Whats the plan, boss? (regarding lw and expansions)

[zealex.9410]

^-- (context)

 

We now know that right after Lw S4 we will be going into S5 (1+years into pof)

 

So with that in mind abit more context would be apreciated, like, are you guys planning on moving away from the 2 year schedule for expansions? Are there gonna be more expansions? Are S4 and 5 gonna be smaller than all previous seasons?

 

Some info on these subjects would be really nice.

 

Also, big gratz on the 6th anniversary for the game.

[Talindra.4958]

You asking for leak information right.. I want to know too!!! :P

[zealex.9410]

> @"Talindra.4958" said:

> You asking for leak information right.. I want to know too!!! :P

 

i mean xD if they have changed how they will aproach lw and expansions both in terms of schedule and format it would he good for the players to know.

[Talindra.4958]

I think so too.. we are so waiting in anticipation for what is lining up and what's the plan etc

I think they are working "very hard" in ls, raids, new wvw.. but when are they coming available? And which one first...tell us and :p we will keep it secret.

 

[Fenom.9457]

Right now, I only need one thing answered: Expansions are still happening, right? Just maybe more than one LS in between?

[Lavith.8930]

I Just want to get out of this desert... An expansion would have mean for sure we were moving away. But now i just feel we're stuck for the next two years with the same assets ... In season 3 we were moving from jungle to Volcanos to snow mountains. Now we're just in the desert, episode 2 feel a bit cooling me but i really want to move far really far from Elona !

[Kelly.7019]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

>

^-- (context)

>

> We now know that right after Lw S4 we will be going into S5 (1+years into pof)

>

> So with that in mind abit more context would be apreciated, like, are you guys planning on moving away from the 2 year schedule for expansions? Are there gonna be more expansions? Are S4 and 5 gonna be smaller than all previous seasons?

>

> Some info on these subjects would be really nice.

>

> Also, big gratz on the 6th anniversary for the game.

 

Why is it that the first time i'm seeing this is here on the forums? was there a link from our log in screen to this video?

[Kelly.7019]

> @"Talindra.4958" said:

> I think so too.. we are so waiting in anticipation for what is lining up and what's the plan etc

> I think they are working "very hard" in ls, raids, new wvw.. but when are they coming available? And which one first...tell us and :p we will keep it secret.

>

 

that's all there working hard in? time for a new game. 2 of my least favorite things are mentioned. In my favorite television show i'm not reaching for the remote to FFWD through it, soooo.... nopes. I want more exploration please. endgame content around this idea, you can even tie more lore into. add new maps with more secret hidden areas that aren't discovered in the first 2 days. rotating boss fights. sea caves- i mean this is one of the biggest things you could add since nobody is expecting water content, except its not really or wouldn't have to be. You enter through the water, maybe fight a champ if it sneak up on you from behind while swimming :D and then enter the cave (land) and explore under the map much like TD a whole nother level that could be hidden from the map. EXPLORATION!

[Kelly.7019]

> @"Lavith.8930" said:

> I Just want to get out of this desert... An expansion would have mean for sure we were moving away. But now i just feel we're stuck for the next two years with the same assets ... In season 3 we were moving from jungle to Volcanos to snow mountains. Now we're just in the desert, episode 2 feel a bit cooling me but i really want to move far really far from Elona !

 

if its going to be 2 more years the LW is most likely going to be much shorter then before and from what i've seen istan was/is amazing for farming. Kourna gaves us beeetles so there's that but i do hope, ok yer right meh.. desert. Kourna felt so rushed and does anyone go back to these maps really? (other then istan) but istan meta should have been a core pof map meta. But they still have a few episodes of season 4 left and shake things up and season 5 could be a whole new thing.

[Kelly.7019]

sun's refuge better not be instance personal housing where we can decorate. uhg. If you're going to do it instanced. Instanced village housing is the way to go. wait so what they are really saying is they want to go to a monthly sub fee in the future? Uh ohes.

[derd.6413]

> @"Kelly.7019" said:

> wait so what they are really saying is they want to go to a monthly sub fee in the future? Uh ohes.

 

no? At the end of the vid they literally say: "and all of this without a monthly subscription fee."

 

Where did you even get that idea?

 

[Raizel.8175]

The video is quite disappointing. Their LW-formula failed miserably and it seems that they don't even realize it. They should focus more on replayable content. Instead, they focus too much on gimmicky stuff (like player housing apparently, novelties, etc. pp.). I mean, the gimmicky stuff is fine and all, but the release rate of real content is just too slow, especially since content dies too fast. Sandswept Isles and Kourna are basically dead since these maps feature no replayability and are just additional AP to most players. They haven't even fixed Kournas Moon Fortress and its Meta-Event yet even though that should take absolute priority since it potentially could add replayability. Replayability is the main-problem of GW2 anyway. The famaous and lively maps are SW, VB, AB, TD and Istan due to large meta-events for replayability and since you can farm on these maps. World bosses are also ok. In that regard, I don't understand why we won't get decent new meta-events or world-bosses - stuff that feels like you're participating in some kind of main event - even Istan has problems in that regard since it's just a big zergfest and not really sophisticated game design. Why no new TT-style world-boss/meta-event hybrid? Wanting to create a good story is also fine and all, but the story should never be the main focus of a MMORPG - the actual gameplay should.

 

Fractals and raids are nice, but the problem is that they're just too niche due to various reasons, especially the lack of accessiblity. Fractals are somewhat ok in that regard, but raids definitely aren't. As cool as Hall of Chains is, the accessiblity to that wing just isn't present - at least not for Dhuum. I know that this is partly a community-problem, nonetheless game design is also at fault. ArenaNet really needs to do something about accessiblity to raid- and pref. also to fractal-content - that means not only decent balancing. As it is, a single raid-wing is worth more than most LW-maps combined since raid-wings deliver replayability. As a player who's interested in doing raids but can't get into the content and needs to stick to lifeless LW-maps, I'd be pissed.

 

Last but not least, releasing no new expansion after S4 is pretty stupid in my opinion. Due to the failure that Kourna was, the content-drought is already pretty strong. Either they rethink their LW-formula and the game-design around it or they should release the next expansion after S4.

 

 

[MauChann.3081]

There's a real spoiled vibe around this.

 

No expansion after ls4 is entirely logical.

Never in the history of gw2 did we have an expansion > living story > expansion.

 

No. Not even after HoT. Why? We had a year long of content drought that easily could have been filled up with a living story.

Conclusion: The amount of time to build up the story again for a new expansion is impossible to achieve within only 1 living story.

"But ls3 was enough to build up HoT" Yeah but don't you think storytellers and developers at anet need time to come up with ideas on how the story progresses further?

Do you think they had this entire story laid out already as soon core gw2 came out? I don't think so.

 

I agree the way the story went in kourna is not the way I would have gone at it either. But it was not a failure, it was absolutely no failure. Kourna in map size was about as big as a normal PoF map, Hell we even got a new mount. There is more than enough content there, just because it's been not up to your liking, or you haven't been able to figure out everything, does not mean there is a content drought. Imo there is never a content drought in this game currently like we had directly after HoT. Even if it's not PoF content, there is always something to do for you, take up some old achievements maybe you never got around to? Pick up a legendary journey and focus on that while you feel you need new content to move on.

 

I'm not going to talk about fractal-raid balances and new wings etc because that's seriously none of my interest. So I am not able to pull together a good opinion on that.

Besides all that, 2 employees got fired after kourna. One of them being a dialogwriter for the episodes in general, and the other being a dialogwriter for Canach especially.

Ofcourse there will be time needed to pick up all that again, and also with one of the villains basically gone from the story.

 

It's very easy to speculate where the story is going. The developers have said it in-story themselves, Killing dragons is no good, so we can't go after kralkatorrik and just kill that one off like we did with zhaitan and mordremoth. Joko is no longer an option. Just 3 episodes to give us an entire new region ( People hope for cantha and that's even more unlikely to be an expansion after just 3 episodes ). How would any of you lead us from where we are in the story now, to Cantha for example, within only 3 episodes, without making it feel rushed.

 

I feel like 9 episodes are entirely normal for this, I would prefer a good lead up to a new expansion, and have it be slow, than have the story be rushed into 3 episodes to then go on to a new expansion.

 

Besides why is it even a discussion, An expansion does not mean more content. Living story gives us story content, collections, achievements, occasional new fractals, new legendaries, new mounts, new maps, Basically everything that an expansion would give us (except elite spec classes) , but instead of putting it all together in one go, it's separated over time.

 

Slow and steady wins the race.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

I would like monthly sub fee, i get it that most ppl dont. Not asking one, just said what i think.

[Healix.5819]

ArenaNet likes to experiment, so they're probably just trying something different. Although the current implementation implies it, there doesn't have to be a full season prior to an expansion; maybe season 5 will serve as the prologue and epilogue of the next. They may simply want to take an extra year to polish things, considering they've been making short term solutions with long term problems. Maybe they're simply wanting a larger expansion with bigger features to advertise. It's safe to assume there will be another expansion at least, since it's the more profitable and realistic option.

[Orion Templar.4589]

I'm good with the direction they are going. I've enjoyed the living world releases, and like they said they are trying to include a variety of content types per release. But one thing I'd ask of them is look for ways to release new elite specializations as part of the living world cadence. They don't necessarily need to be tied to expansion releases.

[Agent Noun.7350]

> @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> I would like monthly sub fee, i get it that most ppl dont. Not asking one, just said what i think.

 

Real talk, I'd pay for a sub if it was optional like Elder Scrolls Online, especially if it meant that the consistent income that a subscription provides for ArenaNet helps smooth out budgetary concerns and content schedules. That said, I'm sure there's a good reason they haven't experimented with that model after so many other buy-to-play or free-to-play games have implemented optional subscriptions.

[maddoctor.2738]

Was there a 2-year schedule for expansions? I don't remember reading anything about it, so if anyone has a link for me to read where they said 2-years for an expansion.

[Carighan.6758]

> I would like monthly sub fee, i get it that most ppl dont. Not asking one, just said what i think.

 

Same. I can see - and understand - why plenty would be against it, but thinking back through all the MMORPGs I've played since EQ1 (and I never had a time where I didn't play some MMO) I feel I'd enjoy GW2 more with a subscription fee than the gemstore. Personally, of course.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Healix.5819" said:

> ArenaNet likes to experiment, so they're probably just trying something different. Although the current implementation implies it, there doesn't have to be a full season prior to an expansion; maybe season 5 will serve as the prologue and epilogue of the next. They may simply want to take an extra year to polish things, considering they've been making short term solutions with long term problems. Maybe they're simply wanting a larger expansion with bigger features to advertise. It's safe to assume there will be another expansion at least, since it's the more profitable and realistic option.

 

They dont really like to experiement, not any more. They are quite comfortabke with the format and they dont seem to be changing it. If they did we would have a more "Living" living world.

[zealex.9410]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> Was there a 2-year schedule for expansions? I don't remember reading anything about it, so if anyone has a link for me to read where they said 2-years for an expansion.

 

I could always be wrong about the 2 year schedule but its the generally accepted sweet spot to release an expansion.

 

Also i feel like the longer lw drags on the worse the game gets.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Agent Noun.7350" said:

> > @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > I would like monthly sub fee, i get it that most ppl dont. Not asking one, just said what i think.

>

> Real talk, I'd pay for a sub if it was optional like Elder Scrolls Online, especially if it meant that the consistent income that a subscription provides for ArenaNet helps smooth out budgetary concerns and content schedules. That said, I'm sure there's a good reason they haven't experimented with that model after so many other buy-to-play or free-to-play games have implemented optional subscriptions.

 

Tbh if you see how much content games like Eso and wow/ ff14 get from the sub fees it feels like anet is missing out on that market. ut its also their main advert the lack of sub fee. I assume the non subfee market is that big.

[MokahTGS.7850]

> @"Agent Noun.7350" said:

> > @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > I would like monthly sub fee, i get it that most ppl dont. Not asking one, just said what i think.

>

> Real talk, I'd pay for a sub if it was optional like Elder Scrolls Online, especially if it meant that the consistent income that a subscription provides for ArenaNet helps smooth out budgetary concerns and content schedules. That said, I'm sure there's a good reason they haven't experimented with that model after so many other buy-to-play or free-to-play games have implemented optional subscriptions.

 

The reason I play GW2 is because it's B2P. The reason I don't play ESO is because it's a subscription game masquerading as a F2P game.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > Was there a 2-year schedule for expansions? I don't remember reading anything about it, so if anyone has a link for me to read where they said 2-years for an expansion.

>

> I could always be wrong about the 2 year schedule but its the generally accepted sweet spot to release an expansion.

>

> Also i feel like the longer lw drags on the worse the game gets.

 

It took them 3 years to release their first one :)

[zealex.9410]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > Was there a 2-year schedule for expansions? I don't remember reading anything about it, so if anyone has a link for me to read where they said 2-years for an expansion.

> >

> > I could always be wrong about the 2 year schedule but its the generally accepted sweet spot to release an expansion.

> >

> > Also i feel like the longer lw drags on the worse the game gets.

>

> It took them 3 years to release their first one :)

 

It wasnt always the plan to get one out. And their ssecond came in 2 years :)