Guild Wars 2 May Be The End Of The Franchise

[Jumwa]

Then again, maybe we're just wildly cynical.

Yeah, that.

Seriously, I have no idea where this excessively negative interpretation comes from. It's weird.

Reading the comments quoted in this article it sounds like a guy trying to reassure players that they aren't rushing to sell them a new expansion and they can count on new updates for the existing game world.

 

[cidbahamut]

All I heard was "we're gonna give our core game so much support that we won't need dedicated expansions to beef up the content".
Gradual, constant, organic change over a long period of time much like an actual world. That sounds a lot like what MMOs should have been from day one rather than the staggered influx of content expansions are. I don't see this as something warranting all the doomsday folk with carboard signs. It's just a different approach. One which will arguably require more effort and yield more content overall, but I'm not gonna place a wager on that just yet.

 

[Jennacide]

Something remotely related: They once let slip that they had only 1 or 2 people work on class balance after release... so yeah, was pretty obvious.
Though that may have been an elaborately crafted fake for all I know... they actually seem to have started making actual class changes again.

I'd believe it, as Necro and Mesmer are poorly balanced for anything outside PVP, condition builds are worthless outside of PVP due to the retardedly low 25 condition cap, and Warrior is so OP as to be stupifying. I recently went back to playing with some friends and made a warrior, by lv50 I've face tanked every champion I've come across, and soloed most of them. A task neither my Necro or Thief are even remotely capable of.

As for expansions, they better put something out there against this statement. Knowing that there may not be any more content coming is the fastest way for me to no longer want to play, seeing as Living Story is kinda suck, even they admit that. FoTM was a good idea, but desperately needs more floor types added in before I'm willing to climb it more.

 

[Compatriot Block]

You know what is absolutely astounding to me? The posts I read on the official forums are happy.

Let it sink in. An MMO's official community board is happy about the developer's statement.

 

[UnderGlass]

This is the worst example of misleading, headline grabbing I've seen on the Escapist in a long time. Every alarmist point made is drawn from supposition and unsupported correlation between tenuously related subjects. The tone is also thoroughly subjective, despite all the "we's".

Not a Guild Wars fan here, at all. In fact, I couldn't give rat's arse what happens to the franchise. I am a very disappointed reader of the Escapist though. Did this astoundingly bad article even pass over the editorial desk before it was posted?

 

[gibboss28]

I kind of applaud that idea, but I'm horribly confused how that can remotely be economically feasible. They don't charge for patches, they don't charge for actual content, they don't have any sub fee of any kind, they dont plan on expansions, so the only income is the box fee for Guild Wars 2?

How can that possibly sustain them in the long term?

Is there somethin I'm missin here?

Yes you are missing something - they also have the gem store thing to bring in money. I dont how much money it does actually make from that though or whether they have any plans to expand upon it, but i guess they must make something from it if they aren't planing any expansions and whatnot.

I'm not really sure its bringing in that much money, i mean given the fact you can trade gold for gems and you can get gold pretty easily end game... I dunno, would be interesting to see how much money they're bringing in though.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

This article seems to be assuming a lot, while little of it is based on actual fact, just saying. They haven't said that they are producing any expansions yet, so you just go all out and assume that it is dying? I don't know, maybe, just maybe they don't want to reveal any details about possible expansions or a possible GW3 yet. The game just came out anyway.

Seriously, what the fuck were you thinking when you wrote this?

Besides, the expansions that we've seen to the game so far has been monthly, so instead of getting an expansion every now and then, we've been getting smaller ones every month since the start. I think it's a good way of doing it, might even be better than with larger expansions.

I'd like to see more events like the christmas and halloween events, which had pretty substantial content, but were removed after the holidays.

 

[DementedSheep]

It hasn't been out that long and they need to fix the base game before they even think about adding expansions anyway. From the sound it they are planning on slowly adding more content to the main for now rather than separating it out and releasing an expansion so it's not dead.

Sadly even if they do add expansion it?s not going to be Elona or Cantha. Elona from what I understand is suppose to have been taken over by Joko (undead leader from Nightfall) and NCsoft does not want them to do Cantha because the homogenizing of different Asian cultures is deemed offensive with the in universe excuse of Cantha now being very xenophobic and cut off.

 

[Thomas Offi]

I cannot tell where you, Mr. Cavalli, draw your information from. The quotes presented here indicate exactly the thing I want to see in this game. To me, at least. Long lasting support, more content to be realeased when it fits and enhancing the mechanics which make this game stand out and be unique.

This article was all but the quality I used to see here. Since when do wild assumption, one-sided reporting and waving flag doom were set the standard here?

What is it that changed the escapist lately anyway? I was wondering, all these new authors and shows that feel so out of place and mostly... terribly bad.

If this keeps on I really need to go back to my old habit and only check here wednesday evening.
Zero Punctuation seems to be the only thing left that is worth watching.


So far

 

[VanBasten]

When the Guild Wars franchise made its debut with 2005's aptly titled Guild Wars, it was hailed as a World of Warcraft killer.

Eh... what?

Guild Wars was released only a few months after World of Warcraft.

Nobody hailed it as a WoW-killer, at the time WoW wasn't "WoW" yet.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

I'm not usually that guy, but...IGN is not a reliable source of information about anything. The developer's statement was positive news (depending on your stance) and was not cause for doom and gloom. GW2 is not free-to-play, it's pay-to-play, which is an entirely different monetizing structure. Their only real competition on that front is The Secret World. Also, the headline was very baiting and painted a disingenuous picture of the statement and situation.

I'm not saying any of this to be mean, I just want this site to be the best it can be. Take care and please see this as constructive as that's my intention.

 

[Chaki]

Wow, just wow. Journalism is one thing and this article isn't.

Seriously. GW2 has its flaws, but overall its a good game, a real alternative to WoW in a big way than any "WoW Killer" we saw up until now.
Do they want to kill WoW? I don't think so. It caters to a different clientel, its that simple. And it works. I for my part see those developer comments and must say "Great, they frikkin work on it and we actually feel this InGame!"

 

[VanQ]

Snip.

I agree with most of your post bar one thing. The problem with GW2's microtransaction store isn't that cosmetic items are poor sellers or anything, it's the opposite. It's just the the cosmetic items they have up in their store are shit, cheap enough that you don't have to pay real money to get them and are so few that it takes you hardly any time to get them all.

If they want people to buy their cosmetic stuff they need to cycle in new stuff and cycle out old stuff. This gives the old stuff value for "not being available anymore" and new stuff is always valuable because people like shiny new things. I quit playing after the first month because the game bored me and went back a month ago just to see what the state of the in game store was.

It was nearly identical to how it was 5 months before. That's a crushing disappointment for people that would want to give them money to buy cosmetic stuff. It's painfully obvious that the GW2 team have no idea how to run an in game store. Give people enough time and they'll obtain everything through in game means but give them a time limit and they'll cough up if they want it bad enough.

And for the love of God, update your inventory. If you have the same items in the store for 6 months straight with nothing new then people will just stop checking it altogether. And they should want people to check their store every damn day hoping for something nice and new.

 

[Rachmaninov]

This article makes a terrifying mountain out of an innocuous molehill.

The writer says "We've got a soft spot for the Guild Wars franchise" and yet seems over-keen to predict its total and final doom.

I get the impression that this is in fact written by someone who dislikes Guild Wars, and specifically because of the first paragraph:

"When the Guild Wars franchise made its debut with 2005's aptly titled Guild Wars, it was hailed as a World of Warcraft killer. Fast forward to the present day and Blizzard's MMO is still king of the heap, while the latest Guild Wars title seems to be stagnating at the very least."

That sounds, to me, like the words of those people I've watched from a distance oh-so-many times. The "WoW is the best, everything else that tries to compete can go die in a fire!" people. It sounds more like a "You were wrong, ha ha!" statement, than the words of someone who has a soft spot for the Guild Wars franchise.

And that is why I think you turned a harmless comment into a prediction of doom.

Arenanet say: "We're not planning sequels or DLC for GW2 yet."(no surprise since the game is only six months old.)
Earnest says: "DOOM! DOOOOOM! The franchise is finished FOREVER!"

 

[camazotz]

Some very poor journalism here. I'm not even into GW2 and I can tell its doing well. Everyone I know (except me) has bought and played this pay-to-play (not F2P) game, which has monthly content updates and special events all the time (that I am forced to hear about) and a really dedicated fanbase. The model for this game is that they don't need to release x-pacs...they've got the game itself, the in-game shop for monetization of the existing player base, and the promise of future customers as the game expands to keep things going. Just because they aren't doing it Blizzard-style does not lead to the conclusion GW2 is a failure. The author of this piece appears to be going for inflammatory remarks for one of two reasons: trying for page hits (good luck) or he has a chip on his shoulder about the game for some weird reason. Either way, much fail to be seen here.

 

[NortherWolf]

Yeah...I see the title of the article and go "Huh, really? That bad huh?"
Read the article and then go "Yeah...This is not what was promised."
Has this got anything to do with the fact that this site whenever speaking about MMO's comes across as very WoW-biased?

 

[XandNobody]

The hell did I just read? I honestly feel like I've gone to a Fox News website by mistake. I read the quotes, I went back to read the actual source afterwords, and this article right here is... You no what, no, it's not even an article, it's obvious ill spirited conjecture based on basically nothing but personal opinion. So, yea, it's Fox News on the Escapist. Fun.

I did appreciate the link the the source though, as much as I hate IGN at least it stayed on point and gave me actual news. Well, news in their stupid "news that there is going to be news" way.

OT: I'm honestly looking forward to seeing how Arena-Net is able to handle just making money with their first sell and then the gem store thingus afterwords. I've never been a fan of micro-transactions but from what I see they don't sell anything like weapons or armor in that thing, so it's a good model if it works out for them.

 

[Eleima]

I saw the title for this news post on the Escapist's Twitter account, flipped out and rushed over. Then I read the article, and I'm absolutely dismayed at the huge leap from "we don't have any plans for a sequel or expansions at this time" to "THE FRANCHISE IS DEAD". Granted, the title is "GW2 may be the end of the franchise", but still seems like a huge leap.
I'm not going to rehash what a friend posters have said above me, I'm not going to point out that this supposed "WoW-killer" quality for GW1 is a complete fabrication, but as far as I can tell, this game is doing okay. People are buying gems for cosmetic stuff, to enhance their bank accounts, or to trade for gold to buy legendary items in the trade post. Our guild even had a couple of recent arrivals with Amazon putting the game on sale. I've no idea if the game is retaining its players, but no matter where I go in the game, even in the wee hours of the night (I play on a North American server, but I'm on GMT+4), there are always players around if I need a hand with a skill challenge.
So yeah, look before you leap. =/

 

[StriderShinryu]

Wow, what a poorly written article. Obvious axe to grind along with petty gripes makes it difficult to take anything stated seriously, especially when the article itself is based around conjecture about a simple statement that expansions aren't in production yet after only over half a year.

I've gotta agree. It's one thing to have a slightly negative tone (or even a fairly misleading headline, like The Escapist has become fond of), but this article was the sort of thing you'd see in a user review on metacritic. The game did just come out half a year ago and fairly notable changes are being made monthly with large storyline and content updates.

 

[Daeggreth]

-Snip-

I'd agree with your post except, well that's pretty much what they HAVE been doing. Admittedly it's been on a fairly small scale so far and most of the original store items are still there, but for every major event update or holiday patch temporarily available items, costumes, and minis have been added to the store. In fact they just recently added a few new items that seem to be quite popular. It might not be to the scale you think it should be, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening at all.

OT: Sign me up for the poorly written article club.