Why Living World is in many parts?

[medivh.4725]

Many questions about LW and its marketing... Here we go:If Icebrood saga is part of a LivingWorld part 4, is there a need to purchase the LW4 add on?LW2-3-4 is highly priced, why are we still missing part 1?LW franchise cost 3 times of standard paid edition. But in terms of game play is it really that much more?Why is LW2 more expensive then the other LW parts?In anyway the LW marketing is confusing to fans and gamers - I am not sure why would people want to own the game in fragmented parts?May I suggest areananet sell LW as a single edition? - Makes no sense to look LW in parts and then start comparing between them?

[Ronan.9518]

Icebrood Saga is not part of LW4 (it's rather LW5 but is labeled as "saga" because it is supposed to offer more content compared to the other LW seasons once it's completed). It is playable completly without LW4.

LW1 was made differently, containing primary big open world events (on the core maps), even changing some of the maps in the progress (Kessex Hills and Lions Arch e.g. looked differently before LW1 happened). Probably was coded differently as well. Anet stated somewhere in the past that they would have to rework LW1 completly to be able to offer it like the other LW season.

LW2 contained 8 episodes, while LW 3 & 4 contained 6 episodes each. The price difference probably comes from that.

The episodes of the LW seasons get released one by one, with several months between the releases of the episodes. Player who log in while an episode is "active" (is the newest one) get it for free. Players who don't log in during that timeframe have to buy them later in the gemstore.LW episodes furthermore require you to own certain expansions to be able to play them. LW2 Just needs the Core Game, LW3 needs the HoT expansion, LW4 and Icebrood Saga need the PoF expansion. While the core game went completly free to play and you get HoT for free if you buy PoF now, that wasn't the case in the past. There are still accounts with don't have both expansions or expansions at all.

The questions why they don't offer to buy the LW seasons together with the game is something that has been brought up a few times. Guess only ArenaNet/NcSoft could answer you why it's stil that way.

[Ayrilana.1396]

They offer the option to buy LS2 with when buying the game but for some reason LS3 and LS4 are missing as options.

[Randulf.7614]

Icebrood Saga is a fancy name for LW5

Yes the marketing of buying them is poor. It’s been mentioned many times over the years

[Thenme.6491]

Think of the living world seasons as mini expansion packs, the story goes from the main game to season 1 which is now a small video and a few memories happening in the icebrood saga (you can find the entire episode in youtube as a 3 hours movie, it is quite good if the story is important to you).after season two comes the heart of thorns expansion. then season 3 which after comes path of fire expansion and then the season 4 and then the icebrood saga.

short versionmy story>

>season2>heart of thorns>season 3>path of fire>season 4>icebrood saga

[Taril.8619]

@medivh.4725 said:If Icebrood saga is part of a LivingWorld part 4, is there a need to purchase the LW4 add on?

IBS is not part of LW4. It is it's own thing. Essentially being LW5.

The only difference between it and previous LW content, is that this is the second LW story to happen within the PoF expansion (Both LW4 and IBS require PoF to access) and IBS was supposed to bring in more content such as features normally released with an expansion when they were finished being made.

They later scrapped that idea and decided to announce an expansion so IBS is effectively no different to other LW content.

@medivh.4725 said:LW2-3-4 is highly priced, why are we still missing part 1?

LW1 was done in a different way to other LW content. It was a lot of temporary events occurring that had lasting impacts on the core games zones. As such, it doesn't work for being accessible like other LW seasons, which is a notable gripe about LW1 and also a reason they changed how they did LW seasons afterwards.

@medivh.4725 said:LW franchise cost 3 times of standard paid edition. But in terms of game play is it really that much more?

No. In fact, arguably it is less gameplay. The only notable things they add is the ability to farm currencies for Ascended trinkets and shiny items...

The arguments for this absurd cost, is that LW content can be obtained for free by logging into the game during each episode release or failing that, obtaining gold to exchange for gems in order to purchase past episodes.

@medivh.4725 said:Why is LW2 more expensive then the other LW parts?

Likely, error in pricing. They misjudged how much to sell LW parts for with LW2 and then chose to use a lower price for subsequent LW content. They cannot adjust the price of LW2 to be the same as other LW content without people asking for compensation for having purchased the content at a higher price.

@medivh.4725 said:In anyway the LW marketing is confusing to fans and gamers - I am not sure why would people want to own the game in fragmented parts?

Players don't want to own the game in fragmented parts. But ANet wants people to pay for each fragmented part.

As is typical in life, it all comes down to maximizing money obtained at the expense of user experience.

@medivh.4725 said:May I suggest areananet sell LW as a single edition? - Makes no sense to look LW in parts and then start comparing between them?

You can suggest that.

Whether ANet will listen is another matter. I'm sure the current system is rather profitable for them. Having a "Season Pass" for LW content doesn't sound particularly profitable (Unless it had an absurd cost in which case it could provide a short term boost in profit... Even more so if they subsequently then minimize the amount of LW content they release and instead focus more on churning out Expansions, a particularly greedy behaviour that isn't unheard of in video games)

[medivh.4725]

Those interested in LW Part 1 story line....
OK if you've prob sleeping i recommend full blown 3 hr episode.....For those with commitment problems, there is this 8 mins

complete with voice acting so you won't miss much.And if you're trying to sleep and want a

you should watch this 25 mins version complete with cartoonistic artistry .

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

As far as pricing goes, each Living World Episode (no matter which Season/Saga) is 200 Gems (discounted when buying in bulk, or during sales).Living World Season 2 is 8 Episodes; Living World Seasons 3 and 4 are 6 Episodes...thus the difference in price.

[Akdeoni.4062]

Actually, being a returning player after being out since just before the start of flame and frost(they mentioned they are changing the way they going to bring in episodic and related seasonal content to a more robust packaged system). I had to agreed that is very messy those pre LW days.

I personally felt the huge disjoint when in come to the storyline especially with characters rooted from those episodes in mid and late LW1, I find it hard to relate to the events transpires in between.

I also noted in wiki, Anet had been actively made attempts to recover some portion of LW1 in terms of recollections(E.g. Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire), personally I really hope they can recover most of the storyline characters(either as fore mentioned or even better as "extended linear plot bridging instances based off player's own recollection" not entirely tied to the open world, e.g. via the "scrying pool in eye of north", or off monuments and memorials in Lion's Arch) relatable content to fill in the void for the later players.

As the gap between Zhaitan and LW2, is significate enough to create, "the awkward who's who? situation in the main plot"??

Also to suggest in favor of newer players(like OP), could Anet offer a single package offer that include all previous LW content be arranged?As the current can be confusing to players believing they are optional to main storyline instead, while in actual reality they are part of the main storyline itself.

Otherwise, kudos in advance hope these can be experience in the future.

[Taril.8619]

@"Akdeoni.4062" said:Also to suggest in favor of newer players(like OP), could Anet offer a single package offer that include all previous LW content be arranged?

Theoretically they could. Given they already have "Bundles" for each LW season. As such, it should be possible to have a complete LW Bundle that includes all seasons.

The only roadblock would be the fact that the current bundles are a discount on purchasing episodes individually, having a bundle spanning all seasons might cause issues with pricing if it wasn't a discounted bundle (Meaning a discount on already discounted bundles, which is not what ANet wants). Especially if people look at it and still see the insane cost that it would be (Being higher than the purchase price of the HoT + PoF expansions).

Though, it'll be interesting to see how ANet handles sales when EoD is released. If EoD comes with HoT + PoF, then the LW pricing would be absurd in comparison (Especially as IBS will have been completed in full). If people still need to purchase PoF AND EoD then it won't look as bad in comparison, but would start to make their "Free to Play" game have really high entry costs (Even more so when people purchase HoT/PoF/EoD and then find themselves still needing to shell out for LW2/LW3/LW4/IBS)

Essentially, as time goes on, the game becomes less and less accessible to new players with more content locked behind ever increasing numbers of paywalls.

With the anticipated release to Steam and thus an influx of new players, this could cause some serious issues. While for veterans, it will continue being a very affordable game due to having reaped the benefit of free LW episodes on release...

[Incar.7358]

As the core game is now F2P and HoT comes packaged with PoF, I wonder if LS2 is being prepped to become F2P? Replaying it currently and you can tell it's dated. Has been a while since it released, it could be justified now.Then, as time goes on the others can too. Makes it less frustrating for latecomers. The ones who played through the releases got them free anyway (and likely are the ones who bought the original game before F2P - such as myself), and anyone in the middle paid (grinded) for the convenience of having the LSs when they turned up to play.I had the game from release, missed many of the episode releases during time off, so I paid full price for most of them. I wouldn't have a problem with LS2 becoming free now, and others down the line (maybe LS3 whenever LS6 releases).

Makes sense in a way, to me at least. I don't think anyone is certain how well ANet/NCSoft are doing financially or whether they've pro/conned this idea or many others already. How much it would affect income etc. Fingers crossed I guess, I could see it alleviating some frustrations for newcomers, though I doubt how well anyone else would take the news.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@medivh.4725 said:Many questions about LW and its marketing... Here we go:If Icebrood saga is part of a LivingWorld part 4, is there a need to purchase the LW4 add on?LW2-3-4 is highly priced, why are we still missing part 1?LW franchise cost 3 times of standard paid edition. But in terms of game play is it really that much more?Why is LW2 more expensive then the other LW parts?In anyway the LW marketing is confusing to fans and gamers - I am not sure why would people want to own the game in fragmented parts?May I suggest areananet sell LW as a single edition? - Makes no sense to look LW in parts and then start comparing between them?

I agree. Some of it is at least understandable to long-time GW2 players, but as a central feature and selling point of the game, it's a mess! ANet should consider selling all LS episodes as a package with a fixed price moving forward. I don't know what they can do about LS1, unfortunately. They don't seem to have been thinking ahead very well on this.

[medivh.4725]

Why don't we summon the villains for a fight. Be it a form of add-on quest. That way we skip all the stories and still get to fight GW1 star villains. ;) :#Perhaps as an undead or just fight their spirits so as not to spoil plots of a character story.