Have you not seen what portal to Coldharbor did to the members of the infiltration squad Mages and Fighters Guild in the Main quest? The vestige had to extricate them from various unsavory places.

Because they wanted it to reach their user base rather than a tiny subset of players who have gone through the hoops to join the forums.

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

So, a base game MMO comes out and the next year it is followed by nothing. The following year and the year after are the same. Player numbers peak but over the next four years start to go into long term decline as rumour takes over about the game being in maintenance mode.
But behind the scenes the devs worked their lower posteriors off, rewrote parts of the code and numerous zones to allow characters to glide. They then released a new expansion where the maps were fully 3D and required to explore the full verticality. It completely changed the game exploration dynamic as high above you entirely different adventures were occuring amongst the tree tops while you fought on the forest floor.
After that they released an expansion every year or two with some really massive innovations. They brought in mounts that could jump, swim or fly.
They also introduce new class specialisations that changed the way you could play your class.
And the players came back, brought friends with them and the game was better than ever.

It's a nice story, but not what happened.

The good news is the real version is close to what happened with ESO so if there are lessons to be learned for this game they probably wouldn't take a lot of changes to implement.

It's true GW2 released in 2012 and didn't get a paid expansion until 2015, but that doesn't mean there was nothing in between. Until January 2015 there were free updates at least once a month adding new story, sometimes new dungeons, festivals (real festivals with their own instances, lore and mini games, not just bonus drops from dailies) and other stuff, as well as new mechanics. You can see the full list here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

At the time they planned to fund the game entirely through base game sales (the free version didn't exist until the first expansion) and cash shop cosmetics, so not making an expansion was a deliberate choice.

There was a gap from January 2015 until October when the first expansion came out, because they had to stop work on free updates to work on the expansion, which caused a huge backlash from fans at the time because it felt like we were effectively required to pay full price (the expansion cost the same as the base game) for what we could otherwise have gotten free, just because external media didn't cover free updates the same way they would a paid one. It was similar to the reaction when Morrowind was announced for ESO and subscribers found out they were required to pay seperately for what should have been included in their subscription price. (Like ESOs expansions people got used to it eventually, or quit the game, but it took a long time.)

Also they didn't make any changes to base game maps, which were already fully 3D. That was one of the big changes between GW1 and GW2, not GW2 and it's first expansion. GW1 famously doesn't have a Z axis, which firstly means no jumping, but also means there's some weirdness where for example if there's poison on the ground under a bridge and you're 2 stories up above it you'll still take damage from it. Putting a Z axis and full 3D movement into GW2 was one of the big changes they played up, but it was there from the start, not added with the first expansion. That's why so many base game maps have jumping puzzles in them, which often go over/under the normally explorable areas. Heart of Thorns did make more use of it, but it's definitely not the first time maps with different things happening on different levels had been seen.

(Also GW2 wasn't on Steam until it's 10th anniversay, in 2022, and the studio have never released player numbers so no one had data on activity during this time.)

IMO if ESO can learn anything from GW2 it's that their expansions have always had a few features and combat mechanics which can be used anywhere so there's an incentive for people to buy them even if they don't want the new maps and story. ESO used to do that, but it seems to have dropped off in recent years. Also they're about 1/2 the price of ESO expansions (£21.99 compared to £42.99 for the 2025 content pass).

There’s not a lot of evidence here to suggest ESO is doing any worse overall, other than an anecdotal note about discord and guilds, as well as Steam figures — which for both ESO and GW2 don’t show the whole picture.

What does, at least when considering GW2, is that NCsoft publish quarterly figures for their games and the fact is, despite an increase in players (at least on Steam) this has not resulted in an increase in quarterly revenue. Quite the opposite in fact. On top of which, it is a tiny fraction of what NCsoft makes as a whole.

GW2 is free to start, which suggests that the increase may be down to players dipping their toes into it, but failing to commit long term (due to no quarterly revenue increase).

GW2 updates outside of expansion releases have been small. The game severely lacks quality of life features — as well as many accessibility features. The community appears to only have a single manager who is rarely visible outside of the occasional forum post.

ESO meanwhile has continued healthy sized updates with quality of life features added consistently and multiple wonderful community managers who frequently display their passion for the game, both here as well as on live streams.

In short, my point is that the figures we have as players are fractional at best. We as consumers have no idea about to true state of this game, but from what I see — especially when compared to GW2 — ESO is in much better shape.

Faulgor wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

They also introduce new class specialisations that changed the way you could play your class.

ESO already did that, and apparently people hate it.

I have no clue what players are looking for anymore. But a consistent top complaint for 10 years that drove players away from ESO has been that "the combat sucks". Anything that aims to substantially turn things around would probably have to address that, but I just can't imagine them making fundamental changes to the game on this scale.

This consistent complaint is the same thing that is most consistent praise out there also, just another polarising thing that is "making or breaking" the game.

But talking about "specialisation" that's pretty much the opposite to what was done for many of us. We're not further specialised in anything, not deepening our class fantasy or connection with a character but making all the characters the same character at best, or alienating completely at worst. Surely some might see it as opening the system a bit, even read that people comparing it to something closer to main line TES spell system but personally I see it the exact opposite way. It might not be as bad in a long run and becoming just another polarising feature in the future is balanced properly, but currently it's not the case as far as I see feedback going.

It won't be player-wearable. It doesn't have tassets.

If this is the player demographic that's left playing the game no wonder the game is going the way it is. Can't even blame the devs at this point...