Discussion Thread: ArenaNet News of 21 February 2019 [Merged]

[Ok I Did It.2854]

Honestly if i was a new player looking for a game this would probably keep me away at the moment, even with all the stuff to do ingame, it doesnt help that we have very little communication, now in this instance Anet themselves may not actually know what is happening, which is fair enough, but look at the track record for silence we get, it really is time for Anet to start interacting with the people who play the game, and starting to work towards making it better than ever,

We have game modes that are just in a dire state, WvW is just hanging by a thread to be honest, i know we had the mount announcement but it seems to be getting hate already and its not even ingame, that could be down to the fact WvW has been stale for along time, the current meta is just boring and ridiculous, there is no actual reward for winning, siege wars are still a thing, i could go on, but its all been pretty much listed,

sPvP is a dead game mode, chances are if you have played it, you are seeing the same people in match up after match up, if you are unlucky enough to be stuck in the lower ranks ( think new player ) you see bots/ AFK pip farmers, it just ruins the game, not to mention the shockingly bad imbalance of classes ( think Mirage, i have never played a Mirage before and i set one up and was able to go destroy players with it and this should never happen )

Hopefully whenever the situation at Anet clears up, they will start to hard focus on the key areas of the game that need attention, they have massive untapped potential in a few game modes that require fixing, they need to be honest with themselves, if they cant or dont want to fix these game modes its time to remove them from the game completely and focus on what you do want, they maybe should consider modes for raids, to allow players who arent as skilled or who arent as fast, to partake in them also.

They need to find a way to allow Season 1 to be replayed, even if its in instances.

Hopefully this will all blow over and we will continue to beable to play this great game.

PS: fix the RNG loot boxes so people can see what there chances are.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Kam.4092 said:I’m not asking to be informed on every little thing.The fact is that you're asking anything at all. They just found out yesterday, less than 24 hours ago as of your post.

Wait. Have some patience. Ponder the difference between you being out of the loop about your hobby, while ANet staff are out of the loop about whether they'll have a job.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Shouldn’t be a surprise to arenet employees as sad as it is. Maybe using the bulk of resources to expand and grow gw2 further seeing as it is its main project and having some success behind it landing in top 3 mmo’s last few yrs. constant balance changes,updates and new meaningful content on a regular realistic basis with advertising on top would have went far. Than if and when the game has grown enough that arenet could branch resources for a new project without negatively effecting its growth maybe things would have been different. The rate that arenet has been releasing meaningful content with actual substance has been unacceptable in today’s standards and the fact that the reason that’s being implicated was a total mismanagement of resources which was totally avoidable it is no surprise that nsoft said enough is enough.even with nsoft past discretion’s u can hardly blame them. Arenet literally let us players that have spent thousands on their game to support them and are passionate about their game deal with unneeded delays and sub par service for some time now to work on other unannounced projects most which are now cancelled. Again tho sad for anyone to lose their job but not surprising. This may actually be great news for gw2 players though as the company now may redirect its main focus back to gw2 with whoever is left on the team.

[Sootser.9541]

Just gotta copy paste this from a YouTube comment:

They're removing publishing from ArenaNet and folding it back into NCSoft West publishing. I'm pretty sure that most of the people getting laid off are those that were working on all of the other projects that ArenaNet was working on in the background. Looking at the last quarter of income from NCSoft showed a little over $15M in income from GW2, which is about $12,500 per month per employee, so I'm sure that's quite enough to sustain the company going forward. Nothing to see, nothing to hear...O'Brien needs to get ArenaNet out from under the NCSoft thumb. The original GW was published by NCSoft West, when they wanted to release GW2, publishing was shifted directly to ArenaNet, based on the press release from NCSoft West, ArenaNet is no longer going to publish GW2 directly, their publishing arm is being folded into NCSoft West.

[Shadow Order.7258]

I'd take anything they say with a grain of salt. They are under no obligation to fulfill any promise they might make here. They've made promises in the past and reneged when they were "successful" ex. legendaries when Hot came out, balance patches between seasons, etc.

This game was already in cash grab mode and I expect it to double that effort. More chairs anyone?

[Sootser.9541]

I'm just gonna leave this here from a YouTube comment regarding this matter:

They're removing publishing from ArenaNet and folding it back into NCSoft West publishing. I'm pretty sure that most of the people getting laid off are those that were working on all of the other projects that ArenaNet was working on in the background. Looking at the last quarter of income from NCSoft showed a little over $15M in income from GW2, which is about $12,500 per month per employee, so I'm sure that's quite enough to sustain the company going forward. Nothing to see, nothing to hear...O'Brien needs to get ArenaNet out from under the NCSoft thumb. The original GW was published by NCSoft West, when they wanted to release GW2, publishing was shifted directly to ArenaNet, based on the press release from NCSoft West, ArenaNet is no longer going to publish GW2 directly, their publishing arm is being folded into NCSoft West.

I wouldn't be too afraid that this will affect the game too much. As stated in the quote, the people getting laid off are probably not too many working in the GW2 team.

[Dragon Priestess.9760]

Oh my god guys, give them some time. Let them sort themselves out and then I am sure everything will be explained.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Asum.4960 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:The most worrying thing is that the next expac wasn't announced yet, so it may very well be one of those cancelled unannounced projects.

Again, "We can confirm that due to the cancellation of unannounced projects, ArenaNet will make staff reductions. This is part of a larger organizational restructuring within NCSOFT in the west,

but the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 game services will not be affected, nor is any upcoming game content canceled

."

According to their statements, the layoffs and cancelled projects are not related to Guild Wars.

That is UPCOMING content.. i.e. what we already new about.. LS4 completion moving straight to LS5.. there is no info on what the cancelled projects are/were and how they may of been tied to GW2. We only know that it does not affect their supporting the game and related services.. but beyond LS5 there is no indication of what is/was/might be expected.The message is pretty vague and nondescript, but that is to be expected especially if it is true that details got leaked out of ANET forcing them to push a response out in a hurry before the tar and pitchfork army rose up around the net.. like already began to stir from the infamous toxic JP.

[Gehenna.3625]

I think that the people at ArenaNet are the ones that need information most urgently. Not us. I'd like to know when and if there will be a next expansion but I think that can wait considering the situation people are in fearing for their jobs right now. I do understand the fears people have here, I do get it, but I think their livelihoods are rather more important than our need for information at this point. Give em some time.

[Randulf.7614]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Saying we'll still get Season 5 after Season 4 actually tells us a lot. It means their plan hasn't changed as a result of this decision, and we're going to get at least 7 more living story releases, which if we assume the absolute bare minimum of 2 months per episode gives us another 12 months of content. In other words they've confirmed their plans for the next year or more.

According to various rumours and articles I've seen most of the layoffs will be related to one or more un-related projects. Which as I understand it isn't that unusual in the games industry. Developers usually have more than 1 game they're working on and you have to do some work on it before you can decide if it's worth taking through to release or not. If not that project is gone and those people need new jobs. Sometimes that will be within the same company, sometimes not. It sucks, but it's not unusual.The most worrying thing is that the next expac wasn't announced yet, so it may very well be one of those cancelled unannounced projects.

That is my fear as well.. the message is vague, almost veiled in its message.However I do wholeheartedly agree with @"Randulf.7614" - this news has only been out a matter of hours, it's likely still a blur for many in ANET and requesting we get told information that may not even be common knowledge within the employee base as yet and then letting the forums and social medias run rampant with wild speculations kinda sucks for those who might already be, or fear they will be affected by this announcement.But yeah, those un announced projects.. hmmm I guess time will tell if GW2 will continue under a much diluted plan beyond LS5, which if true will only serve to harm, perhaps event stunt its future.

Until the smoke clears and veils lifted its really just all hearsay.. But at some point I think ANET will need to post out some kind of roadmap beyond LS5 not just for us the players but for its hard working staff that make it through this difficult period.

Indeed. Once the smoke clears and the devs are a little less shaken and strained, this example is what i want to see from their leadership

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/producer%E2%80%99s-letter-%E2%80%93-february-2019-%E2%80%93-look-ahead

It is clear, concise, confirms a few directions we knew over there and adds in a few exciting new things. Given it was thought the game was likely to have closed by now, hearing expansion and new challenges, new balancing etc is encouraging. It will certainly rejuvenate my interest and it is what i want from gw2 too.

[Naxos.2503]

To be honest folks, Anet doesn't make most of it's income via Living Story content, so saying the next expansion not being announced yet seems a little bit silly to my understanding : The living story episodes Build Up to expansions, if anything two living stories before the next expansion sounds Particularly good to me. For one, they wouldn't build up a story without capitalizing on it at the end with an expansion pack, that'd make little sense. Secondly, more time between expansion packs means more time to design it, and potentially increase the number of new features to be implemented. Mounts such as they're implemented are pretty unique compared to other MMos, it's a proof that their engine is not only still functional, but shows a Lot of potential. It means that they can most likely do something pretty interesting for the third expansion, but the question is "What ?", and that takes time to figure out : HoT and PoF both had movement centric features Added, the issue there is what Else can they add without invalidating the previous expansions content. Another way to move ? How ? What else can they make ? If it's not another way to move, it needs to be something else entirely, and that requires quite a lot of brainstorming, which takes time.

[Zania.8461]

1) For now, stop asking for answers. They will either arrive later when ANet has time to figure out what will be affected, when and how, or not at all. Companies do not want or need to air their dirty laundry.

2) There is no such thing as massive cuts to the company which will leave a part of it completely untouched.
a) Morale hit will impact everyone regardless on whether they got laid off or notb) Time needed to spend reorganizing the company that could be spent on more immediately productive thingsc) Merging publishing departments with NCSoft which might impact timelinesd) Figuring out how to deal with the work of the devs who were originally assigned to the new projects but ended up contributing to GW2 after cancellations of their main projects and now getting laid off (depending on how related those projects were in platform/engine to GW2, this might be a non issue, or a big one)

Bottom line, there is no way to read this as positive for GW2, at least in the short term. Considering that they claimed to have alternative teams working on LW chapters, I don't anticipate to see the effect of this right off the bat, and we might never actually see the effects on our end.

[Aaralyna.3104]

Everything will be fine.... They explained themselves in a post already. May be vague for most of it but if I was behind the game I would also not tell what the future brings exactly when it comes to amount of living worlds or expansions (even if they are in the making already). Something with creating promotional hypes just before they come out... We had lw1 and 2, then hot, then lw3, then pof and then lw4 and lw5 upcoming. It is not set in stone as to how many living worlds there are between an expansion nor is it set in stone how a living world season is supposed to look. Maybe they even add a living world season 6 instead of an expansion. And maybe the future living worlds are exactly the same content we saw in last expansions. No matter what we get, I hope we just get more playable content in a way that ppl will keep do. Like HoT meta's. Those are crowded and played while living season maps atm just die out empty (not coz its perse bad but coz there is no playability with decent rewards). Playing the game has to be fun, has to be challenging, has to offer something (as we already have no gear tredmill aka a purpose to do a specific thing apart from 1 time achievements).

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Saying we'll still get Season 5 after Season 4 actually tells us a lot. It means their plan hasn't changed as a result of this decision, and we're going to get at least 7 more living story releases, which if we assume the absolute bare minimum of 2 months per episode gives us another 12 months of content. In other words they've confirmed their plans for the next year or more.

According to various rumours and articles I've seen most of the layoffs will be related to one or more un-related projects. Which as I understand it isn't that unusual in the games industry. Developers usually have more than 1 game they're working on and you have to do some work on it before you can decide if it's worth taking through to release or not. If not that project is gone and those people need new jobs. Sometimes that will be within the same company, sometimes not. It sucks, but it's not unusual.The most worrying thing is that the next expac wasn't announced yet, so it may very well be one of those cancelled unannounced projects.

That is my fear as well.. the message is vague, almost veiled in its message.However I do wholeheartedly agree with @Randulf.7614 - this news has only been out a matter of hours, it's likely still a blur for many in ANET and requesting we get told information that may not even be common knowledge within the employee base as yet and then letting the forums and social medias run rampant with wild speculations kinda sucks for those who might already be, or fear they will be affected by this announcement.But yeah, those un announced projects.. hmmm I guess time will tell if GW2 will continue under a much diluted plan beyond LS5, which if true will only serve to harm, perhaps event stunt its future.

Until the smoke clears and veils lifted its really just all hearsay.. But at some point I think ANET will need to post out some kind of roadmap beyond LS5 not just for us the players but for its hard working staff that make it through this difficult period.

Indeed. Once the smoke clears and the devs are a little less shaken and strained, this example is what i want to see from their leadership

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/producer%E2%80%99s-letter-%E2%80%93-february-2019-%E2%80%93-look-ahead

It is clear, concise, confirms a few directions we knew over there and adds in a few exciting new things. Given it was thought the game was likely to have closed by now, hearing expansion and new challenges, new balancing etc is encouraging. It will certainly rejuvenate my interest and it is what i want from gw2 too.

Yeah I have seen that Lotro letter. I seem to remember ANET used to provide a roadmap previously, many other MMO's do the same.It doesn't need to go into any core specifics or dates, just some form of reassurance that there is a plan beyond LS5. There is no need of promises, there is no must be before or after this and that.. just an simple overview of what ANET have envisioned for the future of the game beyond "upcoming content"... it might not even be what we all want to hear, but at least we will know there is something other than dark clouds and fears of maintenance modes etc, which I will hazard a guess is looming over a good many of us right now and only serves to harm the game/ANET further, which I am sure none of us wish to happen.

[Lonecap.4105]

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Saying we'll still get Season 5 after Season 4 actually tells us a lot. It means their plan hasn't changed as a result of this decision, and we're going to get at least 7 more living story releases, which if we assume the absolute bare minimum of 2 months per episode gives us another 12 months of content. In other words they've confirmed their plans for the next year or more.

According to various rumours and articles I've seen most of the layoffs will be related to one or more un-related projects. Which as I understand it isn't that unusual in the games industry. Developers usually have more than 1 game they're working on and you have to do some work on it before you can decide if it's worth taking through to release or not. If not that project is gone and those people need new jobs. Sometimes that will be within the same company, sometimes not. It sucks, but it's not unusual.The most worrying thing is that the next expac wasn't announced yet, so it may very well be one of those cancelled unannounced projects.

That is my fear as well.. the message is vague, almost veiled in its message.However I do wholeheartedly agree with @Randulf.7614 - this news has only been out a matter of hours, it's likely still a blur for many in ANET and requesting we get told information that may not even be common knowledge within the employee base as yet and then letting the forums and social medias run rampant with wild speculations kinda sucks for those who might already be, or fear they will be affected by this announcement.But yeah, those un announced projects.. hmmm I guess time will tell if GW2 will continue under a much diluted plan beyond LS5, which if true will only serve to harm, perhaps event stunt its future.

Until the smoke clears and veils lifted its really just all hearsay.. But at some point I think ANET will need to post out some kind of roadmap beyond LS5 not just for us the players but for its hard working staff that make it through this difficult period.

Indeed. Once the smoke clears and the devs are a little less shaken and strained, this example is what i want to see from their leadership

https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/producer%E2%80%99s-letter-%E2%80%93-february-2019-%E2%80%93-look-ahead

It is clear, concise, confirms a few directions we knew over there and adds in a few exciting new things. Given it was thought the game was likely to have closed by now, hearing expansion and new challenges, new balancing etc is encouraging. It will certainly rejuvenate my interest and it is what i want from gw2 too.

Yeah I have seen that Lotro letter. I seem to remember ANET used to provide a roadmap previously, many other MMO's do the same.It doesn't need to go into any core specifics or dates, just some form of reassurance that there is a plan beyond LS5. There is no need of promises, there is no must be before or after this and that.. just an simple overview of what ANET have envisioned for the future of the game beyond "upcoming content"... it might not even be what we all want to hear, but at least we will know there is something other than dark clouds and fears of maintenance modes etc, which I will hazard a guess is looming over a good many of us right now and only serves to harm the game/ANET further, which I am sure none of us wish to happen.

That LoTRO letter was AMAZING! I can't believe they're that committed to such an aging game and surely nowhere near as popular as GW2.

[Tanith.5264]

@Danikat.8537 said:This only happened yesterday. According to various reports and stuff I read on Twitter from Anet staff Mike O'Brien went into a meeting in the morning where he was told by NCSoft they'll need to lay off staff, he did a brief initial announcement to Anet (email I'm guessing), someone leaked the news and it was all over the internet even before Anet had meetings to explain what's happening.

And this aspect of the story is important, it seems to me. Why did we (meaning both the players and Anet peeps) have to learn of this situation this way?

[Blanche Neige.7241]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:It looks like they are gonna fire people that were working on "cancelled" products? Not the actual game itself?

Although I might sounds as rude, I must say that in some very selfish/cynical way I'm actually happy. Not happy for the employees that will get fired of course, as it's unlikely that it was their fault. At least those left with the company will be working on Guild Wars 2 and not a shadow "side project" that was draining resources and manpower. It was making it look like Arenanet has far less employees (judging by the release schedule) so now that the "extra project" was cancelled, the developers that will stay, will be all Guild Wars 2 developers.

If they lay off all the people working on other projets beside GW2, there will not be more people working on GW2, only less people working for them.

To be more clear : if you have 100 people working on project A, 25 on project B and 25 on project C, and if you cancel and get rid of people working on projects B and C, there is still only 100 people working on project A.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Vayne.8563 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Production is too slow, better lay of some workers so we produce even less and people spend even less money on our company

the lay offs are because of an unannounced project being cancelled, gw2 is mostly unaffected by itFor all we know, one of those unannounced projects might have been the next expac. At this moment i'd really want to hear Anet's official confirmation that there

will

be a next expac, and that they aren't going back to ls-only release mode.If that's not true, i'd really want to hear it now as well, but a silence on this issue i'll also consider a kind of answer confirming that the game did get into a lower investment life support mode.

At least some of them were mobile titles, not the next expansion.Oh, i know. After all, they were mentioning multiple unnamed projects, and i seriously doubt they'd have been working on 2 expacs at the same time. Still, the main point is we don't really know anything. In fact, we don't even know

if

they were working on an expac. It's entirely possible that it got cancelled even earlier after all.

And frankly Anet's attempts to reassure us are so nebulous, that they worry me far more than the original layoff leaks.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Well from all the attention the news of their lay offs has gotten arenet should have no doubt that thier work so far meant somthing and that gw2 and their team is cared about by many :)

[maddoctor.2738]

@Blanche Neige.7241 said:

@"maddoctor.2738" said:It looks like they are gonna fire people that were working on "cancelled" products? Not the actual game itself?

Although I might sounds as rude, I must say that in some very selfish/cynical way I'm actually happy. Not happy for the employees that will get fired of course, as it's unlikely that it was their fault. At least those left with the company will be working on Guild Wars 2 and not a shadow "side project" that was draining resources and manpower. It was making it look like Arenanet has far less employees (judging by the release schedule) so now that the "extra project" was cancelled, the developers that will stay, will be all Guild Wars 2 developers.

If they lay off all the people working on other projets beside GW2, there will not be more people working on GW2, only less people working for them.

To be more clear : if you have 100 people working on project A, 25 on project B and 25 on project C, and if you cancel and get rid of people working on projects B and C, there is still only 100 people working on project A.

The problem, as I read it, is that developers from Guild Wars 2 were constantly moved to those other projects, draining resources from the game's development, slowing down releases and so on. Now that those other projects no longer exist there won't be any more developers moved to those projects so all remaining developers will be focused on Guild Wars 2 alone.

[derd.6413]

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:Saying we'll still get Season 5 after Season 4 actually tells us a lot. It means their plan hasn't changed as a result of this decision, and we're going to get at least 7 more living story releases,

Why at least 7? Why not at least 3 or 4?

seasons tend to be 6 episodes plus the final episode f the current season6+1=7

3 more episodes suggests season 5 is 2 episodes longDoesn't mean they will do so again. I might remind you that if they would've stuck to their usual patterns we would've gotten an expansion this year after LS4. That didn't happen either. So there's no telling how long LS5 will be. What I do know is that the longer it is, the longer we have to wait for the next expansion, provided there will be one.

they might change the length of season 5.but even so, a 2 episode season? that's a tad bit absurd.

also anet never established a pattern with seasons and xpacs.LS1 is gone. It was a different situation altogether and no longer is part of the game. Season 2 lead to HoT, Season 3 lead to PoF. Not so strange to think that Season 4 would lead to the next expansion, except it won't as we know. And yet that's what people were expecting initially.

Now a season of 2 episodes would be strange, but then I never mention the number 2 so not sure why you use that number. But bottom line is that you cannot say what the minimum would be. So far LS2, 3 and 4 had 8, 6 and then 5 chapters. I don't see where you got your ideas.

release> bit of a drought > season 1 > season 2 >1 year of nothing > hot > post-hot mess > season 3 > pof > season 4

also you said

Why at least 7? Why not at least 3 or 4?

3-1(one more episode of season 4 has been confirmed)=2I guess I missed the announcement that another season 4 episode was coming, but your "formula" still doesn't make sense. How does your formula explain going from 8 to 6 episodes from season 2 to 3? If you say that LS5 will have 7 episodes because LS4 will have 6, then clearly by that same reasoning season 3 should've had 9 episodes and not 6...

your math is off.

the 7 episodes i'm refering to are season 4 ep 6 and season 5 ep 1-6 not season 5 ep 1-7. it would mean season 3,4 and 5 have the same amount of episodes.

it's possible they'll change the amount of episodes of season 5 but i'll doubt they'll go below 5My math isn't off. Your math just isn't making any sense. So really you need to better explain your calculations. I also doubt they'll go below 5, but your reasoning for saying it's 7 minimum so far doesn't make any sense at all.

How much clearer can i get? Season 3 had 6 episodes , season 4 has been confirmed to also have 6 episodes,so it stands to reason that 5 will have a similar amount. So season 5 has 6 episodes (for the sake of argument.) Add to that the 1 episode left for season 4 and you've got 7 episodes

[Leo G.4501]

@Randulf.7614 said:I think it’s rather unfair to ask us to be kept in the loop when people’s jobs are on the line and they are waiting for communication

I don’t really consider it much of our business either.

Having been through this myself multiple times. I know how disrespectful and upsetting it can be having it discussed by all and sundry with wild speculation all over the place, especially when employees aren’t fully in the loop.

Cannot agree more. As a consumer, your job is to support the stuff that interests you. Rather than demand beyond your financial support for more and faster content/info, just go play something that has the content you want and leave the advertisement of new content to them.

But then I may be biased. I was never a fan of this hype culture with sneak peeks and leaks and crap. If it's not something that needs player beta tests, it only needs to be announced when it's ready.

[Mikali.9651]

To be more clear : if you have 100 people working on project A, 25 on project B and 25 on project C, and if you cancel and get rid of people working on projects B and C, there is still only 100 people working on project A.yeah, but you have that money of 50 people in your pocket to invest more into GW2. A win-win situation for us GW2 players. It seems Anet spent a lot of revenue from GW2 on other projects that gave no RoI, so, that's even more money to invest in GW2. Read between lines.

[trixantea.1230]

Many players are worried about the future of the game. I think Anet should tell them more about its long-term schedule without spoiling them too much.This will calm the players worries and help Anet get better feedback about their upcoming content.

[Gehenna.3625]

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@"Danikat.8537" said:Saying we'll still get Season 5 after Season 4 actually tells us a lot. It means their plan hasn't changed as a result of this decision, and we're going to get at least 7 more living story releases,

Why at least 7? Why not at least 3 or 4?

seasons tend to be 6 episodes plus the final episode f the current season6+1=7

3 more episodes suggests season 5 is 2 episodes longDoesn't mean they will do so again. I might remind you that if they would've stuck to their usual patterns we would've gotten an expansion this year after LS4. That didn't happen either. So there's no telling how long LS5 will be. What I do know is that the longer it is, the longer we have to wait for the next expansion, provided there will be one.

they might change the length of season 5.but even so, a 2 episode season? that's a tad bit absurd.

also anet never established a pattern with seasons and xpacs.LS1 is gone. It was a different situation altogether and no longer is part of the game. Season 2 lead to HoT, Season 3 lead to PoF. Not so strange to think that Season 4 would lead to the next expansion, except it won't as we know. And yet that's what people were expecting initially.

Now a season of 2 episodes would be strange, but then I never mention the number 2 so not sure why you use that number. But bottom line is that you cannot say what the minimum would be. So far LS2, 3 and 4 had 8, 6 and then 5 chapters. I don't see where you got your ideas.

release> bit of a drought > season 1 > season 2 >1 year of nothing > hot > post-hot mess > season 3 > pof > season 4

also you said

Why at least 7? Why not at least 3 or 4?

3-1(one more episode of season 4 has been confirmed)=2I guess I missed the announcement that another season 4 episode was coming, but your "formula" still doesn't make sense. How does your formula explain going from 8 to 6 episodes from season 2 to 3? If you say that LS5 will have 7 episodes because LS4 will have 6, then clearly by that same reasoning season 3 should've had 9 episodes and not 6...

your math is off.

the 7 episodes i'm refering to are season 4 ep 6 and season 5 ep 1-6 not season 5 ep 1-7. it would mean season 3,4 and 5 have the same amount of episodes.

it's possible they'll change the amount of episodes of season 5 but i'll doubt they'll go below 5My math isn't off. Your math just isn't making any sense. So really you need to better explain your calculations. I also doubt they'll go below 5, but your reasoning for saying it's 7 minimum so far doesn't make any sense at all.

How much clearer can i get? Season 3 had 6 episodes , season 4 has been confirmed to also have 6 episodes,so it stands to reason that 5 will have a similar amount. So season 5 has 6 episodes (for the sake of argument.) Add to that the 1 episode left for season 4 and you've got 7 episodesFinally we got there. I'm just talking about how many episodes the next LS season has but you're adding the upcoming one for this season to it. So you're expecting that next season will also have 6 episodes. Well, maybe, maybe not. You shouldn't have used the term "at least" because that's an assumption and they don't have to follow that pattern.