Regarding the "new technology" for faster LS releases

I dont even know how long ago this has been but there has been a statement that they had developed a new technology for LS seasons to be released faster.
Since then the release schedule hasnt really been any faster but as slow as before or even worse.
While I get the difficulties of deploying such a technology midseason and I expect it to be used during the next season at least a small update like with the current announcement would have been nice.
Any communication is better than none. Players just want to what is going on.

So. Is there anything?

Was it a new technology or was it a development process?

Whatever it was it seems like it isnt used as of now or something went horribly wrong.
In season 3 we had 5 episodes WITH upcoming release of expansion.
Now it is like nothing. No expansion for at least another year, release schedule somewhat down the drain.
It just feels like something somewhere went horrible wrong.

Do you remember where you saw this?

I know they've changed the schedule several times over the years but my understanding is that's "just" down to how many people are working on living story instead of other things and how much stuff they put into each release. I don't remember seeing anything about new technology being used to build them, but then it could have been in a guild chat video or something similar and then I'd have missed it.

I know there's often a lot of talk about the best programs to use for building different types of games and some developers like experimenting with different ones because I follow a a few people who work on games (mostly not Anet staff) on Twitter and there's often a lot of discussion about that. So it wouldn't surprise me if the programs they use to make GW2 have changed quite a few times over the years.

Like I said in the post above I cant nail it down if it was new technology or new work schedule.
Just that it should accelerate the releases of LS.
I get all the hassles of implementing new techniques or routines as I work in a kind of similar environment.
But just dropping that and then seeing the releases going down the drain is just sad.
I mean, they did a guildchat about how the game changed and what they had to change. Why not a bit of foreshadowing?
The release of statement about the current LS state was kind of ok, yet waiting until the last chance to drop a statement is kind of suboptimal. They got the release schedule done at least 2 weeks ago.
Why do wait until the last possible chance?
It is not like the content we got was overwhelming lately. Which is not good but also not that bad if Anet would just let out a bit of information.

Here is what Mike Z. said:

Hi everyone,

The Living World Team currently is hard at work preparing Episode 3 of Living World Season 4. We’re excited about how it’s shaping up, but wanted to give you a heads up that the release date will be a little outside our normal release cadence.

Our key focus while creating the Living World experience is the quality bar we’ve set for ourselves for each episode. With the amount of gameplay and breadth of content in Living World, we noticed that we had an opportunity to make some adjustments to how we approach developing each episode that will help us hit our quality standards more consistently. This logistical change has had some short-term “cost” in time, but will provide benefits to all Living World episodes moving forward.

We’ll be announcing Episode 3 as the date gets closer, and everyone on the team is looking forward to playing this new content with you!

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/41775/season-4-episode-3-is-on-the-horizon

Nothing about technology per se, nor anything about 'faster' releases. It addressed quality/benefits.

i dont like quick releases. Makes this game too dumped and makes old content obsolete too fast. Im fine with LS episodes comming even from 6 to 6 months if they wish to

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Here is what Mike Z. said:

Hi everyone,

The Living World Team currently is hard at work preparing Episode 3 of Living World Season 4. We’re excited about how it’s shaping up, but wanted to give you a heads up that the release date will be a little outside our normal release cadence.

Our key focus while creating the Living World experience is the quality bar we’ve set for ourselves for each episode. With the amount of gameplay and breadth of content in Living World, we noticed that we had an opportunity to make some adjustments to how we approach developing each episode that will help us hit our quality standards more consistently. This logistical change has had some short-term “cost” in time, but will provide benefits to all Living World episodes moving forward.

We’ll be announcing Episode 3 as the date gets closer, and everyone on the team is looking forward to playing this new content with you!

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/41775/season-4-episode-3-is-on-the-horizon

Nothing about technology per se, nor anything about 'faster' releases. It addressed quality/benefits.

This logistical change has had some short-term “cost” in time. This implies that the slow release was due to adjustments and should now be fixed. Still the episodes roll out as slow or even slower.

And old content not being relevant is not a problem of quick releases, it is a problem of lack of replayability. Exaclty the reason why PoF metas and maps are abandoned.

Yet HoT metas are still run day in, day out, each time they are up.

As well as statement for getting 2 raids/fractals a year. We had 1 raid and 1 fractal this year.

Again, IF they would communicate why they have trouble or what they are planning it would be totally ok. But leaving the community just in the dark guessing is not what you call customer management.

Who knows? Perhaps, their 'short-term' is longer than we expect.I'm not worried about the time between Living World Season releases. There's been other releases to occupy my time.

If they need 4 months or 5 between LS, that is ok, but say something about it.

Finally, we’ve used the 2-to-3-month release cadence to elevate the quality of everything we do.This was MO message mid '17 prior to PoF release. And this schedule was great. And the statement sounded like they will return to that.
A good chunk of the community is craving for some kind of new content related to story or any core game mode that there is. Just content (and sorry, 5 beetle races dont really cut that).
I get that Mike Z was appointed Game Director after PoF and with such an appointment restructuring of team assets, techniques etc. go within. So why not just release a statement about sth like that (if this was the case).
But many really crave for some insight into their plans etc right now.

It’s fake news.

For all we know releases could all be 4 to 5 months without that "new technology", but it's clear that as episodes and release features grow, the technical requirements also grow. Ep 3 being released far later just tipped off the "cycle", every other release was 3 months plus minus a week. Just useless kitten stirring to talk about this imo.

Like, seriously. Why do people act like it's been 4 months already? We know the ep is coming out in January, which is slightly later but also directly after the holiday season.

We know it is coming in 2019. And my bet is not in january but bundeled with lunar festival or after.
As I stated throughout this thread: I have no problem with 4-5 months as long as there is communication.
And yes, there was the statement that the LS is not releasing this year and yes, it was an improvement instead of the usual no communication.
Yet it is kind of a bittersweat taste that it was posted at the last possible moment when they clearly knew that the will not release for a longer period of time.
Again, justified not to release it today, 'cause fixing bugs would hardly to not been possible.
But we are happy for any kind of communication so I dont really complain about that.

@Holy Security.9724 said:Whatever it was it seems like it isnt used as of now or something went horribly wrong.

In season 3 we had 5 episodes WITH upcoming release of expansion.

Now it is like nothing. No expansion for at least another year, release schedule somewhat down the drain.

It just feels like something somewhere went horrible wrong.

Season 3 also started ~9 months after HoT launched. Once you factor that, season 4 will actually end up being a little faster than season 3. The news of season 5 however means that there could potentially be an entire extra year or two before the next expansion, which should make it up to twice the size of PoF. There's no guarantee that season 5 will fully play out prior to it however, so alternatively, they could announce the next expansion at the same time and lock season 5 behind pre-purchasing it, which would only be 1 or a few episodes prior to launch.

Whatever this new technology is, it's not working, not a bit.On the contrary, LS releases are further and further away from each other.

I can't remember when and where i heard that but Mike Z said as we move forward into LS 4 releases would be closer to the 2 months than it was.I think it's relly nice they care about quality and the staff working on it. But you know, Wintersday vs Ep 5 ... festivals are boring and done in 2 days of grindy unfun activities ...Well i guess i'm also salty cause i hate christmas period and all the stuff linked to it.

@Shizlam.4310 said:Was it a new technology or was it a development process?

Iirc wit was both, the first announced some kind of new tech iirc with the ep 3 delay and then mentioned a change in development process in an article before ep 4.

@"Danikat.8537" said:Do you remember where you saw this?

I know they've changed the schedule several times over the years but my understanding is that's "just" down to how many people are working on living story instead of other things and how much stuff they put into each release. I don't remember seeing anything about new technology being used to build them, but then it could have been in a guild chat video or something similar and then I'd have missed it.

I know there's often a lot of talk about the best programs to use for building different types of games and some developers like experimenting with different ones because I follow a a few people who work on games (mostly not Anet staff) on Twitter and there's often a lot of discussion about that. So it wouldn't surprise me if the programs they use to make GW2 have changed quite a few times over the years.

Its been 2-3 months since se3.

MMORPG: The pace of change has shifted over the years; do you feel that ArenaNet is at a good point with the pace of updates now?

Mike: I think we are close. If you look at the last couple of updates, they came out a little bit over the three-month mark and all that was due to us. As we moved into season three we tried to streamline various things and when we looked into season four we realised that we were not as efficient as we could be. So, we had to spend some time building those logistical gates and legwork underneath. That allowed us to move into a more streamlined process. So, my hope is that you can expect it to be much close to two months in the months moving forward but we you know obviously we have that leg room in there just in case. At the end of the day I need to make sure that the quality of these episodes is going to be something their fans are going to be proud of and that we as a company are going to be proud of. If we need to take that extra week or two I don't want there to be a concern. It’s more about us wanting to be sure that we've got it just right because everything has been progressing and becoming bigger and becoming more grandiose in terms of our telling the story.

Read more at https://www.mmorpg.com/guild-wars-2/interviews/guild-wars-2-gamescom-2018-interview-looking-back-at-living-world-1000012975#kpBDYhMJTIiIPy4l.99

Have you been watching teatime?