Another SAB "where's world 3" thread

[Zyga.2580]

I haven't played for a few years and when a friend wanted to try out gw2 I was happy to play with him, he thought the main game was kind of a grind but he really latched onto how fun SAB is.... I thought hey it's probably got new things since I've been back, maybe we can give it a go. we recently beat world 2 and when I thought we would finally see world 3.... no such thing. After looking on the forums for why it's really disheartening to see that since a "lot" of people don't like it, nothing is being put into it anymore. 6 years out, no world 3. I just really love this mode, it adds a bunch of different ways to play the game, makes the highjump mechanic actually useful for once in its life.... idk. I just really am sad to see that nothing has happened over these years (besides the race guy) and I wanted to make this post to say that there are players who enjoy it and new players are wondering why it's not done after 6 years.

[Randulf.7614]

@"Zyga.2580" said:I haven't played for a few years and when a friend wanted to try out gw2 I was happy to play with him, he thought the main game was kind of a grind but he really latched onto how fun SAB is.... I thought hey it's probably got new things since I've been back, maybe we can give it a go. we recently beat world 2 and when I thought we would finally see world 3.... no such thing. After looking on the forums for why it's really disheartening to see that since a "lot" of people don't like it, nothing is being put into it anymore. 6 years out, no world 3. I just really love this mode, it adds a bunch of different ways to play the game, makes the highjump mechanic actually useful for once in its life.... idk. I just really am sad to see that nothing has happened over these years (besides the race guy) and I wanted to make this post to say that there are players who enjoy it and new players are wondering why it's not done after 6 years.

World 3 not being made has nothing whatsoever to do with whether people like it or not. I could go into the ancient history that was the backlash World 2 caused on initial release (which was mostly just feedback which got out of control) and how changes to the engine caused SAB to "break" and be inaccessible for years. But, realistically it comes down to resources Vs money it generates. The festival/current event team is small. The original creator is gone, (although some of his original team might still exist). Resources arent going to be taken from the core game for a 3 week festival which seems to break easily, especially one not designed to be "monetised".

If Anet reverse their decision and develop future Worlds (extremely unlikely), it will be because the festival team have the time to do so and thy believe it can generate revenue to pay back that time.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

It is unlikely that SAB will ever get a World 3. A statement from Josh in 2016 ruled it out and they’ve never suggested the situation might have changed.

Josh talked about this in his blog post: "Guild Wars 2 is a huge game, and keeping it strong means making tough decisions about where to spend our time to best serve the most players. We decided we couldn’t justify the sacrifice to Guild Wars 2 to make more new worlds for SAB."

[ProtoGunner.4953]

It's like with so many stuff in GW2: they have an idea, start with it half-finished and abandon it. It's throughout the whole game.

[DietPepsi.4371]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:It's like with so many stuff in GW2: they have an idea, start with it half-finished and abandon it. It's throughout the whole game.

It hurts, but it's true. I personally do not agree with that design philosophy.

[Astralporing.1957]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:It's like with so many stuff in GW2: they have an idea, start with it half-finished and abandon it. It's throughout the whole game.To be truthful it also had a lot to do with World 2 numbers being much smaller than expected (turns out many people that liked SAB the first time, didn't actually like the increase of difficulty between w1 and w2). Also, remember, that SAB was originally not meant to be a recurring, long-term idea. It was a side project that was to be an one-time April's Fools Day joke. You can say that world 2 and trib mode are already more than they originally intended to do with it.

[Ashantara.8731]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:You can say that world 2 and trib mode are already more than they originally intended to do with it.

I doubt that. It was given a "heroic" storyline: save the princess! That has not happened yet in neither of the two existing worlds, so I assume they had originally planned to come up with one new level each year.

[Klipso.8653]

A half finished, abandoned product is right in line with the way they've handled most of the content in game. I don't see the problem.

[mindcircus.1506]

Let me just add yet another "no thanks" to more SAB.

I would rather see resources devoted to something a wider section of the player base can enjoy year-round.

[JDub.1530]

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:It is unlikely that SAB will ever get a World 3. A statement from Josh in 2016 ruled it out and they’ve never suggested the situation might have changed.

Josh

talked about this in his blog post: "Guild Wars 2 is a huge game, and keeping it strong means making tough decisions about where to spend our time to best serve the most players. We decided we couldn’t justify the sacrifice to Guild Wars 2 to make more new worlds for SAB."

I believe that is the same person who was laid off, and after the fact said this will be good for the game, because now ANet is focused on GW2 when before they most certainly weren't (according to him). So it's possible (however unlikely) that 2016 Josh was saying that from a position where ANet wasn't committing their full resources to thew game. A 2019 ANet might have more resources to put into it next year, or the year after, etc...

Or his 2016 statement is still true. Time will tell. Maybe a newly refocused ANet will find ways to make SAB more viable to the main game. I'm really curious how future releases (beyond s4e6, which was probably deep in development when the layoffs hit) will look. We might just see the same old, same old, or notice the effect of the layoffs. Or maybe it will actually prove true that a refocused ANet will show us something new. Or new twists on their existing design philosophy.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

We don't know that ANet has become more focused. We know that particular individuals felt it was unfocused before the layoffs, but any company with 300+ employees is guaranteed to have people who feel that way. All we really know is that they lost 140 people, retained over 250, and were told by their owning company to cancel projects. We don't know if the projects were on time (but too slow to save NCSOFT's shareholders) or mismanaged or anywhere in between.(FYI it's even possible that one of those cancelled projects was... stand-alone SAB. I don't think that's likely; it's just an example of how little we know about ANet's plans then or now.)

We do know that SAB W2 was a lot of work, turned out to be poorly received both in reviews/feedback and in how many fewer players participated (both in total count and fraction of everyone online). We also know that every minute spent on SAB has no value for the rest of the game, because it's specifically built that way.

People who like SAB tend to love it. That doesn't change the fact that the very idea of an 8-bit, platform homage doesn't appeal to the vast majority of players. SAB is a very expensive hobby for its developers, the chief among them no longer working at ANet. That's the bad news. The good news is that ANet still has people who love SAB, too. So it's not impossible that we'll see a W3 some day. It's just incredibly unlikely and won't increase its chances by someone making yet another post about it.

[Manuhell.2759]

Raids don't appeal to the vast majority of players either, but it's not like they stopped putting them out after the second one. Whereas we're still waiting for SAB world 3 since 2013 (along with the continuation of the related Moto subplot).

[Etria.3642]

I mean. World 2 is like an entirely different level of annoyance and difficulty compared to world 1. I've done both; now that I have the achievements for trib world 2 I don't even return there for the dailies if I can help it so I can understand why others didn't like it--that said I lovelovelove world 1. It's shorter, easier, still presents tricksies in trib and it's fun.

If 1873468934 people do world 1 and 2345 do world 2 doesn't it make clear and obvious sense to make worlds 3 and 4 MORE LIKE WORLD 1???? Instead of, oh, rage-quitting and not making more at all. Or just make it /shorter/ for heaven's sake. Committing to world 2 is setting aside /hours/ as opposed to 30 minutes. It isn't the difficulty it's the time required. At least, of course, in my opinion. And wouldn't shorter mean fewer resources to make it?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Personally, if the Festival Team were to expend resources on something, I'd rather it was Halloween, Wintersday, or Festival of the Four Winds.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Etria.3642 said:I mean. World 2 is like an entirely different level of annoyance and difficulty compared to world 1.

It's more challenging, and therefore more fun! But at its core, it is the same type of content, no? Of course the journey towards facing the Big Bad will become more difficult with each step we take. That is the nature of adventure.

now that I have the achievements for trib world 2 I don't even return there for the dailies if I can help it

That's because W2 is really painful in Tribulation Mode, especially Z3. Z3 is my favorite zone of all, but after having played it 16 times in TM for the collection, I have enough of it - for now. I hope that will have changed again by next year. Really, W2 TM is total pixel-walking (often in mid air), and that's what makes people loathe it after a while. There is just too much danger at once, often cramped into certain spots, so that it is no longer just a question of agility and skill, but often of luck. In NM, however, it is just fine the way it is (IMO).

[mercury ranique.2170]

World 3 is non existing at the moment and as far as we know, there are no plans to change this.I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I like SAB, but it gets boring really quickly. Besides thsat, people who start up GW2, do so to play an MMO, not a 3d platformer. It is a very very very well done gimmick, but to me nothing more.I think it actually would work better if SAB was made into a new (mobile) game

[ProtoGunner.4953]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:It's like with so many stuff in GW2: they have an idea, start with it half-finished and abandon it. It's throughout the whole game.To be truthful it also had a lot to do with World 2 numbers being much smaller than expected (turns out many people that liked SAB the first time, didn't actually like the increase of difficulty between w1 and w2). Also, remember, that SAB was originally not meant to be a recurring, long-term idea. It was a side project that was to be an one-time April's Fools Day joke. You can say that world 2 and trib mode are already more than they originally intended to do with it.

It was far too hard. I didn't understand why they had this frustrating gameplay at all. I really though W1 was good. But somehow they like to make even such joke side projects super hard. Why that? It's not fun at all. If you want challenge, just go for the tribulation mode. Hence it was the same for me: I just finished W2 once and never looked back again. Too frustrating.

And don't get me wrong, I am an avid player that likes a challenge and I loved the Soulborne games (and Sekiro atm). But there I am invested and I want to do it. Imo it was a bad decision to make a fun project that hard - especially for the GW2 community which is very casual.

[Ben K.6238]

Other things, like Polymock and a handful of other activities that were intended to be in the starter cities, have never been implemented at all after nearly 7 years. So yeah, it's far from the first thing that was left unfinished.

[Shiyo.3578]

Put the raid team on SAB. It's less of a waste of dev time than raids are.

[Solvar.7953]

I found SAB W1 and interesting diversion. But like most festivals, by the time it is over, I'm ready for it to be over (festivals in a way are only special because they happen once a year). If SAB was available year round, I suspect most of the time you would only have a couple people playing it most of the time.W2 seemed to take the approach the longer & harder is better. Some people may like that, but a lot did not. But that extra complexity certainly made it more time consuming to design, build, and test. I'd much rather that effort would have been put into content that is available year round, even if it is content I don't like to play much.It also seems that GW2 lost its focus in some way - after all, it is an MMORPG. If I want to play a platform jumping game, I'll play a platform jumping game. If I want to play a racing game, I'll play a racing game, and so on. They can't make a game that does everything, or at least not do as good a job of at vs games which are really focused on that one thing.

[lare.5129]

I am very like that we have w1, like that we have w2. And dont be sad if w2 will be better that w3. So it is ok what we not have.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

@"Klipso.8653" said:A half finished, abandoned product is right in line with the way they've handled most of the content in game. I don't see the problem.

Well thats one way of (not) looking at things.

"Oh hey, that obvious problem over there has been a problem across the whole game, but I dont see the problem."???

[Klipso.8653]

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:

@"Klipso.8653" said:A half finished, abandoned product is right in line with the way they've handled most of the content in game. I don't see the problem.

Well thats one way of (not) looking at things.

"Oh hey, that obvious problem over there has been a problem across the whole game, but I dont see the problem."???

That's the joke

[Daniel.5428]

World 3 will never be made because Anet wants to swap to mobile market and make cash-grabby mobile games, why do you think their roadmap looks like "Yeah, some recipes for profession 500, some more farm for legendary runes that need no effect/model and some more basic episodes, small map with 3 events each 3 months." Why do you think they gave up developing expansions? Prepare for GW Mobile.

[Zyga.2580]

@Solvar.7953 said:I found SAB W1 and interesting diversion. But like most festivals, by the time it is over, I'm ready for it to be over (festivals in a way are only special because they happen once a year). If SAB was available year round, I suspect most of the time you would only have a couple people playing it most of the time.W2 seemed to take the approach the longer & harder is better. Some people may like that, but a lot did not. But that extra complexity certainly made it more time consuming to design, build, and test. I'd much rather that effort would have been put into content that is available year round, even if it is content I don't like to play much.It also seems that GW2 lost its focus in some way - after all, it is an MMORPG. If I want to play a platform jumping game, I'll play a platform jumping game. If I want to play a racing game, I'll play a racing game, and so on. They can't make a game that does everything, or at least not do as good a job of at vs games which are really focused on that one thing.

actually on this, there isnt really a mmo platforming game, that's why this is actually fun with friends.