Guild Wars 2

So let me be clear from the start: I absolutely love this new release. The new PvE map, the story, the new big enemies (freaking awesome)…
But after this eternal content drought we just got an episode of the same length of the ones in LS2 but with no achievements tied to the main quests at all. All we got is the usual achievements of the new map …. and that’s it I guess. I will be done with all of them by tomorrow probably and they already stated they want to focus on less releases, aiming for one LS release every 2 or 3 months. I’m really dissapointed with the low gameplay hours we just got, and if this is the new standard the new expansion must be really HUGE to justify this sad situation.
So where are those old achievements to make people replay the episodes doing specific (and usually difficult) stuff to get some AP and ascended loot?

PS.: I’m not forgetting about Chaos Isles and Capricorn, I love those as well. I’m just talking about of a regular PvE point of view.

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Emtiarbi.3281:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Read the multitude of statements Anet has made regarding this. The 2-week releases were hell on the devs and not sustainable for quality content or continual output. They transitioned to a release every 2-3 months that contains higher quantity and higher quality content rather than trying to continue something that burned out the entire team.

UnbentMars.9126:

Emtiarbi.3281:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Read the multitude of statements Anet has made regarding this. The 2-week releases were hell on the devs and not sustainable for quality content or continual output. They transitioned to a release every 2-3 months that contains higher quantity and higher quality content rather than trying to continue something that burned out the entire team.

That’s right… except the part of higher quantity, which judging this episode 1 isn’t true at all. That’s why I’m concerned. Here’s hoping the 2nd episode is much juicy content-wise.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

UnbentMars.9126:

Emtiarbi.3281:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Read the multitude of statements Anet has made regarding this. The 2-week releases were hell on the devs and not sustainable for quality content or continual output. They transitioned to a release every 2-3 months that contains higher quantity and higher quality content rather than trying to continue something that burned out the entire team.

That’s right… except the part of higher quantity, which judging this episode 1 isn’t true at all. That’s why I’m concerned. Here’s hoping the 2nd episode is much juicy content-wise.

A new map, a new fractal, a new pvp map, a ton of improvements to classes and functionality, improvements to the AR system design, and a new LS episode is NOT a small amount of content.

Additionally, much of the improvements were based around making it easier to add more content in the future (especially new fractals), so I’m strongly suspecting that a large amount of this update was designed to enable Anet to add more things in the future more easily. Besides, this is the first episode of the new LS. The first episodes of LS1 and 2 were also somewhat short compared to the ones that followed.

Well, they have stated in the AMA that PvP, Fractals and Raids teams are independent. Having a new PvP map and a new Fractal map in this release was a mere coincidence. I’m talking about regular PvE. Compare what we got vs what we used to get in previous releases which, by the way, didn’t were preceded by 4 full months of zero content and it falls seriously short. The new map is awesome but really small. The amount of achievements is low and the absence of a meta-event in the map just makes it worse. After you finish those achievements there is nothing left there for you (except maybe collect magic to get those new ascended items if you want the HoT new stats).
And now comes the worst part of it: another 2 to 3 months of content drought.
PS.: HoT expansion was supposed to be the ground work for them to add more content to the game but almost 1 year later they are still working on that it seems…

UnbentMars.9126:

Emtiarbi.3281:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Read the multitude of statements Anet has made regarding this. The 2-week releases were hell on the devs and not sustainable for quality content or continual output. They transitioned to a release every 2-3 months that contains higher quantity and higher quality content rather than trying to continue something that burned out the entire team.

Don’t get me wrong, but the LS2 they released 4 chapters (2 weeks each) and a new map and then waited a couple of months to release the other 4 chapters (2 weeks each).

I’m not talking about the old model of a release every 2 weeks, i though this Living Story update would be similar to the Living Story 2 (4 chapters, then wait a couple of months).

This chapter was good, but it was small, so i was expecting that the next chapter will be in 2 weeks, like the LS2.

Emtiarbi.3281:

UnbentMars.9126:

Emtiarbi.3281:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

So we have to wait 2 months for chapter 2?

Read the multitude of statements Anet has made regarding this. The 2-week releases were hell on the devs and not sustainable for quality content or continual output. They transitioned to a release every 2-3 months that contains higher quantity and higher quality content rather than trying to continue something that burned out the entire team.

Don’t get me wrong, but the LS2 they released 4 chapters (2 weeks each) and a new map and then waited a couple of months to release the other 4 chapters (2 weeks each).

I’m not talking about the old model of a release every 2 weeks, i though this Living Story update would be similar to the Living Story 2 (4 chapters, then wait a couple of months).

This chapter was good, but it was small, so i was expecting that the next chapter will be in 2 weeks, like the LS2.

I think most of the people expect now that Anet will release the next episode in 2 weeks and nobody think there will be another content drought for 2-3 months, when we have zero new content and nothing to do – but currently, it seems this is what exactly will happen.

UnbentMars.9126:

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

That’s right… except the part of higher quantity, which judging this episode 1 isn’t true at all. That’s why I’m concerned. Here’s hoping the 2nd episode is much juicy content-wise.

A new map, a new fractal, a new pvp map, a ton of improvements to classes and functionality, improvements to the AR system design, and a new LS episode is NOT a small amount of content.

Additionally, much of the improvements were based around making it easier to add more content in the future (especially new fractals), so I’m strongly suspecting that a large amount of this update was designed to enable Anet to add more things in the future more easily. Besides, this is the first episode of the new LS. The first episodes of LS1 and 2 were also somewhat short compared to the ones that followed.

To be honest, we’re only half a small map and a fractal more than what we got on average during Season 2.

Which given that we waited 9 months for this release, and will wait 2-3 more months for the next, isn’t saying much.

Yes, it was very awesome and well done, easily argued to be the best content released in terms of quality, but that’s rather pointless if we’re sitting twiddling our thumbs because we only have so much new stuff to do.

Because the next time we get new content, we’ll devour what should be a few days or weeks worth in a few hours – like this time.

All we can hope is that they keep adding Current Events for us to do new things between the episodes.

When the period between 2 releases now is equivalent to between 4 releases before, one would expect at least two or three releases’ worth of content. Not just barely more than 1 release’s worth.

I like the aspect of flight in the new map, but the map itself seems to lack something for me. It just doesn’t have a whole lot going on other than visually. The depth makes it a lot larger than I was expecting when I saw in the map, but there isn’t really a whole lot to the map other than a few repetitive and slightly imo rather unengaging events along with 1000’s of mobs scattered all over the place for seemingly no reason.

I do like that these mobs don’t stomp you into the ground and are easy to round up and farm, but it just seems like the whole point of this zone is to do nothing but just that… farm unbound magic through the few events it has and grinding mobs.

I haven’t done the Chaos Isles yet, but I’m looking forward to trying them out.

As far as the living story goes, the lack of achievements doesn’t really bother me but the chapter itself seemed a lot shorter than I had anticipated. I’m already like 3 achievements away from the bloodstone crown reward and aside from the two big reveals in the final scenario there wasn’t quite as much summed up as I was expecting.

I think the biggest thing for me is just that it’s been so long without any new story that I was expecting more than I should have. And as far as the whole patch goes, it just seems like quality of life improvements (although nice) are taking kind of the forefront yet again.

People mention that these improvements make it easier for content implementation down the road, but how many of these improvements have we had without really seeing how they’ve significantly aided in that process? I don’t know.

I’m not disappointed with the patch, but I was expecting a bit more.

The Summer Quarterly Release is about the size I expected. It’s just not going to do the job it needs to do. There needs to be a split between producing episodes of the ongoing story and adding big set-pieces. Clearly it hasn’t been possible and isn’t going to be possible to produce full episodes with instances and boss fights on a two week cadence and apparently the insistence on multi-language voiceovers means even non-combat sections take a long time to produce.

The solution is to come up with content that is more obviously story-related and that can be added at each regular bi-monthly update. The Current Events are a great starting point for that – just keep doing those and tie them more clearly into a narrative.

As things stand, there is no way 2-3 monthly releases of the kind we got yesterday will make a meaningful contribution to what a subscription MMO would call “retention”. People will finish up what’s on offer in a few days or a couple of weeks at most and then wander off, only coming back to check out the game when they hear something new has been added.

LS1 and LS2 may have been hard on the devs and the quality may have been lower (although we have our share of bugs this time of course) but I would bet the metrics will show that both did a much better job of keeping concurrencies up and players engaged and active.

Also, isn’t it about time we had some kind of PR announcement beginning to build anticipation for the second expansion? Are we really looking at a WoW-style two-year gap between each expansion? GW1 players were used to expecting better than that and so are the players of many other MMOs. You really have to be the Big Name to get away with making your customers wait that long.

I forebode that i would wither and die before Tyria or the last dragon do as the episode is so tiny…….

Remember guys, this is meant to be about the size of like 9 LS1 episodes Hue.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

So let me be clear from the start: I absolutely love this new release. The new PvE map, the story, the new big enemies (freaking awesome)…
But after this eternal content drought we just got an episode of the same length of the ones in LS2 but with no achievements tied to the main quests at all. All we got is the usual achievements of the new map …. and that’s it I guess. I will be done with all of them by tomorrow probably and they already stated they want to focus on less releases, aiming for one LS release every 2 or 3 months. I’m really dissapointed with the low gameplay hours we just got, and if this is the new standard the new expansion must be really HUGE to justify this sad situation.
So where are those old achievements to make people replay the episodes doing specific (and usually difficult) stuff to get some AP and ascended loot?

PS.: I’m not forgetting about Chaos Isles and Capricorn, I love those as well. I’m just talking about of a regular PvE point of view.

The bolded part is incorrect as there are achievements tied to the story missions. You may not have noticed them as Anet has listened to player feedback and made them obtainable on the first playthrough.

They need to be making content that will last at least half the time we will be waiting for the next content update.

This will probably last a week for those trying to get everything for others it could last about 2 – 3 days.

They need to be bringing out stuff that last say 1 to 1 1/2 months because people will come along for say a week, play, then go onto something else until the next thing then rinse and repeat.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I’m curious if they will release an episode every 2 weeks like the LS2.

Sadly they won’t
They said it before and they just said it today in the Reddit’s AMA: they are splitting resources between LS and the nex expansion to avoid having a content drought pre-expansion launch like the one we had in the pre-HoT months. They don’t have final fixed dates of course, but they said they will release new LS chapters every 2-3 months.

That is incredibly frustrating to hear. And they aren’t avoiding a content drought at all using this approach. This update was fun, but I’ve done the story and all the achievements before even putting 10 hours of playtime into it, and I felt like I was moving slow. I literally have nothing new to do again for 2-3 months now. That is a content drought. This isn’t even close to high enough quantity to keep players active while we wait months for the next release. This is a day of content. They need to release a helluva lot more than this to keep me active between patches.

I found replayability by:

• Farming map currency for vendor rewards
• Farming map currency and rubies for ascended trinkets
• Farming events for salvage items to get mats for T7 materials

It also makes me sad that we will get next chapter after 2-3 months …
Spent like 2 hours on story and another 2 hours for achivements … already got 5 masteris and 14/18 achivements done.
So just few more hours and it’s done.

Achivements are too easy if you ask me.

Currently running it on my fourth toon, and it’s fun enough to run on all the remaining ones, even if just for sense of completion – not to mention the extra quick unbound magic for the materials!

I’d like to compare the LS S3 now released, to the other content…

Living story 3 -part 1- was released with 4 story steps, a new map piece, a new PvP map, a new mastery and options to get new ascended trinkets in -any- existing stat you want…. it is infinitely repeatable.

HoT was released with 4 new maps all being event maps…. it added 1 PvP map and quite some stats both in PvE and in PvP it contains 14 story steps. options for 8 new stats and it is infinitely repeatable

Living story season 2 (parts 1-8) were released with 8*3 story steps, 2 new maps (SW and DT), and options to get ascneded trinkets in 2 stats(nomad, sinister). it is infinitely repeatable

Living story season 1 saw the introduction of 1 permanent map (Southsun Cove), and 2 event maps (Queens Gauntlet and Labyrinthine Cliffs) which both returned once and were then removed unill this point in time… 3 new stats (apothecary, celestial, zealot) All these Living Season 1 story steps AND events are gone and will (likely) never be repeatable.

I’m happy with the content released, this was good after a bad drought, I prefer more content and ANY content based upon a schedule would be a good thing again…

I don’t count rewards to consider replayability. I just count enjoyment of the content. Having said that, there’s not much in the way of rewards anyway. Skills that only work in the area, and bloodstone equipment I have no use for.

While it’s a nice area and there’s a lot of shiny stuff, there’s nothing there that holds my attention. Some events with big hitpoint-bag champions and floating magical balls, that’s the extent of it.

I logged in for two days, and now I either log in to farm stuff for this update or go back to path of exile. See you guys in two months then?