To whom it may concern:
Guild Wars 2 is an excellent game. I’m not going to whine about a single thing regarding the content of the game in this post. I understand that there are two sides to the coin for nearly every issue, and most of the posters here are very passionate about the game and their ability to play it to their personal contentment. Debates over topics such as game economy and living story content can often get very heated as both side are vying for the devs’ attention to help craft the game into their own personal “perfect” experience.
There is at least one subject, though, that I firmly believe the community will stand strongly together for – communication. No matter what happens, the patch notes and the few official posts here are all we get to know how the game we are all very passionate for is changed on a sometimes day-to-day basis. Many players spend a majority of their day playing, while some only log on a few times a month, but in any case, we players care about the game and simply want to know when something is made different in the game we devote our time to.
Recently, some very clear changes were made to content in a (once) very heavily played area – Cursed Shore, the only full max level, full-sized zone, had several commonly completed events’ “cooldowns” increased (those events taking place along Penitent Path, the “Pen/Shelter/Jofast” event chains). I don’t have the exact numbers, though some posters claim to have them, but regardless, if you have spent any significant amount of time there previously and check now, you will certainly notice that the events fire with nowhere near the same frequency.
Again, I don’t care to argue it. I understand both sides – players like farming and hanging out in the level 80 zone together on one side, but on the other side it is a haven for bots, a possible long-run detriment to the economy, and takes players away from other current content. Regardless of what you think, it is ArenaNet trying to craft the game to be the way they see is best and all players have the option of accepting the changes, fighting about them in other topics, or moving elsewhere.
What is ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE is that these changes, which are, again, very obvious to players, are entirely undocumented. There are no patch notes referencing these changes. There are no posts by any member of the ArenaNet team explaining or even acknowledging that these changes were made. Players deserve to know when content changes occur. This is, unarguably, a change to the game’s content.
One further negative side effect is opening the door for rumors. By releasing obvious changes but making them entirely undocumented, ArenaNet is inviting the players to speculate about less obvious changes that could have been made without saying anything. Without a policy of being 100% open about changes that occur, players will speculate (and have already done so) that drop rates are being decreased, mob respawns are changing, etc. Again – ArenaNet is allowing this to happen by introducing stealth changes to the game. These negative rumors can spread and directly affect their bottom line – there will be players who are turned off of the game after hearing that it can change at any time with no notice.
I cannot possibly imagine that this is something that ArenaNet wants. If you have any comments to make about stealth changes and ArenaNet’s communcations policy on game patches, please discuss them here.
And please, people, be civil. ArenaNet is made of people like you and I, who learn and make mistakes. Do not discuss the pros and cons of content changes here, and keep your criticism constructive. I just hope that with enough discussion and attention, we can get the positive result we want.
