Guild Wars 2

Actually, I am quite happy about the wider spectrum of shatter builds possible in PvE.

But, I am very unhappy about the GS trait being placed as GM trait, no cool. Should be a master trait as it is now.

Would I prefer some Mass Effect quality cut scenes? Yes. But just hopping around the bloody NPCs while they pop up their lines over their heads? How was that a step forward?

It just felt even lazier than the face-to-face cut-scenes. It just offered nothing. Uh-huh. At least in the personal story it feels if there are conversations, compared to the “talking into a random direction” style of the LS.

All I say is going back to face-to-face voice acting would be a step forward in matters of story telling. For sure better than: “Talk to your friends.” as a story step.

Is there space for more improvements? Sure, more than enough.

Now, if they bring back the nice face-to-face cutscenes we had in the original personal story, we would be back at the beginning, which – to be totally honest – would be a big step forward compared to the LS.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to move into the right direction again. Immersion in LS1 was pretty much non-existant and LS2 was no big improvement.

As bad as they butchered the personal story (fixes sort of coming) it is still better immersion-wise than the living world. Even though the story and immersion never have been great in GW2.

My answer to your question would be : Nope.

Then again, this is probably for PvP. Not my field. Would still not run it though.

@OP

ANet is very thankful for your decision to dump hundreds of dollars in their game. It is in fact so much money that they will accept your bailing out of GW2.

@ANet

The metrix god told you that dungeons are not worth it. Spending all the money you get from people that like dungeons and even more to create dungeons? Why. The metrix god demands more open world content. And fluff, that players can buy in the gem store to look cool. And an NPE for the NPE, as the metrix god trolled you on that one…

The personal story can be a bit rough on the mesmer. Especially since the NPE made things a bit more difficult in regards to traits.

My advice, buy some up to date green gear with power and precision on it. Killing stuff fast normally works pretty good and the gear should be fairly cheap.

You can also read my leveling guide (in the signature). While it is a bit dusty, the gameplay should still work to burn down mobs quick.

Hope it will help. I would like to give you more advice ingame, but I have hardly time to play lately (more like ever since and forever). Sorry.

The games are just two very different cups of tea.

GW2:

- fast paced combat, that feels chaotic and spammy from time to time
- DE’s make the world feel alive, which is the biggest plus
- no trinity
- simplistic and easy

ESO:

- in-depth combat mechanics
- more freedom in character development
- great and immersive stories
- trinity
- challenging content

I play them both and I love them both. It just really depends on my mood which game I start up.
If I want some well written story and challenge I go with ESO, if I want non-stop action, GW2 all the way.

sorudo.9054:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

All those people who are super excited to “play” the beta and to get a key are probably the wrong group for testing the expansion anyway.

I have not signed up for the newsletter, even though I have tons of experience with beta testing and QA. Would I take a spot and do the job if necessary? Sure. But right now I just enjoy the idea of playing the expansion around the release, enjoying all the new stuff without being spoiled and burned out before it is actually available.

Beta testing comes with a high price, but many people are too blinded by the hype to see that. It is like opening a gift before christmas, only to see that it is not yet what you want. It no longer matters if you actually get what you want for christmas afterwards, as the damage is already done.

Be careful for what you wish for. My advice, if you get a spot, try to test as if you got paid for it. Try to put on a professional mindset. Wait a day before you start to nerd-rage. If you cannot handle it, stop beta-testing.

the ones who play are the ones they actually need, if you don’t “play” the beta then what are you doing, standing around talking about it?
sure, i am the kind of player that tests while having a glass half empty thought behind it so any disappointment doesn’t surprise me, often try all kinds of things to crash the game or to exploit the game to oblivion.
that doesn’t mean they only need that kind of tester, they need testers of any type, even the ones who only want to get in to “play” the expansion.

like if you only take vets in the beta, they already know how the game works so anything new is quickly old.
add some new faces in it and the opinions are different, they barely know how to play the game and start to see things as if it’s the way it was always meant to be.

don’t dismiss one kind of testers just because you think it’s not a good idea, any tester is a good idea regardless of their intentions.
the whole idea is to test if it’s play ready, if someone plays it as a normal run-off-the-mill player then this player is playing it the way Anet designed it.

a few things i do have to ask to Anet, how does this beta work?
do we use an existing character or are you gonna clone ours, is it on the same server or are you planning to do this on a completely different server like a PTS, is the beta going to be timed or done throughout a whole day or so?

I don’t think it will matter much. I do not expect a real closed or open beta test for HoT anyway. It will more likely be event based and restricted, maybe on weekends only for stress testing, hype generation and teasing players.

Unfortunately, real beta testing has gone missing and is nowadays know as “early access” on steam or similar platforms. This will not happen with GW2: HoT. The risk is too high, the time it takes too long. The information about the content available too deep.
That is why there will be no NDA, as “testers” will have a very limited access to exactly what ANet wants them to see. Blame marketing. But ANets strategy mostly resolves around getting people excited about what there could be not what is available.

End of the line, I expect “beta testers” to be used to speed up the hype train, while the real testers are all inhouse. Which is not a bad thing. Keeps things under control.

I will quote myself from a year ago:

…
So let’s see:

1. We have Rox, a gladium – which means unemployed.
2. Braham, who grew up only with his father – which means single parent family.
3. Kasmeer and Marjory being more than just close – gay relationship.
4. Taimi can’t really walk – disabled.
5. Canach is in prison – the criminal.

If we put any more social RL conflict into Destiny’s Edge 2.0, we have a TV soap…

Let’s give characters a rating to see how they have developed over the past 12 monthes:

Rox: 1/5 – Totally forgetable in the story, but at least not annoying.
Braham: 0/5 – I want him dead already. Uh-huh.
Kasmeer and Marjory: 1/5 – Half a point of mercy each for being pretty to look at – if you know what I mean…
Taimi: 3/5 – Yeah, Asura Gump has at least some personality to recognize. Run Taimi run!
Canach: 2/5 – He doesn’t show up often, a big plus.

As I have stated before, if I really was the boss, I would have fired the whole team ages ago. I just hope Mordi will be mercyful and frees me of most of those losers. Otherwise I will have to do so myself.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

All those people who are super excited to “play” the beta and to get a key are probably the wrong group for testing the expansion anyway.

I have not signed up for the newsletter, even though I have tons of experience with beta testing and QA. Would I take a spot and do the job if necessary? Sure. But right now I just enjoy the idea of playing the expansion around the release, enjoying all the new stuff without being spoiled and burned out before it is actually available.

Beta testing comes with a high price, but many people are too blinded by the hype to see that. It is like opening a gift before christmas, only to see that it is not yet what you want. It no longer matters if you actually get what you want for christmas afterwards, as the damage is already done.

Be careful for what you wish for. My advice, if you get a spot, try to test as if you got paid for it. Try to put on a professional mindset. Wait a day before you start to nerd-rage. If you cannot handle it, stop beta-testing.

I often don’t agree with you, but this post is something I might have written myself. I’d like to beta test it, because I’m willing to pay the price (and I will test it, not just play it), but yeah, it’s a pain in the kitten if you do it right.

I think we might have our “conflicts” because we have different views on game design.

But when it comes to rational experience with games and general knowledge of development, we should not be too far apart from each other. Might be related to the decades spent with gaming (and this instantly made me feel old…)

You know why this system exists? The answer is super simple.

It is ANets way to fight item hyper inflation that they created with all those drops in the first place.

It takes about 24,000 items to tailor a single set, so six pieces of ascended armor.

This number is so beyond any reason outside fighting inflation it is not even funny anymore. It is terrible game design, as it feels futile to even start crafting anything with this number, no matter how easy or hard it is to get these items.
Getting these items feels like a terrible chore, instead of an exciting event. I clearly prefer the joy of an item dropping with a chance of 1/10 compared to collecting 100 of it with a fixed drop of 10. It feels exciting and rewarding and less grindy to me (which is an illusion I know).

Worst crafting system ever. 24,000 items, just think about it. Wow…

Crafting in GW2 in general is major fail.

Now multiply this by over 9000 and you get ascended crafting.

Ascended crafting is expensive, grindy, timegated, boring, to get to the result you have to craft a billion of other thing which is nothing more than button spamming and time consuming and the result is neither pretty nor worth it.

Wow, I am surprised that I managed to get weaponsmith and tailor to 500. But now that I want to have a druid as main, I would have to get leatherworking and artificier to 500? Even though i could do this in probably an hour or two, I’ll just skip that.
Nah, I would never get that hour or two back.

Mesmer suffers from the bad pet ai more than rangers. In matters of broken (bugs and more ai bugs) mesmers win hands down.

I switched to ranger as my main as preparation for HoT (as I want to be a druid) and it feels way less buggy than the mesmer.

Least played? Probably mesmer too. The class is a mess for unexperienced players and still tough if you have a fair share of experience. Leveling the old fashioned way is a pain, so I guess many mesmers die on their way to 80.

Let’s wait and see how the chronomance will work out, maybe there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel…

It has been confirmed that the pet will still be an integral part of the druid specialization.

One can only guess the difference between the “ranger pet” and the “animal companion” of the druid.
I expect there to be no pet switch for druids, to make the mechanics different in the first place, probably less control over the pet itself.
If the mechanic of druids and rangers are too similar, the druid will just feel like a ranger with staff.

All those people who are super excited to “play” the beta and to get a key are probably the wrong group for testing the expansion anyway.

I have not signed up for the newsletter, even though I have tons of experience with beta testing and QA. Would I take a spot and do the job if necessary? Sure. But right now I just enjoy the idea of playing the expansion around the release, enjoying all the new stuff without being spoiled and burned out before it is actually available.

Beta testing comes with a high price, but many people are too blinded by the hype to see that. It is like opening a gift before christmas, only to see that it is not yet what you want. It no longer matters if you actually get what you want for christmas afterwards, as the damage is already done.

Be careful for what you wish for. My advice, if you get a spot, try to test as if you got paid for it. Try to put on a professional mindset. Wait a day before you start to nerd-rage. If you cannot handle it, stop beta-testing.

I am OK with all self-rooting skills besides ranger sword 1.

Auto-attack should never root you. Choosing a self-root should be a choice, not your main skill. Turning off auto-attack doesn’t sound like a fix more like a band-aid.

So, self-rooting on Ranger sword 1 needs to go, that I can agree on.

1. Sharks with lasers

2. Mounts

3. Dead horses along the way with sticks around that you can pick up to beat them

That is all.

Maybe we can pump air in them and use them as baloons…

Knighthonor.4061:

webtoehobbit.4201:

So I am watching AngryJoe’s interview with Colin, and it just kinda made my heart sink, cause I’m pretty worried that we will only get like 3 zones with this expansion (I am throwing the number 3 out there, I know there’s nothing suggesting more or less at the moment) cause when AngryJoe asked Colin, “Hey, how big is this expansion going to be?” referring to zones and such, Colin just danced around the question and answered with, “Well, features are the biggest part of this expansion.”

So are we getting a feature pack? Or an expansion? Idk, it just worries me that everytime the amount of zones are brought up, they just flit around the answer by saying something safe like, “We’re more about content dense zones than a lot of zones.” or what Colin said, “Well, the features are the biggest part.”

Now I’m not saying I don’t love absolutely everything I’ve seen with this expansion, but I love Tyria, as I think all of you do, and it’s not that I want a TON of new zones, but I want to explore as much as I possibly can of this beautiful world, and if we’re only gonna get 3 maybe 4 new zones with this expansion, well, I think it’s a bit of a travesty.

So am I the only one worried about this? Or is this completely unfounded?

Keep in mind, that GW2 doesn’t have a population like WoW. So making a massive new area would break up the population even more, and basically kill the vanilla zones. That’s not cool.

But we are tired of the vanilla zones. We have been through them for too many reasons.

Leveling, personal story, map completion, living story, achievements, traits etc.
There must be a point when ANet accepts that the zones, no matter how beautiful they are, have been overused.

Many zones have reached this status, it is time for something new.

You have been playing every day, making the event happen and succeed so that others got their rewards.

Here you go, ANet won. They tricked you to populate the map. Funny enough that you can fill maps with a reward ratio to what, 1 in 75? Sometimes I wish the loot system would be a bit more like in other games raids.

Then again, we all just play for fun.

Sounds like we get very little in matters of new playfields.

They try to avoid answering this question like snails a pile of salt.

On the one hand, they give us a very traditional expansion, they even return to the Personal Story concept, some horizontal progression (like AoC has done too years ago) some new PvP and WvW. A new profession to toy around with.

On the other hand they call it all new and exiting as if they have invented “endgame” expansions and give this as an excuse that the new landmass will be fairly small (at least this is what I get out of the interviews).

Saying that other games have fire and forget zones you leave behind after leveling through and using them as an excuse to produce less zones because you know, reasons, is incredibly irritating.

So ANet only has to produce the small amount of endgame zones other expansions also have and skip the leveling zones because you know, no leveling? What will the players gain from that? If you want to impress players you have to give at least the same amount of zones as the other MMOs and make them endgame, otherwise there is a LOSS for them.

If the new landmass feels any smaller than what other games with a similar approach have done (no leveling, just endgame – like in Rise of the Godslayer for AoC) I will be thoroughly disappointed.

ANet is not the first company to release an expansion with only endgame stuff. HoT will be judged in regard of what people have experienced before.

And I actually like leveling and working my way through zones, so something has to replace that experience anyway. I hope it is not endlessly replaying a zone, to actually level you character (masteries) to replay the zone and see a tiny bit more of it.
Sounds like a chore to me.

ANet wants you to buy character slots.

If you have many tomes of knowledge it is very tempting to just level another character. That is what ANet wants.

They want you to feel the desire to do stuff. Those tomes won’t get any other use. They are here to convince you to buy character slots. It is as simple as that.

I leveled my ranger which was sitting at 38 since shortly after release as she will become my druid and possibly my new main.
Now working at world completion (around 65%) which will take some time. Maybe leveling crafting for ascended leather armor and staff (yeah, I don’t like crafting that much, but I’d prefer her to have nice gear).

When I’m done with that, I am pretty much out of stuff to do though, so ANet better give us a date not too far in the future for the expansion.

UNICORNS!

What else…

jokke.6239:

Take a break, play other games.

has no MMO developer ever said to their players.

Good to see that people with such deep knowledge of the game are getting invited to the press event to ask questions they had no idea would exist before asking the people who actually know what’s going on. ^^

The wonders of internet fame. At least I don’t have to ask you to not get angry about what I just wrote, because you know. Nothing personal.

Ask them why they insist to set the foundation of the game with everything they do from the scratch.
Living Story was meant to build the foundation of how the story telling and introduction of new content was going to work.
Feature patches were there to build a foundation on character progression.

Now with the expansion, they build the foundation on what Guild Wars 2 will expand and grow.

With all the foundations under the new foundation one has to ask, did they build all this on sand? What is wrong with all the former foundations, or the core game in the first place.

Was Guild Wars 2 never designed to grow in the original design? What is the plan beyond all those foundations, will we ever get a matured game?

I would be really curious to get an answer on this.

Mesmers are weak in PvE.

I switched to necro than ele and now ranger. Open world is just so much more joy with everything else but a mesmer. It is beyond me how I could spend a four digit number of hours in my mesmer before I realized that it just pretty much sucks at PvE.

Maybe one day I will reactivate my main, but for now, I just enjoy doing stuff without thinking about placement of clones, or fighting cooldowns to get things done with the same efficiency than other classes do with auto-attack.

Yeah, sad story.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

First of all, shapeshifting is not a norn thing. It is just that all Norn elites are shapeshifts. But hey, what about Avatar of Melandru? It is a prime example of shapeshifting, and it is for humans.

actually, yes, shapeshifting is a norn thing. in-game it’s (very poorly) represented as a kinda lame elite skill, but “i can become my totem spirit” is the whole point of norns in lore. Jora was an outcast because she was touched by jormag and lost the power to become bear, whereas her brother, svanir (you might know the name), became corrupted and so he was the first icebrood.

kodans believe that norn used to be a long lost kodan tribe that fell out of grace, which is why they can only temporarily stay in their “superior bear form”.

it’s even in the race’s description. have you even seen norn NPCs? it’s like the first thing they do before fighting, they just turn into a giant bear.

I know the GW1 lore.

The lore just simply doesn’t change the fact, that GW2 has shapeshifting in other variations than the norn beast forms.

Norn might be shapeshifters and terrible ones too, but this does not diminish the other shapeshift capabilities offered by race or profession.

Necromancers are way superior shapeshifters. Does this interfere with norn lore? No.
Would druid shapeshifters – in whatever from – interfere with lore. No.

So what is the problem.

you’re confusing mechanical things with lore things. norn are the only ones that can literally turn into animals whenever they please. it’s their thing, their unique racial trait, just like “being planty things that are born as grown adults” is the sylvari thing and “being big hairy cats with horns” is the charr thing.

i’m not saying “norn are the only ones that can transform into anything different”, i’m saying norn are the only ones that can transform into animals, or else you might as well throw the race away, because you just turned their defining trait into something anyone can learn with effort and a bit of magic.

As a human, I can transform into the Avatar of Melandru.

This actually is shapeshifting. As only humans became druids, this kind of shapeshifting is a human/druid only thing. With your argumentation, only humans should ever become druids, no other race has the right to do so. You think this is how druids will work in GW2? Yeah, no.

Sorry to burst your “norn only” bubble, but all humans got the exact same kind of shapeshifting as norns do.
Long cooldown, short duration, no heal/utility/seperate elite.

Same elite is same. So I have to ask you again, where is the problem?

BrunoBRS.5178:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

First of all, shapeshifting is not a norn thing. It is just that all Norn elites are shapeshifts. But hey, what about Avatar of Melandru? It is a prime example of shapeshifting, and it is for humans.

actually, yes, shapeshifting is a norn thing. in-game it’s (very poorly) represented as a kinda lame elite skill, but “i can become my totem spirit” is the whole point of norns in lore. Jora was an outcast because she was touched by jormag and lost the power to become bear, whereas her brother, svanir (you might know the name), became corrupted and so he was the first icebrood.

kodans believe that norn used to be a long lost kodan tribe that fell out of grace, which is why they can only temporarily stay in their “superior bear form”.

it’s even in the race’s description. have you even seen norn NPCs? it’s like the first thing they do before fighting, they just turn into a giant bear.

I know the GW1 lore.

The lore just simply doesn’t change the fact, that GW2 has shapeshifting in other variations than the norn beast forms.

Norn might be shapeshifters and terrible ones too, but this does not diminish the other shapeshift capabilities offered by race or profession.

Necromancers are way superior shapeshifters. Does this interfere with norn lore? No.
Would druid shapeshifters – in whatever from – interfere with lore. No.

So what is the problem.

Let’s be honest. There are quite some misconceptions in this thread.

First of all, shapeshifting is not a norn thing. It is just that all Norn elites are shapeshifts. But hey, what about Avatar of Melandru? It is a prime example of shapeshifting, and it is for humans.
In the end there are two kinds of shapeshifting in this game. Racials like norn skills and avatar of melandru, elite skills which all more or less fail. They are pretty much useless in all situations and not worth putting them on the skill bar.
And there is profession based shapeshifting, like death shroud and necro elite skills, which actually can work and have a place in actual gameplay.

Secondly, while I get Xenon’s point to add hobo packs and attunements towards shapeshifting, I do not agree with this point of view. Though I agree that the mechanic for possible druid shapeshifting must differ from what we got in game right now to a certain degree.

Shapeshifting should not be on a timer or a cooldown. It is why racial elites fail. They are too short to use efficiently and they are never available when you need them. Locking out all utility is sort of OK, if the benefits of the shapeshift compensate for the loss.
Death shroud works because it does exactly that. You get very useful skills for the cost of your utility. But death shroud is not really shapeshifting in the traditional sense, as you get a whole new healthbar, that is not related to your actual health pool. It is more like a phaseshift, which justifies the time limit and (short) cooldown.

Unfortunately, the true shapeshifter profession will be the revenant, which will limit the option for the druid. But there is still hope.
Druids may go with the concept: No time limit in form, change at any time without cooldown, loss of utility, gaining new weapon skills. If the idea is bound to the equipped pets, you have four skills per shift already in place, maybe tweaking some numbers is neccesary. Four skills would be enough imo anyway. Give the druid a heal that can be used in forms and this mechanic could work.

Just imagine the variety possible. This sounds like a lot of fun. All those shapes, all those cominations. While you are limited to two shapes at a time, the number of combination would still be impressive.

You would keep F1, F3 and F4 from the ranger skills. As a druid, F2 will not work as command for the pet, but for you to turn into the same creature as your pet. Now the former F2 skill will be on your weapon bar as usable skill as well as the three other pet attacks. Play in form as long as you want, but to use your utility or elite, you have to shift out, which will motivate you not to stay in a form for too long.

I see some balancing issues of course and the possibility of underpowered forms, but not all has to be perfect from the start.

One can always dream…

Honestly, while I like the idea of updating my leveling guide, I will be waiting to see how Traits 3.0 are going to work first.

And to be fair about leveling right now, my guide would be like:

Step 1: Create a mesmer.
Step 2: Go to EotM and follow the zerg.
Step 3: Profit.

I realy hope ANet will get the fun back into leveling with Traits 3.0, otherwise I will just delete my guide and write something like:

“Wait till you got enough tomes of knowledge and insta-level to 80. Good luck and have a nice day.”

Yeah, the personal story had this major flaw. Tons of content was created, that has never been seen by most players.

You know what is better in matters of game design than having many choices. Having the illusion of choices.

So much dev time got wasted for so little impact. While I think the personal story was better than the Living Story Season 1, I think they did it right with LS2.

Everyone gets the same story, still sort of fun.

The revenant sounds pretty meh.

I am way more interested in the new taunt mechanic. Sounds like ANet is heading in a bit more traditional way with this expansion.

Trinity reborn?

It is very simple.

IF you aim for map completion you have to go on WvW maps.

I am actually planning to get world completion on my soon-to-be druid. ANet tells me to run around on those maps till I got all shinies. I do NOT care what other players want while I am on my way to achieve my goal.

I really don’t care. Do I ruin anyones fun? Maybe. But don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Now if I am in the mood for trolling, I will let everyone on the map know what I am doing, especially when I was waiting in queue forever to get there.

Working as intended.

1. Combat in GW2 is boring and unresponsive most of the time. It’s fast which is fun, but there is way too much auto-attack spam.

2. I really prefer if gathering is sort of contested. If everyone has their own nodes, it takes away emotions (be it satisfaction to get there first or disappointment, when you are too late). Emotions are good.

3. Waypoints are lame. They make the world feel terribly small. I’d prefer mounts.

I would call it

P4F

Pay4Fun

Xenon.4537:

The reason everyone expects shapeshifting when they hear “Druid” is because of the “Kleenex Effect” otherwise known as a brand name takeover. It happens when the brand name of a product becomes the colloquial term for a particular type of product. Kleenex is a brand name of tissue paper. But people often just call it Kleenex even if it’s some other brand of tissue paper.

Similarly when there’s a shapeshifter class, people call it the Druid because the D&D and WoW druid pretty much defined the colloquial term. Now you cant even say “druid” without people immediately jumping to shapeshifting. It would be cool to have a shapeshifting druid, but the GW2 druid is more like the pre-D&D/WoW/D2 druid. It’s more like the legends of mystical Celtic clerics.

I have a more pragmatic concern for this topic that will probably throw a major wrench in the works… How would a shapeshifter class fit into the design of GW2 mechanically? We already have engineers who can swap kits around to change their 1-5 skills and dramatically alter their combat behavior on the fly. We already have elementalists swapping attunements which change their 1-5 skills to provide a wide array of different rolls and abilities. How does a shapeshifter distinguish themselves from this? Forget for a moment your superficial wishes of becoming a furry creature. Think about this mechanically. What is the point of it in the context of GW2?

The point is, that people want it, and they expect it.

What else would you need. ANet called the new specialization “Druid”, so people expect what they know about druids.

Let us still choose our pets, but instead of commanding the pet, let us transform into it and hunt as a pack.

Same skills as the pet. Sounds cool to me.

Chaialyna.1023:

Personally I like the Phoenix Reborn axe skin, but the effect is slightly more subtle.

I use this axe skin too on my female characters. It is actually really pretty.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Behellagh.1468:

Except WoW expansions come with level and gear bumps, basically setting the player onto the leveling and end game raiding for BIS gear yet again.

Here’s 10 more levels, your current BIS gear that took you a month raiding to get is now worthless compared to basic gear drops as you level and all for $30 plus $12-15 a month. Not a treadmill I’m will to pay through the nose to “enjoy”.

Look, it is a different model. People expect an expansion in WoW to be this way. They like it, they want it, they get it. They won’t be disappointed.

We will have to wait and see on what the GW2 expansion really has to offer. If I am through most of the content in a week and just some artificially gated stuff (by masteries) is not completable, than it is no better than what people get with WoW expansions.

I hardly see any difference in:

A) Get to a higher gear level (which is just a number) to do the endgame content.
or
B) Get to a higher mastery level (which is just a number) to do the endgame content.

Artificial gating is artificial. A stretching of content that could otherwise be completed way faster.

On the other hand, an expansion is what I have asked for for two years, so yeah, I and probably many other players will buy it that otherwise wouldn’t spend money on the game. Which will pushing the numbers on those reports in a good way.

To me it would still be better than a WoW expansion.

Because WoW expansions funnel people into a type of content I have no interest in. If this expansion funneled me into open world content instead of raids, to me it would be better….depending on how it’s done of course.

Yeah, I bought GW2 because I love the concept of open world. I grew tired of dungeoneering years ago.

I don’t say that gating is a bad thing, just that there is not much difference as long as there is gating in the first.

As long as ANet does not send me into dungeons or fractals for some important mastery in open world, I am OK with the system.

Behellagh.1468:

Except WoW expansions come with level and gear bumps, basically setting the player onto the leveling and end game raiding for BIS gear yet again.

Here’s 10 more levels, your current BIS gear that took you a month raiding to get is now worthless compared to basic gear drops as you level and all for $30 plus $12-15 a month. Not a treadmill I’m will to pay through the nose to “enjoy”.

Look, it is a different model. People expect an expansion in WoW to be this way. They like it, they want it, they get it. They won’t be disappointed.

We will have to wait and see on what the GW2 expansion really has to offer. If I am through most of the content in a week and just some artificially gated stuff (by masteries) is not completable, than it is no better than what people get with WoW expansions.

I hardly see any difference in:

A) Get to a higher gear level (which is just a number) to do the endgame content.
or
B) Get to a higher mastery level (which is just a number) to do the endgame content.

Artificial gating is artificial. A stretching of content that could otherwise be completed way faster.

On the other hand, an expansion is what I have asked for for two years, so yeah, I and probably many other players will buy it that otherwise wouldn’t spend money on the game. Which will pushing the numbers on those reports in a good way.

Just give me the kitten waypoints.

The other stuff is nice and cool, but all this running is taking forever and it hinders me doing events on my alts.

I am tired of running around the world. Or give us mounts instead – yeah, I just said that.

I clearly prefer a paid expansion where you can see what you get before you buy it to an expansion worth of content as a promise with the Living Story that in the end fails to deliver.

Fact is, without the expansion on the horizon, these numbers would be alarming. With the expansion revealed, people will just say it will be all good when the expansion releases. There is the difference.

The paid expansion is good for the game. It is the hope for GW2 that was lost with what we got with the Living Story. The hope that this game can still be more than an average F2P game with suppar game updates to keep you visiting the gem store.

This makes me and probably many players happy. And it makes NCSoft happy too.

Good.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

@phys

Anet didn’t say they had no plans for expansions. They said that they were working on the kind of content you’d see in expansions and they didn’t yet know how they were going to deliver that content. Expansion type content can be delivered as an expansion, it can be delivered as DLC.

But NcSoft for a long time now, at their stock holders meetings were talking about an expansion. The very first time they mentioned it they said, there would be an expansion when it makes sense to release one.

You will not find an Anet quote where they said there will never be an expansion. All they said was we’re focusing on our living story content for now. That’s all they were willing to talk about.

At the time, I said why too. Because expansion announcements are like gold. They are timed very carefully. Some companies time them so that they overshadow something the competition is doing. Some time it so it comes out in a vacuum of other titles that might detract from it. You don’t just say your’e going to have one, because that takes the wind out of the sales (pun intended). That’s business.

No the business model isn’t a failure, because no one was fired. The business model is a success because it’s self sustaining. If the company is making enough money to support itself and make profit, it’s a success.

How anyone can even conceivably argue that a company that’s laid off no one is a failure, and continues to hire, I can’t imagine.

The strategy was a success, they were always planning an expansion, they did what every business does and timed the announcement to strategically maximize profit.

As for Life the Board game, I’m not sure that game makes significantly or any more money during Christmas than any other time. Do you have some figures on that. Either way, it depends on what the competition is doing.

So if WoW launches their huge expansion in time for Christmas, of course that’s going to affect the sales of other competitors. That’s precisely what I mean by expectation. It’s why Anet waited till they did to even mention an expansion.

yes they did say no expansion, more than once

I pressed him to tell me whether there would be a Guild Wars 2 expansion this year and he shook his head to indicate no. What about next year, I asked?

“If we do this right,” he answered, “we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy.”

from a eurogamer interview in 2013
But what about making money? Guild Wars 1 survived on paid expansions, editions, add-ons, whatever you want to call them – are we to believe that the boxed sales of Guild Wars 2 and micro-transactions are enough to sustain such a large operation?

“Yes,” responded Zadorojny. “It absolutely is enough.”

business plans change, people adapt, but no this wasnt their business plan, and no no matter how you slice it that was an underperforming Q4.

These people are just people, like you and me, they cant know the whole future, things don’t always go as they plan, they are not infallible masterminds who never miss a beat. They have setbacks, they have failures, in the long term its not about whether they had a perfect plan, but how well they can adapt.

trust and believe that this is not according to plan. Thats primarily why the plan changed. They needed to do something different and rebrand the product. Renew interest, and show people gw2 has a future, as well as make more money from their existing playerbase.

If it wasn’t their business plan, why has NcSoft been talking about expansions since year 1?

NCSoft probably forced the GW2 team to create an expansion, as they were very unhappy with the financial development of the game and the living story.

The last quarter of 2014 is abysmal in regards to an online game. Holiday season is prime time for micro transactions, and additional box sales.

The living story failed, that is why we get a boxed expansion. It is as simple as that. NCSoft wants it that way. I doubt that it was a free decision of ANet.
For them the boxed expansion is proof that their business plan failed.

I thought ANet came to their senses and dropped that idea.

Well at least some topics will get more entertaining from now on, so I better keep some popcorn around.

Specialists they say. Sounds delicious.

Please let it be like vanilla Orr.

I pray to the six gods that it will be. Vanilla Orr was the best MMO experience in my whole life, and I surely got some of MMO experience over the last 15 years.

Make it so!

Sebastian.4610

Because everything pve based in this game is easy.

And here is why legendary should be quite easy to get.

You said it yourself, every bloody thing in this game is a cakewalk.
People playing this game like it that way. And they also want legendaries (which is just a classification, which has absolutely no value).

Hand them out for free, it wouldn’t hurt the game a bit. Just sayin’…

As long as xp infusions work with the mastery system, I really don’t care too much…

Trahearne will become Mordremoth’s champion and I will enjoy killing him every single time he spawns for the rest of my days.

That is how much he deserves to die.

They better give mesmers a mh weapon too.

Two new weapon skills after three years? At least treat every profession equal, like rangers get five new weapon skills.

So I’d clearly like a second melee option for mh, like axe maybe. Would fit better to the shield.

The problem with the trait system is:

You have to unlock it, step by step and you have to also unlock the traits too.

So a new players feels like:

“Wow, I have unlocked a trait slot. Let’s see what I can do!”

He checks the UI and he get’s told:

“Well you have unlocked the trait slot, but you can’t use the stuff because you have to unlock it first!”

Whoever thought that was a good system? Gating the gated stuff?
In the end, instead of the player feeling more flexible with traits, he feels more limited.

So in the end, I only see two options to make the trait system work and both options involve getting rid of one gating:

A: Step-by-step unlocking trait-slots, offer all traits available for the slots for free.

B: Open up the whole trait system from the beginning, if a trait has been earned and there are enough trait-points available, let the player use the trait in the fitting tier. This might allow to use higher tier traits earlier on in theory, but in the end the traits are gated by their placement in the game anyway.

Double-gating has to go. It is just too disappointing.