in the beta). I guess you can also throw in learning more about the NPCs of the area too, and what other “allies” we can make cough mursat cough.
[~6 weeks]

And any other “filler” that I can’t think of.
———————————————————

So, ~21 weeks of my very rough (low ball?) estimate of new stuff they can tell us. Either, way I do think they’ll announce something decent today/this week because they had 2 almost no content weeks. Actually, I can see also see it being next week, just so it can coincide with a POI/Ready Up vid to showcase what they will reveal.

Ugh, all this waiting just makes me wish other people enjoying the LW as much as I did. We could easily have fit a LW Season 3 (and maybe even start 4) in the time it’s gonna take before HoT launches.

They are doing the same things as they have done in the past putting out info that you must look for and not told out right. So the info is there we just need to find it.

Jski.6180:

They are doing the same things as they have done in the past putting out info that you must look for and not told out right. So the info is there we just need to find it.

Read this a few times…it doesn’t mean anything no matter how i look at it…idk what you wanted to say…you didn’t in any case.

Also i’m being pesimistic…maybe next time we’ll get a recap of the recap of what we know until now xD or maybe another dev bio…ohh geee how i love those…but this time about the person that wrote the other dev bio…

Akagami.9861:

Jski.6180:

They are doing the same things as they have done in the past putting out info that you must look for and not told out right. So the info is there we just need to find it.

Read this a few times…it doesn’t mean anything no matter how i look at it…idk what you wanted to say…you didn’t in any case.

Also i’m being pesimistic…maybe next time we’ll get a recap of the recap of what we know until now xD or maybe another dev bio…ohh geee how i love those…but this time about the person that wrote the other dev bio…

Its called “read the forms.” There a lot more info out there then the dev post.