"Guild Wars 2 will not get a third expansion, at least not any time soon" - Mike Z

[sephiroth.4217]

Living stories are great for PvE players, run through the content in a week and go back to other games...

Expansions on the other hand is what keeps the WvW/PvP players around for a year or more due to tinkering with various builds and build set ups.

It will be interesting to see if GW2 is their focus or just gem shop and LS episodes while everything else is ignored, its pretty much make or break time.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:PoF is relatively recent, the standard is 2 to 3 years between expansions. What they need to do is deliver on the promise of "xpac-like content" with the next living world season. After seeing Price's comments about barely having enough resources for one cinematic in season 4 I can't say I'm too optimistic. I wish they go back to LS1 and 2 in terms of quality and quantity, that would be more exciting to me than a new expansion.

We can't take her words wthout a massive mountain of salt because S4 is also the one that gave us actual cinematic trailers for the first time, lots of proper in-engine cutscenes and more. How did they raise the bar THIS much when it comes to this when their budget was so pathetic?

ANd LS1 was awful quality. It was literally quantity over quality and just because had something new every couple of weeks doesn't make it interesting. The fact it had impact on the core game world was nice, but that wouldn't work as well, maybe as side content nowadays. In fact, that is pretty much what LS1 is. It had its big moments, especially the destruction of LA that had a large impact, but stuff like the puppet fight was definitely only on the scale of "Current Events".

When Price mentioned cinematics she probably meant the pre-rendered cutscenes (much like the ones you see in HoT). She also said that the animation team did an amazing job with the in-engine cutscenes to fill that void, which is true. But for me the HoT cutscenes were of considerably higher quality than anything I've seen afterwards.

And I personally liked LS1. Not as much as 2 but the world impact gimmick was fresh and exciting to me. Far more exciting than the 2 hours (tops) of story + achievement hunting we get in recent seasons.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@zealex.9410 said:Pof took them what, 18 months of development?It's nearly impossible for outsiders to estimate how many months of development went into either expansion.

PoF was released 23 months after HoT. There's some indication that it included elements that didn't make it into HoT, that they might have been working on things concurrently with different teams or handed off to new teams. Plus, the staff grew.

What we'd want to know is how many staff hours were officially allocated for each 'project' and over what period of time... and it's doubtful we'll ever get anything close to actual data about that.

With that in mind we could see an expansion late mid to late 2020.As calculated above, July 2020 is about when LS5.5 would release, if they keep churning out episodes with a 90 day average (LS3 beat that average by about 25%; LS4 fell behind that average by about 7% -- I doubt either number is going to be helpful in predicting LS5's average).

[Zaraki.5784]

Yeah, let's waste resources for new mobile games instead of making a beautiful expansion to revamp a dieing game - Anet Logic

[Bast.7253]

@derd.6413 said:

@"Healix.5819" said:They had likely planned on running the living world with a minimal team for a few more years while they were focused on their other project. Now that they need more funds, expect expansions to be the new focus and occur more quickly. They ultimately need a new game however, as GW2 is only guaranteed to decline no matter what.

i was wondering when the "anet broke, gw2 dead" post would show up

How is that salty? It's a pretty valid assumption given what we actually know at this point. It seems like this is exactly what they were doing, shrinking teams the smallest size possible and putting as much effort into those other projects as possible. For all we know this was done because of difficulty arising from development of one of those projects and an overall attempt to salvage development.

In regards to it only declining because they don't have an expansion, I think the game is declining either way because the genre itself is declining. Expansions are extremely beneficial for creating renewed interest among veteran players as well as enticing new ones. Short of word of mouth and the community pulling in friends, having the main selling point of getting into this game being that it has two expansions and gets a new map every 3 months wouldn't create nearly as much interest as a game like WoW, where even as bad as some of the expansions may be their eventual existence is predictable. I think this living story model could work to create the same hype as an expansion, but the living story needs to be more than 2 hours of story instances and a map. Not only that, but they need to create new exciting features to ship with those living story episodes that you would normally expect in an expansion.

That leads me to this point, that when Mike Z mentioned "things that would normally be delivered with expansions," Mike Z was most likely referring to the existing content model and new mounts. I think it's pretty safe to assume from the quote in this article about expansions, that major features like Elite Specs/Player Housing/Races/Battleships or whatever else you can think of, weren't really on the table at this point. Those features would be far beyond the scope of this living story team, who seem to have been the main ones responsible for our large content updates. And even at that, these teams have been struggling to deliver even close to the cadence they originally talked about, and the quality of some of them like Kourna has been... not quite there. Given what we've seen this season, assuming that these teams are even remotely capable of being able to juggle the task of creating this same content PLUS major expansion-worthy features, is just a pipe dream. But as usual, one flashy sentence has been spun into all of this unnecessary expectation that was probably never going to be met, and it's a combination of fault of the players expecting more than they should and false hype generated by pr.

Of course, this is all speculative in the end and we could wind up with new elite specs next season, but it seems highly doubtful given the trajectory they were on with the teams they had. For all we know about their structure before the layoffs, which is practically nothing, a best case scenario is that they had a separate team working on these expansion-worthy features that will simply integrate them with the episode releases allowing those devs to continue their focus on the story/map/fractal/raid aspects.

The only thing that gives me even a slight impression that these features are more than new mounts and what we have receive in normal episode releases is that Mike Z hasn't stepped in and clarified what he meant in regards to that statement. Which could mean that we will all be pleasantly surprised, or we're just pretending that statement couldn't have been wildly misconstrued and will focus on managing player expectations when they realize they aren't getting anything monumentally different from other living story updates thus far.

And to the people complaining about balance and citing that as a reason not to add elite specs, you do realize they could stop future content creation, push all of the focus into balance, and you would still complain that something isn't balanced.. right? "Power creep" this and "power creep" that aside, elite specs are one of the best way to make existing content more exciting. They allow for more customization and create new opportunities to have fun or get creative with content we already have. They're also huge selling points for expansions. Just look yet again at WoW and the addition of Demon Hunters and Death Knights. Each elite spec drastically changes the way you play your existing character, and can sometimes feel like an entirely new profession all together. Balance or not, they're a huge attraction for many players old and new.

Hopefully, once everything settles, part of this communication can involve a little bit more transparency about things like this statement regarding content normally saved for expansions, but this specifically runs the risk of spoiling the surprise if there is something larger planned, or creating discontent when its revealed that the content was more or less of the same scope. It would also be nice after this restructure to have some clarification on existing teams and numbers, but that's probably not something they feel comfortable doing given that the information could be weaponized in the future by disappointed consumers.

Either way, after all this information I can honestly say that my expectations have been drastically lowered in regards to the future. Which, is good because it may allow me to enjoy upcoming releases without frenzied anticipation, but adversely it just gives me less interest in playing the game or freely spending money on it like I have in the past. And I doubt I'm the only one, which circles back to the op I quoted in that many players who feel similarly not spending the same amount of money as they used to may lead to a more rapid decline in revenue and an eventual release of an expansion to rekindle that interest.

Though doubtful, hopefully they can salvage some of the work they did on the canceled games and use it to make this one that much better as well as see some that investment return. But depending on what those games were, that may be impossible.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@"Metal.3194" said:Discuss.Soon is a relative term... The article was in 2018, so they had already announced and decided that there would be a season 5 before the expansion. Which would land an expansion in late 2019 at the earliest, most likely mid 2020.

Depending on when the interview was and the context of the question, soon might have been within that quarter, or that year. Doesn't mean there isn't an expansion in the works, it means it wouldn't be released soon.

According to people above, the interview happened less than a year after PoF released. Given the schedule seems to be, at the quickest, an expansion every 2 years, it's obvious there wouldn't be an expansion within a year of that interview, so, not "soon".

That's just how bad gaming press became, they just want to generate controversy for clicks, and sowing panic after a huge layoff is one way to get it. Sadly, you gave them that.

[Tiviana.2650]

Goodbye Cantha , we hardly knew ye

[Laurencius.9258]

Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead. Strangely, there isn't a game to take it's place. I'm puzzled why so many companies don't seem to want our money, but I guess we'll just save it until someone gets a clue.

[Bast.7253]

@Blocki.4931 said:

@"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:PoF is relatively recent, the standard is 2 to 3 years between expansions. What they need to do is deliver on the promise of "xpac-like content" with the next living world season. After seeing Price's comments about barely having enough resources for one cinematic in season 4 I can't say I'm too optimistic. I wish they go back to LS1 and 2 in terms of quality and quantity, that would be more exciting to me than a new expansion.

We can't take her words wthout a massive mountain of salt because S4 is also the one that gave us actual cinematic trailers for the first time, lots of proper in-engine cutscenes and more. How did they raise the bar THIS much when it comes to this when their budget was so pathetic?

ANd LS1 was awful quality. It was literally quantity over quality and just because had something new every couple of weeks doesn't make it interesting. The fact it had impact on the core game world was nice, but that wouldn't work as well, maybe as side content nowadays. In fact, that is pretty much what LS1 is. It had its big moments, especially the destruction of LA that had a large impact, but stuff like the puppet fight was definitely only on the scale of "Current Events".

Salt aside, even if her entire career is based on persuasion, her story and take on the situation kind of wrote itself. I feel like if there weren't some validity to what she said, it wouldn't be as easy as it is to make the conclusions that people have been making. It would be a lot easier to chalk it up to her being spiteful, which doesn't really seem to be the case given how much praise she showed for the talent at the studio. Sure, she could have been merely manipulating emotions because she's just that super duper good at writing and persuading people, but I'm inclined to believe a lot of what she said.. even if her entire twitter presence seems to be a channeled rage towards men. There are plenty of female developers at the studio, or were, and if her entire purpose was simply to be divisively malicious, then she would be well aware that she's intentionally harming many bystanders. I just don't see that being the case.

As far as your comment goes, I think the quality of the cinematics we've seen boils down to the individuals within the team. With Kourna we had a practically unplayable patch at release, a meta that seemed Frankensteined at the last minute, and very little replay value within the map itself. Yes, the Joko cinematic was extremely well done, but it seemed like it received most of the focus of that patch. The roller beetle was obviously a big addition, but given that they mentioned they planned on releasing the roller beetle much earlier on, could just as easily have been tossed in to make up for some of the other aspects of the release. Which, honestly, would make sense given that the map itself outside of the sand dune area and the breakable doors, doesn't really seem to be built to showcase the mount. I'd even argue that some of the Path of Fire core maps seem more advantageous for the beetle. Speculatively, the decision to implement the beetle with that episode may have created cause to redo parts of the map, leading to a general mess of a workflow and some of the issues that the map currently has. But back to the point, its my impression that even with more focus on the cinematics with that particular release, it may simply be that the devs working on that release are just stronger at developing them.

The only other major cinematics I can think of that are truly unique, are the ones during All or Nothing, and they're of a completely different style than that of Joko's speech. They're good, but I'd argue that they're pretty much the same style as what we get with Mordremoth in Dragon Stand and of a style and delivery that we've already seen. The true showcase cinematic remains in Long Live the Lich, and ultimately I think that was of such a higher quality because they put more focus and development into it. But they kind of had to in order to pay tribute to such a beloved character.

[zolcor.2601]

I'm not happy to hear that we're not getting a third expansion soon. I've gone on hiatus due to the lack of new content lately. If nothing cool happens with the game I may make my hiatus even longer than planned. :(

[Tiviana.2650]

@Laurencius.9258 said:Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead. Strangely, there isn't a game to take it's place. I'm puzzled why so many companies don't seem to want our money, but I guess we'll just save it until someone gets a clue.

Well I wouldnt say that, Rift died and yet people still play it, WoW has been dead since 2004 but yet there it is. I dont call something dead till they pull the plug, and i still play rift off and on, and on the weekends LotR.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Laurencius.9258 said:Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead.

It doesn't look that at all. The game has 250+ people working on it. It has an entire new set of Living World stories planned, taking us through to summer 2020.

[Bast.7253]

@"mortrialus.3062" said:While Living World has been excellent since Season 3 started as far as I'm concerned. And Season 4 has truly lived up to expansion "quality" content like Roller Beetle, Warclaw Soon, as well as the epic quality and scope of storytelling.

I can't say that I feel similarly, but I'm glad that you do. The Warclaw isn't really a living world release, and the roller beetle was already in some form of development as I believe they mentioned during one of the livestreams. It just wasn't released when they originally planned to because of technical difficulty and an insane amount of bug-fixing involving mount physics in general due to how this mount functions.

But if new mounts are what give you enough satisfaction to declare it as expansion "quality" content, then I think you will continue to be pleasantly surprised moving forward and I'm happy for you.

Don't get me wrong, I love mounts and think they've been extremely well done so far.. my lack of skill with the beetle aside, but with the mounts we currently have, I'm not sure how much further they can push the envelope in terms of creating new ones or their general benefit to the game beyond what we already have. Outside of an underwater mount, which probably wouldn't get much use at this point, and a multi-seater mount which would be great but have fairly limited application and potentially impossible to do considering how the mounts work, I'm just not really sure what else they could add.

I suppose they could keep pumping in skills to existing mounts and enhancing their functionality, whether it be giving Jackals the ability to create Mesmer-like portals, or griffons being capable of more freely ascending, despite already being able to gain endless altitude, I would think that outside of game-type specific circumstances like the Warclaw and WvW, there really isn't much that can be added at this point in terms of completely new mounts. And simply expanding their functionality doesn't seem like it would create that same level of enjoyment that you've received from getting completely new ones.

So when he referred to expansion level content released in season 5, I don't see how mounts would really a factor moving forward.

[Yasi.9065]

Btw, if I see correctly, then they left out a rather pertinent part of MikeZs statement, that traditional "expansion level" content might be released alongside living story.I always understood that in a way that they dont need expansions currently because the story arc allows for that constant storytelling of living story, and the tech we usually would see added to the game via expansion gets released alongside the story as its needed or ready for release.Of course you can now say its because they hadnt anything BIG planned to begin with, but to make this into "they didnt have anything planned" or "the game is dead" thats very far reaching guys. So could you stop the drama already? Dont fall for every tabloid spin out there and just wait how it all progresses.

After all, you all are playing the game for free. Theres no monthly subscription. So go and enjoy it and stop worrying.

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

I have no doubt that with the change in direction as of the restructuring, whatever they had planned regarding not doing expansions and carrying it via living world was likely due to these unannounced projects which are all now cancelled. I am more than confident work will begin on an expansion because they have nothing else to work on as of Wednesday. This interview was long prior to the halt on these projects or the complete restructuring and NCSoft seems to be carrying the big stick right now and they clearly were disappointed at the pace of content being released generating income which is, was and will continue to be primarily expansions.

[Bast.7253]

@"Yasi.9065" said:Btw, if I see correctly, then they left out a rather pertinent part of MikeZs statement, that traditional "expansion level" content might be released alongside living story.I always understood that in a way that they dont need expansions currently because the story arc allows for that constant storytelling of living story, and the tech we usually would see added to the game via expansion gets released alongside the story as its needed or ready for release.Of course you can now say its because they hadnt anything BIG planned to begin with, but to make this into "they didnt have anything planned" or "the game is dead" thats very far reaching guys. So could you stop the drama already? Dont fall for every tabloid spin out there and just wait how it all progresses.

After all, you all are playing the game for free. Theres no monthly subscription. So go and enjoy it and stop worrying.

Well, as I've mentioned before, I don't know how many more types of mounts they could really create at this point. So that's expansion-level content that I don't see being implemented, beyond maybe one or two niche areas that we don't currently have mounts for. I.e. Spider mount or underwater mount. I can't remember exactly what episode was released before he made that statement but I think it might have been Long Live the Lich, in which case he could have been referring to things like Sun's Refuge that we received in A Star To Guide Us. I think something like that could develop into something that you would see as expansion-level if expanded upon and turned into a form of customizable player housing using more of the Guild Hall systems than just the phasing system integrated with collection achievements.

But outside of that, beyond pushing the quality of the story telling and story-instances further and the addition of new mounts that I can't see being expanded much further, I haven't really seen anything thus far that would give me the same sense of excitement that I get from expansions. And even at that, if we're factoring in mounts, the mount feature was released with Path of Fire as Gliders were with Heart of Thorns, so technically they're just finally choosing to expand a feature they released with a previous expansion, not some new feature that you would expect as a selling point for an expansion. Of course, that all boils down to your personal interpretation of expansion-level content, but if you have already released two expansions, when you make a statement like that people are going to compare that content to the expansions that have already been released. The two expansions we have gave us new elite specs, a new profession, new movement systems, an entire continent of maps which we can probably deduct from this as we get new maps with living story. Those first three are things we have come to expect and think of as "expansion-level content." And given the way things were shaping up in terms of team structure, as I mentioned before, I highly doubt they had a full line-up of elite specs or some new game-changing feature like mounts or gliding to implement within the scope of a living story. The only ray of hope that this isn't the case is Sun's Refuge and the possibility that they were creating something that would allow them to deliver a feature like player housing, that isn't just abandoned after one episode or redone with each map taking up development time and resources for a feature that people complete and move on just like they do other collection achievements and map or story content.

To me, expansion-level content, implies something that will fundamentally alter the way you play the game moving forward, and change the way you play already existing content. Creating something with a lifespan that lasts just until the next episode comes out, regardless of whether the scope of the map or story is larger or is filled with more cinematics, is just our current living story on a larger scale. Sure, new maps are technically expansion-level content, but if many of those maps only have 3 specific areas where people congregate or where gameplay is actually engaging, the rest as beautiful as it is, is just wasted space beyond the random role-player or person exploring just to see if there's anything there only to move on when they discover there isn't. (I.e. Silverwaste, Drytop, Ember Bay item collections that encourage you to explore the map without needing to jam pack it full of events. Things that are largely missing in the latest releases and I think the maps suffer to some degree because of it, especially given how sparse or unengaging some of the events are.)

And I'm attempting to be completely analytical, not melodramatic or insisting the game is dead. Obviously the game isn't dead, but I don't see the game thriving as much as it could with the addition of something like an expansion. Sure, I don't know all the facts and it's entirely possible they did have something big planned for the upcoming season, but in light of recent events and news, it would seem that the current live-service team wouldn't really have the means to produce such content thus leading to my speculation that such content either wasn't in development or such content wasn't much further beyond the scope of what we've already seen.

If the living story so far is all you need and what you deem as "expansion-level" then good for you, but I and many other players expressing concern it would seem that may not be enough moving forward and as some of those people leave, the quality of what you receive even being far more easily satisfied, will suffer. So insisting that anyone who expresses concern or discontent is being dramatic or insisting for them to be silent and "keep waiting" doesn't really do you any favors.

"Keep waiting," "wait and see," and "show, not tell," stop becoming hype-generators and start becoming units of measure after a certain point. To some degree, I think it evolves into the mentality amongst many that it can be simplified to, "be patient" or "if you're not satisfied find another game." And to be honest, I think random leaks of info here and there create for more hype than simply telling people to look forward to content and not having a shred of detail as to what makes that content exciting, outside of story continuation and an undoubtedly, as usual, visually stunning map to explore.

But you're right, I've widely expressed my opinion, in just about every thread at this point. And ultimately, it boils down to waiting and hoping as usual. But I personally find myself spending more time on the forums discussing the state of the game or hopes for it than actually playing it, and if many others are too, then they aren't really spending any money. So the more time spent waiting with less reasons to play the game, the less revenue potential. Honestly, I have less time to play right now anyway due to school, so it's not really a big deal for me personally but if sharing my thoughts helps to improve the state of the game for when I do have that free time, I'd rather share them than keep quiet and hope for the best. That being said, they certainly have a lot on their plate right now and despite having a lot less trust in them as a consumer, I still have confidence in their ability and the talent they have in abundance at the studio.

Looking forward to hopefully starting my kitty mount on Tuesday though and potentially finding new enjoyment with WvW. Despite protest, it's decisions like this that impact the game modes in major ways that do give me a little faith in this idea that they can deliver my expectation of "expansion-level content" in living story. Changes that reinvigorate content and create opportunities for the future.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

"Not anytime soon" is relative. People were expecting it soon as after LWS4 ends. Not that soon. Its been stated before in regards to the PoF leak that they already have a timeline game plan through PoF, the Living World Season(now seasons), into the following expansion.

[sephiroth.4217]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Laurencius.9258 said:Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead.

It doesn't look that at all. The game has 250+ people working on it. It has an entire new set of Living World stories planned, taking us through to summer 2020.

Which is only good for PvE focused players......Essentially the game is dead to everyone else if this is the plan going forward.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Laurencius.9258 said:Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead.

It doesn't look that at all. The game has 250+ people working on it. It has an entire new set of Living World stories planned, taking us through to summer 2020.

Which is only good for PvE focused players......Essentially the game is dead to everyone else if this is the plan going forward.I don't know why you'd think that, since it isn't a change from the way things were before. People already thought PvP and WvW aren't getting enough attention before the layoffs. And so far, ANet has committed to both the major projects for WvW and PvP that were in the works. Alliances is probably one of the more expensive changes to the game that isn't part of an expac. Swiss tourney seems to be popular among a certain fraction of the PvP crowd.

So no, it doesn't look like things are any different for PvP or WvW than before.

Of course, neither do things appear to be improving for PvP or WvW. But then, that's true for PvE|Fractals|Raids.

---

All we really know is that the game has at least as many people working on it now as they did when HoT launched, which is more than ANet had when GW2 launched. (And at least some parts of the cancelled projects go back that far, at least according to comments we've seen from devs that left.)

So there's no evidence that the game is dead or that any particular mode is in worse shape today than last month. To be fair, there's similarly no evidence that things will be different or better going forward for any particular mode either.

The layoffs just happened. It's going to be a while before we outsiders have any real clue as to whether ANet will weather the storm, thrive in it, or be diminished.

[sephiroth.4217]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Laurencius.9258 said:Unfortunately, it looks like GW2 is dead.

It doesn't look that at all. The game has 250+ people working on it. It has an entire new set of Living World stories planned, taking us through to summer 2020.

Which is only good for PvE focused players......Essentially the game is dead to everyone else if this is the plan going forward.I don't know why you'd think that, since it isn't a change from the way things were before. People already thought PvP and WvW aren't getting enough attention before the layoffs. And so far, ANet has committed to both the major projects for WvW and PvP that were in the works. Alliances is probably one of the more expensive changes to the game that isn't part of an expac. Swiss tourney seems to be popular among a certain fraction of the PvP crowd.

So no, it doesn't look like things are any different for PvP or WvW than before.

Of course, neither do things appear to be improving for PvP or WvW. But then, that's true for PvE|Fractals|Raids.

---

All we really know is that the game has at least as many people working on it now as they did when HoT launched, which is more than ANet had when GW2 launched. (And at least some parts of the cancelled projects go back that far, at least according to comments we've seen from devs that left.)

So there's no evidence that the game is dead or that any particular mode is in worse shape today than last month. To be fair, there's similarly no evidence that things will be different or better going forward for any particular mode either.

The layoffs just happened. It's going to be a while before we outsiders have any real clue as to whether ANet will weather the storm, thrive in it, or be diminished.

Focusing on PvE results in a dead game for those of us who do not focus on PvE

Now for PvE focused players, the game is not dead and will probably flourish more with the extra focus..

Its all a matter of perspective.

[Dashingsteel.3410]

Living story chapter every couple of months is what they were doing with a skeleton crew... Now that the side projects have been trashed perhaps we can have an expansion sooner rather than later

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"sephiroth.4217" said:Focusing on PvE results in a dead game for those of us who do not focus on PvEAgain, how is that different today from last month? In January, people were already convinced that PvE got all the attention and WvW & PvP got almost no dev time and true or not, it's easy to see why.

But now, in March, what evidence is there that they are focusing relatively more on PvE than they were planning to do before the layoffs?

Now for PvE focused players, the game is not dead and will probably flourish more with the extra focus..To what extra focus are you referring?First, it's entirely speculative that ANet had fewer than 250 positions allocated outside of GW2, so that somehow losing budget for those "other projects" is going to result in a massive change of attention to GW2. Second, even if that were true (and the little data we have doesn't really support it or is at best ambivalent), there's absolutely no indication of what ANet plans to do now.

Its all a matter of perspective.Not in this case, because there isn't enough known yet to have a perspective about, different or otherwise.

---

Unless you somehow have access to information the rest of us haven't yet seen, it's going to be a while before we outsiders have any real clue as to whether ANet will weather the storm, thrive in it, or be diminished. That goes for Living World, Raids, Fractals, as well as WvW, EotM, PvP Seasons, and PvP in general.

The only thing we really know is that ANet lost 143 individuals and the company is going to have to work at it just to maintain the status quo.

[MoriMoriMori.5349]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@"C Cspace Cowboy.5903" said:They can’t properly balance what they got now and y’all want more profession classes? Lmao

Yes. Elite specializations are the most fun thing about expansions aside from a wealth of new regions to explore. And heck theory crafting new OP builds from Elite Specs is half the fun of elite specs too.

Current elite specs often only use one title weapon "intended" for them. Like, there is very little sense in using anything except sword on Weaver, or not using Warhorn on Tempest - anything else would most of the time will be times worse in terms of DPS. By simply re-working skills on the other weapons, may be even making them change into something new when equiped by e-spec (comparing to the core class), you'll have your "new experiences", without adding even more madness in hardly existing current balance. I really, really hope Anet knows better than adding new profession in the game, at least before fixing issues with current ones (tons of them, half of current professions either severely overshadowed by their and other e-specs, or just significantly under-performing comparing to them). The last thing this game needs is more broken professions.

That's not even mentioning that creating even more unique professions is simply impossible. Many of the current ones are not that unique, if you'll stop looking at animations, and will look at mechanics and numbers. They can't even balance the current set for years, if they will add even more, they won't be able to manage them at all. That's a straight road to disaster.

[sephiroth.4217]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"sephiroth.4217" said:Focusing on PvE results in a dead game for those of us who do not focus on PvEAgain, how is that different today from last month? In January, people were already convinced that PvE got all the attention and WvW & PvP got almost no dev time and true or not, it's easy to see why.

But now, in March, what evidence is there that they are focusing relatively more on PvE than they were planning to do before the layoffs?

Now for PvE focused players, the game is not dead and will probably flourish more with the extra focus..To what extra focus are you referring?First, it's entirely speculative that ANet had fewer than 250 positions allocated outside of GW2, so that somehow losing budget for those "other projects" is going to result in a massive change of attention to GW2. Second, even if that were true (and the little data we have doesn't really support it or is at best ambivalent), there's absolutely no indication of what ANet plans to do now.

Its all a matter of perspective.Not in this case, because there isn't enough known yet to have a perspective about, different or otherwise.

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Unless you somehow have access to information the rest of us haven't yet seen, it's going to be a while before we outsiders have any real clue as to whether ANet will weather the storm, thrive in it, or be diminished. That goes for Living World, Raids, Fractals, as well as WvW, EotM, PvP Seasons, and PvP in general.

The only thing we really know is that ANet lost 143 individuals and the company is going to have to work at it just to maintain the status quo.

I dont want to be rude and explain extremely simple things, either you understand or you dont.

[hugo.4705]

I'm sorry, I can't let pass that, I've seen many post about "story is improving", they "make big maps as LS", it is just not true.

You can't compare expansion maps which are closer to core maps with ls maps.We are comparing very huge map with~13 hearts, ~8 vistas, ~13 waypoints, ~16 poi, ~11 hero points and more easter eggs and lores that you can imagine with:Small map, many unexplorable areas locked behind story/event, and unfinished areas: could you imagine Rata Sum without the last floor? What about a hole in gandarran field or unfinished fort trinity?

I used to love those dialog animations in personnal story and it's sad they aren't used anymore.With a "story" which is the same each time and that's boring: "prepare to kill a dragon/kill a dragon". Can't we have for once, maps only made for lore or exploration learning on the races instead of having to kill dragon? That why I loved PoF, the whole maps were focused on Joko and Baltha. No dragon, apart an "hello" of kralk at the end.

Could be the same with asura/norn, exploration to solve a problem (signal from quora sum/sons of svanir troubles in the north with kodans/norns) and at the end, not necesseraly a dragon, can be asleep.