1) "You guys don't even know what features are exclusive to the expansion and what will be integrated in the vanilla game." This was you several pages ago, as part of a rambling post insisting that several features advertised as part of the expansion would be introduced into the game free of charge. You gave the WvW map as a specific example, even. Or are you going to start denying that you said that now?
Either way, what information we have suggests that you are wrong and there will indeed be a pay wall at least for the guild hall, if not everything else as well.
And you can keep bringing up GW1 all you like, but it's a battle you're never going to win. Regardless of payment method, GW1 still released its guild halls as free content. Whereas, if you're very lucky, GW2 might let you shell out large amounts of gold to own one....and if you're not, then tough luck, because then it's expansion-only. So either way, it's taking something that was free in GW1 and making it cost money in GW2. Dress it up however you like, I don't really care.
It's true that they never explicitly "promised" free guild halls, but the history of the Guild Wars franchise combined with the hype of the new game and all that it promised to release "eventually" nevertheless built up some very serious expectations about how certain content releases would be handled. And right now, they're not being handled well. There is simply no excuse for GW2 trying to charge its players for a feature that its own predecessor, and most of its competitors, don't charge real money for. It's a bad business move, no matter how you dress it.
2) Minor staff member? That was a quote from the lead content designer, not some "minor staff member".
And no, the Living Story never got good. It got better, but it never got good. And yes, there is a difference. Writing can improve substantially whilst still not being good enough. Season 2 at its absolute best still didn't really compete with GW1's storylines. And to reiterate, it's a sad state of affairs when the narrative of Prophecies (which was basically three different storylines held together with duck tape) is generally considered better than any part of the Living Story.
Ergo, we return to what I said before: The Living Story was clearly stated to be a supplement to expansions. It was outright stated that, "if we do this right, we may never need to release an expansion". So by the devs' own words, the Living Story has failed. This is not "spin", "hate", or any of the other nonsensical language you keep trying to attach to it. This is taking the dev team's own words and reiterating them.
And the quote you just put in your last post further proves my point. Colin directly states in that last paragraph that "we won't be doing any more Living World updates". They are replacing the Living Story with the expansion model. If that isn't proof of its failure to you, Colin's own words basically confirming it outright, then you're welcome to your world of blissful ignorance. Everyone else can interpret that statement for what it means: they're doing away with the Living Story because it failed to keep people attracted to the game.
3) Source? Because none of the interviews I've read have said anything about you losing abilities when you specialize. They've only said that you gain new skills and traits....and nothing about losing them. So it sounds like you're trying to sell this concept of there being "two" choices based on....well, nothing.
Not to mention that it would totally defeat the purpose of having specializations if they actually weakened your character by taking options away. No one is going to choose to run a staff on their Ranger if it means they lose the ability to wield their bow effectively. I would think the GW2 devs would know that and would be smart enough not to set up their system that way, especially since most other similar systems in other MMOs don't take away options from you like you're describing.
4) Aye, but none of the maps will be "10 story buildings". They'll be 2-3, like the "vertical" maps that came before them. GW2 isn't designed in such a way as to allow them to stack floors indefinitely. We learned that back when they did Zephyr Sanctum and they told us about the challenges of making a vertical map, which is why there's so much scaffolding and small ledges everywhere instead of large expansive regions of flooring. When we look back at every example of verticality they've given in the past (Zephyr Sanctum, Dry Top, etc), very few of them have actually been what you would call a large map. They have a lot of dimension, perhaps, but they are not expansive in size or scale by any means. Most of the verticality is small ledges, scaffolds, and paths leading to the segments that are actual "floors". Dry Top, for example, has two main floors throughout: a "ground level" floor and an "upper" floor. Everything else is small jagged platforms, cliffs, and paths that lead you between these two floors, with the occasional extremely tall and extremely small platform in the middle to give you a good view of everything. Zephyr was mainly three floors, with a lot of scaffolding in between.
Not to mention you didn't actually address the core problem that I pointed out, namely, there isn't nearly enough space on the map for them to build an expansion's worth of map space unless they stretch from sea-to-sea....and that would be just enough room to match EotN in size. It's not a matter of how far out it is relative to the GW1 maps, it's relative to the world map as it currently exists in the game. Unless they are going to actually expand the entire world map further west than it is right now, there's not enough space for them to make something continent-esque for people to fool around in. You're vastly overestimating what they'll be able to do.
Also, minor aside: the Forsaken primarily lived out in the Crystal Desert in GW1's time period, which is on the other side of the map as Maguuma.
5) You still got the time scale wrong, and you've been moving the goalposts to try and act like you were "totally right" when you weren't. You were a full year off, arguably more since you claimed that they were working on an expansion since before the game even came out. I'm pretty sure that my prediction of "1 year or less" is closer to 1.5 than your original prediction of "2.5 or more" is. At least, last time I checked, 1 was closer to 1.5 than 2.5 is. Of course, I didn't bother pointing that out before because I thought you'd have the good sense to drop this line of thought since you couldn't possibly hope to win it, but I guess I overestimated you. So, there you go: you were still further off in your estimation than I was. At best, you can argue that we were both wrong, but you can't possibly try to argue that you were right and I was not. Not when I was clearly and decisively closer.
But all of that strays from what matters, anyways, that being this: the features were clearly advertised as part of the expansion. And to date, only the Mastery system has been promised to roll out as part of the core game (which was expected, since they said most of the Mastery unlocks would be based on content in the core game maps anyways). There is no reason to believe, at this time, that all of these advertised items will be free. When we know more, then maybe you can make that claim. But not yet.
1) "You guys don't even know what features are exclusive to the expansion and what will be integrated in the vanilla game."
Where do I say it will be free?
What I said is that while there might be someone in a guild that has to pay something, via expansion (that is more than just guild halls) or other fee, regular guild members that do not own the expansion (and/or paid a guild license or whatever) might still join their guild mates.
2) Yes, very minor.
Living World is a minor project staffed by junior staff. That is why the big names, aside Colin that is the game director, from pre release disappeared.
One thing is true, Anet staff talk to much in hype sentences. If I was in charge of GW2 PR I would make sure things like that or like what Colin recently said (about no gear treadmill, no cap level raise) were said in a different way.
3) So far what was said about specializations has nothing to do with more power, that is masteries.
MMORPG: You compared specializations to secondary professions from Guild Wars. Would I be a ranger/druid in the same way I might have been a warrior/elementalist? Can I use powers from both, or do I press a button to switch from being a ranger to being a druid?
CJ: When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar.
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
Why would you change outside combat to be a ranger if what you say is true?
4) We already know that they have 3 complete biomes for the jungle maps - roots, ground and canopy.
There was no hang gliding in the game before either. These maps are also even more vertical than before.
What prevents Anet from extending the world map area? There was a data mined map of the world of tyria way way more massive that what we have seen even in GW1.
The Forgotten were a race of upright serpents. Their current state is unknown, and the last they were seen was in the Crystal Desert nearly 250 years ago, as well as in the Realm of Torment during the time of Nightfall. They're devout followers of the Six Human Gods, and are said to be linked to the Facets that reflect the power of the Human Gods.[1], and are servants of Glint, having been the ones who freed her from Kralkatorrik's control.
(...)
Archaeological evidence shows that the forgotten were spread throughout continental Tyria as well as far as Cantha when humans arrived on the world. They are known to have warred with the charr on the borders of the Blazeridge Mountains sometime in Tyria's past prior to 100 BE until they retreated, but otherwise their stewardship is thought to have been largely peaceful.
250 years ago they were seen in the Crystal Desert.
We know Glint left something in Maguuma Jungle. We know that the Forgotten are Glint's servants.
5) It is a question of understanding (or wanting to) how things work.
Arenanet staff size is 350 strong.
The Live Team, responsible for the Living World and the good running of GW2 vanilla is between 40 and 100 people.
That leaves 250 staff doing nothing. Sure some worked in China release.
And as far back as 2010 there were talks of expansion(s).
Eric Flannum sent us a note to clarify a couple of things about their plans for Guild Wars 2 post-release content:
"We haven't decided on what exactly we are or aren't going to offer for money post-release. We're open to whatever our players seem most interested in. If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it's something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful. Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (Like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined.
Guild Wars 2 isn't out and doesn't have a release date, but already developer ArenaNet has "development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come".
That includes knowing what "a number" of high-level features will be, "and expansion content for years to come", senior vice president Randall Price revealed to Eurogamer (as part of our larger tour of Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet piece, published today).
"You may not realise this," he said, "but we have development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come."
(...)
"We today know a number of the high-level features that we're going to do, and expansion content for years to come," said Price. "No, it's not drilled down in a way that is - it's all at the five-thousand foot level and above, from a big picture [perspective]. But every month we go through time, we get closer and it gets down and, OK, now we're actually creating content for it."
Now if you tell me that 2.5 years ago they didn't know they were calling it Heart of Thorns, which area of the map they would expand too, what would be the storyline, yeah, you would be most likely right.
But Mordremoth was already part of the lore as was the Sylvari being its servants.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
There was a time where I would be mirroring the OP's sentiments, but I've changed a lot since that time till now. In fact, my life has changed it's direction entirely. I moved out of my parents basement, and got a job, and now I pay for things that I want and need. It's taught me tons about how nothing is free, and sometime you just have to accept that you don't just get everything handed to you on a silver platter. So yeah, I've grown up a lot.
I think it's great they are finally adding these things into the game, and I don't mind even a little, about paying for an expansion.
It's always refreshing to read a well written and a well thought out post among all the garbage on this forum. Ty for this sir, it did restore some of my faith in humanity!
Really? A stereotypical 'OP wants everything handed on a silver platter to him' post? Immediately assuming that it is about the money and not about what the developers said before launch, is quite condescending imo. Besides, the OP paid for this platter (GW2 is b2p remember?).
We as players are in no position to determine what is fair to add for free to GW2 from a financial point of view. We have no clue about GW2's cost and profits. So all we can do is look at what past interviews told us about the future for GW2. Which the OP is trying to do. The OP is convinced that they promised, so I think its understandable that he is upset if he thinks that they broke that promise. While you and the person of the post you quoted, are just about blanket statements about how things cost money and based on negative assumptions about the OP.
Also, I would say that the person you quoted was quite late with realising things cost money. Most kids learn this before getting to the age to move out of their parent's home.
So unlike you, I think the post you quoted was on the border of trolling because of its condescending tone. And far from well thought out and refreshing.
As for the guildhalls. Something like that would become a core feature for guilds. It would be stupid to make that expansion exclusive. It is like turning the ingame mail feature part of an expansion pack.
So let me get this straight. You feel the OP is fully justified in complaining that they were "promised" guild halls were to be a free component of the original game because of Anet stating that at a later time, they will implement guild halls. Now I'm not the grammar police, but that doesn't sound to me like they promised it for free. In fact, it is nothing more than an assumption to presume they were not going to charge for it.
Some people will make an assumption about someone else's actions, and then follow up that assumption by complaining about that assumption not being fulfilled. You might think it's ok but I don't feel they are right to do so. If fact, I think that the entire basis of people making assumptions of what other people are going to do or should do, is a slap in the face of intelligent discussion. Sometimes I might even struggle to not mock an individual that fails to utilize the more basic measures of common sense, and that lends to my rebuttal having a condescending tone. However, my point is 100% valid, and I am entirely correct. You, and the OP can go on about how you feel that Anet might have led you astray in your beliefs of what they communicated but just remember that they are assumptions, and only assumptions.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
1) "You guys don't even know what features are exclusive to the expansion and what will be integrated in the vanilla game."
Where do I say it will be free?
What I said is that while there might be someone in a guild that has to pay something, via expansion (that is more than just guild halls) or other fee, regular guild members that do not own the expansion (and/or paid a guild license or whatever) might still join their guild mates.
2) Yes, very minor.
Living World is a minor project staffed by junior staff. That is why the big names, aside Colin that is the game director, from pre release disappeared.
One thing is true, Anet staff talk to much in hype sentences. If I was in charge of GW2 PR I would make sure things like that or like what Colin recently said (about no gear treadmill, no cap level raise) were said in a different way.
3) So far what was said about specializations has nothing to do with more power, that is masteries.
MMORPG: You compared specializations to secondary professions from Guild Wars. Would I be a ranger/druid in the same way I might have been a warrior/elementalist? Can I use powers from both, or do I press a button to switch from being a ranger to being a druid?
CJ: When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar.
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
Why would you change outside combat to be a ranger if what you say is true?
4) We already know that they have 3 complete biomes for the jungle maps - roots, ground and canopy.
There was no hang gliding in the game before either. These maps are also even more vertical than before.
What prevents Anet from extending the world map area? There was a data mined map of the world of tyria way way more massive that what we have seen even in GW1.
The Forgotten were a race of upright serpents. Their current state is unknown, and the last they were seen was in the Crystal Desert nearly 250 years ago, as well as in the Realm of Torment during the time of Nightfall. They're devout followers of the Six Human Gods, and are said to be linked to the Facets that reflect the power of the Human Gods.[1], and are servants of Glint, having been the ones who freed her from Kralkatorrik's control.
(...)
Archaeological evidence shows that the forgotten were spread throughout continental Tyria as well as far as Cantha when humans arrived on the world. They are known to have warred with the charr on the borders of the Blazeridge Mountains sometime in Tyria's past prior to 100 BE until they retreated, but otherwise their stewardship is thought to have been largely peaceful.
250 years ago they were seen in the Crystal Desert.
We know Glint left something in Maguuma Jungle. We know that the Forgotten are Glint's servants.
5) It is a question of understanding (or wanting to) how things work.
Arenanet staff size is 350 strong.
The Live Team, responsible for the Living World and the good running of GW2 vanilla is between 40 and 100 people.
That leaves 250 staff doing nothing. Sure some worked in China release.
And as far back as 2010 there were talks of expansion(s).
Eric Flannum sent us a note to clarify a couple of things about their plans for Guild Wars 2 post-release content:
"We haven't decided on what exactly we are or aren't going to offer for money post-release. We're open to whatever our players seem most interested in. If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it's something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful. Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (Like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined.
Guild Wars 2 isn't out and doesn't have a release date, but already developer ArenaNet has "development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come".
That includes knowing what "a number" of high-level features will be, "and expansion content for years to come", senior vice president Randall Price revealed to Eurogamer (as part of our larger tour of Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet piece, published today).
"You may not realise this," he said, "but we have development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come."
(...)
"We today know a number of the high-level features that we're going to do, and expansion content for years to come," said Price. "No, it's not drilled down in a way that is - it's all at the five-thousand foot level and above, from a big picture [perspective]. But every month we go through time, we get closer and it gets down and, OK, now we're actually creating content for it."
Now if you tell me that 2.5 years ago they didn't know they were calling it Heart of Thorns, which area of the map they would expand too, what would be the storyline, yeah, you would be most likely right.
But Mordremoth was already part of the lore as was the Sylvari being its servants.
1) And what I've said is that all evidence to date suggests that the guild hall will not be a "free" mechanic. You're protesting people who jump to the conclusion that the guild hall will be paid content, without understanding that you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse. There is no evidence to confirm it either way, only suspicion. And right now, the "evidence" suggests that halls will not be a free addition to the game, and that there will be some mandated form of payment to get it.
2) The game's lead content designer is not just responsible for the Living Story. He's the lead content designer for the entire game, including this expansion. That is not a "minor" role. He's been a head honcho at ANet since before GW2 was out, even back during the GW1 days. So yeah, you're wrong. It wasn't some random flunkie on the team shooting his mouth off. It was a lead developer on the team, one of Colin's top men, who set the standard by which the Living Story is to be judged. Instead of denying and minimizing the importance of his role on this game, how about just admitting that the Living Story didn't do the job well enough, which is why this expansion exists in the first place?
3) Uh....I would imagine that a player switches between "ranger" and "druid" the exact same way I can change between a tank build for my guardian and a berserker. You know, by switching gear, skills, and traits?
Seriously, just read the quote that you posted as "proof" of druids not being able to do ranger things. Read it. For real this time. Here, I'll even help by emphasizing the part that you seem to be missing.
"When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar."
If they're drawing comparisons to GW1's secondary class system, then it stands to reason that you lose NOTHING from your ranger skill/trait list. Instead, you just gain the abilities that a druid has available to them. And then when more options come out, you'll have alternate "modes" to choose from, and can switch between them.
That implies that it functions pretty similarly to choosing between N/Me, N/Mo, etc....in other words, things that are real choices. But choosing not to have a secondary is not a "new" or valid choice. It's just denying yourself options for no reason.
So yeah, sticking with my original statement. They're giving players one new flavor, with the promise of more down the road. Choosing not to use specializations is basically refraining from playing with the toys you've been gifted. You're trying to stretch this concept into something it's not.
4) 3 canopies fits into my "2-3" statement (it's the second number), so I'm not sure why you seem to think this somehow dismisses the validity of what I said. If anything, it reinforces what I said as valid.
Also, I'm not sure why people are excited for (or boasting about) hang gliding since it's functionally a "flying mount" (you know, those things GW2 said they'd never have because of how it ruins the fun of exploration and what not) and it's been done for a lot of other games before. It's hardly a unique feature.
Also, yes, we know the Forgotten are Glint's servants. We also know that they passed on the duties of being Glint's servants to the dwarves at some point (Glint named them the protectors of her heritage, i.e. her young), and then after the transformation of the dwarves, that duty was passed to the Zephyrites. And their vanishing act isn't quite along the same lines as the Mursaat, where we know for a fact that they survived the last couple hundred years because it's straight up written that they did. They just sort of vanished over 200 years ago, after the Zephyrite people took over the sacred duty of guarding Glint's children and the elemental aspects. So....what's your storyline basis for their return exactly? Not saying it's impossible, but I'm not seeing the evidence that you seem to think you are.
5) ANet's team wasn't always 350 people in size. Originally the Living Story team was only one group that did monthly releases. They ended up hiring another three groups worth of people to expand the capability of the Living Story (thus why it started becoming bi-monthly). ANet has done a lot of hiring since the game first came out in order to get to the size that it is today.
You seem not to understand the difference between having story concepts planned, and actively working on expansion content. At one point when I was in game development, I had story plans for what was going to happen in the years to come, but I only ever had content written out to as far as a year or so ahead. ANet has plans for all of the dragons. But they didn't actually start ironing out that expansion until the date you pointed out earlier, 1.5 years ago. Stop moving the goalposts.
And yes, we knew the Mordremoth thing was coming one day, because the game did a very poor job of keeping it a secret. Heck, there were people who predicted it before the game was out. But, again, the lore having been set up != the expansion is in active development.
Really? Guild Halls was something that was supposed to be released with the original Guild Wars 2 release and they promised they'd give it to us "down the road" (apparently three years later counts as "down the road"). It was heavily implied that it wouldn't be locked away behind a pay wall since the devs kept screaming that there would be no expansion (even though many of us continued to beg for an expansion anyways).
Most times i'd agree with you becuase the amount of content Colin Blowhanson and ANET has put out is absolutely pathetic, but did you really think they were going to just GIVE AWAY the game for free forever? Only a fool would think that.
Even if they HAD plans to give it away in the steaming turd called "the living story" what probably happened is that NCSOFT dragged Blowhanson into their offices and beat him over the head with a WoW expansion box for a few hours and told him he was a retard and they would NOT be giving away free money by not charging for content.
Most times i'd agree with you becuase the amount of content Colin Blowhanson and ANET has put out is absolutely pathetic, but did you really think they were going to just GIVE AWAY the game for free forever? Only a fool would think that.
Yeah, how dare a gamer trust what a game company says!
ANet pre-GW2 never deliberately lied. Post-GW2, that trust was broken.
Can you really blame anyone on not trusting ANet now?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
Most times i'd agree with you becuase the amount of content Colin Blowhanson and ANET has put out is absolutely pathetic, but did you really think they were going to just GIVE AWAY the game for free forever? Only a fool would think that.
Yeah, how dare a gamer trust what a game company says!
ANet pre-GW2 never deliberately lied. Post-GW2, that trust was broken.
Can you really blame anyone on not trusting ANet now?
It doesn't matter what Blowhanson and ANET say or promise, NCSOFT calls the shots, not them.
This is so ironic. The game that has provided it's players with two and a half years of steady flow of free content,and has all of it's account services available for in game gold,is getting bashed for asking a price for it's 1st expansion.
Yeah, how dare people get upset if they feel like they were misled!
You are joking though right?
He's not joking. The fact that this is lost on you is just ..... ArenaNet provided a lot of content for free, probably more so than any other mmo and you guys are crying about guild halls not being included in the base game. You don't provide a single source to prove that ArenaNet said that it will be part of the base game and you don't even know if people who don't buy the expansion will not have guild halls. It feels that this whole thread is about people who don't play gw2 at all and just want to troll on the game unnecessary. Even if guild halls get locked behind the expansion, will you honestly not buy the expansion? Are you guys so cheap that expect everything for free.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
He's not joking. The fact that this is lost on you is just ..... ArenaNet provided a lot of content for free, probably more so than any other mmo and you guys are crying about guild halls not being included in the base game. You don't provide a single source to prove that ArenaNet said that it will be part of the base game and you don't even know if people who don't buy the expansion will not have guild halls. It feels that this whole thread is about people who don't play gw2 at all and just want to troll on the game unnecessary. Even if guild halls get locked behind the expansion, will you honestly not buy the expansion? Are you guys so cheap that expect everything for free.
Last I checked, the link was provided above my post.
Asking a company to deliver what they said they would before they released a product (4 years ago) is considered a 'troll'?
Are you serious?
Actually, am I getting trolled by another GW2 white knight like Gaia Hunter?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
1) And what I've said is that all evidence to date suggests that the guild hall will not be a "free" mechanic. You're protesting people who jump to the conclusion that the guild hall will be paid content, without understanding that you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse. There is no evidence to confirm it either way, only suspicion. And right now, the "evidence" suggests that halls will not be a free addition to the game, and that there will be some mandated form of payment to get it.
2) The game's lead content designer is not just responsible for the Living Story. He's the lead content designer for the entire game, including this expansion. That is not a "minor" role. He's been a head honcho at ANet since before GW2 was out, even back during the GW1 days. So yeah, you're wrong. It wasn't some random flunkie on the team shooting his mouth off. It was a lead developer on the team, one of Colin's top men, who set the standard by which the Living Story is to be judged. Instead of denying and minimizing the importance of his role on this game, how about just admitting that the Living Story didn't do the job well enough, which is why this expansion exists in the first place?
3) Uh....I would imagine that a player switches between "ranger" and "druid" the exact same way I can change between a tank build for my guardian and a berserker. You know, by switching gear, skills, and traits?
Seriously, just read the quote that you posted as "proof" of druids not being able to do ranger things. Read it. For real this time. Here, I'll even help by emphasizing the part that you seem to be missing.
"When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar."
If they're drawing comparisons to GW1's secondary class system, then it stands to reason that you lose NOTHING from your ranger skill/trait list. Instead, you just gain the abilities that a druid has available to them. And then when more options come out, you'll have alternate "modes" to choose from, and can switch between them.
That implies that it functions pretty similarly to choosing between N/Me, N/Mo, etc....in other words, things that are real choices. But choosing not to have a secondary is not a "new" or valid choice. It's just denying yourself options for no reason.
So yeah, sticking with my original statement. They're giving players one new flavor, with the promise of more down the road. Choosing not to use specializations is basically refraining from playing with the toys you've been gifted. You're trying to stretch this concept into something it's not.
4) 3 canopies fits into my "2-3" statement (it's the second number), so I'm not sure why you seem to think this somehow dismisses the validity of what I said. If anything, it reinforces what I said as valid.
Also, I'm not sure why people are excited for (or boasting about) hang gliding since it's functionally a "flying mount" (you know, those things GW2 said they'd never have because of how it ruins the fun of exploration and what not) and it's been done for a lot of other games before. It's hardly a unique feature.
Also, yes, we know the Forgotten are Glint's servants. We also know that they passed on the duties of being Glint's servants to the dwarves at some point (Glint named them the protectors of her heritage, i.e. her young), and then after the transformation of the dwarves, that duty was passed to the Zephyrites. And their vanishing act isn't quite along the same lines as the Mursaat, where we know for a fact that they survived the last couple hundred years because it's straight up written that they did. They just sort of vanished over 200 years ago, after the Zephyrite people took over the sacred duty of guarding Glint's children and the elemental aspects. So....what's your storyline basis for their return exactly? Not saying it's impossible, but I'm not seeing the evidence that you seem to think you are.
5) ANet's team wasn't always 350 people in size. Originally the Living Story team was only one group that did monthly releases. They ended up hiring another three groups worth of people to expand the capability of the Living Story (thus why it started becoming bi-monthly). ANet has done a lot of hiring since the game first came out in order to get to the size that it is today.
You seem not to understand the difference between having story concepts planned, and actively working on expansion content. At one point when I was in game development, I had story plans for what was going to happen in the years to come, but I only ever had content written out to as far as a year or so ahead. ANet has plans for all of the dragons. But they didn't actually start ironing out that expansion until the date you pointed out earlier, 1.5 years ago. Stop moving the goalposts.
And yes, we knew the Mordremoth thing was coming one day, because the game did a very poor job of keeping it a secret. Heck, there were people who predicted it before the game was out. But, again, the lore having been set up != the expansion is in active development.
1) "All the evidence suggests" and "there is no evidence to confirm it either way" are two very different statements.
I was also talking about the new WvW map.
2) How many lead designers do you think Arenanet have?
Currently you have:
Design Leads
Isaiah Cartwright
Crystin Cox
Mike Ferguson
Eric Flannum
Stephen Hwang
Kevin Millard
Jonathan Peters
Jonathan Sharp
Bobby Stein
Mike Zadorojny
Before you also had Stacie Magelssen and Colin Johanson moved up to game director. And Chris Whiteside is the Design Director.
Mike Zadorojny was one of the guys that stay in John Stumme GW1 Live Team (of 5 or 6) and moved to GW2 at a later time, circa 2011.
If the Living World was such a big project (I know Arenanet has hyped it as the best thing ever) a more senior lead designer would be involved in it.
3) Colin said a bit more than the sentence you quoted.
CJ: When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar.
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
You are saying that everyone will be a druid. That is true - people will unlock druid and then they are it.
But game play wise you have to choose what powers you want to use, otherwise all this talk of swap back and forth as long as you are out of combat makes no sense.
4) None of the current maps have 3 diffent biomes stacked on top of each other. There are caves and mountain tops but this seem way more developed than that.
Hang gliding is being used on newer maps that they say they had more verticality.
The forgotten vanished 200 years ago and we don't know much more than that. We know they have vanished from all the known regions to humans, but what about unknown regions to humans?
5) What are you talking about?
The Live Team was split into several team from the get go and they reorganized a few times.
"To meet our goal, rather than have one small live team as is normally provided in traditional MMOs, we have formed multiple live teams focused on expanding Guild Wars 2 in the long term. I’ll cover the teams in broad terms below to give you an idea of the kind of support to expect. As our teams update the game, they will give you more specifics in the form of update notes, media interviews, and blog posts like this one.
(...)
With a dedicated live team more than ten times the size of the Guild Wars live team, "
GW1 Live Team varied between 5 and 6 people.
Yes, Arenanet kept hiring, although they hit the 300+ mark shortly after release and the continuous hiring of staff hardly fits the story of the unsuccessful Living World model.
And I'm not moving any goal posts - my belief is that the development of the expansion started shortly after the release of GW2.
Why do I believe in that?
- Arenanet and NCSoft talks about expansion pre and shortly after release;
- Live team of less than 2/3 of Arenanet staff:
- Living World did not release content matching a 300+ working staff.
You said you worked as a game developer.
Did at any point 2/3 of the people of the team you were on stand around fiddling with their fingers?
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
He's not joking. The fact that this is lost on you is just ..... ArenaNet provided a lot of content for free, probably more so than any other mmo and you guys are crying about guild halls not being included in the base game. You don't provide a single source to prove that ArenaNet said that it will be part of the base game and you don't even know if people who don't buy the expansion will not have guild halls. It feels that this whole thread is about people who don't play gw2 at all and just want to troll on the game unnecessary. Even if guild halls get locked behind the expansion, will you honestly not buy the expansion? Are you guys so cheap that expect everything for free.
Last I checked, the link was provided above my post.
Asking a company to deliver what they said they would before they released a product (4 years ago) is considered a 'troll'?
Are you serious?
Actually, am I getting trolled by another GW2 white knight like Gaia Hunter?
When people bought the product they knew what was in it.
But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises - I'm sure you will have many many games to play.
It is ironic that I'm being called a white knight when for the last 2.5 years I've been telling that the no expansion talk was pure PR rhetoric.
I guess that is what a white knight is - someone that tells you to use your brain to piece the information available instead of blindly believing in everything Anet says.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
One of the usual GW2 haters provided a link which in no way proves that ANet was about to give us guild halls for free.
"We will introduce player housing at some point after launch, and at that time we will also implement guild halls." in NO way means "we will give you guild halls for free".
Agree.
The only lie, if there is one, is that they won't be delivering "player housing" with the upcoming "guild halls", AFAIK.
I honestly don't understand the gripes of the OP. GW2 is still an extremely well made game and offers so much for relatively so little. It easily provides more hours of content than most single or multiplayer games on the market and you are complaining about the cost of an expansion?
Originally posted by grimal I honestly don't understand the gripes of the OP. GW2 is still an extremely well made game and offers so much for relatively so little. It easily provides more hours of content than most single or multiplayer games on the market and you are complaining about the cost of an expansion?
Because he's one step above a free to play leech. Which is obviously buy to play and he still isn't even happy with that.
This is the type of gamer that fail2play has fostered and coddled. The " I deserve everything for nothing" gamer thats to cheap to pay for anything and screeches and whines and yells at the top of their lungs when they do have too.
Welcome to the age of self entitled welfare gamers.
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
Would you care to post a link ? Thats easy, no ? Or stop pulling things out of your ass.
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
Would you care to post a link ? Thats easy, no ? Or stop pulling things out of your ass.
Don't accuse me of pulling things out of my ass when there's a link here that everyone has been discussing. I'm not doing your homework for you. Read the thread or take your F+ like a man/woman.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
So nobody promised that the guild halls were coming in the basegame? Only that they would be coming down the line?
A) Why is this thread still going, it's clear OP was wrong all along?
The community team screwed up by not being clear on the matter initially. If the community can choose between "the feature comes in the expansion" and "the feature comes as a free update" the community will assume the devs mean free update. And it's not the community's fault for doing so, the devs should've been clearer. Not that it's a big problem either way but the internet likes to make everything a bit problem.
Using LOL is like saying "my argument sucks but I still want to disagree".
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
Housing they did talk about before launch and while it kinda is in the game (my main have an house with an Xmas tree in Salma district, DR) it is the worst implemented feature in the game.
Guildhalls they said they were looking into. They never said they would have them in at launch and I read all pre-release interviews before launch. They never said they would add them at all, just that they were thinking about it.
GW2 have it's good and bad things but at least complain about stuff that matters. The thing that they add guild Vs guild PvP now to a game called Guildwars would make a load more sense than the guildhalls. Most MMOs don't have them at all.
The problem with ArenaNET is the dream selling was during the pre-launch phase. I'm not saying they're obligated to do anything, or are legally bound. I'm also not implying that it should be free. I'm saying that they've done "THIS" enough times that these "people change their minds" arguments I'm seeing aren't reasonable retorts at this stage.
This is why I don't care to hear these developer diaries and dumb ass blogs anymore. Show me what's in the game so farfor REAL or close your mouth.
They all do it too, whether is Colin Johanson or Mark Kern or some Kick Starter dev. The culture is getting really dishonest and unethical but as long as it's not illegal right?
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
Would you care to post a link ? Thats easy, no ? Or stop pulling things out of your ass.
Don't accuse me of pulling things out of my ass when there's a link here that everyone has been discussing. I'm not doing your homework for you. Read the thread or take your F+ like a man/woman.
I don't accuse of anything, you are pulling things out of your ass.
"We will introduce player housing at some point after launch, and at that time we will also implement guild halls."
They never said that guild wars 2 will start with guild halls, they never said that it will not be in paid expansion and they never said there will not be paid expansion. You pick quote out of context and twist it to suit your agenda.
1) "All the evidence suggests" and "there is no evidence to confirm it either way" are two very different statements.
I was also talking about the new WvW map.
2) How many lead designers do you think Arenanet have?
Currently you have:
Design Leads
Isaiah Cartwright
Crystin Cox
Mike Ferguson
Eric Flannum
Stephen Hwang
Kevin Millard
Jonathan Peters
Jonathan Sharp
Bobby Stein
Mike Zadorojny
Before you also had Stacie Magelssen and Colin Johanson moved up to game director. And Chris Whiteside is the Design Director.
Mike Zadorojny was one of the guys that stay in John Stumme GW1 Live Team (of 5 or 6) and moved to GW2 at a later time, circa 2011.
If the Living World was such a big project (I know Arenanet has hyped it as the best thing ever) a more senior lead designer would be involved in it.
3) Colin said a bit more than the sentence you quoted.
CJ: When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar.
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
You are saying that everyone will be a druid. That is true - people will unlock druid and then they are it.
But game play wise you have to choose what powers you want to use, otherwise all this talk of swap back and forth as long as you are out of combat makes no sense.
4) None of the current maps have 3 diffent biomes stacked on top of each other. There are caves and mountain tops but this seem way more developed than that.
Hang gliding is being used on newer maps that they say they had more verticality.
The forgotten vanished 200 years ago and we don't know much more than that. We know they have vanished from all the known regions to humans, but what about unknown regions to humans?
5) What are you talking about?
The Live Team was split into several team from the get go and they reorganized a few times.
"To meet our goal, rather than have one small live team as is normally provided in traditional MMOs, we have formed multiple live teams focused on expanding Guild Wars 2 in the long term. I’ll cover the teams in broad terms below to give you an idea of the kind of support to expect. As our teams update the game, they will give you more specifics in the form of update notes, media interviews, and blog posts like this one.
(...)
With a dedicated live team more than ten times the size of the Guild Wars live team, "
GW1 Live Team varied between 5 and 6 people.
Yes, Arenanet kept hiring, although they hit the 300+ mark shortly after release and the continuous hiring of staff hardly fits the story of the unsuccessful Living World model.
And I'm not moving any goal posts - my belief is that the development of the expansion started shortly after the release of GW2.
Why do I believe in that?
- Arenanet and NCSoft talks about expansion pre and shortly after release;
- Live team of less than 2/3 of Arenanet staff:
- Living World did not release content matching a 300+ working staff.
You said you worked as a game developer.
Did at any point 2/3 of the people of the team you were on stand around fiddling with their fingers?
1) So was I.
2) I'm assuming you didn't actually look up the titles of each of those people and just pulled that list from the game's credits, where they're all listed non-specifically as "design leads". I actually went and researched them. I had a nice list of them typed out, but I lost the post, and am not gonna spend the 15-20 minutes typing them all out again when you're perfectly capable of looking it up yourself.
Several of them are specifically listed as "systems designers", others have more specific titles (Cox, for example, works specifically in the Commerce department on the Gem Store). Mike is the only one on that entire list who is listed as "lead content designer".
In other words, you're wrong. Give it up already. Your attempts to minimize his role in the game just so you can dismiss what he said as unimportant is honestly sort of sad. He wouldn't have been able to say that in the first place if it wasn't approved by ANet's hierarchy. They're usually very careful to avoid saying anything that could backfire on them.
Here, let's demonstrate this fact by digging up some old skeletons from ANet's closet:
"In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn't allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we've always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2."
"We do intend to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward...."
Want to take a wild guess which "minor" staff members said these things? They were met with quite a lot of anger back when they were said. Now let's compare it to what has been said with the release of this expansion:
"I pretty much knew that if I got up there and said, yeah, this is the expansion pack where we're adding the gear treadmill that they were going to rush the stage and, you know, throttle me. So I had a pretty clear idea of what the fans are looking for."
I bet you will have loads of fun researching this one!
3) Yes, and you can swap between a tank build and a berserker build out of combat, too. That doesn't prove that you lose functionality as a ranger by "swapping" to a druid build, which is what you originally claimed. In fact, the quote clearly says that you don't lose ranger functionality as a druid. You're reading what you want to read, instead of what they actually said. What they said is that this will function rather similarly to secondary classes from GW1, except that it also unlocks a new weapon in addition to the skills/traits, and the fact that you don't need to be in a town to respec.
4) None of the maps they gave as examples of how the new maps would work have different "biomes", either. Just floors. We have no evidence of how "differently" this will function beyond the fact that three floors exist.
Hang gliders will be available through the Masteries system, and there is no literature out there which states that you can't use them in previous maps. They'll likely be disabled for PvP/WvW, but no word about other maps. And yeah, even if they weren't: they're still flying mounts.
Also, your argument that the Forgotten will return is based on....the evidence of absence? Did I just step into an episode of The Boondocks?
5) You are absolutely moving the goalposts. You're just doing it in a way that doesn't make any sense.
First you tried to argue that they were working on it "since before the game came out". You then later presented evidence showing that the expansion was being worked on about 1.5 years ago, which proven your original claims wrong. After that, it was all about the fact that "1.5 is larger than 1" (even though my estimation was still closer). Now you're back to your original stance again, based purely upon the notion that the ANet team was at 350 since early into the release, even though we know it wasn't, because they hired a number of people onto the team after release. Heck, they're still hiring today.
Everything they've said up to this point states that they were not working on expansion content until about 1.5 years ago. That was evidence that you presented, no less. You can't possibly argue that they've been working on it since the beginning unless you're moving the goalposts back to your original stance....which, again, is directly contradicted by evidence that you yourself presented. You're backtracking on yourself and thus presenting a self-defeating argument.
Not to mention that it's absolutely ridiculous that we're arguing about this in the first place as if it matters whether they started working on it a year ago or not. The only reason we're arguing about it is because I said that it's very concerning that the devs won't reveal more about the expansion if in fact they've been working on it for so long, because that implies that they're hiding something about it. If they've been working on it for a long time, then we can't blame it on "they just don't have it planned out", and whenever they've had good news in the past, they have never been too shy to share it....so that only leaves one alternative excuse: that some of the news is going to be bad, and so they're not unveiling it right away because they need this expansion to get people excited first.
That's what we should be talking about, but you've been so focused on being "right" about the timetable of the expansion that you haven't put so much as an ounce of thought into the fact that the devs aren't telling you much of anything about the expansion. Now why would they keep this expansion a secret when they have never been all that shy about boasting in the past? Simple: they're trying to build hype in order to spur more sales of the expansion, and they're worried that getting too much into the details might scare off customers. That's what you should be worried about.
2) I'm assuming you didn't actually look up the titles of each of those people and just pulled that list from the game's credits, where they're all listed non-specifically as "design leads". I actually went and researched them. I had a nice list of them typed out, but I lost the post, and am not gonna spend the 15-20 minutes typing them all out again when you're perfectly capable of looking it up yourself.
Several of them are specifically listed as "systems designers", others have more specific titles (Cox, for example, works specifically in the Commerce department on the Gem Store). Mike is the only one on that entire list who is listed as "lead content designer".
In other words, you're wrong. Give it up already. Your attempts to minimize his role in the game just so you can dismiss what he said as unimportant is honestly sort of sad. He wouldn't have been able to say that in the first place if it wasn't approved by ANet's hierarchy. They're usually very careful to avoid saying anything that could backfire on them.
Here, let's demonstrate this fact by digging up some old skeletons from ANet's closet:
"In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn't allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we've always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2."
"We do intend to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward...."
Want to take a wild guess which "minor" staff members said these things? They were met with quite a lot of anger back when they were said. Now let's compare it to what has been said with the release of this expansion:
"I pretty much knew that if I got up there and said, yeah, this is the expansion pack where we're adding the gear treadmill that they were going to rush the stage and, you know, throttle me. So I had a pretty clear idea of what the fans are looking for."
I bet you will have loads of fun researching this one!
3) Yes, and you can swap between a tank build and a berserker build out of combat, too. That doesn't prove that you lose functionality as a ranger by "swapping" to a druid build, which is what you originally claimed. In fact, the quote clearly says that you don't lose ranger functionality as a druid. You're reading what you want to read, instead of what they actually said. What they said is that this will function rather similarly to secondary classes from GW1, except that it also unlocks a new weapon in addition to the skills/traits, and the fact that you don't need to be in a town to respec.
4) None of the maps they gave as examples of how the new maps would work have different "biomes", either. Just floors. We have no evidence of how "differently" this will function beyond the fact that three floors exist.
Hang gliders will be available through the Masteries system, and there is no literature out there which states that you can't use them in previous maps. They'll likely be disabled for PvP/WvW, but no word about other maps. And yeah, even if they weren't: they're still flying mounts.
Also, your argument that the Forgotten will return is based on....the evidence of absence? Did I just step into an episode of The Boondocks?
5) You are absolutely moving the goalposts. You're just doing it in a way that doesn't make any sense.
First you tried to argue that they were working on it "since before the game came out". You then later presented evidence showing that the expansion was being worked on about 1.5 years ago, which proven your original claims wrong. After that, it was all about the fact that "1.5 is larger than 1" (even though my estimation was still closer). Now you're back to your original stance again, based purely upon the notion that the ANet team was at 350 since early into the release, even though we know it wasn't, because they hired a number of people onto the team after release. Heck, they're still hiring today.
Everything they've said up to this point states that they were not working on expansion content until about 1.5 years ago. That was evidence that you presented, no less. You can't possibly argue that they've been working on it since the beginning unless you're moving the goalposts back to your original stance....which, again, is directly contradicted by evidence that you yourself presented. You're backtracking on yourself and thus presenting a self-defeating argument.
Not to mention that it's absolutely ridiculous that we're arguing about this in the first place as if it matters whether they started working on it a year ago or not. The only reason we're arguing about it is because I said that it's very concerning that the devs won't reveal more about the expansion if in fact they've been working on it for so long, because that implies that they're hiding something about it. If they've been working on it for a long time, then we can't blame it on "they just don't have it planned out", and whenever they've had good news in the past, they have never been too shy to share it....so that only leaves one alternative excuse: that some of the news is going to be bad, and so they're not unveiling it right away because they need this expansion to get people excited first.
That's what we should be talking about, but you've been so focused on being "right" about the timetable of the expansion that you haven't put so much as an ounce of thought into the fact that the devs aren't telling you much of anything about the expansion. Now why would they keep this expansion a secret when they have never been all that shy about boasting in the past? Simple: they're trying to build hype in order to spur more sales of the expansion, and they're worried that getting too much into the details might scare off customers. That's what you should be worried about.
2) Mike Zadorojny is currently a leading content designer for the Living World. He also started to work full time in GW2 in 2011, quite at the end of the development cycle.
I already told you - Arenanet staff talk with big words but until they announce it the format "this feature is going to be implemented at x determined date" it is meaningless.
Pretty much every development project face changes that aren't a plot to fool the consumers/player base.
When I bought GW2 I knew Guild Halls, housing and GvG weren't present and I didn't expect them to be added.
I was actually surprised that the expansion didn't raise the level cap because before the game release this was one of the things they didn't say they would never do.
PCG: Another thing you announced was profession specialisations. The one you revealed was the Druid. That the Ranger was getting a staff weapon. Beyond having a different weapon, how different will the druid specialisation be from a 'standard' Ranger?
Colin: We're really trying to make it feel like it's almost a sub-profession or a secondary profession if you will, and not just a new set of a couple of skills. It's not just opening up the capacity to use a staff. When a ranger becomes a druid, they have an entire new set of skills and traits that come available to them. And their profession mechanic changes as well. That's true with all the specialisations. You actually play the profession differently, not just in skills and traits, but in the core mechanics of those professions. Some of them will change an existing profession, some of them might give them entirely new profession abilities and remove other ones. It really varies specialisation to specialisation, but it really should feel like you are playing a new version of your old profession. And players can actually mix and match a little bit. If you are playing as a Druid you will be able to use a lot of the Ranger's skills, and you can actually slot them in to make a lot of creative builds. But a Ranger can not use any of the stuff a Druid has unless they become a Druid.
Hope this clarifies.
4) At the moment we just have what they announced - an unprecedented level of verticality, some that will require the masteries to explore that 3D space.
5) I have no concrete evidence that they started developing GW2:HoT 2.5 years ago - it is conjecture based on the fact that I don't believe NCSoft would allow them to be only producing Living World with a 300-350+ staff. You have no concrete evidence that they only started developing GW2 1 year ago or last week - other that they didn't announce an expansion earlier and their PR talk about no expansion.
I trust economic reasons more.
I'm not worried because we will have demo and betas soon.
PS: About the WvW new borderland, from the same interview as above.
PCG: With most of the expansion it's easy to see how it's an extension of the game. With the new WvW borderland map you've announced, that sounds more integrated into an existing thing. How does that affect World vs. World overall?
Colin: Yeah, so the new borderland map joins the rotation with the borderlands we have today. I think it just expands the depth of the World vs. World experience. Currently, the borderland is replicated three times as a home for each world, and our new borderland will give us a chance to get a lot more variety in gameplay.
This really seems to read that it will be available to everyone, expansion or not.
About the development time.
PCG: The Living World has wrapped up, and players have got this expansion coming in the future. Do they have anything to look forward to between these two points? Are there any game updates planned?
Mike: Well things are going to start happening really fast with the expansion pack. We are six weeks away from PAX East and Rezzed, and so people are going to be able to play the expansion pack for the first time in early March and then get into beta testing right after that. Of course, the live game will continue, so there are updates for the live game. But mostly right now we're going to be focused on beta testing this expansion pack. We waited to announce this until we had the whole package together. The whole package is together and it's coming up fast. Sitting down with players last night, talking about the expansion pack, of course the first words on everybody's lips are "when?" The truth is, that all depends on beta testing. We are getting right into beta testing here and we will be playing the expansion pack with all the Guild Wars 2 players, and testing these very important groundwork systems that we're building in. When the groundwork is there—when this is the foundation we're ready for to build Guild Wars on top of for the coming years—that's when we'll release it.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
When people bought the product they knew what was in it.
But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises - I'm sure you will have many many games to play.
It is ironic that I'm being called a white knight when for the last 2.5 years I've been telling that the no expansion talk was pure PR rhetoric.
I guess that is what a white knight is - someone that tells you to use your brain to piece the information available instead of blindly believing in everything Anet says.
So we now have the 'Jimmy does it too!' defense.
Jesus christ, am I in kindergarten or something?
If a company lies to their fan base and gets called out on it, we shouldn't complain because 'well they aren't the only ones lying!' REALLY?
By this logic, we shouldn't have complained when ANet almost implemented that horrible 'gold-gem fixed value' thing that just blew up in their face; cause hey, other companies do it too!
Can you at least now understand why people call you 'white knight'?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
When people bought the product they knew what was in it.
But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises - I'm sure you will have many many games to play.
It is ironic that I'm being called a white knight when for the last 2.5 years I've been telling that the no expansion talk was pure PR rhetoric.
I guess that is what a white knight is - someone that tells you to use your brain to piece the information available instead of blindly believing in everything Anet says.
So we now have the 'Jimmy does it too!' defense.
Jesus christ, am I in kindergarten or something?
If a company lies to their fan base and gets called out on it, we shouldn't complain because 'well they aren't the only ones lying!' REALLY?
By this logic, we shouldn't have complained when ANet almost implemented that horrible 'gold-gem fixed value' thing that just blew up in their face; cause hey, other companies do it too!
Can you at least now understand why people call you 'white knight'?
Not kindergarten. Just like talking with teenagers and very young adults.
A comment on a forum 1 year before release stating they will add housing at some point after release and when they do that they will also add guild halls isn't a costumer/service supplier contract.
And that comment came after a GW2 presentation panel where the developers clearly stated in the Q&A that there will be no Guild Halls at release.
It is quite a stretch to equate at some point with shortly after and free.
Of course had he said at this time there are no plans for gulld halls that would have been equated "NEVER, EVER EVAH!".
For someone young and/or inexperienced they might think it is a lie (even though one should expect people to be complaining that there is no housing released alongside guild halls and/or the complain would be about how long it took them not that is a feature that might not be free) when it might simply be a change of plans because the feature in question fizzled out at the time.
One should complain and Anet isn't even half bad at listening to the complains - took them a few days to respond and it was changed to an improved form of the original with the next build release. Another example was the idea of charging 300g for each commander color that was scrapped.
Of course there was no blowing up or the end of the world (or the game in any case), nor would it be if those changes had not been reverted since the affect on the meat of the game, the gameplay, is insignificant. That again is teenager and very young adult drivel that will (hopefully) age out.
People call me "white knight" because it is hard to argue with calm reasoned posts. "White knight" is "bam, take that, I win internet points!".
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Not kindergarten. Just like talking with teenagers and very young adults.
A comment on a forum 1 year before release stating they will add housing at some point after release and when they do that they will also add guild halls isn't a costumer/service supplier contract.
And that comment came after a GW2 presentation panel where the developers clearly stated in the Q&A that there will be no Guild Halls at release.
It is quite a stretch to equate at some point with shortly after and free.
Of course had he said at this time there are no plans for gulld halls that would have been equated "NEVER, EVER EVAH!".
For someone young and/or inexperienced they might think it is a lie (even though one should expect people to be complaining that there is no housing released alongside guild halls and/or the complain would be about how long it took them not that is a feature that might not be free) when it might simply be a change of plans because the feature in question fizzled out at the time.
One should complain and Anet isn't even half bad at listening to the complains - took them a few days to respond and it was changed to an improved form of the original with the next build release. Another example was the idea of charging 300g for each commander color that was scrapped.
Of course there was no blowing up or the end of the world (or the game in any case), nor would it be if those changes had not been reverted since the affect on the meat of the game, the gameplay, is insignificant. That again is teenager and very young adult drivel that will (hopefully) age out.
People call me "white knight" because it is hard to argue with calm reasoned posts. "White knight" is "bam, take that, win internet points!".
This post makes no logical sense compared to what you wrote previously.What 'reasoned post'?
Do you share accounts with another?
''But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises" - This is a direct quote from you.
You acknowledge that ANet didn't keep all their promises. Gotcha. That's good.
"One should complain" - This is a direct quote from you
Alright, so by the logic of the two post by you, you don't have a problem with this thread and agree with it. Right?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
Comments
1) "You guys don't even know what features are exclusive to the expansion and what will be integrated in the vanilla game."
Where do I say it will be free?
What I said is that while there might be someone in a guild that has to pay something, via expansion (that is more than just guild halls) or other fee, regular guild members that do not own the expansion (and/or paid a guild license or whatever) might still join their guild mates.
2) Yes, very minor.
Living World is a minor project staffed by junior staff. That is why the big names, aside Colin that is the game director, from pre release disappeared.
One thing is true, Anet staff talk to much in hype sentences. If I was in charge of GW2 PR I would make sure things like that or like what Colin recently said (about no gear treadmill, no cap level raise) were said in a different way.
3) So far what was said about specializations has nothing to do with more power, that is masteries.
Look at the interview for MMORPG.com.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9340/page/2
MMORPG: You compared specializations to secondary professions from Guild Wars. Would I be a ranger/druid in the same way I might have been a warrior/elementalist? Can I use powers from both, or do I press a button to switch from being a ranger to being a druid?
CJ: When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar.
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
Why would you change outside combat to be a ranger if what you say is true?
4) We already know that they have 3 complete biomes for the jungle maps - roots, ground and canopy.
There was no hang gliding in the game before either. These maps are also even more vertical than before.
What prevents Anet from extending the world map area? There was a data mined map of the world of tyria way way more massive that what we have seen even in GW1.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forgotten
The Forgotten were a race of upright serpents. Their current state is unknown, and the last they were seen was in the Crystal Desert nearly 250 years ago, as well as in the Realm of Torment during the time of Nightfall. They're devout followers of the Six Human Gods, and are said to be linked to the Facets that reflect the power of the Human Gods.[1], and are servants of Glint, having been the ones who freed her from Kralkatorrik's control.
(...)
Archaeological evidence shows that the forgotten were spread throughout continental Tyria as well as far as Cantha when humans arrived on the world. They are known to have warred with the charr on the borders of the Blazeridge Mountains sometime in Tyria's past prior to 100 BE until they retreated, but otherwise their stewardship is thought to have been largely peaceful.
250 years ago they were seen in the Crystal Desert.
We know Glint left something in Maguuma Jungle. We know that the Forgotten are Glint's servants.
5) It is a question of understanding (or wanting to) how things work.
Arenanet staff size is 350 strong.
The Live Team, responsible for the Living World and the good running of GW2 vanilla is between 40 and 100 people.
That leaves 250 staff doing nothing. Sure some worked in China release.
And as far back as 2010 there were talks of expansion(s).
http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-to-have-dlc-microtransactions/
Eric Flannum sent us a note to clarify a couple of things about their plans for Guild Wars 2 post-release content:
"We haven't decided on what exactly we are or aren't going to offer for money post-release. We're open to whatever our players seem most interested in. If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it's something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful. Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (Like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-23-guild-wars-2-developer-has-plans-for-literally-years-to-come
Guild Wars 2 isn't out and doesn't have a release date, but already developer ArenaNet has "development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come".
That includes knowing what "a number" of high-level features will be, "and expansion content for years to come", senior vice president Randall Price revealed to Eurogamer (as part of our larger tour of Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet piece, published today).
"You may not realise this," he said, "but we have development plans in our back pocket for literally years to come."
(...)
"We today know a number of the high-level features that we're going to do, and expansion content for years to come," said Price. "No, it's not drilled down in a way that is - it's all at the five-thousand foot level and above, from a big picture [perspective]. But every month we go through time, we get closer and it gets down and, OK, now we're actually creating content for it."
Now if you tell me that 2.5 years ago they didn't know they were calling it Heart of Thorns, which area of the map they would expand too, what would be the storyline, yeah, you would be most likely right.
But Mordremoth was already part of the lore as was the Sylvari being its servants.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
So let me get this straight. You feel the OP is fully justified in complaining that they were "promised" guild halls were to be a free component of the original game because of Anet stating that at a later time, they will implement guild halls. Now I'm not the grammar police, but that doesn't sound to me like they promised it for free. In fact, it is nothing more than an assumption to presume they were not going to charge for it.
Some people will make an assumption about someone else's actions, and then follow up that assumption by complaining about that assumption not being fulfilled. You might think it's ok but I don't feel they are right to do so. If fact, I think that the entire basis of people making assumptions of what other people are going to do or should do, is a slap in the face of intelligent discussion. Sometimes I might even struggle to not mock an individual that fails to utilize the more basic measures of common sense, and that lends to my rebuttal having a condescending tone. However, my point is 100% valid, and I am entirely correct. You, and the OP can go on about how you feel that Anet might have led you astray in your beliefs of what they communicated but just remember that they are assumptions, and only assumptions.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
1) And what I've said is that all evidence to date suggests that the guild hall will not be a "free" mechanic. You're protesting people who jump to the conclusion that the guild hall will be paid content, without understanding that you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse. There is no evidence to confirm it either way, only suspicion. And right now, the "evidence" suggests that halls will not be a free addition to the game, and that there will be some mandated form of payment to get it.
2) The game's lead content designer is not just responsible for the Living Story. He's the lead content designer for the entire game, including this expansion. That is not a "minor" role. He's been a head honcho at ANet since before GW2 was out, even back during the GW1 days. So yeah, you're wrong. It wasn't some random flunkie on the team shooting his mouth off. It was a lead developer on the team, one of Colin's top men, who set the standard by which the Living Story is to be judged. Instead of denying and minimizing the importance of his role on this game, how about just admitting that the Living Story didn't do the job well enough, which is why this expansion exists in the first place?
3) Uh....I would imagine that a player switches between "ranger" and "druid" the exact same way I can change between a tank build for my guardian and a berserker. You know, by switching gear, skills, and traits?
Seriously, just read the quote that you posted as "proof" of druids not being able to do ranger things. Read it. For real this time. Here, I'll even help by emphasizing the part that you seem to be missing.
"When you are a druid, you have the capacity to use powers that a ranger cannot use, but while you're a druid, you can still take advantage of the abilities that a ranger has available to it and use those to mix and match. There are some key fundamental differences [from GW secondary classes], but the concept is very similar."
If they're drawing comparisons to GW1's secondary class system, then it stands to reason that you lose NOTHING from your ranger skill/trait list. Instead, you just gain the abilities that a druid has available to them. And then when more options come out, you'll have alternate "modes" to choose from, and can switch between them.
That implies that it functions pretty similarly to choosing between N/Me, N/Mo, etc....in other words, things that are real choices. But choosing not to have a secondary is not a "new" or valid choice. It's just denying yourself options for no reason.
So yeah, sticking with my original statement. They're giving players one new flavor, with the promise of more down the road. Choosing not to use specializations is basically refraining from playing with the toys you've been gifted. You're trying to stretch this concept into something it's not.
4) 3 canopies fits into my "2-3" statement (it's the second number), so I'm not sure why you seem to think this somehow dismisses the validity of what I said. If anything, it reinforces what I said as valid.
Also, I'm not sure why people are excited for (or boasting about) hang gliding since it's functionally a "flying mount" (you know, those things GW2 said they'd never have because of how it ruins the fun of exploration and what not) and it's been done for a lot of other games before. It's hardly a unique feature.
Also, yes, we know the Forgotten are Glint's servants. We also know that they passed on the duties of being Glint's servants to the dwarves at some point (Glint named them the protectors of her heritage, i.e. her young), and then after the transformation of the dwarves, that duty was passed to the Zephyrites. And their vanishing act isn't quite along the same lines as the Mursaat, where we know for a fact that they survived the last couple hundred years because it's straight up written that they did. They just sort of vanished over 200 years ago, after the Zephyrite people took over the sacred duty of guarding Glint's children and the elemental aspects. So....what's your storyline basis for their return exactly? Not saying it's impossible, but I'm not seeing the evidence that you seem to think you are.
5) ANet's team wasn't always 350 people in size. Originally the Living Story team was only one group that did monthly releases. They ended up hiring another three groups worth of people to expand the capability of the Living Story (thus why it started becoming bi-monthly). ANet has done a lot of hiring since the game first came out in order to get to the size that it is today.
You seem not to understand the difference between having story concepts planned, and actively working on expansion content. At one point when I was in game development, I had story plans for what was going to happen in the years to come, but I only ever had content written out to as far as a year or so ahead. ANet has plans for all of the dragons. But they didn't actually start ironing out that expansion until the date you pointed out earlier, 1.5 years ago. Stop moving the goalposts.
And yes, we knew the Mordremoth thing was coming one day, because the game did a very poor job of keeping it a secret. Heck, there were people who predicted it before the game was out. But, again, the lore having been set up != the expansion is in active development.
Most times i'd agree with you becuase the amount of content Colin Blowhanson and ANET has put out is absolutely pathetic, but did you really think they were going to just GIVE AWAY the game for free forever? Only a fool would think that.
Even if they HAD plans to give it away in the steaming turd called "the living story" what probably happened is that NCSOFT dragged Blowhanson into their offices and beat him over the head with a WoW expansion box for a few hours and told him he was a retard and they would NOT be giving away free money by not charging for content.
Yeah, how dare a gamer trust what a game company says!
ANet pre-GW2 never deliberately lied. Post-GW2, that trust was broken.
Can you really blame anyone on not trusting ANet now?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
It doesn't matter what Blowhanson and ANET say or promise, NCSOFT calls the shots, not them.
He's not joking. The fact that this is lost on you is just ..... ArenaNet provided a lot of content for free, probably more so than any other mmo and you guys are crying about guild halls not being included in the base game. You don't provide a single source to prove that ArenaNet said that it will be part of the base game and you don't even know if people who don't buy the expansion will not have guild halls. It feels that this whole thread is about people who don't play gw2 at all and just want to troll on the game unnecessary. Even if guild halls get locked behind the expansion, will you honestly not buy the expansion? Are you guys so cheap that expect everything for free.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Last I checked, the link was provided above my post.
Asking a company to deliver what they said they would before they released a product (4 years ago) is considered a 'troll'?
Are you serious?
Actually, am I getting trolled by another GW2 white knight like Gaia Hunter?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
1) "All the evidence suggests" and "there is no evidence to confirm it either way" are two very different statements.
I was also talking about the new WvW map.
2) How many lead designers do you think Arenanet have?
Currently you have:
Design Leads
MMORPG: That's a one-time thing, correct? I'm a ranger, I do my stuff and bam, I'm a druid, I can use druid powers?
CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character's a druid, but I'm going to play as a ranger today.” It's very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you're out of combat.
You are saying that everyone will be a druid. That is true - people will unlock druid and then they are it.
But game play wise you have to choose what powers you want to use, otherwise all this talk of swap back and forth as long as you are out of combat makes no sense.
4) None of the current maps have 3 diffent biomes stacked on top of each other. There are caves and mountain tops but this seem way more developed than that.
Hang gliding is being used on newer maps that they say they had more verticality.
The forgotten vanished 200 years ago and we don't know much more than that. We know they have vanished from all the known regions to humans, but what about unknown regions to humans?
5) What are you talking about?
The Live Team was split into several team from the get go and they reorganized a few times.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-outlines-guild-wars-2-live-game-development/
"To meet our goal, rather than have one small live team as is normally provided in traditional MMOs, we have formed multiple live teams focused on expanding Guild Wars 2 in the long term. I’ll cover the teams in broad terms below to give you an idea of the kind of support to expect. As our teams update the game, they will give you more specifics in the form of update notes, media interviews, and blog posts like this one.
(...)
With a dedicated live team more than ten times the size of the Guild Wars live team, "
GW1 Live Team varied between 5 and 6 people.
Yes, Arenanet kept hiring, although they hit the 300+ mark shortly after release and the continuous hiring of staff hardly fits the story of the unsuccessful Living World model.
And I'm not moving any goal posts - my belief is that the development of the expansion started shortly after the release of GW2.
Why do I believe in that?
- Arenanet and NCSoft talks about expansion pre and shortly after release;
- Live team of less than 2/3 of Arenanet staff:
- Living World did not release content matching a 300+ working staff.
You said you worked as a game developer.
Did at any point 2/3 of the people of the team you were on stand around fiddling with their fingers?
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
When people bought the product they knew what was in it.
But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises - I'm sure you will have many many games to play.
It is ironic that I'm being called a white knight when for the last 2.5 years I've been telling that the no expansion talk was pure PR rhetoric.
I guess that is what a white knight is - someone that tells you to use your brain to piece the information available instead of blindly believing in everything Anet says.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Agree.
The only lie, if there is one, is that they won't be delivering "player housing" with the upcoming "guild halls", AFAIK.
Because he's one step above a free to play leech. Which is obviously buy to play and he still isn't even happy with that.
This is the type of gamer that fail2play has fostered and coddled. The " I deserve everything for nothing" gamer thats to cheap to pay for anything and screeches and whines and yells at the top of their lungs when they do have too.
Welcome to the age of self entitled welfare gamers.
Watching people bend stretch and contort to spin the words that ArenaNET has put on record is hilarious. Dude, they said they'd be adding housing and guild houses to the game. They DIDN'T and waited until 3 years later and put it in a paid expansion. End of story. Cut the shit. They didn't do anything illegal so you can stop spinning semantics like a bunch of unethical attorneys.
***News Flash, ArenaNET has been selling hopes and dreams with GW2 from day 1. The people fell for it. They didn't deliver. ***
Enjoy your expansion where everybody will be rolling the same "new sub classes" because 1 more option to give variety would have broke the bank at this time.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Would you care to post a link ? Thats easy, no ? Or stop pulling things out of your ass.
Don't accuse me of pulling things out of my ass when there's a link here that everyone has been discussing. I'm not doing your homework for you. Read the thread or take your F+ like a man/woman.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So nobody promised that the guild halls were coming in the basegame? Only that they would be coming down the line?
A) Why is this thread still going, it's clear OP was wrong all along?
Housing they did talk about before launch and while it kinda is in the game (my main have an house with an Xmas tree in Salma district, DR) it is the worst implemented feature in the game.
Guildhalls they said they were looking into. They never said they would have them in at launch and I read all pre-release interviews before launch. They never said they would add them at all, just that they were thinking about it.
GW2 have it's good and bad things but at least complain about stuff that matters. The thing that they add guild Vs guild PvP now to a game called Guildwars would make a load more sense than the guildhalls. Most MMOs don't have them at all.
The problem with ArenaNET is the dream selling was during the pre-launch phase. I'm not saying they're obligated to do anything, or are legally bound. I'm also not implying that it should be free. I'm saying that they've done "THIS" enough times that these "people change their minds" arguments I'm seeing aren't reasonable retorts at this stage.
This is why I don't care to hear these developer diaries and dumb ass blogs anymore. Show me what's in the game so far for REAL or close your mouth.
They all do it too, whether is Colin Johanson or Mark Kern or some Kick Starter dev. The culture is getting really dishonest and unethical but as long as it's not illegal right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't accuse of anything, you are pulling things out of your ass.
"We will introduce player housing at some point after launch, and at that time we will also implement guild halls."
They never said that guild wars 2 will start with guild halls, they never said that it will not be in paid expansion and they never said there will not be paid expansion. You pick quote out of context and twist it to suit your agenda.
1) So was I.
2) I'm assuming you didn't actually look up the titles of each of those people and just pulled that list from the game's credits, where they're all listed non-specifically as "design leads". I actually went and researched them. I had a nice list of them typed out, but I lost the post, and am not gonna spend the 15-20 minutes typing them all out again when you're perfectly capable of looking it up yourself.
Several of them are specifically listed as "systems designers", others have more specific titles (Cox, for example, works specifically in the Commerce department on the Gem Store). Mike is the only one on that entire list who is listed as "lead content designer".
In other words, you're wrong. Give it up already. Your attempts to minimize his role in the game just so you can dismiss what he said as unimportant is honestly sort of sad. He wouldn't have been able to say that in the first place if it wasn't approved by ANet's hierarchy. They're usually very careful to avoid saying anything that could backfire on them.
Here, let's demonstrate this fact by digging up some old skeletons from ANet's closet:
Want to take a wild guess which "minor" staff members said these things? They were met with quite a lot of anger back when they were said. Now let's compare it to what has been said with the release of this expansion:
- "I pretty much knew that if I got up there and said, yeah, this is the expansion pack where we're adding the gear treadmill that they were going to rush the stage and, you know, throttle me. So I had a pretty clear idea of what the fans are looking for."
I bet you will have loads of fun researching this one!3) Yes, and you can swap between a tank build and a berserker build out of combat, too. That doesn't prove that you lose functionality as a ranger by "swapping" to a druid build, which is what you originally claimed. In fact, the quote clearly says that you don't lose ranger functionality as a druid. You're reading what you want to read, instead of what they actually said. What they said is that this will function rather similarly to secondary classes from GW1, except that it also unlocks a new weapon in addition to the skills/traits, and the fact that you don't need to be in a town to respec.
4) None of the maps they gave as examples of how the new maps would work have different "biomes", either. Just floors. We have no evidence of how "differently" this will function beyond the fact that three floors exist.
Hang gliders will be available through the Masteries system, and there is no literature out there which states that you can't use them in previous maps. They'll likely be disabled for PvP/WvW, but no word about other maps. And yeah, even if they weren't: they're still flying mounts.
Also, your argument that the Forgotten will return is based on....the evidence of absence? Did I just step into an episode of The Boondocks?
5) You are absolutely moving the goalposts. You're just doing it in a way that doesn't make any sense.
First you tried to argue that they were working on it "since before the game came out". You then later presented evidence showing that the expansion was being worked on about 1.5 years ago, which proven your original claims wrong. After that, it was all about the fact that "1.5 is larger than 1" (even though my estimation was still closer). Now you're back to your original stance again, based purely upon the notion that the ANet team was at 350 since early into the release, even though we know it wasn't, because they hired a number of people onto the team after release. Heck, they're still hiring today.
Everything they've said up to this point states that they were not working on expansion content until about 1.5 years ago. That was evidence that you presented, no less. You can't possibly argue that they've been working on it since the beginning unless you're moving the goalposts back to your original stance....which, again, is directly contradicted by evidence that you yourself presented. You're backtracking on yourself and thus presenting a self-defeating argument.
Not to mention that it's absolutely ridiculous that we're arguing about this in the first place as if it matters whether they started working on it a year ago or not. The only reason we're arguing about it is because I said that it's very concerning that the devs won't reveal more about the expansion if in fact they've been working on it for so long, because that implies that they're hiding something about it. If they've been working on it for a long time, then we can't blame it on "they just don't have it planned out", and whenever they've had good news in the past, they have never been too shy to share it....so that only leaves one alternative excuse: that some of the news is going to be bad, and so they're not unveiling it right away because they need this expansion to get people excited first.
That's what we should be talking about, but you've been so focused on being "right" about the timetable of the expansion that you haven't put so much as an ounce of thought into the fact that the devs aren't telling you much of anything about the expansion. Now why would they keep this expansion a secret when they have never been all that shy about boasting in the past? Simple: they're trying to build hype in order to spur more sales of the expansion, and they're worried that getting too much into the details might scare off customers. That's what you should be worried about.
2) Mike Zadorojny is currently a leading content designer for the Living World. He also started to work full time in GW2 in 2011, quite at the end of the development cycle.
I already told you - Arenanet staff talk with big words but until they announce it the format "this feature is going to be implemented at x determined date" it is meaningless.
Pretty much every development project face changes that aren't a plot to fool the consumers/player base.
When I bought GW2 I knew Guild Halls, housing and GvG weren't present and I didn't expect them to be added.
I was actually surprised that the expansion didn't raise the level cap because before the game release this was one of the things they didn't say they would never do.
3) http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-interview/#page-2
PCG: Another thing you announced was profession specialisations. The one you revealed was the Druid. That the Ranger was getting a staff weapon. Beyond having a different weapon, how different will the druid specialisation be from a 'standard' Ranger?
Colin: We're really trying to make it feel like it's almost a sub-profession or a secondary profession if you will, and not just a new set of a couple of skills. It's not just opening up the capacity to use a staff. When a ranger becomes a druid, they have an entire new set of skills and traits that come available to them. And their profession mechanic changes as well. That's true with all the specialisations. You actually play the profession differently, not just in skills and traits, but in the core mechanics of those professions. Some of them will change an existing profession, some of them might give them entirely new profession abilities and remove other ones. It really varies specialisation to specialisation, but it really should feel like you are playing a new version of your old profession. And players can actually mix and match a little bit. If you are playing as a Druid you will be able to use a lot of the Ranger's skills, and you can actually slot them in to make a lot of creative builds. But a Ranger can not use any of the stuff a Druid has unless they become a Druid.
Hope this clarifies.
4) At the moment we just have what they announced - an unprecedented level of verticality, some that will require the masteries to explore that 3D space.
5) I have no concrete evidence that they started developing GW2:HoT 2.5 years ago - it is conjecture based on the fact that I don't believe NCSoft would allow them to be only producing Living World with a 300-350+ staff. You have no concrete evidence that they only started developing GW2 1 year ago or last week - other that they didn't announce an expansion earlier and their PR talk about no expansion.
I trust economic reasons more.
I'm not worried because we will have demo and betas soon.
PS: About the WvW new borderland, from the same interview as above.
PCG: With most of the expansion it's easy to see how it's an extension of the game. With the new WvW borderland map you've announced, that sounds more integrated into an existing thing. How does that affect World vs. World overall?
Colin: Yeah, so the new borderland map joins the rotation with the borderlands we have today. I think it just expands the depth of the World vs. World experience. Currently, the borderland is replicated three times as a home for each world, and our new borderland will give us a chance to get a lot more variety in gameplay.
This really seems to read that it will be available to everyone, expansion or not.
About the development time.
PCG: The Living World has wrapped up, and players have got this expansion coming in the future. Do they have anything to look forward to between these two points? Are there any game updates planned?
Mike: Well things are going to start happening really fast with the expansion pack. We are six weeks away from PAX East and Rezzed, and so people are going to be able to play the expansion pack for the first time in early March and then get into beta testing right after that. Of course, the live game will continue, so there are updates for the live game. But mostly right now we're going to be focused on beta testing this expansion pack. We waited to announce this until we had the whole package together. The whole package is together and it's coming up fast. Sitting down with players last night, talking about the expansion pack, of course the first words on everybody's lips are "when?" The truth is, that all depends on beta testing. We are getting right into beta testing here and we will be playing the expansion pack with all the Guild Wars 2 players, and testing these very important groundwork systems that we're building in. When the groundwork is there—when this is the foundation we're ready for to build Guild Wars on top of for the coming years—that's when we'll release it.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
So we now have the 'Jimmy does it too!' defense.
Jesus christ, am I in kindergarten or something?
If a company lies to their fan base and gets called out on it, we shouldn't complain because 'well they aren't the only ones lying!' REALLY?
By this logic, we shouldn't have complained when ANet almost implemented that horrible 'gold-gem fixed value' thing that just blew up in their face; cause hey, other companies do it too!
Can you at least now understand why people call you 'white knight'?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi
Not kindergarten. Just like talking with teenagers and very young adults.
A comment on a forum 1 year before release stating they will add housing at some point after release and when they do that they will also add guild halls isn't a costumer/service supplier contract.
And that comment came after a GW2 presentation panel where the developers clearly stated in the Q&A that there will be no Guild Halls at release.
It is quite a stretch to equate at some point with shortly after and free.
Of course had he said at this time there are no plans for gulld halls that would have been equated "NEVER, EVER EVAH!".
For someone young and/or inexperienced they might think it is a lie (even though one should expect people to be complaining that there is no housing released alongside guild halls and/or the complain would be about how long it took them not that is a feature that might not be free) when it might simply be a change of plans because the feature in question fizzled out at the time.
One should complain and Anet isn't even half bad at listening to the complains - took them a few days to respond and it was changed to an improved form of the original with the next build release. Another example was the idea of charging 300g for each commander color that was scrapped.
Of course there was no blowing up or the end of the world (or the game in any case), nor would it be if those changes had not been reverted since the affect on the meat of the game, the gameplay, is insignificant. That again is teenager and very young adult drivel that will (hopefully) age out.
People call me "white knight" because it is hard to argue with calm reasoned posts. "White knight" is "bam, take that, I win internet points!".
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
This post makes no logical sense compared to what you wrote previously.What 'reasoned post'?
Do you share accounts with another?
''But be my guest and play only the games of the companies that kept all their promises" - This is a direct quote from you.
You acknowledge that ANet didn't keep all their promises. Gotcha. That's good.
"One should complain" - This is a direct quote from you
Alright, so by the logic of the two post by you, you don't have a problem with this thread and agree with it. Right?
It shows what PvP games are really all about, and no, it's not about more realism and immersion. It's about cowards hiding behind a screen to they can bully other defenseless players without any risk of direct retaliation like there would be if they acted like asshats in "real life". -Jean-Luc_Picard
Life itself is a game. So why shouldn't your game be ruined? - justmemyselfandi