Today, at 9:21am EST, the Guild Wars 2 team has released what I’ve been waiting for since I completed End of Dragons: their plans for future (new) PvE content.
It’s funny as three weeks ago, Kovo and I had an argument on what is considered new PvE content. Kovo claimed raids weren’t old content, but I said “anything that didn’t come out this year is considered ‘old content'”. And yes I know that isn’t always the case; depends on who you ask, really.
But this is my mindset, on what I consider being labeled as either ‘new’ content or ‘old’ content. And now the GW2 team has shown what I deemed to be new content, let’s go over it. However I won’t be actually discussing what’s in their roadmap, just linking it for your viewing pleasure right here. Instead I’m going to share my personal thoughts as I read it myself.
And from reading it all, I don’t even know where to start as it was a lot to digest.
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First off, I’m glad they’re admitting they’ve made mistakes, but I feel.. well, originally yeah I wanted new content because I’m bored with the game. But after reminding myself what hell I went through to get the Skyscale (and their “we want to focus on players first” as their claimed approach)… fix your fucking core content first before you release new content, starting with your very limited leveling system for new and existing
players. Give players more to do instead of fill up a stupid heart.
But I know they won’t. They only know how to move forward instead of actually doing something about their previous content.
Spare me your “we’ve made mistakes” and fix them! It’s just PR bullshit that Bioware did with Mass Effect Andromeda to claim “we’re only human, after all! Don’t put the blame on us!”.
That being said, they feel re-prioritizing their workload away from making big DLCs and Living World seasons would help future content.. not past content.
And their solution to this is actually kind of interesting. It feels they’re taking certain notes
from Blizzard playbook, by still releasing these DLCs and LW story content but doing it in smaller bits, to give their team time to work on the content as it comes out.
And to start this.. apparently End of Dragons isn’t over yet. Coming at the end of this month, there will be a new episode added onto it. They go about this as going back to the island of Cantha, but “coming face-to-face with a deadly foe that resides deep within the Jade Sea”. ..Another Elder Dragon, maybe? What else could they possibly add? All of
the Elder Dragons are dead, by your hand (and the help of Aurene). Maybe, she found another Elder Dragon that has yet to be recorded?
Though, it doesn’t say “an ancient foe” or “a returning foe”; it says “a deadly foe”. So, it’s a boss that we’ve never heard before, and it also couldn’t be an Elder Dragon.
But they better not do what Gearbox did with Borderlands 3, and make the boss(s) so boring and generic. I want it to feel like a genuine threat that’ll make me feel good after defeating them, like Deathwing was with WoW.
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Another reason why it likely won’t be an Elder Dragon, is it’ll be too short of a story arc.
There’s only going to be two parts to this, the first one coming out at the end of this month and the next coming in two months from that date.
That’s not going to be enough time to figure out its origin and what it does to Tyria and its denizens, what its minions do to Tyria and its denizens, how to kill the minions, player follower sacrifice cliche, how to deal with the Elder Dragon’s elemental attacks, how to force it out of the sky (aka trap it), and finally how to defeat it. This takes several episodes to flesh out its story arc.
And as for Gem cost of the content, there’s no cost for owners of the DLC. And best of
all, you don’t have to rush to go grab it. It’ll be free nomatter when you decide to come back. You can take your time, which is really awesome and I’m glad they’re finally doing that. So if you come back a year or two (or even ten years) later, you won’t be screwed by having to pay for it. It’ll be free.
Thank you, ANet. About fucking time you put players as a priority over profits. 🙄 I bet that was painful, wasn’t it? You all are (hopefully) realizing the Gem Store isn’t going to sustain your company forever, and people are starting to wake up that it’s a cash grab.
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And that’s about it. After they release this small content update, they’ll be working on other projects, including getting the game into DirectX11.
But they’ll have more to say after May of this year, for what they plan of the second half
of 2023.
I’m sure eventually, ‘Guild Wars 3’ will be hinted at by then.
So my final thoughts: I can’t wait for the free DLC content update as it’ll give me something to do (but I just hope it doesn’t feel shoehorned in with another “this is YOUR fault the Elder Dragons are dead!! You’ve destroyed the balance!!” boss). And I do like how they’re going to be doing the content as quarterly.