Next Expansion, no leaks please, at least nothing that pretty much reveals all the sweets like PoF

I don't know how so much got out for PoF, but I want to have a majority of the "treats" to be like presents, and sure I can open "one" the night before and rattle the others. Still I want to "explore" and be excited, even anguished that I "don't know". I am not part of the "loves spoilers" generation so I may be alone.

Um, are you addressing this to the player-base as a whole? Because, it sure wasn't ArenaNet's desire to have PoF content leaked.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Um, are you addressing this to the player-base as a whole? Because, it sure wasn't ArenaNet's desire to have PoF content leaked.

First line says I don't know how it got out. I am addressing the world.

Actually I really enjoyed knowing. Although we didn’t know if it was really true anyway. Right now it bothers me a lot that there are zero clues for the next expansion, but I guess it’s fine because there are more episodes

Spoiler alert:

Dumbledore dies in the end.

@Drecien.4508 said:Spoiler alert:

Dumbledore dies in the end.

No, Dumbledore was already dead. He didn't know it, though, because Harry could see ghosts.

... anyway... I'm sure ANet will try to patch some of those leaks before the next expansion hits.

Like they did in the lake doric dam? Hahaha

Not a big deal to me one way or the other...but all else equal, I'd prefer to know earlier rather than later.

Best of luck with your request. If some player does decide to leak information, the best you can do is not read/look/listen to it.

Heres food for thought..... how can one make a well informed purchase if nothing about the expansion is known? This is just ONE of multiple things that creates a catch 22 problem of where enjoyment can be derived from ignorance.

The game play and arguably the premise of the story should NOT be considered Spoiler territory, because they're too important to knowing from the outside if something is worth investing into. The fun should instead be from the experience of playing game, and what plays with the story context as its goes. If we end up depending too much on "surprises" to keep things fresh, we'll just end up with more crappy "jump scare" style plot twists and contrived "mechanics" for the sake of mechanics to fill in where the story falls down.

I'm quite active on the wiki, which means information flies past my eyes all the time. Yet it was not hard at all for me to avoid every spoiler for PoF, including features and story-line. I'm still being shocked and amazed as I'm working through the last Living World release (yes, I'm slow).

You control where you wander and how deep you dig.

Don't worry man, the entire playerbase + the employers that end up leaking stuff will all stop thanks to you.

The leaks were not spoilers. Anet would have announced the leaked features prior to release anyway. Even the one surprise that was not announced wasn't present in the leaks either.

@"starlinvf.1358" said:Heres food for thought..... how can one make a well informed purchase if nothing about the expansion is known? This is just ONE of multiple things that creates a catch 22 problem of where enjoyment can be derived from ignorance.

The game play and arguably the premise of the story should NOT be considered Spoiler territory, because they're too important to knowing from the outside if something is worth investing into. The fun should instead be from the experience of playing game, and what plays with the story context as its goes. If we end up depending too much on "surprises" to keep things fresh, we'll just end up with more crappy "jump scare" style plot twists and contrived "mechanics" for the sake of mechanics to fill in where the story falls down.

The problem is leaks don't necessarily give an accurate picture of what we're going to get. It's stuff revealed during development - meaning before it's finished - by someone with a limited view of the whole plan. So they may leak things which are going to be changed drastically, or completely removed, before the final release. It's like letting Peter Molyneux run the promotion - you get what that one person wants the game to be like, not what it's actually going to be.

And that's if they're real leaks. There's also the chance that it's fake leaks someone invented to tease people or for attention or....I don't actually understand why anyone would do this.

But either way Anet seem to have fixed whatever caused the problem during PoF development. Possibly it was just one person doing it and that person is now gone, but whatever the reason we haven't had any leaks that I'm aware of since PoF.

Completely disagree. I rather even have anet leak some information or let us know what direction we will go. It’s not fun at all to not get any information whatsoever about the next expansion. How about they create some hype with simply saying next expansion we will go to Cantha or to the Charr Homelands or w/e. Something to look forward to or be excited about… It’s not like revealing some things will cause you anything. It’s the other way around it excites ppl and creates hype which would be healthy for the game.

I do want to know about the next elite specs and their weapons so I can be prepared and make informed decisions about whether I want to play them or not.

@"Nash.3974" said:Completely disagree. I rather even have anet leak some information or let us know what direction we will go. It’s not fun at all to not get any information whatsoever about the next expansion. How about they create some hype with simply saying next expansion we will go to Cantha or to the Charr Homelands or w/e. Something to look forward to or be excited about… It’s not like revealing some things will cause you anything. It’s the other way around it excites ppl and creates hype which would be healthy for the game.

What are you disagreeing with? I said that "I can open "one" the night before and rattle the others." So I don't mind some hype. This last "release" wasn't hype.

What happened with PoF was all the mounts, all the maps, all the elites with trait lines, some of the "things and people" we will see. The size of the release felt like the amount of information you might get if you just skipped over reading the plot synopsis after coming up to the game a few months after release.

It didn't "hype" me up. I got more of a "ugh" feeling.

Does anyone remember how they slowly revealed the professions before game launch? That felt like hyping it up to me, and of course mesmer was last but we all knew it was gonna be in the game.

Do they get people to "beta test" the expansions? I am flabbergasted as to how a player got this level of information, but I can't eliminate the possibility because crazier things have happened.

I love spoilers regardless of any such "generation" nonsense. Rather, I hope every single minute detail is leaked. Leak the names of every single NPC. I will eat it up!

@"Edelweiss.4261" said:"generation" nonsense.

yeah no such thing as generational gaps, lol. let us know when you come back to earth, we will have some more spoilers for you when you get back.

I get the impression some people are confusing leaks and announcements. Anything official is not a leak - whether that's someone on stage at a convention talking about it, trailers, interviews, blog posts, images on Anet's Twitter...if it's from Anet it's not a leak. So no leaks doesn't mean we wouldn't know anything about the expansion until it's released, it just means Anet get to decide what is announced and when.

The 'downside' to that is they will present everything positively, which leads to things like people getting convinced that every single profession, skill etc. announced (in any game, not just GW2) is going to be over-powered and dominate everything else, because the reveal is designed to make it look good. But the advantage is we can be reasonably sure if something is announced it will actually be in the expansion and will work pretty much as we've been shown. Whereas with leaks we have no way of knowing if what we're being shown is an old version that was scrapped or even if it's even real to begin with.

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:Do they get people to "beta test" the expansions? I am flabbergasted as to how a player got this level of information, but I can't eliminate the possibility because crazier things have happened.

They've had beta tests for the base game, HoT and PoF but they're all restricted. The base game ones if I remember correctly limited you to level 30, to what's now the first 2 chapters of the personal story and to the level 1-15 and 15-25 maps). The HoT and PoF betas restricted players to part of the first map and some items were hidden - for example some events would reward you with an item called ??? where the description was just 'Coming soon', then in the final version these are replaced with new crafting materials or whatever. So no one gets to see absolutely everything.

They have sometimes also had 'focus groups' of players who get invited to test different things. For example when they were first developing raids they asked some guilds to play test them, and I think they've done the same for WvW. When they were revamping the 'new player experience' they got groups of people who had quit very early on and people who didn't play GW2 to try it and give feedback. There used to be a page on the Anet website (www.arena.net, not the GW2 one) where you could sign up to be considered for future play tests but it seems to have disappointed at some point.

I assume all those tests are done under a non-disclosure agreement, but I also assume that's where at least some leaks have come from. Others could be from Anet employees - either people who just couldn't wait to share new stuff and thought they'd get away with it or people who were being fired/not having their contracts renewed and wanted to get back at Anet by stealing their thunder.

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Nash.3974" said:Completely disagree. I rather even have anet leak some information or let us know what direction we will go. It’s not fun at all to not get any information whatsoever about the next expansion. How about they create some hype with simply saying next expansion we will go to Cantha or to the Charr Homelands or w/e. Something to look forward to or be excited about… It’s not like revealing some things will cause you anything. It’s the other way around it excites ppl and creates hype which would be healthy for the game.

I disagree with the title of the thread. I want leaks.Also lol we actually did get to beta test the expansions. Especially pof we even were able to test out the raptor and elite specs…I agree though they should do it similar to how they presented the elite specs of hot every once in a while they revealed a new one which build up a nice hype.

@Nash.3974 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Nash.3974 said:Completely disagree. I rather even have anet leak some information or let us know what direction we will go. It’s not fun at all to not get any information whatsoever about the next expansion. How about they create some hype with simply saying next expansion we will go to Cantha or to the Charr Homelands or w/e. Something to look forward to or be excited about… It’s not like revealing some things will cause you anything. It’s the other way around it excites ppl and creates hype which would be healthy for the game.

Ah, ok. I remember the trial weekend, but I was wondering if any "focus groups" or something like that beforehand. But Danikat, a post above yours explained some scenarios I had not considered. Also this: I agree though they should do it similar to how they presented the elite specs of hot every once in a while they revealed a new one which build up a nice hype. 100%

@"Danikat.8537" said:I get the impression some people are confusing leaks and announcements. Anything official is not a leak - whether that's someone on stage at a convention talking about it, trailers, interviews, blog posts, images on Anet's Twitter...if it's from Anet it's not a leak. So no leaks doesn't mean we wouldn't know anything about the expansion until it's released, it just means Anet get to decide what is announced and when.

Also, I enjoy official announcements and official hype. I am looking forward to Smash Ultimate and am really enjoying how they are going about detailing it (even "clues" in the creator twitter feed). We don't know much the potential story mode yet, but I feel like this is a "enjoyable" way to hype of the game.

But, I also acknowledge that there are those who want everything, and it doesn't matter where it came from.

But I agree with Danikat, leaks=/=official announcements (at least that's what I am understanding)

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Um, are you addressing this to the player-base as a whole? Because, it sure wasn't ArenaNet's desire to have PoF content leaked.

@lokh.2695 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Um, are you addressing this to the player-base as a whole? Because, it sure wasn't ArenaNet's desire to have PoF content leaked.

Ah, so if that's really how you feel why even post on the forums or join the discussion? I am part of "the world", but I'll be kind enough as an individual to let you know that I don't value your input, but please feel free to continue on as that is your right.

I think we have got a while before we need to worry - that is IF we are getting a new expansion since HoT was trashed and istan farming is killing it.We still have a few more season 4's to get past yet.zzzz