Guild Wars 2

Living Story is the stuff you do between expansions. LS does NOT replace expansions. It’s the content that my gem shop purchases are paying for and I’m well satisfied with the value I’ve been getting from it. It’s also 100x more than any other game has ever given me for an equivalent subscription cost. But I want more meat and I’m ready to pay for it.

I’m expecting every dragon remaining will have its own expansion, complete with multiple, well fleshed out new zones and accompanying personal story leading up to the final battle. For instance, Kralkatorrik complete with the entire Crystal Desert and a big swath of Elona, with a personal storyline running through the heart of it. It’s what I’ve been expecting since I learned about the dragons and the mechanics of the game, and despite the comments I’ve heard to the contrary, I still expect it. LS can’t do something like that justice and I’d be disappointed if ArenaNet tried.

Palador.2170:

Galen Grey.4709:

As for the LS and if it delivered an expansion worth of content. Lets see shall we:
100s of new dynamic events
9 new Jumping puzzles
5 new dungeons
3 new maps
a Whole game within the game (SAB)
3 new mini dungeons
100s of new crafting recipes
100s of new skins
new dyes
LFG tool
13 new mini games
18 story missions (including LS dungeons)

The LFG tool needed to be in the game from day one, I can’t really call it fair to count fixing such an oversight as “content”.

As for the rest of it, where do I find these? I’d like to check them out over the next week or so of my play time.

Thing is for some people LS isnt a good content delivery system, they prefer Expansions and thats fair enough. Whats not fair is trying to come up with excuses to imply that some content we’re getting somehow doesnt count. whether LFG should have been at launch or not doesnt make a difference because at the end of the day it wasnt. And its a feature we got through a LS update. If there were no LS it would have been a feature we got through an expansion ergo the LS gave us something that an expansion would have given us.

You also imply most of this content isnt in game anymore, actually most of it still is. All the dynamic events are still there, 1 of the 3 new maps is still there. all the crafting recipes are still there, all the mini dungeons, 3 of the 5 dungeons, all the pvp maps, all the changes to WvW, the new daily system, the wallet, most of the jumping puzzles, most of the mini games, all the guild missions, all of the fractals etc…
In any case just cause some of the content is temporary it isnt a valid reason to act like it never excisted at all. After all with perhaps the exception of gw1 all MMOs Expansion release temporary content.

Gw2 might physical remove content to simulate the passage of time but all MMOs I am aware of still remove content from players, not physically like Gw2 does but logically through leveling. Pick any MMO you want that has more the 1 expansion in which you’re max level and think if you’re still able to enjoy a dungeon that was released in its first expansion. You cant can you? it might still be physically in game but you cannot really play in (in a way you can enjoy it… that is that you dont one shot everything + you get a some form of reward playing it) without creating a new character and spending months leveling that character up just so you can play that dungeon a few times before you have to go through the process again. Is that really any different?

Galen Grey.4709:

Thing is for some people LS isnt a good content delivery system, they prefer Expansions and thats fair enough. Whats not fair is trying to come up with excuses to imply that some content we’re getting somehow doesnt count. whether LFG should have been at launch or not doesnt make a difference because at the end of the day it wasnt. And its a feature we got through a LS update. If there were no LS it would have been a feature we got through an expansion ergo the LS gave us something that an expansion would have given us.

You also imply most of this content isnt in game anymore, actually most of it still is. All the dynamic events are still there, 1 of the 3 new maps is still there. all the crafting recipes are still there, all the mini dungeons, 3 of the 5 dungeons, all the pvp maps, all the changes to WvW, the new daily system, the wallet, most of the jumping puzzles, most of the mini games, all the guild missions, all of the fractals etc…
In any case just cause some of the content is temporary it isnt a valid reason to act like it never excisted at all. After all with perhaps the exception of gw1 all MMOs Expansion release temporary content.

Gw2 might physical remove content to simulate the passage of time but all MMOs I am aware of still remove content from players, not physically like Gw2 does but logically through leveling. Pick any MMO you want that has more the 1 expansion in which you’re max level and think if you’re still able to enjoy a dungeon that was released in its first expansion. You cant can you? it might still be physically in game but you cannot really play in (in a way you can enjoy it… that is that you dont one shot everything + you get a some form of reward playing it) without creating a new character and spending months leveling that character up just so you can play that dungeon a few times before you have to go through the process again. Is that really any different?

I was going to make a big, long post where I cut your post up and dealt with it in small parts, but I decided that it was uncalled for. So, short version:

City of Heroes had expansions and updates that grew the world by adding on to it, not overwriting it. And they had ways to downlevel yourself to do content you’d outleveled. Yes, sometimes things DID get updated and reworked, but they did a good job of doing that in ways that did not mess up the ability to play older content. (The Dark Astoria revamp was awesome. Mot > Zhaitan) It can be done, and it’s been done before. ANet needs to stop messing around and get serious.

If someone joins GW2 right now, what do they get? None of the stuff that’s been removed is there for them, nor is it there for anyone that missed it for any other reason. So, yes, it’s very fair and valid to say it doesn’t count. Is what’s left the equivalent of an expansion? Maybe, but I wouldn’t call it a good one. Not one worthy of the amount of work they’ve been putting into the game, that’s for sure.

Galen Grey.4709:

Its been said a lot of times but I think it needs to be said again. In other MMOs if you add a new continent its not a big deal because you’ll raise the level cap and thats the only place were people can play so if your lower level zones are empty its no big deal, thats only content you do once to get to endgame which is where the real game begins. If you add a new dungeon? no problem either all other dungeons are now absolute etc…

And I’ll say what I’ve said every time this argument comes up: You’re assuming that you have the same level of activity being spread across a larger area.

This assumption does not hold, since given time, people grow bored of playing the same thing again – some people have greater tolerances for repetition than others. New content that revitalises the game brings more players back, and gives players who are still around incentive to play for longer per day. If I was running an MMO, I’d prefer a situation where I have X old, depopulated zones and Y new, populated zones than one where I just have X slightly less depopulated zones.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The common misconception about an expansion is that liken to a mythical creature. It’s always far better than LS.

The fact is, expansion isn’t that great. I’ve played other MMOs and paid the expansion ranging from $30-$40 (retail) and what do I get? Places and quests to get to the next max level, then nothing — because 50% of the content is locked into a Raid Dungeon — which I have no time nor patience to do.

So to answer the question, no, they both have the same amount of content for me but the expac costs me money while LS doesn’t.

I compare it to expansions to Guild Wars 1 – I think that’s fair enough since it’s the prequel made by the same company.

Galen Grey.4709:

Gw2 might physical remove content to simulate the passage of time but all MMOs I am aware of still remove content from players, not physically like Gw2 does but logically through leveling. Pick any MMO you want that has more the 1 expansion in which you’re max level and think if you’re still able to enjoy a dungeon that was released in its first expansion. You cant can you? it might still be physically in game but you cannot really play in (in a way you can enjoy it… that is that you dont one shot everything + you get a some form of reward playing it) without creating a new character and spending months leveling that character up just so you can play that dungeon a few times before you have to go through the process again. Is that really any different?

Yes – because a) new players will be able to play through that content, rather than forever having missed out because they weren’t there at the right time, and b) while it may no longer be a challenge when you go back and play it, you still have the option to go back and see the story if you missed out the first time, or if you simply just want a reminder of what happened.

Definitely not. An expansion is a huge PERMANENT update. All they did is scam us into thinking we are getting an expansion’s worth of content but in reality, apart from some “it should have been like that from the start” systems they did…there has literally been close to no permanent content in this game. What did we get? Some fractals that only a few ppl still do (compared to the numbers that play this game)…and a map ppl hardly visit. I can’t remember anything else other then those.

However u look at it…it’s not even a mile close to being an expansion’s worth of content.

For ex look at WoW’s expansions and what they add in general..the quantity and quality (and i am saying this as an avid anti-wow guy).

I am more then willing to pay for a real expansion instead of this living world thing they are trying to do. There’s a golden rule in life….nothing good comes cheap….and it doesn’t get cheaper then “free”. U get what u payed for. As long as u don’t pay for any real content, don’t expect to get that content.

Not it does not feel like a full expansion, a full expansion the content stays forever.

The Living Story is just not meaty enough to be fairly compared nor does it add enough new regions or story based content. A fair comparison would be mediocre DLC, but it is free of charge so I am happy to get it.

Rebound.3409:

Definitely not. An expansion is a huge PERMANENT update. All they did is scam us into thinking we are getting an expansion’s worth of content but in reality, apart from some “it should have been like that from the start” systems they did…there has literally been close to no permanent content in this game. What did we get? Some fractals that only a few ppl still do (compared to the numbers that play this game)…and a map ppl hardly visit. I can’t remember anything else other then those.

However u look at it…it’s not even a mile close to being an expansion’s worth of content.

For ex look at WoW’s expansions and what they add in general..the quantity and quality (and i am saying this as an avid anti-wow guy).

I am more then willing to pay for a real expansion instead of this living world thing they are trying to do. There’s a golden rule in life….nothing good comes cheap….and it doesn’t get cheaper then “free”. U get what u payed for. As long as u don’t pay for any real content, don’t expect to get that content.

And WoW is the poster child for exactly why they went this direction with the Living Story updates.

Population spikes when the expac comes out, drops like a rock after a few weeks when the content has been burnt, perhaps spikes up a little with a new patch, but then free falls until another expac is on the horizon.

That may be fine for a game with a soloable WoW-like daily system but cripples GW2’s community oriented event system. It is just flat out not as fun running through a zone where you’re the only one doing the events. Of course GW2 suffers from having a big world with ill-thought-out server design (i.e. PvE Zones shouldn’t be 1 to 1 vs Servers, they should be spun up as demand requires) which is why the LS are designed to put players focus onto a certain area/aspect of the game.

An expac would do the same but unless they continued with the LS type updates after the expac then the population would drop quickly once the new permanent content has been burnt though.

GW2 more than any other MMO to date needs a fairly steady amount of people playing the content in order for it to actually be enjoyable. You can’t accomplish that with a prolonged spike based content delivery model. Hell that’s why ANet went from their monthly updates to the 2 week model, since their concurrence numbers clearly showed a significant drop off 2 weeks after an update.

Is it a design philosophy for everyone? No. But if they feel it is the best design for the health of their game I’m inclined to agree with them. It certainly has made me play way more than any expac from WoW ever did.

With that said I’m not opposed to them doing an expac but think it would be way more disruptive if it was done as a free LS update instead. And really there is nothing stopping them from doing that, it’s just a matter having a team work on an LS update for a few months vs a few weeks.

JGBarbarian.3579:

I like the LS system minus Scarlet, it keeps me entertained but it does not feel as an expansion because it actually creates new characters and conflicts instead of expanding the established lore. I say the LS is a good replacement for the common patches but not for an expansion. I like wow style expansions that add a lot of content (races and maps being the ones I care more), I would like to see both LS and expansions on GW2 going ahead.

I’m with you on this. The LS is good for me because I play regularly taking 3-4 days off now and again but always returning for the next chapter. I used to play a lot more but this scarlet story isn’t interesting. I’ll probably play the LS chapter where I get to kill her 24/7

Although I find this better than the WoW type of expansion where they drop all this content on you at once and you can burn through it very quickly and then have nothing to do for 3-4 months.

Think about how much Factions added to GW1 exactly 1 year after release.

Now look at how much GW2 has had added to it over 1 year after release.

Plus between April 2005(GW1: Prophecies) and April 2006(GW1:Factions), Prophecies still received a bunch of post release content like Sorrow’s Furnace(dungeon) and quality of life improvements like loadable build templates. So it wasn’t like they had to leave Prophecies unsupported for a year to make Factions.

This is not the same Anet anymore.

So far, I would probably say no. We’ve gotten, what, one new zone (a few temporaries), one new dungeon (after DELETING one of the old ones), a few fractals, and system additions which are the usual for an MMO’s first year. There is a lot of systems work that’s been done, but not much content.

Even considering that, if it counts as an expansion, it’s a bloody rubbish one. You need to actually have some kind of cohesive story and preferably one that I care about.

I think that the Living Story as it stands is a pretty broken system and directly undermines an MMO’s strength. WoW is strong because it has had, what, eight years of building up content and not throwing it away immediately afterwards.

Based on what I consider an expansion I would say not even close… let’s look at it bit by bit:

1. At least 1 new class (nope)
2. At least 1 new race (nope)
3. 8-10 new zones (1 half complete zone)
4. ~500 new quests (I’ll say we are at about half that if you count all the LS achivements as “quests” which is quite a stretch)
5. 3-4 new “features” (Guild missions, fractals, revamped dailies, we are good here)
6. 3-4 new PvP maps (good here too)
7. 10-12 new dungeons (only 3, 2 were removed and 1 replaced a dungeon path, so net 0)
8. 3-4 new raids with 8-12 bosses each (Teq I guess? not even close here though)
9. Many QoL changes (Wallet, achievement revamp, a few other misc things, I’ll call this fulfilled)
10. Multiple new armor and weapon sets (outside of the gem store which we have to pay for we have gotten 0 full armor sets and 3-4 new weapon sets, good on the weapons just no on the armor)

Things that should have been in at launch I will not count (lfg tool, competitive PvP, wvw progression) There is no excuse for not launching with those things in 2012.

Out of the 10 things I consider essential in an expansion the LS and other updates have only provided 3.5 of them. That is less than half.

Gw2 did provide a few things that I would not expect in an expansion such as JP’s but they are few and far between.

So overall not even close to an expansion.

I agree with most of the posters here. The LS updates so far have lacked a lot of the things I consider “expansion worthy”. But, I’m going to go a bit nebulous here… because for me, the biggest thing the LS lacks for me compared to an expansion is anticipation and excitement.

LS updates have worn thin on me. I’m not so much looking forward to them anymore as I am thinking “Oh… its been two weeks. Time for an update.” It’s not special to me… it’s become just a thing GW2 does. The content delivered in them almost becomes inconsequential… if its not outright removed in two weeks, it’s immediately buried in the announcement of the next update. And because of the two week window, the content often cant be anything really game changing anyway. Or if it can be, it hasnt been done yet in the (admittedly short) lifespan of the LS.

As for the excitement I’m talking about, take the announced expansion of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls. ( I know, not an MMO, but bear with me)

This expansion includes a lot of the same things given in GW2’s LS updates. Improved/expanded rewards, crafting updates, additions to the story, skill updates, quality of life improvements, alternate gameplay modes… about the only thing unique is D3’s new Crusader class. But I am more stoked for this expansion (and D3 was pretty disappointing for me) than any GW2’s content I’ve gotten or have knowledge of coming in the future, despite it being technically the same kind of content. It’s bigger, it’s glossy, its impacts on the game are much more substantial, and biggest of all there’s a buzz around it that I just havent had for the LS in almost a year.

Now I’m rambling. Hope I’ve sort of gotten my point across.

It would count as expansion if LS released meaningful & quality content. Sadly it doesn’t.

Palador.2170:

I was going to make a big, long post where I cut your post up and dealt with it in small parts, but I decided that it was uncalled for. So, short version:

City of Heroes had expansions and updates that grew the world by adding on to it, not overwriting it. And they had ways to downlevel yourself to do content you’d outleveled. Yes, sometimes things DID get updated and reworked, but they did a good job of doing that in ways that did not mess up the ability to play older content. (The Dark Astoria revamp was awesome. Mot > Zhaitan) It can be done, and it’s been done before. ANet needs to stop messing around and get serious.

If someone joins GW2 right now, what do they get? None of the stuff that’s been removed is there for them, nor is it there for anyone that missed it for any other reason. So, yes, it’s very fair and valid to say it doesn’t count. Is what’s left the equivalent of an expansion? Maybe, but I wouldn’t call it a good one. Not one worthy of the amount of work they’ve been putting into the game, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately I never got to play City of Heroes so I have no first hand experience. Searching around a bit I can see quite a few posts complaining of empty lower level zones. A lot of those post claim its not that COH lacks players its just that they;re all in higher level zones. Mind you we see the same thing in Gw2 as well. Down-leveling and making sure lower level zones remain relevant is just part of it. You also need to give incentives for players to visit there (an releasing new content that takes place in those zones is part of it). If you keep adding new content most players will flock there and older content will suffer for it.

If someone joins now they get the entire game as of launch. Quite a good number of new things (fractals, new pvp maps, new mini dungeons, new dynamic events, guild missions, some new jumping puzzles, etc..) + something new every 2 weeks and I put that in bold because it is extremely important and makes all the difference. It essentially means that person will always have something new to do hence its not that big of a deal that they’re no longer able to do say the free cragstead personal instance because they still have something new to play and they will get something newer in 2 weeks max anyway and this is key I believe. Expansion etc are needed because everyone gets bored of playing the same content eventually no matter how good it is. Thats the purpose of an expansion to give you new stuff to sink your teeth in essentially. The permanent-ability of that expansion is temporary as well because when the next one hits it will become irrelevant anyway. (COH might be an example to the contrary though people complaining of empty zones seems to suggest otherwise) For the vast majority of MMOs though this holds true. Once a new Expansion is released the previous one becomes essentially unplayable.

Worst still is you get quite a wait between one expansion and the next meaning you have to force yourself to repeat content for months or stop playing. What Gw2 is doing is pretty clever imho. Sure content expires quicker then it would with an expansion but on the plus side you never need to repeat stuff to the point it becomes boring, there is always new stuff just round the corner and you get true story progression. Stuff happens and actually gets resolved. An invasion really gets beaten back, A conquered structure gets really liberated, A Plot is really foiled etc… I love the fact story has a real impact on the world and not just something we’re told happened even though our eyes see exactly the opposite. In MMO X we might be told we managed to stop the pirates even though we can still see them there right next to us. In Gw2 we’re told we’ve beaten back the molten alliance and in fact its true, not us, not someone else, not even starting a new character will have us see the molten alliance invading still and thats great imho.

Not for me atleast. I kinda stopped doing living story because they are im my eyes just the same with some monir details variations.
This does not even come close to an expansion like Cantha in gw1.

This.

It would count as expansion if LS released meaningful & quality content. Sadly it doesn’t.

Fractals of The Mists and other permanent updates are great but the temporary content is mediocre at best.

I’d say not.

My preferred play-style is “explorer.” Other than Southsun Cove and Bazaar of the Four Winds, no new zones were released, and one of those is no longer available. Both BotFW and SSC had little beyond what was needed for the few events that were situated there. There was not much in the way of hidden places, easter eggs, or lore revealed. Even the “discovery” non-exploration (e.g., waypoints and PoI’s) was scarce.

The other aspect of a GW expansion that I enjoyed was a new story. LW story has not fulfilled that desire for me. The story may be well-conceived, but I have little way to know that, as the delivery is weak.

Let’s see, if LS were an expansion, would you pay for this particular expansion? Now I know LS isn’t done with it’s arc but let’s say it is an expansion just for the moment, and you’ve been able to play it up to this point because you logged in on a friend’s account who had already paid for the expansion. Given what you’ve seen so far would you go ahead and drop $40 to 60 to finish it up on your own account? Would you tell your other friends to buy this expansion because it’s a good value?

If this year’s worth of LW content was all boxed up and shipped to game stores around the world rather than being downloaded in increments, how do you think it would sell? Based on what you’ve seen so far, what would game critics and consumers say about it?

I love Guild Wars 2. I loved GW1. I have played 2 since Beta. I have enjoyed so many things about the game. One of the things I don’t love is the Living Story. I feel like I am grinding all the time and not getting story content. I feel like I am doing a bunch of side quests while I am waiting for the heavy hitting stuff to happen. I want to see the story of the dragons continue. We have beat 1, now I want to go on and beat the others. I want to explore new lands, see what time has done to old lands, and get to experience the beauty that has been put into the games. I want to see eventually lands that are closed to Tyria now be re-opened and find out what is going on there. I would love to see some way that the dwarves can be turned back to flesh and come back to us. I have seen some great things, and have enjoyed them, but I am concerned that when the time comes for other game releases, this game will lose players to them because many players are story driving, and the living story isn’t really giving most people a sense of the story continuing. I was excited about the story shown when the game was getting ready to come out. Since that has not progressed, I have seen people leave. Also, the living story has pulled people away from exploring a lot of areas of the game where people always used to go. That includes dungeons, outlying areas that are not people’ favorites like Orr, and Fireheart, and doing the various temples. The beautiful thing about the game is the explorable areas, and the story. That is what we need to have more of. The living story idea isn’t bad, but every two weeks is a grind. They are overlapping with each other too so that I have to pick and choose what I do. I can’t live on the game. Its not enjoyable to start something and not be able to complete it because something else comes out before I am done. WvW overlapped with two different things.

Galen Grey.4709:

Worst still is you get quite a wait between one expansion and the next meaning you have to force yourself to repeat content for months or stop playing. What Gw2 is doing is pretty clever imho. Sure content expires quicker then it would with an expansion but on the plus side you never need to repeat stuff to the point it becomes boring, there is always new stuff just round the corner and you get true story progression.

This depends entirely on how you play.

If you’re the sort of person who just blitzes everything with one character and never looks back, this is true – but the only way even the current system is going to keep them for more than a day or two per fortnight is through the much-maligned real-world time gating. In my case, though, I enjoy playing things through with multiple characters, finding replaying content with a different profession and build to be almost as good as completely new content. The problem is, this thinking works when there is an increasing gap between playing through with each alt – when content is only available for a month or less, I’ll probably only be able to stomach going through it a handful of times. Make it available permanently, though, and sooner or later I’ll go through it with every character, and repeat it with characters I particularly enjoyed going through that content.

Because of this, the GW1 model kept me going for years after EOTN released and before War in Kryta showed up. Sure, I usually got through the storyline with my first character through pretty quickly, but with four continents worth of content and ten characters, I could always think of something that I could do that I hadn’t done recently enough for it to feel like repetition, and that would contribute to my goals beyond simply being farming (which I hate). If GW2 was doing the same, then I could say the same. But instead of a given piece of content being… eventually… played through by eight (or more, if we get new professions) times, the time limit generally means I’ll only play through it one, two, maybe three to five times before I just get sick of it and want to do something else.

Now, to be fair, GW2 did offer a fairly large world with lots to do to begin with. However, at this stage, the only reason I haven’t finished the Personal Story with all my characters so far (dungeon excepting, but even then…) is that I’ve been deliberately rationing it out. Getting world completion with all of eight characters is a large endeavour, but you know what? Give it another year, and I’ll probably be there. And at that point… well, a good expansion between now and then would probably keep me logging in daily (unless real life intervenes) for another couple of years, but if things continue how they are, I could see myself falling into a pattern of just logging in to do the new stuff once and then leaving.

And if I fall into that pattern, it’d be a relatively short step to losing interest altogether… and once I get to that point, the increasing amount of the story that’s being put behind a timewall that I will never get to experience for myself will present an ever-increasing disincentive and barrier to coming back.