Guild Wars 2: The End is Not in Sight

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Guild Wars 2: The End is Not in Sight

It’s finally here. More accurately it’s almost here. The reveal poster for Guild Wars 2 Living World Season 4’s finale, War Eternal dropped and it signals the beginning of the end. The battle against Kralkatorrik didn’t go quite how we expected it at the start of the year, and the end of All or Nothing certainly landed an emotional blow. Now with War Eternal looming over us, it is down to ArenaNet to make that emotional investment pay dividends. It’s also time to equip the tin foil hat (+ concentration) and speculate. Please do note as this is current there are spoilers for Living World Season 4.

Amathe

There is a lot of life left in this game.

Aeander

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

nastilon

Amathe said:

There is a lot of life left in this game.

Unfortunately I disagree with you. Every time I see an article about GW2 I feel like it is the last gasp of a drowning swimmer fighting to stay above the waves.

There may be some air bubbles release on the way to the bottom but in the end, it's over

Ungood

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

Aeander

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Ungood

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

rojoArcueid

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

Asch126

Amathe said:

There is a lot of life left in this game.

Is that why they're forgoing an expansion and going straight for the far easier Living Story?

Asch126

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

You DO know they've been given feedback at every opportunity and they ignore it, right? Why do people have such a habit of defending developers when they fuck up?

Aeander

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

It's actually just that he's bitter about the direction they went with HoT. 

I get where he's coming from, but that wasn't, as he suggests, ignoring the community's feedback. It was listening to the segment of the community that he didn't belong to.

And that's the problem with any development of anything that has an audience. It's not about listening to the audience. It's about which segment of the audience, which tries to pull you in many different directions, to listen to.

And often, I agree with you. The way to make a great game is often to not try to please anyone. It's to make the game you want to make, and hope to attract a likeminded audience.

rojoArcueid

Asch126 said:

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

You DO know they've been given feedback at every opportunity and they ignore it, right? Why do people have such a habit of defending developers when they fuck up?

Put yourself in the shoes of any developer and think of the reasons why you go in any particular direction.

Some people see devs doing things they don't like and make their own assumptions as how much the devs keep ignoring feedback. I don't know what happens inside a dev/pub company so i can't simply go and state x,y,z as a fact.

Asch126

rojoArcueid said:

Asch126 said:

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

You DO know they've been given feedback at every opportunity and they ignore it, right? Why do people have such a habit of defending developers when they fuck up?

Put yourself in the shoes of any developer and think of the reasons why you go in any particular direction.

Some people see devs doing things they don't like and make their own assumptions as how much the devs keep ignoring feedback. I don't know what happens inside a dev/pub company so i can't simply go and state x,y,z as a fact.

When you see the community agree that X thing should be done, one can easily assume the devs ignore feedback when they constantly do Y.

Or will you say that Blizzard also listens to the community?

bcbully

More living story in the age of battle royal. 

Kinda like Kodak making cameras in the age of the iPhone.

rojoArcueid

bcbully said:

More living story in the age of battle royal. 

Kinda like Kodak making cameras in the age of the iPhone.

apples and oranges. BR games have zero story. Living story is about story.

Also, are you suggesting that just because there are iphones photographers don't use professional cameras anymore? lol

rojoArcueid

Asch126 said:

When you see the community agree that X thing should be done, one can easily assume the devs ignore feedback when they constantly do Y.

Or will you say that Blizzard also listens to the community?

That's the thing, i dont work there so i dont know. IF they are ignoring feedback i would think they have reasons. Maybe the higher ups are against that particular feedback, or maybe what players are suggesting goes against what the devs want to make. I just don't know, but i'm not going out of my way to claim they are ignoring people because i am not there to hear their decision making process. That goes for all companies. But i would think BLizz and ANET are very different.

Aeander

And here comes the utterly tonedeaf guy saying that Guild Wars 2 should have focused on PvP when both of their PvP modes have failed and every attempt they've made to diversify or focus on their PvP/esports have failed.

Guild Wars 2's future is, was, and always will be PvE until the day it dies, as it should be and as most of the community wants.

gunklacker

Went back to try Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire it was free weekend or something, First thing i encountered was a Fricken Mushroom JUMP puzzle , shut it down and uninstalled.......

Ungood

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

When you are screwing around in your parents garage you can make the game you want to play, when you have a team of 600+ on staff and are owned by an international multi-million dollar company known for shutting down games that don't perform.. that is not the time to play fuck around.

Ungood

Aeander said:

rojoArcueid said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

Ungood said:

Aeander said:

I am looking forward to the end of this living world season. There are so many directions this story could go.


But please, give me Cantha soon. Don't make me beg. 

I mean, really, it's painfully obvious at this point, they never had a plan, don't have the metrics, and don't really know what they are doing, and are just kinda guessing at what to do next. 

So if you can get enough people to make a fuss in a medium they listen to (Not their Official Forums) that Cantha is a good next move.. sure it can happen.

It's not like they don't know that Cantha is wanted. It's been a popular request from the very beginning.

Did you just try to put bank on them paying attention and having a clue... now that was funny.

Look if they had a clue, they never would have made HoT the way they did.. so.. get back to it and keep in making a fuss you want it.. and maybe they will catch on..

You seem to know too much about what happens inside the company. Did they fire you? They wanted to make HoT the way they did it. They are the developers. Could they have done a better job? sure, but they will never know it until they get the feedback because many people like many different things.

This applies to every developer, they make the game they want to make and not what a random internet person wants to play.

It's actually just that he's bitter about the direction they went with HoT. 

I get where he's coming from, but that wasn't, as he suggests, ignoring the community's feedback. It was listening to the segment of the community that he didn't belong to.

And that's the problem with any development of anything that has an audience. It's not about listening to the audience. It's about which segment of the audience, which tries to pull you in many different directions, to listen to.

And often, I agree with you. The way to make a great game is often to not try to please anyone. It's to make the game you want to make, and hope to attract a likeminded audience.

There is actually several factors here, one of the largest ones, was how they  made and marketed the Core Game, being a game for the "Everyone Else", all the disenfranchised gamers that did not want to get into the typical traps of other MMO's, that wanted a game where they could escape from the generic set up of most MMO.

This was their original target market, and by every means, it had served them well. If they wanted a different market, if they wanted to cater to players that wanted to raid, and wanted gear grinds, and built the game from the start with those people in mind, great, make a game for that demographic, and by all means, own it.

However, that is not what Anet did, they built a huge game that was designed and marketed to the disenfranchised casuals of other MMO, and then they went and made HoT an embodiment of everything that was against this market demographic.

A blind cat randomly grabbing ideas from a hat could have made a better judgment call than that, and would have seen that their plan was a train wreck from the start.

In fact... this is the part they really should have paid attention to, when you have people who are casual players, who are willing to take time away from playing to tell you.. do not do this, that should have been a huge ass warning sign that this was going to go bad. 

I have no idea what kind of developer you need to be, to ignore that kind of massive sign, but a good one is not it.

maskedweasel

Aeander said:

And here comes the utterly tonedeaf guy saying that Guild Wars 2 should have focused on PvP when both of their PvP modes have failed and every attempt they've made to diversify or focus on their PvP/esports have failed.

Guild Wars 2's future is, was, and always will be PvE until the day it dies, as it should be and as most of the community wants.

I agree that they have a good future in PvE, but, they've done a great job at making the majority of their PvE redundant.  Everything is just a never ending cycle, quite often farmed to a T with no real penalties or rewards any different than anything else.  

Maybe there's an exception to raids and some fractals, but for the most part, I don't think they're really giving PvE the justice it deserves. Even in living world story missions, if you die you just start right back where you left off.

Alomar

It's the year of the dragon, or so people keep telling me. Lost interest in GW2 several months after launch when the WvW scene started to die down because the game had no progression for hardcore players. Yet, my guild gave it another shot last year and I was surprised to find it easily has 50x the active WvW pvp population that ESO still has. I was excited when they announced those rvr changes/plans around a year ago, and I know personally guilds that would have brought hundreds of players back to the game should that have materialized.

Yet, the game as is doesn't have any appeal to me and personally feels like they've fallen into the trap a lot of mmo's have within the past decade. That being that they aren't amazing at any one thing that appeals to a large group of customers who like that thing/have that playstyle, but instead are mediocre at a lot of things with moderate appeal to many playstyles.

bcbully

Aeander said:

And here comes the utterly tonedeaf guy saying that Guild Wars 2 should have focused on PvP when both of their PvP modes have failed and every attempt they've made to diversify or focus on their PvP/esports have failed.

Guild Wars 2's future is, was, and always will be PvE until the day it dies, as it should be and as most of the community wants.

Nah I certainly wasn’t saying that. That ship sailed back during development when they decided to make pvp utterly meaningless. 

Thupli

Looking forward to the episode! Been a while since I played. This will bring me back.

Lokero

nastilon said:

Amathe said:

There is a lot of life left in this game.

Unfortunately I disagree with you. Every time I see an article about GW2 I feel like it is the last gasp of a drowning swimmer fighting to stay above the waves.

There may be some air bubbles release on the way to the bottom but in the end, it's over

I don't know about "last gasp" but they are definitely flailing their arms wildly and calling for help. 

We're basically getting an article on GW2 every other day now.  Though, whether ANet is making a push for attention or if the MMO reporters are still just obsessing over it, I don't know.

Bananable

"Guild Wars 2: The End is Not in Sight"

LOLZ
Reminds me this:


It's just a little dirty. It's still good, it's still good!
It's just a little slimy. It's still good, it's still good!
It's just a little airborne. It's still good, it's still good!
^_^