Guild Wars 2

No
There is no pre-order bonus that got me excited so far, if they only go digital.
Except if there is a new class and the character slot for it is bound to the pre-purchse.

And even then, it is questionable because:
- I want a physical release I can put on my shelf
- I want a physical collectors edition with some cool goodies, since the digital ones are not worth the price tag (wasn`t for GW2 or HoT)
- I want to know how much content has been revealed. Like: “this is about X% of that particular content”
- I want to know, that there are more than a few weapon and armor sets
- I want to asured that the story is way above an LS release, not like HoT which had some CGI extra power.
- I want a complete experience and not a stepping stone like HoT is.

And other stuff.
HoT was too much riding the hypetrain for me and the areas where I personaly interested in, were underdevoloped and full of underused potential.

HoT is a good expansion, however it is stretching the term, so I am cautious for the future.

ANET will not get another dime from me unless they make major changes to HoT and their “new direction”.

They may do that, ANET has been pretty good at fixing things before. But HoT is a whole new level of ugly for them. I’m not sure they can fix it this time.

Im far from a fan of Anets in terms of what they are doing, there communication with us is shocking, they where all over the forums and blogs pre HoT and post HoT they have all disappeared into the shadows.

In saying that, I don’t mind HoT, people are talking about grind, but I have played games where it really is a grind, I don’t find it overly hard to get XP,

There are a few things that they are doing atm that would put be off any further expansions, the Raid Roll Out was horrible, unless you are standing at that portal, or in a guild you pretty much have no chance of getting into it, the LFG system isn’t designed for this content, not to mention they put the entrance do the first RAID in a map that requires a lot of players to complete the meta on it, this is a bad design, and needs overhauling.

They should have put a portal in LA for the raids, like they did with Fractals, LA is big enough they could have put it out on a new island in the water or something, where people can gather and forum parties,

The only other real sticking point for me in HoT is that 1 broken Meta in TD, its a really sore sticking point, the fact they require a TT setup with near full TS communication to beat it is horrible, I don’t know what they where thinking, I guess when they “tested” this they all had there god mode instant kill skills on, I am aware that it has been beaten by dedicated teams of people, but sadly 95% of players wont get into this sort of map, I even seen 2 dedicated teams fail it last night, id go as far to say that this 1 event has ruined my HoT experience,

Would I pre-purchase the next expansion, probably not, id probably wait 6-10 weeks after it launched to see real feedback, id say its been about 3-4months since I even looked at the gem store now also.

You mean the next expansion set to release early 2019? Yeah…not sure

No.

Their decision of disincentivizing dungeons has disincentivized me to play GW2 further. I’ve sunk more than half of my playtime just to do dungeons/fractals because these are the things that I consider to be fun rather than spamming 1 in the open world meta event, and now that they are dead, I see no reason to play the game anymore. I don’t think I will be playing this game anymore in 2016 (probably just login for login rewards) let alone buying the new expansion. My progress of getting gold has significantly dropped since HoT launched, while some of the prices have gone ridiculously expensive. No progress = not fun. This is probably the reason why I don’t trust them anymore in making GW2 fun again.

I will most the chuckled heads complainin problably havnt even gotten HoT or the core game except when it went free,

No, Never. They killed WvW and my interest in this game.

Goldrock.9076:

I will most the chuckled heads complainin problably havnt even gotten HoT or the core game except when it went free,

Can you repeat that in English please? These are the English language forums.

No i will not till i see anet change its way it,s going and There are two many forced group content for my play style a lot of events and how they force you to join a guild to get some achievement points done . and so forth . and sure not enough pve stuff . not only that but how they changed the game when hot came out . it is just not good and for some one who enjoys open world pve stuff . feeling like more then got short changed here with hot .

Probably.

I’m enjoying both the base game and HoT, so it seems likely I’d enjoy the next expansion too. I liked GW1 as well although I don’t play it much now.

But I don’t make blanket purchasing decisions on everything a company will ever make, even when I’ve liked all their previous products.

So I’d want to wait and see what the next expansion includes, how it’s going to affect the base game, if there’s any changes to the business model and how much it costs before I make a decision.

It also depends on when it comes out. If they announced the next one is coming in Q1 2016 (they won’t, but as an example) then I wouldn’t get it right away because I still have tons to do in HoT and I know the price will probably go down over time so I’d wait until I’m ready to add more content to my game.

Absolutely yes.
This expansions is making community so much healthier by cleaning a lot of people who cry for any reason. Which is a really good thing.

Out with the old and whiney and in with the new.

Not on a whim as I did with HoT; no matter how much the drought of content.

The information had better be moving toward more the year 1 style or I will just not bother. Raids and elitism have overshot fun, friendship and exploration for me with the new Xpac.

If you want to see the difference just fail AB once and listen to map chat

Nephziel.6053:

Absolutely yes.
This expansions is making community so much healthier by cleaning a lot of people who cry for any reason. Which is a really good thing.

Out with the old and whiney and in with the new.

Less players is always bad for a game. I don’t see the community becoming healthier, I see it getting smaller. Less players = less income for ANet = poor quality/quantity updates down the road. Maybe we will get lucky, and ANet will sort out HoT’s short comings. I for one hope so.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Nephziel.6053:

Absolutely yes.
This expansions is making community so much healthier by cleaning a lot of people who cry for any reason. Which is a really good thing.

Out with the old and whiney and in with the new.

Less players is always bad for a game. I don’t see the community becoming healthier, I see it getting smaller. Less players = less income for ANet = poor quality/quantity updates down the road. Maybe we will get lucky, and ANet will sort out HoT’s short comings. I for one hope so.

This. It seems nobody learns from game such as Wildstar. ANet has the numbers of course, but I would assume the vast majority of players are casual.

OK the hardcore wanted an Xpac, so be it, but unless we move away from this style of development we may well see less and less players as time goes by. That may look good to those wishing to weed out the casuals, but I assure you it is a arrow to the knee of ANet’s finances.

Umm, why do some people want out weed out the casuals from GW2? xD

Qugi.2653:

Say Anet do everything they do like before HoT expansion release. Video, blog and allow beta if prepurchase. Will you prepurchase? Curious.

Depends on where I am in life a few years from now, but the answer is most likely. This one was great fun and I’ve already gotten my money’s worth a few times over. I do kind of hope that another game director steps. Not because I’m hating on Colin or anything, would just be interesting to see where the game could go with someone else in that spot. Overall a phenomenal expansion with a near flawless launch. Also ANet listened to the community in the first few days and made some changes for the better.

Unfortunately some design aspects just don’t make a lot of sense and the gold sink that is end-game progression for HoT (Guild Hall upgrades, Legendary crafting, amended gear acquisition for Raids) is designed to funnel players to cash shop to spend many times over what they originally invested in HoT. This is a good business model, but as a player looking at it from a high level view I don’t like it one bit and ultimately it may lead me to leave the game at some point. It depends on what exactly we get with Leagues for PvP and Living World content over the coming years leading up to next expansion.

As with anything in life it’s not about what you did yesterday, it’s about what you’re doing for me today. Hopefully ArenaNet understands that (I think they do) so the Living World content now has to deliver something compelling to hold us. We aren’t all raiding and legendary crafting. There should be more short term awards for Guild Hall progression too.

With the way ArenaNet handled information for HoT? No way. That being said, it’s exactly why I didn’t buy HoT either. They wouldn’t talk about what exactly was in the x-pac. I’m not talking about story spoilers or anything like that, but they were real cagey about how many maps(they just wanted to talk about map layers, lol)we were getting. They put very few earnable armor, weapon or glider skins in the game. Can you even earn glider skins as rewards in HoT? So you want me to spend full-price AAA money on an expansion that doesn’t even put half of the amount of earnable items in it that the base game has and you want me to pay for it up front before you tell me you are nerfing dungeons?

No thanks

The only thing for me that is enticing is that they said when the next x-pac hits we get HoT added retroactively. I could see 2 x-pacs the for $50 being a good price. Do I think they should charge $50 for an x-pac the size of HoT? Emphatically, no. Especially when they try to put out day 1 gem shop stuff. At least give people some cosmetics in the price of the x-pac. ArenaNet used to not pull stuff like this. There was a ton of value for the consumer. That sadly isn’t the case anymore.

saturn.4810:

Umm, why do some people want out weed out the casuals from GW2? xD

To focus on the PvE aspect of the game.

Causal player = Has a healthy life outside game (or plays other games), Spends time in game doing specific content for the fun of it seldom repeating content. Generally like to help casual players, puts money into the gem store to compensate for absence of time in game. Successful adults and adolescents who are engaged with sports, studies or some consuming hobby tend to be casual players.

Hardcore player = Devotes most of their free time to the game, Will grind for hundreds of hours to obtain specific mats or needed skills to achieve rare items or skins for prestige sake. Takes pride in being part of the elitist club and enjoys playing most of the time with similar hardcore players as they flood apperception on fellow guild mates over Legendaries and exotic items that amount to very nominal stat boons and a few dozen unique skins. People who don’t have much else going on in life (few hobbies, friends) and don’t have demanding families or careers tend to be hardcore types. The prestige in the game becomes a substitute for prestige in the real world. Yes it is sad and probably unhealthy (although I’m no psychologist so who am I to call that).

I have a difficult time relating to the hardcore mentality, but then again I own my own business and every hour of time time spent on something recreational is money I am choosing to give up. I can remember being thirteen and not having a care in the world… My “Legendaries” are tangible things in the real world not in game items. Yes, I can take this view and still love GW2, especially he PvP side of the game where gear progression doesn’t exist at all.

Both casual and hardcore play for the social aspect and both find fun in the game, the casual types just don’t tend to care about the prestige of specific gear. The hardcore types find fun almost exclusively in the prestige of gear acquisition even at the sacrifice of life for extremely repetitive content.

One type plays mostly for the reward you get when you cross the finish line (prestigious gear), the other plays mostly for the experience and doesn’t really understand the whole prestige aspect of the game.

MMO’s need both types to have a healthy community.

No, I’m not falling for that again.

Id probably do the same as I did with HOT and prepurchase 1 day before the expansion once I knew what content was coming with it.

No I don’t think so. Adventures have really upset me alot (locking mastery behind content designed for 12 year olds). I love raiding in most games, have done so since everquest 1 launched, but the raid here so far seems designed around 1 hardcore guild rather than the general population. Raids should be difficult, but that difficulty should be progressive and not hardcore on the first boss. Overall I think HoT is fun, but I think it was not designed for the average player, those players have been marginalized.

(subject to change of course, if Anet does alot of balancing and reworking, then I would probably preorder an expansion)

Never.

Next nerfpansion will nerf everything in pve and wvw, leaving only super duper esports pvp, which will then be swiftly nerfed because metrics.

If they prove they will not make the same mistakes they’ve done in HoTs, then yes.

Also, they gotta remake underwater combat. Did Anet forget that was one of the things they focused on before? Remember the manifesto where they hint a giant Leviathan during the end of the video? Remember concept art for some characters like Eir that show her fighting a giant creature underwater?

Not sure, I am rather unpleased by a few things. The first week was nice, but the deeper you dig the more and more issues and bugs you find. And Anet is fixing them at a glacial speed.
Also we already had 4 black lion weapon sets and lots of other new gemshop stuff in ~1month since release, which puts a bitter taste im my mouth.

Malediktus.9250:

Not sure, I am rather unpleased by a few things. The first week was nice, but the deeper you dig the more and more issues and bugs you find. And Anet is fixing them at a glacial speed.

Looks like Anet is perma-Chilled.

Yes, I’m very pleased with HoT

probably.

While I don´t think HoT is as good as the core game I still feel that I got my moneys worth.

Depends on what new MMOs are coming out and how ANet responses to the nonstop nerfs to druids and time-gating content. If Black Desert is any good? Not likely. If it’s a dud, and nothing new’s on the horizon? Probably.

This whole situation reminds me of DAoC. It ruled the MMO roost even with their nonstop screw-ups.

And then WoW came along. . . .

“Will I prepurchase the next expansion?”

Yes.

I don’t think so.

I bought this mere days before launch because I wasn’t interested in the beta but wanted the “free” vet character slot. If the next has something similar I would pre-purchase it as well and also just before it’s launch.

Linken.6345:

Tapioca.9062:

Probably not. Once the next expansion comes out I’ll likely take that as my cue to just walk away. Essentially the B2P equivalent of not re-subbing.

I think Anet’s actions have made it painfully clear that I’m not their target demographic. They wanted the WoW audience, like so many other failed developers who were blinded by that big money prospect. However, I am not the WoW audience and I will never be the WoW audience. If I wanted to be playing WoW, I’d be playing WoW. So I see no reason to continue forward once we reach a natural point of divergence.

I don’t want raids. I don’t want obnoxious gear grinds. I don’t want to pay $50-$100 USD for four hours of story content so shallow that the development team recognised it before launch and tried to artificially bulk out the duration with time gates from masteries. I don’t want more time gates in general. I don’t want a game with so many bugs that it feels like it never went through QA. I don’t to play a game designed by people who apparently think endgame translates to “endless grinding”.

I could do this all day but ultimately, as a product, Guild Wars 2 has never been worth the money I’ve sunk into it. There are still things I like, the music is lovely and the visuals are gorgeous. I would even enjoy the story if it weren’t so often handled in a hamfisted, amateurish manner. The potential is there but then it just nosedives straight into the ground.

I’ll stick around for now and continue playing with my friends, but once Anet give me an out, they’ve convinced me I should take it.

The out is just over there points at door you said it yourself your not paying a sub so no reason to feel you have to play if your so against it, that it seems from this post.

I chuckle when I see people feeling the need to critique someone’s post when the whole point of a thread is to answer a simple question. It’s not really a discussion thread.

yes. I wasn’t a fan of the farming/grind increase, but I understand it may not always be like that and HoT is because it’s the ONLY thing for ppl who truly love grind (other than legendaries.) Either way is was definitely good enough for me to continue buying stuff in the game

If the upcoming living world seasons fix the issues with the story? Absolutely I will

Also people, STOP throwing around the word “grind” the mastery system is not a “grind” how dare an MMO employ a post max level progression system! If you don’t like it nobody is forcing you to keep playing, go play a singleplayer game if you don’t like it

Definitely. The only proviso would be exchange rate.

Fenom.9457:

yes. I wasn’t a fan of the farming/grind increase, but I understand it may not always be like that and HoT is because it’s the ONLY thing for ppl who truly love grind (other than legendaries.) Either way is was definitely good enough for me to continue buying stuff in the game

Playing game for time consuming progression is NOTTTTTT GRIND. Stop calling playing the game grind.

No. I expected an expansion, not a different game. I don’t much like HoT but feel I got my money’s worth. What we got in terms of changes to the core game was totally unexpected, however, and I just don’t want to play it as much anymore. Once bitten, twice shy.

Nope, don’t preorder games. I enjoy having consumer power.

i think i like the exspansion more then i dislike stuff about it. i want them to do something about wvw to straighten it up a bit but as for the new maps maybe not enough maps like id prefer and abit of grind but there are things i really like. i like the reverant but it doesnt really feel polished yet. i love gliding and the mushroom jumping. i like the mastery system. i think they could have made it bit less grindy but i dont think its bad. wvw maps arent the best not enough openness for my taste but i like a lot what they did with guards. i think they should revert to not auto upgrade and bring back so the yaks means something and gives us reasons to defends them. id like they revert to putting wvw experience in the chests instead of the xp bonus usually when im done with my dailies unless i got a good group im done with wvw for the day. the laser bugs me and needs to go. so if im still playing when its released ill more then likely buy

I will not buy anything else from Anet without seeing it first. I tried over the weekend to get to know the jungle with the help of a guild member. Its not happening, the moment I stop to look around some random mob falls on my face and starts spewing all sorts of annoying cc my way. Some kitten dino rider charges from one side of the map, runs me over and continues to the other side.. its chaotic bullcrap. I have a job and a gym membership for working(out), games are for easygoing fun. This aint fun for me

Heck no, ill wait till its released and measure the forum outcry/opinions of guildies before I give ANet a single dollar.

While the HoT maps are stunning,, ANet made a 180 degree design change that im just not down with.

Kill.3458:

Heck no, ill wait till its released and measure the forum outcry/opinions of guildies before I give ANet a single dollar.

While the HoT maps are stunning,, ANet made a 180 degree design change that im just not down with.

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

At this point..
Probably not. Unsure.

They seemed to have known that they could not make enough content, so instead, they gave you content you would have to play hundreds of times, over and over again. And I’m perfectly fine with the difficulty, it’s actually not difficult.

However, I feel very disappointed with the story’s writing and length.
The story is gated behind the open world maps, which are designed to be completed over and over again… Which is designed for you to have masteries…which you will need to do that content… Again, and again.
I like the meta events, I always feel excited when we’re at the final moment in Tarir…
But there’s only 3 maps that people actually do the meta on..
And now Verdant Brink is having issues with raiders sitting outside of the entrance to the raid.

The artificial lengthening of the story is completely gone once you unlock the masteries, and you can see how short it is on a second character or a third. I really like the mechanics within the new story, far better than the original story.. however, there is nowhere near the amount of text based dialogue that would allow players to learn about anything. In Rata Novus, there could have been LOTS of information that players could have gone through, instead, we trudge through and forget it. We’re even left hanging at the end with an incredibly weak ending that feels as if it was not finished at all.

Another thing is that sPvP only received one map, and we have no word on another stronghold map. Same with fractals, except there isn’t a new map there either. Dungeons were cannibalized, and they could have easily increased token rewards or changed the difficulty of the dungeon to make it worth the while. WvW is also dead, and there is rarely anything interesting in the borderlands.

The music is amazing, it’s way better than the base game. However, this music is not used anywhere else, not even the new WvW map or Stronghold.

I like stronghold as a new mode, but there needs to be more than one map.
sPvP is in need of more variation. There’s a lot of options open in this game mode, and I can see a lot of cool ideas working into this if they make more maps.
Right now, you just push down either lane. But how about a variation with more direct engagements? A variation with more fighting, replacing door breakers with swordsmen? An RTS version? There’s a lot of untapped potential here.

I’m not the kind of gamer that buys games to get my “money’s worth”.
I don’t measure quality with quantity.
However.. HoT takes good quality, and then it tries to stretch it out for as long as possible.

If they’re still releasing HoT content…

I’d want to see more masteries that are interesting and not required. ( Lore? )
I want to see new 5 man PvE content. ( Fractals/Dungeons )
I want to see new raids.
I’d like for the story to be properly finished with a satisfying ending.
Revive WvW, through server merging or incentives.
More stronghold maps.
Better LFG tool.
New weapons and armor sets.
A dialogue update across some Tyria that reflects a more up to date timeline.
Zhaitan has been dead for a while. Charr and humans have been at piece for a while too.. The world isn’t living if nothing changes.

I think I’ll be more convinced if we could get some of those.

warbignime.4610:

Kill.3458:

Heck no, ill wait till its released and measure the forum outcry/opinions of guildies before I give ANet a single dollar.

While the HoT maps are stunning,, ANet made a 180 degree design change that im just not down with.

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

That where we disagree

So nerf core content to the floor so new content is made more interesting. That isnt a good decision, thats just a sad excuse for hiding the fact that the developers werent confident the content in HoT would be adequate enough to compete.

Also I said id measure the OUTCRY of the forums judging on the amount of positive OR negative, taking both into account before making a decision.

Im glad youre enjoying the content fully, doesnt mean we all are

warbignime.4610:

Kill.3458:

Heck no, ill wait till its released and measure the forum outcry/opinions of guildies before I give ANet a single dollar.

While the HoT maps are stunning,, ANet made a 180 degree design change that im just not down with.

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

So you’ll be spending money on the game on my behalf from now on right? You’re dismissing my complaint and any complaint in general so you’re prepared to increase your spending to compensate for the loss of mine right? If your answer to the above is ‘no’ you better focus on your enjoyment and stop refuting people’s opinions.

warbignime.4610:

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

So your advice to casual players is not to buy expansions?

Probably not, it’s literally cheaper to buy GW in a brick and mortar store locally and not have to rely on exchange rates of online purchases

warbignime.4610:

Kill.3458:

Heck no, ill wait till its released and measure the forum outcry/opinions of guildies before I give ANet a single dollar.

While the HoT maps are stunning,, ANet made a 180 degree design change that im just not down with.

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

If you are really telling people who want casual content not to buy HoT or future xpacs, ANet had better pray no one listens to you. If they do there game will tank when they lose most of the money they spend making an xpac. Or it would contain so little content that people who did buy it would probably end up walking away from it once they felt they had got there moneys worth.

As we already know, ANet needs player retention to keep the game alive. The more people you have playing, the more of a chance they’ll look at the gem store, the more they look at the gem store, the more of a chance they’ll buy gems for what ever reason.

ANet have said that all new content will be for HoT. So people who have done everything in core and not got HoT, and are casual have no reason to continue to play the game if we follow your logic. This will lose ANet money and at some point cause the game to fail. No one who plays the game wants this.

Manasa Devi.7958:

warbignime.4610:

Addressing forum complain is not possible because forum literally complain about every single thing in GW2 and every changes no matter good or bad.

Yes Anet made design change and it’s good decision, old maps are boring and brainless. New maps are challenging and fun if you want casual content core tyria offers plenty.

So your advice to casual players is not to buy expansions?

Casual, solo players who don’t want content that’s challenging, yeah, I think they’d be disappointed with the expansion.

But not every casual player demands to be a solo player and not every casual player demands content you can beat while watching Game of Thrones on your other monitor.

The minute they announce it.