How would you all feel if Anet was strategically holding back Releasing/Reveal the next Expansion

This is a business first after all. So I am not taking sides on this. I could understand why a developer would hold back the release of content to time it strategically near the release of a new rival MMO.I remember WoW releasing its WoTLK expansion 2 months after Warhammer Online released, and was strategically releasing info and betas to mess up the Warhammer Online hype. Was a Smart business move.

Well GW2 has some upcoming competition, based on hype alone of course, since it we never can fully predict the success of these games afterall.

On the other side of the argument, , we 2 days away from the 2 year anniversary of Path of Fire. We haven't had new Skills, new major features, new Elite Specs, none of that good stuff that keeps the game feeling fresh in over 2 years soon. So I can totally understand why some may not want to wait longer, nor would some of these people care about Anet's business strategy on how they handle future content.

But where do you all stand on this? Asking you all the GW2 community, not the devs.

That's exactly what I expect them to do each and every time until they are ready to reveal it.

A small part of me believes that there is an expansion in the works atm but it's still too far back in development to announce atm even though they've said they're not currently working on one.I believe they also said that back when HoT was in development but I could be wrong there.

Just knowing they're still on the table and they're aware there is a huge demand for another expansion is enough to put my mind at ease about the future of the game for a while.A chance there will be more is all I wanted to hear.

While it would be a relief I would feel a little miffed to be honest. I am not even sold it is a good strategy to not say anything as I am guessing I was not the only one looking for a good alternative. They seem to have gone from being more open to less so. For example, the mac client would have not worked next month and they, with no info they even heard the mac people, just pushed a fix with little prior announcement (and not even in the thread they were pushing people to to discuss mac issues). Again, lack of communication that caused more people to seriously look at alternatives than if they had been open.

With POF when they announced it it was coming up soon (so that means they had been working on it for some time) but people were more expecting it anyway. A worse solution was HOT, where they announced it after a long content drought, then had another one again. It would almost be like they are trying to find a third even worse way if they tell us one is not coming then eventually do (especially if content dries up while they work on it).

Baffled. Because, taking everything into account, it would make absolutely zero sense.

The whole assumption starts on a shaky foundation of course. You assume it's solely Anet's choice to keep everything concerning an xpac under wraps. It isn't.

We already know many gaming journos have inside sources in Anet. Some of them are the best in what they do, like Schreier, the journalist who first broke the news about the layoffs. If an expansion was in the works, info would leak sooner or later, no matter if Anet wanted it or not. Just like we already had rumors about HoT before its official announcement.

Occam's razor : Suppose there exists two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually correct.

If we go by what is to belived. An expansion was not in development for at least most of season 4. Thus even if they currently have one in development it would be in an very early stage thus not worth mentioning.

Just my opinion but somthing people seem to overlook but players think gw2 needs an expansion to deliver good content but dont seem to understand. Regardless if we have an expansion or not, anet still has the same number of staff. They just have to instead take a bunch of them off current and upcoming content for the long term project of an expansion.

Look at it this way. Anet says they now have 4 content teams. We have always had 2-3 episode teams. This means that rather than an expansion team that builds content in the background to be released at some later date as a expansion. Instead we have team 4 developing features and content to be released "when ready". For example as we speak team 4 could be working on Elite specs. Which in theory could be released some point during the saga. I would guess somewhere between episode 2-4.

The main thing is. If they dont have an expansion team to bundle content they can instead improve the content and quality of each and every episode instead. In a sense we could already be seeing this with the prologue. Which in my opinion and im sure many others has been one of the best living world releases in recent memory in terms of story and content.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:This is a business first after all. So I am not taking sides on this. I could understand why a developer would hold back the release of content to time it strategically near the release of a new rival MMO.I remember WoW releasing its WoTLK expansion 2 months after Warhammer Online released, and was strategically releasing info and betas to mess up the Warhammer Online hype. Was a Smart business move.

Well GW2 has some upcoming competition, based on hype alone of course, since it we never can fully predict the success of these games afterall.

On the other side of the argument, , we 2 days away from the 2 year anniversary of Path of Fire. We haven't had new Skills, new major features, new Elite Specs, none of that good stuff that keeps the game feeling fresh in over 2 years soon. So I can totally understand why some may not want to wait longer, nor would some of these people care about Anet's business strategy on how they handle future content.

But where do you all stand on this? Asking you all the GW2 community, not the devs.

You're dreaming.

With rare exceptions announcements of new releases are always 'held back' until the company thinks it's the right time to announce it. Not just by Anet, literally everyone does that with games, films, books, cars, graphics cards and pretty much any other product you can think of.

All those games announced at E3 and other events each year? They've all been in development for months or years before they're announced, especially if they have a trailer or a demo or anything more than a rough outline of the concept to share. They work on it until they're confident they've got enough of the final design done that they can announce it without being needlessly vague or having to double back later and say "actually we're not doing that any more, we're doing this instead". Even projects which start off on Kickstarter (where they're announcing it when asking for funding and so before doing any of the actual development) they'll have done enough work on it to get an outline design and a pitch together so they can tell you what you'll get for your money.

So no I wouldn't be surprised or annoyed if Anet delayed announcing new releases until they think it's the appropriate time. I don't think they've typically timed it around other games releases (and honestly the games industry is busy enough that there's always something they could be competing with being announced). I'd actually prefer them to do that than drip-feed bits of information which may or may not change later on or take months to be released, especially because their fans tend to take any hint of new content as a personal promise carved in stone and never to be broken under any circumstances and act like it's the worst betrayal imaginable if the final thing isn't exactly what they imagined. Better to wait until they can tell us exactly what the final thing will be than deal with that over and over.

I am certain there's no expansion in the works, and I can't think of any logical reason why holding back such information would be profitable to begin with.

@Ashantara.8731 said:I am certain there's no expansion in the works, and I can't think of any logical reason why holding back such information would be profitable to begin with.

Well they did do this with HoT, and PoF... so not like this is new behavior

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

Well GW2 has some upcoming competition, based on hype alone of course, since it we never can fully predict the success of these games afterall.

Upcoming competition? Please tell me more. A new game, or an expansion for an existing one?

Anyway, I think it would be crazy for the GW2 devs to not tell us that they're working on an expansion. Give us some hope.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:This is a business first after all. So I am not taking sides on this. I could understand why a developer would hold back the release of content to time it strategically near the release of a new rival MMO.I remember WoW releasing its WoTLK expansion 2 months after Warhammer Online released, and was strategically releasing info and betas to mess up the Warhammer Online hype. Was a Smart business move.

Well GW2 has some upcoming competition, based on hype alone of course, since it we never can fully predict the success of these games afterall.

On the other side of the argument, , we 2 days away from the 2 year anniversary of Path of Fire. We haven't had new Skills, new major features, new Elite Specs, none of that good stuff that keeps the game feeling fresh in over 2 years soon. So I can totally understand why some may not want to wait longer, nor would some of these people care about Anet's business strategy on how they handle future content.

But where do you all stand on this? Asking you all the GW2 community, not the devs.

So, they decided not to announce an expansion when such an announcement was needed the most, but instead are holding up that info for some hypothetical future situation that will probably not be as critical for the game future to release it?

That... would be a really backward and counterintuitive way of doing business. Forgive me for finding such a convoluted explanation for no expac release to be quite unbelievable - especially when a simple explnation (they aren't working on one, probably because they don't have the manpower to do so) already exists.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:I am certain there's no expansion in the works, and I can't think of any logical reason why holding back such information would be profitable to begin with.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:I am certain there's no expansion in the works, and I can't think of any logical reason why holding back such information would be profitable to begin with.

They never denied back then that an expansion was being developed, something they clearly did now, nor were they in the current situation (lay-offs, people very vocal about wanting an expansion etc).

It makes zero sense. First, the idea that GW2 is currently attracting new players and competing over market share is nonsense. People who play or played GW2 are the only ones who would care about an expansion. Not telling them there is one coming or in the making serves no purpose.

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.

Lastly, Anet devs already committed to this “saga” as if it is the wholly grail. It should last at least a year. So even if there is an expansion in the making it would not be until next years fall. More realistically (if ever) it is going to be 2021 spring.

I honestly do not see a path forward for GW2. It will continue on a steady decline path, and I dunno if it can ever muster enough player base to have another profitable expansion.

@Knighthonor.4061 said:Well they did do this with HoT, and PoF... so not like this is new behavior

If you didn't notice there was a rather huge downtime of content (content drought) between the end of S2 and the release of HoT, also there was a trailer at the end of S2. There was at the very least a 10-month period that we knew full well an expansion was coming.

They confirmed they were working on Path of Fire in their March 2016 AMA, so for 18 months we knew an expansion was coming.

I expect an expansion to be announced, or revealed to be worked on, at least 1 year before it's actually released.

Stuff is held back all the time - you'll never really know. As for an expansion, they had chosen to create a new game instead, so another expansion would still be 2 years out. ArenaNet has a severe problem on their on hands - they desperately need something big, something that will wow everyone. Notice how they're still advertising 11 million strong, which was originally used for PoF's launch 2 years ago (it was 7 million at HoT's launch and 3.5 million at the 1 year anniversary).

It would be fine with me, they owe me nothing.

I'd feel fairly bad, because that'd show in large part that their marketing department does not understand how to get people hyped with only minimal disappointment.

I for one believe that if an expansion was in the works, they'd say "An expansion is in the works". Their "maybe" "thinking about it" "know there is a wish for it" is a non-statement. It's a marketing faux pas to not outright say that Something that a majority of players want is planned, if it actually is. Saying it's planned or in development doesn't actually say when the expansion would be out, or what would be in it. It means that if time was an issue, it could be delayed until ready without issues, and content for it teased over a long period of time, building hype from the Community, drawing more eyes to the game and keeping old vets on the lookout. I cant Believe that they dont understand their Community to that point, which lead me to think that they are not able to deliver one at the present time.

@otto.5684 said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@otto.5684 said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

I wholly agree there, people are all too quick to take the vocal minority as the sole representatives of the userbase.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"otto.5684" said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

Ya, go check out any major feedback forum, like the announcement feedback and tell me how happy the player base is.

Go to sPvP forum, constant complaining about drop in population, I wounder why.

Even market prices have continued to drop (which always happens when population shrinks).

But, ya.. keep your head in the sand and tell yourself: "this is fine." This reminds me of SWTOR. Around the end of 3.0, the devs there did the same exact thing Anet is doing now. Some white knights did the same exact thing you are doing now. 2 years later, the game became (and still is) a ghost town.

Surprised.

There wont be another expansion, at the earliest it could come out in around 2 years, but its almost certainly not worth the time and expenses for an older niche mmo. Anet has always been very quiet about future plans. Their statements about potential future expansions, wvw alliances, pvp swiss tournaments etc. are merely a way for them to vaguely avoid stating that there isnt much left planned for this game. Expecting anything more than LW episodes will be met with disappointment, dont cling to false hope of a massive revitalization of the game.

@otto.5684 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@otto.5684 said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

Show me the statistics that indicate the percentage of players that actually post on the forums. Yes, there was a lot of hue and cry in the feedback threads. You'll get no argument from me about that, but you paint that as a significantly large portion of the player base when that simply is not true. Also, you allow your bias to taint your opinion of the game's future and the view of the developers by stating it to be largely negative. Sure, within the sample size of feedback posts in the forum, it is largely negative, but again you make it seem that this is representative of the major majority of players.

sPvP has it's own issues which I will not address here. That has been discussed ad nauseam.

Market prices dropping? Relative to what? Mats? Gems? What do you consider dropping and how does it correlate to the game's population (instead of the end of the annual sale, for example)? Maybe the population has increased instead and it is the influx of things being sold to the TP that is affecting the price (supply/demand)? Where is your evidence to support your conclusion?

@kharmin.7683 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@otto.5684 said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

How about you show me a statistic to substantiate your position? We can only guess based on reactions on the forums. And between the forums and other social media outlets, you kinda can guess the community reaction. And there are always hue and cry in the feedback threads, but they are occurring more now for a reason. Also, you cannot say that people who do not post are happy. That just is not true.

And there has been a noticeable drop in player activity. It takes longer now to get into a group for anything. I primarily sPvP. Queue times are longer and you much more often run into the same people. Again, I cannot measure that and neither can you, but that does mean things are going well. There clear indicators for otherwise.

And no matter how you want to dice it, this is game is not going to be able to sustain players, and profitability for 1 year+, with 1 map and 1 hour story, even every 2 month (I would actually be impressed if Anet can even maintain 3 month schedule here).

@otto.5684 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@otto.5684 said:

For GW2, the player base is already on edge. The overall view of the game future and the devs is largely negative. Anet currently needs every bit of goodwill it can get.Really? I would think that your sample size would be very small when compared to the entire player base. Seems like you're posting opinion as fact.

It's funny you mentioned SWTOR because there's an interesting story about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but around the time you mentioned, there were plenty of "doomposts" on the forums, claiming the game was dying and felt like it was on maintenance mode. Two years later we learn from Kotaku that around that same time, Bioware Austin seriously considered stopping SWTOR development and sending the game into maintenance mode. The justification was that they wanted to put all their focus on Anthem as the studio's premier live service. Of course, Anthem's troubled development and disastrous launch made them reconsider and the game is still being updated (although a shadow of what it was).

I'm not saying current GW2 is the same, as Anet has already committed to some content updates with this saga. Just thought it's an interesting comparison that shows blind optimism may lead to some nasty surprises. And that sometimes, the inner workings behind the scenes might match or even surpass the "doom and gloom" posts we often see in game forums.