Arenanet recently announced a paid expansion to their MMO, Guild Wars 2, titled Heart of Thorns. The update features a new class, subclasses, one new WvW borderland, one new sPVP mode, and new PVE content.

Thoughts?

I personally find it bs. They promised free updates twice a month when marketing the game, then they slip up and only update every 2-3 months. The real reason? They took all their resources away from delivering on promises(living world), and instead put it all into developing a paid expansion. And apparently the community doesn't care at all despite being previously upset about the lack of updates.  

I don't play this game but that does sound like total BS.  

I don't see what would put people up in arms about this. Since release people have been asking about an expansion. The game is in its third year now. They've delivered free content for years in a game that is not subscription based. I think they more than fulfilled their promises to the community. The game needs an expansion. Not only does it add content, but it also revitalizes the playerbase.  

They totally update every 2-3 weeks; any breaks were intentional (China release, feature packs/season break, holiday events). And within the last season, 2 entirely new zones were released. If anything, the developers are stepping up their game.

The expansion looks awesome, include big updates that players have been asking for, and only the main features have been shown so far. I'd gladly shell out an extra $20-30 for a game that has provided so much gameplay, beautiful graphics, and fun for the original price tag, compared to any subscription MMO out there.

I don't know what players you've been talking to, but even the GW2 subreddit has shown support and hype for the expansion, before and after the PAX expansion confirmation. And there are usually a number of bitter veterns on there.  

I quit playing competitively (and just altogether) a while ago but I don't see that big a problem with it. Lots of cool stuff in it for a small fee. Who cares that it's paid? Don't buy it if you don't want to play it. Simple as that, really.

Don't take GW2's pricing model for granted. Do you want subscription fees like all of the other garbage binned MMOs with very little support? Didn't think so. You're paying an inital fee of $40 at most, usually much, much cheaper, and an expansion at $30~ with no other costs to play a fantastic MMO, one of the only ones worth playing right now, not to mention one that gets new updates and the Living Story pushed live for free all the time. It's not that bad of a deal at all.  

Posted by Latte

They totally update every 2-3 weeks; any breaks were intentional (China release, feature packs/season break, holiday events). And within the last season, 2 entirely new zones were released. If anything, the developers are stepping up their game.

The expansion looks awesome, include big updates that players have been asking for, and only the main features have been shown so far. I'd gladly shell out an extra $20-30 for a game that has provided so much gameplay, beautiful graphics, and fun for the original price tag, compared to any subscription MMO out there.

I don't know what players you've been talking to, but even the GW2 subreddit has shown support and hype for the expansion, before and after the PAX expansion confirmation. And there are usually a number of bitter veterns on there.

Ok, you're misinformed:

1. Localization requires a completely different team than development. Releasing the game in China shouldn't have taken away from development. They likely hired a completely different team to handle that, such as translators, customer support agents in China, etc.

2."season break" is a joke. I can understand them taking a break during the holiday season, but taking a 3 month break between season 1 and 2 was stupid. They took a "break" so they could work on paid content.

3. When selling the game, Arenanet promised "Biweekly living world updates", meaning every 2 weeks. They conveniently stopped delivering on that after about a year, which is about when its too late to file a credit card/Paypal dispute.

4. The GW2 subreddit has always been supportive of arenanet. Anything negative, even if explained constructively, is almost always downvoted. I don't think I've ever seen a complaint on the subreddit that made the front page.  

Posted by Skill

Ok, you're misinformed:

1. Localization requires a completely different team than development. Releasing the game in China shouldn't have taken away from development. They likely hired a completely different team to handle that, such as translators, customer support agents in China, etc.

2."season break" is a joke. I can understand them taking a break during the holiday season, but taking a 3 month break between season 1 and 2 was stupid. They took a "break" so they could work on paid content.

3. When selling the game, Arenanet promised "Biweekly living world updates", meaning every 2 weeks. They conveniently stopped delivering on that after about a year, which is about when its too late to file a credit card/Paypal dispute.

4. The GW2 subreddit has always been supportive of arenanet. Anything negative, even if explained constructively, is almost always downvoted. I don't think I've ever seen a complaint on the subreddit that made the front page.

When it comes down to specifics, yes they didn't keep the promise. But Guild Wars 2 fell out of the mainstream, and their resources are likely way more limited than games like WoW. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to limit the developer resources just so they could release in China. Not to mention Living Story must take an incredible amount of planning and work in itself. (writing, voice acting, animation, concept art, designing the zones to be effecient for a video game, quests, events, achievements, etc) I'd say Guild Wars 2 has high standards for content, and keeping everything up to par isn't something that should be assumed to be done in a short amount of time.

You're making it sound like they ripped the players off. $30-60 for all the content they've provided in the past 2 years is pretty generous.

A paid expansion is a reasonable thing to do because, from what I'm getting from the subreddit, many players want Arenanet to have more resources to make the game even better. And the GW2 subreddit was definitely not always supportive of Arenanet. Just 4-5 months ago, pitchforks and much rage were being raised while the staff wasn't communicating/updating with players as much as usual. So yeah, Areanet isn't perfect at keeping that single, one phrase promise; but circumstances change, I'd say the recent content is totally worth waiting for.  

I love everything that the Developer has done so far and wouldn't mind dropping even $200 bucks for an expansion as long as it included a Cantha Storyline, Oh how I miss you GW: Factions!  

Yeah, GW2 has been incredibly generous for an MMORPG of its caliber. As a player, you really can't ask for more or have the room to complain when you're getting all the content you're getting at a very low single-cost payment. If I still played regularly, I would buy the expansion, no questions asked. I already believe the game deserves much more credit and support than it gets, and it baffles me as to why the game isn't wildly popular to the degree of games like League/Hearthstone/CSGO. It's fairly casualized, but with an incredible balance that can keep both hardcore players happy (sPvP/tPvP, GvG/WvW, Speeddungeons) and casual players happy (Living Story, Wardrobe, World Bosses, Guild Events/Missions).

ANet really gets a bad rap for not much of a reason. I think people are forgetting how much they're getting and taking a lot of GW2 for granted.  

I'll probably suck it up and shell out the cash to buy the expansion if it isn't too expensive. Their more recent post on the mastery system implied future additions to fractals, as well as other types of challenging PVE content. Challenging PVE content is one of my favorite aspects of MMOs, and I loved fractals, so I may enjoy the expansion.

While they aren't delivering on their promises, I guess It'll still be fun. I'll buy the expansion, but I don't plan on spending any money on gems like I did plan to in the past.



I think its lack of success stems from:

-****ty pvp

Stealth is broken. It's literally like playing whack a mole. When classes can stay stealthed like 90% of the time, stay stealthed regardless of their proximity to you, and go stealth in the middle of combat when they're 2 feet in front of you, there's pretty much no counterplay. There's no way to reveal them, and they can just go stealth, reposition, and heal up whenever they encounter any real threat.

Oh, and decoys. It's still easy to tell whats a clone, but it just gets annoying for targetting purposes.

The tab target combat removes most element of skill. So pretty much all combat involves is being the best whac a mole player alive, realizing whats a clone quickly, and iframing the moves that do the most damage.

-No Hardcore PVE.

Dungeon paths are fairly easy, fractals have been neglected. There's nothing challenging to do. Compare it to other leading MMOs like WoW and Tera that have challenging content. Maybe HoT will fix this, we'll see.


-"Dynamic Events" have been abandoned.

Dynamic events were the selling point of GW2. But now the rewards are pretty much useless due to inflation, so nobody does them except for a specific few like world boss pre-events. If they would add rewards to dynamic events like champion bags for the first clear of a day, maybe people would care to stop for a dynamic event they find.  

I mean if you're a 1111111 guardian build, you're going to get ****ed by thieves. You gotta build differently to fight in small groups. I haven't played actively in months, though. So I don't know what kind of buffs they have.  

Excited to see this expansion. GW2 has been my favorite MMO since I started playing. I'll be happy to put a little extra money toward new features.  

Posted by Imprint

I mean if you're a 1111111 guardian build, you're going to get ****ed by thieves. You gotta build differently to fight in small groups. I haven't played actively in months, though. So I don't know what kind of buffs they have.

stealth is for ****ball baddie roamers in WvW but in PvP it's actually annoying as ****, especially when there are always people to rez the downed thief in SR

easily the most broken mechanic in PvP for a while, especially with the bull**** 80% stealth uptime cheese thief builds, and with the only counter-play being self-AoE (lol) and ranger's sic'em (lol) unless they've introduced more revealed debuffs since I stopped



though why would you play pvp when you can 11111111111111111111111111 4 3 1111111111 5 1111111 guardian in wvw and GET SIK JQ BAGS  

Posted by Skill

2."season break" is a joke. I can understand them taking a break during the holiday season, but taking a 3 month break between season 1 and 2 was stupid. They took a "break" so they could work on paid content.

3. When selling the game, Arenanet promised "Biweekly living world updates", meaning every 2 weeks. They conveniently stopped delivering on that after about a year, which is about when its too late to file a credit card/Paypal dispute.

4. The GW2 subreddit has always been supportive of arenanet. Anything negative, even if explained constructively, is almost always downvoted. I don't think I've ever seen a complaint on the subreddit that made the front page.

.-.
In response to number 2, they have lives yknow. If they wanna take a three week break from developing an MMOS like this to prepare for a large, paid expansion, then let them.

Several people and myself can confirm they still deliver on number 3.

And to Number 4, cmon. They all enjoy the game so much, you really want them to be whiny little brats? It's not their fault that they're seeing the game in a positive light.


Stop being so salty guys, too much sodium is bad for your colon!

Oh also to be on topic, I'm excited for the expansion. It looks like it's gonna be hella fun and I'm going to have more excuses to not do anything productive in my life thanks to it. So thank you, arena net, for making me even more of a useless bum!

Posted by Skill

I'll probably suck it up and shell out the cash to buy the expansion if it isn't too expensive. Their more recent post on the mastery system implied future additions to fractals, as well as other types of challenging PVE content. Challenging PVE content is one of my favorite aspects of MMOs, and I loved fractals, so I may enjoy the expansion.

While they aren't delivering on their promises, I guess It'll still be fun. I'll buy the expansion, but I don't plan on spending any money on gems like I did plan to in the past.



I think its lack of success stems from:

-****ty pvp

Stealth is broken. It's literally like playing whack a mole. When classes can stay stealthed like 90% of the time, stay stealthed regardless of their proximity to you, and go stealth in the middle of combat when they're 2 feet in front of you, there's pretty much no counterplay. There's no way to reveal them, and they can just go stealth, reposition, and heal up whenever they encounter any real threat.

Oh, and decoys. It's still easy to tell whats a clone, but it just gets annoying for targetting purposes.

The tab target combat removes most element of skill. So pretty much all combat involves is being the best whac a mole player alive, realizing whats a clone quickly, and iframing the moves that do the most damage.

-No Hardcore PVE.

Dungeon paths are fairly easy, fractals have been neglected. There's nothing challenging to do. Compare it to other leading MMOs like WoW and Tera that have challenging content. Maybe HoT will fix this, we'll see.


-"Dynamic Events" have been abandoned.

Dynamic events were the selling point of GW2. But now the rewards are pretty much useless due to inflation, so nobody does them except for a specific few like world boss pre-events. If they would add rewards to dynamic events like champion bags for the first clear of a day, maybe people would care to stop for a dynamic event they find.

I dnot mean to bash all your posts, skill, but you've got too much sodium in your system. People can cut through these arguments like butta. LIKE. BUTTA.  

I dnot mean to bash all your posts, skill, but you've got too much sodium in your system. People can cut through these arguments like butta. LIKE. BUTTA.

lol