Secrets of the Obscure or Guild Wars 3?

[Batalix.2873]

49 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

I do not disagree with that last bit you elaborate upon in one bit. Its why I have difficulty coming back around to this game a lot of the time and why I took a very long hiatus from it because ANet repeatedly has not stepped up to iterate and change core, fundamental things going on in their game and it has irritated me for years. Dead content, unsupported content, systems or mechanics going unchanged or unaltered for very long stretches of time that clearly needed altering.

I will heavily criticize ANet for many of those things, but if they are going to at least finally try to start doing changes to old things in the game (which hopefully continues and they don't just drop it like every other time they've tried) then that, at least, I won't shame them for. Its sort of like "Well...took them long enough, but at least its happening".

Seems to be the trend with them lately...stuff they should have started doing, I don't know, 5ish years ago they are finally doing.

Honestly I don't see SotO as making any substantial effort to fix or revitalize old content.

Dungeons are dead. Raids are dead. PvP hasn't had any new maps or modes and has been on seasonal autopilot since PoF. WvW hasn't had any new maps or features since PoF. Underwater combat needs an entire overhaul to make specs usable, to give players more power, mobility, and area control options, and to give that space an overall feel and meta that makes sense. Cantha needs several more maps and things that aren't jadetech: Yeti, Celestials, Shiro'Ken, something. IBS could really stand to have another pass, streamline DRMs/masteries, maybe add the parts of the map/story that they cut so Dragonstorm is actually an earned ending.

Precisely none of this is being worked on. The devs have all of this staring them in the face, and what they chose to work on was:

* Very small changes that amount to recycling content and devaluing/obviating the horizontal progression systems of HoT/PoF (leylines/Skyscale), raids (OW legendary armor), and dungeons (relics). (Note, there is some small chance they could introduce new incentives, but we haven't seen any evidence that they will so far and even still I am not sure if that would fix the problem).

* Extremely low-effort "combat" upgrades that cannibalize especs (weaponsmastery) and erodes profession niches (bizarre, off-brand new weapons).

They had SO MUCH to look at addressing. They could have just picked *one* solid area to work on per season and that would have been enough for me to show that they genuinely wanted to repair and revitalize neglected content and features. And *this* is where their priorities landed?

No. No thanks. What this tells me is that clearly they do not have the resources/acumen to actually bring anything more than superficial changes in this new mini-expac model. Or they do not care to.

[Batalix.2873]

9 minutes ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

Historically the rushed pacing has been caused more by external corporate/management shenanigans than the writers just being like "BORED NOW". IBS was truncated because of a combo of Covid and NCSoft pretty much dropping the hammer on the non-functioning Living World business model (getting all of Path of Fire and LW4 for $30.00 was just insane) by pushing Anet to do another expansion ASAP. Even HoT had to cut content like the whole Malyck's tree / Nightmare Court plotline (the random Nightmare Courtier, Duchess Chrysanthea, in Dragon's Stand is a leftover from this) and that was just from basic game development dealing with scope creep stuff. I'll always mourn what IBS could've been though, because right up until Champions it's probably some of the best content and story that the game has put out.

It's hard to tell with the Cantha stuff. I'd say that, considering what happened with IBS, the move to yearly expacs was probably decided pretty early on, but you can definitely still see remnants from earlier content plans with the post Season 1 stuff. Gyala Delve probably feels really weird and disjointed because it was meant to have a whole other half (you could see the name placement when it first came out showing that there was going to be another area to the west that would have made it roughly twice as big) and the new fractal has a bunch of weird mechanical and technical issues that point to it being a repurposed strike. I wouldn't say that means they dropped an entire post-EoD Cantha arc or anything though, plans are constantly in flux with game development and it's just as likely that they've just been seeding plot hooks and lore for future expacs to return to; like unless the game just straight-up shuts down there is absolutely a 0.00% chance that they don't do something with Drowned Kaineng and all of the foreshadowing about bad stuff in Raisu Palace at some point.

While I think that is likely true, I don't think it matters that corporate is more to blame than the writers. The fact is that the company as a whole, amalgamated agent repeatedly confirms its behavior around values that don't care about creating "lore".

We already have pretty sufficient evidence to show that they will skip over whatever parts of Drowned Kaineng (or any other teased story) to skip to other things. Be it needing a dragon to drop immediately for the execs, or simply abandoning a slower storyline to move on to duping the players with another new shiny d'annuale.

Also, just as an aside, but writing has generally just gotten a lot cheaper and JJ Abramsy "mystery box" across a lot of media. The idea being that it doesn't matter if you actually intend to finish a story or if you even have a coherent authorial explanation/payoff planned. What is more important is to keep tossing balls in the air for people to hang on to, keeping them constantly in anticipation for when you catch it. The catch never matters on the creator side, so much as making sure the balls keep going up and keeping consumers invested.

And as a tangential observation, GW2 also appears to be adopting a Magic the Gathering kind of approach to story/expansions. Spend less time exploring a single story/region, and you don't have to develop as much. Worldbuilding can be thinner overall, and more thinly spread. Only giving us half of Cantha leaves an easy "return to" expac idea, hanging more of the success of both halves on consumers having short attention spans and able to easily accept shorter spurts of novelty and nostalgia, rather than either half actually needing to be all that good. It reduces story/worldbuilding to seasonal brand-whoring rather than fully authored/rich stories.

Marvel/Disney has been spearheading this approach for about twenty years now, and now most media has just followed suit. Turns out that if you can maintain the *appearance* of having a lot of story, most consumers don't really care if it's just shallowly recycling IP and going nowhere particularly interesting.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

13 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

I generally agree with you but in respect to lore/worldbuilding/story narrative in GW universe, it was always bad, it's all over the place, full of cliches, reminds me of Terry Goodkind type of fantasy.

[Batalix.2873]

10 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

I generally agree with you but in respect to lore/worldbuilding/story narrative in GW universe, it was always bad, it's all over the place, full of cliches, reminds me of Terry Goodkind type of fantasy.

Eh I don't think it's as bad as Terry Goodkind.

GW2 at least, for all of its shallowness, has  had a lot of aesthetic integrity to its storytelling. And content-wise, a lot of what people call cliches could instead be seen as references to other media that the devs clearly enjoy. Scarlet being basically an amalgamation of Batman villains really clued me in to GW2's vibe. Yeah referentialism is trite, but I think GW2 puts a fun spin on a few things and isn't totally creatively bankrupt as far as story and worldbuilding go. Not to mention I think at times it has aspired to include more progressive/provoking themes, which is more than I can say for most generic fantasy worldbuilding.

Sword of Truth is just...bad. I don't think it has any real concepts of its own that Goodkind didn't pilfer from the generic fantasy pool set by better writers. It spends far too much time reveling in "adult" themes that honestly come off as depraved.  It doesn't really aspire to have themes outside of increased Randian soapboxing. And despite books being a much more versatile narrative medium than player-driven RPGs, it is infamously known for having the most Gary Stu wonderboy self-insert at its center.

[Izzy.2951]

1 hour ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

I generally agree with you but in respect to lore/worldbuilding/story narrative in GW universe, it was always bad, it's all over the place, full of cliches, reminds me of Terry Goodkind type of fantasy.

I dont think you can compare the story of GW to GW2s. GW story was much more diverse, with lots of different villains, clans, factions etc... While GW2 is mostly oh theres a dragon we need to kill him most of the time (aside balthazar etc, which it was way more interesting for me at least).

Also GW1 story was way more dark, not with so many jokes in writting etc. GW2 story has had so many downs, starting from the Zhaitan fight and many others along the way. Im still surprised that some people wanted a full expansion of jormag, and then another of primordus. Wasnt 10 years of this enough? I can understand primordus deserved a full IBS episode before Dragonstorm as presentation and background. But meh, it was enough already. Very predictable unlike gw1 story.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[DeathPanel.8362]

On 7/24/2023 at 4:06 PM, Izzy.2951 said:

And also if you clearly read the positions open for the new game they say "able to create understandeable code that can work widely". they also have a story now of making guides for certain code they make, to not have the same experience they had with old core dungeons which they cant touch anymore, or would require tons of investment.

And you don't think the old positions the previous people held had the same requirements?

In my job, I'm in a position to have interviewed people and I can tell you that there's a massive gap between written requirements and the candidates that show up or the candidates you settle for.

[DeathPanel.8362]

On 7/24/2023 at 6:59 PM, Ashen.2907 said:

You dont think tech has advanced far in the 19 years since 2004 when the current engine was created?

Not in the way that matters.

GW2's selling point is fluid mass zerg vs zerg or massive pve world boss combat, not graphic fidelity.  

GW3 would likely end up being a black desert clone at best.

[Gibson.4036]

On 7/25/2023 at 4:04 PM, Batalix.2873 said:

While I think that is likely true, I don't think it matters that corporate is more to blame than the writers. The fact is that the company as a whole, amalgamated agent repeatedly confirms its behavior around values that don't care about creating "lore".

We already have pretty sufficient evidence to show that they will skip over whatever parts of Drowned Kaineng (or any other teased story) to skip to other things. Be it needing a dragon to drop immediately for the execs, or simply abandoning a slower storyline to move on to duping the players with another new shiny d'annuale.

Also, just as an aside, but writing has generally just gotten a lot cheaper and JJ Abramsy "mystery box" across a lot of media. The idea being that it doesn't matter if you actually intend to finish a story or if you even have a coherent authorial explanation/payoff planned. What is more important is to keep tossing balls in the air for people to hang on to, keeping them constantly in anticipation for when you catch it. The catch never matters on the creator side, so much as making sure the balls keep going up and keeping consumers invested.

And as a tangential observation, GW2 also appears to be adopting a Magic the Gathering kind of approach to story/expansions. Spend less time exploring a single story/region, and you don't have to develop as much. Worldbuilding can be thinner overall, and more thinly spread. Only giving us half of Cantha leaves an easy "return to" expac idea, hanging more of the success of both halves on consumers having short attention spans and able to easily accept shorter spurts of novelty and nostalgia, rather than either half actually needing to be all that good. It reduces story/worldbuilding to seasonal brand-whoring rather than fully authored/rich stories.

Marvel/Disney has been spearheading this approach for about twenty years now, and now most media has just followed suit. Turns out that if you can maintain the *appearance* of having a lot of story, most consumers don't really care if it's just shallowly recycling IP and going nowhere particularly interesting.

I think you’re not giving consumers enough credit. It takes a while for us to catch on to the tricks, but more and more people are reacting to Marvel/Star Wars/Disney with a collective, “Meh”.

[AquaBR.9250]

On 6/29/2023 at 3:47 PM, Ashantara.8731 said:

Obviously not. 😉

What difference does it make whether they alter GW2 in a positive way and update/expand its features or create a whole new GW game? Other than people having to start from scratch with a GW3 game, that is.

What do you not like about the SotO announcement? I think it's sounding very promising -- better than anything we've heard in years.

Because GW2's engine is kitten? They had to reduce most elder dragon's size so the engine don't crash, you can't even make mirrors, the graphics are getting outdated, nothing really new is released since path of fire, the lighting looks like its from a PS2 game, we never had a graphics or gameplay overhall ever and never will because of the kitten engine.

I bet a thousand people said sh!t like that before gw2 came out, imagine if instead of releasing gw2 they kept trying to build stuff in that thing that is gw1

[Batalix.2873]

On 7/26/2023 at 11:49 AM, DeathPanel.8362 said:

And you don't think the old positions the previous people held had the same requirements?

In my job, I'm in a position to have interviewed people and I can tell you that there's a massive gap between written requirements and the candidates that show up or the candidates you settle for.

Not to mention, making code "understandable" is just an inherent requirement of software development generally, let alone any industry job. That's like a paralegal job position asking for them to know proper grammar and punctuation, or an accounting job asking for them to know basic math and excel. It almost comes off as desperate to have to put that in a job posting.

On 7/26/2023 at 3:38 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

I think you’re not giving consumers enough credit. It takes a while for us to catch on to the tricks, but more and more people are reacting to Marvel/Star Wars/Disney with a collective, “Meh”.

Eh, I don't think many consumers think about the media they consume very critically. By that I mean they tend not to think about the authorial aims or utilitarian benefit of what they consume. I think most people, regrettably, aren't even exposed to many mental tools that assist in more objectively valuating media. The advertising machine makes sure to distract and direct people's free attention so consistently, that they rarely leave its bubble long enough to realize maybe there are other standards that can be used to judge media other than its own self-saken propaganda.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 7/21/2023 at 7:04 AM, magickthief.6492 said:

 For the confused, will there be living story anymore? 🤔 

Yes, it will just now be called "expansion packs".

[Astralporing.1957]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:22 PM, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

I generally agree with you but in respect to lore/worldbuilding/story narrative in GW universe, it was always bad, it's all over the place, full of cliches, reminds me of Terry Goodkind type of fantasy.

No matter what i think of GW2 story (and my opinion about it isn't very good), it still does not deserve the comparison to Terry Goodkind. It's not even close to being this level of bad.

[Izzy.2951]

3 hours ago, AquaBR.9250 said:

Because GW2's engine is kitten? They had to reduce most elder dragon's size so the engine don't crash, you can't even make mirrors, the graphics are getting outdated, nothing really new is released since path of fire, the lighting looks like its from a PS2 game, we never had a graphics or gameplay overhall ever and never will because of the kitten engine.

I bet a thousand people said sh!t like that before gw2 came out, imagine if instead of releasing gw2 they kept trying to build stuff in that thing that is gw1

Bro, the elders dragons are massive, gw2 has the most massive boss encounters you will see in any MMORPG. The engine doesnt have to do anything with that.

Graphic overhaul? if gw2 had followed the art direction of gw1 instead of this painted thingy, gw2 would have aged graphically much better, just like gw1, it still looks good and inmersive, even tho it has way lower resolution and polish than gw2.

Gameplay overhaul? Why? whats the problem with it. 

WoW uses a pretty similar engine as GW1, and GW2 uses a kinda "updated gw1 engine". Is that the reason to kill a game when WoW have been kicking buts for 20 years?

Edited August 9, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Tachenon.5270]

On 7/20/2023 at 6:31 AM, Izzy.2951 said:

 1) In what timelime its goint to happen

Prequel. Maybe as far back as when humans first arrived in Tyria. Maybe even further, to the previous dragon outbreak. Anet loves their dragons, after all.

[Gibson.4036]

5 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Not to mention, making code "understandable" is just an inherent requirement of software development generally, let alone any industry job. That's like a paralegal job position asking for them to know proper grammar and punctuation, or an accounting job asking for them to know basic math and excel. It almost comes off as desperate to have to put that in a job posting.

Eh, I don't think many consumers think about the media they consume very critically. By that I mean they tend not to think about the authorial aims or utilitarian benefit of what they consume. I think most people, regrettably, aren't even exposed to many mental tools that assist in more objectively valuating media. The advertising machine makes sure to distract and direct people's free attention so consistently, that they rarely leave its bubble long enough to realize maybe there are other standards that can be used to judge media other than its own self-saken propaganda.

They don’t really need to consume critically. Over time they’ll just grow dissatisfied with an IP that has lost its substance. They don’t need to understand why, beyond “I haven’t really enjoyed the last several movies/books/series.”

Again, as evidence, look at all the IP the Mouse has acquired and tried to milk. I don’t think most people try to deconstruct why they’ve lost interest, but the Mouse is panicking because they’ve stopped tuning in.

It took a while, but it happened.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[methozbbf.1928]

Outdated GW2 engine doesn't help.... And it fascinates me that anyone believes there will be a GW3...

[Anvar.5673]

13 minutes ago, methozbbf.1928 said:

Outdated GW2 engine doesn't help.... And it fascinates me that anyone believes there will be a GW3...

Everyone want to move on one day, even the devs. Guild Wars isn't a nice thing to work on it anymore.

That's normal to want to finish the job of the boring legacy project as fast as possible to go on the far more interesting new project full of novelty and promises.

The legacy project is the source of all of the incomes for the moment and some devs have to sacrifice some of their time on it but better they will replace it, better the studio will grow.

I would not be shocked if their next project was related to another license. Guild Wars is old. The studio need new horizons.

[Batalix.2873]

On 8/9/2023 at 4:58 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

They don’t really need to consume critically. Over time they’ll just grow dissatisfied with an IP that has lost its substance. They don’t need to understand why, beyond “I haven’t really enjoyed the last several movies/books/series.”

Again, as evidence, look at all the IP the Mouse has acquired and tried to milk. I don’t think most people try to deconstruct why they’ve lost interest, but the Mouse is panicking because they’ve stopped tuning in.

It took a while, but it happened.

Takes too long, imo. The longer people hold onto goodwill when they shouldn't, the more reserves these companies can build up to weather droughts and pull the same garbage again.

9 hours ago, Anvar.5673 said:

Everyone want to move on one day, even the devs. Guild Wars isn't a nice thing to work on it anymore.

That's normal to want to finish the job of the boring legacy project as fast as possible to go on the far more interesting new project full of novelty and promises.

The legacy project is the source of all of the incomes for the moment and some devs have to sacrifice some of their time on it but better they will replace it, better the studio will grow.

I would not be shocked if their next project was related to another license. Guild Wars is old. The studio need new horizons.

As I've observed, ANet is at a crossroads, and a difficult one. They do not seem to have the budget/staff to multitask, so whatever singular project they work on next will receive the bulk of their attention.

They can choose for this next game to be GW3, and preserve their nearly 20 year IP portfolio. Which isn't very large or diverse, and they have mishandled poorly, but is still a wealth of creative inspiration and goodwill that they would not need to build up from scratch.

If they do not choose to make GW3, and make something else entirely as their next big project, they will not have the resources to maintain GW as a flagship property. And that will be the end of the Guild Wars brand for quite some time, maybe forever.

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Takes too long, imo. The longer people hold onto goodwill when they shouldn't, the more reserves these companies can build up to weather droughts and pull the same garbage again.

As I've observed, ANet is at a crossroads, and a difficult one. They do not seem to have the budget/staff to multitask, so whatever singular project they work on next will receive the bulk of their attention.

They can choose for this next game to be GW3, and preserve their nearly 20 year IP portfolio. Which isn't very large or diverse, and they have mishandled poorly, but is still a wealth of creative inspiration and goodwill that they would not need to build up from scratch.

If they do not choose to make GW3, and make something else entirely as their next big project, they will not have the resources to maintain GW as a flagship property. And that will be the end of the Guild Wars brand for quite some time, maybe forever.

In light of how the GW IP has been handled over the past few years I wonder just how many people that are currently only continuing to log in due to sunk cost might finally jump ship.

[WeightTrainer.3219]

On 6/29/2023 at 1:41 PM, Rose Solane.1027 said:

Call me crazy but for quite some time I had the feeling that ArenaNet was in the process of ending the story of Guild Wars 2. Two elder dragons killed in one (disappointing) end of the story line of one of those elder dragons. End of Dragons as the name of the third expansion. The end of the run for Guild Wars 2 was near, time for Guild Wars 3!. And then the announcement came that we would get a new form of expansions for Guild Wars 2.

Now we have the first announcement of what will be in Secrets of the Obscure, the first expansion of the new type. I look at it and think: Is this really the type of content, of changes, that I want for an expansion? My answer is  no, I want Guild Wars 3. And looking at the announcement of Secrets of the Obscure I think that ArenaNet wanted Guild Wars 3 too, but had to continue making content for Guild Wars 2.

Unfortunately, Anet would not be investing in GW2, like with DirectX11, if they were going to move on to GW3. Anet has a great game already that they have allowed to become a bit outdated. That doesn't mean there needs to be a GW3. It means Anet needs to work on GW2 to bring it out of 2012, across the board, PvE, sPvP and WvW. They are making small strides. Like support classes in WvW now getting loot after waiting for I can't count how many years. 

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

In light of how the GW IP has been handled over the past few years I wonder just how many people that are currently only continuing to log in due to sunk cost might finally jump ship.

That's yet another wrinkle, I agree. What portion of the playerbase is only invested due to sunk cost, and/or the continued misimpression that GW2 is still "going strong" or "will recover soon"?

We can't really know which portion of the players would jump ship at the anouncement of GW3, but surely the longer they are left buying gemstore skins in this half-development limbo, the worse things will go over.

I get the impression that a lot of this PR voodoo we've been experiencing is deliberately hiding (a) how behind ANet is at developing their next source of revenue, and (b) how little it wants to continue investing in GW2. The disconnect between the hype and what we are actually getting just convinces me that ANet *needs* to sustain GW2's revenue, and they don't think they can do so honestly. I.e., they think that if players had an honest picture of development behind the scenes, they would already have jumped ship.

[Ashen.2907]

4 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

That's yet another wrinkle, I agree. What portion of the playerbase is only invested due to sunk cost, and/or the continued misimpression that GW2 is still "going strong" or "will recover soon"?

We can't really know which portion of the players would jump ship at the anouncement of GW3, but surely the longer they are left buying gemstore skins in this half-development limbo, the worse things will go over.

I get the impression that a lot of this PR voodoo we've been experiencing is deliberately hiding (a) how behind ANet is at developing their next source of revenue, and (b) how little it wants to continue investing in GW2. The disconnect between the hype and what we are actually getting just convinces me that ANet *needs* to sustain GW2's revenue, and they don't think they can do so honestly. I.e., they think that if players had an honest picture of development behind the scenes, they would already have jumped ship.

I cannot disagree.

[enigmatic.3576]

I don't think GW3 is going to happen with them producing less content than before but with the same, if not more, number of employees. 

[Taclism.2406]

16 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

I get the impression that a lot of this PR voodoo we've been experiencing is deliberately hiding (a) how behind ANet is at developing their next source of revenue, and (b) how little it wants to continue investing in GW2. The disconnect between the hype and what we are actually getting just convinces me that ANet *needs* to sustain GW2's revenue, and they don't think they can do so honestly.

Well to be fair
the a) part is always hidden, its not meant for public eyes until the proof of concept generated enough material and good feedback to finance a fully develloped game & start communicating about it year(s) later. There's very few exceptions to this rule and they're not great exemples. Like Blizzard's MMOFPS "Titan", which died before they ever shown anything about it,  and was recycled in the form of Overwatch.
the b) part isnt wrong. To your argument, I'd add "Remember https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/studio-update-guild-wars-2-in-2023/ ? That already meant "game reached peak maturity (as far as product life cycle goes), time to crank up the monetization to bank more as it declines".  Part of the process to, soon or later, switch to their unannounced project as their main game. But it's a normal thing.  You can't really blame Anet for not telling it "like it is" or tank their future finance by killing the hype, that's literally every company / organisation, you gloss over the bad / unknown when talking to the public. Imo that's moreso your consumer duty to read between the lines of corporate speech, and choose whether or not you still wanna support something.

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, Taclism.2406 said:

Well to be fair
the a) part is always hidden, its not meant for public eyes until the proof of concept generated enough material and good feedback to finance a fully develloped game & start communicating about it year(s) later. There's very few exceptions to this rule and they're not great exemples. Like Blizzard's MMOFPS "Titan", which died before they ever shown anything about it,  and was recycled in the form of Overwatch.
the b) part isnt wrong. To your argument, I'd add "Remember https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/studio-update-guild-wars-2-in-2023/ ? That already meant "game reached peak maturity (as far as product life cycle goes), time to crank up the monetization to bank more as it declines".  Part of the process to, soon or later, switch to their unannounced project as their main game. But it's a normal thing.  You can't really blame Anet for not telling it "like it is" or tank their future finance by killing the hype, that's literally every company / organisation, you gloss over the bad / unknown when talking to the public. Imo that's moreso your consumer duty to read between the lines of corporate speech, and choose whether or not you still wanna support something.

You're not wrong, and I have been reading between the lines. But I do still think they are risking destroying the long term monetization of this game with this model.

FFXI has been going strong for almost ten years since FFXIV released. It hasn't had amazing subscription numbers, but it has had consistent consumer loyalty because (a) they didn't mess up the existing gameplay systems for some cheap thrills like SotO is doing (or when they did, it was long after the game had stopped active development and were tactfully done as QoL updates), and (b) they never operated under the guise of the game still being actively developed. It was all very above-board.

Nothing in SotO, aside from maybe legendary armor, seems like a lasting QoL update, and in fact many of the "new things" are going to sabotage regular player participation in old content and maps. The skyscale and leggy armor especially feel like things that would be added during maintenance mode, alongside other "progression-breaking" features like a harvesting or climbing mount, or account-wide waypoint unlocks.

When I get a map that is just revisiting past regions, I expect that to be accompanied with a "we are wrapping up the game" announcement. It is the dishonesty, combined with the very real possibility that buying into it might result in even more expansions that lazily recycle things, that bothers me. SotO should have been accompanied with a "this is the end" announcement.