Guild Wars 2

I was thinking about the potential release date for HoT and it got me thinking. With all the posts about HoT I haven’t seen any mention of if/when we will be getting a Season 3 LS.

I think most of us assume the expansion will hit around the 3rd year anniversary, maybe a bit after. My guess that they’ll open up betas 0.5-1.5 months after the March cons, and maybe even mention possible release dates. Still that’s ~8+ months away. It’s a long time with nothing “new” to do.

So what are our options:

I’m sure most are already tired of Dragon Ball and the somewhat barren Year of the Ram (I’m still confused that there was nothing even prompting me to go to DR, and nothing in the meta area about it). I can’t see it lasting too much longer.

SAB could easily fill ~4 weeks (also a good time since they said they didn’t want to include it as part of the LS).

Another 4-6 week WvW tourney is another likelihood.

The only other festival that I can think of would be Dragon Bash. Please bring back Dragon Bash for another 4 week festival! Though sadly, thematically it fits better after we kill Mordy instead of now. Also doubt they’d put 2 festivals back to back. And please include an item that can eat Dragonite Ore (why couldn’t this come out with Year of the Ram stuff).

But even if they did those three things, it only fills up ~3-4 months, that leaves us with another Season of Living Story.

I do hope we get a Season 3 between now and the expansion drop because I can’t see the hype lasting ~8 speculative months, with very little new content added in the intern. Plus the LS teams – I think there’s three of them – still exist and should be working on content unless they got pulled to work on the expansion. Presumably they’ve had a decent amount of time to work on this too, 6 weeks of Wintersday, then Chapter 8 for ~4? weeks until Year of the Ram started, which the new stuff is really just a reskin of part of DR and WvW and a few skins/gem items. Unless things changed since they announced how the teams worked, the ones who did Wintersday have had more than 2 months to work on the next bit of stuff. And since there has been no mention of it, I assume it won’t be coming “soon”.

Heck we could start LS season 3, take a break half way through for a WvW tourney (or SAB). Get to the penultimate chapter, take a ~1 month festival break (dragon bash to prep to kill Mordy?), and do the last chapter ~2-4 weeks before the release date. All of that fits nicely into the 3rd year anniversary, and is pretty much what they did for Season 2 verbatim.

The only major downside is how the story is set up. Season 2 ends with <spoiler that we all know>. And they’ve already shown that the first map of HoT deals with the direct aftermath of that. Narratively, I can’t see us going on a nice field trip in Season 3 building up to the expansion if very little to no time is suppose to have passed between Season 2 and HoT.

And I can’t see the expansion coming out any time soon. Especially with some things they’ve said about major game mechanics/balance not being dialed down yet (how the new borderland rotation is going to work, for example).

Plus, if they plan to release a ton of info about things, they have plenty of time to do so (10 weeks talking about the specializations of each class + more on the rev class, 1 week for the new borderland map, X weeks for other mastery lines they haven’t mentioned, ~6 weeks for any/more in depth info on the lines they’ve mentioned (fractals, precursor hunt, combat, lore, more hang gliding/mushrooms?), at least 1 week showing off new armor/weapon skins., new stat combos, etc.). By my very rough, guestimation that still gives ~3 months of other info, based on the current output of 1 thing/week and ~8 moths until launch. But what takes them 1 week to release on their site and interviews on other sites we devour in an hour tops and usually just want more. The hype is gonna wear off, especially if nothing in game is helping us getting pumped.

And while I can’t see Season 3 being about anything other than getting ready to fight Mordy, it feels like we’ll just be leaving the burning ruble of <spoiler here> to chill for an in game month or two while we take a stroll with DE 2.0 making sure we have proper jungle gear [plus not to mention it’d be build up that would screw over anyone who didn’t get HoT]. But I can’t see what new shiny bit we’re gonna have to keep us busy waiting for HoT without a Season 3 LS.

Thoughts?

The problem is that the expansion starts more or less 10 minutes after the end of Season 2, and as such a Season 3 would make no sense whatsoever. It is also unlikely that we would get much completely new stuff, seeing as they probably are (and should) focusing on the expansion.

lordkrall.7241:

The problem is that the expansion starts more or less 10 minutes after the end of Season 2, and as such a Season 3 would make no sense whatsoever. It is also unlikely that we would get much completely new stuff, seeing as they probably are (and should) focusing on the expansion.

I did mention both of those things, but I can’t seen non-LS Season 3 stuff lasting for more than 3-4 months.

Also as far as I know the 3(?) LS teams are completely separated from the Expansion teams, so unless they got pulled to work on expansion stuff, the man power was already there to deliver more content.

But what can season 3 be about, when there is no time between season 2 and HoT? Should we have a season that spans a grand total of 10 minutes time? It makes no sense whatsoever to have a living story season that only spans that little time, seeing as you can basically do nothing at all during that.

There is 1 LS team nowadays I believe, and yes, it is rather likely that they have been pulled in to work on the expansion, since they want to get the expansion released rather soon as opposed to several years from now.

I also really don’t see why a few months of nothing would be such a big issue. WoW goes for 8-9 months before an expansion with a grand total of no patches whatsoever.

We also don’t really know when the expansion will be released. We do know that they will start with betas in a couple of weeks however. And if they make it semi-open people will have stuff to do there as well.

I also don’t think we’re necessarily waiting 8 months for the expansion, either. Lots of people may guess it’ll be on the 3rd anniversary, but ArenaNet is infamous for its “When it’s Ready™” policy, so it could very well be sooner, considering how much has already been revealed finished.

We aren’t getting season 3 before HoT is released; they’ve all but said as much. There will be other events to keep us occupied in between, I’m sure. If nothing else, there are double XP weekends, mini-events like SAB, or some other surprise we might not know about. Maybe we’ll have a “Lion’s Arch is Rebuilt” party (just in time for the lion statue to be destroyed 2 months later), or have some in-gme teasers of the new specializations, or Rytlock’s return before he charges westward. There’s plenty of stuff we can be surprised with, even after all the “deep dives” are revealed.

lordkrall.7241:

But what can season 3 be about, when there is no time between season 2 and HoT? Should we have a season that spans a grand total of 10 minutes time? It makes no sense whatsoever to have a living story season that only spans that little time, seeing as you can basically do nothing at all during that.

And that’s the biggest problem. I want Season 3 to exist, but story wise it makes no sense to. Assuming we go “on foot” it can’t be more than a day or two from S2 ending to HoT, less if we manage an airship.

There is 1 LS team nowadays I believe, and yes, it is rather likely that they have been pulled in to work on the expansion, since they want to get the expansion released rather soon as opposed to several years from now.

True, but presumably they’ve been working on HoT for quiet a while, and if they’re going to beta it in mid-late March a vast majority of it has to be done.

I also really don’t see why a few months of nothing would be such a big issue. WoW goes for 8-9 months before an expansion with a grand total of no patches whatsoever.

That’s very true. But we aren’t WoW and don’t have the same gear grind as them. The latest grind we had was the biolumi armor. Plus, personally, I’ve gotten spoiled. I enjoyed the ~2 week time frame for new content. Having to wait for ~8 months (or even 4-6) with nothing new to do kinda makes me want to take a break and just pick up the game when HoT launches, which I assume Anet doesn’t want. I figure more content between now and HoT will keep people who have come back interested.

We also don’t really know when the expansion will be released. We do know that they will start with betas in a couple of weeks however. And if they make it semi-open people will have stuff to do there as well.

I did forget about that, but I don’t know how long it would keep my interest. Playing content that I will have to redo when HoT comes out because nothing we do in beta will persist (a complete assumption, but most likely correct). Plus the potential problem of some friends getting into the beta but not others, as I’m not sure what “semi-open” means.

And true, HoT may come out sooner, but it also may take ~8 months. I hope they announce a date at the cons in early March.

IMO Anet is testing different kind of LS types. Why I have this kind of opinion?

1) Living Story Season 1 was temporal, and playerbase was yelling when they missed it. So that was testing number one, be there or miss it forever.

2) Living Story Season 2 was permanent and free in specific time of period. Log in and you get it for free. (No incoming at that point). But those who miss log in during that time of period need to pay for it. (Some kind of incoming.) But now those who didn’t log in in proper time are yelling that it is too expensive to buy those episodes. So this was testing number 2, some people thinks it’s unfair.

3) Wrap Living Story Season 3 to Expansion paper and everybody need to pay for it. (Incoming is quaranteed so it is like LS Season 3 behind of pay wall). End situation is same as Living Story Season 2, it is permanent, but you need to pay for it to get it. No pay no LS season 3… cough.. expansion. And when they wrap that LS Season 3 in Expanison paper they figure out that only LS would not be satisfied their playerbase, so they put in there for extra improvements. So everybody needs to buy it.

Then they read statistics and see which these LS types was most popular and continue doing future LS types in that way.

So this is only my own opinion what’s going on.

Unless Season 3 goes off on a tangent of side stories aside from the major storyline, we already know we aren’t getting it before the expansion, because we already know the expansion picks up exactly where season 2 left off.

I could see them giving us side story content and not actually calling it an official season, though.

As for what the Living Story team is doing in the meantime… well, if there’s going to be sidestory content then that. But if not that, then I can see them working on LS3. I don’t see LS3 releasing until after HoT has been out, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be working on it. Heck, who knows how far in advance they typically work as it is. They’ve hinted on various POI broadcasts and such that they know what is going to happen to X character or what happens with Y object, but we still haven’t seen much of those revelations come to light. They could be 6 months in to future storylines or even more, who knows.

I’d much rather see a series of fixpacks and unrelated events (like SAB) before continuing the story in HoT.

Yeah, I guess I just assumed season 3 would fill in the time till HoT perfectly. I just hope that my guess is wrong and HoT comes out sooner, or they do have something planned for the intern.

Hmmm, I think most people forget Rytlock’s trip to Underworld.
We may as will use the memory seed or whatever to become Rytlock, experiencing his adventure in the Underworld.

Or simply just add Underworld as a new map to explore for the preparation of Revenant :P.

I did forget about him, and that would be pretty cool, but it also plays into the trap of.

“Here have these mini-eps/living story/whatever you want to call it, but to get the payoff you need to buy the expansion.”

And I think a that type of method/content may be a kick in the teeth to those that don’t plan on buying the expansion for whatever reason. It also could lead to: “if you want to play the LS Season 3, you MUST buy the expansion first.”

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Yeah, I guess I just assumed season 3 would fill in the time till HoT perfectly. I just hope that my guess is wrong and HoT comes out sooner, or they do have something planned for the intern.

Well Jory & Kas can get married, while our toons can run various errands to make sure the wedding is a success, also we can go to a quest to restore Kas to her rightfull place among the nobles.

Aomine.5012:

Hmmm, I think most people forget Rytlock’s trip to Underworld.
We may as will use the memory seed or whatever to become Rytlock, experiencing his adventure in the Underworld.

Except the memory seeds only work for sylvari. The Pale Tree says as much when she gives them to you.
Also, he went into the Mists, not the Underworld. The Underworld was a specific realm of Grenth, while all souls go into the Mists. I… don’t quite know the difference, but I’m sure a certain someone can explain if you want the explanation.

Underworld is part of mists