Anniversary Video Discussion

[Michram.6853]

The expansions start brand new story- only one main villain, we move to a new place, with new allies and enemies.

The Seasons continue the story of the expansions. PoF created many loose plots like Gods- mostly Lyssa, Glint's Legacy, Kralkatorrik, Aurene, Joko, The Order of Shadows, The Sunspear, Caithe's plot, as well Zojja and also Rytlock's not still revealed secret.

You cant do it within 1 season if you want to keep the story in order.

First 3 episodes focused on Joko and also the unexpected Inquest's plot, and it was only Joko, look at the list above and tell how many plots are left? :D

As I said, they could do it in one season, but creating such messy, full of everything Season cannot work.

Season 3 was very messy, full of everything, no proper summary of HoT, just running through to the next expansion.

I think the writers just proved they learn on their mistakes and Season 5 after 4 makes the perfect sense.

[Martnor.1746]

As a wise Sylvari said in the most recent living world episode: "Art cannot be rushed my friend"

[Gehenna.3625]

It seems to me that season 3 was longer so to have a shorter season 4 and 5 before the next expansion seems fine by me. Considering PoF dropped last year I do not expect the next expansion for another year anyway.

[Vieux P.1238]

Best decision they made not to come out with an expansion. They need to put all resources & all teams to figure out Gw2 future. Cuz in a few years, there be a few western MMO contenders that will beat hands down Gw2. & after 6 years, they just figured out no amount of Expansion or content will permanently fix game issues.I don't care how many cool trailers they come out with. After 6 years, Between story telling & direction the game went, in my view abysmal. Every year, should of been a 100 times better. But we only got hype & delusion & deception. Dont agree? I don't care. The Many that does has left the game.This game has so much potential. But will lose in the long run if they don't figure themselves out.

[Gehenna.3625]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Hey now, question asked, question answered! :D

I can appreciate that... so my question is the following: how many more episodes will season 4 have?

[sorudo.9054]

but does this mean we get 2 in one month or 2 in one week?

[Gehenna.3625]

@sorudo.9054 said:but does this mean we get 2 in one month or 2 in one week?

It means that after season 4 comes season 5 and not the next expansion. Or in other words I guess you can say that we will have 2 seasons between expansions this time.

So I would say the answer to your question is no.

[KuRupT.3512]

@Vieux P.1238 said:Best decision they made not to come out with an expansion. They need to put all resources & all teams to figure out Gw2 future. Cuz in a few years, there be a few western MMO contenders that will beat hands down Gw2. & after 6 years, they just figured out no amount of Expansion or content will permanently fix game issues.I don't care how many cool trailers they come out with. After 6 years, Between story telling & direction the game went, in my view abysmal. Every year, should of been a 100 times better. But we only got hype & delusion & deception. Dont agree? I don't care. The Many that does has left the game.This game has so much potential. But will lose in the long run if they don't figure themselves out.

That happens in most games tho, I don't get it

[Zaklex.6308]

I still say that they're continuing to work on the schedule that MO laid out after HoT, that an expansion would be released every 2 years with LW season(s) in between. They could easily fit in two 6 episode seasons between expansions, though that would mean they'd have to pick up the pace a bit in LW episode releases, or they could have one season of 6 episodes and a second season of 4 to 6 episodes depending on how well the expansion is going, there are almost limitless possibilities on the combinations.

[otto.5684]

The question is how long season 4 going to be? Same for season 5. If they are 4 episodes each, then we could expect next expansion in winter of next year. If it is six episodes each that means there next expansion is going to be late in 2020 ?

[miraude.2107]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:All that GW3 talk is nonsense IMO and mere panicmongering. How can a video so inspired and full of motivational statements from various devs on the future of GW2 result in the belief that the game is going to come to an end soon? Absolutely incomprehensible to me.

Parse error?

No program exists in the same state for a long period of time. People think you can just 'add 1 more feature' but eventually you have to bite the bullet and rewrite huge swaths of the engine. If GW2 lasts long enough eventually there will have to be a GW3, that is pretty much a certainty. The only question is it called GW3 or is it a bunch of updates that seem on the outside to have nothing to do with each other. I am guessing they will want to keep as much of the data if possible (especially the content that has been developed) so very probably it would be the latter.

World of Warcraft has been in the same state for a long period of time. Hell, they had to do a stat squish because the old system could not handle the numbers anymore for Warlords and yet another stat squish for Battle of Azeroth. If anything we're more likely to see a WoW 2 than a GW3. Guild Wars 2 does not make you constantly upgrade armor (like in WoW where top tier for Mists was lvl 553 and Warlords bumped that up to 695) the way Warcraft does is, in all honesty, a super smart move that Arenanet did as they don't need to worry about stats and can instead focus on the actual game. In terms of longevity it's more they'll have to rework graphics more than the whole engine.

[Vieux P.1238]

@KuRupT.3512 said:

@Vieux P.1238 said:

Best decision they made not to come out with an expansion.

They need to put all resources & all teams to figure out Gw2 future. Cuz in a few years, there be a few western MMO contenders that will beat hands down Gw2. & after 6 years, they just figured out no amount of Expansion or content will permanently fix game issues.I don't care how many cool trailers they come out with. After 6 years, Between story telling & direction the game went, in my view abysmal. Every year, should of been a 100 times better. But we only got hype & delusion & deception. Dont agree? I don't care. The Many that does has left the game.This game has so much potential. But will lose in the long run if they don't figure themselves out.

That happens in most games tho, I don't get it

I don't agree. Great example of a 100x times better year after year is tory teling in WoW. Good immersive & just plain old cool cinematics. As for the rest of the game itself, i will admit, pretty questionable. But that's where Gw2 should be focusing on surpassing them. Game & story line. While i will admit gw2 stories got better, still not as immersive & attention grabbing as WoW's or other's as a matter of fact.

[Ashantara.8731]

@otto.5684 said:The question is how long season 4 going to be?

That shouldn't be a question. First of all, it was already stated that it will have 6 episodes, and secondly, all seasons have been of the same length so far.

[Fenar.4025]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@otto.5684 said:The question is how long season 4 going to be?

That shouldn't be a question. First of all, it was already stated that it will have 6 episodes, and secondly, all seasons have been of the same length so far.

Where was it stated that it would have 6 episodes? They said we are moving into the second half. That could be true with just 5 episodes.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Fenar.4025 said:Where was it stated that it would have 6 episodes? They said we are moving into the second half. That could be true with just 5 episodes.

Somewhere on this forum or Reddit, I don't remember. There was a link in another thread.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I actually wonder with a second living world season between expansions if they're changing the scope somewhat. It may be a return to how they worked in the first game with a whole new starting continent and personal story path with new races coming from that, if they do add more. I mentioned the possibility in another thread but the news of another living world season makes me feel it's more possible. It'd be a better way of doing Cantha IMO, maybe even have the human empire as the primary antagonist with the players starting as some rebellion.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

@"lokh.2695" said:2) "We will go from LS4 to LS5" - I'm worried that this is reason for concern. Not that I want to complain about free episodic content going on for at least another year, far from that. But it feels like they're not planing on releasing an expansion in 2019. We know nothing at this point, so it's not worth panicing over it.

I thought the opposite, maybe their gemstore stuff is making enough money that they are able to do two seasons back to back.

Totally agree on your third point though. Personal home instance, after putting in so much personal time and effort into our guilds guildhall makes it a bit meh okay.I prefer progressing such thing together. Already sort of share my GFs homeinstance this way by co-financing it. Definitely not a hide myself in my instance kind of person (anymore).

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

@Ubi.4136 said:

@"SloRules.3560" said:All of this makes me think that these 2 seasons are going to be the ending ceremony of gw2 and after it's going into maintanance mode.

That's what I was saying in the "systems team" thread. The team redesign plus changing the content map they laid out for us makes me think either the ship is sinking or GW3 could be a reality. Which way I lean depends on how optimistic I feel at that point. Getting old enough that the lack of concrete info just makes me anxious, and not in a good way.

This makes no sense since the "new" (its actually an expansion, not a replacement) system team Q&A suggests the game is getting bigger and even more work is going into it.

[Lucius.2140]

@Arden.7480 said:It raises a question: Do they have the money for the expansion?

For me its the contrary, i think they have the money and they are finally trying to implement the living world at the level they always wanted:

• Anet revenue became bigger since PoF.
• There was 9 months without content between Hot and LS3.
• The living world its way better than LS1 was and have a tailored and probed model.
• Mount skins have allowed them to get more money from gems.
• Edit: The team seems to be getting bigger.

Personlly i would have liked a faster expansion, but that ship sunk alredy and we are in LS5s one.

[Michram.6853]

WoW has Azshara and Sylvanas

GW2 has Joko and Taimi

Yeah those are 2 greatest villains of GW2. Clap clap clap

WoW has many epic characters with very interesting back stories, GW2 doesnt.

Yet the story of GW2 is much more entertaining and full of surprises, but it doesnt have so many characters as WoW.

I think its because of that GW2 chose to make the commander as the main character, the character that always is in the center of the events, that helps, commands, smashes away.

The commander is just like Harry Potter- always among his friend, the only one that can save the world, the primar focus of the villains- Voldemort etc.

Then in WoW the PC is just a warrior that is thrown to the events that happens without his presence, his mission is just to go there and bring onions or something to more important character.

We have interactions with the leaders, but they dont share their plans with us, we just see them when they come to reality.

If you like epic characters and you dont want to be in the spotlight, then play WoW.

If you want to be a hero, fight epic enemies and shape the world, then play GW2.

In GW2 you fight Balthazar multiple times, in WoW you only see Sargeras in the end, with no interaction.

[Einlanzer.1627]

I think they still need to refine their expansion model. While i loved what PoF did have, it was fairly light on new content for an expansion - we need new dungeons, weapons, classes/races, and lots of system updates. Masteries need more refinement; the elite spec system has practical limits (though I think one more for each class would be ideal before they try something new), and we need a bit of renewed focus on guilds. We should probably start seeing some form of phasing, allowing for story-based updates to old zones, and a real effort to restore at least the meat of LW1 back into the game so there's not such a jarring disconnect in the game's narrative.

So, I'm okay with more focus on LW for the short term while they work through those things and figure out what direction they're going in. Especially if it means getting more robust content and system updates in the next expansion compared to what was in HoT and PoF.

[Ashabhi.1365]

I'm going to play the villain here for a moment, so go ahead and flame away if you like.

There's a TON of stuff to do. The problem isn't lack of content. The problem is that players get bored easily and want whatever's new and shiny. They're like "Gee, I got the AP, now there's nothing to do cuz I don't want to [insert activity.]" If the little box at the end of something isn't "good enough" then it's not worth doing, even though it gives one a chance to see friends, do something as a group (or not) and gives one something to do other than sitting in LA/Divinity/Amnoon and complaining that there's nothing to do. I would bet that there's not a single person in the game (not exaggerating) that has done everything the game has to offer.

So, let's look at where we've gotten so far. For now, we have the rest of Season 4, which I expect will either be the end of Kralk or dealing with whatever is happening to Aurene after ingesting Joko. If we finish up Kralk, then LS5 might be dealing with Aurene. If the rest of LS4 is dealing with Aurene, then LS5 might be the big battle with Kralk. Here's my reasoning: Core Personal Story dealt with Zhaitan, setting up the rest of the entire theme of GW2. LS1 dealt with a villain (Scarlett.) Expac 1 gave us the rest of old Tyria (Maguuma Jungle) and dealt with Mordy, with LS2 dealing with a villain (Faolin) and everything leading up to the end battle with Mordy. It also gave us a new profession (Revenant.) Expac 2 gave us new specializations, a new continent (Elona) and dealt with a villian (Balthazar) with LS3 as a catalyst, ending with an appearance by Kralk. This is where we are now with another villain (Joko.) This is what makes me believe that the rest of LS4 and the upcoming LS5 will eventually wrap up with Kralk. Once the story is done with Kralk, we have but one elder dragon to deal with, and that's Bubbles, unless Primordus or Jormag wake back up. Whether Aurene figures into that story we will have to wait and see. If there's an expac 3, I expect that it will be dealing with the sea and Bubbles.

The thing is that we don't NEED another expac to do all this. In fact, As much as I love this game, I don't think there's enough "content" to explore for another expac unless they unlock Cantha (or the sea and the Lagos, or any other continent,) a new race, or new professions/specializations. In fact, those are the ONLY reason for an expac. Literally everything else can be done in a Living World episode. Just because someone "wants" an expac doesn't mean we should have one.

Oh, and on making a GW3? It wouldn't surprise me. They announced GW2 a mere 2 years after GW1 launched. Yeah, it took them 5 years to build, but knowing this, they could be working on a GW3 and just keeping it quiet until they get a few years closer to release. For all we know, once we take care of Bubbles, there will be a GW3 instead of yet another expac.

[Raizel.8175]

@Lucius.2140 said:

• The living world its way better than LS1 was and have a tailored and probed model.

Have to disagree here. LW Season 3 and 4 feel quite bland in comparison to Season 1 and 2. Sure, there's also nostalgia, especially with Season 1, but there were some fun events and Season 2 brought us Dry Top and The Silverwastes - both farmable maps with decent meta-event- and reward-structures. The storytelling of Season 4 may be better than the the storytelling of Seasons 1, 2 and 3, but the gameplay truly isn't. Sandswept Isles and Kourna are basically dead because they offer nothing besides the AP/collections acompanying them. Istan is only successful because the map - being just mindless zerg-content - is even more rewarding and braindead than SW. Season 3 is mostly alive due to trinket-farming (you have to farm LWS3 for Viper-trinkets) or stuff like idle farming in Siren's Landing and even in that regard, some maps are quite dead due to a huge imbalance in node- and reward-efficiency. LWS4 can't keep up in that regard too since the trinkets you could get are basically useless (besides Harrier-stuff for support-builds which don't really matter for the majority of the player-base) and Kournas plaguedoctor-stuff doesn't work well too (it could if they were to change vitality for expertise and make condition damage and healing power the main-stats). Another problem is that they don't really try to work with the gimmicky stuff they implement - they rather abandon it quickly even though it could spice up gameplay (examples would be fishing or the magnetics lab in Sandswept Isles). Overall (tldr), they don't focus sufficiently on actual gameplay which should be the main-focus in a MMORPG.

[Sylvari.2953]

I doubt that they are working on GW3 (GW2 is still young for an MMO), I think they are working on the 3rd expansion but need more time and that's why we'll get season 5 first.

[Xar.1387]

Its not the problem that game is getting older and older. I'll say more. Its even better if MMORPG is older and more static. Rather than being new, untrusted etc etc.People like strong and trusted universes in MMORPG's .And alot of ppl simply dont trust new mmorpg's these days.Also. New mmorpg's got no enough content.

Look at WoW. They're a strong brand. They got money. They got good marketing. Their universe is really strong - there's alot of books, cinematics and other stuff that makes it. Even cinema movies.And the game is very old. But it still brings alot of new players. People want to be a part of this universe.

So being older for GW2 works fine. Game is bigger, and stronger. Its much better than in 2012 when it looked like Anet completly didnt know what direction they should take. They experimented a lot. With PvE. With PvP. Even with Story. While right now it looks like they stabilized a little bit (with pve and story). It is not so chaotic anymore. But they still got ALOT of work. E.g. with PvP and WvW. An more stuff.

But IMO The main problem is in ArenaNet's marketing mainly. E.g. they published new expansion almost without any announcement. How can it be? It looks so sad if u compare it to e.g. previously mentioned wow. I'll write more: it was even hard to actually BUY this expansion after all. Lol. Almost noone was selling it...There was no boxes too. Collector's edition? Ha ha. They behave like a niche, underground, small mmorpg that noone knows about.

Also IMO gw2 universe isnt that strong as it could be. Its too... flat. And often just boring. No new books, no epic cinematics usually, or other creative things that helps ppl to get into the game. And make them want to be a part of Tyria so strong. Nah. Something is missing. No new playable races, no choices in the story what makes it extremely linear... Everything is so friendly. Everyone plays as cool commander and tracks his epic stories. Ughhh... And it is very difficult to identify with any race in this game. Every race is same after all. Also there is no conflicts between them. Nothing. It just feels like we are only observers. While players should be a part of Tyria. We meet new races in the story? Let players play them. To touch it. And feel it. Rather than just observing it... Etc, etc.

And whats sad, ArenaNet is not associated with a strong brand as blizzard is. They still act more like undecided child :/ Rather than serious, static company which knows what to do. E.g full pve mmorpg as wow still makes their esports in pvp. Regularly. They dont care wow is mainly pve game. They just do it. While Anet stopped doing it. Just like that. They bring alot of PvP players to the game but their mind (again) changed and there's no esport anymore. And this is just one example.And because of that its really hard to treat ArenaNet seriously. What's sad.

tldr:Good MMORPG is like a wine :P Older is better.Just bad MMORPG's over time become worse and dies.Which one will be GW2? We will see.