Yeah I can see that. Unfortunate, given that the changes look more significant from my perspective than many previous patches, but I've been gone a long time, so perhaps I missed other mega patches.
Oh yeah, no bones about it; this might be the most significant update ArenaNet has ever made to Guild Wars 2 because they're trying very hard to wash the taste of the expansion out of our mouths. They know they botched things up badly and they're trying to show that they can fix it.
But then you have guys like
this (quotes graciously compiled by Weltall Zero) who feel some twisted sense of responsibility to inform the world they don't like a thing every time that thing is mentioned. I feel like a gaming side thread is just inviting a lot of comments along the lines of "the game is so bad they have to spend months fixing it."
Speaking of changes, have they spoken in any formal capacity about how they're doing future content? Are they moving to a proper expansion pack rollout, or doing persistent LW updates + expacs?
I hated the temporary S1, and I'll just now be trying S2, so I don't have an opinion on its quality yet. I know getting any of my more casual friends to pay money for it will likely be a non starter, which leaves entire chunks of the story in limbo for them, but story creep is an issue for most big mmos (fuck if I could tell you how or why wow is where it is).
Nothing yet, before the expansion released they mentioned they'd be talking about it "Soon™" but... you know how "Soon™" works in game development. Right now, like I said, they're kind of in fix-it mode.
If it were me, I'd never do expansions to begin with, but since they've already started down that path my ideal would be two seasons of Living Story to every one expansion. I would also like to see them make the Living Story free after a certain point. They've said that whenever a new expansion comes out, the previous one will become free to play, so when you buy the next expansion, you'll automatically get the core game and HoT free. They should throw in Season 2 as well.
And yeah, MMO storytelling is pretty awful, which is why I was so hopeful for the Living World. Sadly, it seems like they'll only using them to set up expansions now instead of telling their own stories. That's a shame because the pacing allowed them to have fun little character beats that made the "biconics" much more nuanced and interesting than Destiny's Edge. Not to mention the little bits like the "
Party Politics" episode where you spent the whole time at a high society party gathering clues and getting some great character moments with Kasmeer, Anise and Canach (not to mention the world building going on by having regular people at a party sharing their views on stuff like Scarlet's invasion, etc.). Or pretty much all of "Echos of the Past" but
especially "Hidden Arcana" with the lore-gasmic Priory Archives and trip to... well, you haven't played it yet so I won't spoil it, but it's amazing.
They straight up said they can't do that in an expansion's story where everything has to be about the immediate threat and building tension. So that means expansions are all about a very narrow focus and the Living World has to basically do all of the heavy lifting when it comes to world and character building. And I can't see it doing that if they're not willing to devote people and resources to it (I believe the Living World team was about 30 people, out of 250+).
Which is a shame, because I really would have loved a whole Living World episode of Taimi wigging out in Rata Novus, gathering info on how to kill Elder Dragons... instead of it being sort of a quick pop-in and kind of a non-explanation that ended curiously fast.
I really hope they get it right the next time around.
