EoD looks so bad it's not even funny

[LucianDK.8615]

Better a more solid chunk of content at once, than bite sized bits of content drippled to us over time.

Ill take -anything- to have more to do across multiple maps.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

20 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

This is not a hot take it's genuinely what happened.

If you mean "stepped in" as in NCSoft demanding ANet to make them money after NCSoft wasted staff and resources on their failed new IP and Blade And Souls 2, then yeah sure, NCSoft "stepped in" alright... 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

5 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Comment by those in video about things they knew and surmised, I think it was. IE it was known that ANet was trying to go for an expansion, and NCSoft was the one that steered them towards IBS, and the expansion happening wasn't to ANet's "surprise", but their goal. 

I am fairly confident that it is as was described, though.

So, conjecture turned rumor that became forum 'fact'.  Gotcha. 

[The Boz.2038]

11 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

So, conjecture turned rumor that became forum 'fact'.  Gotcha. 

OK, so...

"NCSoft made ANet make EoD because they failed with IBS" is verified 100% fact, but "ANet has wanted to make an expansion for ages, and NCSoft finally caved" is not. K. Sure.

[Osmose.5893]

4 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

OK, so...

"NCSoft made ANet make EoD because they failed with IBS" is verified 100% fact, but "ANet has wanted to make an expansion for ages, and NCSoft finally caved" is not. K. Sure.

Neither of them are verified. Problem solved.

[witcher.3197]

1 hour ago, Alex Fryer.3064 said:

Neither of them are verified. Problem solved.

They are all but confirmed. You don't need very high deduction skills to put it together.

According to former employees Anet was slowly phasing out GW2 in favor of side projects after S4.

NCSoft steps in, layoffs happen, they tell Anet to refocus on GW2, Anet is now announcing IBS.

Revenue keeps declining, Anet cuts IBS short and announces a new expansion. Bobby says something along the lines of  "NCSoft gifted us with an opportunity to make an expansion so plans changed" when asked about IBS being cut short.

Anet wanted to abandon GW2, then they wanted to halfass it with the saga, and then finally NCSoft made them do an expansion. Not rocket science.

Edited January 26, 2022 by witcher.3197

[AgentMoore.9453]

4 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

"NCSoft made ANet make EoD because they failed with IBS" is verified 100% fact

Dunno about 100%, but one of the streams discussing EoD's impact on IBS (fairly early on as I recall) includes a dev who, with the light dying in his eyes, says the team was 'gifted' with the opportunity to make an expansion in the middle of their work on IBS. He doesn't specify whether it was NCSoft or ArenaNet management that made that decision, but it sounded very much like ArenaNet devs and higher ups wanted to stick with living world at the time and someone else wanted them to make an expansion instead, not the other way around. He also says that they did eventually want to work on an expansion, just not at that time.

It's hard to know which would have worked out better since IBS wasn't allowed to continue as planned and we don't have EoD yet to see if cutting it early was the right call.

[Bakeneko.5826]

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

They are all but confirmed. You don't need very high deduction skills to put it together.

So it is not confirmed and is, ultimately, a guess based one things someone said on the internet, and we all know that nobody lies on internet.

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

According to former employees Anet was slowly phasing out GW2 in favor of side projects after S4.

Source?

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

NCSoft steps in, layoffs happen, they tell Anet to refocus on GW2, Anet is now announcing IBS.

NCSoft doesn't really care, their money cash cow is Lineage and mobile games based on Lineage. NCSoft doesn't expect much profit from Guild wars, it expects to act like gateway to the west markets, when NC hits gold with any of their IPs.

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

Revenue keeps declining, Anet cuts IBS short and announces a new expansion. Bobby says something along the lines of  "NCSoft gifted us with an opportunity to make an expansion so plans changed" when asked about IBS being cut short.

Source? Historically NC was very hands of with Anet.

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

Anet wanted to abandon GW2, then they wanted to halfass it with the saga, and then finally NCSoft made them do an expansion. Not rocket science.

Source? Community only knew there was some project, that was scrapped with separate team. Nowhere it was said GW2 would phase into maintenance mode for end of life.

[rylien.3824]

Beyond the absent and qualitative content, and completely derisory specs compared to their predecessors... let's mainly talk about the artistic aspect of the extension.

 

SHING-JEA :
(map of which there is a good chance do not even have full access... [the whole part of Sunqua Peak would therefore be unavailable...]).

- Colors are saturated in a really debilitating way.

As much as I totally agree with the idea of having wanted to replace the "dark" aspect of Cantha maps in general, mainly Shing-Jea, which would be more marked by spring... but suddenly it's so bad do. I would say that fortunately the buildings are pretty, because otherwise...
Even the color of the rock is not supposed to be "grey" but black. (In 250 did not change a geological nature like that all the same).

 

Quote

| We will do without supporting too much what is wrong with the general atmosphere linked to the scenario, since there is no longer any dictatorship... which harms even more the spring atmosphere which could have contrasted magnificently with this dictatorship which will have wanted to announce itself "perfect", "immaculate". Even the "tropical" effect of Shing-Jea, the turquoise waters, suddenly you can't even see it anymore with all these contrasts...
(then always this untimely recycling... it's heavy).|

 

It was also an area that wanted to be particularly windy...

The concept-art conveyed rather well the atmosphere that I found... to see on the spot, but it's really a shame.

 

Before : 

 

After : 

 

 

 

Picture 1

Picture 2

 

ECHOVALD FOREST : 

- Here it's not that it's particularly "ugly", but we are really dealing with a pure recycling of maguuma 2.0 of poor quality. the cathedrals are pretty, but the rest is really very average (to see if on the spot it changes the situation...).
Yet here too the concept-art seemed interesting, a rather swampy style typical of certain Asian forests, which we did not find in-game suddenly, there is not this feeling of particularity, nor even to find Echovald, apart from 2-3 nice areas.

In addition, it was also important that this dark aspect between dark contrast (created by the play of light and so-called Gothic architectures) and luminous with the little light that the dense trees filter, as well as the "bioluminescent" vegetation of the depths predominate. .. which is not really the case here either from what I could see. 

It is also more important that the so-called "paranormal" phenomena are marked. The idea was also finally to use this card quite a lot at the aquatic level (there too there was so much to say, they had the real possibility of doing a real overhaul of the aquatic content, and they didn't even do it. . .).

 

Before :  

 

After :

 

 

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Picture 6

 

JADE-SEA : 

 

- There, to be honest it is for the moment in my opinion the most successful map and which best represents what represents the Jade Sea. Truly.
So yes, some, many criticize the color of the Jade, which is indeed a little too "flashy" (especially in the jade quarry, and the outfits worn by the Canthians, and perhaps also on certain statues... or creatures technologies), but other than that, it's Jade. In Guild Wars 1, it looked more like emerald than anything else, though... even if it "passes" (although a shade less would have been nicer, with better texture quality), the shape of the frozen ocean is not terrible, in Guild Wars 1 it was much better done, to see... since we haven't seen what it looked like more than that.

Otherwise the architecture, the beach effect, the colors are really good, it's the best of the others I think. (The mining area, the cut cubes in question are fine, but not the ones where they're cracked where it's really too vivid and unrealistic. Raw Jade is often a very dark green, and the more polished the more it is is "lively" or/and vitreous.
But not as bright as represented nevertheless, everything also depends on the said stone: between Jade Jadeite and Nephritite Jade, some are more white-foamy (which has been represented in the Jade Sea, which is good), but misrepresented in mining areas or it's too bright for some blocks. There's also a texture issue related to I think it's called "aliasing", where the texture is blurry and "blurred" on videos... even rock does that too.

Before : 

 

After : 

Exemple of textures vs Guild Wars 2 textures :  (Here it is visible, the Jade is similar and the same, seen like that it is very good. (The Sea of Jade in terms of colorimetry is well done in the end)).

Exemple 1

Exemple 2

Exemple 3

Exemple 4

Exemple 5

 

On the other hand, the shape of the waves is really not terrible, to see in game if you haven't seen everything.

Picture 1

Picture 2

 

On the other hand, the color of the Jade Sea of Guild Wars is more similar to emerald.
Eventually in EOD she looks (approximately, as she might be a bit too lively) the way she was supposed to look in Guild Wars 1.
We must not forget that the technical differences + the artistic style are different between the two in the end. But we will all agree that they could have done much better than what we have today...

 

Picture 3

 

Overall in the end it's not posed, but it's not transcendent either, fortunately there is (and they have kept) the specificity of Cantha, it's what gives life and l originality to the cards compared to other MMOs.
All that's left is Kaineng City to judge! To see now!

It's kept such a waste to see an expansion like End of Dragons being made in a hurry when they had all the cards in hand (even the Largos and their capital, aquatic content, playable races and j 'en passe) to make the extension awesome. Finally I think I would take it but only because it ends all these years of play and because there is still a bit of an interesting part to spoil in the end. On the other hand it seems to me very uncertain to take the game day one for my part and at this price it just does not deserve. 😭

I do not expect much vis-à-vis the script suddenly, but I hope at least that it stays nice and that there will always be things to learn... fingers crossed.
 

Edited January 26, 2022 by rylien.3824

[Osmose.5893]

7 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

They are all but confirmed. You don't need very high deduction skills to put it together.

According to former employees Anet was slowly phasing out GW2 in favor of side projects after S4.

You realise that ‘all but confirmed’ literally just means unconfirmed right? Quite the lack of deduction, indeed.

 

 

[Ashantara.8731]

8 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

According to former employees Anet was slowly phasing out GW2 in favor of side projects after S4.

[...]

Anet wanted to abandon GW2, then they wanted to halfass it with the saga, and then finally NCSoft made them do an expansion. Not rocket science.

AFAIK, no employee has ever said that. What was said is that there were bigger side projects in the works, but no one ever confirmed nor denied that those were to have any impact on GW2's life span.

If you talk about deduction skills, you should use yours and do the math: half of ArenaNet was working on side projects, half of ArenaNet got layed off. That leaves the same percentage of people working on GW2 - before and after the layoffs. Nothing has changed in that regard.

The IBS being cut short in favor of an expansion has nothing to do with any plans of "slowly phasing out GW2", but is merely a change of course and plans for the game. (The reason behind it remains unknown, but of course could have to do with sales numbers. Still mere speculation on our end.)

[Gibson.4036]

Anyone who has worked in any kind of coporate structure for any length of time should know that sometimes the people in charge get ideas and change directions, and the people who do the actual work have to scramble to change course. It's tempting to look for grand strategies, but sometimes it's just people. Often people doing their best, making choices in the face of risk and uncertainty.

And unless an organization's culture is so toxic people are desperate to expose things, we'll likely never really know. There's a level of professionalism in most organizations that the creatives put on their grown-up pants and go with what they've been told is the direction.

There's also the exclusiveness of the industry, where a ton of people would love to have your job, and you don't burn bridges unless something is really bad.

[rylien.3824]

7 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Anyone who has worked in any kind of coporate structure for any length of time should know that sometimes the people in charge get ideas and change directions, and the people who do the actual work have to scramble to change course. It's tempting to look for grand strategies, but sometimes it's just people. Often people doing their best, making choices in the face of risk and uncertainty.

And unless an organization's culture is so toxic people are desperate to expose things, we'll likely never really know. There's a level of professionalism in most organizations that the creatives put on their grown-up pants and go with what they've been told is the direction.

There's also the exclusiveness of the industry, where a ton of people would love to have your job, and you don't burn bridges unless something is really bad.

In fact, it's not the creatives (developers, graphic designers, screenwriters) who are most to blame, maybe even they are disappointed with the choices their impositions have. The problem is just with Arenanet, the directors who made decisions for profit. You can sometimes try to impose whatever you want, if an employer says no, it's no. (Even if his idea is crap). Afterwards, on the screenwriters' side it's more "complicated", I think it's 50-50, a pencil and a sheet of paper don't cost anything, but on the other hand they are not that free in their choices , since it is the artistic and script director (see even above) who decides all that. You're just good for your "basically" bar point skills. It is also because there is still a little soul behind that I would take the extension in the end. (I remember the 20th anniversary artbook I didn't take it, because it was already badly done graphically speaking, and because it was making fun of the players for what was happening, and that it was above all a reproach made to higher than the artists themselves). Now that's how it is, not much will change, their choices are made...

[witcher.3197]

5 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

AFAIK, no employee has ever said that. What was said is that there were bigger side projects in the works, but no one ever confirmed nor denied that those were to have any impact on GW2's life span.

If you talk about deduction skills, you should use yours and do the math: half of ArenaNet was working on side projects, half of ArenaNet got layed off. That leaves the same percentage of people working on GW2 - before and after the layoffs. Nothing has changed in that regard.

The IBS being cut short in favor of an expansion has nothing to do with any plans of "slowly phasing out GW2", but is merely a change of course and plans for the game. (The reason behind it remains unknown, but of course could have to do with sales numbers. Still mere speculation on our end.)

You misunderstand me on IBS, I meant NCSoft forced Anet to refocus on GW2. IBS was the first attempt without seemingly fully commiting, thinking that a reskinned season should be enough. Then after 2 bad quarters of IBS NCSoft seemingly told Anet it's expansion or the lights are off.

Regarding the first part, yes they did, you can find it in this article: https://massivelyop.com/2019/02/21/rumor-guild-wars-2-developer-arenanet-is-prepping-for-heavy-layoffs/

To quote one of the former employees from the article: 

Quote

"For those of us working on GW2, our mandate was essentially to make it look like there was the same level of resources devoted to GW2, when they were actually steadily moving people off of it onto the other projects,” she tweeted. (...)

"But it was deeply stressful to have to keep up the appearance of the same level of content creation and production values as always while people steadily got moved off the project."

You say laying off those devs meant nothing for GW2, but you're wrong. They laid off plenty of big names too who we thought were still on the GW2 team. They didn't put everyone back on GW2, and the GW2 team did get weaker.

Edited January 26, 2022 by witcher.3197

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I would not put much stock in that person's quote, as she certainly has/had an axe to grind with ArenaNet. 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Inculpatus cedo.9234

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

15 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

They are all but confirmed. You don't need very high deduction skills to put it together.

According to former employees Anet was slowly phasing out GW2 in favor of side projects after S4.

NCSoft steps in, layoffs happen, they tell Anet to refocus on GW2, Anet is now announcing IBS.

Revenue keeps declining, Anet cuts IBS short and announces a new expansion. Bobby says something along the lines of  "NCSoft gifted us with an opportunity to make an expansion so plans changed" when asked about IBS being cut short.

Anet wanted to abandon GW2, then they wanted to halfass it with the saga, and then finally NCSoft made them do an expansion. Not rocket science.

For someone claiming we don't need high deduction skills to put everything together, you sure didn't manage to put together the fact that ANet didn't decide on anything, NCSoft did. They were literally the ones who wanted to abandon GW2 in favour of "new IPs" that instantly failed because NCSoft doesn't know what they're doing

https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/ncsoft-makes-staff-reductions-at-guild-wars-2-developer-arenanet/

Quote

An email sent to ArenaNet employees from NCSoft’s CEO Songyee Yoon said: "Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased. Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success."

"We can confirm that due to the cancellation of unannounced projects, ArenaNet will make staff reductions," a statement to GI.biz said. "This is part of a larger organizational restructuring within NCSOFT in the west, but the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 game services will not be affected, nor is any upcoming game content cancelled."

https://massivelyop.com/2019/01/21/ncsoft-west-mobile-studio-iron-tiger-hit-with-layoffs-ahead-of-aion-legions-of-war-launch/

Quote

But it looks as if the studio has suffered layoffs this week, including a senior software developer who worked on one of the games (we assume Legions of War) and tweeted about the end of his tenure there. Here’s what an NCsoft rep told GIbiz: “I can confirm that NCSoft is reshaping Iron Tiger Studios and is in the process of transitioning development to a third-party for a mobile title. [… ] That game is not being canceled, but neither the project nor the external developer are being identified at this time.”

And let's not forget how they massively failed to launch a sequel to Blade And Soul

https://frontofficesports.com/ncsoft-loses-3-7b-in-value-after-blade-and-soul-2-flops/

Quote

NCSoft, a South Korean video game developer, has lost $3.7 billion in market value since Aug. 25 after its highly anticipated new title flopped. 

“Blade & Soul 2”, the martial arts role-playing game, is suffering a “crushing defeat” after failing to meet market expectations. The performance caused NCSoft’s stock to drop 24%, making it the worst performer on the Korean Stock Exchange over a five-day period heading into the weekend.

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210913007100320

Quote

The new game, however, has been panned by users upon its launch, with much of the criticism targeted at its negligible improvement in graphics as well as its "pay-to-win" model, in which gamers are encouraged to purchase items to progress faster, often found in NCSOFT's other popular series Lineage.

I can't post the best one yet because it apparently involves potential law enforcement investigation, so I'm not going to.

With that said, if anyone thinks it's ANet who are actually making the major decisions in the way GW2 is heading, they ain't. They've been dealt a bad hand and trying whatever they can with what they are given. They've made some terrible choices sure, but never in the grand scale of what people are claiming cuz that's never a studio choice, that's always the Parent Company choice. 

[Ashantara.8731]

3 hours ago, witcher.3197 said:

Regarding the first part, yes they did, you can find it in this article: https://massivelyop.com/2019/02/21/rumor-guild-wars-2-developer-arenanet-is-prepping-for-heavy-layoffs/

To quote one of the former employees from the article: [...]

You say laying off those devs meant nothing for GW2, but you're wrong. They laid off plenty of big names too who we thought were still on the GW2 team. They didn't put everyone back on GW2, and the GW2 team did get weaker.

Okay, I now remember reading that at some point. Obviously, I erased the unpleasant memory.

Thanks for the link and quote. Funnily, I feel the way the person describes in that quote about the upcoming expansion. 😂

[The Boz.2038]

"EoD doesn't powercreep enough, trivializing past content, and that is obviously a flaw."

Yeah, no.

[rylien.3824]

I'm the first to say that the extension is clearly moldy, vis-à-vis what should have been. And because we are not going to lie to each other, the extension was clearly created because Ncsoft forced them. (So we're really on an extension made quickly to feed their new projects), well, apart from the fanboys most of those who will take it is only for what it can still bring and above all and above all to end the years game on this Game. (Anyway it's probably the last expansion). Too bad that such beautiful themes are... not at the level of what it could have been. I so wish End of Dragons was on the level of Endwalker haha.

Edited January 27, 2022 by rylien.3824

[Faridah.8431]

I'm telling you Shing Jea looks the way it does because someone dropped a nuke on it. 🤡

[vanfrano.1325]

3 hours ago, rylien.3824 said:

I so wish End of Dragons was on the level of Endwalker haha.

I found Endwalker rushed and lazy so that shouldn't be too difficult.

[Tiviana.2650]

26 minutes ago, vanfrano.1325 said:

I found Endwalker rushed and lazy so that shouldn't be too difficult.

I agree when it came out I was meh , im not a fan of the 10 to 15 min cutscenes my god if you watched them if would eat up your play time. I actually uninstalled Final Fantasy last night, after getting back into GW2 I cant do the slow slog of FF anymore. I think FF is a game for people that like to watch a series unfold while eating popcorn. GW2 is for people that want to get into the action without all the downtime. 

[vicky.9751]

............................

Edited February 3, 2022 by vicky.9751

[rylien.3824]

3 hours ago, vanfrano.1325 said:

I found Endwalker rushed and lazy so that shouldn't be too difficult.

 

This is clearly not my opinion, but everyone has their own opinion. Besides this idea, it's clearly 100 times more worked than End of Dragons, nobody can deny that in any case. The facts are there. Even if I take the End of Dragons extension, I'm clearly not in "Wow" mode as I could have been with Endwalker very clearly, it's a shame.

 

3 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

I agree when it came out I was meh , im not a fan of the 10 to 15 min cutscenes my god if you watched them if would eat up your play time. I actually uninstalled Final Fantasy last night, after getting back into GW2 I cant do the slow slog of FF anymore. I think FF is a game for people that like to watch a series unfold while eating popcorn. GW2 is for people that want to get into the action without all the downtime. 

 

So that's not to say that FFXIV sucks, it's just that it's not for you, that's all. Left on this basis, there is no problem, which is just open to criticism, and in this case for EoD it is the quality/quantity, or the basis of an extension in the end... (especially the quality ).
(The strong points that this extension could have brought us vis-à-vis the previous ones were clearly: one or two new races (Tengus/Largos), an overhaul and an addition of aquatic content (we could even have created mounts to explore the abyss of the infinite ocean...), revival in WvW/PvP worthy of Guild Wars: Faction (and no need to bring back the Luxons/Kurzicks to bring back to life the PvP, a crumbling dictatorship and wishes to establish legitimacy, could have divided into 2 groups with different ideologies). Finally, in the meantime... have nothing of all that, and all the potential will have been wasted. Too bad, now have done with the little soul that it remains in-game (which remains pleasant for certain cases) Anyway, the regression of Guild Wars 2 is not new, it was finally to be expected... (given the problems with the HV4 , and even further still when there were typos... and lack of direction, we will all remember how Lazarus and Livia were forgotten / done in a hurry, as well as the white mantle, or the gods with Balthazar who were done there too very quickly, dodging all the scriptwriting potential on the gods, making Balthazar as an antagonist bland, in HOT it was with the trees that they have forever heard of again, and of Malyck too (have never known what he had become) and then there is Zojja or even Mister.E totally thrown into the basket...).

[vicky.9751]

Also FFXIV's endwalker was so bad story wise that i actually got depressed and uninstalled it. They had a great story rolling for 2 years and then dropped the ball so hard with this one. Theres a huge thread on their forums about it.