Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of fluff but I don’t see much content? Why are people so excited about this expac when there appears to be no depth? Imo most of what there adding they said they would put into the game pre release 3yrs ago

I dont remember Revenant, maguuma maps, multi layered biomes, masteries, specialisations, stronghold, new borderlands maps, wyvern boss fights, precursor crafting or gliding being announced before original launch?

1. They said they would implement new spvp maps pre release
2. Precursor crafting just after release
3. Minus revenent and new w3 map the rest is just fluff

pickpocket.2071:

1. They said they would implement new spvp maps pre release
2. Precursor crafting just after release
3. Minus revenent and new w3 map the rest is just fluff

So lets remove pre-cursor crafting since that is post-release and they also said it wasn’t something they could do.

The new maps, new specialisations, masteries, exploration content – all of which are being implemented based on community feedback and requests, do not sound like fluff to me. Sound like exactly what expacs normally contain. I can name plenty of expacs that have contained far less.

Let’s wait until it’s released, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed when you realise how little content is actually going to be released

there is no incentive, for me, to pre-purchase

I’m not disappointed with what large amount that has been shown so far. If there’s more to come, bonus. Especially judging by the teaser stuff in the stress tests.

pickpocket.2071:

Let’s wait until it’s released, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed when you realise how little content is actually going to be released

Do you know something we don’t or are you speculating?

How about watching youtube? A lot of beta testers posted videos…not to mention all the dev videos…

Speculation Ahead:

I think the original idea was to make a “Season III” of Living World, but the Dev team decided to take a bit further, roll it all up into one package, shove more stuff inside, and call it an expansion.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

PvE-wise, what I’ve seen so far has been feature-heavy and content-lite. That’s why I haven’t hurried to enhance NCSoft’s Q2 2015 revenue from GW2 via pre-buy.

What do you consider to be content?

Considering Season 2 of the Living Story was all about introducing Mordremoth (and actually Season 1 was as well, we just didn’t know it until the end) and then it ended with the introduction of the expansion it’s a pretty safe bet there will be a whole story about us finding and defeating Mordremoth included in the expansion. I’d expect that to be at least the same length as Season 2, maybe longer. (It would be nice for me if it was the same length as the original personal story.)

But having said that I know some people would class a new story arc as “fluff” and would say only dungeons or WvW or whatever else they personally like to play counts as content.

So I guess how much content is in the expansion is going to be different for everyone.

I, for one, am a sucker for the Guild Wars living world stories and lore, and I feel like all the new changes help bring new aspects to the game, and allow players to feel more individual and unique from others, cant wait for the expansion

I agree OP, I just don’t see how the same ol looping event system on just a few maps is going to keep people interested.

I suspect their post release trick is they’ll just keep announcing micro updates after it comes out, and people will log in for their new 10 minute mission every two weeks. Overall it just feels like the model is broken now. We’re not going to get another substantial adventure in the GW universe this way in my opinion.

Randulf.7614:

I can name plenty of expacs that have contained far less.

Can you?

I don’t meant to make it sound like I’m not confident Anet has a bunch of cool content hidden up their sleeve. They haven’t even announced what “challenging group content” is yet. But I can’t think of any major expansions that have contained less than what you mentioned.

Glad to know I’m not the only one who is disappointed with how little content has been hyped up so much

pickpocket.2071:

Glad to know I’m not the only one who is disappointed with how little content has been hyped up so much

What are we getting altogether then? I’m assuming you know since you’re saying the xpac doesn’t have much content.

CambrianExplosion.6394:

Randulf.7614:

I can name plenty of expacs that have contained far less.

Can you?

I don’t meant to make it sound like I’m not confident Anet has a bunch of cool content hidden up their sleeve. They haven’t even announced what “challenging group content” is yet. But I can’t think of any major expansions that have contained less than what you mentioned.

Well every Lotro expansion has had 1 zone. Moria, Mirkwood, North Rohan and South Rohan (clever marketing said they had more, but everyone saw through that when the expacs dropped). Moria being the only exception since that had so much jammed into it, it is regarded as one of the finest MMO expacs of all time. But compared to the gigantic size of the core game, it was a small zone.

Anarchy online’s Alien Invasion had mostly features and a couple of instances. But those features drove the small amount of actual content. Compared to the Shadowlands expac which brought in an entire world, it was a bit of a shock, altho the content is still played today, 10 years on.

TSW technically hasn’t had an expac, but it’s DLC’s are around £15-£20. Tokyo as a full map was released over 3 of those and the combined total price was more than HoT. The size of the map across the last 3 DLC’s was about the size of Frostgorge Sound. The amount of content reflected that, but the price did not. It was too high in the later issues for maybe a week’s worth of play per DLC

Even if HoT releases 3 maps (which is not based on any facts), there’s every reason to believe the content packed in would be pretty high.

So because those expacs contained no content it’s ok for gw2?

pickpocket.2071:

So because those expacs contained no content it’s ok for gw2?

I’m not sure where you read that in my post, but judging by your post history you are determined to twist everything to show this lack of content you dearly want to occur

TheDaiBish.9735:

pickpocket.2071:

Glad to know I’m not the only one who is disappointed with how little content has been hyped up so much

What are we getting altogether then? I’m assuming you know since you’re saying the xpac doesn’t have much content.

No one knows, which is his point. note that he said, “…how little content has been hyped up…” not “…how little content HoT contains…”

Randulf.7614:

Even if HoT releases 3 maps (which is not based on any facts), there’s every reason to believe the content packed in would be pretty high.

What reasons would those be? Look at recent performance. DT is decent sized and contains a repeating meta consisting of some DE’s. SW has a single zone-wide repeating meta chain, with a surplus few events, JP, some explore, and two farming things — labyrinth and chest farm. As free additions, they’re fine. 2-3 such zones for $50 means that HoT is weighted more towards features than content.

Now, maybe there’s a lot more content to HoT than has been shown — but they have yet to show us much.

IndigoSundown.5419:

TheDaiBish.9735:

pickpocket.2071:

Glad to know I’m not the only one who is disappointed with how little content has been hyped up so much

What are we getting altogether then? I’m assuming you know since you’re saying the xpac doesn’t have much content.

No one knows, which is his point. note that he said, “…how little content has been hyped up…” not “…how little content HoT contains…”

Randulf.7614:

Even if HoT releases 3 maps (which is not based on any facts), there’s every reason to believe the content packed in would be pretty high.

What reasons would those be? Look at recent performance. DT is decent sized and contains a repeating meta consisting of some DE’s. SW has a single zone-wide repeating meta chain, with a surplus few events, JP, some explore, and two farming things — labyrinth and chest farm. As free additions, they’re fine. 2-3 such zones for $50 means that HoT is weighted more towards features than content.

Now, maybe there’s a lot more content to HoT than has been shown — but they have yet to show us much.

His earlier point stated as absolute fact there was little content. Scroll up to see that.

As far your second point, it comes down to perspective and interpretation. I shall re-phrase and say “I” have every reason to believe there will be enough content. From everything shown in the previews, what I played in the stress tests, streamed videos, I have seen enough to extrapolate what I believe a fair amount of content. Hence why I pre-purchased. Everything I have seen is either in line or greater than what I expected the expac to contain when they announced it in January and with other MMO’s I have played.

However, others disagree and that is fine and understandable and I have no issue if people are sceptical at this stage. It’s the claim of it being absolute fact that the content will be low, when the full reveal isn’t complete which needs to be steered away from.

Regardless of anyone wanting to disagree with what amount of content we will actually be getting, I prefer quality over quantity(which is all they have done), not paying 180$/year in sub fees, a dev team that truly lives for its players, and a game where I can spend more than 40-50 hours(in this case probably getting hundreds) in unlike most 60$ games which have 5 hours campaign, maybe 10-20 hours additional content also with stupid season pass pricing. I like a game that I can buy, and own completely own, with little to no server downtime, and can come and go as I please— 50$ for that? my god that is a rare sight with most games nowadays… most AAAs broken on release, overhyped on release, and most of the time, utter trash with only visuals to hide everything behind it.

Gendou.9620:

Regardless of anyone wanting to disagree with what amount of content we will actually be getting, I prefer quality over quantity

Which is funny, because you follow that with…

Gendou.9620:

and a game where I can spend more than 40-50 hours(in this case probably getting hundreds) in unlike most 60$ games which have 5 hours campaign, maybe 10-20 hours additional content also

Arguably, from your first statement it would be better to play a great 5 hours campaign than 40 hours in a cesspool of grind.

And do you know what GW2 is? Here’s a hint: HoT will be based on a map that is the laziest design I have even seen in a game, with the same buildings and same events copy-pasted four times in the same area, with the same two events repeating over and over in four places, culminating with the most farmeable world boss in the game.

That is what HoT will be based on. And honestly, under that design, I would rather play those 5 hours great campaigns than GW2.

One mans fluff is another mans content.

Test.8734:

Gendou.9620:

Regardless of anyone wanting to disagree with what amount of content we will actually be getting, I prefer quality over quantity

Which is funny, because you follow that with…

Gendou.9620:

and a game where I can spend more than 40-50 hours(in this case probably getting hundreds) in unlike most 60$ games which have 5 hours campaign, maybe 10-20 hours additional content also

Arguably, from your first statement it would be better to play a great 5 hours campaign than 40 hours in a cesspool of grind.

And do you know what GW2 is? Here’s a hint: HoT will be based on a map that is the laziest design I have even seen in a game, with the same buildings and same events copy-pasted four times in the same area, with the same two events repeating over and over in four places, culminating with the most farmeable world boss in the game.

That is what HoT will be based on. And honestly, under that design, I would rather play those 5 hours great campaigns than GW2.

Well then have fun playing your linear 5 hour campaigns at 60$ a pop, which is one or two days of entertainment, and I’ll enjoy my 60$ I spent 3 about years ago that lasts still up to this day with no additional fees ever needed, and 50$ that will last months more as well with constant free living world updates that consistently change the game. I like to think with an objective mindset, but may have seen my comment as cynical. I’m just saying arguments over content value are invalid when comparing price/value of hours you get from a game. No offense but no 60$ campaign, which is practically an interactive movie, is worth that much. Overbudgeting AAA titles with expensive marketing is the only reason those games cost so much and get so much hype with so little content. The only reason they don’t add more is not because they can’t; they don’t because you bite the morsels they throw at you—hence why there are 5 billion CoDs(not an MMO but still an example) with multiple developers for each CoD different franchises that even outsource their work leading to crappy games, which is a proven fact to any knowledgeable gamer, but that is just one of many examples. The list is endless, and I am surprised you would defend that anti-gamer business practice. So yes, enjoy your 60$ movie

Here’s the meat of the expansion for PvE’ers:

“Journey into the Heart of Maguuma
Making the Most of Maguuma
New region with a high amount of verticality built into the maps
Multiple open world jungle maps³ made up of three distinct “biomes”
The core, the floor of the jungle itself
The roots of the jungle, that run deep beneath the jungle
The canopy, way up above, where the Pact fleet is scattered across the top of the jungle
Outposts – centralized locations for events that evolve over time and which help the overarching objectives in each map
Adventures – repeatable, on-demand challenges in the open world with their own leaderboards
New events and storylines
New boss battles
Challenging group content
Contains a secret legacy left in the heart of the jungle by Glint, right as the story of Guild Wars concluded"

Add Adventures to the list.

Challenging group content has the familiar ring of meta events with a twist. You can include the one PvP map and the one WvW map, the new class and Masteries to the purchase price. Precursor crafting and Guild Halls should not be included with the expansion IMO since these were asked for and talked about since launch. It is what it is, however.

So is the explorable content of HoT on the light side? Certainly. Is it worth $50? Probably not. Will Anet lower the price anytime soon? Doubt it. We can either pay $50 and enjoy what HoT offers, or we can move on. There’s certainty enough competition to at least explore what’s on the other side of the fence.

pickpocket.2071:

Let’s wait until it’s released, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed when you realise how little content is actually going to be released

You say that yet you are the one that started the thread…hmmm… apple fell far from the tree?

Vix.6730:

Here’s the meat of the expansion for PvE’ers:

“Journey into the Heart of Maguuma
Making the Most of Maguuma
New region with a high amount of verticality built into the maps
Multiple open world jungle maps³ made up of three distinct “biomes”
The core, the floor of the jungle itself
The roots of the jungle, that run deep beneath the jungle
The canopy, way up above, where the Pact fleet is scattered across the top of the jungle
Outposts – centralized locations for events that evolve over time and which help the overarching objectives in each map
Adventures – repeatable, on-demand challenges in the open world with their own leaderboards
New events and storylines
New boss battles
Challenging group content
Contains a secret legacy left in the heart of the jungle by Glint, right as the story of Guild Wars concluded"

Add Adventures to the list.

Challenging group content has the familiar ring of meta events with a twist. You can include the one PvP map and the one WvW map, the new class and Masteries to the purchase price. Precursor crafting and Guild Halls should not be included with the expansion IMO since these were asked for and talked about since launch. It is what it is, however.

So is the explorable content of HoT on the light side? Certainly. Is it worth $50? Probably not. Will Anet lower the price anytime soon? Doubt it. We can either pay $50 and enjoy what HoT offers, or we can move on. There’s certainty enough competition to at least explore what’s on the other side of the fence.

The problem is, there really isn’t that much competition. Maybe of us are here because we don’t like the WoW style MMOs and most MMOs are patterned after it. Every MMO that was supposed to be the death of this one has more or less fallen flat. There’s games that have “optional” subs that are not really optional. There are games that are pay to win. But this is still the most popular MMO that doesn’t require a sub. That’s pretty impressive, when you consider most of the others don’t require a purchase to play them.

Randulf.7614:

pickpocket.2071:

1. They said they would implement new spvp maps pre release
2. Precursor crafting just after release
3. Minus revenent and new w3 map the rest is just fluff

So lets remove pre-cursor crafting since that is post-release and they also said it wasn’t something they could do.

The new maps, new specialisations, masteries, exploration content – all of which are being implemented based on community feedback and requests, do not sound like fluff to me. Sound like exactly what expacs normally contain. I can name plenty of expacs that have contained far less.

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

As I’ve said multiple times in the past, I believe the reason the living story didn’t come as frequently as it was supposed to was because they were working on an expansion. You say the Living Story slowed down because they couldn’t keep up the rate. More logically, it slowed down because they were working on large background projects, some of which would make major changes to the game.

The pressure to come out with an expansion is just as likely a reason that they didn’t keep the two week cadence, and they just couldn’t do it. Suppose that all the devs who now work on the expansion and the changes that are required to make the expansion work were all working on LS.

Then they could probably have kept the two week cadence. Just a guess, but I think it’s a good one.

if you don’t think the expac is worth the $60, don’t pre-purchase/buy it.

the only way Anet will change their extortionist pricing/content offering is if people don’t buy it.

personally i’m still disgusted they think they can get away with not including a character slot in an expac that adds a new class in order to squeeze another $10 out of everyone.

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

As I’ve said multiple times in the past, I believe the reason the living story didn’t come as frequently as it was supposed to was because they were working on an expansion. You say the Living Story slowed down because they couldn’t keep up the rate. More logically, it slowed down because they were working on large background projects, some of which would make major changes to the game.

The pressure to come out with an expansion is just as likely a reason that they didn’t keep the two week cadence, and they just couldn’t do it. Suppose that all the devs who now work on the expansion and the changes that are required to make the expansion work were all working on LS.

Then they could probably have kept the two week cadence. Just a guess, but I think it’s a good one.

Nope they always had issues with two week cadence even from before they say they started work on the expansion.

And i think this expansion is going to fail at feeling like sn expansion.
Its going to be a version update, which is nice, but as far as pve content/adventure is the name of the game.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

As I’ve said multiple times in the past, I believe the reason the living story didn’t come as frequently as it was supposed to was because they were working on an expansion. You say the Living Story slowed down because they couldn’t keep up the rate. More logically, it slowed down because they were working on large background projects, some of which would make major changes to the game.

The pressure to come out with an expansion is just as likely a reason that they didn’t keep the two week cadence, and they just couldn’t do it. Suppose that all the devs who now work on the expansion and the changes that are required to make the expansion work were all working on LS.

Then they could probably have kept the two week cadence. Just a guess, but I think it’s a good one.

Nope they always had issues with two week cadence even from before they say they started work on the expansion.

And i think this expansion is going to fail at feeling like sn expansion.
Its going to be a version update, which is nice, but as far as pve content/adventure is the name of the game.

I think there’s more that they haven’t showed us yet. I guess we’ll see soon.

Unless they announce something that gets me crazy excited, I doubt I’ll buy HoT at launch and even less pre-purchase it, but I gotta play the devil’s advocate a little about the “lack” of open-world PvE content.

So far we know there are at least 3 maps, and each of those maps has 3 biomes. I don’t know how expansive those biomes are, but what I understand from all that talk about biomes and verticality is that we are getting the equivalent of 3 “maps” stacked one over the other. So we would get 3 maps but with the size of 9 vanilla maps.

It’s still a bit lacking compared to EotN in terms of added maps and I hope there’s going to be at least twice the maps, but it’s in line with other MMOs. Except that those other MMOs raise the level cap so while they can have 7-10 maps only 1 or 2 of those are relevant at end-game. In HoT, on the other hand, every map is end-game content since the level cap doesn’t budge.

There are whispers that we won’t even fight Mordremoth, how does the OP feel about that? This still boils down to one thing: Buy it or don’t.

Some of us are anticipating what we always get from Anet…a great game.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

There are whispers that we won’t even fight Mordremoth, how does the OP feel about that? This still boils down to one thing: Buy it or don’t.

Some of us are anticipating what we always get from Anet…a great game.

Does anyone have a source for Mordremoth not being in the expansion? I’ve seen this rumour in a few threads now, and not seen anyone point to a definitive source, other than other threads with the same rumour.