What will save this game in next expansion:
- New weapon types
- New races
- New continent (at least 12 maps)
- Events similar to SW (no HoT events)
- Better rewards (not just blue items)
- Mounts as cosmetics
- Capes (no more wings)
- at least 36 new armor skins (12 for each class)
- better wvw
- 2v2, 5v5 10v10 arena system
- pvp armors and rewards
- 6 new dungeons with 3 path each
- 2 new raids
- new and better crafting (fishing, treasure hunting, archeology or something…)
- rare monsters with rare drops
- new fractals
- new elite specs
- no gating and no “we will nerf this so you must play that attitude”
… and that my friends is worth 60$
I think it’s entertaining that people think the game needs saving. I think it six months after two more profit reports we’ll know if that’s the case or not.
But yes, the pendulum swing away from casuals did hurt the game for some people.
Remember when GW expansions were whole continents?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Guild Wars has never done an expansion that was an entire continent.
Picking a really tiny nit here. Can we please drop the stupid excuse of stand-alone game v. expansion. Bringing it up serves no purpose beyond obfuscation and a silly attempt to “win” the internet.
I agree. I remember when Factions came out and it was an entire continent. But it has 13 story missions, 11 of which you had to complete and about 200 quests all up. I think HOT and Factions aren’t that far out as far as size of the expansion goes when it comes to playable content.
I also remember that Factions was heavily pathed, had no Z axis and was far more linear, but then, we all have different memories.
Also agreed. Factions has its flaws (when I go back to GW1 now I certainly miss the ability to jump over a log and go where I want) and a lot of people seem to not have liked the aesthetics of the city. I certainly preferred Prophecies over factions (but liked Factions more than either Nightfall or EotN). But four new guild halls, two new professions, A lot of new skills (and more repeats of existing skills than I think was appropriate to be honest), three new PvP modes, something like 8 or 10? armor sets for each of 8 professions, and I don’t even know how many new weapon skins.
But skins aren’t content to me. I don’t play skins. Skins are rewards to me. Yes, it’s nice they’re there, but it won’t make my game play better per se.
The amount of playable content in Factions was pretty large anyway…except that it was linear play. I once completed all four guild wars games in a single week with a friend. The content in the story in all four games is not as much as people think. They remember what they remember, but after the leveling, its’ all pretty fast.
The bottom line is you had 2 elite dungeons which I did once each, and PvP which I barely did at all. For PvE content, it was pretty thin on the ground on Factions.
Not to mention it was a different time, and a much simpler game to program for. It’s always easy when you know an instance can only hold 8 people no more.
Remember when GW expansions were whole continents?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Guild Wars has never done an expansion that was an entire continent.
Picking a really tiny nit here. Can we please drop the stupid excuse of stand-alone game v. expansion. Bringing it up serves no purpose beyond obfuscation and a silly attempt to “win” the internet.
I agree. I remember when Factions came out and it was an entire continent. But it has 13 story missions, 11 of which you had to complete and about 200 quests all up. I think HOT and Factions aren’t that far out as far as size of the expansion goes when it comes to playable content.
I also remember that Factions was heavily pathed, had no Z axis and was far more linear, but then, we all have different memories.
Anyone who actually buys another expansion is foolish. We still don’t have what we were told would come with the first xpac.
Why would it be foolish to buy something if I’m enjoying the last thing I bought. See, it doesn’t matter to me if I don’t have all the legendaries, or all the raids. I don’t care about raids and legendaries are long term goals anyway.
I’ve gotten far more than my money’s worth from the current expansion, and I have no reason to believe I won’t get my money’s worth from the next expansion.
What we’re missing from the first expansion is the full raid, which I’m pretty sure they told us before release would be coming in sections anyway, and legendary weapons which I believe we were also told would be coming out along with the living world stuff.
However, since I’ve already gotten a couple of hundred hours of enjoyment out of HoT, it was well worth my $50.
No. Just no. Be prepared for backlash, btw. This is something I strongly believe most people in this game are not in favor of.
Welcome to Consistency Wars 2. Lots of stuff in this game is inconsistent. No one really knows why but Anet. The list of things that are not consistent in this game are almost endless.
They really should change them to be the same. But I’d just end up making both of them and using the skin I wanted with the stats I wanted. Yes. I know it’s expensive, but I’m a madman. lol
1. Favorite map to explore – VB
2. Favorite meta – DS
3. Favorite rewards – tough call…probably VB for the ease of access to rewards
4. I like all the zone stories If I had to pick one, I’d go VB.
5. Again I like all the visuals but VB for me.
6. Again VB. I’m sensing a pattern here.
7. As annoying as they are I’ll say TD. I really like the chak.
8. As if it’s not obvious by now, VB. lol
the flow that’s missing in gw2 is – in the roots of mmorpg, there were no expansions, bug fixes yes, but expansions no – the original expansion was enabling pvp.
The game flow is supposed to be, easy replayable pve – things that teach you the basic mechanics of the game – casual , simple fun, something you can roleplay with ……then dungeons – where more focus is required, which taught you skills with the mechanics learned in the ez areas ….from there it went into hard mode which introduced strategies…….after this …the final mission was hardened pve’rs looking for the ultimate challenge – competing directly vs other hardened pve’rs. Once it got to that level, no strategy the game could offer would compare – because it was never repetitive – it was pure lively strategy full of surprises.
hot is trying to make pve endgame – and it’s just not a natural flow in a game that was originally supposed to be gvg end game
so, level / adventure —-> dungeon —->hard mode —-> pvp —-> Deathmatch
(death match being the most extreme level of difficulty )These aren’t different modes, as much as they are different levels of difficulty.
That game flow is broken in gw2 – and the only real problem the game has is cheating. People cheating and gaming the system caused all the changes we hate. casual players are being imposed with rules made for hardcore players that need the highest scores, the most money, the most skins, the fastest wins, the cutest cats, and the biggest titles.
PVP’rs just want to win vs the best fighters. Our title, prize, shiny, is that win.
the problem with hot isn’t the content, the content is great….it’s the rules, the rules are for hardcore extreme pve’rs. The problem with these rules is people who want to end game in the natural order, are forced to go backwards to get new “expansion” options / perks that are important to wvw / pvp. wvw is basically open world gvg.
and just for reference, npc’s were part of original pvp – as original pvp didn’t have special arenas, the ability to attack other players was enabled in the regular world.
In fact, npc’s were an important part of pvp strategies. From there players would agree to fight different locations of the game, and clear the npc’s first for a different rule based pvp session.
There is no evidence at all that WvW or PvP were supposed to be “the” end game of Guild Wars 2. In fact, Anet spent an entire year promoting PvE before it ever went into any detail at all about PvP and WvW. In fact, the narrative of the company suggests that Anet has centered the game around dynamic events and a living, breathing world. That is what Anet has said, it’s what they’ve shown through development and it’s what exists today.
PvP and WvW were alternative end games, but the game has always has a PvE focus.
The problem is, there was never anything that really forced anyone to do the challenging content, so they didn’t. And every time challenging content was introduced, there was so much basic easy content that people could avoid it.
But that becomes the issue. People expected an expansion to have the same ease as the core game, and that’s not reasonable. It’s really not Anet’s fault that people didn’t learn how to play their characters, or aren’t open to even simple changes to their routine.
Admittedly, the schedule aspect is troubling for some people but let’s not pretend that all complaints about how casual this game is are about scheduling. Many of the ones I’ve seen are also about difficulty.
The fact is some people wanted more of the same where as other people wanted content that required you to do more than stand in one spot and hit 1.
I almost never play HoT with a timer. I almost never look at the timer. I’ve done every single meta event in HoT multiple times without ever looking at a timer.
See I’m casual. I don’t say I really want to play this content NAO. That’s not a casual mindset. I jump into a map and I hang around and do stuff. Whatever stuff happens to be going on. Sometimes it’s just events. If I end up in a map long enough, or if I’m lucky I can catch a meta. That’s how I almost always get one.
The difference is that I enjoy these maps more than core maps so I’m more likely to be there and there are less maps so I’m more likely to catch one of the new metas.
I’ve had the same thing happen with world bosses, I just happen to be in a zone and they show up. It’s not magic.
But with four zones, it’s likely that any zone I’m in will start a meta at some point.
You FEEL like you have to watch a clock, because you discount everything in the zone except for the meta. That’s a choice.
It’s on a two hour cycle. If you don’t have 2 hours to play, then I don’t understand why you bought the expansion to an MMO.
See this is where the underlying issue is.
Why should a game dictate the amount of hours I need to play to be successful? So I have to commit 2 hours at a specific time to play, without interruption or a crap map else I fail?
Are you kittening serious?
I bought the expansion based on the core game. A core game which had no such mechanic as a 2 hour window to be successful.
It’s cool though, your guys rebuttal is really helping to reinforce my thoughts and opinion.
No no no, you cannot complain about not doing specific content then say “I refuse to play when that content is active.”
You can do anything else, I was explaining how to get specific map completion metas done.
Say you wanted to do specifically Claw of Jormag, someone tells you to go to Google and type in “GW2 World Boss Timer,” you then reply “Why should a game dictate the amount of hours I need to play to be successful?”
You are specifically wanting to do a meta, take a single evening in the week and do it… I’ve given you the tool and there will not be another way to do it. Either use the tool I handed you or sit and complain in ignorance.
Claw of Jormag doesn’t pop on your schedule, neither do the new metas – get a grip.
One took a few minutes and there was never any pressure to do it, the other takes a two hour commitment with a high possibility of failure and dictates map freedom.
Get a grip?kk
Your way off tangent bro.
A tangent is something which takes a point in an argument and focuses on expanding out from that, ignoring the initial discussion (like a tangent to a curve). ’You’re’ means ‘you are.’
You can join any of the metas near completion cutting down your required time, none of them actually need cost you 2hrs of your precious time logged into the forums. Use the timer I gave you.
The “map freedom” is 2 corridors and 3 rooms under Tarir, a single room in TD and 5 locations in DS. The VB canopy does not require the meta completion to access. I am assuming you really want “map completion” but since that is a selfish desire and “freedom” is good you’ve decided to argue that point instead.
You still need to get a grip, the game is not going to be structured around your life.
As an example, two of the four metas can be done without much prep time at all. Less than half an hour to log in, wait for and finish both the AB and TD meta.
People like to throw around the two hour word, but it really only applies to DS and even then 2 hours is the max time it can possibly take.
It’s on a two hour cycle. If you don’t have 2 hours to play, then I don’t understand why you bought the expansion to an MMO.
See this is where the underlying issue is.
Why should a game dictate the amount of hours I need to play to be successful? So I have to commit 2 hours at a specific time to play, without interruption or a crap map else I fail?
Are you kittening serious?
I bought the expansion based on the core game. A core game which had no such mechanic as a 2 hour window to be successful.
It’s cool though, your guys rebuttal is really helping to reinforce my thoughts and opinion.
It doesn’t. You can do all sorts of other stuff, not that specific thing. MMOs offer a range of experiences for a range of players. You claim HoT offfers nothing for casuals but there are casuals in my guild enjoying it because they’re not focused on the meta. They’re doing other stuff. They’re learning the zones. They’re doing dynamic events, they’re farming flax, they’re doing the occassional meta if they happen to chance on it.
Harder core players will schedule what they do, in the way that my guild schedules guild missions. We get 20 people to guild missions most days, but we have over 200 people in the guild.
What you do in the new zones can be very casual. If you want to do something like dragon stand you can, within the parameters set for that.
I agree, Hyper, that SW was/is a better map than the HoT ones in terms of no timer. The only change I’d make to it was to enable chest farms only during the break between iterations.
SW has a map reset timer after the Vinewrath is defeated.
So what. We were talking about timed events, not timed down time.
It’s not even down time, actually. It’s a map phase with its own content. There’s the Labyrinth, and some champions spawn all over the map.
Okay to clarify, after the maze is done and the map completely resets (it doesn’t really reset after vinewrath, it resets after the maze and goes back to zero), how many people stay and do the events that take the map to that point. The question is perfectly valid. After the champion phase, it pretty much tells you at that point it’s resetting the map. Everything goes back to scratch. Forts have no defense. Everything is at the beginning.
My guess is that only a tiny percentage of the people do that content. I’m basis this on the experience of being one of the very few people on a few occasions that have stayed to do that content.
Yep, I’m one of those people who thinks it’s a problem for just people to port into a zone at the very end and get credit, the same credit, as people who just show up for desert without doing anything to help prepare the meal.
This is one of the things that system in HoT attempted (with mixed success) to remedy and it’s something I feel needs to be remedied.
Labels are weird things. My play sessions often span from 14 hours to 20 hours, from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, but a large amount of that time is putting into leveling alts, talking to guildies, doing random collections, dressing up my characters and so forth, only bit of actual content I do is my daily fractals and a pvp match or 3. Would I be considered a hard-core player or a casual?
You’re like me. I consider myself a hard-core casual. That is, as a casual player, I’m pretty hard core.
@DaShi, I don’t have any idea who Vayne is. Never spoke to or commented to them. I know they don’t need anyone fighting their battles. And I’m not trying to do that. But good grief hun what is your obsession with Vayne. I swear Vayne couldn’t sneeze without you wanting him/her to “prove” how many drops of saliva was in that sneeze and demand proof the speed of the sneeze. In short you are just obsessed. Anyway stop telling people to prove it prove it prove it. No one here is your mommy do your on research.
You’re suggesting that people can make any claim entirely without evidence & it should not only be taken seriously, but should be defended from those asking for proof? And not only that, but those that insist on proof for specific claims are obsessed & immature?
Yikes. That’s a scary world.
This entire thread is a question that has no definition proof. There’s no way to know if there are more people playing or less people.
Many in this thread are saying less. They’re saying their friends list and their guild. But active guilds keep recruiting to replace people leaving.
WvW is certainly less and that’s because the changes to it weren’t completed when HoT came out.
So a question that can’t be answered with any proof is posted. It’s the whole thread.
Did many people leave because of HoT? How many is many? How many people came back? How many people started playing that would have never played before.
It’s all really part of the same question. Only Anet has the answers.
My best guess is that HoT wasn’t nearly as successful as Anet had hoped it would be.
I agree, Hyper, that SW was/is a better map than the HoT ones in terms of no timer. The only change I’d make to it was to enable chest farms only during the break between iterations.
SW has a map reset timer after the Vinewrath is defeated.
So what. We were talking about timed events, not timed down time.
So after the map resets, how many people actually stay and do events?
Even then, 15 minutes to explore the sections full of the worst ennemies in the expansion is the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen, this needs to be changed aswell.
Just get on a dead map and explore first. You only need a few things at the end then.
Not if I wanna farm the Ore, and you forget the stupid rolling devils…
Exploring is exploring, farming is farming. You don’t have to do them at the same time. If you’re complaining you don’t have enough time to explore that’s one thing. 15 minutes is enough to open a boatload of pods.
Just curious, like what is the point of your post?
Like this players finds the 15 minute window to be unacceptable; you don’t. Are you trying to bring them to your side and convince them that your purely subjective opinion is better than their purely subjective opinion?
Or do you think that your purely subjective opinion trumps all and because 15 minutes is enough for you, it’s good enough for every single player who plays the game?
Or maybe you are part of that percentage of people on the forums who just seem determined to railroad any discussion involving criticism of the game, even if that criticism could help to make a better over all experience for everyone?
And, if we extended the time from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, what detriment would that cause the game? Like what awful, game ending thing would happen that warrants you telling everyone on the forums to essentially shut up, because “15 minutes is enough time, because you think it is”
The point of my post is that you only have 15 minutes if you’re doing the meta first and then exploring. But you don’t have to do the meta to unlock and explore most of the zone, because that’s what I did. And that gives you a lot more than 15 minutes.
I just go on a map where the meta isn’t being done and I run past stuff and explore. Most of the stuff comes in waves of three you can easy side step. Sometimes you have t to fight if you don’t time it right.
So my point is there is an alternative to the 15 minute thing. I always look for solutions to problems that already exist before I start asking for things to to be changed.
Now once you have the zone done, it’s quite easy to get the remaining hero points and the vista in 15 minutes.
I was suggesting a solution to the problem that OP had.
I’m totaly agree with the author!
Classic GW2 – it’s a realy good game. But HoT – just terrible. for the same money I could buy new fallout and a half of witcher! But i spend it for HoT.
AND WHAT I GOT?
I’m even cant get new specializations, beacause i never liked jumping puzzles – so this crazy new maps just… unplayable for me.
I’m still sit in LA with my old build! I got nothin! even more than nothin – I got a headache. I want try new builds in a fractal, but i cant! I dont understand why.
Why annet force me to do stupid jumping puzzles. I just want play NORMAL PvE and PvP.
HoT – real waste of money…If you’re on a US server, message me. I’ll show you how to unlock the elite specialization. It won’t take nearly as long as you think, particularly if you have some hero points in core Tyria already.
They likely already unlocked it. The person above you necro’d the thread.
Well if they haven’t the offer stands. Thanks for pointing this out though. It’s early morning. I haven’t had my coffee yet.
I’m totaly agree with the author!
Classic GW2 – it’s a realy good game. But HoT – just terrible. for the same money I could buy new fallout and a half of witcher! But i spend it for HoT.
AND WHAT I GOT?
I’m even cant get new specializations, beacause i never liked jumping puzzles – so this crazy new maps just… unplayable for me.
I’m still sit in LA with my old build! I got nothin! even more than nothin – I got a headache. I want try new builds in a fractal, but i cant! I dont understand why.
Why annet force me to do stupid jumping puzzles. I just want play NORMAL PvE and PvP.
HoT – real waste of money…
If you’re on a US server, message me. I’ll show you how to unlock the elite specialization. It won’t take nearly as long as you think, particularly if you have some hero points in core Tyria already.
Even then, 15 minutes to explore the sections full of the worst ennemies in the expansion is the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen, this needs to be changed aswell.
Just get on a dead map and explore first. You only need a few things at the end then.
Not if I wanna farm the Ore, and you forget the stupid rolling devils…
Exploring is exploring, farming is farming. You don’t have to do them at the same time. If you’re complaining you don’t have enough time to explore that’s one thing. 15 minutes is enough to open a boatload of pods.
If they’d released 12 new maps like the original, I’d have been bored with them already. I’d go through them a couple of times and I’d be done.
How are these maps different in that respect?
There’s a complexity to them. For example, I love going up to the canopy to get around in VB without ever touching the ground. Figuring out which updrafts I need to take. Or how to get to the canopy without updrafts.
More than that the difficulty means they’re not braindead easy for me. I can die if I don’t pay attention. That’s not always or even usually the case in core Tyria. In fact, the increase in difficulty means I can still after a couple of months find better ways to do things, which in core Tyria isn’t really necessary.
I mean to me, it doesn’t matter if I take 1 second or 1.5 to kill something. I have to change up what I do to survive in the new maps.
I find that refreshing.
I can’t say I recognize any of that. What complexity there is to the maps stems from needing to learn their layouts. After going over them once, they become as trivial to navigate as core maps. To me at least. I have no trouble navigating TD and I can map it in under an hour not counting Hero Challenges. Maybe I’m an exception. I’ve always had a keen awareness of direction and spatial relationships. In any case, I find the emphasis on transit boring and pointless. No map requires more than 2 hours to complete, barring some things that might be unavailable at certain times. Unsurprisingly, because map completion doesn’t require combat apart from 4 or 5 hero challenges per map. It’s all just travel and travel is trivial, even on HoT maps. Perhaps even moreso than core maps because of all the shortcuts one can take.
As to the fights: I kill what I can kill easily and skip what takes more time. Taking time on harder kills isn’t worth it anyway. Not from a game-mechanics point of view, nor from a roleplaying point of view. I have no motivation to kill something like, say, a arrowhead veteran.
I understand how you feel. It’s just how I feel. I know at least a few other people who feel the way I do, so I assume there’s more of us out there. I assume there many who feel the way you do to. That’s the trouble sometimes.
You can’t make a game that will please everyone.
Even then, 15 minutes to explore the sections full of the worst ennemies in the expansion is the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen, this needs to be changed aswell.
Just get on a dead map and explore first. You only need a few things at the end then.
Doing that resets your participation to 0.
My point is, the original system needed to be changed somehow. It wasn’t all roses, in spite of people saying it was. I know because there were complaint threads.
This is how they tried to change it. It needs work but it’s not necessarily a lost cause.
None of the complaints had anything to do with synchronizing the events to the real-world clock and no one complained that the cycle was too short.
So, Silverwastes with rewards tied to participation level? It’s a no-brainer, really. Player-propelled progress and rewards based on participation in that progress.
Actually leeching has everything to do with the events happening in every zone at the same time. Which means, synchronizing them. As long as you can port from event to event, zone to zone, people will do it.
They had an excellent system that worked perfectly: Silverwastes. Then they jettisoned basically everything about that system that worked (generous amounts of map currency, tons of loot, a meta event that obeys the players’ schedules rather than vice versa, etc) and made the HoT maps.
Except that people complaints about leeching which really did annoy some people and really was a problem.
The fact is, some poor people didn’t know better and did all the events to get through to the breach event, and then everyone showed up and taxied people in and took over. It’s great for people who follow the game and know about that stuff, but unfair to everyone else.
It wasn’t a perfect system. It required some change. You may not like the change, but let’s not pretend there were no complaints.
Something like that. What really new zones/content did we have in the last three years and a half? But, oh lookey, new wings in the gemstore!
What most of the hardcore fanboys and new player still don’t unterstand (look at the other posts here):
Anet could give us a lot of new maps if anet wouldn’t waste so much ressources every two weeks on a new bltc set + costume + glider + some other gemshop item.
Without the cash shops, Anet could give us precisely no new maps because they couldn’t pay their employees.
If they’d released 12 new maps like the original, I’d have been bored with them already. I’d go through them a couple of times and I’d be done.
How are these maps different in that respect?
There’s a complexity to them. For example, I love going up to the canopy to get around in VB without ever touching the ground. Figuring out which updrafts I need to take. Or how to get to the canopy without updrafts.
More than that the difficulty means they’re not braindead easy for me. I can die if I don’t pay attention. That’s not always or even usually the case in core Tyria. In fact, the increase in difficulty means I can still after a couple of months find better ways to do things, which in core Tyria isn’t really necessary.
I mean to me, it doesn’t matter if I take 1 second or 1.5 to kill something. I have to change up what I do to survive in the new maps.
I find that refreshing.
Anyway they didn’t change the game into a platformer. There’s no more platforming in HoT than there was in the original game.
Whole HoT is one big jumping platformer. On timer. There is nothing worse then platformers on timer.
Adventures are not even comparable to old Tyria JP. Only thing those JP gave was some AP and they were always there, always available and you could take your time while doing them. I did a lot of them using engi Jump Shot while following guide from web. I used mesmer portal on few timed JP. Took me pretty long time but I did them.
I will never even finish most HoT adventures. I don’t mean “earn gold” for actual MPs and finishing countless collections, but I mean just get to the finish. They are not available when I want to play them. They ALL have timers. Yeah, I got few gold from those stupid ones you walk in first time wihtout even knowing whats happening and get Gold chest.
I have a whole lot of people in my guild who can’t do jumping puzzles that get along just fine in HoT. My experience is that they need about as much help getting around HoT as they did around core Tyria.
Since jumping mushrooms take you where you need to go they’re more like a teleport than something out of a platforming game. Gliding isn’t jumping either.
What’s going on at Anet is that they’re working hard to produce what they’re producing on the schedule they’re producing it.
That’s what’s going on at Anet.
Or did the OP think they were sitting around sipping tea while rolling their toes through the pools of money at their feet?
It’s a huge game, far more ambitious and expensive to make then Guild Wars 1. I don’t understand why some people don’t understand the difference between an pathed lobby game and an MMO that has to work with hundreds of people in a zone simultaneously.
IMHO: Season 1 temp content was a bad idea.
Changing the world slowly is cool like blowing up lions arch, but having a whole plot arch be temp was dumb. It was cool for players at the time, but terrible on the longterm, as anyone could have guessed.
Season 2 is just a way to prevent players from coming back by locking the interconnecting plot arch between Zhaitan and Mordremoth behind micro transactions. Still not as kitteneason 1 for long term game health.
Yes. If they should have just released 12 (or so) new PvE maps (based on the core game) and a continuation of the personal story line at about the 1 1/2" year mark, with more expansions to follow.
Changing the game to a platform-format took it in the wrong direction.
Edit: and killing Lions Arch for as long as they did was a huge mistake. That used to be a central meeting place to advertise your guild, recruit others, etc.
If they’d released 12 new maps like the original, I’d have been bored with them already. I’d go through them a couple of times and I’d be done.
Anyway they didn’t change the game into a platformer. There’s no more platforming in HoT than there was in the original game.
I’ll agree with you on the LA thing, they left it down for too long. I think they wanted to spread people out for server reasons, but I think the game was better when it had a more central hub.
Totally bites. This needs to be fixed.
Not much of a secret, in various quotes and interviews with magazines Anet themselves said they would not be revamping Zhaitan a long time ago and revamping core area was not something they wanted to do, despite realising themselves they did not get ZHaitan right.
I am in favour of the OP’s suggestion, but in light of comments made by Anet themselves on multiple occasions, I do not see this situation changing.
Even if they hadn’t have commented over the years, if LS1 is something they have been unable to fit into their schedule, logic dicates a defeated boss of past content is highly unlikely to see light of day
And yet, Tequatl. I have no idea how Teq is still around if Zhaitan is dead.
Zones are locked in time. That’s true of all zones, pretty much. Orr is still pre-Zhaitan’s death. Drytop is right when the Zephyrite’s crash.
It’s all locked in time that’s how.
But isn’t the lore behind teq’s mechanics change that teq got more powerful because he soaked up a bunch of magic after zhaitan died?
Or am I going crazy?She.* But I’m fairly certain that was the lore behind the Tequatl Rising update.
In which case, it’s explained through lore. It’s Zhaitans’ energy still living in Tequatl.
Not much of a secret, in various quotes and interviews with magazines Anet themselves said they would not be revamping Zhaitan a long time ago and revamping core area was not something they wanted to do, despite realising themselves they did not get ZHaitan right.
I am in favour of the OP’s suggestion, but in light of comments made by Anet themselves on multiple occasions, I do not see this situation changing.
Even if they hadn’t have commented over the years, if LS1 is something they have been unable to fit into their schedule, logic dicates a defeated boss of past content is highly unlikely to see light of day
And yet, Tequatl. I have no idea how Teq is still around if Zhaitan is dead.
Zones are locked in time. That’s true of all zones, pretty much. Orr is still pre-Zhaitan’s death. Drytop is right when the Zephyrite’s crash.
It’s all locked in time that’s how.
Except we know how Zhaitan dies and I hate retcons.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
I’ve even said that HoT was not any more polished than the LS1 updates exactly because i knew someone would bring that up. No, HoT was for many unplayable even upon start (simply could not enter HoT). I call that extremely buggy.
Also… new systems, really? They have reworked their systems several times before in so-called feature patches. Just think about removal of glory from PvP, the addition of the wardrobe, and so on.
Maps, cool… we received 4 new maps, we also received 4 new maps during those living story updates, not counting changes to already existing maps (like Kessex).
WvW maps, amazing but we received Edge of the Mists just so, with no expansion development.
They also made all the content for festivals back during the same time. Reworked Tequatl, made the marionette, the invasion of LA (hey, they actually remade the LA map a few times too), then us taking back LA, they made the triple trouble fight, somehow they managed to add all those fractals in a very short time (which they reworked a few times too), they made SAB (could be a stand-alone game even) just for an april fools gag.
They added more skins – even if to the gemstore – during that time than what we got now in this expansion thing.
Nope, not quite convinced that we received years worth of dev time with this.
You can not be convinced if you want, but none of the maps we received during the living story came out at once, with the exception of Edge of the Mists. They were staggered over months. And there were many months between releases of stuff. I mean Southsun came pretty soon after release and my guess it it was already being worked on before release anyway. On top of that it’s a smallish map, with only a small number of dynamic events. The Karka Queen was added later if you recall.
So that leaves three maps. One of those maps was as WvW and we know that took a year. Just the one map took a year according to Anet. So I don’t know how you can believe that four maps plus everything else took a few months. It’s not reasonable in my opinion.
People complained about the Living Story updates being a couple of hours of content too, so I would say it’s probably the same pace. It’s more likely to me that people don’t have a clue how long it takes to program stuff than that a company is paying people to sit around and do nothing.
So now the only thing about the expansion that took time is the map design? But sure, let’s see. There were 4 PvE maps because you might have forgotten the Labyrinthine Cliffs but i’m sure many have not.
We can of course keep putting content on a scale and measure it but it’s pretty obvious that the game lacks content and what is there is just not enough to keep people logging in even for the daily free chest.
I did forget about Labyrinthine Cliffs, but no one could possibly construe that as a full sized map. So if Southsun was a prelaunch thing (and I don’t really see how anyone could argue that it wasn’t) that leaves EoTM, Silverwastes and Dry Top, plus a sliver of a map with a couple of dynamic events. Anet has even created a few mini games over the years.
They created how many adventures though. Like them or not that’s content.
So over 3 years they created 3.5 maps to be generous and now you’re saying the created 4 maps, plus 2 guild maps, a new PvP map and the new WvW in a few months. There’s just no evidence to support that. Even if each of those maps only took a month to build and a month to test, that’s 2 months each, which is a year and four months.
Sorry we’re going to have to agree to disagree if you really think that these updated didn’t take time.
And that’s the problem. There’s simply not enough time to do everything. Other games tend to run into the same problems.
You are grasping at straws and conveniently forgetting all the other points i made about LA, the events, the encounters, the skins, all the content. Now we are at “how many and how big maps they’ve built”…
It’s fun when people use terms like grasping at straws as some sort of attempt to prove someone wrong.
I’m saying the expansion required a certain amount of effort, which Anet charged for. It’s my only argument here. The other argument about there could have been more X or Y isn’t relevant to my argument and therefore isn’t something I need to respond to. It’s a side argument.
This thread is about the rest of the expansion. It’s asking about the stuff that was promised, not that stuff that people want that wasn’t promised and wasn’t delivered. Even this conversation is bordering on off topic and probably should be taken to another thread.
But there’s no grasping and no straws here. Someone made a statement that the expansion took a minimal time to program and I responded to it. If the EoTM map took a year to max, then 7 maps didn’t take 4 months.
And actually on topic, the WvW overhaul didn’t make it into the expansion because it required more work/time than Anet thought it would. This is why they normally don’t say anything before hand. Because if stuff gets delayed its protrayed as a betrayal by the fans.
I don’t want to prove you wrong, there is no sense in that.
Just try to think for a second though. If you buy a new car, do you get a chassis and the promise of an engine some months later? And if you are dumb enough to trust this promise, would you not rightfully ask where the engine is?You do not have to know what it takes to develop and build a car engine, you don’t care, you want a functioning car.
Similarly, it’s not our job to make maps, we don’t get paid for making games. Anet developers are. We do not need to concern ourselves with how much time it takes to make a legendary weapon. That is the point that people are making. We – the customers – are incredibly patient already. And you are not doing anyone (Anet the least) any service by defending them all the time. You’re just blinding them to the actual problems until you’ll be doing the brand new meta events with 3 people who are left to play with.
This is a terrible analogy though, because the main parts of the expansion have been delivered, except for the WvW upgrade which is being delayed. You’re saying if the car is missing the engine. Well if the car is missing the engine, the car won’t run.
But people can play through the HOT zones. They can craft precursors they never got before. They can craft three new legendary weapons. They can even still WvW if that’s what they want to do. The motor isn’t missing here and analogies like this aren’t going to make your point any stronger.
Here’s what happened. I bought Guild Wars 2 and since then MANY features were delayed and eventually delivered. I got the base game, and guesting was delayed. It was delayed by many months. Eventually guesting got delivered and was then later superceded by the mega server.
These things that don’t get in on time, come later, and this has been true since the moment the game launched. It’s not just something that happened with HoT. It’s always been the case, not just here, but in every MMO.
So what we’re missing are new legendary weapons (which are just more things to make and some people are making the ones they released anyway), we’re missing a new legendary backpack and legendary armor, which is all just basically items to work towards. Not quite content to play. We’re missing the WvW overhaul which admittedly is taking longer than they expected it to, and we’re missing more raids, which I’m sure 75% or more of the population of the game could care less about. In fact, most of these items are niche items, appealing to a hard core crowd that probably isn’t most of the people playing. Yes, they’re frustrated but they’re also probably not a majority.
But unlike many, I observe and learn from the past. I learned that guesting was announced and delayed. I saw that precursor crafting was announced and delayed. And I saw that some stuff that came out during that time wasn’t even on my radar, but I thought it was a cool bonus, like Fractals and the Shatterer revamp and gliding in central Tyria.
Maybe because I can see how the company has operated, I can draw conclusions from how things will go, including the fact that delays will happen, because they have happened.
But the combat system is there. I’m doing the meta events. I’ve finished leveling my masteries, except for the raiding ones, which I’ll likely never get, and I’ve leveled all my elite specializations.
So where is this motor you’re talking about? Maybe I missed a new radio system that was supposed to come with the car and was delayed, but I can drive just fine, thanks.
Nothing, vastly different game that meets a different audience.
Different audience? I loved GW2 before anet destroyed its game. It used to be my most favorite game and I spent so much time playing it as I loved it. Now I don’t bother anymore and I cannot wait for BDO whether it is going to be good or not, we shall see.
I am not saying that I will never come back to GW2, but I will not if anet doesn’t start keeping their promises (yes, cats and empty plate).
When you say stuff like this, don’t complain when Anet says nothing about anything until it’s ready. Because that’s the alternative to their “breaking promises”. Stuff takes longer than anticipated, oh it’s a broken promise. Okay.
As for Black Desert and BDO, let’s see how you feel about those games three years down the line. Because I think it’s unlikely you’ll make it 3 months in either of those games if this was a game you really liked. Those games are open world PvP centric, they’re designed around grind. Not optional grind either…required grind. Games like Black Desert will get Guild Wars 2 more players in the long run. Anyone who likes a game like that isn’t going to like this game much anyway.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
I’ve even said that HoT was not any more polished than the LS1 updates exactly because i knew someone would bring that up. No, HoT was for many unplayable even upon start (simply could not enter HoT). I call that extremely buggy.
Also… new systems, really? They have reworked their systems several times before in so-called feature patches. Just think about removal of glory from PvP, the addition of the wardrobe, and so on.
Maps, cool… we received 4 new maps, we also received 4 new maps during those living story updates, not counting changes to already existing maps (like Kessex).
WvW maps, amazing but we received Edge of the Mists just so, with no expansion development.
They also made all the content for festivals back during the same time. Reworked Tequatl, made the marionette, the invasion of LA (hey, they actually remade the LA map a few times too), then us taking back LA, they made the triple trouble fight, somehow they managed to add all those fractals in a very short time (which they reworked a few times too), they made SAB (could be a stand-alone game even) just for an april fools gag.
They added more skins – even if to the gemstore – during that time than what we got now in this expansion thing.
Nope, not quite convinced that we received years worth of dev time with this.
You can not be convinced if you want, but none of the maps we received during the living story came out at once, with the exception of Edge of the Mists. They were staggered over months. And there were many months between releases of stuff. I mean Southsun came pretty soon after release and my guess it it was already being worked on before release anyway. On top of that it’s a smallish map, with only a small number of dynamic events. The Karka Queen was added later if you recall.
So that leaves three maps. One of those maps was as WvW and we know that took a year. Just the one map took a year according to Anet. So I don’t know how you can believe that four maps plus everything else took a few months. It’s not reasonable in my opinion.
People complained about the Living Story updates being a couple of hours of content too, so I would say it’s probably the same pace. It’s more likely to me that people don’t have a clue how long it takes to program stuff than that a company is paying people to sit around and do nothing.
So now the only thing about the expansion that took time is the map design? But sure, let’s see. There were 4 PvE maps because you might have forgotten the Labyrinthine Cliffs but i’m sure many have not.
We can of course keep putting content on a scale and measure it but it’s pretty obvious that the game lacks content and what is there is just not enough to keep people logging in even for the daily free chest.
I did forget about Labyrinthine Cliffs, but no one could possibly construe that as a full sized map. So if Southsun was a prelaunch thing (and I don’t really see how anyone could argue that it wasn’t) that leaves EoTM, Silverwastes and Dry Top, plus a sliver of a map with a couple of dynamic events. Anet has even created a few mini games over the years.
They created how many adventures though. Like them or not that’s content.
So over 3 years they created 3.5 maps to be generous and now you’re saying the created 4 maps, plus 2 guild maps, a new PvP map and the new WvW in a few months. There’s just no evidence to support that. Even if each of those maps only took a month to build and a month to test, that’s 2 months each, which is a year and four months.
Sorry we’re going to have to agree to disagree if you really think that these updated didn’t take time.
And that’s the problem. There’s simply not enough time to do everything. Other games tend to run into the same problems.
You are grasping at straws and conveniently forgetting all the other points i made about LA, the events, the encounters, the skins, all the content. Now we are at “how many and how big maps they’ve built”…
It’s fun when people use terms like grasping at straws as some sort of attempt to prove someone wrong.
I’m saying the expansion required a certain amount of effort, which Anet charged for. It’s my only argument here. The other argument about there could have been more X or Y isn’t relevant to my argument and therefore isn’t something I need to respond to. It’s a side argument.
This thread is about the rest of the expansion. It’s asking about the stuff that was promised, not that stuff that people want that wasn’t promised and wasn’t delivered. Even this conversation is bordering on off topic and probably should be taken to another thread.
But there’s no grasping and no straws here. Someone made a statement that the expansion took a minimal time to program and I responded to it. If the EoTM map took a year to max, then 7 maps didn’t take 4 months.
And actually on topic, the WvW overhaul didn’t make it into the expansion because it required more work/time than Anet thought it would. This is why they normally don’t say anything before hand. Because if stuff gets delayed its protrayed as a betrayal by the fans.
—//
As for the stuff that isn’t out yet. I’m not that worried about it. I do think if all 12 legendaries came out at once though, the issues with the price of mats would have been a whole lot worse.The kind of failed thinking that’s gotten Anet into the mess they’re in. You don’t hear how silly it sounds that they can’t release more than 3 new grind collectables at a time because of lack of in-game currencies? Like it’s an own entity that Anet has no control over xD
I wonder what miracle workers they had to put out the original 20 legendaries at once. But you’re probably right, that’s their kittened reasoning. Same as why we have almost no new armor- and weaponskins and no free gliders as to not disrupt the gem store.
It’s not just the opinion of a few here, Anet didn’t even earn 1/3 of what they expected from the ex-pack because – take a wild guess…
It’s not just the opinion of a few here, in either direction. In almost every thread where someone has complained about grind, a good portion of the responses are people saying that grind doesn’t exist.
That same for most other complaints except for the WvW complaints.
I don’t think 50% of the playerbase is unhappy with the expansion, or the value of the expansion. Nor do I think 50% of the player base is finished with the expansion content. I’ve done most of what I want to do now, but only this week, and I still have stuff I can work on should I want to.
But yes, a lot of people share all kind of opinions. A lot of people believe we should have mounts. There’s probably even a number of people in favor of full on gear grind. A lot of people think the game should be easier, a lot of people think the game should be harder. A lot of people think a lot of things, which is indicative of nothing in particular.
As for the logic I have, I recognize the game probably didn’t go over as well as Anet wanted it to, but I don’t think it’s quite the unmitigated disaster some are trying to make it out to be.
The rest of the expansion will come when it comes. Frankly if they took raids out of the game complete, I wouldn’t cry about it.
Probably should remove name of site from you post. Most player probably know this name from in game message but do not think Anet want you to accidentally advertise gold sell site on forum.
Yes you’re right, thanks! edited post ^^
Still though is banning doesnt help, ain’t it possible to sue them?
Sue them how? You think they have a business office set up, with an address on Park St in small town USA?
Do you think they register sites under their real names and addresses in countries we have legal authority over?
The only real thing you can do is block and report. That’s it.
Designing the elite specs and masteries couldn’t of taken more time than developing all the classes, their utilities healing skills, etc. That is what I was saying, the expansion must of taken a lot less time than making gw2. Same cost, but one had multiple thousands of hours of content, compared to the expansion the value is lower, but cost is the same.
The hope was that there would be more content released after the expansion, and outside of one raid wing with few unique drops, there has been nothing. Again, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and likely still buy their next expansion, but I did feel a little ripped off once I finished the expansion content. Wondering where to find glider skins… Oh right only if I pay even more.
I honestly don’t think this would be much of a problem if the initial game wasn’t such good value back in the day. They shot their own foot, and can’t seem to live up to their history.
You’re making it sound like Guild War 2 is the only game that has this issue with expansions but it’s not. This is what I read on other MMO sites about their expansions as well. People pay a subscription to WoW, pay for an expansion and still finish it in a couple of months and complain there’s not enough content. That’s the nature of the beast. People really shouldn’t expect an expansion to be as big as the original game. It’s not realistic. It doesn’t happen.
The one thing you could say is that you feel they charged to much for an expansion, which a lot of people seem to agree with. Even I think the expansion should have been cheaper than it was.
I’m not sad I paid for it, because over all, I’m still well ahead on my entertainment dollars. I don’t really compartmentalize that way.
As for the stuff that isn’t out yet. I’m not that worried about it. I do think if all 12 legendaries came out at once though, the issues with the price of mats would have been a whole lot worse.
More people are watching Tera right now than GW2. I know twitch viewers aren’t everything, but it really does have a large influence on people trying/returning to the game. I logged on for the first time in a month and pretty much my friends list was all offline. Where as December there was ~20 of those people online at any given moment. Since HoT, this game as gone down the toilet. PvE is a giant grind. Masteries, map meta events, and ascended armor require a painful amount of repeating stale can content. PvP was plagued with crazy power creep, poor balance, and an easily exploitable league system. WvW… Where do I even begin?
Oh and let’s not forget the content that I paid for and still haven’t received.
-missing raid wings
-legendary armor
-WvW overhaul
-complete set of new legendary weapons
LMAO! Okay. Terra has 195 viewers and Guild Wars 2 has a 155 so a difference of 40 views. With no one notable streaming it’s entirely meaningless. You’d have to track this for days at all hours of the day and night to get an idea of whether or not one game is more popular than another and it would still only be twitch views.
Guild Wars 2 never really did well on twitch anyway, but during SPvP tournaments (none of which are on now) it does better than it does now. Since we’re between seasons and tournaments, it hardly matters who has more players.
It’s like the number of people on a reddit. Before the FFXIV expansion came out, FFXIV was kicked our kitten every day. That simmered down over a couple of months and now we have more people on our reddit than they do.
Does it mean anything? Nah.
Right now we have 644 people on our reddit and Tera has 34.
That’s a lot more than 40 viewers.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
I’ve even said that HoT was not any more polished than the LS1 updates exactly because i knew someone would bring that up. No, HoT was for many unplayable even upon start (simply could not enter HoT). I call that extremely buggy.
Also… new systems, really? They have reworked their systems several times before in so-called feature patches. Just think about removal of glory from PvP, the addition of the wardrobe, and so on.
Maps, cool… we received 4 new maps, we also received 4 new maps during those living story updates, not counting changes to already existing maps (like Kessex).
WvW maps, amazing but we received Edge of the Mists just so, with no expansion development.
They also made all the content for festivals back during the same time. Reworked Tequatl, made the marionette, the invasion of LA (hey, they actually remade the LA map a few times too), then us taking back LA, they made the triple trouble fight, somehow they managed to add all those fractals in a very short time (which they reworked a few times too), they made SAB (could be a stand-alone game even) just for an april fools gag.
They added more skins – even if to the gemstore – during that time than what we got now in this expansion thing.
Nope, not quite convinced that we received years worth of dev time with this.
You can not be convinced if you want, but none of the maps we received during the living story came out at once, with the exception of Edge of the Mists. They were staggered over months. And there were many months between releases of stuff. I mean Southsun came pretty soon after release and my guess it it was already being worked on before release anyway. On top of that it’s a smallish map, with only a small number of dynamic events. The Karka Queen was added later if you recall.
So that leaves three maps. One of those maps was as WvW and we know that took a year. Just the one map took a year according to Anet. So I don’t know how you can believe that four maps plus everything else took a few months. It’s not reasonable in my opinion.
People complained about the Living Story updates being a couple of hours of content too, so I would say it’s probably the same pace. It’s more likely to me that people don’t have a clue how long it takes to program stuff than that a company is paying people to sit around and do nothing.
So now the only thing about the expansion that took time is the map design? But sure, let’s see. There were 4 PvE maps because you might have forgotten the Labyrinthine Cliffs but i’m sure many have not.
We can of course keep putting content on a scale and measure it but it’s pretty obvious that the game lacks content and what is there is just not enough to keep people logging in even for the daily free chest.
I did forget about Labyrinthine Cliffs, but no one could possibly construe that as a full sized map. So if Southsun was a prelaunch thing (and I don’t really see how anyone could argue that it wasn’t) that leaves EoTM, Silverwastes and Dry Top, plus a sliver of a map with a couple of dynamic events. Anet has even created a few mini games over the years.
They created how many adventures though. Like them or not that’s content.
So over 3 years they created 3.5 maps to be generous and now you’re saying the created 4 maps, plus 2 guild maps, a new PvP map and the new WvW in a few months. There’s just no evidence to support that. Even if each of those maps only took a month to build and a month to test, that’s 2 months each, which is a year and four months.
Sorry we’re going to have to agree to disagree if you really think that these updated didn’t take time.
And that’s the problem. There’s simply not enough time to do everything. Other games tend to run into the same problems.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
I’ve even said that HoT was not any more polished than the LS1 updates exactly because i knew someone would bring that up. No, HoT was for many unplayable even upon start (simply could not enter HoT). I call that extremely buggy.
Also… new systems, really? They have reworked their systems several times before in so-called feature patches. Just think about removal of glory from PvP, the addition of the wardrobe, and so on.
Maps, cool… we received 4 new maps, we also received 4 new maps during those living story updates, not counting changes to already existing maps (like Kessex).
WvW maps, amazing but we received Edge of the Mists just so, with no expansion development.
They also made all the content for festivals back during the same time. Reworked Tequatl, made the marionette, the invasion of LA (hey, they actually remade the LA map a few times too), then us taking back LA, they made the triple trouble fight, somehow they managed to add all those fractals in a very short time (which they reworked a few times too), they made SAB (could be a stand-alone game even) just for an april fools gag.
They added more skins – even if to the gemstore – during that time than what we got now in this expansion thing.
Nope, not quite convinced that we received years worth of dev time with this.
You can not be convinced if you want, but none of the maps we received during the living story came out at once, with the exception of Edge of the Mists. They were staggered over months. And there were many months between releases of stuff. I mean Southsun came pretty soon after release and my guess it it was already being worked on before release anyway. On top of that it’s a smallish map, with only a small number of dynamic events. The Karka Queen was added later if you recall.
So that leaves three maps. One of those maps was as WvW and we know that took a year. Just the one map took a year according to Anet. So I don’t know how you can believe that four maps plus everything else took a few months. It’s not reasonable in my opinion.
People complained about the Living Story updates being a couple of hours of content too, so I would say it’s probably the same pace. It’s more likely to me that people don’t have a clue how long it takes to program stuff than that a company is paying people to sit around and do nothing.
@Vayene i remember ANet stating i think during the live introduction of HoT (or close to it) that the expansion has been in the works for 2 years? something like that. And they already had plans for it (as in the story and whatnot) since the game released. I might not be entirely right but i do clearly remember them saying it’s been in the works for more then 1 year.
It’s not quite what they said, but it’s close enough. I know that expansion, the stuff in it, is more than a year of development time. It’s obvious to me. There are people out there saying that HoT took 3 or 4 months to make.
The value of the expansion over all will be different to different people, but it will be sold at least partly on developer hours, not just the amount of content. Fair or unfair, that’s how businesses work. You have to pay for development time, so that becomes important.
Yes, there were things that didn’t come out on time. That’s obvious. But saying the staff is lazy and they used to be hard working is just not on, and it’s what someone here is saying.
What they actually had said originally was that they were working on projects in the background and they weren’t sure how they were going to deliver them, but I think it’s likely they’d originally planned to deliver stuff through a living story mechanism and a vocal portion of the playerbase demanded an expansion.
That’s certainly how I remember it anyway.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
We got at most a few months worth of developer time in this package. Or have you forgotten what they could do back before they became complacent?
Bi-weekly content updates during LS1, SAB, fractals, and so on. And no way was HoT more polished upon launch than those updates were.
First of all, I’m not sure how much development time we’ve had and you aren’t either. We do know that the living story stuff that was 2 week apart didn’t rewrite the entire game though. We didn’t really receive new systems.
We also received extremely buggy content that people complained about constantly. It wasn’t sustainable by any means. And that’s before they decided to do expansions.
Now they have a live update expansion policy. They’ve already said they’re working on their next expansion. Since expansions are now in the mix, I don’t know how long it’ll take to produce a living story but we do know it took four months before. So yes, this a lot more than 4 months development time. Even if you say 4 maps isn’t enough, you’re not including 2 guild hall maps, a WvW map (like it or not it took development time), and a new PvP type as well as the rewriting the basic premise of the game.
I think a few months development time isn’t just optimistic. I think it’s completely unreasonable. I think that if each of these new maps took a 3-4 months to develop and populate, then the maps alone took a year.
Even if they only took 2 months each and I find that really hard to believe, that’s 8 months of just the maps with nothing else.
No, I find your estimation of the amount of time this kind of stuff takes to be unrealistic.
Did anyone bother to read the OP?
Is it just automatic now to hijack a thread to insert whatever you believe personally, regardless of what the topic is?Hot gated Exploration
Very clearly portrayed.
You may be totally used to circumventing the masses of vines blocking access to many areas. Remember when it was new? Did you try to accomplish as much as possible without help? That’s the difference.
You might feel thrilled or empowered by getting your achievements done in a zerg.
Some players eventually want actual individual accomplishment.
Hot goes a long way towards discouraging that.
Chants of “do it with your guild” are as pointless as “help with maps” to an individual trying to explore.
Actually help with maps is not pointless to an individual trying to explore. They’re pointless to an individual trying to explore and playing an MMO as a single player game. This isn’t a single player game. You’re in enemy territory. You’re fighting a newly awakened elder dragon and if you could solo everything, it would be a big letdown to some people.
Yes, there are times the community needs to come together to do stuff, including the Karka Queen, Temples in Orr and Triple Trouble.
There are some very hard champs in Orr that regularly block skill points. People simply waited until they were done to get them. Maybe a thief stealthed up to it, but that’s one profession.
This is an MMO and it’s not really based on your single person achievement. You can’t stop someone from joining you in the open world anyway. If you are arguing that this game is gated by having people around, yeah, it’s gated by having people around.
Because as an MMO, that’s acceptable.
That’s particularly true because of how small a percentage of things are actually gated by that.
Solo players can play MMOs as much as they want. But the game should not be designed strictly around their needs. There’s plenty of stuff you can solo in this game.
I will say this in defense of A-Net. The new maps are very in depth. It probably took a lot more time to make each than any other map in old Tyria. However, I am of the crowd that feel we didn’t get enough bang for our buck, considering how good the original game was with content. Let’s say this is equal to 8 maps of old content. Well kitten , the development time for the engine and textures must of been a lot longer on the original. And yet it was the same price. Where are the hundreds of skins? Where is the almost endless exploration. (I mean map completion takes a lot longer than the new content – minus grinding guild halls with too few members, that takes longer)
Expansion let me down, but the game is still good in many ways, but I feel it’s overall value has diminished.
The expansion rewrote a lot of the core game. Specializations and masteries took developer time to design. It’s not all just zones that goes into an expansion. Story takes time to design and the way it was laid out this time, they used a different system than telling the story than previously. It all takes development time.
From your point of view it’s just content, but adding a new weapon to every single profession, that’s design time too.
The bottom line is, whether people like it or not, we got a couple of years worth of development time in this package. Anet said early on it would be lighter on content and more on the features that will take the game into the future.
People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but just as often people aren’t listening.
I play casually…like 2-3h/day…maybe more in the weekend. I finished what i consider 90% of what HoT has to offer.
Almost all achievements, got to 161 (no spiderfarm), raids are too elitist for me to have fun in..maybe will do a run sometime later. I also finished all adventures except 1-2 golds (like the floor is lava or something, and shooting range). I fully finished the story and all it’s achievements except the part where u have to not be hit by the dude at the end while flying…because anet decided u need to redo hours of questline just to get to that point, and they also thought it would be fun.
Have all masteries, all weapons except 2 i think for all classes. Finished maps with multiple characters. I skipped legendaries because i can’t work for something that looks worst or at the same level as black lion skins i am sorry.
WvW…..i played 1-2 days to see what’s up with the new maps (and i add here i loved wvw and played it almost exclusively up until i got bored at most 1y ago). I won’t comment on the new maps because i feel like someone actually tried his best to do something cool…i don’t want to insult him more then the map itself does.
So…yea i did all this……..
……………………………….in the first month. MAYBE 2 weeks into the second month.
Since then i just do dailies and log off..just like i did before the expansion.
I don’t see how ppl can’t finish “most” of hot has to offer in more then 1 month. Some players just don’t know how to be efficient i guess. I can’t play inefficient just to lie to myself i am having a great time. Or do you expect me to farm 100 meta events for Tarir and come here and pretend i am having fun? Like most people i see do nowadays.
This expansion is a wreck. Each time i see someone take up his white mantle to say “oh there’s tons of stuff to do!” it just makes me puke. It’s at best an overglorified, not to mention overpriced, DLC.
Whatever they might release after this, i personally will not buy. It is the last product i buy for this mmo.
Or people don’t play for efficiency. I’m willing to wager most people don’t. I don’t have everything in HoT done, though I have most of it. But I don’t focus on a task like a pitbull and do nothing else.
I play the entire game, including some fractals, some dungeon runs, and then jump in do some HoT stuff.
I’ve never seen an MMO expansion that people can’t do most of the content in in one month.
Hmm… reading what Manasa Devi says got me thinking. I actually do agree. I mean I love exploring and I have 12 characters to play with and none of them have gotten 100% except on VB, it is not that I don’t like the maps it is that with my playstyle I am not aiming to explore stuff I explore when I get there. This way I haven’t completed the maps as it has been locked when I have been there and well someday I will be there in the right time but I would rather it would always be open so I could explore.
VB is always open. There’s never a time you can’t get it completed, if you have masteries unlocked anyway. I can complete VB at any time of day.
Be glad to take you around if you’re on a US server.
But the clock decides what you can and can’t play, which is what the OP was talking about. Your happy happy joy joy platitudes don’t change that.
Actually there’s very little time when you can’t play something. Today I got on and the TD meta was coming up so I did that. The DS meta was almost immediately following that so I did that.
But when nothing is going on, I can still farm the zones, and get currency from doing events, from killing stuff. I’m in no rush.
I never worry much about timers.