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Did A-Net deliver "Expansion Tier Content" yet


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There are lot of discussions about the Ice Saga.One of the points people make is that "Expansion like Content" is judged by the players not declared by A-Net.So i keep it a simple yes or no poll for now.I know there will be the regular crying "The season is not over yet". But i highly doubt we will get more or different content then what we got so far,but this is for another time.I worded it "yet" so please stay away from, we will get this super awesome content everyone is waiting for soon.We only judge what has been delivered until this point in time

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To be fair, what exactly is "Expansion Level Content"?

Like, if we look at what LW content is:

  • New maps
  • New items (Inc bunches of Ascended items from vendors)
  • New skins
  • Achievements galore
  • Story
  • Maybe some crafted stuff
  • Additional Masteries
  • Additional Mounts (For LW4 only so far)

Then we look at what Expansions do:

  • That same stuff
  • Also E-Specs
  • Maybe Legendaries
  • Some new novelty to utilize and monetize (Gliders, Mounts)
  • Maybe something else I'm forgetting?

The difference between LW content and Expansion content seems to mostly hinge around E-Specs and whatever novelty they're pushing that they can work into creating a bajillion gem store skins for.

As such, we've not seen any new E-Specs, nor any new novelties. Heck, we haven't even seen anything like a new Mount in IBS (Though I guess that's partially because it's hard for them to powercreep diversify outside of Griffon/Skyscale/Beetle especially with seemingly plans to make Skimmer function underwater)

Though, given that a 3rd expansion has been announced, I doubt we'll see any of this "Expansion Level Content" during IBS, given that they can just stick it all behind the paywall that is the next Expansion. As that makes more financial sense than the original idea behind the Saga which was to release such content as and when it was done being made (Which given that current episodes are available for free would mean no paywalls on such features beyond players whom start at a later date)

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It wouldn't surprise me if some stuff which was due to come out as part of Icebrood Saga got held back when it became clear players weren't happy without another expansion in the works and Anet decided to make one. That's basically how the entire of HoT worked - they released almost nothing for 9 months so they could bundle up what was effectively a Living World season and sell it as an expansion, but somehow that was better than releasing it gradually for free.

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Call me old, call me crazy even, but I remember when the only new content that came to games was via expansion packs.

Free content is free content. I may not like all of it, but I won't argue about what's included, especially knowing there IS an expansion on the way.

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Idk, I think people are far too fixated on that wording. When it was said they had no plans of making an expansion I believe.Patches have been faster and they have had content in them that wouldn't have been in the previous seasons. It's just a shame they didn't also include more than one Fractal in the planning so far/already.

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Expansion level content is a lot to live up to, for me the main big thing that comes with an expansion is some new mechanic that changes the game like gliding did with HoT and Mounts with PoF.I fully don't and never did expect this saga to bring something that big, even a new mount would have been a huge surprise. For me the problems aren't what they haven't delivered but with what they have. Don't get me wrong, It started off very strong and i was enjoying it up until eye of the north, I still thought the Masteries were pretty much pointless and I hate the aura on enemies but I suppose those are here to stay for the rest of the saga and I'll have to get used to them.After that It's been downhill for me with the Story, Metas, Maps - Hopefully it picks up again because I really enjoyed the first few parts.

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Did ANet deliver new content? Yes, they did. Was it expansion level content? I don't know and who knows really what is "expansion level" content.

I expected nothing and I didn't get disappointed. I enjoy the new stuff so far, I only wish they cared more about other game modes than story.

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If you look at it by episode everyone whines, it’s too short, blah blah blah. Honestly the maps as a while have a good chunk of story when you put 2 episodes together. Want to know what story was very fast? PoF. But looking at the episodes that are out there is plenty to do. I still got a lot from the prologue I haven’t done, still working on runic armor pieces (2 left), and the new stormcaller weapons are going to take me a while to finish up. The amount of weapon sets and armor pieces they have come out for people to craft is very decent compared to last LW episodes and even compared to PoF expansion. Again, not finished, but I’m sure there will be more armors, etc. and a legendary at the end. If you wait til the end of IBS and buy it all up at once, it’s going to be a fairly good amount of content overall.

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@Danikat.8537 said:It wouldn't surprise me if some stuff which was due to come out as part of Icebrood Saga got held back when it became clear players weren't happy without another expansion in the works and Anet decided to make one. That's basically how the entire of HoT worked - they released almost nothing for 9 months so they could bundle up what was effectively a Living World season and sell it as an expansion, but somehow that was better than releasing it gradually for free.

Eh, I take issue with this characterization.

I 100% agree that there are probably a number of high-impact (and as-yet unfinished) things that were initially planned to get pushed out as part of the Saga, but are now going to be part of the expansion now that the latter is announced.

That being said, I blame nobody that has serious doubts about ANet's plans to introduce anything that comes even remotely close to the game-changers included in HoT and PoF, when it comes to the Saga. Prior to the waystation that could be placed anywhere in the game world, the essence masteries were exactly like all the other clunkly one-map-only living world masteries, having zero relevance to the game outside their respective maps. The mount stealth mastery of course marks the second Saga mastery to have relevance outside Saga maps, but I feel that was more designed to help deal with Drizzlewood snipers more than anything else.

So what I'm saying is: I have serious doubts that what we would have received from the entirety of the Saga would come anywhere close to what we got from HoT. Yes, whatever we had would have been released gradually for free, but I don't think it would have been fair to compare it to either of their actual expansions.

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@Incar.7358 said:Call me old, call me crazy even, but I remember when the only new content that came to games was via expansion packs.

Free content is free content. I may not like all of it, but I won't argue about what's included, especially knowing there IS an expansion on the way.

I remember when games came out and they were a full game and had no bugs. If they had bugs, it was too late for regrets, can't update afterwards.

It's free, but i just complete the story and move on. Can't really complain when it's free, but i will say: Meh. Doing some dull collections is, well, dull. What could be better? At this point in the games life, i really don't know. Maybe when the next expansion comes i will have more interest in GW2 again. Maybe.

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I have been taking a break from this game aside from a quick login daily but decided to check the forums today. My guess would be they have expansion level content ready that was supposed to be released with the living story. I bet they are holding it for a hyped up new expansion instead of releasing any of it randomly. For example the WvW revamp has got to be close to ready along with new Elite specs.

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gw2 still updates the game with good amount of content for free.i do not understand the people who are complaining, because all triple A mmos out there, are asking you to pay for content either through sub fee or purchasing it directly.i did buy content in eso for example and i can say skyrim/greymoor was not worth 40 euro i paid for it.there is no mmo i know that updates the game with content every 3-4 months for free, even those asian games, their so called free to play is a lie and almost all of them are pay to win. do not believe me? go download them and see for yourself.gw2 is the cheapest triple A mmo out there and we should be happy we are still getting free content.that being said, i hope they revenue will increased ( specially with upcoming expansion) so we get even better and bigger content.

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@Sigmoid.7082 said:Part of me feels you could bunch an entire LS season / saga into one group and call it an expac and people would be happy ; split an expac into episode and people would call it trash.

I think one of the issues is that people are already accustomed to Living World content as a free update which provides new maps, new story, new metas, new collections, new achievments etc.

Meaning when an Expansion does the same thing, they feel disappointed that the product they're shelling out $30 for (That you can't just farm gold to turn into gems to buy like you can with LW episodes you missed) provides just the same content.

This isn't the case with most other MMO's, which only release things like new maps and achievements and collections to farm with expansions and intermediate content is usually something like a dungeon or raid here and there, maybe a bit of story if the game is focused on story telling (Such as FFXIV) and so these things aren't normalized for players.

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@Yggranya.5201 said:

@Incar.7358 said:Call me old, call me crazy even, but I remember when the only new content that came to games was via expansion packs.

Free content is free content. I may not like all of it, but I won't argue about what's included, especially knowing there IS an expansion on the way.

I remember when games came out and they were a full game and had no bugs. If they had bugs, it was too late for regrets, can't update afterwards.

It's free, but i just complete the story and move on. Can't really complain when it's free, but i will say: Meh. Doing some dull collections is, well, dull. What could be better? At this point in the games life, i really don't know. Maybe when the next expansion comes i will have more interest in GW2 again. Maybe.

Oh the days, they seem like aeons ago!

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No, the content of Season 5 / Ice Brood Saga does not look or feel like expansion-content (quality and amount). Not even half an expansion.

And given Anets anouncement from March 2020 my guess is, that all the "big expansion features", that are not yet released, will not be released as part of Season 5, but will be released as part of the next expansion. Because Anet needs a lot of content/features for the next expansion to convince players to pay money and buy the next expansion.

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To be fair to Anet, I would include the the Finale of Season 4 which was expansion tier content.

Season 5 has been roughly comparable to the bulk of past story quality, but has not yet had its own finale. Hard to judge the value of the journey before we know where it is headed or how it ends. Season 5 still has a good chance to be better than Season 4, in the end.

As for the amount of story/content, even PoF was considered light on content compared to HoT. However," HoT + Season 3" vs "PoF + Season 4" were closer in amount of story/content. I am hoping to compare "Season 5 + New Xpac" to "HoT + Season 3" in amount of content.

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@"Random Wax Orc.7695" said:To be fair to Anet, I would include the the Finale of Season 4 which was expansion tier content.

Season 5 has been roughly comparable to the bulk of past story quality, but has not yet had its own finale. Hard to judge the value of the journey before we know where it is headed or how it ends. Season 5 still has a good chance to be better than Season 4, in the end.

As for the amount of story/content, even PoF was considered light on content compared to HoT. However," HoT + Season 3" vs "PoF + Season 4" were closer in amount of story/content. I am hoping to compare "Season 5 + New Xpac" to "HoT + Season 3" in amount of content.

The problem with this analysis is that it ignores the fact that the "expansion-level" content was supposed to be the payoff for not having an expansion. I get that we've sinced moved on to having another expansion to look forward to. However, if that decision had not been made and an expansion had arrived on schedule, we'd have no need to debate what constitutes "expansion-level" content because we'd already have the expansion!

It's fair to compare the Icebrood Saga to previous story releases, but we were supposed to see something to "Wow!" us on top of that. Did we get that? In my opinion, no, we didn't. The Icebrood Saga isn't my cup of tea and the extras we've gotten are even less compelling (don't get me started on build templates!). It's a poor performance all around, from my perspective.

I'm just glad there's an expansion to look forward to at some point, because this isn't doing it for me. Not at all.

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To me, a new way to play PvE counts as expansion-like.In HoT, the top end players got raids - a new way to play in PvE.In PoF, they introduced bounties - a kinda new way of playing PvE.With Season 5, we got Strike Missions.

Is it rather disappointing? yesBut it's still one type of content that's usually been tied to expansions.

That aside, Arenanet mentioned expansion-like features, not expansion-like content.Apparently, cooking 500 and the Template System Loadout money milker count as expansion-like features.

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