I was quite critical in the past, but some praise is deserved for ANet. I’ve just come back after months of absence, to the game, and I see significant improvement. First and foremost – the FPS! Holy batman, what did you do? When I left, the game was unplayable in places, especially LA, now it runs quite smoothly pretty much everywhere. The only thing that changed on my end is Win7 32bit instead of 64bit, but that can’t be the reason. The game is a lot more enjoyable now, when things are smoother. The game is finally performing as it should.
Next thing is of course item preview in TP, something I asked about for months, finally there, and already put to good use to re-dress my alts.
Then the awesome news of the End of Phantom Wars in WvW. Too long have we been taking part in ghost conflicts, where I was the only model on the screen, despite the effects and damage clearly telling me there is at least 60 others around me. Better late than never. I have a distinct feeling, that I see more models in the open world as well, with characters being visible from afar, which really adds to the experience.
Did you remove the old cutscenes in favor of a more traditional camera shots? At least I saw none in the living story missions. I quite like that too, but I miss the high quality view of my character
Finally the living story and the events in the old zones really bring a feeling of exodus, and a war looming on the horizon. Giving players a reason to be in older zones is equally important as adding new zones, that was always my opinion.
However, I still see world event balancing is completely off, large groups of players one shot the boss and TP still has no way to filter for medium armor only for example. I’m currently not interested in any grind due to lack of time, so won’t comment on instances, fractals etc. Consider this an opinion of a returning casual player