Well, this time it is. But not because I’m a jaded veteran!

On a more serious note: SotO is about to be the first major release after the NCSoft coup of Anet’s leadership, and all signs and patterns point at a major disappointment.

Here are a few examples of said signs:

  • Pre coup: Wedding Attire, 1000 gems, elaborate designs, different per race and gender.

  • Post coup: Leather Straps, 800 gems, literal leather straps, minor differences if any at all

  • Pre coup: /rockout, /shiver, /shiverplus and more as ingame rewards

  • Post coup: /sipscoffee for a 20-30€ merch collab, /serve for 400 gems, /magicjuggle as part of a pack for a 2000 gem deluxe upgrade

  • Pre coup: big expansions with industry defining features (PoF mounts) and/or complete reworks of the entire fucking game (HoT systems) for like 30€, Living World for free* and paid for by the cash shop

  • Post coup: Half an expansion for 25€, freemium-design fishing as an expansion feature, no more Living World, cash shop as free extra money

  • Pre coup: big Living World maps with their own reward structure, masteries, not rarely major releases like Rewinder, Beetle, Skyscale, mount mastery skills that completely change the dynamic, and so on, and so forth

  • Post coup: half a map, the Strike version of the endboss fight of the flushed second half of the map ham-handedly turned into a Fractal.

So this is a pattern the MMO industry has shown for decades now. These are the signs of a MMO in its twilight years. No, not dead, not even specifically dying. But less content of lower quality for higher prices, and without the care and love that comes with a product with a vision. Instead it’s just work now anymore. Shit like action cam, dolphins, SAB? Gone.

So what does that mean for SotO?

That it will be utterly underwhelming. There will be two maps like announced, one will be the not-Dalaran, one will be a rehash of existing assets. That’s it.

Anet will concentrate on Skyscale because it’s cheaper to consolidate all mounts into one instead of giving every mount its own use and abilities. Classes will homogenise because it’s easier and cheaper to balance. Specializations will be replaced with weapons because it’s easier and cheaper to create.

Easier and cheaper. Lesser.

It’s important to understand the nuance between easier, cheaper & lesser and dying, bad & dead. GW2 is not dying, will not become bad and certainly is not dead.

But this is the end of an era, and there will be no return. There almost never has been.

Bonus info: NCsoft is known to nuke perfectly viable MMOs for not making enough money. (CoH. Never forget. Forever fuck NCSoft.)

My prediction is that like Blizzard is dead and is now ActiBlizz and no matter how disgusting it becomes people won’t be able to look past the logo, Anet has been couped and is now NCNet and no matter how far down this new beginning leads down the road, people won’t be able to look past the logo.

Five days until Anet will prove me wrong and blow us away with their magic they never lost.

    • lulztardOP
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      1 year ago

      When NCSoft ousted the leadership, the leadership left behind a hand-picked replacement, who mysteriously vanished and got replaced with some new guy under whom the game development has been nuked from orbit and utterly restructured. You can see it happening during the phases of Season 4 -> IBS -> EoD.

      • plagueofnations@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Assuming you are correct that the “ousted” leadership left behind a handpicked successor why the hell would NCSoft leave that person in the role?

        “Some new guy” being who exactly?

        The guy who was the original game director and is now one of the two studio directors?

        The other studio director that’s been at it for like 2-3 years now?

        The current game director that worked there from 2013-2016 and came back in 2021?

        Guess why the game development had to be nuked? Because it turned to garbage after the release of HoT.

        Guess who was game director at the time of HoT development? Same guy who is one of the studio directors now.

        Guess who is game director now? The dance guy who worked there from 2013-2016

        Since the content following HoT has consistently been bad it kind of makes sense to return to the people who were part of making HoT so good.