Ascended items are Anet biggest mistake and a kneejerk reaction.
Arenanet totally forgot GW1 fans?
Do you know that Mike O’Brien wasn’t responsible for the horizontal progression and leveling system in Guild Wars 1.
No, we don’t know what he was (or wasn’t) responsible for. The same for other devs. All we know is that Mike O’Brian had clearly stated several times since GW2 started that he considered GW1 horizontal progression and levelling systems to be bad, and that he prefers vertical progression. Hard to say whether those were his original thoughts, or if he changed his mind at some point after GW1.
And the idea that at least one of them has now moved to En Masse and Terra should tell you that at least one of the other two that left has nothing against vertical progression.
I honestly don’t think vertical progression was the “main focus” of the thoughts of the devs. I don’t think it was the central concept others seem to adopt.
Before the game the developers talked about a living breathing world, about dynamic events, about personal story. About WvW. That was the primary dialogue. This whole fanaticism about vertical progression, in my mind, is people reading importance into that the devs simply didn’t feel that strongly at any point.
I honestly believe they might have preferred a game without vertical progression, though. I just think they hit a wall and lost their nerve.
Which if you have that much invested into something can happen to anyone.
I honestly believe they might have preferred a game without vertical progression, though. I just think they hit a wall and lost their nerve.
Oh, i agree. It’s just that they lost their nerve far too easily. If their primary solution after hitting any trouble is to panic, start screaming and run towards the nearest cliff (and so far it seems it is), then that doesn’t offer a good prognosis for the future.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Well I could also partly put official forums to blame. Originally Guild Wars did not have official forums – but that still resulted a massive community that was closer to ArenaNet back then than GW2 community (if it even can be called “community” now) is now.
Back then people were very clearly (eg. even different forums) separated by their interests in the game, and the game moved on fulfilling those expectations (the two-dimensional division of the content on almost independent parts). Here, everything is lumped together – almost any change – instead of solving small problem in some definite context the whole thing is being turned over. Making one part of community shoot rainbows from joy and other one – to rage even more.
I am probably a minority. Probably also someone who does not make GW2 much more profitable (by buying gems). I can find valid excuses for many bad things happening to GW2 without Anet having to write and point all of them down. But as a GW1 and, thus, ArenaNet fan I expect them to VALUE the very thing that made GW1 the best – the community. Community that freely socialized with developers, developers that felt obliged with something to community.
I won’t say I am sad/mad or anything with this very particular update – I’ll just point out that ANY changes (including the most hardcore of nerfs) in GW1 were presented in a way were the most dumb ones could not question their legitimacy – except very few mistakes that were still quickly fixed.
The way updates are delivered now in GW2 very much remind me of Blizzard in some of their worst days with changes that were made “it was decided”, “it was needed”, “it had to happen” and so on without a single reason given. Because reason is not WHY something is happening but WHAT is the aim of that happening.
I will say it only from my own name – I don’t care as much about the promise to deliver new content every two weeks (and I do believe it is a one hell of an effort) as about (at very least) patch notes treating me as a valuable player and not like some kind of have-they-fulfilled-their-quota inspector.