The players they’ve lost won’t come back for an expansion.
The new players they get can’t even keep up with the new content.
Wrong, most players who have left would only come back with a decent expansion. 80% of my guild stopped playing and waits for either a good new MMO or an expansion worth of content. LS only offers new content for some hours a month. This might be enjoyed by active players, but nobody who has already left really cares for this temporary mini content.
The point is: GW2 currently lacks competition. There will be some bigger titles in the next half year and GW2 will loose big chunks of players, if they don’t offer (much)more than they do now. I would buy an expansion, just to be able to play with my guildmates again for a longer period of time. I would buy another promising game for the same reason as well. I am not the only one thinking this way.
I just wanted to point out that the above is pretty much nonsense.
Most people who have left GW2 and have not come back at all for the Living Story stuff would not come back for long, if at all, for an expansion. This is because they are not looking for a game with slow, limited vertical progression, or where you are meant to keep looking around the world, exploring, doing new stuff and so on.
They are looking for a game with strong, steady/rapid vertical progression, where you burn through content, then largely sit around and wait for more, whilst raiding a couple of nights a week.
Even if GW2 released an expansion full of new content, all that is going to happen, best case scenario, is that they will buy the expansion, realize that the game still doesn’t have much vertical progression (and that it is slow and time-gated, and they’re waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind on it, because they quit months ago, and will thus take months and months of time-gates to catch up), and then quit again.
Worst case scenario, and more likely, they just completely ignore the expansion just like the ignored the living world.
I do think the Living Story, so far, is seriously lacking in one area: “New lands!” as my Norn would put it. But that’s really the only way in which it is lacking. If we don’t see some new zones fairly soon, I could see that having a negative impact when new MMOs are coming out, but at the same time, maybe the ArenaNet want to play it smart.
Here’s a secret: every time a new MMO comes out, a bunch of people will want to play it, no matter how much they like their “current” MMO.
They will go and play it for 2-3 months until they are bored, burnt-out and generally feeling “meh” about it. The first month or so they will be intensely positive about it, telling everyone “OMG THIS GAME IS GREAT!”. Second month they’ll tone it down, and by month three, well, they’re apathetic.
It is at this point that they will either return to their previous MMO, or move on to yet another MMO.
So when releasing stuff which is actually exciting, like new zones, it could be smart to time it appropriately. Which may mean waiting to “lose” players to TESO and WildStar and the like, before drawing them back.
Speaking of which, I’m already seeing people drifting back in from FFXI Reborn – just for the living story stuff – even if they don’t play it, they are aware of it, and it keeps them thinking about the game.
