Guild Wars 2 - No Expansion Planned

[Couchpotato]

Talking with Eurogamer ArenaNet's Lead Content Designer Mike Zadorojny has laid out the studio's plans for Guild Wars 2 , and explains the game might not ever get an expansion.

"So right now we're not really looking at expansions as an option," lead content designer Mike Zadorojny told me on his visit to London last week.

"It's something that's on the table but it's not something we're focused on, because what we want to do is - our idea here is that with Living World, we can do what expansions would have done but do it on a more regular basis."

Four discrete Living World teams, made up of designers of all disciplines, each spend four months developing roughly one full month's worth of content, "So they'll own two content releases in a particular month," Zadorojny said. The Flame & Frost update at the start of the year was an early example, the more recent releases more matured.

"This allows us to have this world that's changing and evolving and essentially goes into what television does: stay tuned next week when something exciting is going to happen."

More information.

 

[Drithius]

The cynical part of me has to wonder if this has anything to do with NCSoft's rocky financials of late.

 

[azarhal]

If NCSoft had rocky financials, they wouldn't allow GW2 to increase the number of Living Story teams to 4 which mean hiring new people to do so. GW2 dev team have been increasing since release, not reducing like all the other MMOs do.

Anet isn't interested in discussing an expansion when GW2 haven't even been one year out.

 

[Couchpotato]

Correct me if I'm wrong they had two for the original game but it sounds like there more interested in other things right now. The topic has been brought up many times in more than one interview, and Anet has been elusive on the topic.

 

[guenthar]

There are actually 3 expansions which they only call one an expansion and the other two are campaigns. Unless they start charging for the updates I expect them to release expansions eventually.

 

[lostforever]

If NCSoft had rocky financials, they wouldn't allow GW2 to increase the number of Living Story teams to 4 which mean hiring new people to do so. GW2 dev team have been increasing since release, not reducing like all the other MMOs do.

Anet isn't interested in discussing an expansion when GW2 haven't even been one year out.

I believe Colin Johanson has since posted on the official forums saying that they have not ruled out expansions and they have teams working on "large" update which is separate from living story.

I don't know anything about NCSoft financial but Living Story is their *primary* cash cow right now. Its pretty much designed to get you to spend money on the store. So given that, one can argue that NCSoft is in bad state hence they are pushing out more Living Story content

Anyway I think its too soon for an expansion as the game hasn't been out for very long.

 

[Yme]

I found this game to be pretty dull when it came to combat. Beautiful to look at though, and a joy to explore. Maybe I'll give it a chance again one day.

 

[Voqar]

I think they've been making enough money to just push out new crap without charging for expansions. One thing I'll give ANet is that they control their game's economy like no other and are slick at steering people to their cash shop.

I kind of lost respect for ANet big time with how they came out with this whole manifesto thing and ended up shifting from it almost immediately in numerous ways. I bought in on their philosophies and they turned around and abandoned them.

I thought GW2 was gonna be special and it has some good elements, but ultimately the zones and content are very repetitive, the characters are too simplistic, the grouping sucks, the player economy is amongst the worst, and it's more like a massively online single player game than a real MMORPG.

I got a bunch of my MMO friends to try GW2 and every one of them lost interest quickly and never really did have the MMO fever you often get with a new MMO. Some of us went to TSW after and found it way more to our liking due to more role-oriented grouping and utterly amazing content and instances.

GW2 is THE game for you if you prefer to solo in MMOs. It is a crappy MMO if you actually love the genre for what it should be - group-based PVE. 5 soloists sharing a chat channel and an instance is not a very compelling group. The idea of abandoning trinity sounded good in theory but it strips grouping of any real structure.

So, who cares whether GW2 has any expansions or not. It's a boring game (if you love real MMO gameplay).

 

[Roq]

I loved GW2 in the beta and after launch and really enjoyed getting my first character up to level 80. After that though I didn't feel there was anything compelling to do that wasn't grind and just couldn't get interested in alts. GW2 is a bit like giving a child a box of chocolates and letting them pig themselves out on all the ones they like, then at the end only the coconut ones are left .

 

[lostforever]

I think they've been making enough money to just push out new crap without charging for expansions. One thing I'll give ANet is that they control their game's economy like no other and are slick at steering people to their cash shop.

I kind of lost respect for ANet big time with how they came out with this whole manifesto thing and ended up shifting from it almost immediately in numerous ways. I bought in on their philosophies and they turned around and abandoned them.

I thought GW2 was gonna be special and it has some good elements, but ultimately the zones and content are very repetitive, the characters are too simplistic, the grouping sucks, the player economy is amongst the worst, and it's more like a massively online single player game than a real MMORPG.

I got a bunch of my MMO friends to try GW2 and every one of them lost interest quickly and never really did have the MMO fever you often get with a new MMO. Some of us went to TSW after and found it way more to our liking due to more role-oriented grouping and utterly amazing content and instances.

GW2 is THE game for you if you prefer to solo in MMOs. It is a crappy MMO if you actually love the genre for what it should be - group-based PVE. 5 soloists sharing a chat channel and an instance is not a very compelling group. The idea of abandoning trinity sounded good in theory but it strips grouping of any real structure.

So, who cares whether GW2 has any expansions or not. It's a boring game (if you love real MMO gameplay).

You took the words right out of my mouth about GW2

Before release I was pretty psyched up about GW2 and I persuaded lot of my guild mates from EQ2 to play it. Mostly based on my word they all spend good £35 to buy the game and it all went tits up…

However I have said my peace with GW2 and understand that it’s not a MMO. It’s like a TV show where you are not expected to watch every episode. I do play it on and off and have fun and got my £35 worth out of it and anything more is bonus! It’s a pity that I was fooled into thinking that it’s a MMO.