Living World.....Gone?

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Not dead, just unrealistic. But we can get a nice office job for our character with a desk and all the ties he could ask for!

[idpersona.3810]

I don't much like the plan as is, but am willing to be cautiously optimistic until they prove me wrong. I do hope it works out well. I'm guessing no more elite specs for a while.

[Einsof.1457]

I think this is a good plan. Props to anet. Looking forward to Feb 28. 🙂

[Slartibartfast.5416]

I see a few people here being very pessimistic about this road plan.  

To me, the way they explained it, it sounds like the most optimal way to proceed.  And for those complaining about Anet making money from expansions as opposed to living world, they still charge gems for access to those living worlds if you missed them when they were released.  So going forward, if people miss new content they don't need to worry about paying gems.  And they said as the expansion are more frequent and smaller, that the cost would be "slightly reduced".  I'm hoping the price reduction is closer to 50%, but unfortunately I doubt that's very realistic.  So any bone I'd have to pick with this new proposed release system would be that the price of expansions might not be reduced sufficiently to my liking.

But other than that, I am extremely excited that new content including new maps and metas will be forthcoming on a fairly frequent basis.  The other question I have is, where does new elite specializations fit into their release schedules?  Before, every expansion includes new elite specs.  With more frequent expansions, I doubt we'll be getting new elite specs every time.  So what would be the release schedule on those going forward?

 

[Cuks.8241]

I think t definitely makes sense from the business point of view. LS chapters went by quite unnoticed outside of the game so a lower cadence with more content that passes as an expansion is better marketing in my opinion.

Yeah we will need to pay for content now. But that is completely fair by me. And players that were giving hard times to new players that were complaining about LS prices even though they never really paid for the content themselves, well they will  finally be able to say we paid for it so you should to 🙂 

As far as elite specs. I'm completely fine if they keep the cadence they had, so roughly every 3 years. Of the 27 elite specs we have there are still some I barely touched.

[Kalythsu.8350]

Clearly their new Living World development mode reminds me greatly of TESO (The Elder Scrolls Online).

For those who know and have played it, it's an expansion = a new story, which gives one or two maps that are big and very complete usually and in an update they add a new map as big and complete as the expansions.

So if it's the same for Guild Wars 2, that the quality and content is there, without neglecting the other game modes, then why not? You lose somewhere but you gain somewhere else

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, akipappi.3917 said:

...the release window would seem to fall into 13e/month if its every 2 months.

 

1 hour ago, Urud.4925 said:

So we'll have to pay 20€ every six months now.,,

 

1 hour ago, PookieDaWombat.6209 said:

So, what I pulled from that was "balance changes" are going to keep coming out as per usual and the next content updates in the game (instead of being LWS and something active players can get by just logging in and taking part in the game) will be paid (at a "slightly lower" price)....

 

55 minutes ago, Pifil.5193 said:

 

This sounds like less content overall but more frequently at a slightly reduced price so maybe €25 instead of €30....

 

52 minutes ago, Nomad.4301 said:

Post EoD - Pay $30-35 get 1 year (possibly less?) of expansion content in 2-3 patches (story only) and possibly 1-2 expansion "features" + ???

 

11 minutes ago, Slartibartfast.5416 said:

And they said as the expansion are more frequent and smaller, that the cost would be "slightly reduced".  I'm hoping the price reduction is closer to 50%, but unfortunately I doubt that's very realistic. 

And we're all speculating about the real sticking point here: how much are we going to be paying for how much content?

This new model looks like it's designed to guide players into a version of pre-order. Pay a "slightly reduced" price to only get part of an expansion, and hope they add enough stuff later to justify the price. The wise choice would be to wait until the next expansion so you see exactly what you're buying.

The fact that they included "slightly" should be all we need. They could have just said "at a reduced price", but someone wrote that copy to make sure to minimize the screaming when the next mini-expansion is $27 instead of EoD's $30.

I originally imagined $15-20, but then quickly realized I was being delusional. They wouldn't have written "slightly reduced" if they were going to be near half-price.

[Ashford.8540]

2 hours ago, Jirian.7512 said:

why "no living world"? sounds more like "now your living world will be called expansions and will cost moneyz" to me

 

That's pretty much what ANet is doing, they are charging for a years worth of living world season episodes, this is a joke.

Seems like new NCSoft management is in IBS nickle and dime mode.

Edited February 13 by Ashford.8540

[Jaface.4237]

To put it in perspective:

 

Heart of Thorns (originally $50): 10 maps
4 maps base + 6 added in LS3

$5 per map

 

Path of Fire (originally $30): 14(+2) maps

5 maps base + 6 added in LS4 + 3(+2 map expansions) added in IBS

$1.87 - $2.14 per map, depending how you count it

 

End of Dragons (originally $30): 5(+1) maps

4 maps base + 1(+1 map expansion) added next update

$5 - $6 per map, depending how you count it

 

Next expansion (slightly reduced price guess: $20): 3(+1) maps

2 maps base + 1(+1 map expansion)

$5 - $6.66, depending how you count it

 

And here's "new player" pricing if you missed Living World:

HoT + PoF ($50): $5.55 per map

LS3 (1200 gems: $15): $2.50 per map

LS4 (1200 gems: $15): $2.50 per map

IBS (1200 gems: $15): $3 - $5 per map

EoD ($30): $7.50 per map: $5 - $6 per map

Next Expansion ($20): $5 - $6.66 per map

 

Honestly I wrote these out because it seemed like we were getting a bad deal just reading the blog post. But after looking at the math it seems that PoF was extremely underpriced at the time it was released, and new players will miss out on the roughly half-price content from Living World.

[Astralporing.1957]

5 minutes ago, Kalythsu.8350 said:

So if it's the same for Guild Wars 2, that the quality and content is there, without neglecting the other game modes, then why not? You lose somewhere but you gain somewhere else

Ah, but would you gain somewhere else? Based on past GW2 experience, we might equally well (or even more likely) end up with a third of the content, twice as often, for 75% of a price.

[Slartibartfast.5416]

1 minute ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I originally imagined $15-20, but then quickly realized I was being delusional. They wouldn't have written "slightly reduced" if they were going to be near half-price.

I would accept $20 US, but not much more than that.  

[Ashford.8540]

Just now, Slartibartfast.5416 said:

I would accept $20 US, but not much more than that.  

 

20$ for Living World season quality expansions? Nah wait for a sale.

Edited February 13 by Ashford.8540

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, Slartibartfast.5416 said:

I would accept $20 US, but not much more than that.  

Maybe $25, if the new maps had fjords?

[Einsof.1457]

12 minutes ago, Ashford.8540 said:

 

That's pretty much what ANet is doing, they are charging for a years worth of living world season episodes, this is a joke.

Seems like new NCSoft management is in IBS nickle and dime mode.

oh no. a business wants to make money. call the fbi. 

[Kalythsu.8350]

21 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Ah, but would you gain somewhere else? Based on past GW2 experience, we might equally well (or even more likely) end up with a third of the content, twice as often, for 75% of a price.

It's brand new, they just announced it, we haven't seen anything of this new functioning (which works on TESO). We have to wait and see when it will be released to know if it will be good or not. 🙂 got hope^^

[Astralporing.1957]

3 minutes ago, Kalythsu.8350 said:

It's brand new, they just announced it, we haven't seen anything of this new functioning (which works on TESO). We have to wait and see when it will be released to know if it will be good or not. 🙂 got hope^^

People were saying the same when Anet announced the content they'd be releasing through IBS was to be an equivalent to an expansion. We all know how it ended (and no, not just because they cancelled IBS halfway). So, allow me my well-earned scepticism.

[Gambit.9501]

20 minutes ago, Einsof.1457 said:

oh no. a business wants to make money. call the fbi. 

NEVER CRITICIZE
NEVER COMPLAIN
JUST CONSOOM PRODUCT

[Ashford.8540]

10 minutes ago, Gambit.9501 said:

NEVER CRITICIZE
NEVER COMPLAIN
JUST CONSOOM PRODUCT

 

[Doggie.3184]

5 minutes ago, Ashford.8540 said:

 

Which leads to

 

[Justine.6351]

Sounds like improving cash flow.

[Blaeys.3102]

Am curious about the future of elite specializations. New ways to play my class is one of the biggest selling points for any new expansion to me.

[wanya.1697]

wonder if they will keep up with the merging of expansions into one pack for same price thing though when they release a new expansion
like will we get EoD PoF and HoT for 30$ when the next expack gets released

[Pifil.5193]

While we're on the subject their new plans are to create an expansion that releases with half the maps and associated content and release one or more maps on a quarterly basis afterwards that continue that expansion rather than releasing LS episodes but for those of us who logged on at least once during each LS episode those LS episodes were effectively part of the expansion. You needed the expansion to access those LS episodes.

 

Sounds like they're planning on cutting the content for the expansions down quite significantly. HoT came out with the 4 original maps and there were 6 "related" LS3 maps. PoF with 5 original maps and then the 6 LS4 and 3 IBS maps. EoD will have the 4 original maps and (it sounds like) 1 more.

 

Next expansion will have 3 maps and who knows what features. I'm skeptical.

[Doggie.3184]

8 minutes ago, Blaeys.3102 said:

Am curious about the future of elite specializations. New ways to play my class is one of the biggest selling points for any new expansion to me.

I'm still waiting for some of my Thief weapons to become viable picks liek the AoE-less Rifle and Dual Pistols that share copies of the same weaponskills, and the wtfisthiseven Pistol/Dagger, Shortbow being more than a lootstick and Death Blossom and Measured Shot to not be annoying, Twilight Combo to not be bugged on allies, and a reason to ally target in general. Don't really need another Elite Spec when there's so much to improve.

Edited February 13 by Doggie.3184

[Astralporing.1957]

20 minutes ago, Pifil.5193 said:

Sounds like they're planning on cutting the content for the expansions down quite significantly.

Considering that one of the reasons they mentioned for doing that change is an admission they are no longer capable of doing multiple projects at once (even LS, much less an expansion), i'd seriously expect a massive reduction in content amount.