Guild Wars 2

Raids are typically MMORPG time sinks. They are not challenging, just time-consuming. GW2 was originally advertised as an “anti-mmo” MMO. It’s not a surprise that it attracted many players who do not wish to raid for various reasons.

I myself have made peace with the solo vs pre-made issue by playing one of the following games when I feel like doing some competitive play (instead of doing spvp in GW2):
1. 1vs1 in Starcraft ii
2. Hero league in Heroes of the storm (where teams of 3 or more are not allowed).

It’s sad since I did spend a huge amount of time on spvp in GW2, but I am a lot happier now by playing other games that do not have this issue and are more fun.

I am the opposite. I used to pvp a lot in GW2, but after they merged solo q and team q, it started to get frustrating when I don’t join a pre-arranged team. Now, instead of doing pvp in GW2, I play Heroes of the Storm (hero league where you are not allowed to queue with a team of 3 or more) and Starcraft ii for competitive play.

Malediktus.9250:

MyriadStars.5679:

You get 400 gems for every 5000 achievement points. Keeping the amount of achievement points low will help them sell more gems.

I would prefer them to remove the 400 gems from the chests if that is their issue.

I’m not saying anything against your original post. I was just pointing out what might be the real cause.

You get 400 gems for every 5000 achievement points. Keeping the amount of achievement points low will help them sell more gems.

Soon.5240:

Why aren’t there queues to get into the new maps of the first expansion to be issued in 3 years? Why hasn’t Anet needed to create new servers to handle all the traffic from new customers?

Good questions. Usually when a popular MMORPG releases a highly successful xpac, several new servers have to be created to handle the population. However, all we heard about launch day was how “smooth” it was. It would certainly be smooth when there were fewer players than expected.

When vanilla GW2 was released, it was sold for 2 million copies within 2 weeks. However, more than two weeks has passed since HOT release, and no sales figure was disclosed. At the same time, we have news coming in regarding how successful other games are. For example, Legacy of the Void was sold for over 1 million copies within 24 hours of its release, and this number does not even include pre-orders or pre-purchases.

This is really a wake-up call for Anet. They should think hard about whether it is a good idea to change game directions.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

It’s possible they’re trying to pick up the massive Wildstar crowd with HoT, it’s a courageous strategy I hope it works out for them.

I don’t see how this will work. I heard that many people left wildstar because wildstar focuses on hardcore raid and the vast majority of the gamers do not have the time for raids. Creating raids to attract wildstar crowds probably wouldn’t work.

Most people would pay a subscription fee to get big and frequent content patches which require lots of time and resources to develop. Very few would pay a subscription fee just to get unlimited total makeover kits, etc.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

MyriadStars.5679:

Joining Amazon seems to suggest that some key persons really needed a way out of Anet in a hurry.

I would have to disagree with that. Those Amazon jobs are highly sought after and competitive, and are generally well-compensated. It’s not like they left to go wait tables or something; they left for what is by industry standards a prime job that doesn’t come around every day. If they didn’t jump on that type of offer, they might never get the opportunity again.

No disrespect to Amazon, but it’s a lot easier to get an offer from Amazon than from many other places, e.g., Google/twitter/facebook/Microsoft, just to name a few. This true for many new grads, and should also be true for people who are key persons in a highly successful gaming company.

The following article makes sense:
“2015 is the year that we stop preordering video games once and for all”
http://bgr.com/2015/01/12/stop-preordering-video-games/

Actually I think losing key persons to Amazon could potentially be a big deal. When key persons leave a highly successful gaming company, they often start their own gaming companies to work on something new, or at the very least, join a different gaming company. Joining Amazon seems to suggest that some key persons really needed a way out of Anet in a hurry. Of course, these are just some observations for your reference only.

eisberg.2379:

MyriadStars.5679:

Pandabro.8743:

Funny cause I feel like I’ve NEVER paid for a “complete” MMORPG.

The nature of MMO’s is that they are constantly evolving and adding content. If you feel like HoT is “unfinished” you need to reevaluate your expectations and look around at the industry.

Why didn’t Anet release HOT back in March then? HOT was already in alpha at that time.

because software still needs to go through Alpha and Beta testing before being released. Releasing software without doing any testing is really bad idea.

Exactly. There should have been a more thorough beta testing stage.

Pandabro.8743:

Funny cause I feel like I’ve NEVER paid for a “complete” MMORPG.

The nature of MMO’s is that they are constantly evolving and adding content. If you feel like HoT is “unfinished” you need to reevaluate your expectations and look around at the industry.

Why didn’t Anet release HOT back in March then? HOT was already in alpha at that time.

I also worry about GW2’s future. To add to the OP’s list:

1. John Ryan, one of the lead story writers on Guild Wars 2 has left to work on Destiny in the past February:
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/02/13/guild-wars-2-writer-leaves-to-work-on-destiny

2. I preordered HOT at Bestbuy Canada, but nothing was shipped before or on the launch day. A week later, Bestbuy Canada contacted me to say that they could not fulfill the order. They didn’t explicitly state the reason, but I think it’s probably because they decided not to get the stock when they found that there were not enough preorders. So far no retailer in Canada is selling HOT.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

fellyn.5083:

Phy.2913:

People want an xpac to be as big as the original game? That’s not how it works, especially in an MMO. Part of the price is future content.

Apparently you never played any of the GW1 expansions. Nightfall and Factions were easily as big as, if not bigger than Prophecies.

We do have that standard to compare Anets work to.

Nightfall and Factions were standalone campaigns. Not expansions. They were separate games from Guild Wars.

The only expansion for GW1, was Eye of the North. So if you want to compare HoT to something, compare it to Eye of the North.

For people who purchased Prophecies first, Nightfall and Factions function as xpacs for them, even though they are labeled as standalone. Very few people intentionally keep their Prophecies and Nightfall accounts separate. Therefore, yes, we can compare HOT to Nightfall and Factions.

Legacy of the Void is going to be standalone, but people still consider it as an xpac to sc ii.

Eye of the North has less content than Factions and Nightfall, but its launch price is lower as well, so it was all right.

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

This is a really convenient excuse.

As I said, threads with feedback get merged so that the devs can skim the feedback and get a feel for what needs to be done. “Thanks ANet” threads aren’t feedback.

There was one thread that got locked, but you can see for yourself that someone was just spamming it with utter kitten.

Why not just remove the spammer’s post instead of locking the entire thread?

All right, if this thread is locked because you and I are arguing about what is the right way of forum moderation, then I automatically win:P

Back to the topic, I don’t think a customer forum of a big public company and an independent private forum should be moderated in the same way. Think about conflicts of interests.

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

Why aren’t they merging threads titled “thank you” into one? These threads are pretty much empty.

Because they don’t need to.

This is a really convenient excuse.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

MyriadStars.5679:
Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.
^
All of them, because nothing makes everyone happy. Modern Warfare was too different from World at War. Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’. Gears shotgun was too OP. Halo was a knockoff of Golden Eye, etc.

ALL of the greats of had their naysayers.

At this point it’s a rock solid 9. Take away some of the time gating and its legendary.

There is tons of enjoyment here, but its tough to solo.

“All of them”? I am pretty sure that I was browsing the forums on the launch days of D2: LOD and vanilla WOW, and didn’t see so many negative threads. I don’t think I saw so many negative posts for the original GW2 shortly after its launch.

“Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’”? Not that I have any comments on this, but it would be really hard to believe that the entire forum was filled with threads on cartoony on its launch day.

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

Besides, Anet has been trying to find reasons to delete/merge threads with negative comments, while leaving positive threads untouched even if those threads are pretty much empty with one or two lines only. Even so, the forums are still filled with negative threads.

No, they’ve been merging threads that are all about the same one bloody thing into one thread. That’s perfectly reasonable. The moderators don’t engage in shady practices like you claim, because it would completely defeat the point of even having official forums if they did.

Why aren’t they merging threads titled “thank you” into one? These threads are pretty much empty.

Will you do this little experiment: Create a thread titled “thank you Anet”, and in its body, write down “I really enjoy this xpac”. Let’s see if this thread will be merged into an existing one. I bet no.

Many other gaming companies typically do not merge/delete/lock negative posts, because of conflicts of interests. Actually I should stop talking about this, because I don’t want this thread to be locked just because there are a few posts that are not 100% on the topic.

pfanne.9783:

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

You cannot infer anything statistically relevant with that data.
First: The sample size is way to small
Second: The people on the forums are not a representative sample of the playerbase, because angry people are more likely to post on the forums than satisfied people
Third: Angry comments are more likely to spread on the internet. There is research about this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/
And a youtube video to explain it if you are not into reading scientific papers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

Besides, Anet has been trying to find reasons to delete/merge threads with negative comments, while leaving positive threads untouched even if those threads are pretty much empty with one or two lines only. Even so, the forums are still filled with negative threads.

One may argue that there may be people who are silently playing and feel all right. This is true, but on the other hand, there are also people have silently stopped playing when finding no fun in HOT, or simply decided not to purchase HOT after reading other people’s experience without making any comments.

By the way, I think it is unwise for Anet to moderate forums in this way. What they are doing may kitten off people more, and negative comments will spread out to other parts of the Internet more quickly as a result.

I think HOT is more fun for people who started to play after the base game became free, because the old content isn’t stale for them. For veterans, for instance, it is boring to do the same stuff that we have been doing over the past three years for tyria masteries. HOT is focused on making F2P people to buy the xpac, while casting veteran players away.

The same thing could happen again in a few years if another xpac is released. The difference is, by that time, people who are happy with HOT now will be veterans and be cast away.

Farzo.8410:

It’s an MMORPG, you’re bound to grind and work towards your rewards.

That’s exactly what people meant: Anet made false promises. They said GW2 is different from traditional MMORPGs, but in the end, it’s just another MMORPG.

MashMash.1645:

Cactus Brawler.7415:

Requires 40 new hero challenges to complete, several of which require masteries that require as much EXP to unlock as leveling to 80 several times over.

Yeah, that is grind.

Exactly.

In other MMOs that require you to level up in an expansion, they make it less boring by giving you lots of maps and quests, so that you can do quests selectively to level up to feel less boring. You can even level up your characters in dungeons if you prefer small group encounters. In HOT, you are forced to play essentially everything in the same map to progress in masteries and do many things repeatedly, which is more boring.

Levi M.7428:

DutchGaming.7105:

Levi M.7428:

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Levi M.7428:

OMG something you can’t get in one day of playing. OMG. It’s the end of the world. Why don’t they just hand you everything. Cause that’s all I see when I read this post

Then I suggest you work on your reading and comprehension. There is not point in these elite specialistions if by the time they’re unlocked you’ve exhausted all of the expansion content. This is the point of endgame content, to give you something to do with the abilities you earned getting to max level.

We have a bitter Betty over here. Who wants everything handed to them. Cause that’s all I read from this. Let’s just all get everything at launch right away. So then the masses can complain again for 3 years of no content! Hurrah!

Dude every kitten thread or post you reply to you reply to in the same toxic manner, No one here said that they want everything handed on a silver platter. Sure I want to work for my specs. But only if its reasonable. and I do not consider Hero challanges locked behind masteries, Champion monsters with time limits reasonable.

So what’s your solution dude? All I see are complaints. But no solutions ? Please give one

It’s Anet’s job to come up with solutions to address complaints. Otherwise, players are paying Anet to give Anet new original ideas.

Levi M.7428:

Test.8734:

Levi M.7428:

Let’s just all get everything at launch right away. So then the masses can complain again for 3 years of no content! Hurrah!

Too bad we have some gullible players who can’t tell the difference between “content” and “mindless, easy repetitive gating in order to unlock content”.

If anything, the current gating for specializations is a smoke screen to how little real content HoT has.

Yep this expansion has no content at all. I totally agree man. Smokescreens and mirrors. I agree. You should find a new game to play cause clearly this isn’t the game for you.

Many people already did that. That’s why there are fewer complains in the forums now.

Anet did intentionally mislead people. They said that they were against “attunements”. However, the mastery system is worse than attuement system. To get attuned, you actually play and complete some new content, but to progress in the mastery system, you keep playing the same content over and over again. Now I can see that Anet is against “attuements” because it would require their developers to create new content.

Bellatrixa.3546:

I would guess they’re already working on the next expansion

I am thinking of the opposite. If they were going to release more expansions, they would have cared more about the reputation of their company. Trying to grab as much money as possible by forcing people to buy the xpac will hurt their reputation, and if more xpacs are on the way, then they will make less money in the long run. Therefore, I really worry about the future of the franchise.

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. …”

Bellatrixa.3546:

virus.4370:

lol heck i almost went to jail trying to buy eye of the north..it wasn’t about pay and you get upgrades to make you win

Are you joking or don’t you remember old Ursan Blessing and the introduction of consumables? It was exactly the same thing. You had to have all 3 campaigns and EotN or you were severely disadvantaged. This is why I don’t get the bellyaching from people who played GW1 and why I pre-purchased HoT when I started GW2 – because the expansions will become core content just as much as the first instalment of the game. If you can’t get it now, get it when you can. I wish people weren’t into instant gratification so much…

What you said happened when they announced that they were making gw2. That is, gw1 was at the end of its lifespan and no more xpac would be released. At that time, very few people would plan to play gw1 for many more years, so it wasn’t a big deal when some people were disadvantaged. Are you implying that they are doing this because we are going to see gw3 soon, so that whether our characters make much progression in gw2 now does not matter much? If this were the case, I would feel better, but we are not told any news like this.

Seera.5916:

MyriadStars.5679:

SkiTz.4590:

welcome to the business of… well.. doing business lol.

What about “goodwill”? At least in gaming industry, this should be a very important asset.

What Anet is doing now for HOT is often done by companies that do not plan to be in business for long and just want to grab as much money as possible for now. This really makes me worry about the future of the Guild Wars franchise.

Unfortunately, employees can’t pay their own bills with goodwill nor can ANet pay it’s own bills with goodwill. At some point, companies have to do things to turn a profit. And sometimes those decisions lead to unpopular game directions.

That being said, I neither agree nor disagree with the OP on the fractals issue as I haven’t played fractals enough to know what the rewards were before and what they are now and what now requires HoT or what doesn’t.

If they have locked previously available rewards behind HoT, that is a pretty horrible move. New rewards is fine, but old rewards is low.

Are you implying that Anet would go bankrupt if they spent 6 more months to make a better xpac? If not, harming their reputation as they are doing now will reduce their profit in the long run.

PopeUrban.2578:

So is leveling.

Leveling is actually fine in GW2: you have many maps to explore, so you can hop to a different one if you are bored of the current map. You don’t have to do the same content more than once to reach level 80.

MyriadStars.5679:

NikolasRobichaud.4237:

With the current USD vs Canadian dollar exchange it would be 74$ to get HOT. Not worth the price, I will wait for it to go on sale as they did frequently for the core game as I assume a pet will follow that template. Hopefully around the holidays it will be more affordable

It’s really weird. I pre-ordered from Bestbuy Canada, but it seemed that they failed to get any stock. Maybe the same reason that caused Ebgames to stop being a retailer of HOT also prevented Bestbuy Canada from fulfilling the pre-orders. Well, this gives me time to wait to see the reviews of HOT and then decide what to do, so it’s not entirely a bad thing for me.

After reading more about the experience of players who have started playing HOT, I am inclined to wait. I will level up huntsman in the meanwhile at a slow pace (so yeah, I will still spend a few minutes on GW2 now and then without HOT, in case I want to play more in the future), and play Heroes of the Storm / legacy of the void instead. For a long time, I mostly did spvp in GW2, because there was essentially no new pve content after LS season 2. Now it doesn’t make sense to do spvp without elite specs, so it makes sense for me to play games that are focused on competitive play.

After hearing Anet talk about masteries, I drew the same conclusion as the OP did.

SkiTz.4590:

Its been a massive change in how ppl are conducting business…. most companies now days, all they see is dollar signs…. its gotten worse and worse and worse.

Sure, it’s true for many companies, especially internet/TV/phone/rental/airline companies. However, if GW2 wants to remain an A+ product, reputation and goodwill will play a vital role.

SkiTz.4590:

welcome to the business of… well.. doing business lol.

What about “goodwill”? At least in gaming industry, this should be a very important asset.

What Anet is doing now for HOT is often done by companies that do not plan to be in business for long and just want to grab as much money as possible for now. This really makes me worry about the future of the Guild Wars franchise.

There is one word that can explain this move: GREED.

NikolasRobichaud.4237:

With the current USD vs Canadian dollar exchange it would be 74$ to get HOT. Not worth the price, I will wait for it to go on sale as they did frequently for the core game as I assume a pet will follow that template. Hopefully around the holidays it will be more affordable

It’s really weird. I pre-ordered from Bestbuy Canada, but it seemed that they failed to get any stock. Maybe the same reason that caused Ebgames to stop being a retailer of HOT also prevented Bestbuy Canada from fulfilling the pre-orders. Well, this gives me time to wait to see the reviews of HOT and then decide what to do, so it’s not entirely a bad thing for me.

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

The flaw in your approach remains even if you did not have to try hard.

You keep mentioning that my approach is “flawed”. Comparing the most recent x-pac of WoW with the most recent x-pac of HoT is not flawed.

MyriadStars.5679:

I said that I was NOT going to compare HOT to burning crusade, whose amount of content is above the industry standard: two new races, a new continent, flying mounts, many dungeons, eye of the storm, team arena… All this sold at $10 less than the vanilla.

I can also make a list of HoT features and call is above the industry standard. What is the industry standard anyway? HoT also sells $10 less than the vanilla GW2.

MyriadStars.5679:

What I meant is that you should compare HOT to a typical xpac. Not Burning Crusade whose content is much more than a typical xpac, or some other xpac which you claimed to be below average. Saying HOT is comparable to some not-so-good xpac is hardly a compliment.

What is a “typical” xpac? Let me guess: every xpac that offers more than HoT. Oh wow you just won the argument.

MyriadStars.5679:

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

Beta testing also matters. Do you want a finished product or work in progress?

No MMO is ever finished. An MMO is always a work in progress.

I am talking about the beta testing phase before release. It’s fine if you think it’s acceptable to do insufficient beta testing, but many others will disagree.

Arenanet deemed it sufficient. Whether you or I deem it sufficient enough is completely irrelevant. Also the beta testing of the original GW2 wasn’t more extensive either (I remember three to four beta weekends) and the launch was OK.

Of course your approach is flawed. I haven’t purchased the lastest wow xpac, so I can’t comment on the amount of content in it. However, the first 4 wow xpacs definitely have more content. Therefore, even if warlords of draenor has less content than HOT (I doubt that; from what you said, it’s mostly because you prefer open-word events to dungeons) , HOT is still ranked 5 out of the 6 xpacs that we are sampling (5 wow xpacs + 1 gw2 xpac). That doesn’t seem good, does it?

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

This is why your approach is flawed: Nobody is saying that HOT is the worst xpac in gaming history, so you should compare it to a typical xpac, instead of trying hard to find another xpac that is below the standard (this not say that the wow xpac is one as I haven’t bought it).

I’m not even trying hard…I simply chose the most recent x-pac of WoW. The game you brought into the discussion.

The flaw in your approach remains even if you did not have to try hard.

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

I could have also mentioned that burning crusade had a new race, but I didn’t, since I wanted to make a fair comparison.

You keep mentioning Burning Crusade which is from 2007. Why do you reach so far into the past to make a point?

I said that I was NOT going to compare HOT to burning crusade, whose amount of content is above the industry standard: two new races, a new continent, flying mounts, many dungeons, eye of the storm, team arena… All this sold at $10 less than the vanilla.

What I meant is that you should compare HOT to a typical xpac. Not Burning Crusade whose content is much more than a typical xpac, or some other xpac which you claimed to be below average. Saying HOT is comparable to some not-so-good xpac is hardly a compliment.

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

We are talking about pve content, so yeah, dungeons matter. The latest wow xpac has garrisons, so it’s not there is no “housing” content in it (if you are thinking of guild halls).

I never said dungeons do not matter. I simply pointed out that in WoW you’re “locked” into dungeons instead of zones while in GW2 you’re locked into Zones. Wow has to come up with something to make up for the poor replayability of their zones. That something happens to be dungeons and raids. Since HoT already offers more content in their zones (certainly more than WoW’s) they maybe don’t feel the need to throw in half a dozen dungeons?

Garrisons were not very well received. In fact so badly that the next WoW-expansion won’t feature them. Whether Guild Halls are going to be better or worse remains to be seen.

Sure, if you like open-word boss events better than small-group instanced encounters, then HOT makes sense for you. However, for many others, open-word boss events become boring really fast.

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

Beta testing also matters. Do you want a finished product or work in progress?

No MMO is ever finished. An MMO is always a work in progress.

I am talking about the beta testing phase before release. It’s fine if you think it’s acceptable to do insufficient beta testing, but many others will disagree.

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

I didn’t get the latest wow xpac, but still your approach is flawed. Among the 5 xpacs of wow, you chose one that you think has the least amount of content and compare it to the only xpac of GW2. This is hardly a fair comparison..

LMAO that’s exactly what I did.

Why is not a fair comparison? Please elaborate. Don’t just say it.

MyriadStars.5679:

You also ignored other stuff in a typical wow xpac, such as new dungeons. You also ignored the amount of work/time that Blizzard spent on closed beta testing for each xpac.

Of course I ignored the “other stuff”. You talked about the HoT maps and how much more it takes to create a continent (like dreanor) vs. the Maguuma Jungle. Of course I’m not going to mention WvW or guild halls or new classes in that context.

This is why your approach is flawed: Nobody is saying that HOT is the worst xpac in gaming history, so you should compare it to a typical xpac, instead of trying hard to find another xpac that is below the standard (this is not saying that the wow xpac is one as I haven’t bought it).

I could have also mentioned that burning crusade had a new race, but I didn’t, since I wanted to make a fair comparison and not every xpac brings a new race which is really a lot of work.

We are talking about pve content, so yeah, dungeons matter. The latest wow xpac has garrisons, so it’s not there is no “housing” content in it (if you are thinking of guild halls).

Beta testing also matters. Do you want a finished product or work in progress?

Straylight.7529:

MyriadStars.5679:

This is something that I wouldn’t agree. Each wow xpac that I bought (starting from burning crusade) had many new dungeons at launch. Having many new maps to level up your characters will make character progression less boring. You can hop to a different map to level up your character if you are bored of the current map.

The 4 HoT maps offer far more content than the 6 maps (only 5 if you play one faction) of WoW’s latest expansion. WoW’s maps offer very little replayability.

MyriadStars.5679:

The launch price of each xpac is also $10 less than the vanilla. It certainly takes more work to create a new continent than to create 4 new maps.

If you are strictly talking about creating geographic landscape (without monsters, quests, voiceacting etc…) then you can bet your kitten that it took Arenanet more time to create 4 HoT maps than the couple of flat 2D-maps WoW-expacs offer since over a decade.

MyriadStars.5679:

With 4 maps in HOT, you are locked into them and do things repeatedly to progress horizontally, which is more boring. Yes, people do go back to level 60 maps such as Dry top and silverwaste, but it’s really boring for many, so for people who think that SW grind is boring, the four new maps probably won’t be very interesting.

The 4 HoT maps offer far more content than the 6 maps of WoW’s latest expansion. WoW’s maps offer very little replayability. Also I’d rather be “locked” into actual maps with replayability instead of the couple of dungeons you’re locked in when playing WoW. Also whether horizontal progression is more or less boring than vertical progression is a matter of personal opinion. Arenanet went for horizontal progression and had great success with it.

I didn’t get the latest wow xpac, but still your approach is flawed. Among the 5 xpacs of wow, you chose one that you think has the least amount of content and compare it to the only xpac of GW2. This is hardly a fair comparison.

You also ignored other stuff in a typical wow xpac, such as new dungeons. You also ignored the amount of work/time that Blizzard spent on closed beta testing for each xpac.

Blackhearted.1264:

displacedTitan.6897:

ITT: People who do not normally play MMOs. Most MMO Xpacks are mandatory for continuing to play the game AND they are full price (40/50$).

I guess there is a downside to GW2 pulling in players that are not normal to MMOs.

Most MMO xpacks also ship with a hell of a lot more content than this one does too.

I also just recalled that WOW xpacs are typically priced $10 cheaper than vanilla at launch.

displacedTitan.6897:

This is what I meant by people here clearly don’t play MMOs typically, to say HoT has no content is a total lie. Every new map is endgame here and none of them are sacrificed for pure level grinding.

This is something that I wouldn’t agree. Each wow xpac that I bought (starting from burning crusade) had many new dungeons at launch. Having many new maps to level up your characters will make character progression less boring. You can hop to a different map to level up your character if you are bored of the current map. The launch price of each xpac is also $10 less than the vanilla. It certainly takes more work to create a new continent than to create 4 new maps.

With 4 maps in HOT, you are locked into them and do things repeatedly to progress horizontally, which is more boring. Yes, people do go back to level 60 maps such as Dry top and silverwaste, but it’s really boring for many, so for people who think that SW grind is boring, the four new maps probably won’t be very interesting.

displacedTitan.6897:

MyriadStars.5679:

displacedTitan.6897:

Most MMO Xpacks are mandatory for continuing to play the game

For WoW, you don’t need to buy xpack to play the game.

Sure you don’t NEED it but you will be playing a single player game after about a week. Also like 99.9% of the content in WoW Xpacks are for Xpack only.

True, but this is probably not the reason why many people are not buying HOT. It seems that many people are not buying because they don’t think there is enough content in HOT. The amount of new content in a WoW xpac is really much more. I think people do have to play other MMOs to conclude that the content in HOT is less than a normal xpac.

Honestly, after reading the posts here, I start to wonder whether I have made a bad decision on preordering the game…

displacedTitan.6897:

Most MMO Xpacks are mandatory for continuing to play the game

For WoW, you don’t need to buy xpack to play the game.

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

MyriadStars.5679:

Well, let’s see if HOT will receive a higher review rating than vanilla GW2, to see if gating stuff is truly the most amazing thing in gaming industry ever.

Reviews by who? I doubt any of those reviews will only depend on “gating” but rather judge HoT as a whole.

So know I see, your problem with HoT is the Mastery system and how you’ll be required to unlock things like Gliding before you do certain things in a zone. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it gives much more replayability on older zones, you pass and follow your story, then once you get a higher mastery you can go back and reach places you couldn’t before. That’s how a lot of good RPGs actually work and it’s a great way of adding progression in HoT, progression that doesn’t affect old zones, by invalidating builds and content. The alternative would’ve been a level cap increase, new gear tiers or adding a bazillion of new skills that cause different kinds of problems.

people keep comparing the mastery system to classics like castlevania, metroid, zelda. Its not analagous at all. Those games were based around exploration and finding things in order to progress, and get access to new areas.
not based on racking up experience.
killing 1 million octarocs wasnt going to progress you very far in an old rpg.
heck even exp based rpgs used monsters to be the check on progress, and specific goals or story points to be the gates for abilities/exploration.

Not to mention old rpgs are designed so that exp comes naturally as you go through the story/dungeons etc. This is designed so you must repeat things to get far.

I understand why they did it, however its not like metroid or castlevania, or an old school rpg at all. And honestly i think they should have stuck to cosmetic/convenience gains, not hard gates.
grind for unlocking new charachter animations
grind for unlocking exp buffs, running speed buffs
grind to unlock bestiaries
grind to unluck minis
grind for unneeded special abilities

grind to unlock long jumps to get to a new map? ehhhhh I mean if the grind is not noticeable thats fine, but if your gonna be doing the equivalent of silverwastes or old orr for karma. Its kind of a bad model.

A lot of it will come down to the degrees, and how gated you feel/how much grind to alleviate it. But yeah the concept alone isnt really a great one.

I totally agree. In GW1: Factions, I didn’t mind going through the missions to reach new maps, because it had a great story and the missions were fun. If gating were done in this way, it would be nice.

Sidenti.6035:

MyriadStars.5679:

I don’t mind making slow progress on mastery with my limited amount of play time for this xpac, but my biggest concern is that Anet might keep shrinking the size of their development team if they are convinced that players are all fine with what they do in HOT. You know, it’s a lot easier to create grindy stuff and gated content, than creating new and fun content that requires creativity and more effort to design. If we give Anet the impression that what they do for HOT is fine, then it is likely that they will just keep the fewest programmers necessary to create grindy stuff, to decrease the cost and maximize their profit. This will eventually kill GW2.

…buddy, have you ever considered just taking up a new game or something? It sounds like you have a lot of anger issues directed toward ANet at this point and I don’t know if there can ever be a resolution that will satisfy you.

I’m actually not being a smartkitten here. I’m serious. Throughout the whole course of this thread, you have steadfastly refused to cut ANet even the semblance of a break – it’s all conspiracy theories and random vitriol.

Maybe it’s time to step back and away, if a game’s got you that locked-in mentally. -Sid

I seriously think that it is you who have anger issues. When someone criticizes HOT, you often treat it as if it were a criticism directed towards yourself. Other people who do not agree with the criticism normally just argue whether the criticism is valid, but you sometimes even go a step further to say unkind words.

And don’t worry whether Anet needs a break from criticisms. A great company will learn from criticisms to build up their success. Take Blizzard for example. When they released Diablo 3, the game was sold for 12 million copies in 2012, and 30 million copies by now. However, if you checked the battle.net forums in 2012, you would see that many people were criticizing Blizzard for ruining the game. The criticisms were 10 times harsher than the criticisms here. What did Blizzard do? They didn’t delete or lock any posts. Instead, their removed the person who was in charge of the design of Diablo 3, closed the auction house, and added fun content and changed the gameplay in the xpac Reaper of Souls. Afterwards, the vast majority of the players agree that Reaper of Souls improved the game greatly, and it is the Diablo 3 that people want.

Let’s get back to HOT. When GW2 was released, it was innovative compared to other MMO, and what they said in their manifesto was essentially true. However, HOT made GW2 more like traditional MMOs, and I think it’s a step backward in the MMO revolution. Of course, this is just my opinion, but many others also think the same. It is important to let Anet know this, so that they may make the xpac after HOT an innovative one.

I don’t mind making slow progress on mastery with my limited amount of play time for this xpac, but my biggest concern is that Anet might keep shrinking the size of their development team if they are convinced that players are all fine with what they do in HOT. You know, it’s a lot easier to create grindy stuff and gated content, than creating new and fun content that requires creativity and more effort to design. If we give Anet the impression that what they do for HOT is fine, then it is likely that they will just keep the fewest programmers necessary to create grindy stuff, to decrease the cost and maximize their profit. This will eventually kill GW2.

maddoctor.2738:

So know I see, your problem with HoT is the Mastery system and how you’ll be required to unlock things like Gliding before you do certain things in a zone.

No, what is worrisome is the less than usual amount of content hidden by gating. If they gave us a new continent and doubled the number of fractals, I wouldn’t worry at all even with mastery.

At this stage, my biggest concern is that Anet might keep shrinking the size of their development team, and keep the fewest programmers necessary to create grindy stuff. This will eventually kill GW2.