Do you still play GW2 regularly?

[Svifnymr]

Yes the game was "fine" for many of us without raids but you have to remember the reason they implemented them was no raids was a huge complaint about the game. It isn't as if Colin woke-up one morning and was all "hey we should add raids for no reason what so ever". The demand is and was there and we shouldn't pretend it isn't.

I do wonder how many of the "we need raids!" folks were just people leaving the game anyway. I'm sure there's a good bit of participation in the raids, but at the same time how does a raid generate actual $ for Anet?

The pace of the first few Season 1 updates was awful... but that's not what I was referring specifically when I said it was disjointed. I was referring to the storytelling.

Yeah, I used "random" to describe both early release schedule and the story telling. It just doesn't feel as "negative" to me as "disjointed", but I think we both agree.

It's just far less cohesive then what we got with Season 2.

The instancing was fun, but the real "innovation" was changing cutscenes to actual conversations with in game models and stuff.

And do agree with you about the boss battles in Season 2 which looking back I think probably had a lot to do with them switching to adding new zones with the Story and having most of the actual story take place in an instance, rather than adding new things to existing zones. I'm hopeful they'll remember lessons learned from that thought and the boss parts of the season will be better.

I can't bring myself to finish the HoT story again, that last instance is just anti-fun, totally ruins the experience. Granted the experience wasn't so super-duper anyway, but it had some fun parts. Really disappointed in Rata Novus overall.

though I am surprised more people aren't more annoyed at 70 devs being devoted to the next expansion with 30 going between live and the next expansion then they are that the raids team exists Of course I am wandering off in stream of contentiousness stuff now

I do consider the nextpac a drain, especially since the current one flopped so much that there's a lot of folks that'll be leery of the next.

[Arlee]

[QUOTE=Svifnymr;41261998]I do wonder how many of the "we need raids!" folks were just people leaving the game anyway. I'm sure there's a good bit of participation in the raids, but at the same time how does a raid generate actual $ for Anet?[quote]

Raids give people who wanted lager than five man things but smaller than the open world things to do. Which keeps those people engaged and engaged players are more likely to be willing to spend money Of course the longer the raids stay stagnant things will fall off. People will only be content to kill the same bosses over and over for so long. It's basically the same issue with everything else. One thing I'm sure they'll look at is the rate of people making the precursor armor and then converting that into legendary armor. That'll probably be a good indicator of how much people are buying into it, even aside from just raw numbers of people who raid.

The instancing was fun, but the real "innovation" was changing cutscenes to actual conversations with in game models and stuff.

I have mixed feelings about the convos in the new form. On the one hand it's nice to have them happen in the world, flows better but it's also easier to miss things because I am easily distractable >< I also really enjoyed the "artyness" of convos before. With the two characters talking and stuff behind. It had a unique feel to it I really liked. Though I also get why people didn't like that.

I can't bring myself to finish the HoT story again, that last instance is just anti-fun, totally ruins the experience. Granted the experience wasn't so super-duper anyway, but it had some fun parts. Really disappointed in Rata Novus overall.

I do consider the nextpac a drain, especially since the current one flopped so much that there's a lot of folks that'll be leery of the next.

I love the idea of what the last instance is. The concept of the fight is pretty neat and the base mechanics are a lot of fun. I also like the fact if you die you can't just get rezzed and rejoin the fight, it helps to decrease the fight being trivialized by doing it with more people. Sadly things just don't always seem to work correctly in it and that's frustrating. Also having to go back and do the dialogue again before you can get back in the fight is awful

It'll be interesting to see what they do with the next xpac and what people interpret at "lessons learned". If they stick with their original plan the xpac will be lighter on features and heavier on actual content. Which would also be interesting to see how people react if they do that. I've already seen some people say if the xpac isn't jam packed with features they won't buy it, which again just seems odd to me... considering the current lack of content.

[Kelimbror]

I've already seen some people say if the xpac isn't jam packed with features they won't buy it, which again just seems odd to me... considering the current lack of content.

Most expansions combine both. Take masteries. Both a feature and content. It allowed for a different way to experience content, providing a little opportunity for newness in old content and a good platform for the new content. People may feel the same by WoW's new transmog wardrobe in Legion. It adds an easier way to collect these items, so now it's a higher demand to do that content to the fullest extent.

I can't think of too many MMO's who release proper expansions that don't add features in tandem, so it would just be out of line to focus on only one or the other. I guess it's subjective what 'light' means for either category, b/c I see new classes as both content and features as well. SAB, same. I think the core principle is people don't just want more of the same with a different setting, but they want a different setting with new buttons to push for new reasons. To me that's the most basic way to represent content/features as a package.

[Arlee]

Most expansions combine both. Take masteries. Both a feature and content. It allowed for a different way to experience content, providing a little opportunity for newness in old content and a good platform for the new content. People may feel the same by WoW's new transmog wardrobe in Legion. It adds an easier way to collect these items, so now it's a higher demand to do that content to the fullest extent.

I can't think of too many MMO's who release proper expansions that don't add features in tandem, so it would just be out of line to focus on only one or the other. I guess it's subjective what 'light' means for either category, b/c I see new classes as both content and features as well. SAB, same. I think the core principle is people don't just want more of the same with a different setting, but they want a different setting with new buttons to push for new reasons. To me that's the most basic way to represent content/features as a package.

MO's already confirmed new Elite Specs will be with the expansion, additionally it's probably safe to assume we'll also get new masteries (though we also get those outside of expansions too)... I feel like there's a third thing which is pretty obvious will come with an expansion but I can't think of it atm >< Anywho, I also would expect there to be some systems updates and maybe a few other features as well... but the bulk of stuff "should" be new content more than tons of features...

[Kelimbror]

MO's already confirmed new Elite Specs will be with the expansion, additionally it's probably safe to assume we'll also get new masteries (though we also get those outside of expansions too)... I feel like there's a third thing which is pretty obvious will come with an expansion but I can't think of it atm >< Anywho, I also would expect there to be some systems updates and maybe a few other features as well... but the bulk of stuff "should" be new content more than tons of features...

Indeed. What you listed seems appropriate to me. I'm not sure what else people would be looking for, though I do think one new style of content wouldn't be amiss. As a solo player I've often felt there's not much to the game, though what is there is fun. I think part of me misses the old style dailies and weeklies that would get me out there doing all the different content. Now it feels less rewarding to do those things.

I mean, if I could take the PVP progression system and put it into the PVE solo style game I would be pretty happy. Like I select a reward track for *awesome faerie gear, loot, and backpack" and then I can pick and choose between doing a few jumping puzzles, a few trains, a few crafts and turn ins, etc....that would be pretty satisfying to me. Right now if I log on, I feel like I'm just mucking about enjoying the gameplay for no rewards. That's cool and everything, but it's also one of the reasons I'm not glued to the game nonstop.

Plus, lack of living story makes for sad pandas.

[Arlee]

http://orig04.deviantart.net/bb04/f/...ko-d49gduw.jpg

I mean... Colin teased topics which might be addressed in the next Living Story back in January! And some of them I hadn't even thought of. Like how the Black Citadel will react to Rytlocks new abilities... I mean obviously there's issues there for him he's randomly using magic and apparently dead ghosts are talking to him... include the ghost of a human and a demon. QQ

[Svifnymr]

Raids give people who wanted lager than five man things but smaller than the open world things to do. Which keeps those people engaged and engaged players are more likely to be willing to spend money

Sure, but SAB was retooled since it didn't link to gem sales originally, right? So what link to gem store do the raids have? (And I'm not sure if they do or not, actually!)

I have mixed feelings about the convos in the new form. On the one hand it's nice to have them happen in the world, flows better but it's also easier to miss things because I am easily distractable >< I also really enjoyed the "artyness" of convos before. With the two characters talking and stuff behind. It had a unique feel to it I really liked. Though I also get why people didn't like that.

I was fine with original cutscenes when it was the main races, other races were comedically bad. (Ogre's, Grawl...) Then they went to dialogue click throughs for so much stuff, ugh. I do know what you mean about missing dialogue though, but since I'm at like 15 characters right now, I'll usually get stuff on the next run anyway. :-p

But my main complaint is the lack of saved progress, coupled with the length of some of their instances.

I love the idea of what the last instance is. The concept of the fight is pretty neat and the base mechanics are a lot of fun.

Using a mechanic is fine, but when they repeat the same mechanic for 10 minutes or whatever, it's just so tedious for me.

I've already seen some people say if the xpac isn't jam packed with features they won't buy it, which again just seems odd to me... considering the current lack of content.

The thing is, a lot of folks bought HoT under the WoW-expac assumption, coupled with Living Story being the status quo. We didn't get that (yet), so if the expac is going to be the ONLY content, it better be worth the money alone.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean... Colin teased topics which might be addressed in the next Living Story back in January! And some of them I hadn't even thought of. Like how the Black Citadel will react to Rytlocks new abilities... I mean obviously there's issues there for him he's randomly using magic and apparently dead ghosts are talking to him... include the ghost of a human and a demon. QQ

Ugh, don't mention Revenants and Story in the same discussion. Such a dropped ball. I like Rev's well enough, but your character revenant is just not mentioned in any way. Rytlock bops in with 'new magic" and it's this almost big thing! Except it's not, just don't talk about it, lets go rescue folks.

[Arlee]

Wow that panda pic was much bigger than I thought it was ><

And yea those are all relevant points. Especially with the Rev things. I remember doing the story on my Rev and why Rox was all "wow I've never seen that kind of magic before" I replied "Fuck you Rox, I've been using that magic this whole freaking time QQ". That was definitely a dropped ball

[Deleted]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...d-Season-Three

It's something at least

[Edge-]

I enjoy the "VOICED DIALOGUE IS HARD!" bit at the start.

Moving to bi-monthly updates will be nice, these quarterly ones have thus far been painfully underwhelming, so maybe they'll be a bit less underwhelming if they're more frequent.

Drawing a comparison to the content/systems released in 2013, which so far utterly dwarfs everything released since HoT launched, not a great idea. I get that bi-weekly updates takes a toll and isn't really sustainable if you want to keep employees from totally burning out and that larger updates released less frequently is beneficial, but they need to actually deliver something in those updates, something they've barely done.

I'm still ludicrously skeptical of their promises at this point given how many have been either flat out broken or how many they've had to dance around on with HoT. If they can get to a steady bi monthly/quarterly update cycle that actually delivers solid updates including both content (that's not fucking raid wings) and changes, then I'll happily jump back in and throw some money their way. But so far they've failed spectacularly to do so, and we instead have another wonderful "We're sorry" letter and more promises.

[Arlee]

Yea... I really wish they would get someone else to fill the Game Director role because MO really doesn't come off as a good communicator at all Yay for getting a chapter, wish there was more coming faster but it's probably better they didn't make use wait for LS3 to be entirely ready... a steady content flow would be awesome though. I'm really happy we got confirmation that LS3 will unlock for people if they log in during it even if they don't own HoT (wouldn't be able to actually play until after they buy HoT though). That was a really smart move on their part.

[mathewhayden]

I have played since launch, and I still find new things. All though I have only logged around 1300 hours (around 1 1/2 a day). Such is life having a job, and kids.

[Lotus Victoria]

I have played since launch, and I still find new things. All though I have only logged around 1300 hours (around 1 1/2 a day). Such is life having a job, and kids.

I still need to finish all Jumping Puzzles. But my PC broke =C