Guild Wars 2 Community? Where did it go?
(This post was originally going to be a response to a thread that was merged or deleted since written but I felt like I should share it none the less.)
It has been over a year since release and more and more players are coming from other games. Those games have shaped their attitudes and ideas and when they came to GW2 they found the community wasn’t what they wanted or what they’re used to. So we have to shape those players to more of the idea of a cooperative and understanding community where ideas can be discussed and debated but respect still remains for all players.
First of all, we are not all the same. It’s fact. We are all different ages, educated differently, brought up differently, and grew up around different gaming communities and players. This difference is what can make a game community seem fantastic or seem utterly miserable. When Guild Wars 2 first announced, the players were excited and so was Arena Net. The community as a whole was “Let this succeed!” and give us the game we all want to play. We could see players as young as six playing the beta and players older than 70 waiting for release. All the generations of players could be found at the start of Guild Wars 2 and this was an exciting time!
When the game released, players began to form their guilds and their communities on their respected servers. Still, it was exciting to see what was forming and how players were willing to work together to achieve goals and complete the game. WvW was fresh and strategies were forming and players were stepping up to the plate to lead their server to victory. PvP was quick to start forming their own ideas on builds and work toward the highest rank! PvE was a blast because each map had so many players and they were so talkative and helpful and players wanted others to succeed! There were problems but we waited and we wanted a great game and we felt it was already there. We all worked with Arena Net filling out surveys and reporting bugs. The forums were full on inquiry on just about anything.
After a few months, Halloween and Wintersday were a blast for the community and the market. Players wanted to work together and teach each other the new stuff Arena Net had given us. Achievements were abundant and fun to achieve while the rewards were great and, to some, profitable. The introduction to the Living Story seemed genius when Arena Net released it and the Karka Event was huge and very rewarding! Some missed it and Arena Net asked us what we thought and surveyed us. We told them we loved it and the community went into Wintersday as strong as the game could make it. It was fun.
So where did that fun go you might ask? It changed. Players wanted more and more and other players came into the game with even more expectations whether from the hype or from other games they had played. WvW had become the focal point to a lot of server communities and their leadership was based around it. Failure to win that week became infighting and the leadership was blamed. The forums became more of a complain and gain than inquiries. PvP didn’t seem to go where the players wanted it, and others would say it went nowhere. PvE became more of where can we profit or where can we get our next achievement points? Events stopped being completed and World Bosses were allowed to go on rampages with two or three players calling out in map chat for help. Many of the maps emptied out or were filled with farmers of sorts. The Living Story became more fast paced and other players felt it was less desirable to have to come back over and over to play a story they did not or want to understand.
Arena Net seemed to have gone silent besides constant updates and Living Story updates. The surveys stopped and the players found new ways to complain. Communities turned on each other, players thought the game became a chore to do every day, and WvW became stale while becoming poisonous to those who wanted to experience that part of the game. Players have become less helpful or burnt out. Guilds filled up and cliques were formed inside of them. The better players became the tormentors and the newer players became the idealists. Do you remember Pink Day in LA last year? It was great on tons of servers but this year it just seemed there… somewhere.
Sadly, all games go through this phase. That’s right, PHASE! Guild Wars 1 had the same problem for those who played the beginning to the end. The game, however, succeeded and players loved it!