Guild Wars 2

I see so many people trash talking the developers over ascended gear, saying they are terrible people and blah blah. But the truth is, despite my extreme disdain for where GW2’s future is headed, I feel no differently about the developers.

Because, truth be told, I have a hard time believing any of this fiasco was the decision of any arenanet developer. I think this was forced on them just like it was forced on us. I’ve read the manifesto, the interviews… They were passionate. They were loyal to their fans. They were honestly excited about making a DIFFERENT type of game. So when this news broke, and we found out that they were going back on one if the primary selling points? No, I can’t see even one of those people having been the one to say “to hell with our fanbase, lets give in to the locusts and create an RNG dungeon gear grind just like every other 2 bit WoW rip off out there!”

Look around. The hints in game (under new management, the npcs, etc) are just the tip of the iceberg. Refunds? What company allows refunds like this for an MMO? One who cares but has no choice in the matter, so they do the only thing they can to make it up to the fans they were forced to betray. And the complete lack of comment on the gear, even defending it?

Give up on GW2 if you must… It’s not the game you bought. But maybe don’t give up on Arenanet, or the individual devs. I refuse to believe they had any control over this.

I’m part of the crowd that is strongly displeased with the addition of ascended gear, as it is now. However, I’m also very ashamed at the amount of personal attacks that people have launched at each other and at ANet staff over this issue.

I don’t know if ANet devs made this decision, or if it came from above. What I do know is that while I disagree with the design decision, I don’t feel any personal animosity over it.

Merthax.5172:

I’m part of the crowd that is strongly displeased with the addition of ascended gear, as it is now. However, I’m also very ashamed at the amount of personal attacks that people have launched at each other and at ANet staff over this issue.

I don’t know if ANet devs made this decision, or if it came from above. What I do know is that while I disagree with the design decision, I don’t feel any personal animosity over it.

Agreed. Even if I did believe they did it personally, I wouldn’t HATE them for it. However, since I don’t think they had anything to do with the decision I will continue to assume that future games they put out, especially if they wiggle out from nexons grasp, will have a possibility of being great games

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

Truly sad if the devs weren’t complicit in this shift in philosophy, and their hands were forced. To have worked so many years on a project of this scope…as disappointing as this is for the fans, this would be far worse for the devs.

People were upset. People voiced their opinions. People stopped playing the game.

My server is still Full. My server still has overflow. My server still has people in the starting zone and everywhere else. I got the Balthazar Cathedral armor for my mesmer today. ^-^

If I hadn’t read the forums, I wouldn’t have known people were upset. There’s more complaining here than in game. People playing are having fun and enjoying the new content. I’m sorry you aren’t. Actually, I’m tired of hearing about it on the forums. This is old news.

The current complaint is that people want a better LFG tool to help them find other players doing the Fractals at their level.

If we got clearer and more straightforward communications, people might be nicer.

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

Dude, everything will be okay. This is a game…no one is dying…seriously. Half of your posts could fit in with day time soaps. It’s cool to note gameplay issues but it might be good to go grab a beer and relax a bit.

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

The problem is the world is alot of people don’t see it that way ~ The developers are the easiest to blame since they created the game, so even ‘if’ they had no part in the direction which I refuse to believe by the way, they still share some of the blame.

Anet = developers = nexon = ncsoft? whoever you want to blame, it really doesn’t matter ~ the entire major reason why the majority of players are upset is because of the fractal dungeon and ascended items. But you have to understand the reasoning behind it too before you can just blinding say ~ this sucks and I’m going to QQ The entire idea behind fractal and ascended items was rushed to the servers without any degree of testing, without any player feedback and certainly without looking ahead.

Fractal + Ascended ‘on paper’

Infinite progressing dungeon to 99
Progress is saved after completing each dungeon
Items better than exotics to be a stepping stone to Legendary
Better quality items over exotics

Fractal + Ascended ‘reality check’

Infinite progressing dungeon that everyone has to wait hours to get a party for any particular scale level
Progress is saved per character and not account, meaning no reason to play alts now
Progress is saved, if your not on the same scale level as guildies/friends/pugs then your screwed
Ascended items cost a fortune in gold if you want particular items for your build
Ascended items require a very significant dedication to grinding
Ascended items have a large RNG element to them
Ascended items vs Exotics create a huge gear imbalance, which will be very noticeable in WvWvW combat

I am completely relaxed. focused and intent, but relaxed. thanks for being concerned about our welfare.

Tolmos.8395:

I see so many people trash talking the developers over ascended gear, saying they are terrible people and blah blah. But the truth is, despite my extreme disdain for where GW2’s future is headed, I feel no differently about the developers.

Me too. I like and respect the Devs. I could see the love that they poured into this game. I also loved how many were playing with us. Even thought it would be cool if they created a Dev Spotlight and let them talk or blog about their in-game experiences.

Hopefully, none of my more passionate posts have come across as attacking the Development team. I just feel strongly about companies that make decisions which destroy their brand. Especially when it is a product or organization that I like and want to see be successful.

Given how proud they are of the game, it makes me wonder how the Devs feel about the changes and the reactions to them.

Acebandage.7236:

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

Dude, everything will be okay. This is a game…no one is dying…seriously. Half of your posts could fit in with day time soaps. It’s cool to note gameplay issues but it might be good to go grab a beer and relax a bit.

Id prefer the game and Anet to sort their kitten out and actually survive beyond next year….they should know how players are affected and their opinion of them, thats how changes get made…im pretty angry at getting sold a false promise…but yea, thats take your advice and sit back and relax and just let it slide…lets see how far that gets us.

I didn’t say anything about letting anything slide. Objective opinions are encouraged but do you ever read your own posts? You use words like angry, deceit, and drop f bombs like they’re going out of style. This is a video game…gain some perspective. As soon as anger becomes part of the equation you might want to re-think your choice of hobbies.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Progress is saved per character and not account, meaning no reason to play alts now
Progress is saved, if your not on the same scale level as guildies/friends/pugs then your screwed
Ascended items cost a fortune in gold if you want particular items for your build
Ascended items require a very significant dedication to grinding
Ascended items have a large RNG element to them
Ascended items vs Exotics create a huge gear imbalance, which will be very noticeable in WvWvW combat

All of this (except the bit about no reason to play alts) seems irrefutable and undeniable. All of this describes a 180 from all the stuff A-net originally said about their intent to make a non-grindy MMO.
This is WoW 2.0.
Sorry.

Well, I love playing alts since I’m an alt-o-holic however, to stay in the fractal level range on my main character, that requires me to hover around in Lions Arch for hours in the attempt to find a group, if I log off and play and alt ~ then I get left behind on the power creeping treadmill.

Such a sad tale that, alot of players are not creating alts and exploring the world again. I said it two months ago, and I’ll say it again ~ Levelling from 1 to 80, exploring each zone without the worry about gearchecks/threadmills is great, but once you get to 80 and the game truly starts, thats when most MMos start to fail the player. Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be that exception to the rule, and now it seems anet are essentially going back on what was promised to the players who followed the developmental progress over the years.

Responding to the OP title:

No.

They could be nice to us and give us a worth while friggin response to a kitten-job patch that they released this weekend. Once they respect us enough to give a straight forward answer and not some PR spin, I will be nice to the dev.

can people outside USA/EU get refund from ANET if they purchase using credit card ?

I am not sure.

I am in the US, I am strongly considering it..a refund of the purchase + gems + gem cards for christmas that my lovely wife bought me.

That is how upset,disappointed, and how much I feel that I was lied to.

I want to play diablo 3 more than guild wars 2. How does that feel, arenanet?

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

See, I don’t see it that way. To me, respect is never something you have to earn; it’s something given by default, unless you prove you’re not worth it.

I’m very close to a few people in the game design industry, so I have a lot of sympathy for developers. All too often the decisions of upper management or publishers force their hands. Developers are usually not too different from us; they’re passionate gamers who happen to have transformed their passion into a profession, and they’re usually pretty good at it.

I have a lot of respect for GW2’s development team, based on what I’ve seen, read or personally experienced. I think we can criticize the Ascended armor decision without slipping down the path of ad hominem.

sorry but if i ordered a steak and got a Mcdonalds hamburger patty i would not be very nice to the Chef.

They have my respect. But from my perspective, part of that respect is the assumption that they can take criticism when it’s warranted. (Taking abuse and hyperbole, that’s another story.)

Acebandage.7236:

I didn’t say anything about letting anything slide. Objective opinions are encouraged but do you ever read your own posts? You use words like angry, deceit, and drop f bombs like they’re going out of style. This is a video game…gain some perspective. As soon as anger becomes part of the equation you might want to re-think your choice of hobbies.

Please point out anywhere, just once where i dropped the “f bomb”…even just once will do.

Also if someone says something, or this case markets a product a certain way, then actually produces a different product after you’ve paid for it…that is deceit, and yes im a touch angry about it…failing to see your point, did you have one ?

I would like to add something about player empowerment here. There is a TON of animosity on these forums. I have never had an issue with this game, and here is why: I play the content that I enjoy. If I am opposed to what fotm brings to the game (which I’m not) I don’t involve myself in that sort of content. Huge precursor drop? Good for those people who got one, I didn’t! Why be spiteful? People don’t want to take me into the new dungeon without full exotics on a level 80? Well I have gotten to level 6 with a level 50 character because when people were rude I understood that kitten exist in every section of the world not just in video games and I found someone else to go with me, someone who also is concerned with enjoying the content for what it is and not taking everything so seriously.

So about empowerment- nothing in this world will be perfect for everyone in this world. Take things at face value for what they are and don’t leave everything on the shoulders of the Devs. Focus on doing the things you enjoy and ignoring the things you dont. Find creative solutions and positive sides to all of your problems. This is the attitude for life, really, not just guild wars. And yes I agree, people should lay off the Devs. I don’t care what anyone says about being entitled because they paid for this game. You paid a measly $60 and got more than your money’s worth after the first 2 weeks of playing. But, like I said, you will find these people everywhere. People need to worry WAY less about what the Devs SHOULD do for them because they forked over a little bit of money and more concerned with what they can do for themselves.

Robbyx.1284:

Acebandage.7236:

I didn’t say anything about letting anything slide. Objective opinions are encouraged but do you ever read your own posts? You use words like angry, deceit, and drop f bombs like they’re going out of style. This is a video game…gain some perspective. As soon as anger becomes part of the equation you might want to re-think your choice of hobbies.

Please point out anywhere, just once where i dropped the “f bomb”…even just once will do.

Also if someone says something, or this case markets a product a certain way, then actually produces a different product after you’ve paid for it…that is deceit, and yes im a touch angry about it…failing to see your point, did you have one ?

Just to relax a bit? Realize it’s a game? Provide feedback but not get angry maybe?

That’s all I was trying to get across. My bad if it was confusing.

AB

They brought it on themselves. If they hadn’t loudly and repeatedly made confident claims before release about the kind of game GW2 was going to be, people wouldn’t be angry now that those claims turned out to be nothing but marketing lies.

If in fact these changes were forced on them from up above, fine. Let them make that clear. Find some PR-approved way to let us know that the strings are being pulled.

But I have my doubts about that conspiracy theory. It seems to me that the same overconfidence that let the studio to make dramatic proclamations like the Manifesto is still in effect, though it’s been turned in another direction. It seems to me that the developers are still convinced that they know best, that they are the experts and naysayers just don’t comprehend their acumen.

Maybe I’m wrong – but I don’t hear them saying it. Where are Messrs. O’Brian, Flannum, and Johanson now? Let them come out and explain how this move can be reconciled to their many past pronouncements about lack of grind and aesthetic rewards. Let them come out and offer detailed metrics to reassure us that this statistical power boost was a needed addition to the game. Let them come out and promise us that this addition was a singular anomaly that will never be repeated.

Either that, or let them come out and find some way of letting us know that none of this was their idea.

I didn’t want a gear grind, and neither did any of the players who hate this. Don’t put words in my mouth.

The dev “per se” can be blamed for bad programming a content, sometimes. Fine, maybe next time is better. Happens, it’s a complex online world. Still, when something goes online (or deleted at all never went live) , it’s dev team manager’s fault. So ye, hate a particular dev is pointless, most of them are nice guys, talented too, more or less. (Hi Matt )The structure , the company is faulty. Who is safe, is the secretary maybe haha

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

My server is still Full. My server still has overflow. My server still has people in the starting zone and everywhere else. I got the Balthazar Cathedral armor for my mesmer today. ^-^

There are some threads saying the opposite and people complaining because a lot of areas are deserted.

Orr for instance is not designed to be empty. If players don’t go there, things become increasingly difficult and frustrating because of corrupted statues, contested waypoints, contested Arah (when it’s not bugged, that is).

Also, I’m pretty sure server status doesn’t reflect how many players of that server are online at any given moment, but rather how many accounts have that server as their home server. Which is a completely different thing. You might have zero players online and still see a lot of server as full because they have a lot of accounts on them.

About overflow, the only zone where I’ve seen an overflow recently is Lion’s Arch.

Not always, sometimes LA doesn’t have an overflow.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Not always, sometimes LA doesn’t have an overflow.

So it’s even worse than I thought. Sad.

mcwurth.2081:

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

misleading their costumers? not at all. They gave the vocal community what they asked for and still it is not good enough. they do try. if you are so displeased please uninstall and go cry in a corner.

Yes they have mislead their customers. Lol this is the problem today no accountability.
Like a good consumer you take crap products and enjoy them – good for you-
I like to get what was promised – I hold people and corporation responsible for their actions. Good and bad.Reward those that are good and make sure those that are bad are know about.

Telling people to leave doesnt work and is wrong- look at Tor
This will cause negative impact on the game and in turn your game play but since you are myopic you should uninstall as well. See how that works LOL.

Personally I think here’s a difference in customer opinion here from the GW1 customer base and those entirely new to the game.

GW1 players have been encouraged to have bigger expectations because of our ANet experience in that game and because we followed development from announcement to launch and believed what we were being told and the assurances given. So it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset I don’t single out devs – I’m upset with ANet that includes the devs.

If I’d have come to GW2 from the SWTOR, Rift, WoW, TSW direction I wouldn’t feel at all invested in the game and more than likely wouldn’t care if they added grinds, lfg tools, gear scores or anything else.

Well, i have to agree on what the OP said, i’ve seen the npcs as well or rather the hints GW1 has been a really rewarding gaming experience for me even thought some or 70% of the original creators left for another firm but nontheless this is arenanet.
if its under new management and where nexon comes into play i’d say scr*w this not arenaN’s fault; money is the root to all evil so what now?

Narkosys.5173:

mcwurth.2081:

Robbyx.1284:

Respect is earned, not given…they completely misled their customers, and their apparent lack of concern over players real concerns isnt helping….they deserve neither my respect nor my money.

misleading their costumers? not at all. They gave the vocal community what they asked for and still it is not good enough. they do try. if you are so displeased please uninstall and go cry in a corner.

Yes they have mislead their customers. Lol this is the problem today no accountability.
Like a good consumer you take crap products and enjoy them – good for you-
I like to get what was promised – I hold people and corporation responsible for their actions. Good and bad.Reward those that are good and make sure those that are bad are know about.

Telling people to leave doesnt work and is wrong- look at Tor
This will cause negative impact on the game and in turn your game play but since you are myopic you should uninstall as well. See how that works LOL.

i have played GW1 from day 1 and followed ALL news and announcements towards GW2. Yes they have [romised things we do not have YET! they do work towards it. what a load of people seem to forget that GW is designed with streaming updates to keep their costumers happy.
all the vocalists on the forum are (most of them anyway) very displeased. maybe take a break then. i am a casual gamer and do not have any problems at all with the game. if i find a bug or something not right or im not happy with it i give feedback and/or report it. i do not go around telling how crap arenanet is and how crap life is and go all emo on the forums.

Disrespect for a management that disrespected you as a customer is expected, but should be avoided because it’s not productive. If you feel disrespected you should be reaching out other people who feel the same and do something productive about it, to hold them accountable.

Disrespect for technical problems and content that fell short is HIGHLY uncalled for and totally unfair. Especially attacking the devs skills on their own forum. It has to stop NOW. It’s unacceptable.

Get your aim straight, people.

1. maybe there is a distinction between ‘the devs’ and other people calling the financial shots.
Could be that not all decisions are actually what the dev’s wanted.
We don’t know, plain and simple.

2. If I disagree with anyone, be it a player or a dev, I try to argue with them.
I try very hard not sound insulting to anyone, even my biggest adversaries.
This is an extemely important rule for me. Whenever someone said they felt insulted by my posts (in a reaction or a pm), I always tried to talk it out.

3. Given 1 and 2, I strongly believe I should give any feedback I can. Even if for me personally most of this feedback sounds a bit negative.
I’m not doing anyone a favor if I keep my feedback for me.
It’s up to the devs to decide what they find usefull of this feedback or not.

My motto: ‘learn to disagree in style!’

I was nice to them by not asking for a refund. But that’s over now, I’m getting a refund.

I think it’s telling that none of the devs have posted enthusiastically about the ascended gear.

If they dislike it, it would be a bad PR move (and by extension a bad career move for them) if they stated that dislike publicly. About the only thing they can do in this situation is exactly what they’re doing – remaining silent.

Sometimes, the ‘powers that be’ force through changes that are possibly argued against in design meetings. Yes, the devs ultimately implemented it – but it’s likely that it was implemented unenthusiastically. As evidenced by the number of bugs left lying around in this ‘supar spekkle’ one time event.

The devs are people to. I’m assuming as people, they need a job so they can earn a wage to get by. Once the PtB draw a line in the sand on what they want to see in game, it gets to the point where as a dev, you have to stop arguing, implement the change, then lean back and wait for the previously warned about explosion – without looking too smug about it as you think ‘I told you so!’

I’m not surprised they aren’t talking down any aspect of the game – as mentioned above, putting that kind of stuff out in public about a place you work for is a bad idea.

None of this changes the devs core values or what they are passionate about, in my opinon.

And on that note – I’ll be shutting down GW2 for the last time when I see the more passionate devs start to jump ship in reaction to the work they’re having to implement. That hasn’t started happening yet, so I’m still hopeful that this will be put right.

see what happens to swtor when the ‘complainers’ were not heard and they only realized what really happens when it’s too late

in my opinion, anet should be grateful to have a quite vocal community rather than a ‘yes men’ although the comments are harsh

i’ve seen in my line of work that it’s much better to have a difficult customers rather than a customer who just blindly agree to whatever i told them
it’s much better to listen to what a difficult/critical customer say to you rather than customers who only praised you all the time

I doubt that the decisions were made by the developers alone, so I agree with you to some extent. That why I am still playing even though I am not happy.

If I were one of these developers (my background is computer science), I would rather polish the game by eliminating the bugs before developing more content. It seems that they were pushed to develop all this content in a rush.

I find it hard to believe that anyone inside the Anet building had anything to do with recent decisions.

What corporation would spend 5 years establishing brand loyalty and then throw that hard work out in the first 3 months? Add to that, what company in its right mind would introduce such controversy at the time they needed Christmas sales?

This stinks of NCSoft all the way.

dear OP,

the moderators operate extremely fast on this forum to restrict feedback to that of constructive only.

constructive feedback is why this forum exists in the first place.

if you dont think a post is providing constructive feedback, report it.

apologist threads like this serve no purpose other than to attempt to derail negative feedback.

if there was any negative feedback to derail, why didnt you report it?

perhaps some of the comments you have read seem harsh to you,
leading you to defend those it was aimed at.

but truly, if those comments remain rather than vanish, they have been investigated and found to be valid.

the fact that you dont find them valid is moot.

I can’t say anything about other servers, but I can comment on what I’ve seen in my home server (Yak’s Bend). I have no idea if the population has dropped, but it has certainly shifted. LA is now constantly full, with waits to get out of overflow and into the actual home instance of it. Inversely, Orr is a lot less populated.

I’m sure the fact that FotM is new is contributing to this shift, but near gear being available there means that a lot of players will stay there (and only there) until they have their new gear. Instead of swarming the new content to see if, then spreading the population back out, FotM encourages staying there and ignoring other areas.

Lyger.1826:

I think it’s telling that none of the devs have posted enthusiastically about the ascended gear.

If they dislike it, it would be a bad PR move (and by extension a bad career move for them) if they stated that dislike publicly. About the only thing they can do in this situation is exactly what they’re doing – remaining silent.

Sometimes, the ‘powers that be’ force through changes that are possibly argued against in design meetings. Yes, the devs ultimately implemented it – but it’s likely that it was implemented unenthusiastically. A

+1 on this. After seeing this, I can’t help but feel bad for the devs. They tried so hard and were so excited about this game- a step away from the same tired RNG dungeon gear grind systems that exist in other games, constantly striving for higher stats. Watching their videos of how enthusiastic and dedicated they were I can’t help but feel sad for them, knowing that those same people were forced to implement something that betrayed their entire vision for the game, and the trust of most of their most loyal fans.

But I will give them this- For the first 2 months of release this game really stood on the forefront of the MMO genre and showed that the tired EQ/WoW playstyle of gear grinding wasn’t necessary to be successful and loved.

I don’t regret starting this game, and will continue to play until ascended gear or whatever tier they add after it will begin adversely affecting my own game play, since I have no intention of chasing after each new set and will stick to my exotics.

I would love to be nice to a Dev, if I actually saw one in a relevant(to the current problem) thread.

This has yet to happen. So not really sure what fora OP is reading ATM.

I’m strongly against the Ascended gear and I want it removed in any way possible, as fast as possible.

However, personal attacks is not something I stand for.

If it is true, the only real option they have is to hope the changes they may have been “forced” to make are a complete success. If the game tanks? Fired. If they disagree publicly? Fired.

why cant arenanet aim to work like runic games then?

NaughtyProwler.8653:

If it is true, the only real option they have is to hope the changes they may have been “forced” to make are a complete success. If the game tanks? Fired. If they disagree publicly? Fired.

Welcome to the life of a modern day game dev in the corporate world.

I’ll be nicer when they start actually paying attention to people who are bringing up legitimate complaints. Especially about the lack of other players throughout the zones.