> I didn't mean "incomplete" as in "the game is too short." I meant it as in "The game only sort of works and huge components of game play are not implemented or not properly implemented." I didn't play in beta, but the general consensus on the forums is that there was little difference between the final day of open beta and the retail release of the game -- though some maintain the game was more stable in beta than in early retail days, which I almost believe.

I actually should have been more clear. I was thinking of "complete" in the same sense that you describe here, although I have to admit that I don't think GW has any major missing features. Since I don't play PvP, the GW PvP could be full of holes and I wouldn't know it. The PvE game seems pretty complete, though, and most of the changes are fixes to the balance of skills and items.

And yes, the beta was far more stable than the early days of retail. While there were occasional long outages, they were planned and infrequent. As far as I know, the last days of the beta had exactly the same feature set as the released game, too -- the only possible exception I can think of is mounts, which I don't think ever made an appearance in the beta, but I thought they weren't around when the game was first released, either.

> I am very interested to see what they have coming down the pike. I know of another high-end dungeon in the works and new quests/gear. However, Blizzard has hinted that retail expansion packs are a strong possibility for the future (though officially none are planned at the moment). I would not be surprised that if any major new additions are made (the planned implementation of hero classes, new zones, etc.) that they'd require an expansion pack.

I also would not be surprised, but I also think that Blizzard would probably make more money overall if they included this stuff as part of the subscription. Of course, I'm no expert on that stuff. I'm sure they will do whatever they need to for maximum profit.

Don Monkey