I left GW2 about a year ago (got bored) and came back about a month ago. In case it’s any help with Anet, I thought I’d share my experiences to date and why I went with GW2 because it wasn’t the only game I looked at, when I left my last MMO (over some very poor customer management related to some recent changes.)
So far, I’ve been very happy with the return. I can see getting tired of my current activities but I haven’t scratched dungeons and fractals so am looking forward to dabbling with that in time, once I exhaust my current interests.
What brought me to GW2 rather than the other options? Great support for players who like alts. Always thought it was dumb of a publisher to insistent players grind for each toon- what difference does it make to a publisher how I spend my time as long as it is in their game?
The wardrobe changes are fantastic, as are the additional account wide unlocks beyond account-wide achievements and wallet (available when I left).
I like leveling characters and the higher zone pops brought by the megaservers makes a huge difference in making running through zones more fun and less of a grind.
Over the years, I’ve also learned that looks matter to me as a player and I still find GW2 the nicest looking game out there, both characters and world. Some of the world settings really get the daydreamer going in me (like Divinity’s Reach but many other places). The characters and outfits are very nice.
I like GW2’s dynamic combat. It isn’t the most dynamic system out there but it has the right level of mobility and re-activeness for me.
I was previously luke-warm on the small number of actions you can do on a character but it sure lowers the bar on returning to the game and makes it feasible to switch which toon I’m using in pvp. Didn’t think I would but I’m finding I prefer the limited functions to the wall of buttons approach (last MMO, I had 8 action bars up, not all for combat actions but about 30 buttons or so were combat related, plus macros for reactives and sequences. Not all all easy to return to that game or switch between alts.)
GW2 also doesn’t have the most dynamic content but it’s nice, especially with the megaservers seeing to it that there are more events going on and that the group ones can be finished in most places.
I also appreciate the roll-out of news about the upcoming feature pack. Compared to some companies that shall rename nameless, I find your communication excellent: it’s clear as to what is changing, why it is changing, design constraints that prevented some changes, and impact to me as a player.
Not everything is perfect. I’d like a real LFG system and not the ‘glorified LFG chat channel’ we have now. I don’t see how I can make decent in-game money and while I like to support my game companies in the cash shop, I don’t like having to buy gold from them. Long term, I do drift away from games if I can’t raise the gold to enable my alts and other activities through crafting or farming of a type I enjoy. That’s the main thing I could see causing me to leave GW2 at some point.
But overall, I really appreciate the changes made in the last year. They definitely addressed many of the issues I had with GW2 when I left. And I can’t stress how much I appreciate the transparency in your news updates.
(edited by qbalrog.8017)