Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Will 3rd Expansion happen at all?


yefluke.3168

Recommended Posts

I have seen a few people say the parent company wanted more expansions and that it is Arenanet that was reluctant

I am just curious where this info came from?

The MMO market is still huge, box sales and the publicity an expansion generates are essential if a game wants to keep or increase its share of that market however

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 271
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I really want them to make more content. This is the only mmo where they manage to make something new. Some new mechanic with each expansion to draw in more attention and players. They manage to make each one fresh. From all the mmo's iv'e played this is the only one that has my full attention with new upcoming expansions.

Also extremely hopeful for a new class ,_, .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Age of decline.. yeah there's probably some truth to that and I for one blame subscription fees.

Oversaturated market and every game is demanding a constant fee in order to not only play but maintain access over your account, progression etc.It's a bad model.. always has been imo because it creates a market in which only a handful of games can possibly survive in.

I'm willing to bet the same thing is going to hit Tv and consoles eventually.. need a sub for psn, xbl, swith online, netflix, amazon the list goes on and on.Nobody is going to sit around while their shows and games go exclusive to one sub or another and they realize.. if they want to play everything and watch everything they're going to have to pay 10 different sub fees to do it..

That's what killed the MMO market and spawned this generation of failed mandatory sub games in which most of them are now free2play.

Anet were absolutely right to make Guildwars a no subfee franchise.. and i for one will gladly continue supporting this game of my own free will.. be that through the gemstore or splashing out on the most expensive version of each expansion release.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People likes to tell that MMORPG genre is dying and is less and less popular, etc, etc.But its worth to notice few things here.

Yes. MMO games arent that popular as MOBA or Battle Royale games for example. But does MMORPG ever in history been more popular than this kind of games? I dont think so.But anyway. Different question. Do MMORPG's really need to be most popular type of online games to be successful? Of course not.I remember first MMORPG's as Ultima Online or Helbreath. And you know what? Today's MMORPG's got much more players. And these old games were fine with their small population. People even payed for it (both games had p2p model) and everyone was happy. Noone needed more people. Maps wasnt even designed for more players.And tbh... What's interesting point here - playing those old, less popular MMORPG's were more fun, because after some time everyone knew each other there. Community were so strong. While when you got hundreds of thousands people online, then everyone is kind of anonymous and people dont know who's who.

Meantime in 2004 WoW were released and this MMO bring alot of players from other games. They met in one place. What hasn't happened before.And today's WoW is smaller but there's GW2, FF14, TESO, and some other very popular MMORPG's. List of today's popular MMORPG's isnt small. Its alot of players.I dont think there was ever more MMORPG players than now. In history. I do not remember such times tbh.Games like LoL, Fortnite, Apex, etc etc are more popular than MMORPGs - that's the fact. I know it. But its like... Those games just bring alot of new people. Which wasnt here before. Also what it changes for MMORPG players at all? I mean population of those moba's and battle royal games? Nothing.I don't think people in the past in Ultima Online or Helbreath were less satisfied than current mmorpg players. I'll tell more. IMO those players were often more satisfied. Even in their low populated games.You know why? Because those MMORPGs maybe were smaller, but more focused on the game modes which those people really liked.Devs were doing good, engaging games. With good gameplay. Rather than trying to satisfy everyone.And that's the real problem with alot of current MMORPG's in my opinion. Its those large corporations which trys to do games for everyone. And meantime those games are for noone. Are boring etc, etc.Its all about quality content. And quality games. And this is what we're really missing these days. Dev's focus more on raising population, rather than quality. While we dont need more people tbh. They're doing MMORPG's for everyone. Rather than focus on specyfic game modes. And support them enough. They want more, and more and became so greedy. Like... suddenly we find out that its not worth for them to do hardcore raid content for small amount of players. Its not worth to support PvP mode for small amount of players etc, etc. While in the past it was worth. They just became too greedy. And some MMORPGs starts to be just boring. Pointless and meaningless.

But I am pretty sure there's still few pretty good MMORPG's which devs know what to do. And they stick to their direction. They support their (end)game modes, etc, etc.But unfortunately I dont think Gw2 is one of those games. Gw2 is very popular but it looks like population is the main and the only thing achived by Gw2.Anyway I am pretty sure we will see alot of good MMORPG's in the future :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hate to be that person, but GW2 is not in good shape. An xpack is a huge en-devour and crucial to keeping MMOs alive. Anet does not have the resources nor the talen to put out another xpack. The next LS will be the last. GW2 will go into sleep mode like GW1 is in right now. IF they even waste time keeping the game alive at all after the last LS. I will quote this post in 2 years to prove my point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@wickedkae.4980 said:I hate to be that person, but GW2 is not in good shape. An xpack is a huge en-devour and crucial to keeping MMOs alive. Anet does not have the resources nor the talen to put out another xpack. The next LS will be the last. GW2 will go into sleep mode like GW1 is in right now. IF they even waste time keeping the game alive at all after the last LS. I will quote this post in 2 years to prove my point.

You seem to forgetting that there are upwards of 250 people working directly on GW2 now, versus 0 people working directly on GW1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Elite specs locked behind a 50 dollar paywall, thus destroying accessibility in the competitive scene unless you fork over cash
  • Core Features like mounts that affect the whole game locked behind another 50 dollar paywall

Mike Z is 100% right that living story could deliver expansion like content and it should so that everyone can have access to all of the necessities to enjoy the game and stay competitive and that the team at arena net can just focus on designing the game on the current latest features catalog, thus making decision making easier. If another expansion does get released, they now have to worry about the chance that people who play the expansion won't have path of fire or heart of thorns, thus now having to account for people who have mounts and people who don't when designing worlds which means more time spent on having to weigh those into consideration, thus more time wasted.

Expansion packs add another paywall that makes it just as annoying as the gem store to enjoy the game fully and because of how their designed, makes it harder to design new content.


The problem that we face with the living story is that the amount of content that gets released is paltry at best and many aspects of the living story were grossly mishandled(The Molten Facility and Pirate Cove could have been fully featured dungeons and then someone high on inter-dimensional mushrooms thought it was a good idea to take it away and then it was introduced as a shell of its former self), the new areas are very high quality, but there's very little in it. Many parts of the game are being neglected and not maintained due to some freak obsession with releasing a 3 hour long story that takes 4 months to make, a story in which a large portion of people won't even get to see to begin with because their time is better spent farming gold in silverwastes, converting it to gems, and getting the items because the good rewards from the update are locked behind the gemstore rather than having to actually go and play the content updates to get the new mounts packs for example.

The living story is what I would call a good example of the Monkey's Paw trope. It brings promise of constant live updates as well as many things that could have been, but because of how its instantiated, it leaves people conflicted and wanting something else. These updates don't release with everyone in mind and so people feel left out and sometimes angry.


If Cantha were to get released, we would all know that a good portion of that would be a sprawling city, that much is for sure. Now here's some issues with this;

If it gets released expansion style, the city scape will now have to account for people who don't have HoT, PoF, only have one of them, and for those who have both. City areas are already very hard to design, now we have to include 4 different groups of audiences that have different ways to access content which means the design process is going to take that much longer so that no one feels inconvenienced when accessing the different amenities the expansion has to offer.

It it gets released living story style, we now have to deal an audience who is less inclined to log in for the content largely due to the negative connotations that the living story update model now has and top of the fact that less content is available upfront impeding on the vast impressions it could have.

I intentionally omitted expansion restrictions like not having mounts or gliders from the living story argument due to the fact that had these features been instantiated living story style, we would all have access to these features to begin with had we stuck with just having a good feature rich living story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@wickedkae.4980 said:I hate to be that person, but GW2 is not in good shape. An xpack is a huge en-devour and crucial to keeping MMOs alive. Anet does not have the resources nor the talen to put out another xpack. The next LS will be the last. GW2 will go into sleep mode like GW1 is in right now. IF they even waste time keeping the game alive at all after the last LS. I will quote this post in 2 years to prove my point.

You seem to forgetting that there are upwards of 250 people working directly on GW2 now, versus 0 people working directly on GW1.

The way Anet is going, there will also be 0 working on GW2 in short order. If living story is all we have to look forward to, then there is no longer any reason for me to spend another dollar on the game. The devs need to tell us if we are getting REAL updates (xpack, huge new lands, new classes, new end game advancement systems etc) if it wants to keep people like me paying. Anet has shown ZERO ability to introduce xpack content in a living story. Hell, they can't even add good items to the gem store anymore that are worth purchasing. If anet is indeed only going to be putting out the LS stuff, then the game is done. I would like to know so I no longer waste time/money on a dead game. Your time may be cheap, but mine is not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@wickedkae.4980 said:

@wickedkae.4980 said:I hate to be that person, but GW2 is not in good shape. An xpack is a huge en-devour and crucial to keeping MMOs alive. Anet does not have the resources nor the talen to put out another xpack. The next LS will be the last. GW2 will go into sleep mode like GW1 is in right now. IF they even waste time keeping the game alive at all after the last LS. I will quote this post in 2 years to prove my point.

You seem to forgetting that there are upwards of 250 people working directly on GW2 now, versus 0 people working directly on GW1.

The way Anet is going, there will also be 0 working on GW2 in short order. If living story is all we have to look forward to, then there is no longer any reason for me to spend another dollar on the game. The devs need to tell us if we are getting REAL updates (xpack, huge new lands, new classes, new end game advancement systems etc) if it wants to keep people like me paying. Anet has shown ZERO ability to introduce xpack content in a living story. Hell, they can't even add good items to the gem store anymore that are worth purchasing. If anet is indeed only going to be putting out the LS stuff, then the game is done. I would like to know so I no longer waste time/money on a dead game. Your time may be cheap, but mine is not.

Okay. Have fun. We'll be here when you get back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me i look forward to expansions in games. I hope they have one in the works, but im not in a hurry because im a newer player so i still have a lot to do. But with that being said, i realize there are players that have pretty much beat the game, and for them an expansion would be what keeps them playing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Balsa.3951 said:Hmmm just fired 100 devs [...]

It was 146 devs, if not more. And some of them did work on GW2.

Anyway, I really hope for an announcement soon that they will start working on the next expansion. Otherwise, I will definitely play this game less, which includes spending less or no money at the Gem Store, and possibly quit if LWS5 disappoints as much as the last episode did and/or continues to bore the audience with elder dragons and there is no expac on the horizon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Balsa.3951 said:Hmmm just fired 100 devs [...]

It was 146 devs, if not more. And some of them
did
work on GW2.

Anyway, I really hope for an announcement soon that they will start working on the next expansion. Otherwise, I will definitely play this game less, which includes spending less or no money at the Gem Store, and possibly quit if LWS5 disappoints as much as the last episode did and/or continues to bore the audience with elder dragons
and
there is no expac on the horizon.

Yeah, at least announce about it a little bit.

Do they talk about new expansion at all????? no? may be E3? (probably talking about LS5)

I am playing the game less now because of the laid off incident and tired of delaying LS episode / a little replayablilty of the new maps / unsure future of the game.

well... any answer Anet? will there be new expansion pack?

i bet they can't answer at all because they are also still unsure about the game future.Am i right Anet? Mike O'Brien?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You overestimate the Power of an expansion for such an aged game. We know from NCsoft that the gem Sales are the main source for revenue. Even in release quarters gem Sales generated 66-75% of total Sales (confirmed for HOT). I assume PoF Had similar results. The effort of producing an expansion IS to High compassion with ROI.

What do we know about LW5? According to interviews it starts right after LW4. They pla Julin a two months cadence for the epidsodes. Along with LW5 we should see content formerly reserved for expansions. Hopefully NCsoft Tool Actionscript that Arenanet keep this premises. Expansion-exclusive so far are Elite specs and impactful mastery paths. LW 5 should ship both for money. This would make an expansion obsolet for at least 18 to 24 months.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"IllegalChocolate.6938" said:Mike Z is 100% right that living story could deliver expansion like content and it should so that everyone can have access to all of the necessities to enjoy the game and stay competitive and that the team at arena net can just focus on designing the game on the current latest features catalog, thus making decision making easier.The big problem is the word "could". Their first attempt at releasing content via LS that normally would be an expansion feature is the Sunspear Refuge which is a complete failure in my view. It doesn't really add anything to the game and does come with it's annoyances particularly with regards to traveling there as it's a separate instance. It adds no real benefits and does have downsides in essence. That doesn't bode well for what their definition of expansion-like content is. And so far the current LS chapters don't really add much to the game.Expansion packs add another paywall that makes it just as annoying as the gem store to enjoy the game fully and because of how their designed, makes it harder to design new content.I have to disagree with the term paywall for expansions. I think it's the most fair way for a game developer to make more money as they release a lot of new content to the game. I understand that not everybody has a lot of money but one expansions every two years is not a wall. If you cannot afford to buy a 30 dollar expansion every two years then you are not really a contributing customer anymore. It's not that I don't empathize with people who have very little money to spend but they can't expect to get the same as someone who does pay for it and it needs to be paid for because ArenaNet also has salaries to pay to their people.

I suppose you like the idea that other players pay your way but I think it's fair that people pay their own way and you just can't expect an MMO to run month after month on a one time buying price which already gave a lot of content. So please stop acting like it's a paywall. Of all the transactions we have to put money into the game, that is the most decent and ethical one. This game doesn't charge a sub if you need to be reminded of that and it's clear that the combination of box sales and gem purchases is what keeps this game going. I think it's a complete misrepresentation to make it sound like paid expansions are some evil or unfair scheme. People who are not willing to pay for an expansion every couple of years for a game without a sub and regular in between content updates should be ashamed of themselves. And if you really can't afford it, I feel for you, but to expect everything for free is not a realistic view or remotely fair to the people who make the game. Honestly, if you can afford internet and a computer then 30 bucks every two years should be possible somehow too and if not then that's just how it is. It doesn't give people the right to complain about having to pay for something especially when it's actually a reasonable price.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@The one to Rule.2593 said:honestly i doubt they'll do one at this point. I'm so over arena net and their mismanagement and delays.

Yeah, it's unbelievable, but this is kind of where I am too.

It should be the most obvious thing in the universe that expansions are the best way to generate hype and bump interest in the game as well as being a direct source of revenue. You'd think that even the most half-competent leader in existence would recognize this and make them a priority.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"IllegalChocolate.6938" said:Mike Z is 100% right that living story could deliver expansion like content and it should so that everyone can have access to all of the necessities to enjoy the game and stay competitive and that the team at arena net can just focus on designing the game on the current latest features catalog, thus making decision making easier.The big problem is the word "could". Their first attempt at releasing content via LS that normally would be an expansion feature is the Sunspear Refuge which is a complete failure in my view. It doesn't really add anything to the game and does come with it's annoyances particularly with regards to traveling there as it's a separate instance. It adds no real benefits and does have downsides in essence. That doesn't bode well for what their definition of expansion-like content is. And so far the current LS chapters don't really add much to the game.Expansion packs add another paywall that makes it just as annoying as the gem store to enjoy the game fully and because of how their designed, makes it harder to design new content.I have to disagree with the term paywall for expansions. I think it's the most fair way for a game developer to make more money as they release a lot of new content to the game. I understand that not everybody has a lot of money but one expansions every two years is not a wall. If you cannot afford to buy a 30 dollar expansion every two years then you are not really a contributing customer anymore. It's not that I don't empathize with people who have very little money to spend but they can't expect to get the same as someone who does pay for it and it needs to be paid for because ArenaNet also has salaries to pay to their people.

I suppose you like the idea that other players pay your way but I think it's fair that people pay their own way and you just can't expect an MMO to run month after month on a one time buying price which already gave a lot of content. So please stop acting like it's a paywall. Of all the transactions we have to put money into the game, that is the most decent and ethical one. This game doesn't charge a sub if you need to be reminded of that and it's clear that the combination of box sales and gem purchases is what keeps this game going. I think it's a complete misrepresentation to make it sound like paid expansions are some evil or unfair scheme. People who are not willing to pay for an expansion every couple of years for a game without a sub and regular in between content updates should be ashamed of themselves. And if you really can't afford it, I feel for you, but to expect everything for free is not a realistic view or remotely fair to the people who make the game. Honestly, if you can afford internet and a computer then 30 bucks every two years should be possible somehow too and if not then that's just how it is. It doesn't give people the right to complain about having to pay for something especially when it's actually a reasonable price.

For the record, I've probably spent more money on this game to pay the way of a lot of people including yours.

We don't see it as a paywall because it gets released gradually for us, someone new to the game? he's got a larger upfront cost to deal with especially if we happen to potentially be 6 expansions down the road. That's 180 dollars right there or 480 if you get the deluxe edition every time like me, let's not forget the additional living story cost of each episode since they weren't there when these got released. You can always recommend that this person gets PoF if he can only afford 1 of them for sick mounts, sure, but what happens when he only plays mesmer and people ask him to do chrono? then what? what if the guild wants to do Vale Guardian? fork up more or get frustrated and leave. Not the ultimatum that you want to give people. The trick here is to get them to fork over money while on the constant high of enjoyment and to avoid putting people in those positions to begin with so each and every second is enjoyable in the game and to get people to pay without question, that my friend is called the special sauce of an MMO.

The next expansion will now have to account for design features introduced in HoT and PoF, that's 4 different audiences that must be catered to. Those who have neither, who have only HoT, who have only PoF, and those who have both the easiest to cater to. Assuming that its Cantha, which means its going to be a cityscape, it becomes that much more challenging since cityscapes are generally harder to design. You would want to provide value for getting the previous expansions, so having advantages for having things like mounts will be considered especially since people spent hundreds of dollars on mount skins already, but you can't have it to an extent that people are going to feel too left out if they don't have PoF, which means the experience will be negative, the consumer will then associate getting the good stuff with another credit card payment, and with today's gaming culture climate, that is a big no no right now especially when you have people like Jim S who will blow it out of proportion on his youtube channel.

Now if we have 6 expansions, you now multiply this problem by that many expansions and how each expansion is going to affect each other by its game defining features. This could be solved of course by making game defining features baseline. Mounts for example are the best mounts in MMO gaming, why is it locked so far away into PoF? Get people on it early and people won't go back to other MMOs because our mounts are just that good, I've spent more real money on mounts than I have on the PoF deluxe edition, why even lock them out to that extent?

This is the problem we are foreseeing as we continue down this road and why they want to push for Living Story so badly.

We need a larger pool of clientele and your attitude of shaming someone because they aren't willing to buy an expansion is a deterrence, shaming someone for not willing to buy something doesn't work, didn't work for Studio Wildcard, didn't work for 4A Games, won't work for Captain Marvel either, sorry.

New players need a nice clean straight forward avenue to the good stuff to get them hooked with as little inconvenience as possible, the moment anything happens, you risk losing another potential sales target.

The living story can do this but they are just not doing the best job of doing it, which is why I called it the Monkey's Paw Trope. Is it because they pulled their best people do work on two failed mobile projects? probably. One thing is for sure, we haven't been getting Anet's best for a while as it was just revealed, now we will.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Balsa.3951" said:Hmmm just fired 100 devs [...]

It was 146 devs, if not more.Probably more, because that number considers only employees, and ignores contractors like Lena Raine, that had their contracts cancelled.

Again, according to the State of Washington, the official number of employees that were laid off was exactly 143. That's the objective number we can use to compare against the number of employees we can estimate they had last month (upwards of 400 from various accounts).

If you want to consider individuals with a cancelled business contract, then we'd also have to consider all such individuals before & after, and not simply add them to the total from before. It's entirely possible that ANet is paying some of the laid off people as contractors, to help with the transition. (Not that uncommon, even when the reason for the layoffs was to shred 30-50% of the budget quickly, as it was here.) Otherwise, we're comparing Apples to Red Apples.

It's entirely possible that other employees also left for other reasons (for cause, decided to use the opportunity to move, etc). Except again, we have an actual, official number submitted to comply with legal requirements. And that number is exactly 143.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

None of us know sh1t about what happens behind the curtain right now; those pointless discussions full of experts in leadership, management and market forecasting make me sick. It's common sense to realize they are aware of all accusations towards their work and feel the pressure to produce more content than ever before to ensure this IP won't go downhill in near future.

My bet is they minimize announcing anything just to drop a bombshell when the time comes. We all might be wrong here,l and they might have nothing to show off, but further commenting upon layoffs and company condition does no good for noone in here, including us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...