Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Kelesti]

I'm surprised you take developers words to heart in those cases Kelesti. Every game developer I've read from (all games, not just arenanet) has that dev "speak". Whenever a developer says an expansions worth of update, you take it with a grain of salt.

I sort of expected January to be small anyway due to the christmas and new years holidays.

Their January and February updates were both supposed to be huge, and were said as such. And I'm fine with a smaller update, if that's what they say "Hey, half of our staff is gone for now, so January's going to be small", you know, community gets it. Most of us aren't 6, we get it.

But the "January's going to be big and awesome and February's going to be big and awesome! .... oh but don't get your hopes up for January guys, it's actually going to be small" feels pretty blah.

And then you factor in small by who's standards? Ours? Or theirs?


When they started calling Sunshine Island as a "Mini-Expansion", and then calling this as an actual expansion's worth of stuff, I kinda laughed and then was talked down to by pretty loudmouthed individuals over here because I'm a hater and clearly don't know what I'm talking about.

[Deleted]

But January and February are actually are biggest updates to date. They’re even bigger than all the stuff we did in October, November and December. And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free.

http://gamingbolt.com/guild-wars-2-i...ng-post-launch
Keyword being content.

[Kelesti]

http://gamingbolt.com/guild-wars-2-i...ng-post-launch
Keyword being content.

Thank you for bringing this back up. I went looking and couldn't find that one.

[Valeron]

Well to be fair to you, Bov, it's much easier to post and comment about the negatives in life than the positives (just look at any news broadcasts).

[willowe]

Sorry, but you need to update your quoting.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post1136181

Hey guys,
Just to help provide some clarity on this, we’ll be releasing within the next couple of weeks a high level summary of our big plans for the first half of 2013 to help provide more transparency into our plans with the game going forward. This will include providing more details about our goals for the game, information about the stories and features that you’ll see in the Jan/Feb/March releases.
To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. In saying this will be an expansions worth of stuff in these releases, we’re talking about the number of new features that will be rolled out across PvE, WvW, and PvP in early 2013, which usually you’d only find in an expansion for a traditional MMORPG.
More details and specifics to come in the next couple of weeks, but I hope that helps provide some more insight into what to expect at a very high level

Post on the forums ~3 hours ago. Jan is a minor patch. Feb/March are the big ones.

[Kelesti]

I already posted that on the last page. >.>

[Maarius]

And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free.

just to bring this up again: did they actually say that the January Update would be big? I can only remember this statement, where Colin talked about both combined.

Colin also clarified today that they are talking about content in the old zones, so no new zones, professions or weapons.

[Beazy]

Sorry, but you need to update your quoting.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post1136181



Post on the forums ~3 hours ago. Jan is a minor patch. Feb/March are the big ones.

Right. . . . like the last "expansion sized" patch? They need to give us some end game PvE content. They have this epic engine and no content to enjoy. What the hell is going on at Anet. Why dont they do a dungeon pass and spruce all of them up like Fractals?! That could be FUN content worth doing! Why dont they make hundreds more jumping puzzles, those things are so much fun. The pirate one lions arch goes down as one of my coolest moments in videogame history when I discovered it! I feel like they are dropping the ball, and its like they are kicking it down court and not even trying to pick it back up.

And to add insult to injury, they insult every MMO players intelligence by saying "LULZ OUR PATCHES ARE XPACS" when they are nothing even remotely close to an expansion for any video game on the market, MMO or not. Jesus, Random New Call of Duty Game #23987135 has more content released 3 days after launch than the entirety of GW2 patches.

[Kelesti]

just to bring this up again: did they actually say that the January Update would be big? I can only remember this statement, where Colin talked about both combined.

Colin also clarified today that they are talking about content in the old zones, so no new zones, professions or weapons.

But January and February are actually are biggest updates to date

If January is included in that, and updates is plural, then it would lead you to believe that January is intended to be big as well. I'm not saying they're being intentionally misleading, I'm saying they overstepped like they've been doing a lot lately, and aren't following through on it. Reasons are irrelevant from our end.

[Exroyal]

I was kinda expecting that January and February would be one big patch released end of Feb..no?

[sacrypheyes]

all we know for sure (or most likely) is that january patch should be mainly pvp oriented with changes to wvw and spvp (new mode?).
i believe they also said it'd be the first wave of actual balance changes to skills or something like that.

[Crimsonfiend76]

I would say GW2 is probably the ultimate MMO for players that enjoy casual play, alts and merely trouncing about the game world.

The first Guild Wars games were fairly casual friendly. In the sequel Anet seemingly hit the sweet spot for the millions of players who enjoyed running around Booty Bay or collecting holiday presents on however many alts they desire.

It's a tailor made MMO for the largest segment of the "new" MMO audience. The people who enjoyed like Wrath of the Lich King and the like.

thanks for the review! was debating on where to take the time i usually spent in wow next, and was seriously considering gw2. not gonna bash any games, but ive just about played all the other major mmo's out there and came to the realization i needed something more casual than my ultra-casual raiding guild in wow. anyway, my only apprehension was some talk i had heard in general chat that lots of 'people' had already stopped playing and there was no new content coming down any time soon.

[Deleted]

Well, can you really blame kelesti though, i take what they say with a bucket of salt, but you dont promise 2 huge patches of content for Jan and Feb and than say it will be Feb and March. There is a reason why blizzard dosent announce the date of patches and this is one of them.

The PvP community is is extremely volatile they jump from a jump to the other if you promise them a huge wvw patch you have to deliver it imo, especially with juggernaughts like LoL, Dota and soon with Hots release.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 09:58 PM ----------

Right. . . . like the last "expansion sized" patch? They need to give us some end game PvE content. They have this epic engine and no content to enjoy. What the hell is going on at Anet. Why dont they do a dungeon pass and spruce all of them up like Fractals?! That could be FUN content worth doing! Why dont they make hundreds more jumping puzzles, those things are so much fun. The pirate one lions arch goes down as one of my coolest moments in videogame history when I discovered it! I feel like they are dropping the ball, and its like they are kicking it down court and not even trying to pick it back up.

And to add insult to injury, they insult every MMO players intelligence by saying "LULZ OUR PATCHES ARE XPACS" when they are nothing even remotely close to an expansion for any video game on the market, MMO or not. Jesus, Random New Call of Duty Game #23987135 has more content released 3 days after launch than the entirety of GW2 patches.

Point is does this random COD game content patch was free? (honest question since i dont play COD)

[Maarius]

about the culling problem something official:

Thank you, Grit, for posting that link. It points to a post in which I describe the culling issue in some detail and discuss a few of the issues involved with changing culling. An even more in depth explanation of what culling is can be found here https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...e/4#post356817 (be sure to read both that post and the next – my description exceeded the post size limit).


As you know we’ve been working on this problem for a while but what I think we haven’t ever said before is that our goal is to remove culling completely from WvW. In order to remove culling completely we have to address three issues:


1) Bandwidth out of our servers/datacenter (traffic would increase without culling)
2) Bandwidth in to each client (traffic to each client would also increase without culling)
3) Client performance issues related to rendering (potentially) all the players on a map at once. (Note that we base our performance requirements in this case on min-spec clients. We don’t want to stop anybody being able to play the game after all.)


Until all three of those issues have been dealt with we can’t turn culling off because doing so would cause something to break or perform poorly.
Ok, now let’s talk about what progress we’ve made!

Issue #1 was the easiest to deal with because we can basically just throw money at the problem. When we first started down the road toward removing culling from WvW I took a bunch of bandwidth measurements and then went to the executives and said, essentially, “Hey, if we disable culling our network traffic will increase by X%. Are we ok with that?”. The answer I got was a clear and unambiguous “yes!” So issue #1 isn’t a problem after all.


Issue #2 is a little harder. We need to ensure that folks with a min-spec network connection won’t be overwhelmed by the data we send them and we obviously can’t just buy a better connection for all of our players. So we put our heads together and came up with a plan to reduce the bandwidth required for WvW (and Gw2 in general) as much as possible. Those changes are in testing now and will be rolled out as soon as we’re convinced that they’re solid. Assuming we’re able to get everything working the way we’d like (and I’m fairly confident that we will) then this will address issue #2.


So that leaves us with issue #3: client performance. Some time ago the WvW team acquired an engine programmer who is focused 100% on this issue (and he is being assisted by another engine programmer who isn’t officially on the WvW team). They’re working on some really fantastic optimizations and engine modifications which we hope will allow even min-spec clients to render all the players on a WvW map. We’ll be talking in more detail about the specific changes they’re making when things get just a little more nailed down, but I can say right now that I’m very impressed with the work they’ve done already.


So that’s where we are. Engine programmers are working their magic even now and we’re testing the networking changes that will be required. I believe that our goal of removing culling from WvW is achievable and I’m looking forward to the day that I can announce to you all that we’ve pulled it off!

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post1137307

[Deleted]

Seems like first updates for January are mainly about cash shop.At least that's what i got from main page.
Taste of the " new content "

[Maarius]

Seems like first updates for January are mainly about cash shop.At least that's what i got from main page.
Taste of the " new content "

where did you get that nonsense?

The New Year is here, which means big savings at the Black Lion Trading Company from January 4-6!


To celebrate the dawn of a new year in Tyria, we’re chopping prices in the Gem Store for three days from January 4-6! During each day of the sale, we’ll feature three different items on sale at drastically reduced prices! All sales begin at 12 AM Pacific and last for 24 hours.

The cuts are so deep you’ll swear I took a greatsword to the prices!

They are only cutting prices (which is great if you haven't bought a character-slot or bag-space yet), that's not the new content.

[Crimsonfiend76]

Exactly.

I play(ed) WoW, AoC, SWtOR and Rift.

They (GW2) also cater to Altaholics, which I am horrible for being one. In WoW I have 9 characters at level 80 or higher, and all 11 classes at 70 or above. Problem is the 85-90 'grind' is so unbearably boring, and then I get to do a 'sea' of dailies?! Yeah there's the commendations, but I don't like dailies. Why do I want to kill the same mob(s) 25 days straight just because Varian hates the Horde? Booooring.

And yes, SWtOR's loading screens are horrible. Worst in MMOs, IMO. Though, I will admit, at the time i played i used an older, less-powerful laptop, and I've since upgraded. Problem is, I won't be going back to see how well my new computer does, as their 'free to play' model is the worst i've ever seen.

ive played (still kinda play) the above, and the fact that gw2 encourages or at least doesnt discourage alts is big plus in my book. going back old school to other rpgs like neverwinter nights and baldur's gate 1-2, icewind dale, etc., ive never been happy just playing one class, so as happy as i was initially w/MoP, the fact that its pretty much the most alt-unfriendly expac ever, (most of my guildies i used to raid with either stopped completely or rarely even make raids now), and dailycraft has taken its toll on my enjoyment of the game.

ironically i was planning on cancelling my swtor sub last week (been subbed or almost a year but havent logged in to play since august), but had a change of heart after playing a couple of my favorite classes. so for the time being i'll stay subbed til i finish all the class stories at least, but was thinking of picking up gw2 to play in place of wow since im sure at some point swtor will be down for maintenance...again

[Fencers]

Well to be fair to you, Bov, it's much easier to post and comment about the negatives in life than the positives (just look at any news broadcasts).

That's kinda not a super awesome point?

The news is, by it's nature, devoid of emotion. What emotion there is is on the part of the reader/viewer/audience. Audience comes from the latin for "to listen" or "to hear". To be accurate.

"One thousand people dead in massive earthquake! // Twenty-eight children murdered in shooting spree!" -- though one may see/hear as tragic or in the negative are nonetheless important news. Reporting of such isn't any harder or easier than, "One thousand hugs given out at the fell good center!".

The news is the news.

Or as Cronkite would say, "And that's the way it is."

[Deleted]

where did you get that nonsense?
They are only cutting prices (which is great if you haven't bought a character-slot or bag-space yet), that's not the new content.

You shouldn't take what i wrote that seriously and I am just pointing out that there is more changes to gem (cash) shop than there is new content over time.
And seriously what's with this weave of perma bans for mistake made by Anet?

[Valeron]

That's kinda not a super awesome point?

, "And that's the way it is."

Ok? It's a fact that people focus on the negative than the positive in every facet of life.