The people who worked to make the actual xpac deserve mad props, yes, but the person who priced it not so much. Still, hate or no, things will pan out for them. People will forget this and the xpac will sell.
Voices on the net mean nothing to businesses with targets to meet. Anet’s, or perhaps NCSoft’s main source of feedback is metrics. We have no way of knowing if the reddit thread’s an echochamber and if the internet response is having an adverse effect on the number of preorders. While it is a big deal and people are incensed, whether the resulting sales drop is severe enough or not will decide what happens in the future.
So do the smart thing. Vote with your wallet, think practical, and distance yourself from the marketing and PR aspect of it. Do you think the xpac is worth your money? If so, buy. If not, don’t. And expect little or nothing to come of your reddit upvotes and forum posts.
I think the NMC was made evil just because the game needed a typical sylvari antagonist group like the Inquest or the Sons of Svanir. There are NMC characters who aren’t explicitly evil, though, it’s just that the game doesn’t bother exploring them.
Actually the trait lines’ themes (iirc) are sorted more based on skill types than stats. I’m sure that at least one trait line is usually dedicated to class specific abilities like the mesmer’s illusions line.
So we might see a line which rewards legend swapping or something like that.
All core-game changes will be available to all players, even if they don’t have HoT.
New Content, such as:
Masteries
Elite Specializations
New Zones
New Living Story
…won’t be available unless you buy HoT. This is and will always be the case with MMO expansions.
As of now, the only “Core game changes” I am aware of are the trait rework that comes before the xpac and the two mastery lines for legendaries and fractals. Both of those cater to niche hardcore parts of the playerbase, so really all we’re getting is a big balance change that adds very little in terms of gameplay hours.
I know Anet might still announce features/content outside the xpac but I’m not counting on it.
Sir, I believe you are mistaken.
Off of the top of my head, changes to the core game include:
New WvWvW Borderlands
New PvP GameMode
Traits
Any changes to existing zones as part of the living story
New Weapon Stat Combinations
As for more hours of gameplay for non-expansion buyers… I’m sorry to say it, but almost no MMO Expansion will provide more gameplay hours to people who don’t buy the expansion. Why would developers develop an expansion if people would have just as much fun not buying it? It’s nonsensical… ArenaNet is a business, not a charity, and, frankly, they are giving more to the base game than most MMO Expansions (the one exception I can think of is WoW Cataclysm).
Arena Net is even making it easier for people who don’t buy the expansion by giving them a whole new game mode, not making their end-game gear obsolete, and not excluding them from high-level PvP.
I stand corrected. I also don’t actually expect more gameplay hours for people who don’t buy. I only said they wouldn’t get any and shouldn’t stick around waiting for it.
All core-game changes will be available to all players, even if they don’t have HoT.
New Content, such as:
Masteries
Elite Specializations
New Zones
New Living Story
…won’t be available unless you buy HoT. This is and will always be the case with MMO expansions.
As of now, the only “Core game changes” I am aware of are the trait rework that comes before the xpac and the two mastery lines for legendaries and fractals. Both of those cater to niche hardcore parts of the playerbase, so really all we’re getting is a big balance change that adds very little in terms of gameplay hours.
I know Anet might still announce features/content outside the xpac but I’m not counting on it.
Re: Masteries, they are not like the skill bar now because as you get more advanced Masteries, the XP required to unlock them goes up. It’s not a static number across all mastery levels.
I thought the quadrupling of the exp required for the 2 level of gliding was ridiculous. I could see doubling it. Are they going to make you get eight times that required for 3 level? Lots of grinding for exp.
Endgame right now has copious quantities of xp that serve no real purpose. I’ve played for barely 3 months now and I’ve already accrued over 400 skillpoints on my main, not to mention 3 alts. In the long term I expect everyone to have maybe 60-80% of every line unlocked before it’s necessary to pour all the xp into one to advance.
Oh this thread again. And I have to say it again: stop asking to not give us outfits.
Your title might be “ANET-Give-us-new-armor-skins”
These kinds of “don’t give them, give us” is really becoming annoying.
There is a legitimate concern when a large percentage of players end up looking like clones of each other. Imagine how awkward it would be if you saw a line of mimes queued up at McDonald’s, make up and all, or if there were 20 identical soccer moms crossing the street.
Perhaps the religious zealotry of the Zintl missionaries will seem sufficiently despicable and unlikeable in the actual release, with fleshed out content. Maybe then we’ll have no problems slaughtering them.
Since the general answer to this seems to be “buy the xpac” I’d recommend you move on right now if you’re not planning on getting it. There’s a couple of other good mmos you can get into, with actual content to experience instead of the mechanical grinding that seems to be the only thing left to do in gw2 now. There’s sod all coming for players outside the xpac.
Don’t be disingenuous. The answer isn’t so much “buy the expansion” as it is “what do you expect them to do?”
Regardless of Anet’s situation, the facts are that there will be a permanent wedge driven between players who will and will not buy the xpac. What I suggested is the practical thing to do as someone who will not buy it. This purely based on pragmatism and not any moral standing.
All the content players have enjoyed thus far is the extent of what they got out of their initial purchase. For those who do not wish to buy HoT, it is best to leave now rather than to stick around and hope for something new.
No new free armor skins since carapace/luminescent. Having cosmetics be an endgame goal and at the same time be heavily limited to the gemstore seems quite contradictory to me
Strictly numbers-wise Anet is best off sticking to pretty dresses for human females.
If that is their priority they might as well make games where playable characters are just attractive humanoids with a few novelty features so you can tell races apart. Tolerating lower standards for skins on the other races, in a game where a large part of progression is getting more/rarer skins, will only make them even less appealing.
Strictly numbers-wise Anet is best off sticking to pretty dresses for human females. Humans are the basis for new skin designs. Most armors look like they’ve been taken from the human model and pulled out into something that might fit a norn or a catcow. Stretched textures, awkward models and nasty clipping issues abound.
As a self-confessed shovel hoarder with 294 shovels gathered and not a one used to date, I can say that linking those in chat brings out the real evil ones in SW
I’ve no interest in actually testing anything, and I’m not going to do any of the content. Just gonna jump in, look at core specs for all classes, jump out. And if those aren’t there I won’t bother.
There will be more elite specializations in the future. It’s quite petty and shortsighted to be so upset about something so trivial before we even know about it, but clearly that’s the standard here.
I assume every race will eventually get the spotlight in some upcoming xpac/update, probably against their own dragon. I can’t wait to see what the Charr get. I’m calling it now, the Black Citadel will go all Metroplex on us and turn into a giant catcow robot
I am one of those guys who finds the aforementioned angels, dolls and models creepy as all hell. It’s probably just me but there comes a point where the faces are so perfect and flawless that the character ends up looking like a horror movie china doll or something.
I do tend to get irrationally scared of barbie dolls and the like, that must have something to do with it. But seriously- No face is that perfect, not even ones on the touched up cosmetics commercials. Gnashblade must be making a killing off those lol
Okay one person said one thing on one podcast and everyone is thinking great things are afoot.
I don’t get this at all. People wonder why Anet says nothing ever about anything. This is why.
I think the fact that there’s so little new in game that this could blow up to be such a big deal is the real problem. These newsposts have kinda replaced actual ingame content. It’s been at least 2-3 months since anything of significance was added to the game. (I know that because that’s how long I’ve been playing :P)
