Why are we paying for Living Worlds?

[Entara.3075]

So it's a living world rebranded as an expansion. Whatever ANET or the player base wants to call it it is still new content and new things to do. I have enjoyed it for the most part except for the lack of choice from the new dailies, but I heard that they were adding another option for each category on September 12th so I will see on that.

Regardless ANET has bills to pay as well and $25 is not that much in today's inflation ridden world. I look at it as it costs roughly $15 to go to a movie and I get way more entertainment out of the expansion than 2 two hour movies.

Just my two cents.

[phandaria.4891]

I feel SoTo have and will deliver its worth of price. No complaints for me for the price and what has been delivered/promised. That being said, I will judge based on the content. Let's see if it is really worth it. The same to be said for future expansions.

[Ashantara.8731]

12 hours ago, Jasperado.6829 said:

Why are we paying for Living Worlds?

Because paying for dead worlds would be a pretty big waste of money? 😂

[illuminati.8453]

13 hours ago, Jasperado.6829 said:

So again I ask, why are we now having to pay for content, that was free, and it's being masked as an expansion? Am I wrong in this thought? I'm curious if anyone else see it this way. Thoughts?

A different way to think about it, is that this is nothing more than a yearly subscription service now.  With subscriptions, you typically don't get all the content right away but rather you fund the content creators to make content updates throughout the year.  Every year, from here on out I'd imagine, we are going to be asked to make a purchase to fund the development of the content for the next year. 

Anet can't support the old model in which they do a big xpac every few years, they no longer have the developer resources dedicated to GW2 to do this.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on them for trying this, but it is a big shift from what they've done in the past and, for now, it feels like we getting the short end of the stick.  If this all goes down the way they promise, I doubt we'll care.  /fingers crossed

Edited September 3, 2023 by illuminati.8453

[Okhu.7948]

Because not paying for living worlds was an absurd amount of untapped money that Anet should have been making. And it spoiled the player base into thinking that Anet shouldn't have money.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Actually, it's similar model in Destiny 2. They release rather small expansions and content about every year and people are fine with it. You don't pay to play a monthly fee.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

23 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Actually, it's similar model in Destiny 2. They release rather small expansions and content about every year and people are fine with it. You don't pay to play a monthly fee.

It's kind of better than Destiny 2 though, because that game locks off a lot of its story stuff behind the game's battlepass while this is getting more free updates and doesn't have permanently missable story content.

[Futa.4375]

I can't wait for the next paid "expansion" where they will remove ten things and then present them as new content, but worse. When you add the fact that all masteries except Arborstone in EoD were mostly useless and thought exclusively as ways  to sell skins on the cash shop. You can pretty much tell where the direction of the game has been going lately.

I hope we will be able to do Vision, Aurora and the Prismatic Champion's Regalia collections again and unlock the Roller Beetle yet again but only by working playing on two maps. Maybe even through thousands of braindead bounties, rifts, vortexes to make it extra fun.

[Tere.4759]

I have no problem paying for SOTO but dang, people complained about the story in EOD and that is a lot better than this.  Where is the story in SOTO.  Is it hiding in the rift.  I can't seem to find it.

[Jasperado.6829]

Okay. I completely understand that it has become unsustainable. Paying for things to support a game, I'm fine with. My point is, they should call it what it is. Living World. Not an expansion.

I know my initial question was why are we paying for a Living World. That question is based off of them calling it an expansion. It's not.

[ugrakarma.9416]

1 hour ago, Jasperado.6829 said:

Okay. I completely understand that it has become unsustainable. Paying for things to support a game, I'm fine with. My point is, they should call it what it is. Living World. Not an expansion.

I know my initial question was why are we paying for a Living World. That question is based off of them calling it an expansion. It's not.

Since they still have 2 different bussmodels, ins't wise call them the same.,...

remember that this is a lot related to steam release.

the old LS model, to steam bussness model, seems as scam, "content free availiable to xx days if u buy the previous expansion".

Edited September 5, 2023 by ugrakarma.9416

[Mistwraithe.3106]

Like many have said, the real question is why were Living Worlds ever free? As someone who started playing relatively recently they weren't free, I had to buy most of them (got a few from the tail end of a repeat free unlock they had).

IMO they should all have been mini-expansions and cost money from the start. Then Anet would have had more money to improve the game more. They would also have probably bundled them together with the bigger expansions by now instead of having this awkward situation where HoT buyers don't realise they need to buy LWS2 too if they want the proper story lead in to HoT (so messed up).

[Tiamat.8254]

Guild wars has always been experimental even since GW1 when they announced a sub free mmo. The fact they even try instead of ploughing on with the same model fills me with joy. It's the main reason I have stuck with gw2. I have tried the other "popular" mmo available for years in some cases but it gets stale very quickly (with the exception of FFXIV where the story just put me off entirely). 

I'm always in favour of change and trying something new because you will never stand out by copying everyone else or thinking coasting along is acceptable when you have a business to run. 

Again I will say, you get people who are quite happy to eat the same sandwich every day, then there are others who want the same sandwich every day, but they want a different type of bread, no butter, toasted, etc....

But again ultimately the game is fun to play. If the content is worth paying for, you will pay for it. If not, that's up to you. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Tiamat.8254
Typo

[preacher.9370]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:40 PM, Hindenburg.3415 said:

Right , it's not like there are storyline , metas , exploration , events , achievements , collections, masteries which can easily take 100+ hours to see and do everything.

only decent of the two metas is SA. Amnytas puts me to sleep. storyline was done in a day, repeated relevant instances couple days later for achieves, meta achieves done in about a week, exploration done first before story. Masteries get done asap. Events, covered by meta achieves, not many stand out as super fun. Collection wise i'm down to the cards, which i might finish some day, but when all it gives is xp, not really in a hurry to do all that running around for just that. Skyscale? One look at the cost for the charm and i sad kitten that.... a skin and mini isn't worth that, plus whatever else follows after that.

 

So here I am, two weeks to the day, while working full time, with all that completed and down to the overly excessive rift farming, with 60 amalgated essences left to make, on top of ~30 days of metas to try and stay awak through....

[Randulf.7614]

I’ve been playing almost daily and I’m barely halfway through it. I def can’t complain about value for money.

Its been overshadowed by poor implementation of features, but it’s been great fun so far

[Tiviana.2650]

I dont mind paying 25 bucks a year thats pretty kitten cheap from my pov. I come from WoW where i paid 180.00 a year, and thats not the cost of an expansion either, thats just sub fees. my issue is the path they are taking and some bugs they are still working out. I like the zones and have been told every 3 months they will release new stuff, thats pretty good. I only wish they had added a new raid wing, and an auto grouping feature , oh and dont get me started on alliances 😢

Edited September 5, 2023 by Tiviana.2650

[Krajtin.8956]

I don't mind paying for LW, in fact I paid for everyone for it. What bothers me is naming something that isn't even remotely close to the content of an expansion. When they talked about "mini-expansion" I thought it would be less content but of higher quality, and it was not like that

[Scorcher.6428]

On 9/5/2023 at 10:39 AM, Jasperado.6829 said:

Okay. I completely understand that it has become unsustainable. Paying for things to support a game, I'm fine with. My point is, they should call it what it is. Living World. Not an expansion.

I know my initial question was why are we paying for a Living World. That question is based off of them calling it an expansion. It's not.

They called it a 'mini expansion' from the start. Calling it 'Living World' is not accurate either. This is meant to be a completely different release model so it doesn't even make sense to use a previous model's naming convention imo.
If you understand why Anet had to move away from giving content away for free, why does it matter if they used the word 'expansion'(they even preceded 'expansion' with 'mini' to make it more distinct)?
 

[Krajtin.8956]

22 minutes ago, Scorcher.6428 said:

They called it a 'mini expansion' from the start. Calling it 'Living World' is not accurate either. This is meant to be a completely different release model so it doesn't even make sense to use a previous model's naming convention imo.
If you understand why Anet had to move away from giving content away for free, why does it matter if they used the word 'expansion'(they even preceded 'expansion' with 'mini' to make it more distinct)?

They don't call it LW for marketing reasons but it has the quality of LW. They are supposed to have more workers and the quality should be higher than a LW, but no.

Quote

Q: Do smaller expansions mean that there are fewer developers working on Guild Wars 2?

Nope, quite the contrary. In fact, thanks to the growth that Guild Wars 2 saw in 2022, we’re increasing the size of the Guild Wars 2 development team—largely in content and systems design. We’ve already hired a bunch of new folks since January, and we’ll be opening additional roles throughout the year.

 

 

[Scorcher.6428]

4 minutes ago, Krajtin.8956 said:

They don't call it LW for marketing reasons but it has the quality of LW. They are supposed to have more workers and the quality should be higher than a LW, but no.

 

What do you use to determine the quality is lower? What are your comparisons between SotO vs LW vs Expac

[vandrefalk.6823]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:42 AM, Jasperado.6829 said:

Skyscale, and Roller beetle both came from a Living World. Which was free, just for logging in.

LS4 and IBS were "free" because they were included if you had purchased PoF; you unlocked the episodes for free then, but you still needed the expansion to play them.

Similarly - having purchased SotO, you now get the next quarterly updates for free, until the next DLC/xpac comes in about a year's time.

[Krajtin.8956]

1 hour ago, Scorcher.6428 said:

What do you use to determine the quality is lower? What are your comparisons between SotO vs LW vs Expac

Let's see:

• Massive reuse of assets and enemies
• No hero points (obviously there are no new specializations)
• Exploration to find secret things pretty poor (Only a jumping puzzle)
•  Simple, repetitive and unoriginal events since they have used some events from other expansions and LW
•  Meta-events (especially the first one) are very tacky and uninspiring, once again using assets from Destroyers and Scarlett's allies. The scond its fine.
•  Strikes are like hitting a HP golem, 0 challenges while Kaening's Strike has up to 3 phases
•  Reuse of pointless special abilities, such as the hammer, the IBS laser beam and the other Observatory fractal ability
• Isgarren's fight, once again, reusing mesmer skills such as staff skill 5 among others. Of course, the animations of the Isgarren model are the same as those of a Dijin from PoF
• Very little variation of new enemies, only the demons and on top of that they are re-skin.

The only thing I like about this "mini-expansion", at the moment, is the new reward system and its story. We will see the 3rd map and other things to implement.

I love this game I hope they try harder unless this is a way to keep the players busy while they do the "unannounced project".

Edited September 6, 2023 by Krajtin.8956

[Scorcher.6428]

7 minutes ago, Krajtin.8956 said:

Let's see:

• Massive reuse of assets and enemies
• No hero points (obviously there are no new specializations)
• Exploration to find secret things pretty poor (Only a jumping puzzle)
•  Simple, repetitive and unoriginal events since they have used some events from other expansions and LW
•  Meta-events (especially the first one) are very tacky and uninspiring, once again using assets from Destroyers and Scarlett's allies. The scond its fine.
•  Strikes are like hitting a HP golem, 0 challenges while Kaening's Strike has up to 3 phases
•  Reuse of pointless special abilities, such as the hammer, the IBS laser beam and the other Observatory fractal ability
• Isgarren's fight, once again, reusing mesmer skills such as staff skill 5 among others. Of course, the animations of the Isgarren model are the same as those of a Dijin from PoF
• Very little variation of new enemies, only the demons and on top of that they are re-skin.

The only thing I like about this "mini-expansion", at the moment, is the new reward system and its story. We will see the 3rd map and other things to implement.

I love this game I hope they try harder unless this is a way to keep the players busy while they do the "unannounced project".

Some of these points are just your opinion and/or more assertions though. I won't deny there was a lot of asset reuse. But, unless you or someone has a very comprehensive list of examples of asset reuse and reskins vs 'new' assets in each expac, and can prove that SotO has significantly more asset reuse/less variation, I'm not taking that argument at face value.

Imo, 'mini expac' is a suitable enough label so far. If they drop the ball on the following updates for SotO, I'd most likely change my opinion though.

[Krajtin.8956]

10 minutes ago, Scorcher.6428 said:

Some of these points are just your opinion and/or more assertions though. I won't deny there was a lot of asset reuse. But, unless you or someone has a very comprehensive list of examples of asset reuse and reskins vs 'new' assets in each expac, and can prove that SotO has significantly more asset reuse/less variation, I'm not taking that argument at face value.

About PoF New Enemies:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hydra

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Shark

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Earth_Djinn

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Choya

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Lioness

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Eel

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forged_Soldier

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forged_Shieldbearer

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forged_War_Mage

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veteran_Forged_Cannonade

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Awakened_Mummy

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Awakened_Archer

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Awakened_Occultist

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Abominable_Whelp

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Awakened_Canid

If you want, I'd be happy to provide a list of new HoT enemies.

[Zok.4956]

On 9/3/2023 at 11:42 AM, Jasperado.6829 said:

So again I ask, why are we now having to pay for content, that was free, and it's being masked as an expansion? Am I wrong in this thought? I'm curious if anyone else see it this way. Thoughts?

You don't pay for content that was previously free for you. You pay for new content. And that is called B2P (buy to play).

GW2 had/has two revenue streams: One from B2P and one from the gem shop (F2P model). But in the end, all development work has to be paid from the revenue because all content creation costs money.

Anet has changed its monetization strategies a few times. At first it said "only living world, no expansions". Then there were two expansions. Then the announcement of the IBS said "no expansion, but a saga with features/content worthy of expansion". Then there was an expansion. And there was also, as a kind of marketing campaign, S3 and S4 free during the release cycle and the special "Return to" events.

Now Anet is trying, presumably to minimize risk and for more even revenue streams, a content delivery model with a mixture of smaller and annual expansions and the Living World contained therein, which Anet markets as an expansion.

Whether we get more or less content per year as a result, and how long this model survives until it is changed again, remains to be seen.

And whether the price demanded by Anet for the content is sufficient for the customer/player to pay for it is an individual decision. Players vote on this with their wallet.