Guild Wars 2 AMA Addresses Leaks, Confirms Expansion Time Frame

Between the announcement and launch of Guild Wars 2's first expansion, fans of the game were treated to ... well, not a whole lot, actually. Sure, there were the usual reveals and teasers about the upcoming content, but the actual game itself suffered from a long content drought that stretched out for nine months. As such, Heart of Thorns had to live up to all the hype and then some. The fact that it got a mixed response probably had to do with those white-hot expectations after so little to do for so long as much as anything.

This time around, things will be different. ArenaNet staff, including President Mike O'Brien, took to Reddit yesterday in an AMA to discuss the new content drop, the expansion, and those pesky leaks related to it.

Regarding release cadence this time around, O'Brien confirms that the recent Living Story episode, #5, will be followed by #6 in the usual time frame, about two to three months. The expansion will follow thereafter, with a somewhat longer break in between. That probably means more like a gap of four to five months (my estimate, not O'Brien's), but certainly not the nine months players had to deal with before.

How about the leaks of expansion content, which seemed to show off a number of new concepts and locations for the expansion? O'Brien takes it in stride, starting with "I hope you’re all enjoying the big reveal today – that is, the big reveal in episode five!" He then goes on to urge players, in a nice way, not to spoil the game for themselves and to help serve as ambassadors to get the word out about how great the game is, rather than rely on paid advertising from ANet. That's true to some extent, but the company does still have a marketing department, right?

The rest of the AMA covers the usual minutia, from design of the new maps, improvements to PvP and WvW, the future (or lack thereof) of legendary armor, and, most importantly, whether there are any skritt mesmers and whether their clones would make them smarter. Seriously.