The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
I’ve even said that HoT was not any more polished than the LS1 updates exactly because i knew someone would bring that up. No, HoT was for many unplayable even upon start (simply could not enter HoT). I call that extremely buggy.
Also… new systems, really? They have reworked their systems several times before in so-called feature patches. Just think about removal of glory from PvP, the addition of the wardrobe, and so on.
Maps, cool… we received 4 new maps, we also received 4 new maps during those living story updates, not counting changes to already existing maps (like Kessex).
WvW maps, amazing but we received Edge of the Mists just so, with no expansion development.
They also made all the content for festivals back during the same time. Reworked Tequatl, made the marionette, the invasion of LA (hey, they actually remade the LA map a few times too), then us taking back LA, they made the triple trouble fight, somehow they managed to add all those fractals in a very short time (which they reworked a few times too), they made SAB (could be a stand-alone game even) just for an april fools gag.
They added more skins – even if to the gemstore – during that time than what we got now in this expansion thing.
Nope, not quite convinced that we received years worth of dev time with this.
You can not be convinced if you want, but none of the maps we received during the living story came out at once, with the exception of Edge of the Mists. They were staggered over months. And there were many months between releases of stuff. I mean Southsun came pretty soon after release and my guess it it was already being worked on before release anyway. On top of that it’s a smallish map, with only a small number of dynamic events. The Karka Queen was added later if you recall.
So that leaves three maps. One of those maps was as WvW and we know that took a year. Just the one map took a year according to Anet. So I don’t know how you can believe that four maps plus everything else took a few months. It’s not reasonable in my opinion.
People complained about the Living Story updates being a couple of hours of content too, so I would say it’s probably the same pace. It’s more likely to me that people don’t have a clue how long it takes to program stuff than that a company is paying people to sit around and do nothing.
So now the only thing about the expansion that took time is the map design? But sure, let’s see. There were 4 PvE maps because you might have forgotten the Labyrinthine Cliffs but i’m sure many have not.
We can of course keep putting content on a scale and measure it but it’s pretty obvious that the game lacks content and what is there is just not enough to keep people logging in even for the daily free chest.
I did forget about Labyrinthine Cliffs, but no one could possibly construe that as a full sized map. So if Southsun was a prelaunch thing (and I don’t really see how anyone could argue that it wasn’t) that leaves EoTM, Silverwastes and Dry Top, plus a sliver of a map with a couple of dynamic events. Anet has even created a few mini games over the years.
They created how many adventures though. Like them or not that’s content.
So over 3 years they created 3.5 maps to be generous and now you’re saying the created 4 maps, plus 2 guild maps, a new PvP map and the new WvW in a few months. There’s just no evidence to support that. Even if each of those maps only took a month to build and a month to test, that’s 2 months each, which is a year and four months.
Sorry we’re going to have to agree to disagree if you really think that these updated didn’t take time.
And that’s the problem. There’s simply not enough time to do everything. Other games tend to run into the same problems.
You are grasping at straws and conveniently forgetting all the other points i made about LA, the events, the encounters, the skins, all the content. Now we are at “how many and how big maps they’ve built”…
It’s fun when people use terms like grasping at straws as some sort of attempt to prove someone wrong.
I’m saying the expansion required a certain amount of effort, which Anet charged for. It’s my only argument here. The other argument about there could have been more X or Y isn’t relevant to my argument and therefore isn’t something I need to respond to. It’s a side argument.
This thread is about the rest of the expansion. It’s asking about the stuff that was promised, not that stuff that people want that wasn’t promised and wasn’t delivered. Even this conversation is bordering on off topic and probably should be taken to another thread.
But there’s no grasping and no straws here. Someone made a statement that the expansion took a minimal time to program and I responded to it. If the EoTM map took a year to max, then 7 maps didn’t take 4 months.
And actually on topic, the WvW overhaul didn’t make it into the expansion because it required more work/time than Anet thought it would. This is why they normally don’t say anything before hand. Because if stuff gets delayed its protrayed as a betrayal by the fans.
I don’t want to prove you wrong, there is no sense in that.
Just try to think for a second though. If you buy a new car, do you get a chassis and the promise of an engine some months later? And if you are dumb enough to trust this promise, would you not rightfully ask where the engine is?
You do not have to know what it takes to develop and build a car engine, you don’t care, you want a functioning car.
Similarly, it’s not our job to make maps, we don’t get paid for making games. Anet developers are. We do not need to concern ourselves with how much time it takes to make a legendary weapon. That is the point that people are making. We – the customers – are incredibly patient already. And you are not doing anyone (Anet the least) any service by defending them all the time. You’re just blinding them to the actual problems until you’ll be doing the brand new meta events with 3 people who are left to play with.
This is a terrible analogy though, because the main parts of the expansion have been delivered, except for the WvW upgrade which is being delayed. You’re saying if the car is missing the engine. Well if the car is missing the engine, the car won’t run.
But people can play through the HOT zones. They can craft precursors they never got before. They can craft three new legendary weapons. They can even still WvW if that’s what they want to do. The motor isn’t missing here and analogies like this aren’t going to make your point any stronger.
Here’s what happened. I bought Guild Wars 2 and since then MANY features were delayed and eventually delivered. I got the base game, and guesting was delayed. It was delayed by many months. Eventually guesting got delivered and was then later superceded by the mega server.
These things that don’t get in on time, come later, and this has been true since the moment the game launched. It’s not just something that happened with HoT. It’s always been the case, not just here, but in every MMO.
So what we’re missing are new legendary weapons (which are just more things to make and some people are making the ones they released anyway), we’re missing a new legendary backpack and legendary armor, which is all just basically items to work towards. Not quite content to play. We’re missing the WvW overhaul which admittedly is taking longer than they expected it to, and we’re missing more raids, which I’m sure 75% or more of the population of the game could care less about. In fact, most of these items are niche items, appealing to a hard core crowd that probably isn’t most of the people playing. Yes, they’re frustrated but they’re also probably not a majority.
But unlike many, I observe and learn from the past. I learned that guesting was announced and delayed. I saw that precursor crafting was announced and delayed. And I saw that some stuff that came out during that time wasn’t even on my radar, but I thought it was a cool bonus, like Fractals and the Shatterer revamp and gliding in central Tyria.
Maybe because I can see how the company has operated, I can draw conclusions from how things will go, including the fact that delays will happen, because they have happened.
But the combat system is there. I’m doing the meta events. I’ve finished leveling my masteries, except for the raiding ones, which I’ll likely never get, and I’ve leveled all my elite specializations.
So where is this motor you’re talking about? Maybe I missed a new radio system that was supposed to come with the car and was delayed, but I can drive just fine, thanks.
