So.....next up season 5 or xpac?

[Vayne.8563]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Etria.3642 said:Company spends 12 million on product. Company earns 24 million in gross revenue. Profit: 12 millionCompany runs business as usual. Company earns 14 million in gross revenue. Profit: 14 millionCompany spends 12 million on product. 70% of current customers purchase product and then can continue to spend on new product-related revenue: Profit: 12 million.Company runs business as usual following new product. Company earns 10 million in gross revenue. Profit: 10 million

Given how Arenanet has the same number of employees it's highly unlikely that they spend more during expansions. The cost for the company is the same, regardless if their employees are working on an expansion or the living world. The big difference is those cancelled projects.

Further example: This is using gw2efficiency, which is, granted, not all the accounts. But even so, only 79% of registered users on it have Path of Fire. 93% have Heart of Thorns. The logic would then follow that /not/ everyone who bought Path of Fire would purchase a new expansion.

Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet. Yes many players won't buy the next expansion, but the drop between expansions is much smaller than the drop in the Living World.

If you don't factor in stuff like voice acting, you might be right, but we don't really know what extra stuff an expansion costs. Expansions could very well require more outsourced investment like extra sounds and stuff. They could even hire specialists to design new tools for example. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that I wouldn't be comfortable making.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Vayne.8563 said:If you don't factor in stuff like voice acting, you might be right, but we don't really know what extra stuff an expansion costs. Expansions could very well require more outsourced investment like extra sounds and stuff. They could even hire specialists to design new tools for example. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that I wouldn't be comfortable making.

The Living World doesn't have voice acting? Or lots of new sounds? Even so, let's say that expansions currently do require more investment than the living world. In the event that they stop releasing expansions and finance the rest of the game's lifetime using the Living World, wouldn't that mean everything we are getting from expansions currently, like lots of new zones, elite specs and new features like mounts and gliding, will be released through the Living World?

Do you honestly believe the game can survive forever by giving us only what the Living World is giving us and not features we only get through expansions?

[Derdzvero.7051]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet.

As an offtopic: That shows that half of the customers stopped playing after getting hard-stuck in the bad crafting sink, right? :) I mean why else registering to gw2efficiency at first place if not planning/fighting for quite some time with the "crafting" madness in this game? :) It's a good point to be brought Anet's attention as a separate topic perhaps

[Vayne.8563]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:If you don't factor in stuff like voice acting, you might be right, but we don't really know what extra stuff an expansion costs. Expansions could very well require more outsourced investment like extra sounds and stuff. They could even hire specialists to design new tools for example. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that I wouldn't be comfortable making.

The Living World doesn't have voice acting? Or lots of new sounds? Even so, let's say that expansions currently do require more investment than the living world. In the event that they stop releasing expansions and finance the rest of the game's lifetime using the Living World, wouldn't that mean everything we are getting from expansions currently, like lots of new zones, elite specs and new features like mounts and gliding, will be released through the Living World?

Do you honestly believe the game can survive forever by giving us only what the Living World is giving us and not features we only get through expansions?

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:If you don't factor in stuff like voice acting, you might be right, but we don't really know what extra stuff an expansion costs. Expansions could very well require more outsourced investment like extra sounds and stuff. They could even hire specialists to design new tools for example. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that I wouldn't be comfortable making.

The Living World doesn't have voice acting? Or lots of new sounds? Even so, let's say that expansions currently do require more investment than the living world. In the event that they stop releasing expansions and finance the rest of the game's lifetime using the Living World, wouldn't that mean everything we are getting from expansions currently, like lots of new zones, elite specs and new features like mounts and gliding, will be released through the Living World?

Do you honestly believe the game can survive forever by giving us only what the Living World is giving us and not features we only get through expansions?

Living World episode uses much less voice acting than an expansion over a much longer period of time. I don't believe there's any real comparison here. More to the point, a bad expansion can cost money.

I'm absolutely convinced that a lot of the playerbase left over the HoT launch, and that's made Anet gun shy. They didn't push PoF nearly as hard as they pushed HoT. They announced it much closer to the release date. There was far less fanfare. And PoF was the anti-hot. Virtually everything in it was something that went against what HoT did. The whole thing was a reaction to an expansion which probably cost the game playerbase.

If you ran a company and saw that people bought the game (decent initial income) and then left in droves, you'd be reluctant to bring out a new expansion again too. HoT had a terrible launch and it most likely cost the company.

It's not just about making money short term...it's about maintaining your core and most loyal audience. I'm pretty sure HoT didn't do such a good job on that.

[Vayne.8563]

@Derdzvero.7051 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet.

As an offtopic: That shows that half of the customers stopped playing after getting hard-stuck in the bad crafting sink, right? :) I mean why else registering to gw2efficiency at first place if not planning/fighting for quite some time with the "crafting" madness in this game? :) It's a good point to be brought Anet's attention as a separate topic perhaps

I registered on gw2efficiency specifically and solely to search my many characters for items that were lost. I didn't even realize it had a crafting area until much later. I use the item search far more than I use the crafting calculator.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Vayne.8563 said:If you ran a company and saw that people bought the game (decent initial income) and then left in droves, you'd be reluctant to bring out a new expansion again too.

But they released a second expansion after HOT. And then people left in droves, again.

It's not just about making money short term...it's about maintaining your core and most loyal audience.

True but we've seen time and again that this core and loyal audience has its limits and they DO leave the game once a certain period of time passes. And then they come back when an expansion is released. Note, I'm not saying to scrap the Living World and only release expansions or anything of the sort. I believe that the Living World is important to keep the players playing in-between expansions and is absolutely essential for Guild Wars 2. Not having anything against it, in fact I fully support the Living World episodic release of the game.

However, given what we got so far from past Seasons, an expansions is still necessary to bring back lots of players. It's not surprising that more players bought HOT, than finished Season 2, or bought POF compared to finishing Season 3. Expansions bring players (and revenue) back, the Living World rarely does. Unless Season 5 is expansion-like and gives us new elite specs, tons of new maps (bigger than Living World maps) with actual storylines and things to do outside the main focus of the episode (LS maps are about the episode and very little else) and features similar to mounts or gliding. IF we get these in Season 5, and if revenue is healthy, then maybe an expansion won't be needed, but I find both unlikely.

[Vayne.8563]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:If you ran a company and saw that people bought the game (decent initial income) and then left in droves, you'd be reluctant to bring out a new expansion again too.

But they released a second expansion after HOT. And then people left in droves, again.

It's not just about making money short term...it's about maintaining your core and most loyal audience.

True but we've seen time and again that this core and loyal audience has its limits and they DO leave the game once a certain period of time passes. And then they come back when an expansion is released. Note, I'm not saying to scrap the Living World and only release expansions or anything of the sort. I believe that the Living World is important to keep the players playing in-between expansions and is absolutely essential for Guild Wars 2. Not having anything against it, in fact I fully support the Living World episodic release of the game.

However, given what we got so far from past Seasons, an expansions is still necessary to bring back lots of players. It's not surprising that more players bought HOT, than finished Season 2, or bought POF compared to finishing Season 3. Expansions bring players (and revenue) back, the Living World rarely does. Unless Season 5 is expansion-like and gives us new elite specs, tons of new maps (bigger than Living World maps) with actual storylines and things to do outside the main focus of the episode (LS maps are about the episode and very little else) and features similar to mounts or gliding. IF we get these in Season 5, and if revenue is healthy, then maybe an expansion won't be needed, but I find both unlikely.

I'm pro expansion too. I love expansions. But saying they're invariably good for business is risky. Depending on the launch they can be disastrous for business.

[aspirine.6852]

@Gop.8713 said:

@Samnang.1879 said:yall complain about expac costing $50, but now they gonna give lw5 for free and yall want an expac... make up ur minds

I have never understood the community's interest in expacs. I've always thought of them as a necessary evil at best . . .

expansions are the best thing a game like GW2 has, the living story is nice, but just see what HoT and PoF brought to the game. I just hope they can keep the powercreep a bit under control this time. The game does not need more high(er) damage right now.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Brimstone.3807 said:Is it even confirmed the xpac model will continue?No, it isn't. They never said anything about possible expac 3 at all, apart from that one dev statement a year ago (which was about how we shouldn't expect it in the predictable future).

[mercury ranique.2170]

They announced that they are currently not going to announce any xpac, but they are planning on releasing a new living world season. There are four content teams and they can work on stuff with a wider scope then we are used too in living world. an example named is going back to existing maps.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:If you don't factor in stuff like voice acting, you might be right, but we don't really know what extra stuff an expansion costs. Expansions could very well require more outsourced investment like extra sounds and stuff. They could even hire specialists to design new tools for example. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that I wouldn't be comfortable making.

The Living World doesn't have voice acting? Or lots of new sounds? Even so, let's say that expansions currently do require more investment than the living world. In the event that they stop releasing expansions and finance the rest of the game's lifetime using the Living World, wouldn't that mean everything we are getting from expansions currently, like lots of new zones, elite specs and new features like mounts and gliding, will be released through the Living World?

Do you honestly believe the game can survive forever by giving us only what the Living World is giving us and not features we only get through expansions?

Look at the amount of brand new assets (sounds, music, voice, character models, environments), that come into the game with an expansion. Now compare that with what we are getting via LS (mainly reused assets). Without even taking into account extra gameplay features, it's safe to assume that all that new jazz coming with an expansion needs considerably more investment than the average season. I'm also skeptical about their ability to deliver that type of polished content through LW, but it still remains to be seen. S5 will be a good indicator.

Even if the quality isn't on par with an xpac though, they can still claim the game is not on maintenance and they would be right. If a game is getting content updates, it's still in development. Just not quite the same game it used to be.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Xpacs are needed equally for a-net as for the players.Xpac exclusive content (like new elite specs, or game mechanics (mounts)) is what really gets people back into the game. Not all of it is a hit, but i can imagine a hefty amount of players returning to game and staying because of a new feature that made the game "finally right" for them. Like armies of ppl that begged for mounts and finally got them with PoF, or necro players that were suffering for the cause until HoT landed with Reaper on board, which saved the necro at that time.

Living Story and xpacs are symbiotic. It's during Living Story seasons that we get updates and refinements to our specs (like Rev herald rework), new mechanics are being put to the test (like the awesome spider-man vines in Draconis Mons) and we get overall polish and new goal. But that does not replace the big fat "BOOOM!" that is delievered by xpacs.

[Tiviana.2650]

@KryTiKaL.3125 said:They don't need another expansion yet. They need to address current game issues with PvP balance, PvE content (such as dead content like dungeons), WvW with Alliance System or otherwise, and QoL issues (such as inconsistencies in PvE design, interface functionality and use, and mechanic issues with gameplay).

A new expansion would just add more onto that plate and likely make several of the current issues worse with the addition of some new content thing, new elite specs, new race (unlikely), etc.

So much this, but i dont think there will be an expansion, instead i think there will be a new game. This game is in need of a serious overhaul too much to try to rigg the game as is. You would have to start over on a new engine, and learn from past content mistakes. I am really miffed about the dungeon thing, i want to do dungeons but nobody will do them since there are fracs. Since i started playing 6 months ago i have done 2 dungeons, and that was pulling teeth to get people to join, one was a daily. They need to give incentive for players to run them its wasted content otherwise, maybe add a new skin or ascended drop to each of them to encourage players

[Brimstone.3807]

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:Even if the quality isn't on par with an xpac though, they can still claim the game is not on maintenance and they would be right. If a game is getting content updates, it's still in development. Just not quite the same game it used to be.

It's my personal theory this is what will happen with an LS exclusive approach for exactly the reasons you state. We shall see.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

It doesn't really have to do with them going one way or another, either sticking with Living World rather than releasing expansions for the foreseeable future or continuing to do what they have been doing which is Expansion > Living World Seasons > Expansion.

What it really has to do with is the state the game is in right now and what that has not only done to the playerbase, but also the state that the game has existed in for, honestly, a few years now.

-PvP balance is a mess both in WvW and sPvP either with Conquest being cheesed by AoE heavy builds (AoE has been pretty power crept over the years) or otherwise just stale build diversity...as in there basically isn't any. On top of the 1 shot builds and over-tuned builds that just create a problematic environment overall.-sPvP itself is a joke with the top spots in the Ranked Season Leaderboards being consistently held by the same people over and over again. Such a thing that they have perpetually achieved not by even playing the game, its done by match manipulation and loopholing the matchmaking system itself with off hours queuing, que at the same time as friends, etc. This game is the "sequel" to GW1 and yet we still don't have GvG. Apparently somewhere Anet has said that they won't support it but honestly the community wants it and has wanted it for almost 7 years now and to be honest...it would probably garner a much better competitive atmosphere and community than this nightmare we have now.-WvW has no incentive to play it. Winning means legitimately nothing. It doesn't even come with clout because its all mostly just a numbers game for covering timezones consistently enough. Rewards in WvW are stale and get you nowhere near what PvE gets you in terms of gold or return for time spent.-PvE is boring. There is hardly any challenge in it. Raids are the "most challenging" thing and even then they don't even rate that high on most hardcore players spectrum. If they want challenging, rewarding and satisfying PvE...they legitimately just go play FFXIV. Open World PvE on top of that isn't really that stimulating. Its just mob the event, get sub-par reward, move on to the next event that gets mobbed, get sub-par reward and then repeat...until you hit your daily limit and get locked out of the rewards. Dungeons are also the red-headed step child of this game. They got practically abandoned years ago in favor of Fractals and Raids rather than Anet taking any amount of time to make them more worthwhile for players beyond just the cosmetics...which are more easily acquired through just WvW reward tracks or sPvP reward tracks since practically no one touches dungeons and they have no reason to. Hell even in GW1 Anet went and put a Hard Mode on Campaign story missions that made them more difficult and increased the rewards you got.-QoL problems are all over the place in this game. There are just design inconsistencies for rewards on maps like how in the HoT maps (Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, and Dragons Stand) the only map whose map specific chest (Airship Cargo, Exalted Chests, etc) does not give a 100% change of at least 1 of the map currency is Tangled Depths and there I cannot find any conceivable reason as to why. Even Dragons Stand's Noxious Pods will always at least give 1 Crystalline Ore and I'd argue that has much more value for creating Legendaries than the Ley Line Crystals out of Tangled Depths. Beyond that we have projectiles behaving strangely despite all range and visual criteria being met. You will randomly see a projectile say "Out Of Range" or "Obstructed" despite being within range and having clear Line of Sight on the target, but then we have Ranger Longbows that can still reliably hit their target beyond the 1,500 range increment detailed on their skills. It goes to at least 1,750 units which is 250 beyond what their skills say. There are also still several terrain bugs, such as getting knocked through walls as well as terrain exploits in WvW still being present which is coupled with some Keeps or Garrisons in WvW (primarily on the Desert Borderlands) having walls just completely misplaced to where they should be which leaves gaps and crevices that allow people to hide or place siege inside of.-Power creep is a genuine concern in the game. Its been steadily increasing over time and it gets exacerbated by these "interesting" mechanics that Anet piles into Elite Specs when they are released. Sometimes they get tuned down, but we still have Boonbeasts with 10 stacks of stability that lasts for nearly a minute, Heralds with 20+ might stacks so long as they stay in combat, some classes just near instantly dropping 15+ Vulnerability stacks onto a target, healing strength that has been steadily being increased over time (just the last few balance patches did a lot of that).

So...considering all of that I would rather ArenaNet not work on an Expansion for a while. They have a massive backlog of things they need to address in this game to improve upon, rework and add that them introducing some big shake up with new elite specs, new raids, new story, new stats and whatever newfangled thing they come up with wouldn't do this game good. It might seem like it would at first, some new shiny thing that looks interesting but just judging by history so far...those new things don't always lead to being good things and you can't maintain a game on that one thing even if it is any good. There are multiple aspects to MMORPGs that people participate in and enjoy but GW2 doesn't really succeed on any of those fronts.

Don't get me wrong, I have loved GW1 all the way to GW2. I've played this series of games since GW1 released and have maintained my enjoyment of them for a long time now, but there comes a time where flowery words and misplaced praise does not help and it really only hinders. There comes a time where Anet needs to take a hard look at itself and consider the reasonable criticism that comes its way and so far...I haven't seen them do that.

[zealex.9410]

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Brimstone.3807 said:Is it even confirmed the xpac model will continue? I haven't read anything to indicate that.I believe they did say they want to focus on expanding existing maps instead of introducing new ones for LW seasons. Which honestly sounds kind of bleak in combination with the lack of an xpac.

Anet almost never announce their long-term plans (because people then expect it all to happen very soon and complain when it doesn't) so it's not unusual that all they've said is that season 5 is up next. We know nothing beyond that but because it's not unusual there's no reason to think they won't announce more details about season 5 when it's starting and announce the next thing (expansion, more living story, something else...) once that season is done.

Cant blame the community honestly, anet should do a better job at having a healthy time period between announcement and release. They havent hit that sweet spot yet.

[Rasimir.6239]

@maddoctor.2738 said:Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet.Wrong. There are lots of players out there that still play and buy stuff on the gemstore but simply are slow enough or not interested enough to not have started playing the Dragonfall episode yet.

Some numbers: Of the six actively played accounts in my family, all have PoF unlocked, four have finished the PoF story, but only my main has played the Dragonfall episode so far. Add to that a group of four friends I play with each week that prefer to play story together but haven't gotten past episode 2 yet. That's 9 accounts in my immediate circle that have PoF and play actively but haven't touched Dragonfall yet. I am sure there are many more accounts like that out there. Playing the latest story episode, especially this late into the story, isn't much of an indication of how many active accounts there are in game at the time.

[Rasimir.6239]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Brimstone.3807 said:Is it even confirmed the xpac model will continue? I haven't read anything to indicate that.I believe they did say they want to focus on expanding existing maps instead of introducing new ones for LW seasons. Which honestly sounds kind of bleak in combination with the lack of an xpac.

Anet almost never announce their long-term plans (because people then expect it all to happen very soon and complain when it doesn't) so it's not unusual that all they've said is that season 5 is up next. We know nothing beyond that but because it's not unusual there's no reason to think they won't announce more details about season 5 when it's starting and announce the next thing (expansion, more living story, something else...) once that season is done.

Cant blame the community honestly, anet should do a better job at having a healthy time period between announcement and release. They havent hit that sweet spot yet.And they never will. There will always be people that think 4 weeks is too long and people that think 4 months is too short. No matter when ANet announces their plans (and the way their development process seems to work I suspect even four weeks is sometimes too long for them to make accurate announcements, as they have no way to be sure what they're planning will work out), some players somewhere will make a big drama out of it.

[Faaris.8013]

@Rasimir.6239 said:Some numbers: Of the six actively played accounts in my family, all have PoF unlocked, four have finished the PoF story, but only my main has played the Dragonfall episode so far. Add to that a group of four friends I play with each week that prefer to play story together but haven't gotten past episode 2 yet. That's 9 accounts in my immediate circle that have PoF and play actively but haven't touched Dragonfall yet.

If your family and friends don't even have time to take off from work and play a marathon session at launch of a new episode, you better look for new friends! And family!

[Rasimir.6239]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:Some numbers: Of the six actively played accounts in my family, all have PoF unlocked, four have finished the PoF story, but only my main has played the Dragonfall episode so far. Add to that a group of four friends I play with each week that prefer to play story together but haven't gotten past episode 2 yet. That's 9 accounts in my immediate circle that have PoF and play actively but haven't touched Dragonfall yet.

If your family and friends don't even have time to take off from work and play a marathon session at launch of a new episode, you better look for new friends! And family!=) =) =) the worst part about my family is that they actually do play a lot ... but mostly just wvw ;) . Makes me wonder if I should file for divorce on the grounds that my husband rather plays wvw than carry me through story :p .

[Faaris.8013]

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:Some numbers: Of the six actively played accounts in my family, all have PoF unlocked, four have finished the PoF story, but only my main has played the Dragonfall episode so far. Add to that a group of four friends I play with each week that prefer to play story together but haven't gotten past episode 2 yet. That's 9 accounts in my immediate circle that have PoF and play actively but haven't touched Dragonfall yet.

If your family and friends don't even have time to take off from work and play a marathon session at launch of a new episode, you better look for new friends! And family!=) =) =) the worst part about my family is that they actually do play a lot ... but mostly just wvw ;) . Makes me wonder if I should file for divorce on the grounds that my husband rather plays wvw than carry me through story :p .

As a lawyer, I would say you have solid ground here.

OK, I'm not really a lawyer :p

[Rasimir.6239]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@Faaris.8013 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:Some numbers: Of the six actively played accounts in my family, all have PoF unlocked, four have finished the PoF story, but only my main has played the Dragonfall episode so far. Add to that a group of four friends I play with each week that prefer to play story together but haven't gotten past episode 2 yet. That's 9 accounts in my immediate circle that have PoF and play actively but haven't touched Dragonfall yet.

If your family and friends don't even have time to take off from work and play a marathon session at launch of a new episode, you better look for new friends! And family!=) =) =) the worst part about my family is that they actually do play a lot ... but mostly just wvw ;) . Makes me wonder if I should file for divorce on the grounds that my husband rather plays wvw than carry me through story :p .

As a lawyer, I would say you have solid ground here.

OK, I'm not really a lawyer :pJust as well because more likely than not it would be me doing the carrying in those story instances :p

[maddoctor.2738]

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet.Wrong. There are lots of players out there that still play and buy stuff on the gemstore but simply are slow enough or not interested enough to not have started playing the Dragonfall episode yet.

You can always see the stats of the other episodes if you think Dragonfall is too recent:Daybreak: 57%A Bug in the System: 48%Long Live the Lich: 49% (Curiously higher than A Bug in the System)A Star to Guide Us: 40%All or Nothing: 36%War Eternal: 30%

It's not only about the latest episode, there is a considerable drop in numbers across all episodes. Although this is about gw2eff numbers, I'm quite positive the actual game isn't much different. Also, note those are the stats for players -starting- the episodes. The stats for finishing the episodes (or in general doing anything in the new zones other than unlocking) are lower

[Rasimir.6239]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Rasimir.6239 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:Using gw2efficiency again, you can see that although 80% have bought Path of Fire, only 32% reached Dragonfall. This means that many players bought the expansion, but less than half still play and visit the gem store to bring revenue to Arenanet.Wrong. There are lots of players out there that still play and buy stuff on the gemstore but simply are slow enough or not interested enough to not have started playing the Dragonfall episode yet.

You can always see the stats of the other episodes if you think Dragonfall is too recent:Daybreak: 57%A Bug in the System: 48%Long Live the Lich: 49% (Curiously higher than A Bug in the System)A Star to Guide Us: 40%All or Nothing: 36%War Eternal: 30%

It's not only about the latest episode, there is a considerable drop in numbers across all episodes. Although this is about gw2eff numbers, I'm quite positive the actual game isn't much different. Also, note those are the stats for players -starting- the episodes. The stats for finishing the episodes (or in general doing anything in the new zones other than unlocking) are lowerOh, those numbers still roughly fit those 9 accounts I mentioned above ;) . But that wasn't my point. My point is that those numbers alone don't have a strong correlation to the amount of players actively in game and the revenue they generate. There are a lot more factors involved.

ANet has the tools and numbers to get a fairly complete picture of whether living story, expansions, or a mix of both are best for a revenue. We outsiders can at best guess, but at worst are totally misled by incomplete data and/or wrong interpretation of the limited numbers we have access to. Just because someone on the outside might think that expansions are the way to go doesn't mean that that's the one and only truth.

[moonstarmac.4603]

LWS 5 - mission: Save Taimi! All of the races band together to save the tiny genius, featuring the return of Zojja!

That's what I'd like to see anyway.