Guild Wars 2

Hi!

Go back to creating living world only, it was more fun than the expansion. I rly dont like grind games and the mastery system has turned into one. I cant even do raids because theyre boring and time consuming. I used to be one of the people who vouched for an expansion but after comparing the fun between the expansion & living world… living world beats the expansion by alot. The friends that came back for the expansion are gone already because it wasnt entertaining enough and after you butchered the whole core game theres basically zero fun things to do anymore in gw2. Like what was the point of adding an expansion when you butchered the core game like you did?

Also, the living world should be how it was in season 1 with real changing events of tyria and not the lame instanced stuff we got with season 2. OR just put season 1 on repeat over and over every year (except the LA events) that would be more fun than the stuff we get now. Im just sad about what this game has become…aka zero fun.

Well Heart of Thorns seemed rushed, so perhaps the next one ArenaNet won’t rush it and as a result, it’ll have better content?

That’s such a drastic approach to the problems of the first and only expansion so far.

… theres basically zero fun things to do anymore in gw2.

… aka zero fun.

That’s quite an opinion you have there.

Season 1 on repeat seems more boring than the large amount of content that comes with Heart of Thorns, but I don’t know if that’s a low-key hyperbole.

Your suggestion is smothered in personal bias (and dare I say, frustration), but that’s how many of these forum posts are aren’t they.

I still think that he living world concept is great. Its implementation, so far, has been truly underwhelming (to say the least) so far (in my opinion). As much as I do hope that Anet does not give up on the concept, I dont see what they have managed to do with LS so far as a suitable replacement for expansions.

Leohart.4610:

Well Heart of Thorns seemed rushed, so perhaps the next one ArenaNet won’t rush it and as a result, it’ll have better content?

That’s such a drastic approach to the problems of the first and only expansion so far.

… theres basically zero fun things to do anymore in gw2.

… aka zero fun.

That’s quite an opinion you have there.

Season 1 on repeat seems more boring than the large amount of content that comes with Heart of Thorns, but I don’t know if that’s a low-key hyperbole.

Your suggestion is smothered in personal bias (and dare I say, frustration), but that’s how many of these forum posts are aren’t they.

Yea ok. Its an oppinion. But whats more fun to you. Farming items to get special skins from living world events or farming masterys you only can use in hot zones? And yes im frusterated because what anet thinks is fun atm i dont think is fun at all.

Given that the “special skins from living world events” were continuously back to back and always temporary, I’d honestly rather have the masteries that, while only obtainable in a small amount of area of the game (that will grow over time as new maps are added), is actually permanent.

But in all honesty, I would not do farming if I prefer – and since I can go after masteries at my own pace, I don’t have to farm them; I would have to farm for the skins, since they’d be temporary as a true “living world” would be.

I prefer their current set up – Season 2 styled living world that fills in gaps of otherwise no-content between expansions. It just needs to be more content in future expansions than what we got in the rushed-feeling HoT.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Given that the “special skins from living world events” were continuously back to back and always temporary, I’d honestly rather have the masteries that, while only obtainable in a small amount of area of the game (that will grow over time as new maps are added), is actually permanent.

But in all honesty, I would not do farming if I prefer – and since I can go after masteries at my own pace, I don’t have to farm them; I would have to farm for the skins, since they’d be temporary as a true “living world” would be.

I prefer their current set up – Season 2 styled living world that fills in gaps of otherwise no-content between expansions. It just needs to be more content in future expansions than what we got in the rushed-feeling HoT.

im going with you on this. my sentiments exactly

In terms of marketing, an expansion is far superior. People simply don’t care about some patch an MMO gets whereas people talk about an upcoming expansion. Expansions bring in players, whereas a flow of new content keeps them active. Moving forward, ArenaNet will likely stick with expansions with smaller living world releases in between – just enough to keep people active. They’ve already made the mistake of waiting too long after the expansion, though HoT’s release was simply at a terrible time, so it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. They should have transitioned straight into the living world a month after release.

Personally, the only thing good about the expansion model is that it gives me ample free to time to play other games.

By no means they should stop with expansions. It’s so much better than this Living World we had before (Season 2 wasn’t that bad though).

The expansion (except for the disastrous WvW changes) was far superior to any LS chain. Don’t stop making them.

Been saying this since Day One, but nooooo. Everyone wanted an expansion. And now that it’s here, nonstop complaining. No more Living Stories? What do you think the ‘expansion’ was? A rushed, patched together LS we bought under the guise of an expansion.

Stop kidding yourselves.

Throwing in a new class and some new mechanics does not an expansion make.

I have to say i’m pretty happy with the expansion. Endgame is different than most other MMOs as there is suddenly a ton of stuff to do to get to the same goal. That massive amount of content can make everything seem like a grind and without a solid core of people to play with make that grind unbearable.

But as our gaming world has changed… I think the devs understand this. If you’re not liking the game… go play something else.

I welcome more expansions, so long as they are better than HoT.

HoT was light on content and maps but most importantly the main story felt very rushed. If the next expansion is similar in that respect to HoT then no, I do not want another. If Arena Net can do better next time then I say bring it on.

sanctuary.1068:

Leohart.4610:

Well Heart of Thorns seemed rushed, so perhaps the next one ArenaNet won’t rush it and as a result, it’ll have better content?

That’s such a drastic approach to the problems of the first and only expansion so far.

… theres basically zero fun things to do anymore in gw2.

… aka zero fun.

That’s quite an opinion you have there.

Season 1 on repeat seems more boring than the large amount of content that comes with Heart of Thorns, but I don’t know if that’s a low-key hyperbole.

Your suggestion is smothered in personal bias (and dare I say, frustration), but that’s how many of these forum posts are aren’t they.

Yea ok. Its an oppinion. But whats more fun to you. Farming items to get special skins from living world events or farming masterys you only can use in hot zones? And yes im frusterated because what anet thinks is fun atm i dont think is fun at all.

I actually preferred both Season 1 and HoT to LS Season 2.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Been saying this since Day One, but nooooo. Everyone wanted an expansion. And now that it’s here, nonstop complaining. No more Living Stories? What do you think the ‘expansion’ was? A rushed, patched together LS we bought under the guise of an expansion.

Stop kidding yourselves.

Throwing in a new class and some new mechanics does not an expansion make.

The people who wanted an expansion wanted something on a scope and scale approaching the original game, a Factions or Nightfall (neither is technically an “expansion”, but that’s how everyone viewed them so it’s all semantics) to the base game’s Prophecies.

Anet can’t (or won’t) give us that, so we ended up with a wet fart of an “expansion”.

I think most folks were expecting something more on par to Eye of the North, which was an expansion, and gave us 18 dungeons, 14 explorable areas, and a full not-rushed-feeling story (despite being a fast-paced story like HoT was).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I think most folks were expecting something more on par to Eye of the North, which was an expansion, and gave us 18 dungeons, 14 explorable areas, and a full not-rushed-feeling story (despite being a fast-paced story like HoT was).

^This.

I also agree. I was expecting something much bigger at launch from HoT. What HoT truly is, is a season DLC season pass. We’ve payed for HoT and anything else that comes along untill the next expansion.

I dont want new expansions if it means content hiatus which we had for 9 months after announcing it. That only makes it feels like content pause.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Given that the “special skins from living world events” were continuously back to back and always temporary, I’d honestly rather have the masteries that, while only obtainable in a small amount of area of the game (that will grow over time as new maps are added), is actually permanent.

But in all honesty, I would not do farming if I prefer – and since I can go after masteries at my own pace, I don’t have to farm them; I would have to farm for the skins, since they’d be temporary as a true “living world” would be.

I prefer their current set up – Season 2 styled living world that fills in gaps of otherwise no-content between expansions. It just needs to be more content in future expansions than what we got in the rushed-feeling HoT.

This.

Living world season 1 was fun, if you were around for it (and not taking a break due to burnout, haven’t started playing gw2, real life commitments, etc.). For everyone else it was a huge waste of developer ressources.

Instanced story content, while not as grand, has the benefit of being available to the playerbase long time after the event was introduced.

My guess is, the big world changing stuff will be left to expansions. The minor filler story details will remain isntanced story content. That’s what I would prefer anyway and also makes the most sense from a developer/ressource point of view.

nacario.9417:

I dont want new expansions if it means content hiatus which we had for 9 months after announcing it. That only makes it feels like content pause.

I strongly suspect this won’t happen again. It happened this time because Anet used the content they had been saving for Living Stories. My best guess is that the quarterly updates now will stay even though expansions are coming.

I also expect more content with the next expansion since this expansion did the ground work.

Finally I expect new expansions to come out more frequently.

I enjoyed season 1 better than season 2. The problem I had with season one was that when it was over, it was gone. I would have liked to have some of the events remain. Events such as the aetherblade dungeon, the krait tower, and the marionette.

I do like the replayability of season 2, but season one just seemed more epic.

DarcShriek.5829:

I enjoyed season 1 better than season 2. The problem I had with season one was that when it was over, it was gone. I would have liked to have some of the events remain. Events such as the aetherblade dungeon, the krait tower, and the marionette.

I do like the replayability of season 2, but season one just seemed more epic.

If you do fractals you can get parts of the aetherblade dungeon and the molten alliance dungeons.

i also prefer free casual living world than payed hardcore content (and yep, even easy content when it is fixed into 2 hours periods is what i call hardcore content)

DarcShriek.5829:

I enjoyed season 1 better than season 2. The problem I had with season one was that when it was over, it was gone. I would have liked to have some of the events remain. Events such as the aetherblade dungeon, the krait tower, and the marionette.

I do like the replayability of season 2, but season one just seemed more epic.

This is probably because each month was its own individual plot – much like the personal story chapters – which had an overarching plot. However, Season 2 was just two plots (episodes 1-4 and episodes 5-8) with one overarching plot (that led into HoT), and HoT had only one plot to it (well, 2 really, but they both lasted the same length).

As such, like how each chapter of the PS has its own climax, so did every two releases of Season 1 (or four releases, in Flame and Frost’s case). This increase in climaxes in the story results in a more ‘epic’ feeling throughout.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

DarcShriek.5829:

I enjoyed season 1 better than season 2. The problem I had with season one was that when it was over, it was gone. I would have liked to have some of the events remain. Events such as the aetherblade dungeon, the krait tower, and the marionette.

I do like the replayability of season 2, but season one just seemed more epic.

This is probably because each month was its own individual plot – much like the personal story chapters – which had an overarching plot. However, Season 2 was just two plots (episodes 1-4 and episodes 5-8) with one overarching plot (that led into HoT), and HoT had only one plot to it (well, 2 really, but they both lasted the same length).

As such, like how each chapter of the PS has its own climax, so did every two releases of Season 1 (or four releases, in Flame and Frost’s case). This increase in climaxes in the story results in a more ‘epic’ feeling throughout.

No not really, but thanks for trying to tell me how you think I should feel.

Looking at Colin’s latest post on reddit I think the implication is that story updates will only happen in xpacs now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/440m4i/what_does_quartaly_updates_mean_for_us/czmk22d

Leohart.4610:

Well Heart of Thorns seemed rushed, so perhaps the next one ArenaNet won’t rush it and as a result, it’ll have better content?

HOT took ages to make so if it was rushed its a resource problem.

It dont matter what is the problem anymore. The game is slowly losing players that’s migrating to other games such as BnS & it shows. Popular Twitch streamers have move on & there followers as well. Viewers on Gw2 Twitch is at it’s lowest & it feel’s like one of does dying mmo’s such as AA & Wildstar with almost no one watching it. Thx Obama!

morrolan.9608:

Looking at Colin’s latest post on reddit I think the implication is that story updates will only happen in xpacs now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/440m4i/what_does_quartaly_updates_mean_for_us/czmk22d

Umm, no? What he’s saying is that living story updates will come in between the quarterly updates.

Leohart.4610:

Leohart.4610:

Well Heart of Thorns seemed rushed, so perhaps the next one ArenaNet won’t rush it and as a result, it’ll have better content?

HOT took ages to make so if it was rushed its a resource problem.

Again: Umm, no? As far as we know, Anet started working on HoT after China’s release.

As non hot player for me nothing in lore happened since destroy of pact airship fleet. Its issue for me that I replaced with playing wvw more.

I believe that ship has sailed.

Season 1 was horrible short lived, superlight content without persistence. The only good things – the molten dungeon and aetherblade retreat – were removed. The sorry mini parts of those dungeons in fractals are a joke since the original ones were much longer and cooler.

sanctuary.1068:

Hi!

Go back to creating living world only, it was more fun than the expansion. I rly dont like grind games and the mastery system has turned into one. I cant even do raids because theyre boring and time consuming. I used to be one of the people who vouched for an expansion but after comparing the fun between the expansion & living world… living world beats the expansion by alot. The friends that came back for the expansion are gone already because it wasnt entertaining enough and after you butchered the whole core game theres basically zero fun things to do anymore in gw2. Like what was the point of adding an expansion when you butchered the core game like you did?

Also, the living world should be how it was in season 1 with real changing events of tyria and not the lame instanced stuff we got with season 2. OR just put season 1 on repeat over and over every year (except the LA events) that would be more fun than the stuff we get now. Im just sad about what this game has become…aka zero fun.

Well the expansion helped to almost double their income last quarter so you are in the minority.

LS doesn’t appeal to most players, it was free events and is just story to have some story that the devs waste time on to keep players occupied. LS doesn’t generate the income needed to develop the game properly. LS is also another reason why it took 3 years to get this expansion and the devs learned their lesson because they are getting to work on another expansion.

We can’t keep getting freebies and have a good game period. I’m all for paid expansions that include story, but I think many players are tired of freebies that that drain resources and cut out development costs to other areas of the game.

You want strong future development? Do you want a robust and a more complete living story? Do you want more qol features? Do you want more stuff added to the game? If your answers are yes, then you can’t get lots of things for free.

Honestly, Living story’s is one of the things that drove me from playing the game regularly. I would get busy with life and wouldn’t be able to log on for a few month and would come back to tons of missed content, some of it permanently. I never got to kill Scarlett for example. I understand that they allow you to go back and play some portions of it but there is a feeling of an “exclusiveness of club” present due to Living Stories that isn’t present even in WoW or other MMOs. There is content that literally changed the game world that some player will never ever get to access. Old Lions Arch, Hills before the destruction, etc. It is …frustrating?… I am looking for a word here to describe it… knowing that there is a ton of stuff I will never get to experience because of the speed with which living stories work. Living Stories led to the complete changing of several zones including the major Hub city within 2 1/2 years of launch. That is FAST in MMO standards.

I like story arch’s as little side things during down time that is perfectly fine with me. But I would be happy if GW2 never used Living Story Seasons to make dramatic changes to Tyria and save that for Expacs.

Living story = fragmented story over a long time period. Telling any story in small chunks over a long time period is not a great format.

Good content is what really matters. Its delivery method is secondary. The problem with HoT isn’t that it’s an expansion. It’s that it’s small and doesn’t offer much for a large part of the player base. It’s only good for those who enjoy raids and high-level DEs… and even then it sabotages the latter with its dumb megaserver system.

In my honest opinion, LS Season 1 was horrendous and I’d be happier if I never had to see anything related to that POS ever again. I groan every time I hear about anything about Scarlet. In fact, Season 1 was so horrible that it drove me to uninstall the game and ignore GW2 for at least a year.

Season 2 is superior to Season 1, even with the obnoxious mentions about Scarlet.

wait, there is an expansion, i thought this was a paid update…..

They have a lot to do yet to justify the HoT pricetag, because everything they’ve released so far adds up to be worth about… maybe 25% of what they charged, 33% at most.
But, they should release expansions in the future, because GW2 is still a great game and if they bother -trying-, then they can make a downright awesome expansion that will be worth paying for. They just need to deliver a whole lot more than they did with HoT.
As far as the existing living story seasons: I kind of liked Season 1, because the world felt alive. Scarlet was a stupid villain, but Season 2 felt so much more muted in comparison. I think they need to find a way to blend the truly-living world feel with the ability to replay the important bits (not everything) if you come along later. Scarlet’s invasions were a lot of fun, really, but something similar should be turned into a Guild World Event or something. So, in short, that’s my stance: Good world stuff that is later replaced by repeatable watered-down versions; replayable instanced missions, and above all -good story-.

Healix.5819:

In terms of marketing, an expansion is far superior. People simply don’t care about some patch an MMO gets whereas people talk about an upcoming expansion. Expansions bring in players, whereas a flow of new content keeps them active. Moving forward, ArenaNet will likely stick with expansions with smaller living world releases in between – just enough to keep people active. They’ve already made the mistake of waiting too long after the expansion, though HoT’s release was simply at a terrible time, so it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. They should have transitioned straight into the living world a month after release.

Personally, the only thing good about the expansion model is that it gives me ample free to time to play other games.

It’s a good marketing model when the product lives up to it’s name “expansion”. In my personal opinion based on my personal experience, this expansion was borderline scamming.

From maps that seem cool at first but become “meh” very fast…fastest i’ve exeperienced in any game, to the traditional “worthless rewards” anet has trademarked for the mmo genre that require more lame-grinding (note that there is also fun-grinding) then any other mmo including korean mmos, and i dare anyone to give me an example of an mmo that has a grind/reward ratio as terrible as this game and no sense of accomplishment.

Content is lacking..just loop-events, story was short…i mean seriously…we went from helping frogs to killing the dragon in less then 15 minutes…seriously?

Lately they announced they are scrapping legendaries, a major sellpoint for many considering the very few elements that came with this expansion…..and for that price.

Really in my book at least this expansion was yet another nail in the coffin for this game, and that coffin is getting very close to needing no more nails. We are not in the 90’s when games were so scarce that “giving a chance” and “waiting” are still viable. Now with the multitude of games out there, a failure of this magnitude is catastrophic…and taking it back to marketing, yes the marketing deparment sold their product..but the product they marketed failed.

Failing in our day and age is more disastrous then being successful…because negative posts spread 10 times faster and keep away ppl much more efficiently then any “hype wave” could ever dream of accomplishing. Do 10 things right, and 1 thing wrong and ppl will always judge you by that 1 wrong thing. Now take in consideration anet did 1 thing right (base game) and “10 things wrong”. Hell..go search anywhere on google for GW2 and you will see at least 8/10 negative posts….it’s come to that magnitude of failure. Now imagine yourself as someone potentially being interested in this game and facing that much hate (which in a huge proportion is justified IMO even if over-dramatized)

I am not saying the game is dead or will die, but they did push back most of their veterans and loyal customer base (and probably their biggest gem buyers) by making multiple mistakes. Once someone is pushed back, it’s borderline impossible to bring him back..and if he ever comes back IT WILL NEVER BE because of Anet or their game…it will be because of EXTERNAL factors..like “i tried another game but i couldn’t get used to it, i will try GW2 again”.

They will only be left with ppl that won’t dedicate or stay in this game..just “pass-by-ers”. This game is getting old, people’s expectations for games change fast and dramatically…more and more ppl are just giving up on mmos in general. ANet failed to move fast enough and to adapt fast enough. That is critical for a game that is old..both in esthetics/performance AND in content.

That’s the pros and cons of “good marketing” and using therms like “expansions” that automatically set an expectation bar for your customers.

I personally would love to see another expansion. Living Story is fun and I tend to enjoy it when they bring it out, but I also want the amount of permanent content to grow over time. I think the way they’re doing it now is good . . . I like a combination of both.

after HoT amount of content and the “legendary debacle” dont know who is going to be fan enough to buy their next expansion if it comes next year… They have to improve a lot the current state of the game first to even consider the option of paying for new promises or marketing campaigns..

Living Story should only serve to fill the gap between expansions.

No. Expansions are really important for the longevity of an MMO, and their decision not to do them and instead focus on living world updates for 3 years kitten near killed the game. Bi weekly patches containing nominal amounts of content are not capable of generating the hype to bring players to the game and maintain Anet’s revenue to keep up a strong development cycle.

They just need to learn from their mistakes and do it better next time. I.e. don’t overpromise and underdeliver while charging an arm and a leg.

They’ve already confirmed that work on the next expansion has already begun. In fact, one of the leads on the expansion is Matthew Medina.

Einlanzer.1627:

No. Expansions are really important for the longevity of an MMO, and their decision not to do them and instead focus on living world updates for 3 years kitten near killed the game.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the content drought that followed did more to ‘kill the game’ than almost monthly Living World updates ever did.

But that may be just me.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Einlanzer.1627:

No. Expansions are really important for the longevity of an MMO, and their decision not to do them and instead focus on living world updates for 3 years kitten near killed the game.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the content drought that followed did more to ‘kill the game’ than almost monthly Living World updates ever did.

But that may be just me.

Yeah, the content drought brought about due to their procrastination in developing an expansion.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Einlanzer.1627:

No. Expansions are really important for the longevity of an MMO, and their decision not to do them and instead focus on living world updates for 3 years kitten near killed the game.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the content drought that followed did more to ‘kill the game’ than almost monthly Living World updates ever did.

But that may be just me.

I’m going to say that it’s the inconsistency that damaged the game:

• They initially gave us frequent updates, with an occasional world-changing event (Karka Rolls, anyone?).
• They then starting giving us regular content updates and we got used to new stuff two times each month. New stuff that we could only do if we were around then — while miserable for those AFK, they were glorious for those of us present.
• Reasonably, they took a little time to make the next story repeatable for everyone, but still introduced new stuff regularly. Perhaps a little lighter, as would be the nature of instanced-based content with fewer open world all-for-one meta events.
• Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the updates slowed to a crawl, until we learned that there would be an expansion. With all hands on deck for that, we got very little fitting the old pattern.

As anyone who manages people (whether adults or kids), consistency is by far the most important thing in maintaining morale|satisfaction|etc. Setting expectations is critical, to let people know what they are in for, especially if you want to change the status quo in ways that will be uncomfortable (even if, in the long run, they improve things).

ANet did a poor job of managing expectations and was very, very inconsistent in delivery.

tl;dr ANet got us addicted to regular, free, glorious content. They cut us off cold turkey and gave us something that didn’t meet (apparently) even their own expectations.

I really like the expansion. I really hate how they cut off living world to produce it and I am no fan of many of the choices they made in implementing the release. Like a lot of ANet choices, they undermined their own successes by turning theoretical-molehills into mountains that got in the community’s way.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Einlanzer.1627:

No. Expansions are really important for the longevity of an MMO, and their decision not to do them and instead focus on living world updates for 3 years kitten near killed the game.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the content drought that followed did more to ‘kill the game’ than almost monthly Living World updates ever did.

But that may be just me.

I’m going to say that it’s the inconsistency that damaged the game:

• They initially gave us frequent updates, with an occasional world-changing event (Karka Rolls, anyone?).
• They then starting giving us regular content updates and we got used to new stuff two times each month. New stuff that we could only do if we were around then — while miserable for those AFK, they were glorious for those of us present.
• Reasonably, they took a little time to make the next story repeatable for everyone, but still introduced new stuff regularly. Perhaps a little lighter, as would be the nature of instanced-based content with fewer open world all-for-one meta events.
• Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the updates slowed to a crawl, until we learned that there would be an expansion. With all hands on deck for that, we got very little fitting the old pattern.

As anyone who manages people (whether adults or kids), consistency is by far the most important thing in maintaining morale|satisfaction|etc. Setting expectations is critical, to let people know what they are in for, especially if you want to change the status quo in ways that will be uncomfortable (even if, in the long run, they improve things).

ANet did a poor job of managing expectations and was very, very inconsistent in delivery.

tl;dr ANet got us addicted to regular, free, glorious content. They cut us off cold turkey and gave us something that didn’t meet (apparently) even their own expectations.

I really like the expansion. I really hate how they cut off living world to produce it and I am no fan of many of the choices they made in implementing the release. Like a lot of ANet choices, they undermined their own successes by turning theoretical-molehills into mountains that got in the community’s way.

This would hold some water if most people liked the LW content execution style. They didn’t, which is why Anet changed tactics.

People (in large, not universal) loved the execution style.

But people (in large, not universal) hated that it was temporary, and that it would be gone in 2 or 4 weeks.

If they kept their original schedule (one update a month with pre-scheduled alterations showing without patches to add them instead of biweekly) and made the majority of it (like achievements, non-city events and instances) permanent (even if the instances weren’t tied to the story journal), then I think there’d have been no complaints about Season 1.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

People (in large, not universal) loved the execution style.

But people (in large, not universal) hated that it was temporary, and that it would be gone in 2 or 4 weeks.

If they kept their original schedule (one update a month with pre-scheduled alterations showing without patches to add them instead of biweekly) and made the majority of it (like achievements, non-city events and instances) permanent (even if the instances weren’t tied to the story journal), then I think there’d have been no complaints about Season 1.

While it’s probably true that the temporary nature was a much bigger sore point to players than the implementation model, I still don’t think it’s a strong case that it works as well as an expansion does.

Very large updates are much, much better at generating hype for players to join and return to the game. Perpetually doing small updates, even if they are high quality and add just as much to the game over the long term, simply do not generate that kind of hype effectively, and are more likely to just result in a dwindling player base.

Expansions also do a lot in providing Anet with the revenue they need to keep up a reasonable pace of content development. I think GW2 is behind where it should be in content after 3.5 years, and a large part of the reason is because they waited too long to do the first expansion. And when they finally started working on the first expansion, they probably didn’t have the resources to make it as big as it should have been.

It’s very easy to make the case that the decision to do the Living world instead of an expansion early on really hurt the game, and that if they had just done a traditional expansion model they would be in a much better place now.