Guild Wars 2

This is true, you can not complete raids without buying the expansion that lets you walk through the front door.

Filling my car’s gas tank is also locked behind the paywall of owning a car.

Hahah these forums get funnier every day. Raids are one of the selling content for the expansion, what did you expect?

0.0? Blink…Blink

I agree with most of the posts here. Raids…or challenging group content (as it was referred to) has always been part of the advertised expansion content. If anything, this goes to answer those concerns about the amount of content in this paid expansion. For those that choose not to buy HoT, they will still have the same content that they paid for at launch…nothing about that content is diminished. Raids are new to this expansion and it only makes sense to lock them behind that wall.

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

No… I never said that… I said Core players should have raids that do not require HoT mechanics… do you even read?

Randulf.7614:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Absolutely 110% it should be expac only content. It’s a huge incentive for ppl to get HoT. This is how MMO’s work. You want the latest dungeon/raid, then you pay for it as part of the expansion. And we knew the challenging content was locked behind HoT since the announcement back at the beginning of the year.

The sheer amount of content available for free should be enough for those ppl unhappy.

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

No… I never said that… I said Core players should have raids that do not require HoT mechanics… do you even read?

I’m curious why you think the core game deserves additional content after having been used to pay for three years of free content.

Simply put, the core game is “content complete” at this point. The buy to play model necessitates that every so often you have to buy to play additional content.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Solomon. Nobody knows how the future of the game is going to go. yes, the first chunk of RAIDZ{!!!} will be expansion-exclusive. They have to sell copies of the expansion, and if they give absolutely everything in the thing away then ask for your fifty bucks as a goodwill donation…well, how’s that going to affect their ability to deliver future content?

Later on, after the new HoTness has faded somewhat? They may well add RAIDZ{!!!} into the core game. And remember – when the next expansion hits in three more years, Heart of Thorns itself will be added to the free-to-player’s repertoire. Mike O’Brian specifically said that he never wants players to have to buy more than one thing to get into the game, so when we go after Primordus or Kralkatorrik or Bubbles or what-have-you, then the Heart of Thorns content – including RAIDZ{!!!} will be thrown on the free-to-play pile with the rest of the core game.

Core players will get there. It’ll take them longer, but if they’re unwilling to so much as spare twenty bucks during one of ArenaNet’s frequent deep sales to snag a paid account and offer compensation for the hours of enjoyment they’re getting, then frankly I believe it’s fair to expect them to wait their turn while we pay their shot for them.

That’s my point. I just think Devs should offer some kind of clarification to those Core players so they know they won’t be left behind.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

No… I never said that… I said Core players should have raids that do not require HoT mechanics… do you even read?

The core itself is pretty much done with. A few enhancements here and there like the map rewards coming with HoT are pretty much all that that Vanilla GW2 is likely to expect.

Raids are selling points for expacs. If they wanted them with the core game, they’d have done it by now. All their resources will be dedicated to things like HoT/LW3/LW1 (re-done), new expacs which is an intensive enough schedule I’d imagine.

PopeUrban.2578:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

No… I never said that… I said Core players should have raids that do not require HoT mechanics… do you even read?

I’m curious why you think the core game deserves additional content after having been used to pay for three years of free content.

Simply put, the core game is “content complete” at this point. The buy to play model necessitates that every so often you have to buy to play additional content.

I’ve been playing for 3 years but not everyone has…

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

PopeUrban.2578:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

SkiTz.4590:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Your logic is flawed.

According to you, all HoT should be accessible to core players than right?? right??

I mean pfft, raids are a MAIN FEATURE to the xpac. One of the main attractions to this xpac….lets go ahead and make all the main attractions for core players than huh?

This is the way it is. If you want the new content that anet spent tons of time and resources on for free, you are going to be disappointed. Too bad if your guildies can’t shell out 50 bucks for the xpac. Their loss. Not Anets. Pony up and pay. Whining about it doesn’t help…

No… I never said that… I said Core players should have raids that do not require HoT mechanics… do you even read?

I’m curious why you think the core game deserves additional content after having been used to pay for three years of free content.

Simply put, the core game is “content complete” at this point. The buy to play model necessitates that every so often you have to buy to play additional content.

I’ve been playing for 3 years but not everyone has…

Yes, but they’re playing the completed content of core is the point.

(and they’re doing it for free at this point)

To be truly honest, I’m pretty alrighty with that. If raids are set in the areas of the map introduced with HoT it’s fitting.

I’m more annoyed that Masteries and Revenant, especially the latter, are HoT locked. Because those are features that accept core concepts of the gameplay.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

So there you have it people… you can’t progress in at least the first raid without having Gliding and mushroom masteries… Can we get a Dev to comment on this please? Though I LOVE end game progression and I my self have bought HoT, I think it’s a pretty horrible business decision to lock such a HUGE piece of content behind a paywall…

Umm…not sure where your outrage is coming from.

This is a huge boost in content…you think this should all be free? Please, let me know how you can pay all these devs with gem store purchases alone.

Also, yes, there will be the need to have masteries completed to some degree for raids. They said that you’ll have time to get this as raids will be released a while after HoT launches. This allows gameplay in raids to be more diverse and include more unique mechanics and will give players time to accrue these masteries so that they don’t have to sacrifice things like the legendary track to prepare for raiding.

If there are flaws in what ANet is doing with raiding, you’re not mentioning any of them here. These are good decisions.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Solomon. Nobody knows how the future of the game is going to go. yes, the first chunk of RAIDZ{!!!} will be expansion-exclusive. They have to sell copies of the expansion, and if they give absolutely everything in the thing away then ask for your fifty bucks as a goodwill donation…well, how’s that going to affect their ability to deliver future content?

Later on, after the new HoTness has faded somewhat? They may well add RAIDZ{!!!} into the core game. And remember – when the next expansion hits in three more years, Heart of Thorns itself will be added to the free-to-player’s repertoire. Mike O’Brian specifically said that he never wants players to have to buy more than one thing to get into the game, so when we go after Primordus or Kralkatorrik or Bubbles or what-have-you, then the Heart of Thorns content – including RAIDZ{!!!} will be thrown on the free-to-play pile with the rest of the core game.

Core players will get there. It’ll take them longer, but if they’re unwilling to so much as spare twenty bucks during one of ArenaNet’s frequent deep sales to snag a paid account and offer compensation for the hours of enjoyment they’re getting, then frankly I believe it’s fair to expect them to wait their turn while we pay their shot for them.

That’s my point. I just think Devs should offer some kind of clarification to those Core players so they know they won’t be left behind.

uhm, the Core players are already left behind the moment they announce the expansion. That’s it. Done. No more content for Core. All future content updates will require the expansion.

If they haven’t played for 3 years yet, they can still enjoy all contents currently in Core without paying anything else for 3 more years or more.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Randulf.7614:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Look folks… normally I’m on your side on these types of discussions lol but to me Raiding SHOULD NOT be expansion only content. Anything that requires a group shouldn’t be. It’s exclusionary for a MYRIAD of reasons.

Absolutely 110% it should be expac only content. It’s a huge incentive for ppl to get HoT. This is how MMO’s work. You want the latest dungeon/raid, then you pay for it as part of the expansion. And we knew the challenging content was locked behind HoT since the announcement back at the beginning of the year.

The sheer amount of content available for free should be enough for those ppl unhappy.

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

Well raiding isn’t really a “fundemental” part of gw2. It’s something new coming with the expansion, but it’s not a fundemental part of this game, of other mmo’s maybe, but not gw2.

Solomon, you won’t even be able to enter the zone where the door to the raid is without Heart of Thorns. Masteries are not the only part of the raids that is HoT only—the whole darned thing is HoT only from start to finish.

What you’re asking is for them to develop a core game raid to release at the same time, and given how long it’s taken them to develop this one, that’s pretty unrealistic.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Solomon. Nobody knows how the future of the game is going to go. yes, the first chunk of RAIDZ{!!!} will be expansion-exclusive. They have to sell copies of the expansion, and if they give absolutely everything in the thing away then ask for your fifty bucks as a goodwill donation…well, how’s that going to affect their ability to deliver future content?

Later on, after the new HoTness has faded somewhat? They may well add RAIDZ{!!!} into the core game. And remember – when the next expansion hits in three more years, Heart of Thorns itself will be added to the free-to-player’s repertoire. Mike O’Brian specifically said that he never wants players to have to buy more than one thing to get into the game, so when we go after Primordus or Kralkatorrik or Bubbles or what-have-you, then the Heart of Thorns content – including RAIDZ{!!!} will be thrown on the free-to-play pile with the rest of the core game.

Core players will get there. It’ll take them longer, but if they’re unwilling to so much as spare twenty bucks during one of ArenaNet’s frequent deep sales to snag a paid account and offer compensation for the hours of enjoyment they’re getting, then frankly I believe it’s fair to expect them to wait their turn while we pay their shot for them.

That’s my point. I just think Devs should offer some kind of clarification to those Core players so they know they won’t be left behind.

Dude, do you know what the definition of an expansion is?

It EXPANDS the core content

If you don’t purchase it, you are left behind. Thats how every expansion in the history of gaming has been

If you don’t buy the expansion, than you are flat out going to be left behind.

Play the core game all you want but you can’t complain about being left behind when you choose not to move forward with the rest of the community that purchases the expansion.

Masteries are a form of attunement, and people are saying there’s no attunement process for raids, which is false.

It’s just another way of segregating players too, and they said they didn’t want to do that. The slippery slope started with Living Story 2 being sold in the trading post. That’s when players first got segregated, and now it’s the expansion.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Taken from- https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/

“Masteries

With the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, the Mastery system will give you a brand-new way to progress your character. Mastery track progression will absolutely be a key part of overcoming encounters. For example, in the first release, you’re going to need to explore the air with gliding and learn a few different ways to interact with mushrooms. On top of the Mastery tracks available at release, each raid release will add more raid-specific Masteries for you to earn.

The raid-specific Masteries will serve a couple of purposes, but chiefly they allow the designers to create a feeling of progression throughout the raid content. If a player who is new to raiding joins your squad, he or she will—for the most part—be able to assist entirely in the encounters. That said, there are a number of Mastery traits attached to various facets of the raid encounters. For example, if your squad is working on the last boss of a wing, and no one has a particular and clearly stated Mastery unlocked, you’re probably going to fail spectacularly.
Because of the usefulness of Masteries within Raids, we want players to have time to be free to power up their characters. We want you guys to be able to enjoy playing the expansion without rushing to max out every Mastery in order to prepare for Raids. For that reason, we’ll be activating the first wing of our first Raid shortly following the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns."

So there you have it people… you can’t progress in at least the first raid without having Gliding and mushroom masteries… Can we get a Dev to comment on this please? Though I LOVE end game progression and I my self have bought HoT, I think it’s a pretty horrible business decision to lock such a HUGE piece of content behind a paywall…

i think its a good decision

give incentive to buy HoT.

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

A main feature of HoT locked behind a paywall? i am shocked by this development!

Not really.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

In the most technical sense, yes.

In reality though…this reality, this doesn’t look to be anything like attunements. From what they’ve said, you probably will be able to be fine with at least some of your party not having any masteries and even with the masteries you need, the entry levels of them will suffice.

This means that you could likely have a group where only, say, 8 of your 10 people have their masteries and while you progress through the raid, you’ll all be getting experience, which pretty much feeds the masteries for the people who don’t have them yet.

Considering that:
1) You’ll have time between HoT and raid release to get masteries
and
2) You probably won’t even have to have everyone in your group with these masteries

it’s not that bad of a requirement, especially when you consider the payoff.

The payoff here is that we get more dynamic raids with more interesting features and creative encounters.

Compare this to the old days of WoW and other similar games where absolutely everyone had to work through a very specific quest chain in order to even be in the group to step foot in the raid, this is far and beyond a much better option.

Straight from the blogpost that posted a few hours ago

" First, you can earn unique rewards once per week from raids, but you can play a raid as many times as you want to help your friends earn rewards or to refine your strategies. The encounters within Raids will contain tons of exclusive new items you’ll never be able to find anywhere else in the game, from miniatures, to weapon skins, to awesome titles. You can then proudly display these out in the open world to show off your skill and accomplishments. Own a Guild Hall? Awesome! You can loot a trophy from some of our bosses and use them as decorations to show off the challenge you’ve conquered. "

Well Ohoni, looks like your dream of non exclusive rewards are shattered

I’m interested in seeing if these rewards are actually end of raid chest RNG (like teq hoard) or will they be dropping in the raids from the mobs/bosses …. thoughts?
I just hope its not like frac skins RNG right now….

Good.

Even if it is RNG like Fractal skins that won’t bother me.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

This has to be a sarcasm post….

HAS TO BE.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

There’s a very real chance you might need things like gliding etc to even reach the point where you can access the raid entrance.

Substance E.4852:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

There’s a very real chance you might need things like gliding etc to even reach the point where you can access the raid entrance.

Portal.
Teleport to Friend.

It’s also very likely that zoning in works exactly the same as zoning in for an instance, which means that if one person can enter, everyone else in the same zone gets the pop-up to enter, no matter where they are.

Dahkeus.8243:

Substance E.4852:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

There’s a very real chance you might need things like gliding etc to even reach the point where you can access the raid entrance.

Portal.
Teleport to Friend.

It’s also very likely that zoning in works exactly the same as zoning in for an instance, which means that if one person can enter, everyone else in the same zone gets the pop-up to enter, no matter where they are.

Isn’t the raid entrance in the new map thats exclusively a HoT map?

Dahkeus.8243:

Substance E.4852:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I love how ANet said you won’t need attunement to do raids, when in fact you will, sort of. So grind out those masteries folks. You’ll need them.

There’s a very real chance you might need things like gliding etc to even reach the point where you can access the raid entrance.

Portal.
Teleport to Friend.

It’s also very likely that zoning in works exactly the same as zoning in for an instance, which means that if one person can enter, everyone else in the same zone gets the pop-up to enter, no matter where they are.

My point is that the new zones will likely be set up to organically cause you to accrue mastery points for the raid.

If people want to game the system to access it right after entering the zone for the first time then that’s their business.

Do you know what an expansion pack is?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

You sure about that?

You couldn’t do ICC without WotLK.
You couldn’t do Slaver’s Exile without EotN (while not strictly a raid, comes pretty close).

Raiding has been locked behind expacs for quite a while now.

Raiding is content. For HoT, raiding is content that comes with the expansion, just like how new dungeons and raids come with expansions for other games.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

I don’t recall any WoW expansion raids being available if you hadn’t bought the new expansion. I’m pretty sure I had to buy WoD in order to do anything on Draenor. Nor is raiding “fundamental” to GW2.

It’s a non-issue. If there’s a paid expansion, it will contain things that people that don’t buy it can’t play, by the very nature of the beast. And those will be the big cool new things, not little QoL improvements. Plus, well, so many have been gnashing their teeth about how “there’s not enough content in HoT to warrant fifty bucks.” Look, there’s more content! As part of the fifty bucks!

Yes, you have to pay for the shiny content. Or not play it. TANSTAAFL was a thing in the seventies, you’d think people would have some grasp of the concept.

Having it as part of the expansion is fine, the xpac already looks a bit skimpy because of all the free stuff they are giving away that they could have easily locked to the xpac.

And why should it be a problem just buy the dam expansion, I see no point for someone to invest or play this game for a long time without eventually purchasing HoT or future expansions as they add to the core game it self. I’ve invested almost 3 years into this game and I am dam well going to buy the expansion and what ever else come after.

TC, this is par for the course for MMOs.

If you couldn’t tell by now, you are the exceptional case who didn’t expect this and isn’t ok with it.

Think of it like a theme park. One of my favorites had lots of rides to go on for the price of admission. One year, they added a water park. They offered two pricing options: the same price as before for the regular park, and double the price if you wanted the water park admission included. What do you think they would have said if I complained that “it’s not fair that the water slides are locked behind a paywall!!1!” ? I’m sure they would be tempted to laugh in my face. OP, your complaint is beyond ridiculous.

There’s absolutely no way this is a serious topic

So you don’t think it’s right that one of the major features of HoT requires you to pay for HoT?

Gr8 b8, m8. I rel8, str8 appreci8, and congratul8. I r8 this b8 an 8/8. Plz no h8, I’m str8 ir8. Cr8 more, can’t w8. We should convers8, I won’t ber8, my number is 8888888, ask for N8. No calls I8 or out of st8. If on a d8, ask K8 to loc8. Even with a full pl8, I always have time to communic8 so don’t hesit8.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

That’s my point. I just think Devs should offer some kind of clarification to those Core players so they know they won’t be left behind.

Core players are likely to be left behind though. HoT is the new product they’re selling. Core is the teaser to get you interested. It’s financially unrewarding for them to put in major development time to develop Raids for free players. It undermines their business model.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

You sure about that?

You couldn’t do ICC without WotLK.
You couldn’t do Slaver’s Exile without EotN (while not strictly a raid, comes pretty close).

Raiding has been locked behind expacs for quite a while now.

Raiding is content. For HoT, raiding is content that comes with the expansion, just like how new dungeons and raids come with expansions for other games.

I’m not talking about Specific raids… Yes WoW had xpac specific raids but there were also others that could be done without xpacs…

ImTasty.2163:

So you don’t think it’s right that one of the major features of HoT requires you to pay for HoT?

Gr8 b8, m8. I rel8, str8 appreci8, and congratul8. I r8 this b8 an 8/8. Plz no h8, I’m str8 ir8. Cr8 more, can’t w8. We should convers8, I won’t ber8, my number is 8888888, ask for N8. No calls I8 or out of st8. If on a d8, ask K8 to loc8. Even with a full pl8, I always have time to communic8 so don’t hesit8.

I’m saying it shouldn’t be a major feature for JUST HoT… yes make HoT specific raids but put some in the core as well…

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

You sure about that?

You couldn’t do ICC without WotLK.
You couldn’t do Slaver’s Exile without EotN (while not strictly a raid, comes pretty close).

Raiding has been locked behind expacs for quite a while now.

Raiding is content. For HoT, raiding is content that comes with the expansion, just like how new dungeons and raids come with expansions for other games.

I’m not talking about Specific raids… Yes WoW had xpac specific raids but there were also others that could be done without xpacs…

Because they were released as part of the Core game… GW2’s first Raids are being released as part of the Expansion.

How is this escaping you?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

ImTasty.2163:

So you don’t think it’s right that one of the major features of HoT requires you to pay for HoT?

Gr8 b8, m8. I rel8, str8 appreci8, and congratul8. I r8 this b8 an 8/8. Plz no h8, I’m str8 ir8. Cr8 more, can’t w8. We should convers8, I won’t ber8, my number is 8888888, ask for N8. No calls I8 or out of st8. If on a d8, ask K8 to loc8. Even with a full pl8, I always have time to communic8 so don’t hesit8.

I’m saying it shouldn’t be a major feature for JUST HoT… yes make HoT specific raids but put some in the core as well…

Why? Raids, formally known as challenging group content, was one of the major selling points of the expansion, along with the revenant, masteries, and elite specs to name some others. So should these things have a core version as well? If that’s the case what’s the point of buying HoT?

Coulter.2315:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

You sure about that?

You couldn’t do ICC without WotLK.
You couldn’t do Slaver’s Exile without EotN (while not strictly a raid, comes pretty close).

Raiding has been locked behind expacs for quite a while now.

Raiding is content. For HoT, raiding is content that comes with the expansion, just like how new dungeons and raids come with expansions for other games.

I’m not talking about Specific raids… Yes WoW had xpac specific raids but there were also others that could be done without xpacs…

Because they were released as part of the Core game… GW2’s first Raids are being released as part of the Expansion.

How is this escaping you?

How is every other MMO having them as part of their core game so EVERYONE can enjoy them escaping you?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I’m not talking about Specific raids… Yes WoW had xpac specific raids but there were also others that could be done without xpacs…

And slowly over time they’ve started taking them and revamping them for higher levels. What does that tell you?

The thing is, in terms of investment, spending resources adding content to the core game nets Anet no money while having to spend time, money and resources on producing it.

I suppose I could have worded it better. Raids are an expansion feature for GW2, much like Garrisons were for WoD.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

That’s my point. I just think Devs should offer some kind of clarification to those Core players so they know they won’t be left behind.

Here is your clarification (reached by thinking it out). Core players are going to be left behind. Just like people who never bought the campaigns or expansion past Prophesies in gw1 and couldn’t do the new dungeons or get the mini pet from the New Years celebration in Cantha. If they don’t buy this expansion they all get left behind, at least until ANet gives it away for free.

At the time of the OP’s post, the core game was already free-to-play. Why would ANet invest the resources to create expansion content and the also give that away for free?

This game is still B2P. You want to raid? Buy the kitten game.

I’m guessing it’s RNG unfortunately. Though maybe some things might be just a drop. This looks great, I was worried it would be only legendary related stuff and I’m not really interested in grindy legendaries. But there’s a title, minis and skins.

I’m very curious about the actual raids though and what roles there will be. I’m only hoping there is a place for rangers. I’ll probably be playing a revenant too, but I still love my ranger.

The community of this game never ceases to amaze me. Welcome to MMOs, just be glad HoT doesn’t invalidate all old content as PvE-centric games often do. If I had my way all MMOs would have a monthly fee and while I would design my expansions in a way that didn’t invalidate vanilla content all new content would require you to buy the expansion.