Bloodstone Fen is probably the best area that ANET has designed to the game (so far)

[Beazy]

That's how it's been if you missed the living story episode since season 2. They're free while they're "active", but once the next chapter is out the previous one goes into the store for purchase. So episode 6 is free right now, but episode 1-5 are only available in the store for folks who didn't unlock them while they were "new".

Seems like a fair compromise. I was wondering how the hell these guys kept the lights on, I knew it couldn't just be Lion Chest Keys.

[Tekkommo]

I for one am VERY glad that PoF will be taking us back to more traditional styles of maps.

That's good to hear, the HoT maps are a nightmare.

[Edge-]

Seems like a fair compromise. I was wondering how the hell these guys kept the lights on, I knew it couldn't just be Lion Chest Keys.

Cash shop in general, the episodes likely make them very little money given how long they're free for (roughly 3 months at a time) and how cheap they are to purchase (a few bucks). It's lockboxes and all the other cosmetic/convenience shit that's keeping their revenue up. I say "up", but it's still down compared to pre-HoT, Anet really needs to figure out a way to stop the steady downward trend of their quarterly earnings.

[Valeron]

Cash shop in general, the episodes likely make them very little money given how long they're free for (roughly 3 months at a time) and how cheap they are to purchase (a few bucks). It's lockboxes and all the other cosmetic/convenience shit that's keeping their revenue up. I say "up", but it's still down compared to pre-HoT, Anet really needs to figure out a way to stop the steady downward trend of their quarterly earnings.

Unless they really want to exploit the cash shop, I don't see anyway of halting a downward trend. The vast majority of their income has to be from their expansions. I hope they knock it out of the park with this next one.

[Edge-]

Unless they really want to exploit the cash shop, I don't see anyway of halting a downward trend. The vast majority of their income has to be from their expansions. I hope they knock it out of the park with this next one.

Eh, their problems are mostly self-made. They don't regularly stock the cash shop with enough stuff folks actually want to buy, and the bigger issue is just that HoT didn't sell super well and there was a clear drop in post-launch revenue as a result (it was turning around $22M pre-HoT during the yearlong content drought, after HoT it had pretty quickly declined to around $16M). They need to get much higher sellthrough to bring numbers back up, primarily. Expanding/improving cash shop offerings will totally help as well, but the biggest thing is they just need to move more units to give them a bigger audience to spend in the cash shop.

[Zephyr Storm]

Eh, their problems are mostly self-made. They don't regularly stock the cash shop with enough stuff folks actually want to buy, and the bigger issue is just that HoT didn't sell super well and there was a clear drop in post-launch revenue as a result (it was turning around $22M pre-HoT during the yearlong content drought, after HoT it had pretty quickly declined to around $16M). They need to get much higher sellthrough to bring numbers back up, primarily. Expanding/improving cash shop offerings will totally help as well, but the biggest thing is they just need to move more units to give them a bigger audience to spend in the cash shop.

It's like I always said before, I still feel like a huge part of their problem was the shift in philosophy and game design after the first few months following launch. They went back on a lot of things they said they wanted to do and ended up giving us Living Story Season 1 which I know a lot of people were not happy with (myself being one of them).

Anet just seemed to have lost direction with what they wanted the game to be at that point and I felt like it showed in what content was delivered and how it was delivered. To this day, I still feel like LWS1 was a convoluted mess of ideas and how they were delivered.

And then HoT didn't help them any either. It seems there were a lot more people who didn't like the ideas that Anet was wanting to introduce with HoT. And some of the people who stuck around for HoT then left shortly after launch because of how things were being handled. Call it anecdotal all you want, but when every single guild I was in at the launch of GW2 hasn't had any of their members log in since before or right after the HoT launch, that's very telling.

Hopefully, Anet gets things back on track for PoF. I'm willing to give them another chance based on what I've seen and heard so far. But if they drop the ball again, this will be it for me. They won't get another chance again.

[Sting]

Didnt buy HoT because vertical gameplay disgusts me so much. Might give PoF a try if I can completely ignore HoT content.

[Valeron]

Didnt buy HoT because vertical gameplay disgusts me so much. Might give PoF a try if I can completely ignore HoT content.

yes you can ignore HoT and go straight into PoF

[A Chozo]

I too liked the verticality in the jungle + patch zones. Reminded me of Metroid Prime.

[Zephyr Storm]

Didnt buy HoT because vertical gameplay disgusts me so much. Might give PoF a try if I can completely ignore HoT content.

I agree that all the verticality was really dumb. However, it's a shame to completely skip out on HoT entirely, because some of the elite specializations are good/fun to play. And some of the LWS3 maps were pretty decent to mess around in and earn ascended trinkets, rings, amulets, back pieces, and underwater breathers.

[Deleted]

I quite like the HoT maps, apart from Tangle Depths, I bet the same guy/people that made that map were the one(s) that made Black Citadel.
Heck, I hate Black Citadel more than I hate Tangle Depths.
Bloodstone Fen is cool, but from LS my favorite is Draconis Mons. The spiderman mechanic is a blast.

[Lotus Victoria]

I quite like the HoT maps, apart from Tangle Depths, I bet the same guy/people that made that map were the one(s) that made Black Citadel.
Heck, I hate Black Citadel more than I hate Tangle Depths.
Bloodstone Fen is cool, but from LS my favorite is Draconis Mons. The spiderman mechanic is a blast.

I hate BC as well, more than TD. How the fuck is someone supposed to live there? O_O