And the scheduled new WvW map for 10th December might mean the end of the WvW zerging. The map is designed to prevent zerging. It would be interesting to see how this one turns out. Of course the map wouldn't affect the WvW season score but i think its a start and im pretty sure they have something up their sleeve in that department as well. May the war against zerging has just began!
I have no idea where you get this information. The new WvW map is scheduled to be tested this coming spring by their own words. The actual release is not likely to happen for quite some time my guess would be summer but who knows maybe later. So in regards to WvW, the only addition they have gotten in a year and a half will be Wxp, which is a really a cheap corny addition if you ask me. Sure it adds playstyles but its not real substance.
In regards to the new map, it will not effect score, it will not be able to be joined by guilds or more then a party worths of people. It will be random assignment of sides and be several hours long matches, and only in the overflow. I would not exactly call that a new map. Its something, its a step in the right direction sure, but wow very little for that long of time. At this rare perhaps we can see new BL maps in 3-5 years.
In all reality by the time they release the new map many new MMO's with similar PVP styles will be out. I am not sure if GW2 will be able to compete, but that remains to be seen.
As far as substance, I personally thing its a tragedy how this game has be run post launch. The decision to focus resources on the LS was a huge mistake, that they keep making as far as I'm concerned. We want a growing, changing world, not some sitcom with a retarded villainess. The game had and has much potential and is a good base game, the team running it is just frankly incompetent and feel they have no competition so they can get away with it. I could quote the 'Manifesto' and sight all the things they have not done or promises not kept but we all know so whats the point. I applaud those who see change or hope on the future, good for you, I see absolutely nothing to base that on myself. If they have gone this route for this long, what makes you think they would not continue to do so?
As far as substance, I personally thing its a tragedy how this game has be run post launch. The decision to focus resources on the LS was a huge mistake, that they keep making as far as I'm concerned. We want a growing, changing world, not some sitcom with a retarded villainess. The game had and has much potential and is a good base game, the team running it is just frankly incompetent and feel they have no competition so they can get away with it. I could quote the 'Manifesto' and sight all the things they have not done or promises not kept but we all know so whats the point. I applaud those who see change or hope on the future, good for you, I see absolutely nothing to base that on myself. If they have gone this route for this long, what makes you think they would not continue to do so?
Atleast unlike other game companies ANet actually is listening to its players. People were complaining that living story content goes away too fast, they kept the content from the last 3 story updates (new TA path, and the tower). They are going to bring us the aetherblade dungeon in the form of fractals and many others. The world is changing, starting with kessex hills.
People were also complaining that the story was shallow and the story telling was bad - they added voice overed cutscenes and NPC chatter that is completely voiced. And bit by bit you start seeing how Scarlet is connected with the dragons.
And IMO they stayed true to their manifesto. There is no gear treadmill. Nobody is forcing you to farm. Exotic can be obtained within a week of gameplay. You do not need anything better than that. Sure they added Ascended and many people cried all over the place and went crazy about it, but if you look closer, ascended is only 10% improvement, so its really is no biggie and Colin said that ascended will be the top for few years. That is okay for me. They will also add new legendaries which is cool.
Gw2 is a revolution in MMOs. As such, they have hard time expanding on it because they've changed so much, none of the previous "tricks" works for them. Everything they do is different than other MMOs. They've put out more content for 60$ (40 now AFAIK) than any other MMO company with or without subscription. That is a fact!
Let me make it simple for you. Successful subscription games bring in money every month.
GW2 has a box price and a fraction of their players spending money after buying the box. Let's guess which games add more content and which games fade into obscurity.
GW2 would be a bigger flop than SWTOR if they tried charging a sub. Yet they claimed they would add as much content as sub based games. Well that promise fell through pretty quickly.
Fell through? You need to get caught up on current events, or at least have some knowledge of the game you're intent on bashing. They're adding new content every two weeks, with a greater focus on keeping more of that permanent (at the request of the community). They've easily added as much if not more content than most sub-based games over the same period of time, and more is coming on a continual basis. They're making plenty of cash without milking customers of a monthly fee (nothing like charging your customers a quarter of the box price every month or the box they paid for becomes worthless...).
You may not like the game for whatever reasons, but at least dislike it in the light of reality. It's a wonderfully successful game from a company that had the bollocks to try a few things completely new in an age of MMO stagnation.
I picked up the game in January this year. It occurred to me today that the game hasn't really changed that much in that time. Thinking this could just be misremembering on my part, I looked through the patch notes for all patches released this year. There was a ton of rebalancing skills and traits, and a healthy amount of bug fixes. That's nice, but it's not new content.
As far as new stuff in PVE, the highlights basically consisted of converting magic find to an account-wide system, converting tokens to an account-wide wallet, adding a group finding mechanism for dungeons, changing the daily/monthly system (then later heavily nerfing the rewards to make it not matter so much), and adding some ridiculously grindy crafting stuff to craft ascended gear. Other than the ascended gear, that's mostly good stuff, but it's not a whole lot for 10 months worth of updates. There was quite a bit of temporary seasonal stuff, but when you add it one patch and then take it back down a few weeks later, that's not permanent content.
But more glaring is what there wasn't: no new zones, no new dungeons, no new personal story quests, no new classes, only one new skill, and few or no new dynamic events outside of temporary seasonal ones. In other words, the core content of the game is nearly the same as it was 10 months ago apart from some bug fixes and rebalancing.
In one sense, that they would go 10 months without much in the way of new content isn't surprising. It's a buy to play game, after all, and the big thing that ArenaNet can reasonably ask players to buy is new content. Guild Wars 1 didn't have that much in the way of new content added between the launches of new campaigns, either. But Factions added a ton of new content. So did Nightfall. Eye of the North added much less than any campaign, but still a lot more than we've seen added to Guild Wars 2 this year.
I largely expected ArenaNet to take the same approach with Guild Wars 2. And they might yet be doing so. But it's well over a year since the initial launch, and I haven't heard anything about an upcoming new campaign or expansion or any such large, new batch of PVE content. Is ArenaNet not going to do that, but rather, save it all for Guild Wars 3? (But don't we get to kill the other elder dragons? Even if Jormag is the only one causing all that much trouble at the moment.) Is the new content coming but not announced, and ArenaNet is taking its time trying to mostly get things right?
I'm not complaining, really. The game has a lot of content as it is. And I think a lot of players put far too much emphasis on new content while ignoring the old. But I'm just somewhat surprised that we still don't have an announcement of an upcoming new $50 expansion/campaign/big batch of new content. Or was there such an announcement somewhere that I missed?
The problem is they don't have any hardcore content and no meaning to it. i mean ok that last dragon was chalenging but people wont arse to go there cause they can achieve exactly the same rewards with a 1000xtimes easier content. why they bother with a hard dragon more than once..? They don't offer anything worthy to make u wanna go back to play. the only living world event that people wanted to do was the Scarlet one..casue for once the rewards were decent for what we had to do.SPVP is awesome but soon repeditive and without any real reward. same goes for WvWvW. Still after all this time there is no Carot in the stick to make u wanna log back in. The Legendary is extremely Hard to Obtain and does not even has so many visual options so why bother? when i have to find a pre cursor that is completely based on RNG.. some might get it in 1 day some play since release and still havent found it.plus some people as me hate WvWvW and still have to explore the whole map so we can complete the 100%map completion and start the legendary weapon saga... so fuck this.... The only thing that is amazing on GW2 is the Graphics,the immersive world the nice sound and lively world but thats all (oh and the no monthly sub....)
Considering the number of legendary and ascended weapons I see around, there is a ton of no lifers playing GW2.
The people complaining that there is nothing to do at the end game actually mean "there is nothing I want to do". Which is fair. For me, that don't want to raid, there is nothing to do at the end game of many MMORPGs either.
About the OP.
Well if you have been playing since January and didn't play anything new maybe you aren't really playing.
Oh it is gone? But haven't you played it already?
So you missed new content that is now gone?
Well there is now new content.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
The problem is they don't have any hardcore content and no meaning to it. i mean ok that last dragon was chalenging but people wont arse to go there cause they can achieve exactly the same rewards with a 1000xtimes easier content. why they bother with a hard dragon more than once..? They don't offer anything worthy to make u wanna go back to play. the only living world event that people wanted to do was the Scarlet one..casue for once the rewards were decent for what we had to do.SPVP is awesome but soon repeditive and without any real reward. same goes for WvWvW. Still after all this time there is no Carot in the stick to make u wanna log back in. The Legendary is extremely Hard to Obtain and does not even has so many visual options so why bother? when i have to find a pre cursor that is completely based on RNG.. some might get it in 1 day some play since release and still havent found it.plus some people as me hate WvWvW and still have to explore the whole map so we can complete the 100%map completion and start the legendary weapon saga... so fuck this.... The only thing that is amazing on GW2 is the Graphics,the immersive world the nice sound and lively world but thats all (oh and the no monthly sub....)
A good guild can easily do Tequatl - the event doesn't take that long,
Of course now there is also ascended weapons if grinding items is your thing and there is new rewards for WvW.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Content that isn't available when I'm ready to play it is content that I can't play--and as far as I'm concerned, content that may just as well have never existed.
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As for homitu (I'm not going to quote your whole post, but I'll reply here anyway), don't you think it is even the slightest bit odd that if the game had a patch that did nothing more than return instanced content to the game that has since been removed, that that would be far and away the biggest new content patch since the game launched? Do you really expect ArenaNet to keep the game in that state forever while continuing to pay employees to create a bunch of content that they won't allow the overwhelming majority of their players to ever see? I realize that people sometimes make strange, inexplicable decisions, but that would probably be the most baffling decision in the history of the gaming industry.
Do I think it's odd that rereleasing the total sum of every combined patch would be larger than any one individual patch by itself? What?
Again, it's like our minds are on totally different wavelengths, which is the main source of my astonishment in this conversation. I understand that you may not personally value the merits of temporary content, but you sound like you don't even recognize those merits or the fact that others may value them. What temporary, frequent content brings to the table:
They bring the entire player-base together to the presently highlighted content. Particularly as MMOs age, one issue they face is a thinning out of the population. You encounter ever sparser zones. GW2's biweekly content updates make good use of all of Tyria and consistently gets players to play together in the same areas. It keeps the whole world feeling relevant, alive, and populated.
Events that come and pass create a sense of an ongoing timeline.
Events that are temporary in nature makes participating in them feel more special. This may sound trivial, but the effect is very real for many players. It simply feels cooler to be a part of something you know not everyone will be able to say they were a part of one day. Every MMO has this element to some extent (ie. back in vanilla WoW we had to raid Molten Core with 40 players, up hill both ways), but frequent temporary content creates an opportunity for this every month at least. These are the moments stories are made of.
The converse of this is that if you miss a couple months, it doesn't matter. That content may be gone - and I think that's what really bums you out - but it's not about the past content, it's about the present content. At any given time in GW2, you're given a load of new stuff to do. Maybe it's just my present casual nature, but I can barely keep up with these updates. I'm never done with the present set of achievements and activities before the next set comes out. There wouldn't be any time to go back and do past stuff. Present content demands my attention!
(It should be noted that I have missed periods of GW2. I recently missed the entire rerelease of the Super Adventure Box because I was busy playing FFXIV, and I was sooo looking forward to that patch. But I'm totally OK with having missed it because A) It'll be back, and it's not something to look forward to, and I truly value this sense of an evolving timeline where, just like real life, if you weren't present for an event, you miss it.)
(A second note: while this is a cool concept that was always intended for GW2, the periods for each event have been adjusted to last a full month at the very least. They tried literal one-time-only events during the release of Southsun Cove, and that was far too constraining on players. There's obviously a balance you have to strike between making the events feel like evolving events that move on and not screwing hundreds of thousands of players who are presently playing the game and want to see the content but couldn't make it on while it was out. A full month allows anyone who is presently playing the game plenty of time to explore all the new content.)
Players' attention span for any one bit of content is extraordinarily limited, and I'm sure Anet, who has all the data at their disposal, knows exactly what I'm talking about. Back in April, Super Adventure Box came out as a surprise release to utterly rave reviews. Players went gaga over it. They played the heck out of it for the first week. During the second week, many were still going strong, but many players had also returned to the 'regular' game. I'd venture to guess that by the third and fourth weeks, the number of individual SAB runs was less than 5% of what it was during the first week. So many sub points here:
If it had remained out permanently, it would be just another Keg Brawl, which players barely ever touch. You might feel like soloing it for kicks one night, but good luck finding a bunch of people who are uber excited to join you.
If it's taken away and rereleased, on the other hand, it becomes the hot new craze all over again. People are looking to run it left and right, which would NEVER be the case if it were left up permanently. Temporariness focuses player interest. (Side note, the same thing goes for the Mad King's Clock tower. I know I and many others couldn't WAIT for its return. As soon as that halloween patch it, I was in there jumping around like a little bunny. I would never ever have gotten that excited to do it again if it had been left up the whole time. I might have casually revisited it one night in may for fun, but that would have been over and done with in a few minutes; and I probably would have been alone. It may seem like a backwards tactic, but depriving players of certain content really can make them enjoy it all the more when it's released to them again. On the surface this sounds really dubious, but I legitimately feel that as long as we're constantly given something fresh and new to do in the present and not just being stripped of content for the sake of it with nothing to do during the interim, I'm completely fine with it, knowing just how much it manages to get me excited for certain bits of content over, and over, and over again.)
Currently, two patches overlap at all times, and we already see the players virtually abandon the previous patch's content in favor of the new one. There is simply always something new to do in GW2. Something new just came out that you have to work on for the next couple weeks, then there will something new after that. The focus is always looking forward. You may say you wish something was still around, but the reality is you'd probably rarely (and possibly never) return to it.
This isn't that different from traditional MMOs, where all content seems to have its moment in the sun and then becomes completely obsolete as an expansion hits, or a new raid tier. I would LOVE to be able to legitimately run AQ20 or SSC/TK or Ulduar hard modes in WoW again, but that's just not possible. It's technically 'there'. It hasn't been removed from the game, but it might as well be.
The amount of 'wasted' content is also staggering in every other MMO ever. Take leveling in most MMOs, for example. After you've reached level 30, you have absolutely no reason to return to that level 15-20 zone, no matter how awesome it is or how much you love it. You're done with it. Every dungeon you can only do at a certain level, every quest, every zone - once you surpass its relevance, you have use for it. Unless you're rolling more alts, that content is pretty much wasted. To continue with the last bullet point's example, if you look at the sum total content in a 9 year old game like WoW, well over 95% of it is completely and utterly irrelevant and unused at the moment. We're talking several dozen zones, dungeons and raids, and several thousand quests that players sitting at max level have no use for. In that light, I actually think GW2 does a remarkable job at keeping a huge portion of its content relevant to every player/character. But this is slightly another point entirely.
(Sorry for the ghastly formatting. I find it impossible to make any of my walls of text remotely aesthetically pleasing on this site.)
Now I understand the cons of temporary content too, but I'm not going to bother going through those as well. Even if the cons far outweigh the pros for you, can you really not understand how other people could enjoy this model?
As for my expectations for ArenaNet, I expect ArenaNet to continue to refine this unique development process to include more and more permanent content over time. I too hope for a traditional 'expansion' someday in addition to the slowly evolving world they've got going on. But I definitely don't expect them to drop temporary content because it's working so darn well for them right now, and, believe it or not (I know you're having a hard time empathizing with perspectives other than your own here), many players apparently thoroughly enjoy having new stuff to do every two weeks.
Anyway, it's getting late and I see my quality of writing severely tanking. I'm thinking I've got a blog post (which will hopefully be much more concise, organized, and eloquent) to work on because this topic and various players' perceptions of it just drives me crazy.
Responding to your bullet points in order:
1) Yes, the problem of thinning out a player base is real in MMORPGs. There are easy solutions to it which ArenaNet pointedly avoided, but that's a different topic for another time. But temporary content is a cause of such thinning, not a solution to it. By telling players, you have to do this content right now or else you'll never be able to do so, they pull players away from the game's main content, leaving the playerbase more thinly spread everywhere else.
2) Whether or not a sense of time advancing is a good thing, permanent content gives a much stronger dose of it than temporary content. Indeed, the impetus for creating this thread was the realization that I had played the game for quite a while and it hadn't changed much in that time, as the changes were mostly minor tinkering around the edges. Fixing bugs and improving play balance are certainly good things, and I'm not complaining about most of the minor changes there.
3) I've always thought that temporary events felt more fake, like a brief distraction from the "real" game. It's been like this in every MMORPG I've ever played. Maybe this is a philosophical difference at the heart of our disagreement.
(skipping some bullet points)
4) On the Keg Brawl comparison, that is a good point. When some piece of content has so few players across the entire playerbase that you can't even fill one instance of it, the content effectively dies. You can make a case for rotating out content that would often be dead like that, but it doesn't make much of a case for taking down content that would be actively played indefinitely.
(skipping some more bullet points)
5) You say that this isn't that different from other MMORPGs. And a lot of games do add seasonal content. But usually it's relatively minor amounts of seasonal content while the permanent content gets the bulk of the attention. Having nearly all new content be so short term is highly unusual.
You mention WoW expansions deprecating old content. And I'll agree that that's a huge problem. But it's one that other games have already solved successfully, including Guild Wars 1. I didn't buy GW1 until 2007, by which time, Factions and Nightfall were already out. But I was still able to play through Prophecies at that point and get something fairly close to the original intended experience. While there were a lot of play-balance tweaks in that time, as I owned only Prophecies, I used Prophecies classes, skills, and gear only. And then I was able to play through Factions as well with something close to the original intended experience. Had Prophecies and Factions been taken down to make way for Nightfall, I probably wouldn't have liked the game so much.
6) And yes, a lot of games end up with a lot of wasted content. But it doesn't always end up that way, as I mentioned above.
Furthermore, even if someone who quit WoW four years ago comes back to it today and finds that the old content is mostly dead, there is a lot of new content available for him to play that is still very active.
In the traditional MMORPG content models, if you play through all of the content that you care to and then quit, you can often wait a couple of years and come back to a lot of new content to enjoy. That's a reason to come back, and perhaps to buy a new expansion or whatever while you're at it. But if all new content was temporary and nearly all of it has been removed before you return, then there's never any reason to come back to the game.
I find it completely baffling that a company would want to spend a ton of money on continued development while openly telling players, if you quit once, there will never be any reason to ever come back. Which is why I don't believe that ArenaNet would really do that long-term. Hence this thread.
I'm pretty sure ANet are not adding a full blown expansion because of their Gw1 experience, you know, when older zones became deserts while new ones got all the hype. It's a problem in every single MMO including WoW with its few millions of players. And there is no easy way of changing that. They are trying with living story. So far the living story has been in low population regions to boost player activity on those zones.
The primary consideration that causes new content to kill old is power creep. Guild Wars 1 had a milder case of it than most MMORPGs, but the rewards for content in each new campaign or expansion greatly exceeded the previous. If the new content doesn't give clearly better rewards than the old, then the new content won't kill the old.
I'm pretty sure ANet are not adding a full blown expansion because of their Gw1 experience, you know, when older zones became deserts while new ones got all the hype. It's a problem in every single MMO including WoW with its few millions of players. And there is no easy way of changing that. They are trying with living story. So far the living story has been in low population regions to boost player activity on those zones.
The primary consideration that causes new content to kill old is power creep. Guild Wars 1 had a milder case of it than most MMORPGs, but the rewards for content in each new campaign or expansion greatly exceeded the previous. If the new content doesn't give clearly better rewards than the old, then the new content won't kill the old.
Well it wouldn't be an expansion without better armor/weapon skins and stuff like that. That's what drives Gw2 community. Without the new skins/zones/etc. , face it, it's living story. And even the living story adds new skins (e.g. Kasmeer's Staff - which is BEAUTIFUL)
I would request a rationalization of how temporary events feel more fake than permanent ones.
Permanent aspects to a game are by their function, immutable. You might be expanding the 'content' in the sense of there being statistically more one could do at any given moment, but it does not address that the new content tends to override the previous content in terms of value and people's choice to play.
Trying to judge what content might be played 'indefinitely' seems like an exceptionally vague notion itself. In general I can't particularly think of titles that kept old content on equal footing as new content as far as people's interests goes.
Even the original Guild Wars was subject to this migration when expansions came out. The saving grace was that each expansion acted almost as a game unto it's own to run through the content in, sharing multiple interacting narratives rather than linearly expanding a single one. If not for that aspect, the tendency for people to rather literally speed run the core content to power level a character would probably have been more severe as they would simply be chugging their way as quickly as possible to the new content instead of it standing alongside the old content.
On the flip-side, temporary events and content is specifically fluid in nature. If nothing remains post-event, then that's certainly a problem as far as the game not expanding or moving forward. However, if aspects of the game world are being permanently adapted and influenced by the events over time, then that would imply the game is experiencing a forward evolution.
Asheron's call would be a strong example of this. The major events that happened in that game were all temporary, they happened once and they were gone from there on. The impact? The world changed with the outcome of of the player's activity during that event. At one point it was a stark visual contrast, as the big baddie was able to convert the place into a much more evil place, with water becoming blood and what-not for a strong visual evolution.
Things are naturally fleeting in their nature, so I am generally confused as to how you come to the notion that permanent content would more accurately depict a changing world than something more mutable.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I find it completely baffling that a company would want to spend a ton of money on continued development while openly telling players, if you quit once, there will never be any reason to ever come back. Which is why I don't believe that ArenaNet would really do that long-term. Hence this thread.
I already said they're not. I pointed out the PvE content you missed, the increase in persistent PvE content, and the fact they actaully came out and said that in the future there will be more permanent content.
So your question is answered.
They're not doing that long-term and you actually underestimated the amount they've added already.
Originally posted by sumdumguy1 At some point, I know I will head back and check out the game again, just don't know when.
What exactly are you waiting for? Right now is the biggest group oriented content in a while, for both WvW (Season 1) and PvE (Nightmare Within). Unless you're waiting for a major balance patch, which is weeks away on December 10th?
Tequatl isn't done much any more after his whole two-week special, although he's still there and powerful as ever. People are still running the new TA-Aetherblade path a month after it was in. Not sure what's going to happen to the giant thistle plant in Kessix Hills after this patch event, but I'm sure that based on players feeding enough anti-toxin into it, it's going away (thankfully),. The next patch hints at possibly bringing in new Fractals (hoping for the ones that were promised during Cutthroat Politics), but you never know. Also, missing out on Wintersday would be a crime!
The Red Sox won the 2013 World Series! Let's all get tickets and go to Fenway Park and watch game 6 again! Oh wait... that was temporary content and is no longer there. Instead, being a Boston fan all around, I have to watch the Patriots season while remembering the warm and fuzzy of the Sox win. Damn... who injected this living story content into my life?
According to today's NCSoft earning report, GW2 made another ~$23M last quarter for a combined ~$83M in 2013 so far.
It seems Anet is in no hurry to release an expansion and has time to make sure it is well polished and feature rich.
I haven't listened to the conference call yet to know more about China release and expansion plans.
24.5 billion won. is the $23 million, which you're spot on about. Nice amount, honestly, for a game that is "dying" by the naysayers.
Wildstar is taking up an increase in the company's marketing costs due to increased coverage in the US and EU.
The new head office, which is on their homepage, is a mass expensive for the company, which they recognize.
As for the Chinese release of GW2, gearing up for another round of testing. Don't anticipate too many additional tests, don't have decided release just yet. 3rd CBT is about to start soon.
About 1/4th through.
Edit: I don't have time to listen to the full thing before going to work, so I'm unsure if there's anything mentioned on an expansion, but I'll try to listen to the rest later tonight.
I'm pretty sure ANet are not adding a full blown expansion because of their Gw1 experience, you know, when older zones became deserts while new ones got all the hype. It's a problem in every single MMO including WoW with its few millions of players. And there is no easy way of changing that. They are trying with living story. So far the living story has been in low population regions to boost player activity on those zones.
The primary consideration that causes new content to kill old is power creep. Guild Wars 1 had a milder case of it than most MMORPGs, but the rewards for content in each new campaign or expansion greatly exceeded the previous. If the new content doesn't give clearly better rewards than the old, then the new content won't kill the old.
Well it wouldn't be an expansion without better armor/weapon skins and stuff like that. That's what drives Gw2 community. Without the new skins/zones/etc. , face it, it's living story. And even the living story adds new skins (e.g. Kasmeer's Staff - which is BEAUTIFUL)
New skins, new armors, new zones, etc., sure. Better armors, better weapons, etc? In many MMORPGs, sure, but GW1 largely attracted players trying to get away from that. Factions didn't offer stronger weapons than Prophecies, but did let you make gold faster. Same with Nightfall as compared to Factions.
I find it completely baffling that a company would want to spend a ton of money on continued development while openly telling players, if you quit once, there will never be any reason to ever come back. Which is why I don't believe that ArenaNet would really do that long-term. Hence this thread.
I already said they're not. I pointed out the PvE content you missed, the increase in persistent PvE content, and the fact they actaully came out and said that in the future there will be more permanent content.
So your question is answered.
They're not doing that long-term and you actually underestimated the amount they've added already.
So.. .thread over? :O
All right. Let's look at your post. I did miss the addition of guild stuff. I'll probably only be on when my guild is doing it every couple of months or so, but it isn't removed entirely by ArenaNet, so to be fair, it counts. I also missed some new minigames, though some of those are hardly PVE. Without counting myself, I'll accept your claim that Scarlet Invasions constitutes seven new events. Whether adding a handful of craftable weapons constitutes content is debatable, and I'd classify it as endgame as opposed to content, but for the sake of argument, let's say that it counts. But that's it for new, permanent PVE content that you find that I previously missed and could find by specifically looking for it after you said what to look for. So that basically means that so far this year, ArenaNet has increased the amount of PVE content by something like 1% or 2%. Hence this thread.
Is focusing on permanent PVE content too narrow? One could make a case for it; someone who prefers PVP might well have a very different take on how much ArenaNet has added to the game this year. But if someone claims that some particular NFL team hasn't drafted a decent defensive lineman this century, listing good offensive players, or high-priced free agents that the team has signed, or claiming that the team has been to the playoffs a few times doesn't constitute disputing the claim.
I hope you're right that ArenaNet will add a lot more PVE content in the future. And I suspect that you are. But vague promises that there will be more of a focus on permanent content in the future is not at all similar to specific claims that, say, there is an expansion coming next Spring that will open up a number of zones in the Crystal Desert where we'll fight Kralkatorrak and avenge Glint's death.
I will have to check out Kessex this week, but, yeah, basically, IMO, the past year and the entire Living Story fiasco have been a complete development failure given the context of the core game and the importance of Dynamic Event content in the successful core game design.
We'd all be better off if they would get rid of who ever imagined and championed "Living Story" and got back to their original design doctrines.
That they continued to double down on Living Story, rather than admitting the mistake and charting a new course, just adds to the frustration.
(There are a lot of clues that the problems are organizational, with the root of the troubles going back to NCSoft and Arenanet's unwillingness to properly reward their developers and pay key people what ever was needed to keep them working for the studio. Apparently, remaining veterans have been kept in the fold with promotions, rather than appropriate pay raises and this has resulted in many key leadership positions being filled by people that just aren't capable).
The game, at launch, was incredible and the path for snowballing the game's success by building on the core foundations was clear. For what ever reasons, the studio took a completely wrong turn and the longer they continue down that path, the further they get from a turn around that could put this game back on track towards it's original promise and potential.
I for one like the Living Story content BUT I always thought it would be filler stuff between expansions. To have only LS content with no new dragon, personal stories, weapons, races, classes, or any combination has been a let down. Don't get my wrong, I love this game, but it's getting boring quick.
Should I have the same expectations from a non sub game as a sub game? I think so considering the quality of GW2. Anet is slowly going to lose their players attention. Oh well I guess we'll see what we'll see.
Our 100 plus membership quild has died in GW2 due to there being no new expansion, or even the announcement of one this year. Most of us have gone back to previous games such as LotRO, WOW etc. Some are playing single player games and some are about to buy one of the new consoles.
It looks like EQNL will be the next thing to pull us back together now. I know several of us have already bought founders packs and others have expressed the intention to do so.
I really don't understand Arenanet's strategy. We all expected it to play out like GW1 and have regular expansions. Instead, it seems they've killed the golden goose as I just can't see they can be making the same sort of money from the cash shop.
I can't remember how long it took for a new expansion in any of the games you mentioned ? ...perhaps time goes by a little faster as you get older . If the reason your 100 plus member guild died was they didn't have an expansion in 16 months of play I'm afraid the choices you have in the mmo gender are few to none .
The difference being that those games mentioned had significant content added between expansions, even if the first expansion took 2 years. With GW2 the only significant content update has been fractals. The fluff living story is intended to keep people logging in regularly, but is just really annoying.
This piecemeal style approach doesn't really appeal to anyone wanting a nice decent chunk of content. You might argue that old content is redundant in other MMOs, but I spent large quantities of time farming old zones in Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft to get appearance items to use.
I think ArenaNet would be surprised by how many players would become active again if they started introducing permanent content.
Our 100 plus membership quild has died in GW2 due to there being no new expansion, or even the announcement of one this year. Most of us have gone back to previous games such as LotRO, WOW etc. Some are playing single player games and some are about to buy one of the new consoles.
It looks like EQNL will be the next thing to pull us back together now. I know several of us have already bought founders packs and others have expressed the intention to do so.
I really don't understand Arenanet's strategy. We all expected it to play out like GW1 and have regular expansions. Instead, it seems they've killed the golden goose as I just can't see they can be making the same sort of money from the cash shop.
I can't remember how long it took for a new expansion in any of the games you mentioned ? ...perhaps time goes by a little faster as you get older . If the reason your 100 plus member guild died was they didn't have an expansion in 16 months of play I'm afraid the choices you have in the mmo gender are few to none .
The difference being that those games mentioned had significant content added between expansions, even if the first expansion took 2 years. With GW2 the only significant content update has been fractals. The fluff living story is intended to keep people logging in regularly, but is just really annoying.
This piecemeal style approach doesn't really appeal to anyone wanting a nice decent chunk of content. You might argue that old content is redundant in other MMOs, but I spent large quantities of time farming old zones in Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft to get appearance items to use.
I think ArenaNet would be surprised by how many players would become active again if they started introducing permanent content.
I think Fractals is the answer to this. It finds a way around the lore, so the persistence of these things aren't redundant. I think they could improve on fractals too by adding the ability for a player to choose a dungeon..or as a whole create a separate system for such things, like a time warp/portal. Asuran tech makes almost anything possible.
There has very clearly been a ton of content over the past 10 months, including all those things you say there were zero of. There were zones. There were dungeons. There were new bits of story. There was group PvE and solo PvE. There were unique mini games.
You sure have to use the past tense a lot there. Why not the present tense? After all, if we can use the past tense, then Star Wars: Galaxies and City of Heroes had a lot of content. But that doesn't do any good to someone who wants to play today.
One thing that is very, very important to me is that a game should fit itself around my schedule, rather than demanding that I rearrange my real-life schedule around a game. Content that isn't available when I'm ready to play it is content that I can't play--and as far as I'm concerned, content that may just as well have never existed.
Spot on! Jay for more permanent content! Living Story is okay for a while, but that's not what will bring in new players, nor keep the players around that can't sit down behind their computers for hours every single week.
Temporary content isn't really content at all, just something that will be there a while and then be gone again as if it were never there.
Spot on! Jay for more permanent content! Living Story is okay for a while, but that's not what will bring in new players, nor keep the players around that can't sit down behind their computers for hours every single week.
Temporary content isn't really content at all, just something that will be there a while and then be gone again as if it were never there.
Except ever since they said they'd be having more of the living story stuff be permanent, more of it has been.
They added the Scarlet invasions, the new TA path is permanent, new Tequatl is permanent, this tower and the new events around Kessex look to be sticking around for a while (Unsure how long or in what forms, but at the rate the antitoxin is being injected, it's at LEAST lasting through the end of the year), and next patch they're adding more fractals.
So Living story is fine for content addition, if they use it as a vehicle to add more permanent content. Living Story isn't the problem, the problem was that stuff wasn't sticking around.
I think the TA Aetherblades path or the Tequatl addition were good examples of what to keep temporary... namely, the achievements are divided into permanent achievements (Both of those had permanent achievements people could work for), temporary achievements that lasted a month, and daily achievements basically just to get bonus thematic achievement points, and so you could get your daily while still doing the current content.
All the actual content was permanent though. Since August 20th (3 months ago), they've sort of changed how Living Story has been working. If they keep trending more in this direction, then it'll be exactly what people are asking for (More permanent content), while if they trend away from what they've been doing, it'll be back to what it was like earlier in the year. ... but so far it's heading in an apparently positive direction.
Comments
I have no idea where you get this information. The new WvW map is scheduled to be tested this coming spring by their own words. The actual release is not likely to happen for quite some time my guess would be summer but who knows maybe later. So in regards to WvW, the only addition they have gotten in a year and a half will be Wxp, which is a really a cheap corny addition if you ask me. Sure it adds playstyles but its not real substance.
In regards to the new map, it will not effect score, it will not be able to be joined by guilds or more then a party worths of people. It will be random assignment of sides and be several hours long matches, and only in the overflow. I would not exactly call that a new map. Its something, its a step in the right direction sure, but wow very little for that long of time. At this rare perhaps we can see new BL maps in 3-5 years.
In all reality by the time they release the new map many new MMO's with similar PVP styles will be out. I am not sure if GW2 will be able to compete, but that remains to be seen.
As far as substance, I personally thing its a tragedy how this game has be run post launch. The decision to focus resources on the LS was a huge mistake, that they keep making as far as I'm concerned. We want a growing, changing world, not some sitcom with a retarded villainess. The game had and has much potential and is a good base game, the team running it is just frankly incompetent and feel they have no competition so they can get away with it. I could quote the 'Manifesto' and sight all the things they have not done or promises not kept but we all know so whats the point. I applaud those who see change or hope on the future, good for you, I see absolutely nothing to base that on myself. If they have gone this route for this long, what makes you think they would not continue to do so?
Atleast unlike other game companies ANet actually is listening to its players. People were complaining that living story content goes away too fast, they kept the content from the last 3 story updates (new TA path, and the tower). They are going to bring us the aetherblade dungeon in the form of fractals and many others. The world is changing, starting with kessex hills.
People were also complaining that the story was shallow and the story telling was bad - they added voice overed cutscenes and NPC chatter that is completely voiced. And bit by bit you start seeing how Scarlet is connected with the dragons.
And IMO they stayed true to their manifesto. There is no gear treadmill. Nobody is forcing you to farm. Exotic can be obtained within a week of gameplay. You do not need anything better than that. Sure they added Ascended and many people cried all over the place and went crazy about it, but if you look closer, ascended is only 10% improvement, so its really is no biggie and Colin said that ascended will be the top for few years. That is okay for me. They will also add new legendaries which is cool.
Gw2 is a revolution in MMOs. As such, they have hard time expanding on it because they've changed so much, none of the previous "tricks" works for them. Everything they do is different than other MMOs. They've put out more content for 60$ (40 now AFAIK) than any other MMO company with or without subscription. That is a fact!
Fell through? You need to get caught up on current events, or at least have some knowledge of the game you're intent on bashing. They're adding new content every two weeks, with a greater focus on keeping more of that permanent (at the request of the community). They've easily added as much if not more content than most sub-based games over the same period of time, and more is coming on a continual basis. They're making plenty of cash without milking customers of a monthly fee (nothing like charging your customers a quarter of the box price every month or the box they paid for becomes worthless...).
You may not like the game for whatever reasons, but at least dislike it in the light of reality. It's a wonderfully successful game from a company that had the bollocks to try a few things completely new in an age of MMO stagnation.
Oderint, dum metuant.
The problem is they don't have any hardcore content and no meaning to it. i mean ok that last dragon was chalenging but people wont arse to go there cause they can achieve exactly the same rewards with a 1000xtimes easier content. why they bother with a hard dragon more than once..? They don't offer anything worthy to make u wanna go back to play. the only living world event that people wanted to do was the Scarlet one..casue for once the rewards were decent for what we had to do.SPVP is awesome but soon repeditive and without any real reward. same goes for WvWvW. Still after all this time there is no Carot in the stick to make u wanna log back in. The Legendary is extremely Hard to Obtain and does not even has so many visual options so why bother? when i have to find a pre cursor that is completely based on RNG.. some might get it in 1 day some play since release and still havent found it.plus some people as me hate WvWvW and still have to explore the whole map so we can complete the 100%map completion and start the legendary weapon saga... so fuck this.... The only thing that is amazing on GW2 is the Graphics,the immersive world the nice sound and lively world but thats all (oh and the no monthly sub....)
Considering the number of legendary and ascended weapons I see around, there is a ton of no lifers playing GW2.
The people complaining that there is nothing to do at the end game actually mean "there is nothing I want to do". Which is fair. For me, that don't want to raid, there is nothing to do at the end game of many MMORPGs either.
About the OP.
Well if you have been playing since January and didn't play anything new maybe you aren't really playing.
Oh it is gone? But haven't you played it already?
So you missed new content that is now gone?
Well there is now new content.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
A good guild can easily do Tequatl - the event doesn't take that long,
Of course now there is also ascended weapons if grinding items is your thing and there is new rewards for WvW.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Responding to your bullet points in order:
1) Yes, the problem of thinning out a player base is real in MMORPGs. There are easy solutions to it which ArenaNet pointedly avoided, but that's a different topic for another time. But temporary content is a cause of such thinning, not a solution to it. By telling players, you have to do this content right now or else you'll never be able to do so, they pull players away from the game's main content, leaving the playerbase more thinly spread everywhere else.
2) Whether or not a sense of time advancing is a good thing, permanent content gives a much stronger dose of it than temporary content. Indeed, the impetus for creating this thread was the realization that I had played the game for quite a while and it hadn't changed much in that time, as the changes were mostly minor tinkering around the edges. Fixing bugs and improving play balance are certainly good things, and I'm not complaining about most of the minor changes there.
3) I've always thought that temporary events felt more fake, like a brief distraction from the "real" game. It's been like this in every MMORPG I've ever played. Maybe this is a philosophical difference at the heart of our disagreement.
(skipping some bullet points)
4) On the Keg Brawl comparison, that is a good point. When some piece of content has so few players across the entire playerbase that you can't even fill one instance of it, the content effectively dies. You can make a case for rotating out content that would often be dead like that, but it doesn't make much of a case for taking down content that would be actively played indefinitely.
(skipping some more bullet points)
5) You say that this isn't that different from other MMORPGs. And a lot of games do add seasonal content. But usually it's relatively minor amounts of seasonal content while the permanent content gets the bulk of the attention. Having nearly all new content be so short term is highly unusual.
You mention WoW expansions deprecating old content. And I'll agree that that's a huge problem. But it's one that other games have already solved successfully, including Guild Wars 1. I didn't buy GW1 until 2007, by which time, Factions and Nightfall were already out. But I was still able to play through Prophecies at that point and get something fairly close to the original intended experience. While there were a lot of play-balance tweaks in that time, as I owned only Prophecies, I used Prophecies classes, skills, and gear only. And then I was able to play through Factions as well with something close to the original intended experience. Had Prophecies and Factions been taken down to make way for Nightfall, I probably wouldn't have liked the game so much.
6) And yes, a lot of games end up with a lot of wasted content. But it doesn't always end up that way, as I mentioned above.
Furthermore, even if someone who quit WoW four years ago comes back to it today and finds that the old content is mostly dead, there is a lot of new content available for him to play that is still very active.
In the traditional MMORPG content models, if you play through all of the content that you care to and then quit, you can often wait a couple of years and come back to a lot of new content to enjoy. That's a reason to come back, and perhaps to buy a new expansion or whatever while you're at it. But if all new content was temporary and nearly all of it has been removed before you return, then there's never any reason to come back to the game.
I find it completely baffling that a company would want to spend a ton of money on continued development while openly telling players, if you quit once, there will never be any reason to ever come back. Which is why I don't believe that ArenaNet would really do that long-term. Hence this thread.
The primary consideration that causes new content to kill old is power creep. Guild Wars 1 had a milder case of it than most MMORPGs, but the rewards for content in each new campaign or expansion greatly exceeded the previous. If the new content doesn't give clearly better rewards than the old, then the new content won't kill the old.
Well it wouldn't be an expansion without better armor/weapon skins and stuff like that. That's what drives Gw2 community. Without the new skins/zones/etc. , face it, it's living story. And even the living story adds new skins (e.g. Kasmeer's Staff - which is BEAUTIFUL)
I would request a rationalization of how temporary events feel more fake than permanent ones.
Permanent aspects to a game are by their function, immutable. You might be expanding the 'content' in the sense of there being statistically more one could do at any given moment, but it does not address that the new content tends to override the previous content in terms of value and people's choice to play.
Trying to judge what content might be played 'indefinitely' seems like an exceptionally vague notion itself. In general I can't particularly think of titles that kept old content on equal footing as new content as far as people's interests goes.
Even the original Guild Wars was subject to this migration when expansions came out. The saving grace was that each expansion acted almost as a game unto it's own to run through the content in, sharing multiple interacting narratives rather than linearly expanding a single one. If not for that aspect, the tendency for people to rather literally speed run the core content to power level a character would probably have been more severe as they would simply be chugging their way as quickly as possible to the new content instead of it standing alongside the old content.
On the flip-side, temporary events and content is specifically fluid in nature. If nothing remains post-event, then that's certainly a problem as far as the game not expanding or moving forward. However, if aspects of the game world are being permanently adapted and influenced by the events over time, then that would imply the game is experiencing a forward evolution.
Asheron's call would be a strong example of this. The major events that happened in that game were all temporary, they happened once and they were gone from there on. The impact? The world changed with the outcome of of the player's activity during that event. At one point it was a stark visual contrast, as the big baddie was able to convert the place into a much more evil place, with water becoming blood and what-not for a strong visual evolution.
Things are naturally fleeting in their nature, so I am generally confused as to how you come to the notion that permanent content would more accurately depict a changing world than something more mutable.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I already said they're not. I pointed out the PvE content you missed, the increase in persistent PvE content, and the fact they actaully came out and said that in the future there will be more permanent content.
So your question is answered.
They're not doing that long-term and you actually underestimated the amount they've added already.
So.. .thread over? :O
What exactly are you waiting for? Right now is the biggest group oriented content in a while, for both WvW (Season 1) and PvE (Nightmare Within). Unless you're waiting for a major balance patch, which is weeks away on December 10th?
Tequatl isn't done much any more after his whole two-week special, although he's still there and powerful as ever. People are still running the new TA-Aetherblade path a month after it was in. Not sure what's going to happen to the giant thistle plant in Kessix Hills after this patch event, but I'm sure that based on players feeding enough anti-toxin into it, it's going away (thankfully),. The next patch hints at possibly bringing in new Fractals (hoping for the ones that were promised during Cutthroat Politics), but you never know. Also, missing out on Wintersday would be a crime!
According to today's NCSoft earning report, GW2 made another ~$23M last quarter for a combined ~$83M in 2013 so far.
It seems Anet is in no hurry to release an expansion and has time to make sure it is well polished and feature rich.
I haven't listened to the conference call yet to know more about China release and expansion plans.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Good news everyone!
The Red Sox won the 2013 World Series! Let's all get tickets and go to Fenway Park and watch game 6 again! Oh wait... that was temporary content and is no longer there. Instead, being a Boston fan all around, I have to watch the Patriots season while remembering the warm and fuzzy of the Sox win. Damn... who injected this living story content into my life?
Oderint, dum metuant.
24.5 billion won. is the $23 million, which you're spot on about. Nice amount, honestly, for a game that is "dying" by the naysayers.
Wildstar is taking up an increase in the company's marketing costs due to increased coverage in the US and EU.
The new head office, which is on their homepage, is a mass expensive for the company, which they recognize.
As for the Chinese release of GW2, gearing up for another round of testing. Don't anticipate too many additional tests, don't have decided release just yet. 3rd CBT is about to start soon.
About 1/4th through.
Edit: I don't have time to listen to the full thing before going to work, so I'm unsure if there's anything mentioned on an expansion, but I'll try to listen to the rest later tonight.
New skins, new armors, new zones, etc., sure. Better armors, better weapons, etc? In many MMORPGs, sure, but GW1 largely attracted players trying to get away from that. Factions didn't offer stronger weapons than Prophecies, but did let you make gold faster. Same with Nightfall as compared to Factions.
All right. Let's look at your post. I did miss the addition of guild stuff. I'll probably only be on when my guild is doing it every couple of months or so, but it isn't removed entirely by ArenaNet, so to be fair, it counts. I also missed some new minigames, though some of those are hardly PVE. Without counting myself, I'll accept your claim that Scarlet Invasions constitutes seven new events. Whether adding a handful of craftable weapons constitutes content is debatable, and I'd classify it as endgame as opposed to content, but for the sake of argument, let's say that it counts. But that's it for new, permanent PVE content that you find that I previously missed and could find by specifically looking for it after you said what to look for. So that basically means that so far this year, ArenaNet has increased the amount of PVE content by something like 1% or 2%. Hence this thread.
Is focusing on permanent PVE content too narrow? One could make a case for it; someone who prefers PVP might well have a very different take on how much ArenaNet has added to the game this year. But if someone claims that some particular NFL team hasn't drafted a decent defensive lineman this century, listing good offensive players, or high-priced free agents that the team has signed, or claiming that the team has been to the playoffs a few times doesn't constitute disputing the claim.
I hope you're right that ArenaNet will add a lot more PVE content in the future. And I suspect that you are. But vague promises that there will be more of a focus on permanent content in the future is not at all similar to specific claims that, say, there is an expansion coming next Spring that will open up a number of zones in the Crystal Desert where we'll fight Kralkatorrak and avenge Glint's death.
I will have to check out Kessex this week, but, yeah, basically, IMO, the past year and the entire Living Story fiasco have been a complete development failure given the context of the core game and the importance of Dynamic Event content in the successful core game design.
We'd all be better off if they would get rid of who ever imagined and championed "Living Story" and got back to their original design doctrines.
That they continued to double down on Living Story, rather than admitting the mistake and charting a new course, just adds to the frustration.
(There are a lot of clues that the problems are organizational, with the root of the troubles going back to NCSoft and Arenanet's unwillingness to properly reward their developers and pay key people what ever was needed to keep them working for the studio. Apparently, remaining veterans have been kept in the fold with promotions, rather than appropriate pay raises and this has resulted in many key leadership positions being filled by people that just aren't capable).
The game, at launch, was incredible and the path for snowballing the game's success by building on the core foundations was clear. For what ever reasons, the studio took a completely wrong turn and the longer they continue down that path, the further they get from a turn around that could put this game back on track towards it's original promise and potential.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I for one like the Living Story content BUT I always thought it would be filler stuff between expansions. To have only LS content with no new dragon, personal stories, weapons, races, classes, or any combination has been a let down. Don't get my wrong, I love this game, but it's getting boring quick.
Should I have the same expectations from a non sub game as a sub game? I think so considering the quality of GW2. Anet is slowly going to lose their players attention. Oh well I guess we'll see what we'll see.
The difference being that those games mentioned had significant content added between expansions, even if the first expansion took 2 years. With GW2 the only significant content update has been fractals. The fluff living story is intended to keep people logging in regularly, but is just really annoying.
This piecemeal style approach doesn't really appeal to anyone wanting a nice decent chunk of content. You might argue that old content is redundant in other MMOs, but I spent large quantities of time farming old zones in Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft to get appearance items to use.
I think ArenaNet would be surprised by how many players would become active again if they started introducing permanent content.
I think Fractals is the answer to this. It finds a way around the lore, so the persistence of these things aren't redundant. I think they could improve on fractals too by adding the ability for a player to choose a dungeon..or as a whole create a separate system for such things, like a time warp/portal. Asuran tech makes almost anything possible.
Spot on! Jay for more permanent content! Living Story is okay for a while, but that's not what will bring in new players, nor keep the players around that can't sit down behind their computers for hours every single week.
Temporary content isn't really content at all, just something that will be there a while and then be gone again as if it were never there.
Except ever since they said they'd be having more of the living story stuff be permanent, more of it has been.
They added the Scarlet invasions, the new TA path is permanent, new Tequatl is permanent, this tower and the new events around Kessex look to be sticking around for a while (Unsure how long or in what forms, but at the rate the antitoxin is being injected, it's at LEAST lasting through the end of the year), and next patch they're adding more fractals.
So Living story is fine for content addition, if they use it as a vehicle to add more permanent content. Living Story isn't the problem, the problem was that stuff wasn't sticking around.
I think the TA Aetherblades path or the Tequatl addition were good examples of what to keep temporary... namely, the achievements are divided into permanent achievements (Both of those had permanent achievements people could work for), temporary achievements that lasted a month, and daily achievements basically just to get bonus thematic achievement points, and so you could get your daily while still doing the current content.
All the actual content was permanent though. Since August 20th (3 months ago), they've sort of changed how Living Story has been working. If they keep trending more in this direction, then it'll be exactly what people are asking for (More permanent content), while if they trend away from what they've been doing, it'll be back to what it was like earlier in the year. ... but so far it's heading in an apparently positive direction.