Guild Wars 2

I’ll be totally honest here: This new patch is amazing! I love everything about it. I like the story, the new map, the new events, I love the replica job-o-tron backpack. Really satisfied and a big thank you to Anet. However I’m a bit curious. Are we back to the bi-weekly release? Are we to expect the new trailer for the next episode on Tuesday next week? If we are, then awesome! if we are not, this new content can keep me occupied. Thank you for reading this

I’m 100% fine with updates that have more substance and quality that take longer to output. I’m totally fine with updates that happen once a month, but have twice the content, or even the same content, but higher quality. I’m a firm believing in not rushing things and getting things done right, and the justice they deserve.

I think we’re back to bi-weekly updates, at least until Wintersday. We’ll have chapters 6 and 7, then Wintersday, then either there will be a break or chapter 8, depending on what state the story is in. That’s how it worked over the summer, after all.

after dec 20th, Anet goes on a break til about mid-january for a holiday break…i believe the releases started back up around jan 20th

so we will likely get episode 6 on the 18th, episode 7 on the 2nd, Wintersday on the 9th, and then a big break til the last week full week of january

yes, we are back with the biweekly releases

No, the next won’t be as big (contentwise) because they had a lot longer than 2 weeks to create this chapter.

Ayakaru.6583:

yes, we are back with the biweekly releases

No, the next won’t be as big (contentwise) because they had a lot longer than 2 weeks to create this chapter.

None of their releases have ever only had two weeks creation time.

It is actually rather likely that most (if not all) of the remaining S2 episodes have already been more or less created already.

remember also , as per another thread, ANet just hired a new story manager and this was her first episode so, it is entirely possible that part of the delay was due to staffing consideration. Also, if thats true, they may have been able to release E5 earlier but did not want to have Halloween come too soon after a release thus bumping it to after the events.

Going off of all of 2014, the set up seems to be:

2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
2 month mid-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.
2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
4 month post-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.

Rinse repeat.

Given the long breaks, I would totally okay with them switching to a release every third week, instead of every two. It would at least feel more even.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Going off of all of 2014, the set up seems to be:

2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
2 month mid-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.
2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
4 month post-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.

Rinse repeat.

Normally I wouldn’t mind this. But 4 months is getting too long, I really hope this doesn’t happen again. We need something to keep guildies from leaving. Too many people was lost to ArcheAge already. And activity goes ridiculously low in the break months.

hedix.1986:

Normally I wouldn’t mind this. But 4 months is getting too long, I really hope this doesn’t happen again. We need something to keep guildies from leaving. Too many people was lost to ArcheAge already. And activity goes ridiculously low in the break months.

I think there basically is two choices though:
Shorter breaks with less content/quality
Longer breaks with more content/quality.

Would people really prefer less content with less quality in order to avoid breaks?
Keep in mind that most other MMOs doesn’t really release things more often than once every four months either. and we DO get stuff during those breaks (such as WvW seasons, Holiday events and Feature Packs).

They seems to go with a new mini-map and a single questline each 6 months. How a 350 workers company produce the same work as a 10 man team is out of my reach.

It was an assumption, I don’t know the details. But I don’t really mind breaks, I got plenty of other games

I certainly hope not. I, for one, despise this year’s release schedule: it’s a two-week break between what equates to hour-long instances of new content (which lately, the majority of such has been either cut scenes or clicking through dialogue boxes).

With that OTHER MMO poised to release a much-anticipated expansion later this week, I would’ve thought ANet to be working on content which is much, much more impressive than what we’ve seen so far. To be fair to them, though, the last LS release (Echoes of the Past) was great in the aspect of it had pretty much everything a GW2 player could ask for: in-depth combat, world events, an expansive new zone (doubling the overall “new” area), and tons of GW1 easter eggs. Unfortunately, as great as this one was, the previous ones have been lacking in one form or another.

This release was good, but in the light of all the lackluster content we’ve gotten (WAY too short LS chapters where longevity is supposedly spawned from achievement grinding in addition to reused holiday content), unwanted changes to the status quo (such as the gem store change and subsequent rollback), and ecological season-long (in northern hemisphere: “midseason” was late summer, “Echoes” is late fall/autumn)breaks in receiving what little new content we do get, not only is it way overdue but in itself is lackluster: one positive cannot outweigh so much negative.

Even more so, with that OTHER MMO releasing a new expansion this week, ANet should have been stepping their digital game up. It’s not like there wasn’t an announcement at some convention last year or anything.

GW2 has become lazy and complacent, turning its back on what made it so great at its release: dynamic worlds, in-depth combat, and satisfying content releases. I suggest going back to this model, release larger zones with more quests once a month, and include new dungeons and dungeon paths with every release.

hedix.1986:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Going off of all of 2014, the set up seems to be:

2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
2 month mid-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.
2 months of Bi-weekly releases (note: 4 releases)
4 month post-season break for holiday, feature batch, and/or WvW tourney.

Rinse repeat.

Normally I wouldn’t mind this. But 4 months is getting too long, I really hope this doesn’t happen again. We need something to keep guildies from leaving. Too many people was lost to ArcheAge already. And activity goes ridiculously low in the break months.

Normally, I would have said 2 month post-season break, but I considered two things:

1) The break between Season 1 and Season 2 was four weeks – not counting the S1 Epilogue and S2 Prologue. Counting them, it’d be more like 2-3 months.
2) With each new season, the devs have to not only fully design (writing, models, maps, music, sound effects) the first few episodes, but have the plot out the basis of the entire season. This would take a lot more effort than the mid-season break, which seems to be there to give the devs some leeway with the fast releases.

As lordkrall said, Anet has shown two ways of doing things; and given the responses between Season 1 and Season 2 – and with GW1, the response difference between War in Kryta and Winds of Change (WiK was released on a weekly schedule but had very small and often subtle changes; WoC had three releases months apart but overall was the size of an expansion minus new locations) – it seems that the majority of players prefer the latter case of “bigger/better releases that are further apart.”

Simzani.4318:

They seems to go with a new mini-map and a single questline each 6 months. How a 350 workers company produce the same work as a 10 man team is out of my reach.

In GW1, making a new zone was told to us by Linsey Murdock to be a 20 man team’s amount of work.

GW2 is a lot more complicated due to how the event system interacts within itself (how one event effects other events). So naturally it would require more than 10 people, more than 20, even.

Something tells me you don’t know how video game design works. Or rather, how making Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 works.

It is curious, however, how Anet is producing seemingly so little for so many employees.

Ayakaru.6583:

yes, we are back with the biweekly releases

No, the next won’t be as big (contentwise) because they had a lot longer than 2 weeks to create this chapter.

Hmmm, so you believe they don’t start working on the next chapter until the previous one is complete? I’m not so sure. I’m fairly certain they work on all of the chapters simultaneously during the long breaks. Then while the first chapter is out, are fine tuning the next chapters. It would be quite the stressful job to have to do a new LS within a two week period like that.

Probably not. I sort of agree with waiting a bit longer, but not 2-3 months. Thats a little ridiculous. I think a month – 6 weeks of wait is fine, granted that the month is introducing the feature patch. Anything more is too long and the playerbase expressed that in the reason august-november break.