About the new direction of GW2 / 2023 Q1 Roadmap [Merged]

[Justforvisit.3709]

"Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we’ll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price"

So, you're telling me that after 10 years you guys found a clever and sleazy way to transform this game into subscription based through the backdoor, just not calling it by this name?

This rings especially sour when you consider you made all these too-good-to-be-true-sounding promises over and over again over the course of the last 10 years. And if it stays like that, it's absolute NOT worth paying for it.

Alliances? When?
Better handling of PvP and WvW. When?
An Icebrood Saga Ending that doesn't depend on repeating the same old and just slightly changed maps 10 (!!!) times in a row. When? (WHOOPS, TOO LATE)
A fully fledged out 2023 roadmap as it has been the case with previous years? When?
Returning to old quality standards? When?

Come on, just be honest and tell us that you cannot afford to provide this game for free to us players anymore, and in this times it's very understandable.

Just don't lie us in the face about it.

[SnackParty.3178]

They are releasing smaller portions of content, more frequently, at lower cost than a full expansion. You're not obligated to buy them, to keep playing GW2.

[Hida Oni.7652]

2 minutes ago, SnackParty.3178 said:

They are releasing smaller portions of content, more frequently, at lower cost than a full expansion. You're not obligated to buy them, to keep playing GW2.

you not obligated to buy expansions as well, but if you dont - who are you gonna play with? Without all that new classes masteries zones and activities?

[Doggie.3184]

Kinda worrying cuz one of the reasons I stopped playing Elder Scrolls Online was because every tiny content update they did was a microtransaction. You could subscribe for temp access but not to xpans and it just eventually made me spend money elsewhere instead of trying to keep up with it.

[Sobx.1758]

31 minutes ago, Justforvisit.3709 said:

"Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we’ll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price"

So, you're telling me that after 10 years you guys found a clever and sleazy way to transform this game into subscription based through the backdoor, just not calling it by this name?

This rings especially sour when you consider you made all these too-good-to-be-true-sounding promises over and over again over the course of the last 10 years. And if it stays like that, it's absolute NOT worth paying for it.

Alliances? When?
Better handling of PvP and WvW. When?
An Icebrood Saga Ending that doesn't depend on repeating the same old and just slightly changed maps 10 (!!!) times in a row. When? (WHOOPS, TOO LATE)
A fully fledged out 2023 roadmap as it has been the case with previous years? When?
Returning to old quality standards? When?

Come on, just be honest and tell us that you cannot afford to provide this game for free to us players anymore, and in this times it's very understandable.

Just don't lie us in the face about it.

What does this model have to do with being a subscription based game? 
For monthly subscription, you have to pay every month in order to play the game at all, whether it gets new content/expansion or not. In this case you can keep playing with spending literally 0 additional money on the game and the only time you're paying is if you want more content to play. It is not a "hidden subscription", it's not a charging model and it doesn't change what we were paying for anyways (content expansions).

This is right there on the shelf next to people spamming about "maintenance mode" directly under "new content release" announcements/threads. Nonsense. 🙄

Edited February 14 by Sobx.1758

[ugrakarma.9416]

ppl get what they asked for, 
they come to steam, so...

[SnackParty.3178]

Quote

22 minutes ago, Hida Oni.7652 said:

you not obligated to buy expansions as well, but if you dont - who are you gonna play with? Without all that new classes masteries zones and activities?

 

People play in older zones, all of the time. Besides, if it's reduce cost of a full expansion, as a total, over about 2 years (hopefully, that's what they mean), it's a better deal. Expansion is about $50. If entirety of 2 years of content, is $40...not bad. 

I could see it ticking people off, if the cost is like $20, every 3 months. Let's hope that's not what they're going for.

 

Edited February 14 by SnackParty.3178

[Hida Oni.7652]

1 minute ago, SnackParty.3178 said:

People play in older zones, all of the time. Besides, if it's reduce cost of a full expansion, as a total, over about 2 years (hopefully, that's what they mean), it's a better deal. Expansion is about $50. If entirety of 2 years of content, is $40...not bad. 

 

most of the time people running meta events now, or raids.. and raids are locked behind paid expansion, and most of that meta events behind expansions or living story (which if you not present when it was released, also paid content)

[Randulf.7614]

People keep using the word subscription. I do not think it means what they think it does…

Im not sure how many threads are needed, but again - you buy the expac and get the updates for free (no logging in to get it this time). This is pretty much as it is now, with smaller expacs and quarterly free updates as the cadence.

No subscription. No back doors. 
 

I don’t like the idea of tiny expacs and charging for more more regular ones will require them to step up their quality game considerably, but the overall model isn’t a huge change.

[Hida Oni.7652]

1 minute ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I don’t like the idea of tiny expacs and charging for more more regular ones will require them to step up their quality game considerably, but the overall model isn’t a huge change.

overall its same, yes. but.. you are being "forced" to spend less, but much more often. like most of crappy f2p games do, come here kid, just for 15$ you get 800% of that price!!!, you buy this and that and then few more, and boom, you already spent more then some standalone b2p AAA titles cost.

also like i said, you not getting new stuff? you are out. out of new zones (its easy to force people spend most of their time only there, just with new items or currency or whatelse), out of raids (hey this expansion have XXX mastery\prof, you dont have it? get the hell out of this raid)

[Ashantara.8731]

3 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I don’t like the idea of tiny expacs and charging for more more regular ones will require them to step up their quality game considerably, but the overall model isn’t a huge change.

I think you nailed it: if the quality of the content is great (i.e., we get well designed maps and well written new stories, exciting endgame content and useful new features) then this could be considered an improved approach after all.

[baseendje.8452]

55 minutes ago, Justforvisit.3709 said:

"Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we’ll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price"

So, you're telling me that after 10 years you guys found a clever and sleazy way to transform this game into subscription based through the backdoor, just not calling it by this name?

This rings especially sour when you consider you made all these too-good-to-be-true-sounding promises over and over again over the course of the last 10 years. And if it stays like that, it's absolute NOT worth paying for it.

Alliances? When?
Better handling of PvP and WvW. When?
An Icebrood Saga Ending that doesn't depend on repeating the same old and just slightly changed maps 10 (!!!) times in a row. When? (WHOOPS, TOO LATE)
A fully fledged out 2023 roadmap as it has been the case with previous years? When?
Returning to old quality standards? When?

Come on, just be honest and tell us that you cannot afford to provide this game for free to us players anymore, and in this times it's very understandable.

Just don't lie us in the face about it.

 

1) If you don't buy the ex-pack you can still continue to play all the content you allready own -> thus in no way a subscription fee. 

2) Other MMOs like FF14 or WOW require you to pay a subfee and still require you to buy the ex-pack too if you want to play that content. GW2 has always been super generious by only asking you to pay for the expansions (priced at only 2 months subfee of the competition) and still adding a buttload of free content on top of that. (I have no idea how they have made that work, they must be paying their devs minimum wage or something). In case of the earlier named competition you will have to pay every month just to be able to play the game that you have already bought!

3) Arenanet is super transparent about their business model, yes you can buy things in game, but non of that is required to play the game that you allready bought and if you are really tight for money you can buy all gem store items for in-game currency. There is nothing sleazy about that.

4) Developers need food. If you want to have everything for free Arenanet cannot pay their employees and their devs will need to find new jobs and the development as well as the servers of GW2 will have stop.

Edited February 14 by baseendje.8452

[Gibson.4036]

Wisdom says: wait until all of the quarterly updates are added, then decide whether you want to buy the expansion.

[Randulf.7614]

14 minutes ago, Hida Oni.7652 said:

also like i said, you not getting new stuff? you are out. out of new zones (its easy to force people spend most of their time only there, just with new items or currency or whatelse), out of raids (hey this expansion have XXX mastery\prof, you dont have it? get the hell out of this raid)

That’s no different to now though.

When HoT released if you didt get it you got no raids, no guild halls, no gliders, no auto loot, no Rez mastery skill (ls3) and no elites and no extra class in the Revenant.

When PoF released if you didn’t get it, you got no access to its Guild hall, subsequent raids, all mounts, new elites and everything that came in IBS

When EoD released if you didn’t get it, you got no access to boats, fishing, two player mount, certain strikes, Jade masteries and new elites

So, if you don’t buy the latest expansion, you will get left behind. As has been the case since HoT. And every mmo expansion ever.

[Randulf.7614]

17 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I think you nailed it: if the quality of the content is great (i.e., we get well designed maps and well written new stories, exciting endgame content and useful new features) then this could be considered an improved approach after all.

I think a big part of whether they intend to live up to that is to address the EoD feedback like they did with HoT. There’s improvements to be made and well documented ones. An overhaul isn’t on the cards, but robust content like bounties, adventures, griffon races and a few more events would help places like Kaineng and Echovald.

[mythical.6315]

47 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Kinda worrying cuz one of the reasons I stopped playing Elder Scrolls Online was because every tiny content update they did was a microtransaction. You could subscribe for temp access but not to xpans and it just eventually made me spend money elsewhere instead of trying to keep up with it.

What’s funny about that is that their expansions were pretty much the size of their DLCs but they just charged more. 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Just hoping NCSoft pulls the plug on this idea.
It's just rebranded LS with a price tag on top.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Justforvisit.3709 said:

"Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we’ll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price"

So, you're telling me that after 10 years you guys found a clever and sleazy way to transform this game into subscription based through the backdoor, just not calling it by this name?

This rings especially sour when you consider you made all these too-good-to-be-true-sounding promises over and over again over the course of the last 10 years. And if it stays like that, it's absolute NOT worth paying for it.

Alliances? When?
Better handling of PvP and WvW. When?
An Icebrood Saga Ending that doesn't depend on repeating the same old and just slightly changed maps 10 (!!!) times in a row. When? (WHOOPS, TOO LATE)
A fully fledged out 2023 roadmap as it has been the case with previous years? When?
Returning to old quality standards? When?

Come on, just be honest and tell us that you cannot afford to provide this game for free to us players anymore, and in this times it's very understandable.

Just don't lie us in the face about it.

A subscription model locks you out of playing the game when you do not pay your monthly fee. Charging for expansions while allowing players to continue playing even if they pay nothing is not a subscription model. 

 

[Gibson.4036]

11 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Just hoping NCSoft pulls the plug on this idea.
It's just rebranded LS with a price tag on top.

You don't expect it was NCSoft that instigated this?

[Gibson.4036]

12 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

A subscription model locks you out of playing the game when you do not pay your monthly fee. Charging for expansions while allowing players to continue playing even if they pay nothing is not a subscription model. 

 

In the purest sense... sure, but a lot of games have gone to weird hybrids. Some games we refer to as sub games let you keep playing, but drop you down to a restricted form of play that doesn't get access to new stuff.

It's hard to make clean distinctions now, with games like FFXIV allowing you to play not only core but the first expansion free while still primarily being a sub game.

Edited February 14 by Gibson.4036

[lezbefriends.7516]

The sub comparison is fair. $30 every 6 months is pretty sub fee-ish.

[Chromatic Drake.3168]

I'm 100% fine with whatever price they put for it, IF the content /quality is here. 

So far it looks like IBS, so pretty much living story. 

[Randulf.7614]

8 minutes ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

The sub comparison is fair. $30 every 6 months is pretty sub fee-ish.

Except that’s not what’s been announced. At all.

[Ashen.2907]

15 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Except that’s not what’s been announced. At all.

And even if that is what was announced, that is still not a subscription model.

A company continuing to produce a product or products that people may or may not want to buy is not a subscription. 

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Ashen.2907 said:

And even if that is what was announced, that is still not a subscription model.

A company continuing to produce a product or products that people may or may not want to buy is not a subscription. 

Agreed. It’s not remotely comparable to a sub.

It’s buying a (much smaller) expansion with continued updates until the next (small) paid expansion. Similar to what we have, but without the pressure to login LS had. If anything, the pressure is now on Anet to up their game if they want to sell more regular expansions. Right now, a big expansion every 3-4 years people have gone all in for now. Shorter cadences mean failures to deliver will be fresh when it comes time to buy the next cycle.