Guild Wars 2

Yes I do not think the next expansion will be coming any time soon. But instead the next Elite Specialization and battle with the next Elder Dragon will be added with Living Story.
Why? Because for starters it’s much too early for another – HoT was released over 3 years after GW2 came out and it was after 2 seasons of LS while we are only 2 episodes in with the new one. Also how much more can the battle be prolonged this time? LS1 took place before Mordremoth awakened and it was the de facto final goal of it. While LS2 was about the effects it had on the world after awakening. Primordus however is already at the “effect” stage so how much more story can be squeezed out of it?

There are 2 other things which indicate that expac2 is nowhere near yet:

1) the 2nd generation of legendary weapons. It’s already been a year since HoT came out and we only have 5 so far. Even if there won’t be any aquatic weapons thats still not even half of the new set. As there are still 11 legendary weapons to go.
Now we can of course assume expac2 can come out regardless. But what if it brings a 3rd generation? We will have 3rd generation when 2nd isn’t complete yet?
Ok so maybe it won’t give any new legendary weapons but that will still be releasing next expansion before we have full content from previous one yet.
Or maybe we will get like other half of 2nd generation with expac2? That would be a HUGE D*** move. Plus expac2 would mean new areas which would be required for the other half of the 2nd generation. And you can’t exactly call them same generation and/or set if you need 2 different expansions to get them all.

2) The amount of Hero Point’s. Apart from the 398 we gain from leveling which is exactly enough to master all Core Spec’s and Skill’s we get them from challanges.
there are exactly 200 in the core map’s (Dry Top and Silverwastes included) 400 in HoT maps plus 13 from WvW and 1 from Krait Obelisk which gives a total of 614. But even if we omit the last 2 it’s still 600. So after fully mastering our Elite Spec which costs 250 that still leaves us with 350. So the cost is not even half of how many we can get. So what are we suppose to do with all those point’s? If next Elite Spec comes out with next expansion it will have new areas which will have new challenges. But we will be able to fully train it even without ever going to them. Also the amount of unspent point’s will increase by another 150. Assuming we get another 400 after spending the next 250 on Elite Spec 2 we still have 500 unused point’s (350 old + 150 new unused).
That’s enough for another 2 Elite Specializations and there is no other use for them.
Now the answer to this is that maybe Elite Spec 2 will require more point’s – not likely as we will be altering between them and that would put one above the other. No they will need to cost same amount just like each Core Spec cost’s 60 to fully master.
Now someone will say that maybe the new areas won’t have any challenges. Ok then how will those that don’t have HoT fully unlock the new Elite Spec? I mean if that’s the case then they will only have the 200 – 214 available from Core maps without HoT.
So only those that have HoT and expac2 will be able to unlock Elite Spec 2.
And there is no way expac2 will give access to HoT too. No that’s the whole plan Core content will be for free while each expansion will have to be bought separately. Well it’s likely HoT will be like 50% off when expac2 comes out but it won’t be for free.

So yeah I think this new content will come with LS. Of course you can say that new Elite Spec yes but the fight with next Elder Dragon only with expansion. However it would kinda contradict the lore. As it is implied we gained our Elite Specs by entering the Heart of Maguuma i.e. the dragon’s territory i.e. we needed them to even the odd’s. So our next Elite Spec should also be gained from fighting the next Elder Dragon.

HoT took so long to come out because they weren’t originally planning to make an expansion at all.

When the game launched they actually intended to do mainly one-off events like The Lost Shores. But that was a disaster so they never did it again, and instead settled on first month long and then 2 week long story segments.

That was better but a lot of people still weren’t happy with it, so they switched to making each release instanced and permanent so they could be played any time you wanted.

It was only after players kept on and on and on about wanting an expansion that they finally gave in and made one. And then had to delay the story to fix it because apparently players didn’t want the challenging end-game content they’d asked for.

Now they have a better idea of what kind of a release system works for the game there’s no reason for them to run the whole experimental process again and therefore no need to wait the exact same amount of time before the next expansion comes out.

Same with the Legendary Weapons. They weren’t delayed because Anet had pre-planned a fixed schedule and they had to delay the weapons to meet it. They were scrapped completely because making the collections proved to be too much work, then they were brought back without the collections because so many people complained.

Basically you cannot use the pattern of previous releases to predict what’s going to happen in future because Anet doesn’t work like that. Otherwise we’d have had an expansion 6 months after release, another one a year later, then a mini one and the announcement they were completely stopping work on the game to develop GW3, because that’s the ‘pattern’ they established with GW1.

I don’t know what they intend to do about the hero point glut and future specializations, but it is a valid issue. I don’t know that adding another specialization fixes it, though, since you then have the issue of really having to hit every HP in Tyria and HoT to be able get the extra spec, which is the same complaint that caused them to tone down the original HP requirements in the first place.

If they were following a model of 1 expansion = 1 specialization, then it would almost make more sense to split up the expansion weapon/utilities from the expansion traits. Then they could have the former be bought with ordinary hero points, and make the latter purchasable only with area-specific hero points (so, say, a HoT HP would award 4 generic HP and 1 HoT HP). That way, they could ensure you had to play a certain amount of expansion content to really get the full use of the specialization, but time you spent going after map completion in Central Tyria wouldn’t be a total waste, and you could at least have a full skill bar early on to be able to play your spec with.

Danikat.8537:

Same with the Legendary Weapons. They weren’t delayed because Anet had pre-planned a fixed schedule and they had to delay the weapons to meet it. They were scrapped completely because making the collections proved to be too much work, then they were brought back without the collections because so many people complained.

The rest of your post was correct enough, but this one I have to step in and address. The legendary weapons were never “scrapped completely”. They were put on indefinite suspension, and while everyone THOUGHT that meant they were cancelled, what it really meant was they were re-examining how they’d be adding in new weapon recipes. They weren’t brought back because people complained, but because they had finally worked out a solution they were satisfied with.

The big thing about ArenaNet is that, unlike many of the companies who look at the latest big thing and try to copy that into their game, this company likes to experiment. And many of those experiments go horribly wrong, but that’s when you learn the most. So do try and be patient when ArenaNet does something new and exotic, because it might blow chunks, but at least you’ll never have to suffer something like that again.

To the initial post, if it isn’t clear by now, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be killing any dragons without an expansion. It makes for a very convenient “bookmark”, if you will, of what each X-pack will focus on. Before, when ArenaNet were thinking about how they would be bringing in new content, we might have fought a new dragon through just the living world, but when there were complaints about even small events being potentially missed, that’s when a new format had to be found. In the meantime, Season 3 should be building up to how, where and why we’ll be fighting the next dragon, along with small plot points about the “party members” who will be helping us. Let’s tune in next month (hopefully) and watch what shenannigans Dragon’s Watch gets up to this time…

As per the Primordus already being at the ‘effect’ stage, so how can we squeeze enough content, we already have confirmed Jormag activity in episode 2, and we can assume Kralkatorrik is also active as his minions were a part of the ley line magic-surge pre events. So we’ll (hopefully) get material for all three dragons. And maybe Bubbles too. Hopefully Bubbles too because I can’t see a full story arc for just the Deep Sea Dragon.

As far as Heart of Thorns not being included in the next expansion, you may have missed the statement that all previous expansions (as well as the core game) will be included in the cost of each current expansion.

In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

Good luck.

Actually I say elite spec: no. ANet has already confirmed that elite specilizations are a thing for expansions and won’t be released in the interim. Unless they change their mind about that, don’t expect to see new specs before the next expansion.

they’ve been working on the next expansion for at least a couple months after the release of heart of thorns. I have a feeling it’s much closer than we think, too.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Actually I say elite spec: no. ANet has already confirmed that elite specilizations are a thing for expansions and won’t be released in the interim. Unless they change their mind about that, don’t expect to see new specs before the next expansion.

Normally I would agree to keep them expansion exclusive. However, I believe that 1 more elite spec for each class (and only 1) should be released with LWS3 (at the end possibly) for 2 reasons.

1 – This would use up most of the extra HP that players have before the next expansion drops, preventing them from fully maxing an expansion elite spec the instant they login.

2 – This gives ANet more room to fully adjust current elite specs as actual specializations that are good at one specific aspect. Right now, all elite specs are massively overpowered because people needed a reason to want them. ANet didn’t want to make them too specialized from the start or it could disencentivize players from using them. As we get more elite specs, ANet has more freedom to make them true specializations without reducing the options for what playstyle each base class can have. The faster the second and third elite spec come out the faster they can be turned into true specializations instead of just more powerful versions of their respective base classes. Chrono should be a full support spec. Druid should be a full healing/support spec etc…. But until we get another elite spec that offers another style of play while being just as powerful as the current ones this won’t happen.