Guild Wars 2

Rococo.8347:

Please don’t tell me they just put new items in the Gem store – Dear God ive known Sociopaths with less flagrant disregard for reasonable behaviour.

There should be Razzies for Gaming , if Mo really thinks this is a full xpac he is the equivalent of Adam Sandler.

Some of the streamer reactions are on point – WP and Brasil in particular, kitten Bogotter not so much. When people like that sound sour you need to stop being so defensive and actually work yo butt off.

Today they “only” added the glider. Watch them add a full set of weapon skins nobody wants because they are ugly and in no way to related to whats going on in the game (mostly because there is NOTHING going on in the game) in about a week or two. that is the level of sensibility i expect from this company from this PR stunt onwards.

IndigoSundown.5419:

AysonCurrax.3254:

Even if the legendary weapons project team only had 6 developers, there is no way in hell that a team of 6 produces single to no results in 6 months time, unless said team had been severly miss managed and tossed around between other tasks instead of letting them work on what they are supposed to work on.

1. At a guess, they’ve been fixing the collections that had problems, like the one in Snowden where players have to fail an event to proc a different event that allowed them to get the collectable “thing.”
2. I’m also wondering if the code for much or all of the vanilla game is very complex, and that those who wrote it are gone. I’ve revised and debugged software that someone else wrote (and didn’t annotate at all or very well) and that can be its own special purgatory.
3. If 2 is an issue, then that might explain why it would take this team “years to come” to produce collections that did not ship in the problematic state that some of the initial three had.

@2
yes, that is also something i worry about. Spaghetti code in all its nasty little versions is what i fear to be there. I am not too versed in how complex things get in term of game development, from what i heard, they mentioned something about an average time of 4 weeks for an item to be added to the game. that code must be a real mess if that is the case…

mtpelion.4562:

Spira.4578:

mtpelion.4562:

AysonCurrax.3254:

It reeks of bad managment, and there is no way to argue with that.
Even if the legendary weapons project team only had 6 developers, there is no way in hell that a team of 6 produces single to no results in 6 months time, unless said team had been severly miss managed and tossed around between other tasks instead of letting them work on what they are supposed to work on.

It is the industry standard in software. I know everyone is mad at ArenaNet right now, but you cannot find a software company that does NOT do this exactly the same way.

No buts, no what ifs.
Did we get what we paid for? No.
Are they indefinitelly canceling what we paid for? yes.
As a customer I want to see the product I paid being delivered in it’s intended form.

I’m sure that ANET knew that there would be issues with the legendary team, as MO, in his first post said, that the team would be working on the legendaries for years to come … You don’t realize this 5 months after the team was only able to produce 1 weapon. I mean honestly,think about it – If your team was only able to get 3 legies done during the whole development of the expansion (while 1 of the legies was already ingame for 2 years), then you probably wouldn’t use this feature as a selling point. Especially not with a big title and a long blog post about them. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/

You’ve got a right to be angry (which they even conceded). I just felt that some perspective was necessary. You will get the exact same treatment from every game company on the planet because every single one of them, bar none, has done and will continue to do this exact same thing.

Software development is a highly fluid process. That means “promises” before it is finished about what it will do are also highly fluid.

Not once in the history of software has a program delivered on all its pre-launch promises.

That, i do not believe. It is all written down in contracts and forms what the customer asked you to make for them, and you agree to that, along with how you are going to do so and in which quality. if you fail to miss those standards you yourself set, your customer wont pay you full price because you didnt deliver.

Also, Witcher 3, CD Project Red, to counter prove your statement that no company has ever delivered on what they promised.

mtpelion.4562:

AysonCurrax.3254:

It reeks of bad managment, and there is no way to argue with that.
Even if the legendary weapons project team only had 6 developers, there is no way in hell that a team of 6 produces single to no results in 6 months time, unless said team had been severly miss managed and tossed around between other tasks instead of letting them work on what they are supposed to work on.

It is the industry standard in software. I know everyone is mad at ArenaNet right now, but you cannot find a software company that does NOT do this exactly the same way.

thats odd. I work as a developer myself, and i have yet to encounter such a mess. On the other hand, that might very well be because i am still young and havent worked at too many different companies yet. Maybe i am just lucky then.

Vayne.8563:

Mirta.5029:

Celtic Lady.3729:

I suppose there’s no grounds to make Anet accountable for their reversal via a class action lawsuit, but it doesn’t seem right that they can sell something and then decide for whatever reason that they are no longer going to deliver what people paid for.

MMO developers really can get away with things other, more traditional businesses can’t.

report it to the trade association of their country. Legally sueing them might be a problem, but preventing them from trading in your country and selling their products is relatively easy. Report them for false advertisement, photograph that 16 lagendaries advert for HoT and the first post of this topic.

It is also important to note that even though you might have purchased HoT a long time ago, if you go and show all of this to your bank and say “I’ve been deceived”, they CAN charge back if ArenaNet refuses to refund you. This will obviously ban you from playing GW2 ever again, but if you weren’t going to play it anyway, it’s an option.

It’s really not that easy. Because false advertising almost always requires you to prove intent to deceive. If situations change and something can’t get delivered, that isn’t considered false advertising in any country I know of.

Then perhaps they should reconsider hyping the hell out of everything they do going:

“We are going to do the thing. The Thing will be amazing. People will enjoy the thing. The Thing is very exciting.”

only to end up going something like this a short time later:

“We couldnt do the thing. Instead of the thing, we are now going to do the other thing, while also working on the next big thing. The thing has now become schroedingers thing, because we may fix it, or we may not.”

It reeks of bad managment, and there is no way to argue with that.
Even if the legendary weapons project team only had 6 developers, there is no way in hell that a team of 6 produces single to no results in 6 months time, unless said team had been severly miss managed and tossed around between other tasks instead of letting them work on what they are supposed to work on.

Heibi.4251:

Dinks.2478:

Heibi.4251:

Sartharina.3542:

Indefinite suspension is “Canceled until Further Notice”

Actually:
Indefinite- not clearly defined or determined; not precise or exact:
an indefinite boundary; an indefinite date in the future.

Suspended – temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect.
“work on the dam was suspended”

Canceled – to decide or announce that a planned event will not take place; call off:
to cancel a meeting.

Your literal definition of the words and their typical practical use are two entirely different things.

Sigh. If words didn’t have meanings they wouldn’t use them. And believe it or not “cancel” and “indefinitely suspend” mean something different.

its called sugarcoating things. its highly unlikely that a company would be up front and say that something has been canceled. its much easier to keep your customers at bay by telling them along the lines of “will get back to it when we can be kitten d to”.

“suspended indefinetly” to “canceled” is the same as “megaserver update” to “server merges”. one is a nicer way to the other.

Hunter.6950:

It’s disappointing but I understand the situation. I do suggest you update the “A Legendary Journey” post if it hasn’t been done.

changing the headline to “A Legendary Failure” would be a good start.

Ranael.6423:

Spira.4578:

Tha main issue people are annoyed here is that anet is willig to work on new moneymilking content while they are willing to cut the features that we already paid for.

Again : HoT was promoted as giving a new BL maps for WvW, nothing more. We got it, it was even beta tested by players and many feedbacks here were really positive. Now release went through and suddenly WvW was the worst experience most players ever had.
We never paid for the big WvW update, it was never promoted with a product… so should they drop the work on that and put WvW designer on precursor collections instead, for the sole reason we paid for it ?
The issue is much more complex than “we pay for it so give it to us now!”. It is always really hard to know in advance how players will react to every release or how many people are concerned by one thing. For example, how many people are actually affected by the delay of legendaries? It costs a lot to craft the precursors and even more to transform it into a legendary weapon. On the other hand, “repairing” WvW will affect much more people so better do this even though it was not something we paid for.
Of course this is only theoretical because devs involved in the WvW 2.0 are probably not the same as the one involved in Pre collections but the argument of “we paid for this and I want it” should also go with the " I didn’t pay for that so I don’t deserve it". Ideally we should get everything but this world is far from ideal….

beta tested, sure. but certainly not by the WvW Only Guilds that spend 90% of their play time in there. Otherwise said Guilds wouldnt be upset with what they got.

Mike O’Brien has been Mike O’Lyin’ and will now be Mike O’Flyin’ in business class indefinetly. Nice Mike O’Tryin’ to fool me.

Burtnik.5218:

mrauls.6519:

DarksunG.9537:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

This is extremely disconcerting. If you & Anet as a whole consider HoT a full expansion I’m afraid you’re out of touch with your players. This a red flag for GW2 future development & explains a lot about what has been happening.

They did put in a lot of work to create the expansion, but the amount of content that was released is not what was expected of ANet

As customer i dont care how much work they had put into it. What i want to see are results – contest worth of said 50$. HoT is expensive dlc at best or in other words boxed ls3 as i cant really call it expansion by any means.

Its too kitten small and yet they just canceled one of it major features.. just like that. At this point they can put whole company to work on “expansion” 2 but i doubt anyone will buy it after said HoT. I know i wont touch it with a stick for sure and so many others i know in game.

I already have a name for xpac2 tho.. Guild Wars 2; Heart of the White Knights

assuming that we might return to the Crystal Desert, how about;

Guild Wars 2 : Grit and Salt

Sariel V.7024:

Mike O Brien.4613:

But I’m not here today to make predictions or promises. I’d rather we start by shipping, then talk about what we shipped.

Mo

So, business as usual. ’k…

Also “be happy with what we ship, not what we promise to ship”

aka

You better take what MO gives you, and you better love it, because you arent getting what we said you would. you get what we feel like.

I really dont get some of the people here. Lets use this as an example:

You go to a yard Sale. Good ol’ MO here is selling his Computer and tells you it has 16GB of RAM, 2 Titan X Graphics Card and a Top Gen Intel Processor, along with other basic stuff.
When you get hope to plug it in, its running, but you realize it only has 4GB of RAM.

You call MO about the problem, and he tells you he may or may not send you the missing 12 GB of RAM when he can be bothered to, while he and his mates are putting together his new Rig he might sell when the next yard sale comes around.

Would you be satisfied with that purchase if he told you that he doesnt have the time to look for your 12GB because he is busy making Toast with Gw2 Logos, so that you can enjoy that Toast while you wait for the next yard sale?

It boggles my mind that so many of you only stick to the “legendary weapon” part of the issue and fail to see the whole picture.

Jarwel.9180:

If they were smart (which they are not) they would have these 6 developers work on putting content back into the game that should never have been removed in the first place; SAB, Queen’s gauntlet, adding parts of season 1 to the story journal… Maybe even just put wvw back the way it was. This would create content to fill the drought and make players happy to see or revisit some of the past story arcs. Surely this would be faster than building original content and it would give the team working on LS3 a little more time to get their act together.

What? Bring content back that people repeatedly ask and basically beg for? something that would make them happy? what kind of mad man are you to suggest such a thing?

No, in all seriousness, I fully support that train of thought. Why they wouldnt invest resources into bringing back concepts that worked, and instead continue to waste them on experimental stuff, is beyond me.

That said, they have a talent for generating hype and riding that train. What they however dont have a talent for, is living up to it, and actually delivering what they hyped and promised.

If things keep going at the rate they are now, I dont even know why they would bother to work on a second expansion. Losing your customers trust by not giving (or not giving it in a realistic timeframe) what you took their money for pretty much seals the deal that they most certainly won’t be giving you any more of their money on yet another “you may or may not get what we promise you here” deal.

I am by far no economist, nor am I an expert in game design and the like.
However, I am a software developer myself, so i do know how projects run, or should be run, for that matter.
I honestly don’t get why there is still so much experimentation and waste of resources going on 3 1/2 years into the product lifecycle.

Planning and Experimenting with Concepts happens early in the lifecycle, not inbetween. If its unrealistic that you cant do something in a reasonable timeframe, don’t announce it as a feature of what you are selling.

Sir Mad.1092:

SacuraShadow.6021:

I for one am happy because this means more living story. I play GW2 for the story and lore. I don’t mind not having more legendaries for awhile. I can’t believe so many people are saying the bought HOT for more of them. It’s a small part of the game. Don’t let the negativity drag you guys down and do what you must.

If they had removed adventures, we would have had 30 pages of people saying they bought HoT for adventures – just saying.

The way they put them into the game, it kinda feels like they sorta gave up half way into making them too. I mean, advertising them as “fun little things to do on the side”…
such fun to have to run a 20 minute event chain, before being able to try to get Gold Rank for another 20 minutes and failing to do so because its a clusterkitten of random chance and random spawn locations, which you have to memorize if you even want to stand a slim chance… and after that, you have to wait half an hour or more to be able to try again.
Gating “fun things to do on the side” behind meta event chains that require a bunch of people is the stellar opposite of “fun”.

Satenia.9025:

Mike O Brien.4613:

As game director I have to make tough trade-offs. One thing I believe is that we have to focus on the core game first before taking on additional responsibilities. I wrote in the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto in 2010 that our vision was to create a living, dynamic world, where there’s always something to do. Let’s ensure we succeed on that front.

So, after shipping Chuka and Champawat, I’ve asked that we indefinitely suspend work on new legendary weapons. This team of developers will instead shift their efforts back to Living World style content, building new journeys and events for everyone to participate in.

Personally, I’m glad to read this. Ever since HoT, I’ve been feeling that the game is moving away from what I originally picked it for. Returning to those core principles is me hoping that this will change for the better. If legendary weapons have to be sacrificed over this, so be it. While you’re at it, why not consider to indefinitely suspend raid work and reassign those people to the Living World style of content as well? Same as with the legendary weapons really, niche content for a handful few.

Good luck as game director

Yes, and while we are at it, might aswell also sacrifice the legendary armor, the legendary fractal backpack, new fractals and whatever else that was paid for and still isnt available, nor will be available in the near future.

Players love to be slapped in the face in return for giving them their money, of course.

Nightmare.1234:

At least Anet been upfront with us on this issue, I prefer that than keep stringing us along on promises they clearly cant keep up with. they will still arrive at some point so people will get moneys worth in future. but they need to keep their core casual player base around with casual, fun content. I would say they made a mistake trying to pander to a small potion of player base with raids and guild hall stuff. the expansion should of just gave us more of what we already had and loved and improved on them.

New fractals
New PVP maps and game modes
NEW WvW overall (that is coming at least, well came then failed and needs reworking again)
I agree with the dungeons being cut they were pretty poor design wise.
HOT story was short but delivered well on quality but really need living story to be no more than 3 months after its release to make up for the length.

they made a massive mistake promising content to come after hot release clear sales and other income stream are not grand enough to pay the extra staff to full fill the promises.

let ANET learn from this first expansions mistake and try get back on track. the community should support them and be understanding and have faith that they doing what’s best to keep the franchise alive. (or they all outta a job)

In my personal opinion, they have had more than enough time for trial and error already. If they still have no clue what they are doing or where they plan to go with it, in whatever case, the time for second chances is over. If you are “excited” about every little thing, hype the living kitten out of it at every ocassion you get, yet fail to deliver what you promised oh so many times, you cant expect your customers to roll their eyes and give you another chance each and every time you disappoint them. Its about time they deal with the consequences.

Also, on a sidenote, being so excited all the time doesnt sound too healthy. perhaps its time for a few checkups.

Harddrive.2738:

6 months of work suggests a lot of work should have been done. Based on the idea that 1 takes 1 month of work (as quoted in guide chat), they should have been able to release 1 every 4-6 weeks fairly easy.

I mean they seriously didn’t work on ALL of them at once, thus leaving them all just half complete….. right?

Nothings off the table! thats mostly likely because its full to the brim with unfinished kitten.

evilunderling.9265:

Silverstone.4539:

Simply get the people working on the new expiation to finish the old one first. The solution is so crazy simple I am dumbfounded as to why this post was even made by Mike O Brien. They are making themselves look so bad with this post. it’s just craziness. Simply deliver what was promised and what everyone thought that were buying at the time.

This has been brought up many times by many armchair game developers before you, and the reality is that it is not even remotely as simple an answer as you think it is.

no one said that it was simple. but it would have been the right thing to do, most likely. the way it is handled now comes across as the only thing that matters is cash, and not customer satisfaction.

evilunderling.9265:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

FYI since this morning they have removed 4 pages of comments, all of them negative as far as I can tell. If you are wondering why more people aren’t mad about this the answer is they are, and Anet is just banning them.

You are talking kitten, as proven by the 26 pages of mostly-negative feedback that remain uncensored, the fact that multiple people have virtually torn them a new one over this without repercussions, and the fact that ultimately, what you are accusing them of doing doesn’t even make any kittening sense. They would gain absolutely nothing by censoring people merely for saying things that they don’t like, and everybody knows it.

Only post i saw vanish earlier was one of the troll-ish, unconstructive kind. A salty 2 liner at best. Other than that, i havent noticed much being removed.

Ashandar.2570:

Donari.5237:

I was discussing that point yesterday with some friends and we figured it was because Friday was likely when the final decision was made and it was important enough news to tell the players right away. Just look at all the complaints from those who had pre-made Gifts in anticipation of coming legendaries. The sooner players knew that what we have is pretty much it, the sooner they could stop grinding for something they won’t be able to make after all.

I can think of no other sane reason to drop this news at the end of a work week leading into a family holiday weekend.

How about “let’s drop it on friday so most of the rage is over when we get back next week”?

if that is how their planning process goes, I am in no way surprised that we are in the mess we are currently in.

Galen Grey.4709:

Mirta.5029:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Mirta.5029:

reported you to the trading standards of UK and hopefully the rest of the people in this topic will report you to their country trading standards too.

On what grounds? Do you know the meaning of the word indefinitely? It means on hold for an undetermined length of time, in its most basic use. Mo has had the brass ones to tell us this. They could have just given us a, it’s taking longer than we though, they’ll be here “when it’s ready”, then just given us “soon” .

Trading standards are not going to tell ANet they have to make the new legendary weapons asap.

All ANet have to tell trading standards is that its a technical design problem, and they full intend to honour what they said, and point out that they did not give us a time frame of when we would be getting them all, only that they would start after the launch of HoT. So in legal terms they have done nothing wrong.

ANet have not said they will never go back to them, and the dream is dead. What they have said is that after the next one, they have no time frame on when we will be getting more, as the team that was working on them has been pulled to work on other projects.

There is nothing trading standards can or will do.

on regular intervals. The first one took 4 months, meaning the next one has a max of 4 months to be released, else the interval is not regular.
That being said you can say that your kickstarter project development is on hold indefinitely. That doesn’t mean that you’ll escape a trade ban. The moment you’re not keeping your word with what is inside the product that you shipped you’re a prime target for a trade ban.

let me be a bit pedantic here… you release 3 at 4 months, 2 at 3 months, 1 at a year, 3 at 4 months, 2 at 3 months, 1 at a year, 3 at 4 months etc…

isnt that releasing at regular intervals too?

sorry for being pendantic but seriosuly regular intervals doesnt dictate a time frame

your example was literally an irregular interval just now, just saying. the term “regular” pretty much dictates that they rate of time between each interval stays the same, otherwise it wouldnt be regular.

IndigoSundown.5419:

All that said, the issues this change draws attention to are disturbing:

• Why does it take so long for ANet to do so many things? In a later post, you mention two months per new L. Weapon. If that’s actually the case, we should have seen 2 more by now, with a 6th due next month. Why does it take them so long to do LS updates, when in LS2 they came out with several chapters across 6-8 weeks with ~3 month hiatuses?
• Why does ANet end up revamping things all the time (NPE, traits, zones, stats, mob armies, now we’re looking at a HoT revamp)? It’s a good thing to be responsive to player complaints, but the need to change so many things might speak to either a failure to judge what is wanted and needed, or a failure to estimate the impact of game design elements on popularity.
• What happens to the relationship between consumer and company when the pattern of behavior by the company leads the consumer to lose faith in the company? Now, maybe this will blow over in a while, or maybe not. In the meantime, it will cost Anet some players. Thing is, they’ve already done a lot of things that cost them players.

• Could be Design Flaws. No proper and easy to use way to implement new Legendaries and/or Journeys into the Game. If so, this could have been prevented by planning and realizing a framework that simplies and speeds up that progress. Unless the limitation here is meshing the models and what not.
• That would Indicate Flaws in Planning and Analytics. Assuming what the consumer might want, instead of asking what the consumer wants. If so, more Player Feedback should have been gathered, or existing Feedback should have been analysed more thoroughly. Also, Communication might be a bottleneck here, apart from other places. Too much trial and error in the lifecycle of the product.

Galen Grey.4709:

Jushiohara.9140:

The apologists here defending bad business baffle me. Yall can make excuses for this crap all you want but most of us will speak with our wallets and not keep paying for scams.

The apologists aren’t defending bad business. they kinda think its a good idea to have some new content to play in the next 6 months as oppossed to having 3 more legendaries to craft in the same time frame.

It baffles me that you think it would be better having no new content to play for the next 6 months but getting 3 new legendaries to craft instead in September.

Ohh and btw, yes I’d rather they make decisions for the good of the game that can be considered bad business practices rather then stubbornly hold the course even if they know its going to result in a disaster just for the sake of keeping their word.

and that change in workforce changes what exactly? new content wont come any sooner, and by putting legendaries on hold, you actually will get less content to do in the same time frame. In addition to that you get bad business practices. bad practices are the stellar opposite of being good for the game, or preventing a disaster, for that matter. much rather, they cause a disaster.

Jushiohara.9140:

The apologists here defending bad business baffle me. Yall can make excuses for this crap all you want but most of us will speak with our wallets and not keep paying for scams.

On that Note;

Dear Mike

to focus my monetary expenses on the development of my personal Living Story, Gem Purchases from my Account are now on hold indefinetly.

If you want my Dough, MO, fix your content, yo.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

AysonCurrax.3254:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

ZombieLeach.5862:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Mirta.5029:

Galen Grey.4709:

how about all the other things that were never promised yet they still came like gliding in central tyria, Shatterer revamp, squad revamps, those dont count for anything?

of course it doesn’t count for anything. If you’re buying a product you look at the list of features and those features better be in it, as you’re buying a product based on it.
If you looked to buy a third person RPG with an open world and 100 different skills to level, you won’t be happy when you find out that the product that you actually bought is an isometric view RPG with instance based world and only 88 skills. And it won’t matter to you if afterwards they said “but we added bunnies and we never advertised them”!

What Anet did here counts as fraud. And because of that I urge everyone to report them to trade associations.

you know what the irony is here… none of this were actually listed part of HoT
dont believe me, just check heartofthorns.guildwars2.com and try to find where 16 new legendary weapons is listed. its not. This was content that was promised along side HoT not part of HoT.

Not that I am suggesting its okey for Anet to back on their word, they should still honor it of course and its not like they said otherwise either but it certainly does mean its not fraud so lets just shelf the heavy words and focus on the issue at hand.

You can’t craft the new Legendaries unless you have the Mastery that came with HoT, so I would say it’s part of it. If it wasn’t part of it it you could still do it even if you didn’t own HoT.

Not necassarily. It wouldn’t be the first time a game company has gated side content behind expansion/DLC content. It’s a strategy to get players to pay for the extra content.

The mastery system is an integral part of the expansion. If you don’t buy the expansion, you don’t have access to this new system of progressing your character. One of the mastery lines is precursor crafting, so that means it’s part of the expansion, not something that came along with it.

horizontal character progression… some might even call it a gating mechanic to make it seem like content has more depth that it actually does.

That has nothing to do with the discussion here of whether or not something which is a mastery line is part of the HoT.

Well, it could, kind of, if you take it into consideration that its an indicator for other parts where they didnt live up to the hype and promise they created.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

ZombieLeach.5862:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Mirta.5029:

Galen Grey.4709:

how about all the other things that were never promised yet they still came like gliding in central tyria, Shatterer revamp, squad revamps, those dont count for anything?

of course it doesn’t count for anything. If you’re buying a product you look at the list of features and those features better be in it, as you’re buying a product based on it.
If you looked to buy a third person RPG with an open world and 100 different skills to level, you won’t be happy when you find out that the product that you actually bought is an isometric view RPG with instance based world and only 88 skills. And it won’t matter to you if afterwards they said “but we added bunnies and we never advertised them”!

What Anet did here counts as fraud. And because of that I urge everyone to report them to trade associations.

you know what the irony is here… none of this were actually listed part of HoT
dont believe me, just check heartofthorns.guildwars2.com and try to find where 16 new legendary weapons is listed. its not. This was content that was promised along side HoT not part of HoT.

Not that I am suggesting its okey for Anet to back on their word, they should still honor it of course and its not like they said otherwise either but it certainly does mean its not fraud so lets just shelf the heavy words and focus on the issue at hand.

You can’t craft the new Legendaries unless you have the Mastery that came with HoT, so I would say it’s part of it. If it wasn’t part of it it you could still do it even if you didn’t own HoT.

Not necassarily. It wouldn’t be the first time a game company has gated side content behind expansion/DLC content. It’s a strategy to get players to pay for the extra content.

The mastery system is an integral part of the expansion. If you don’t buy the expansion, you don’t have access to this new system of progressing your character. One of the mastery lines is precursor crafting, so that means it’s part of the expansion, not something that came along with it.

horizontal character progression… some might even call it a gating mechanic to make it seem like content has more depth that it actually does.

ZombieLeach.5862:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Mirta.5029:

Galen Grey.4709:

how about all the other things that were never promised yet they still came like gliding in central tyria, Shatterer revamp, squad revamps, those dont count for anything?

of course it doesn’t count for anything. If you’re buying a product you look at the list of features and those features better be in it, as you’re buying a product based on it.
If you looked to buy a third person RPG with an open world and 100 different skills to level, you won’t be happy when you find out that the product that you actually bought is an isometric view RPG with instance based world and only 88 skills. And it won’t matter to you if afterwards they said “but we added bunnies and we never advertised them”!

What Anet did here counts as fraud. And because of that I urge everyone to report them to trade associations.

you know what the irony is here… none of this were actually listed part of HoT
dont believe me, just check heartofthorns.guildwars2.com and try to find where 16 new legendary weapons is listed. its not. This was content that was promised along side HoT not part of HoT.

Not that I am suggesting its okey for Anet to back on their word, they should still honor it of course and its not like they said otherwise either but it certainly does mean its not fraud so lets just shelf the heavy words and focus on the issue at hand.

You can’t craft the new Legendaries unless you have the Mastery that came with HoT, so I would say it’s part of it. If it wasn’t part of it it you could still do it even if you didn’t own HoT.

Not necassarily. It wouldn’t be the first time a game company has gated side content behind expansion/DLC content. It’s a strategy to get players to pay for the extra content.

or even better, make you pay partly for content you already paid for 2-3 years before.

Galen Grey.4709:

Mirta.5029:

Galen Grey.4709:

how about all the other things that were never promised yet they still came like gliding in central tyria, Shatterer revamp, squad revamps, those dont count for anything?

of course it doesn’t count for anything. If you’re buying a product you look at the list of features and those features better be in it, as you’re buying a product based on it.
If you looked to buy a third person RPG with an open world and 100 different skills to level, you won’t be happy when you find out that the product that you actually bought is an isometric view RPG with instance based world and only 88 skills. And it won’t matter to you if afterwards they said “but we added bunnies and we never advertised them”!

What Anet did here counts as fraud. And because of that I urge everyone to report them to trade associations.

you know what the irony is here… none of this were actually listed part of HoT
dont believe me, just check heartofthorns.guildwars2.com and try to find where 16 new legendary weapons is listed. its not. This was content that was promised along side HoT not part of HoT.

Not that I am suggesting its okey for Anet to back on their word, they should still honor it of course and its not like they said otherwise either but it certainly does mean its not fraud so lets just shelf the heavy words and focus on the issue at hand.

https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma

might want to scroll down to legendary weapons then where it clearly states 16 then.

do you even ctrl + f, bro?

Finalfreefall.8247:

dAcIaW.5107:

I have been actively reading this thread for a few days now. Interesting how every now and then I refresh this thread and the page count on the thread decreases. Someone must be very busy suppressing opposing viewpoints. Shouldn’t Mike o’Brien get an infraction for calling out players who accused him of releasing half an expansion?

wait- what? can you screenshot this next time it happens?

they also seem to be merging other topics in here, which makes keeping track of things a bit of a mess. for instance, one of my post, when i made it yesterday, was on page 20 or 21. today, i found that post on page 23 instead, so there definetly must have been posts merged into this, too.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

midsummer.8237:

As a curiosity question could you guys take some people off of a different team to work on the legendary weapons? Like maybe the fractal/dungeon team or something like that?

The fractal team that have produced one original fractal since release and still haven’t given a leaderboard after resetting everyone’s progress to 30?

What would that leaderboard have been around anyways? an kitten show and tell about how many fractals you have run in the entire lifetime of your account, or your achieved fractal scale?

Nothing i could think of would fit a leaderboard when it comes to fractals.

Virtutis.8614:

CommandoTNT.2350:

I’m just astonished I still haven’t heard anyone give a single apology. I would honestly feel, not much, but a tad better knowing that they acknowledged that they f’d up.

No compensation, either. HoT is looking increasingly worse and was never worth the $60 price tag in the first place. People spent that money based on their promises, which have now been found to be entirely empty.

HoT has been 60$ because they threw in the base game to make it easier for those who would be new to the game, while subsequently flipping off all those who have been loyal players for the 2 years before that. I dont really want to revive that topic, though.

That was just another example of telling their community to “deal with it”, without apology or anything of the sort aswell.

Altoricus.3251:

…We got your money guys…. we’re out… but before you leave…. buy more from the gem store!!! Give me back my SAB!

April Fools Joke 2016: Make a Legit Looking Announcement that SAB is returning on April First

Then, on April First, proceed to tell everyone that “it’s just a prank, bro.”, mentioning that no one has seen or heard of that SAB thing since 2013.

Coincidentally, April First would also be a friday, so it would be ideal to once again ignore the resulting kittenstorm over the weekend.

On second thought, i shouldnt give them any ideas…

evilunderling.9265:

I know I said I felt I’d already said my piece, but I’ve been thinking about this a little more, and I have more to say.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

Quite frankly, I’m inclined to agree with you. For the people complaining that this was “half an expansion” to be right, the net amount of content contributed to the world by Heart of Thorns would need to be positive.

But not only were whole swathes of the game’s content killed off or made irrelevant by the expansion, but now NCSoft are killing off their other (admittedly, themselves troubled) properties so as to conserve resources to bail ANet out of their balls-up. You’d have trouble putting together a positive balance equalling “half an expansion” in content if you included all of the remaining core content as well.

The controversy over this particular change is actually overblown — EXCEPT that it’s symptomatic of everything going wrong with the game right now. The correct analogy to use here is going to a restaurant, ordering toad-in-the-hole, and after three hours of waiting, a waiter comes out and tells us that the kittentails won’t come with umbrellas because the chef lost his arm in the meat grinder. Nobody should really give a crap about the umbrellas, the big worry is how the hell anyone screwed up so badly that someone figuratively lost their figurative arm in a figurative meat grinder. Also, you know, why did we end up waiting three hours for anything resembling any sign of our food?

I’m well aware that software development is hard, and MMO development is even harder — except that it isn’t. To me, or some other layperson? kitten yes, it’s hard. To you? It should be like a kittening walk in the kittening park. Maybe a bit harder than that. But still not especially difficult, given that we gave ANet our money under the assumption that they would be kittening equal to the kittening task. There is only so much that can be excused by the realities of software development.

I’m still willing to believe that you aren’t guilty of any particularly underhanded or shady business practices. But even that is not good enough. As a consumer, I do not expect you to merely refrain from unfair and unethical business practices, I expect you to conduct yourselves so as to be above all sane suspicion. And even in that, you have monumentally failed.

You need to show that you have gotten your kitten together, you need to offer compensation to your players — for the crap that this incident is a symptom of, not just the legendaries themselves — and you need to offer easy refunds to any players who still aren’t satisfied after you’ve done all of this. And you need to specifically reach out via the launcher, in-game messages, and registered e-mail accounts so that those who don’t read the forums or Reddit know that you know you kittened up and want to make it right.

Then, maybe, we might accept that you’re halfway kittening sorry for this whole mess.

Heck, if they could for once, just one single time, admit that they messed up, and aknowledge it, perhaps then people would be willing to trust them again eventually.

So far, it has always been avoided with some sort of excuse, or promises that never came to fruition either.

Also, if there is an issue with the “half an expansion” expression; given that dungeons, which were a fairly big part of the core content, were shafted, and thus core content was put in a bad spot in favor of the expansion, even though it was said time and time again that said expansion would NOT hurt core content in any way, one could label this more of a Substitution instead of an Expansion. then again, that would be even harsher, since it would imply that core content has been downright removed and replaced with something else.

DiogoSilva.7089:

AysonCurrax.3254:

I honestly don’t get why so many people pat them on the back for coming out and making such a “tough” decision, when in reality, they could have made a much better decision. A better decision for us, that is. The One they took only benefits themselves.

What better decision? The game is greatly lacking new content at the moment. New patches usually bring a lot of new features, a lot of new shinies, but little to no content. Are legendaries so important to the point that most players should be forced to replay old content over and over just so a small niche is happy?

I understand the frustration, but content should always have higher priority than 12 skins.

Better Decision, as in: have less staff work on the next expansion, and instead have them work on the current one to deliver what was promised. There was literally no need to put legendaries on hold to improve work on Living World and whatever else.
They could have pulled those resources from somewhere else. Focus shouldnt be on the next thing when you havent even finished the current one.
Which is exactly what i said in that post you quoted partly. I also said that this isnt an issue with WHAT they put on hold, but the FACT that they put something on hold that was a selling point of the current expansion.

If that still doesnt hit home, imagine what it would be like if they only gave you 2-3 new elite specs, and put the others on hold till the gods return to tyria.

The uproar would be exactly the same. this isnt about the legendaries.
This is about shady business practices.

Daddar.5971:

See that tiny speck in the distance? That’s the WvW overhaul!

Oh, wait, it’s just another mini-game they’ll call an “achievement”.

Either way, legendary or otherwise, this game has truly become Grind Wars 2. The last thing I care about is some shiny ‘legendary’ that requires days of mind-numbing grind. I came here for the WvW combat, and if that’s ever fixed I’ll start playing (and spending) again.

But when Mike talks about a WvW overhaul, doesnt he actually mean PvE?
No? okay, i will be in the corner then…

Honestly, some people dont seem to understand that the issue isnt that they are scraping the new legendaries in particular.

The Problem is that they pull workforce from a project that was a selling point for the current expansion and relocate them to another project, instead of pulling workforce from the next expansion, so that they can deliver what they already had us pay for.

Instead, they remain just as focused on the next potential cash grab, instead of giving what they already took money for.

You dont need to have a business major to see that this is bad, very bad project management.

I honestly don’t get why so many people pat them on the back for coming out and making such a “tough” decision, when in reality, they could have made a much better decision. A better decision for us, that is. The One they took only benefits themselves.

Some of you would probably congratulate MO for having him have his dog drop a dookie on your doorstep, by the look of it, and that, as a long time fan of the guild wars fan, really, really worries me.

Vephar.8475:

ezhcim.3075:

Vephar.8475:

I’m so glad you decided to do this, AN. Living worlds were the most fun I’ve ever had in this game, having the world constantly changing around you and it just felt like things were happening in the world. You guys managed to push out a new LS every 2 weeks and they were amazing. It was great quantity AND quality.

I know a lot of people enjoy legendaries and I do too, but I would much rather have an amazing story and fun content to play and progress than to have a shiny weapon and I’m sure the majority of the player-base would agree. Most players play for the story and content and it’s legendary weapon hunters who are in the minority, sorry guys.

I’m looking forward to creating amazing memories and having fun progressing in the living worlds again.

Most people actually agree that false advertisement is not a good way to do business, and regardless of whether you like PvE content or Legendaries it is very scary to see a company completely disregard what they had promised to deliver while asking you to suck it up and be happy with what you have and some more story content they might put out at a later date.

That is very true, but I do believe they TRIED. I don’t think they had planned it out to cancel them when they released HoT. This was most likely, as Mike already stated, a difficult decision. I guess my excitement for Living Worlds is overriding my displeasure for their failed promise.

TRYING should never even happen in the first case. Thats why you normally do a whole lot of planning and analysing whether or whether not you can realize what you have in mind, in the given timespan.

Trying and failing time and time again just screams “bad project management”.
It shows that the available resources arent considered carefully, or overestimated, for that matter.

That Other Guy.7351:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but how about the recent drought of content? That kind of thing happens when we spread ourselves too thin, and when we let the content development pipeline empty out so we can fight fires.

If the team is spread to thin isn’t that really a sign that the team is too small to handle the scope of the game and that more should be hired?

Its more along the lines of grabbing a second plate of food when you are not even done with the first, then sort of trying to eat from both at the same time, while mostly focusing on the second one, as the first one gradually becomes cold and disgusting.

too much focus on the “next” big thing, when the focus should be on what we already got, and what has been promised to come out up until now.

If your aim is to improve core gameplay and allow faster and better quality releases of short term content, why in gods name would you not move staff that is working on long term projects, aka. “next expansion” to the core team, seeing how they seem to have plently people as is?
Its just mind boggling to me why you wouldnt pick the most logical path, and instead get rid of the legendary weapons team, to somehow duct tape them onto the core team.
Much rather, add more people to said team, and actually follow through with your promises for once instead of backing out of them.

But what do i know. I am just a mere player. I have only invested 7000+ hours into this game.

How much time have you actually spent in the game, Mike?

No mockery or anything intended, but being a developer myself, I am well aware of the fact that we often lose sight of what actually needs to be fixed in a product, or project environment, because we spend too much time looking at it from the wrong perspective.

An issue that could be well prevented by communicating with your customers on a regular basis, and not only when something is ready to release, or in other terms, “its too late to fix it by the time we make you aware of it”.

That is pretty much the whole idea of agile development to prevent from releasing something that doesnt live up to its expectations.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kalgator.2945:

Hi, i need help, i have this error.. but now re 300€ duplicated, and i need fast this money.. i put a ticket.. How long does it take to fix this?

What’s your ticket number? I’ll be happy to inquire about the turn-around time.

I wouldnt mind if you could help me out with mine aswell. #2106211

Not sure why it doesnt just stop the transaction if an error occurs, then goes through 30 minutes later, effectively making me spend 60€ i didnt mean to spend.

ShinyDay.5349:

So I’m playing this game for like a year now and I’m enjoying it very much. The only thing that gets on my nerves is lack of optimisation. There is always huge FPS drop at WvW, PvP, meta events and any other events where there are more than 20 players around.
It was realy bothering me, so I asked friend of mine to test it on his PC with same resolution and same settings that I had.
He have i7-3970X overclocked to 4,6GHz and 3x GTX Titan Z. Guess what … he also had that same FPS drop.
So it doesn’t matter how much I upgrade my PC, this game will be always lagging at events and that’s realy the only thing that I don’t like about this game.
So I’m wondering if we can expect DirectX 12 anywhere soon, or some other optimisations?

heck, even directX 10 would be a start…

it was gone for the past 3 updates, now its back.

are you kittening kidding me? it cant be that hard to fix…

Dont remove her egg sack!
She has been dead for years now, give her a break.

Milkshake.4038:

AysonCurrax.3254:

As far as i recall, the unofficial trading post API was Read_Only aswell back then, as the official one is now.

Yes, you are right, my mistake, it is too late What I wanted to say is that you cannot use simple http requests to modify your listings, of course you can use the API to collect data. But even if I have the data that I have to update 100 orders I can only do it manually.

yup. the only way that could possibly be handled by a bot would be by tempering with the gw2 client itself, and that would definetly not go unnoticed for long i am sure.

Milkshake.4038:

AysonCurrax.3254:

sending a HTTP GET Request isn’t exactly rocket science… nor would it look any different on their side than any other Request being sent.

I am 100% sure that this no longer works. It worked in the past, but not since the end of 2014.

As far as i recall, the unofficial trading post API was Read_Only aswell back then, as the official one is now.

Palador.2170:

AysonCurrax.3254:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

oh id love a love jumping puzzle
i think the beginning of the year is already stacked with enough festivals though, we need some time to cool down from the previous one

stacked? if it goes exactly like last year, after lunar new year, we wont be seeing much of the festive kind going on until halloween. not that lunar new year is worth mentioning considering how little it actually adds while it lasts.

All the more reason to add one in the summer, then. I’m not sure if it should be love themed, though. Or which city should host it.

Southsun could be used for that, i suppose. It was introduced early on and never really touched upon again.

Tamasan.6457:

Assuming stable and fairly even teams, I find Dragon Ball really fun.

But yeah, the bugginess and screwed up incentives hurts.

Jump pads – seems much worse when there’s a bit of lag. Could use a similar treatment to what we got with gliders being controlled by client instead of server if that’s the cause and is feasible. If not, an easier fix would be to adjust the floor level at the spawn point a bit so it doesn’t take a near perfect jump to get out. (and how about adjusting the position of the billboards in the spawn so I don’t keep getting stuck behind them when I fail a jump)

Leaving teams/volunteer – Incentives for this are all messed up. I remember the very first time DB was introduced in LS1, and there was some kind of reward for being on the losing team which just encouraged a lot of AFK farming, so I can imagine that’s why we’re in this situation. But if you’re on the winning team and volunteer to the losing, you definitely should get credit for a win. That would at least encourage people to volunteer to even out the teams without their losing credit, even if it doesn’t stop the initial reason some leave a losing team.

I assume afkers would be kicked, like in other activities and pvp aswell for being inactive for too long. this however never triggers because they are being teleported outside after a little while, so that counters that mechanic. On the other hand its necessary to prevent spawn camping. it should just kick out people who are inactive even after being teleported and potentially attacked by the enemy team. But that is yet another design flaw, i suppose.

Wait so… you pretty much accepted whatever without reading what you actually agreed to? Well, all you can do now is wait and see what they respond, pretty much.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

oh id love a love jumping puzzle
i think the beginning of the year is already stacked with enough festivals though, we need some time to cool down from the previous one

stacked? if it goes exactly like last year, after lunar new year, we wont be seeing much of the festive kind going on until halloween. not that lunar new year is worth mentioning considering how little it actually adds while it lasts.

Neural.1824:

The problem with this that makes me wonder if it is a bug, and not a bot, is that the re-listings are almost instantaneous.
In order for a bot to use the API to do that sort of monitoring, they would need to be making requests of the API that would show up on Anet’s radar easily, as it would be costing processor time, etc.

sending a HTTP GET Request isn’t exactly rocket science… nor would it look any different on their side than any other Request being sent.

Danikat.8537:

There’s never been an event related to Valentines, and I think it’s extremely unlikely to happen since it would clash with the Lunar New Year event (which is going on right now).

As other people said there are a few gem store items which will probably come back or be discounted, some of which were originally released around Valentines (like the bouquet of roses) and others which can be linked to it, like the wedding outfit.

Which actually seems appropriate for an event that’s almost entirely based on pressuring couples to spend money.

how would it clash with lunar new year when that ends tommorow?