Guild Wars 2

Ricky.4706:

The Living stories were an expansion all their own. They didn’t charge for it, so you didn’t see it maybe ?

The Living Story was a failure.

Neither season was “an expansion all their own”. Season 1 lacked permanence, and both it and Season 2 lacked many of the features that actually make people interested in expansions (many new skills, new professions, a new race would also fit, etc).

If anything, they were like small DLCs. Arguably, Season 2 is overpriced at $20.00, considering how little it offers.

But regardless, they both failed. ArenaNet faced heavy criticism from players after how temporary the content from Season 1 was; and Season 2 was then considerably more subdued, keeping most of it content in short instances (other than the horribly designed, grind-based Silverwastes).

More importantly, both couldn’t prevent GW2’s earnings from falling. Season 1 was followed by a very different business model in season 2, which was followed by a very different business model in season 3 (which became HoT). It’s rather obvious that ArenaNet is experimenting, to see what works, and that they keep changing their approach because so far nothing has really worked.

If HoT is successful, we will see ArenaNet moving away from the Living World model and focusing more on expansions, until they are hit by the same things that hit GW1 and stop working in the game.

VOLKON.1290:

We’re getting a lot of stuff, including effectively ten new professions (consider the specializations early phases of new professions)

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

Vayne.8563:

Saying there’s a tier above exotics and saying you have to grind for it are completely different things. You don’t know. You’re assuming. You’re using the assumption to malign. It’s obvious to most people what you’re doing.

One could easily counter argument that you’re trying to defend ArenaNet while ignoring the evidence in front of you, and that it’s obvious to most people what you’re doing.

As an example, there is zero assumptions in saying that, by the time of release, ArenaNet knew very well that there was a huge grind in the game in order to get legendaries, at the same time they had at the front of their website the video in which they claimed they don’t want players to grind.

There is no way around it. It’s simply a fact – the Manifesto was something ArenaNet knew wasn’t true at the very same time they were using it as a marketing tool.

RollFzzlbeef.4092:

WHY is this a thing?
Seriously, this is worse than charr clipping on gemstore outfits.

Why are you surprised? Didn’t you see the massive clipping on the 600 gem fan focus skin? You can check it here. That’s the kind of quality control we should expect from ArenaNet, it seems.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Well, everyone, every class is a warrior because they all kill and fight things, but no one seems bothered by only one class being singled out as a warrior.

Because the warriors are better suited to be warriors than every other profession (thus the “masters of weaponry” line at their description).

Just like most of our characters do eventually fight to defend something at some point of the personal storyline, but the Guardians get to be called Guardians because they have more tools to defend others, and are thus more fitting for the task of guarding than the other professions.

Is the dragon hunter (sorry, I’m not going to spell it in the silly way ArenaNet does) better suited to killing dragons than any other profession? Do they have anything that does more damage to dragons than to other enemies? Do they have any kind of specific ability that gives them an edge when hunting dragons as compared to the other professions?

No?

Then they don’t deserve the title of dragon hunters. It is, really, as simple as that.

Knighthonor.4061:

Warrior- Main Hand Pistol
Mesmer- Shield off hand
Ranger – staff two hander
Engineer – Hammer two hander
Guardian -Longbow two hander
Thief – Rifle two hander
Revenant – Axe main hand
Necromancer – Great Sword two hander
Elementalist – Sword Main hand

You people honestly think some professions will get 5 new skills through a two-handed weapon and others will get only 2 new skills, through an off-hand?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to believe that everyone will have at least 5 new skills, either through a new two-handed weapon or a new main-hand and a new off-hand weapon?

Chuck.8196:

I don’t mind buying it but what happened to Living World updates to bringing the content?

The Living World was a failure. It did not keep enough people playing to be profitable for ArenaNet/NCSoft. Hence the need to try to make money in some other way. An expansion is likely one of the last options they have.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Yeah to be clear on that one, as we’ve said before: we made that statement before the game launched, ultimately realized we didn’t think it was the right decision for Gw2 – and changed our mind. I fully own making this statement, the day I said it was our plan – our lead designer decided it was the wrong direction for the game after we stated it, and we changed direction.

Colin, now that HoT is out in the open, could we get some news on some of the most notorious designers from which we have heard next to nothing? What have Eric Flannum, Linsey Murdock, John Stumme and the other designers we heard a lot about been up to?

Vayne.8563:

This is the most flawed logic I’ve seen in a long time. It can be applied to anything. The playerbase is a collection of individuals and some individuals think the game is too hard, so we should make the game easier.

Vayne, Vayne. That kind of empty hyperbole is below you.

Releasing information is not a matter of “if I do this I will please a group and annoy the other”, unlike what making the game harder or easier would be. In fact, releasing information instead of not saying anything – like ArenaNet is doing right now – is simply better for everyone in the community.

And of course Weirwynn’s point is correct. The community is a collection of individuals, so ArenaNet has to release information about different aspects of the game in order to keep players with different interests hyped about HoT.

Or are you saying that ArenaNet should only talk about PvP, and ignore the PvE players? Because that’s pretty much what your point boils down to – that it would be ok for ArenaNet to focus exclusively on one aspect of the player community, and ignore all the others.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Now they can trace everyone who owns tournement tokens (and know they had chest) and the ppl without it dont. Otherwise it’s a mess like ‘but but i didnt get chest, sorry sir, you have traces of tournement tokens, no no no i didnt, but you use them no no no i didnt’

DUDE, it wasn’t SANTA CLAUS who gave people the tickets. It was ArenaNet. They should AT LEAST have logs showing who has received the chest. If they didn’t know EVEN that, some people would have RECEIVED their chests more than ONCE (and it would look laughably BAD for ArenaNet).

lordkrall.7241:

And why do you think they push back the rewards for S2 now then instead of doing the same thing as they did in S1?

For the SAME reason why they DIDN’T prevent the SAME mistake from happening with SEASON 2 rewards after it happened in season 1: POOR planning.

lordkrall.7241:

Test.8734:

Isn’t it amazing how low key this topic is? Being that it’s basically the forum topic about the HoT release date, one would expect it to be by hundreds of posts by now. Instead… Nothing.

As if people didn’t care AT ALL about the release date of HoT.

Or maybe, just maybe, there isn’t really much to discuss about a date? We know when release is not, what else is there to say about it?

Sure, sure.

This topic isn’t empty due to lack of interest, no sir, it’s just that there’s nothing to be said.

ArenaNet didn’t move away from the Living World and decided to make an expansion because the Living World failed, of course not.

HoT isn’t going to have very few maps and only three legendaries because it’s an extremely rushed product, duh.

The game isn’t going free to play because it’s not making enough money, no way, despite that being the reason why every single other MMORPG had to change business model to free to play.

And one day, you will wake up, GW2 will be gone, and the greatest thing is: you will truly be shocked with surprise.

Ah, how sweet will those tears be.

Brother Dulfite.5793:

When I see the word announcement, I think of things that we don’t already know about (another words, not specializations).

I’m curious what everyone thinks these announcements will be?

GW2 will now become Pay to Play! Prepare to wonder and marvel at the infinite possibilities that a monthly fee will add to the world of Tyria!

Honestly, though, are you really going to get hyped? Even if ArenaNet weren’t famous for overpromising and underdelivering, that’s obviously marketing speech. Whatever those “big announcements” are, if you really expect anything good at all you will be massively disappointed.

Because the expansion is basically an overpriced DLC with poor Quality Control.

Really. The few pieces of content we have seen were massively bugged; not only that, but the bugs are actually increasing as we get closer to release. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Yet here we are, with something so small as mob difficulty being bugged in the entire beta map.

NTDK.4897:

keep in mind you are paying for future updates too that could be for 3 next years, not just things that have been announced and available on day 1.

Funny. When ArenaNet says they will do something and then don’t do it, people scream “it wasn’t a promise, just something they said they would do but didn’t! It wasn’t their fault!”.

And then people turn around and say, “Buy the very overpriced DLC because ArenaNet promised it will come with a vague amount of new content over a vague period of time! It’s definitely worth it!”.

Right. Completely logical.

The Pied Piper.9827:

Why should we get some sort of compensation?

Because it’s the SECOND time the EXACT same problem happens, and all ArenaNet has to say is “don’t bother Customer Support with it”.

Season 2, “The Dragon’s Reach – Part 1”, “Summit Invitations”. As part of the so-called “new content”, in order to progress through the storyline we have to complete an old event, the “Breaking the Ice” chain in Frostgorge Sound.

Which is not going to happen.

Why? Because the grinders have the event as part of their champion farming rotation. Since the event has a timer, and since the farmers focus on killing the champions instead of focusing on killing the enemies that need to be killed for the event to progress, and the more farmers there are the higher the enemies’ HP, well… That event is not going to be done.

Therefore, in order to advance through the storyline, not only we have to wait until the event begins, we also have to hope that there aren’t too many grinders nearby to inflate the bosses’ HP (while they focus on killing the champions). It’s the Scarlet invasions all over again.

Trying to finish an event knowing you’re surrounded by grinders who are only getting on your way, while you try to kill massive damage sponges that do zero damage but have a million HP… That’s Guild Wars 2.

rotten.9753:

I see you like passive gameplay where your stats instead of your actions influence the end results. That’s okay, everyone should have an opinion but you should maybe try a different game where it is already happening instead of constantly complaining here without any result.

Are you that concerned about a game in which berserker isn’t king? Don’t worry, you would still have your existing playground. Everything else would require more and better, but if you don’t want to adapt, you can stay at what’s already there.

maha.7902:

Test.8734:

Meh, I hope ArenaNet will never waste resources with this, and rather use them for more worthwhile features.

like gem store items and kasjory living story content

:)

Ah, you meant you wanted the artists and the writers to program dueling, instead of the programmers? Well, it would be something fun to see, at least. It would not work, but would look pretty and have a huge lore backstory. Probably something with Scarlet, even.

Straylight.7529:

My “no comment necessary” refered to this line:
“The latest and greatest GPUs can limp along in the 30fps range in most environments even when settings are toned down.”

..which is simply wrong. No discussion needed.

Yeah, because no one ever complains about the poor optimization of GW2 and how it can stutter even on great systems.

Straylight.7529:

No matter what profession you play, you’ll not spend most of your time auto attacking.

As a necro I have 15 active abilities on my ability bar. In order to make the above statement correct I’d have to use it more than 50% of the time which is simply not the case! Checkmate.

Yeah, because no one who has played GW2 has ever complained about how the game favors spamming 1111 while mindlessly following a large zerg.

I would say “checkmate”, if not by the fact that would assume that proving obviously wrong statements to be wrong is something as complex as playing chess. Proving the degree of denial here is more like checkers than anything else, tbh.

Straylight.7529:

Test.8734:

Do you want to see something funny? Take a look at the post history of anyone in this topic. Do you really expect to see anyone attacking the review that agrees with that user’s previous point of view?

Maybe you should have a look at your own post history

Which part of “anyone in this topic” was too hard for you to understand?

Derigar.7810:

I really recommend you fix this “mess” you created.

It was changed on April of 2014. Since then, a lot of people have been complaining about this. ArenaNet has not listened for the past 9 months, it’s very unlikely they will listen now.

For the records, this was one more change made to appeal to the Chinese. And even then, the China release underperformed. I wonder why.

Sengel.7801:

In the GW2 engine, armor must be hand rigged to each and every body type (so 5-6 per gender per race). an “automated” version would look terrible because of little differences between races (humans have longer legs than norn, sylvari dimensions don’t match up with humans…etc) so each of these needs to be done by hand in order to get the aesthetics right.

The same armor between races already looks terrible exactly because it’s automated. It’s “less bad” for the races that look more like human beings, but a lot of armors look incredibly bad on Charrs and on the asura. It’s obvious those armors are automated already.

Sengel.7801:

lastly, true armor sets need to not clip with existing armor pieces, see light vigil pants with seer shoes for an example of this not working

As you have mentioned yourself, ArenaNet almost never bothers with that in the first place. There is already a lot of clipping in this game. There is an obscene amount of clipping between any medium armor and off hand items, for example.

Honestly, there isn’t much to say here: we all know HoT has been very rushed so it would be expected that it would be released with very few armor skins and few weapon sets. But releasing a new outfit at the same time they’re releasing the expansion, while charing 2000 gems for it by hiding it under a pack, is basically spitting on the players’ face.

We are very much aware that ArenaNet has added more to the Gem Store over a similar time frame than they have added to HoT, skin-wise. This clearly shows ArenaNet’s priorities.

“We won’t have an expansion because we can add everything through the Living Story”

Well, clearly they couldn’t.

The fact ArenaNet is making an expansion is the best proof of how flawed the Living Story concept was. The “novel” way of adding content to a MMORPG has been forced to give place to the good, old expansion system.

ArenaNet better hope it’s not too little, too late. After the failure in China, they cannot afford to fail, again.

rapthorne.7345:

The casual nature of GW2 was never going to appeal to the eastern MMO grindfest crowd, and I’m sure that ANet expected that.

You do realize that ArenaNet stopped working temporarily on improvements for us due to the release on China, right? They said as much last year.

Meanwhile, we have the NCSoft report stating that the China released was weaker than they expected. So no, ArenaNet wasn’t expecting GW2 to not appeal to a grindbased market. I wonder why.

So, I heard you like kittens? You have a bunch of those, it seems

heartless.6803:

Is going to be new dungeons added with HoT that the new legendaries will require tokens from

There will be no new dungeon in HoT.

And for the records, we won’t get a full set of legendaries either. ArenaNet will release the expansion with only a few legendaries, and one day (zzzz…..) they will release more.

Zaklex.6308:

That’s a problem you would need to take up with your ISP, tell them to try and find a different way to route your traffic from the AreanaNet servers to your home connection

What are you talking about? I haven’t had disconnects in years.

Context, my friend, context.

Arius.7031:

Also, you’re BSing straight up if you say ANet hasn’t improved the situation immensely. Not only does the LFG tool work really well, disconnects happen far less frequently

I’m not sure if the disconnects are directly because of ArenaNet. The situation with the Ancient Karka all the way back in 2012 was more likely because of the way the event was setup (a one time event where A LOT of people had to be online at the SAME TIME? It wasn’t surprising that ArenaNet couldn’t handle it) than because of poor servers (or because the players would have had poor connections at the time, like Zaklex implied above). We have never had something like the Karka thing for us to see if things really improved on this aspect of ArenaNet’s servers.

But anyway, the LFG thing isn’t a solution to this issue. Using it to taxi people from empty maps to not so empty maps isn’t what the system was created for; players improvise using it because that’s the best option right now, but it’s more a “less worse” option than a good option.

Sir James.7831:

What can we expect from dungeons in this new Exp?

For ArenaNet to pretend they don’t exist.

They already fired the dungeon team. And dungeons are arguably tied with PvP as the worst aspect of the game, as all the drama around them show. It’s actually a good idea to avoid new dungeons in HoT.

Silverkey.2078:

Do we want underwater combat (UC)?

Nope.

Let’s be honest – we know ArenaNet is starved for resources. There are too many examples of this to count, but the latest is how it took them a week to deal with a game-breaking exploit, and their answer was to remove content from the game, not to fix the exploit. Meanwhile, a literally massive bug (the wrong crit areas in the world bosses) has been left to rot.

Now, underwater combat is broken. It’s not a matter of simply adding more – ArenaNet would have to fix a large amount of bugs, including dealing with the Z axis and with the way enemies are reset, in order to make underwater combat even half decent.

Is it worth it? Nope. It would take more resources than ArenaNet has, to fix something that wouldn’t be that fun anyway.

I agree with a poster above – I wish they would just remove underwater combat from the game, while keeping underwater exploration. Remove underwater skills (use the same skill bar interface as when we’re swimming in the surface of the water), remove all underwater enemies (often they’re just the same enemies we fight on land anyway, see Orr), and just let us explore down there in peace. It would be simpler for ArenaNet and better for the players.

binidj.5734:

Test.8734:

Really, everyone should go to the Metacritic site and give HoT a low score. Then maybe ArenaNet will feel motivated to fix this faster than the months it took them to improve the trait system.

That’s the second time you’ve posted that Test and it’s a real kitteny thing to suggest. ArenaNet got one thing wrong, which was the amount of HPs it takes to fully unlock skills and traits for eSpecs. Everything else in this expansion has been marvellous so far, indeed it’s been quite a bit better than I was expecting it to be. I’m not going to mark an entire expansion down because of one problem and your suggestion that I should will do no good for the game and is almost certainly reportable. Do it again and I’ll check to see if that last theory is true.

By all means be critical of areas of the game you feel could be improved but trying to sabotage it does none of us any favours at all and just makes you look like a kitten.

Engage in the discussion or kitten off, this forum doesn’t need childish negativity from either side of this issue.

Why?

And what do you suggest?

Just talking here? Not nearly enough. ArenaNet often loves to take negative feedback, lump it into a single topic and hope it will fade away (see the topic about the Dragonhunter name). Even when they bother to fix something, it takes them many, many months to even acknowledge so, much less actually do it (see the topic about the broken trait acquisition system, or the one about how the NPE update broke the personal storyline, etc).

Asking for a refund? That’s far, far worse. Not only it actually takes money away from ArenaNet, but it also keeps Support busy (while they could be working on real issues), and it’s also a lot of trouble for the players.

No, giving HoT a low Metacritic score is the best option. It’s:

• Relatively harmless. Low user scores have not prevented big releases from selling millions, just take a look at Assassin’s Creed or any EA game. Unlike asking for a refund, this doesn’t remove money from ArenaNet.

• Easily undone. It’s very easy to change a given Metacritic score, as soon as ArenaNet fixes this. Unlike all the trouble of asking for a refund, that would basically require a player to buy HoT again.

• A very clear message. A low number on that score is a simple way to let ArenaNet know that players are really unhappy.

• It adds pressure, just like asking for a refund and far more than just posting here. But again, without actually taking resources from ArenaNet.

• Very simple for players. Making an account there is very quick, and voicing one’s opinion about other games is a good thing.

Really, the best way to express being unhappy with the current specialization grind is going over to Metacritic and giving HoT a low score. It’s a way to make yourself heard without actually sabotaging ArenaNet.

Deni.7345:

Lol, am I missing something? Why is everyone hating on wings?

Some time ago, the Gem Store had a lot of silly items that were eventually removed from the game (around December 2013) for being too silly and not really fitting to the world of GW2. So enough people complaining about something can actually remove it from the store, if not from the game.

In this case, we don’t have to remove the wings and other ugly backpacks from the store. Since we already have an option to not see players’ armors and facial features, it should be expanded to not include backpack as well.

Vayne.8563:

Majic.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you can think of a way for all servers to be busy all the time, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

An explicit purpose of implementing the megaserver model was to prevent players from finding themselves in underpopulated maps. If the system was working as intended, players would not be placed in underpopulated maps, which is something both you and Sicarius agree is happening.

As explained by Colin Johanson:

The biggest benefit of this new system is that you’ll always find other players to adventure with in the open world, no matter what time of day it is. There are some maps in the game that tend to have smaller populations in them on each world; with megaserver technology, these lower-population maps will be full of players from the same global region, so you can always have a great experience and play any of the content in those maps. People online during nonpeak hours will be able to play in populated zones with other players, since they will all be sorted together to create fuller maps.

“Taxiing” is a workaround for the failures of the current system, but is not a solution to the underlying problem, and chiding players for not using it is a direct acknowledgment that the system isn’t working as intended.

The solution is for ArenaNet to fix it.

Fix it HOW? What is YOUR solution? Stop people from changing maps?

You’re quoting something that was said beforehand. The game has evolved. The solution is there.

It’s like someone being cold in a room and refusing to put on a sweater. This is ridiculous.

Vayne, Vayne, Vayne.

Tell me one thing – when the layoffs begin, are you going to be mature enough to admit how you are partially to blame for GW2’s failure?

Using your example, it’s as if someone is being cold in an office room that is always kept at freezing temperature by air-conditioning and, instead of listening to the sensible idea of simply raising the air-conditioning temperature, you tell people to just bring more coats or leave.

That’s what you always do. You blame the players for ArenaNet’s design failures, and insist on claiming the game is perfect and there’s nothing for ArenaNet to fix, even when faced with things that are obviously broken. The only impact you have is making players think of leaving the game, while deafening ArenaNet to the things they should be fixing. It’s a small impact, but for someone who has more than 17.500 forum posts like you, that’s not negligible.

In other words, you are making the game worse.

Are people right about having concerns about the future of GW2? Definitely. All signs are there: the game went free to play, key people are leaving, they did a 180° change on their plans, finantials are not looking good, and so on.

Are there things ArenaNet has to correct? Definitely. People keep seeing empty HoT maps and, unless the situation is REALLY dire, what is happening is that the megaserver system is not working properly. ArenaNet said they had fixed it, but looks like the issue is still there; and meanwhile, players still don’t have any half decent tool for navigating through the servers, so they are improvising with features that have clearly not been made for that (the LFG tool). There is a lot of broken things that ArenaNet could fix, and that players are right in asking a fix for.

Telling players they are “ridiculous” for having concerns and asking for fixes is not really helping anyone – not the players nor ArenaNet.

webtoehobbit.4201:

Now fast forward to now. We have been conditioned to fall into a hype cycle where things are overhyped and underdelivered. Can anyone really blame the state of the community? Is anyone really surprised? If you look at the history between ANet and us, the players, the trust has been eroding for quite some time. I think this may finally have been the straw that broke the camels back….

I think you nailed it.

See this video. Compare it to what we got on release. See how it got trashed when ascended gear and fractals were released.

See all the disappointment on Living World season 1. See so many players complaining about the “blink and you miss it and have to buy it” aspect of Living World season 2.

See all the complaints about the stale state of WvW for years. See all the complaints about lack of balance in PvP and the VERY slow pace of balance patch during the last year.

See all the issues with the Gem Store, including the deal with buying gems in packs only.

I think ArenaNet has lost the playerbase’s trust, and HoT is basically the last drop in a very large bucket that is already overflowing.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I was surprised to see a ‘Road Ahead’ News Blog.

Yeah, I remember the Looking Ahead of 2013. The one with many interesting quotes:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!”

• “you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary”

• “you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013”

• “We’ll expand all crafting professions to allow them to reach a new milestone: 500 points!”

So I would suggest taking anything ArenaNet says in other “Road Ahead” posts with a grain of salt. Or, more accurately, a sea’s worth of grains of salt.

Good luck

Tollz.4152:

I understand but I don’t have time to play all day everyday, I work monday to friday 9am-5pm

Nope.

In reality…

Tollz.4152:

There is no recognition for putting in the hard work

…You work more than just monday to friday 9am-5pm. And that’s because you made the mistake of working in a game as opposed to playing a game. The fact you feel you are not recognised enough for the effort you did is actually very much deserved – you didn’t do anything that deserves recognition, you basically wasted time you could have spent having fun.

This is one of the main reasons why so many MMORPGs are such bad games. The fact some people are willing to waste their time with content not because they are having fun, but because they have an illusion that it will give them some kind of important reward even while they consider doing it “work”, is the reason why grind is so widespread now. Sorry to say, but nothing you grind for is going to give you prestige or the admiration of others. Nothing you grind for is going to actually have a positive impact in your life. The best you can get is not realizing how much time you have wasted doing something you didn’t even enjoy while you could have been having fun instead.

Knighthonor.4061:

whats your thoughts?

That I really wish the “simple character model” feature would hide backpacks and weapon skins, like it hides everything else. Then people could have a real size Karka Queen attached to their backs but it wouldn’t bother those who don’t wan’t to see it.

(Oh, and while we’re at it, please give us a way to remove the sound from the annoying Slaver-Tron backpack. I wish it were under the same volume slider as players’ instruments.)

Vayne.8563:

Again, if you think you know how many people were playing and logging in better than Anet did back in November when ascended gear came out, there’s not much to talk about.

You’re making the same mistake that ArenaNet did. You are assuming that knowing how many people were playing is the same as knowing why those people were playing, and why everyone else wasn’t.

Are you going to claim ArenaNet has some miraculous mind reading device that allowed them to know exactly how everyone who stopped playing the game did so because they felt they needed one extra gear tier?

Because, without that device, all ArenaNet could do is take a guess. Just like you. They guessed that adding a new gear tier would keep more people playing than they would lose by announcing said gear tier. What we do know is that said new gear tier caused a massive uproar in the community, at least as loud as (if not louder) than the complain that players had nothing to do at max level.

Vayne.8563:

I’m working on a hypothesis that the company didn’t just make this change to kitten people off. Taken in combination with the mood on the forum at that time, I can put two and two together and get four. I’m not the only one who came to this conclusion either.

You are relying on your interpretation, assuming that’s something reliable at all. We know that at least about the Manifesto, you were wrong. You’re also relying on the vague other people who reached the same conclusion, without presenting any kind of reliable evidence that they can be believed in. So nope, that’s not a great argument.

Obtena.7952:

Spamming posts does not help. Just because a thread has an overwhelming number of complaints does not indicate it’s more of an issue to players than one that does not. The fact that ANet has replied with their position on this is pretty much a /thread right there.

In other hand, a topic that has an overwhelming number of clomplaints is more likely to be more of an issue to players than one that does not have more than five posts. Ideally ArenaNet would read the topics to see which is which, but having a very big topic is surely a way to get their attention.

Ayrilana.1396:

Test.8734:

VOLKON.1290:

It’s not like ANet didn’t go an extended period of time before announcing numbers here in the U.S. either. Some 3.8 million sales out of the gate in China isn’t exactly a failure.

The numbers are fake.

In truth, GW2 underperformed.

In fact, GW2’s failure has been reiterated, even.

Soon the server merges began.

Meanwhile, GW2’s profits kep falling, despite the China release.

F-A-I-L-U-R-E.

I wonder if your “ten new professions” (LOOOOOOOOOOL) will be enough to make HoT a success. Otherwise, the future wouldn’t exactly be bright for ArenaNet.

Last link is for sales and it’s expected for sales to decline after initial release.

It’s cute when people think that business is like kids playing in the park. Those numbers come from NCSoft’s quarterly reports, which list GW2’s earnings (rather obviously in full, not only the sales of the game itself). Given how NCSoft is a publicly traded company, they can’t hide their numbers; and it’s very much laughable to think that they would hide their profits, anyway, when showing results to their investors.

GW2’s earnings are just that. It’s already taking in consideration gem sales, game sales and everything else you would like to mention. Yes, the game is earning less than a MMORPG released in 1998. No, there is no way to call it other than a failure. And you can go see by yourself, the numbers are freely available.

DUDE! Legendary Armor needs:

1. Same stats as currently BIS items (for now Ascended, in the future the God tier, and so on). This technology is already in the game – see Legendary weapons.

2. Modifiable stats. Players can choose WHICH stats they want any time (if SOLDIER or Carrion and etc). This technology is ALSO already in the game – Legendary weapons.

3. NO SPECIAL SKINS. Instead, give it a common skin, BUT allow it to be changed to different skins without consuming Transmutation Charges. This means the Legendary armor could ALWAYS be changed to whatever skin a player wants, as many times as he wants, without consuming Transmutation Charges. The transmutation technology is already in the game, this is JUST a small change.

This way, ArenaNet doesn’t have to waste PRECIOUS time (which they could be using to make MORE Gem Store armors) by designing Legendary Armors. It would also prevent players from witnessing ULTRA-SPARKLY armor. And the player base would actually have a SANE way of using the wardrobe system, with a WAY to access unlimited free unlocks.

uknortherner.2670:

Get over it and stop presuming you speak for everybody.

He never said he speaks for everybody. He did say a lot of people are bothered by this year’s April Fools, which is obviously true, considering the huge forum outcry. Or are you going to pretend the massive amount of posts complaining never happened?

Jordo.5913:

I ported in on the question being asked to an anet dev saying “So, what is going to be in this patch tomorrow?” (sorry, no screenshots)

his reply was “Fun stuff”

RANGER nerfs.

The WvW Historian will be turned into a merchant for the MISTFORGED weapons. They will be available only with SHAMAN stats.

Ranger’ PETS nerfs.

People still won’t get their season 2 chests.

WARRIOR buffs.

People still won’t get event their season ONE rewards.

More GEM store stuff.

captainteemo.6537:

So, it’s Free to Play the game… Why don’t they just say it straight forward and skip overall all the subterfuge with the wording? This isn’t Buy to Play anymore. The core principles and idea behind b2p is gone.

(…)

At least Anet has all the pre-order money before they let people know they were changing their buy to play model.

Truth be said, they were probably hoping the presales would give them enough money so they wouldn’t have to go free to play. When that failed, they threw the towel, turned into free to play and finally announced how little content HoT will have (only 4 maps, only 4 armors, only 5 weapon sets, and so on).

Behellagh.1468:

It’s still buy to play for the expansion. It’s still buy to play for unrestricted core access. It’s F2P for anyone who don’t mind the restrictions or was unwilling to pay fifty dollars to see if they like it.

That’s how everyone does F2P. The Old Republic, a MMORPG that was infamous as being a massive disaster, when into the same free to play model when it left its pay to play original strategy – you can go F2P if you don’t mind the restrictions and if you don’t want to buy the expansion(s). I wonder if GW2 has failed as much as TOR has, for ArenaNet to decide that going free to play was the best option for them.

Electro.4173:

Although, having them all within the hero panel interface rather than seperately would be even more convenient, as it would be easier to preview them since they’d all be right there in that some window, rather than having to swap between the wardrobe and a preview window, and then you’d also be able to preview dyes on them which is rather annoying to do now.

The UI for the preview system is a mess. Want to preview the armor pieces you have unlocked? You can do that here. Want to preview the armor pieces you have not unlocked? Sorry, it’s over there, and when previewing it will open another window in front of the one you’re using to pick the skins. Do you want to preview the skins you haven’t unlocked with different dyes than the ones you have right now? Prepare yourself to open half a dozen windows.

It’s a massive pain. Most of the UI for menus is a pain – why does most of the Hero window tabs hide our character’s stats, if most of it does not use the right part of that window? And so on.

ArenaNet has been changing the UI little by little, and it clearly shows. It lacks a lot of polish.

Tevesh.1265:

All three are bad. The writing is terrible, the characters flat and uninspiring, the story forced and contrieved.

True.

It’s also kinda of irrelevant which order you pick. Soon, the story folds back into the same thing no matter what were your previous choices, so decisions such as race/affiliation/order/etc lose any impact. Any NPC you meet during the order chapters will disappear and your story won’t acknowledge them anyway.

Galen Grey.4709:

Besides we do know living story team was 20 people which leaves a lot of employees unaccounted for, they had to be working on something. There is no way the feature patch teams and pvp teams made up for the other 330 employees right?

LOL.

People are still saying that. Amazing.

Before the Living Story began, we were not getting as many updates as we did it with (which is basically to say that we got barely any update at all). Ergo, if the more complex Living Story required a team of 20 people, what came before it would require even less.

So… What do you think these other “310” people have been working since release? Are you going to say they have been working in the expansion for 3 years now? Wow, if in 3 years all they managed to make was 3 maps, they surely have some content problems.

Nope. The truth is, ArenaNet is poorly organized, so they have a lot of people yet produce very little. See the Glassdoor reviews – almost all of them mention management issues, how teams working in one thing are suddenly expected to make a 180° turn and throw away everything they had been working in.

HoT has been under production for a bit more than one year now. It probably was under production since less than one year from when it was announced. That and ArenaNet’s slow speed explain why it has so little content after all.