Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

As an example the back-pack should addition should not be much more as configuration and adding some files one would think.

It should be, but it’s probably also one of those things which seems like it’s simple and couldn’t mess up . . . and then it does. Especially if those backpacks are meant to “evolve” through the crafting profession progress.

Honestly I think most of the feature pack work is more along the line of optimizations and work on the back-end we don’t see . . . and we get this stuff so we have something we can see.

“Especially if those backpacks are meant to “evolve” through the crafting profession progress “ Yeah maybe but that back-end work has in this case already been done for Chinese client.

Besides it does not have to be so hard. Simply use the lower level item as an ingredient for the higher level item and there you have your evolving item. Then it should not require any additional code. But yeah without seeing the code we can never be 100% sure.

Like I said, for some reason I get the impression the back-end optimization and work on that stuff is the bulk of the work in the Feature Pack and this stuff is just to:

A: Put us in the same vicinity as the Chinese clients’ features so to simplify things when they need to go look at things – everything’s mostly normalized, so no need to worry about stuff we have and China doesn’t or things they have which NA/EU doesn’t.

B: Give us something we can see as having been done, as opposed to merely a patch reading “worked on code optimization and fixed tooltips from the list”.

Vayne.8563:

Who says you can’t critique and be happy? Why do people feel that’s mutually exclusive?

I make suggestions sometimes, but I’m still mostly happy.

Of course. I just don’t like the notion that forum-goers complain and the rest play happily and send ANet cupcakes.

Myself personally I’m in a phase where I’m left wanting something new, am a bit jaded about the games’ direction and disappointed about the wasted potential. But I still play almost every day, if not just for the social aspect. It could just be so much more.

Traveller.7496:

Vayne.8563:

Who says you can’t critique and be happy? Why do people feel that’s mutually exclusive?

I make suggestions sometimes, but I’m still mostly happy.

Of course. I just don’t like the notion that forum-goers complain and the rest play happily and send ANet cupcakes.

Myself personally I’m in a phase where I’m left wanting something new, am a bit jaded about the games’ direction and disappointed about the wasted potential. But I still play almost every day, if not just for the social aspect. It could just be so much more.

Thats pretty much me, except I am no longer playing. I am realizing that the game’s initial aspirations started out as the perfect MMO for me, but the development direction with Living Story has all but killed that and over the last several months I am realizing this is no longer the MMO for me. I dont know why the developers went this route. I dont like it. Others do, I do not. When I post here on the forums, its with the glimmer of hope that things will change but Arenanet continues to invest in something that I cannot get behind.

In the coming weeks I see myself finally uninstalling the game and moving on for good, taking my fat credit card with me to another game.

Here let me weigh in, 2 years playing GW2 and I’m still happy with the game, I still find things to do on a daily basis to keep me interested, the game is diverse enough to offer lots of options, and there are plenty of things I’ve yet to experience in the game like FoM which I’ve never been in along with most dungeons I’ve never experienced either.

Yeah the game could be better, lots of things I’d like to see happen or added but am I unhappy? no, I’ve gotten way more than my money’s worth in hours of play, if I quit tomorrow I’d say GW2 is the best value for investment I’ve made in the gaming world.

Of course this is JMHO

The new trait system ruined leveling a new character for me because not only do I get traits much later in the game but I have to stick with really kittenty traits that nobody ever uses because their bonuses either negligible or highly impractical till I’m level 60+ because apparently most of the adept major traits can’t be unlocked without paying till that point. 7% power to vitality is going to be so game-changing I will not need to get any other trait, it seems. /sarcasm

Otherwise, the changes were pretty chill. I’m pleased with everything but the trait system.

I’m happy with how fast the combat is but unhappy with the build diversity.

I’m happy with the Living Story but VERY unhappy with no expansion being announced yet.

I’m happy with my guild but unhappy that I can only join five.

I’m happy how beautiful the world is but unhappy that my characters can’t “own” any of it (aka housing/guild halls)

So does that mean I’m angry at Anet? No. Just that I think the game could improve in some very important ways. I think GW2 is missing out on those markets if they don’t but I’m just some guy on a video game forum talking about things I’m not trained in.

All Spanish-speaking community is totally unhappy, oh wait I forgot you are only interested in the English-speaking communities.
If you go through the forums in Spanish would realize what is the true expression and the way things actually, but then, who cares for anet.
The only difference is that here all have a collar of obedience, and therefore can not express it properly or tell the truth about this game and all its flaws, but if a time is spend in the Spanish forums and translate a little comments will realize they are not just unhappy but these last two years have tried that anet change the way you think and create content.
Come Thursday will say them to add new filters to the bazaar (TP) and you all think that anet just created the best content on the history of MMOs.
It is what has been happening for two years, only faces are washed to the game, but no new content … but of course, will always be those who applaud and get excited so great it is innovative and anet … is not it ?
I almost hurts to read you this English forum, I really can not believe that they are so scared to say what they really think, this ultimately hurts us all, those of anet do what they want and we end up unhappy because basically, deep down, we know that this new ads are nothing more than a facelift for the game.

PD:sorry for my bad English, but hey, the course coordinator who would have to carry our messages to developers apparently do not, or say it in a very sweet way that surely thought “everything is fine with the Spanish community” .

PD2:google traductor ftw xD

Happy is relative to be honest.

i am mostly annoyed at this point.
We get promised a lot of different stuff. That the LS would be something that gives us an expension worth of content.
That so many amazing things will be coming, etc…

However fact is that most of what we got was QoL and temporary content.

The fact that the accessable content of the game did not really change that much and many promising systems that have been introduced, haven`t been build upon is a sad thing to see.

The core game got mostly QoL changes and up to this date we got only two new maps.
One medicore and one awesome, but nevertheless, thats all for two years.

LS1, the “expansion content” was a temporary experiment, which delivered some content but till it is replayable it will be nothing more then that. An experiment to see what works and what not, mostly beneficial for the players who were there (newer might benefit from what they have learned, but it is still lost content and subysequently does not count for now, till they are able to have us replay them)

LS2 is a good step in the right direction, even though the overall story has sooo many flaws, that i dont know where to start. The segments on its own are great though.

Rewards, the thing that most people are out for in these games did not really evolve in the last two years.
In fact, the existance of the Gem-shop, which was at first a god-sent, makes it much more obvious:

Ingame
- 1 new armor set (ascended)
- 4 weapon sets (fractal, TA-reskin, Ascended, Amberite)
- 2.5 Headpieces (Drytop)
- lot`s of temprorary Backpacks, not (or TP) available anymore
(1 Weaponset in the Queens Jubilee)
- Champ BagWeapon (Reskin galore)

Gemstore
- 19 armor sets (6 for medium and light, 7 for heavy)
- 12 BLC weaponsets
+ extra cosmetic single part stuff

There are other rewards, of course, but this little list shows directly what is wrong with that game.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to make some money, however doing it so blatantly obvious is kinda sad.

While I am greatful for all the stuff we get for free and I am aware how hard it is to create a lot of it, it just saddens me that they fail to deliver on the most basic level.

They aim high, but deliver in the mid range.
Their assets are great, but the combination is lacking.

The recent announcments are actually more scary than uplifting.
Sure, there are some things in that people wanted, but there are several head scratching changes that I do not know that anybody asked for.

Of course they have their data, but I feel lucky that I do not have to get through most of that leveling shlock again with the upcoming changes.
They are terrible in my eyes, changing the game, where i was able to do what I want from Level 1, to a gated, railroad, constructed road like every other MMO out there.

I am mostly disapointed that we got no announcement at the 2 Anniversity.
In fact, it felt like they did not really care about it.
The Birthday came and went by and nobody, exept people who were near PAX, batted an eye.

If the feature pack is all they have and if there isn`t anything BIG being announced in the next two weeks i can only keep shaking my head.

I still got goals in the game, but it is getting lonely, since I am the last one of my friends who plays that game.
While it is my personal problem, it shows how what can happen. People leave and take others with them.
I am logging in less and less, not even doing my dailies.

The game has a great base from the start. However after two years it should have grown into something bigger already.
Sadly it did not deliver.

Am I unhappy? No. I still like the game.
However I start to feel burned out. Too much false advertising. Too much hype. Too many promises and not enough or lacking follow ups.

This game is in dire need of something big.
I dont care if it is not ready. I dont care if they are only at the half point, but ANet needs to put something at the table in the next few weeks.

At the moment I’m currently unhappy with the recent state of the game.

First when it came out I was impressed. It was like a beauftiful women you meet at the first time. Exciting, nice looking, shiny and interesting. But if the women is dumb, and almost totally empty inside you start to get bored.

So many things to list here:

The game / skill / combat system is so much dumber than GW1 that it would take hours to write down just that part. They took everything that was good in GW1 and made it dumbproof. Every part of the game (except the higher tier of sPvP) can be simplified to 1-2-3. Stand on the right place, keep pressing your 1 and there you go, heres a chest with absolutely nothing inside.

WvW turned into zergfest with no solution. Edge of the mist just made it worse. You barely see an oldschool guild out there. Zerg over all.

RNG makes some players absolutely rich while others never see a precursor drop.

Reward system, loots are terrybad.

Prices on TP got skyrocketed, so if you refuse to spend hours on TP and not doing the same instance over you never got big money. And no, dedication towards a goal (for example a legendary) does not mean you have to do the same boring thing over and over again for 2 months / 4hours a day. Thats what they said: No grinding.

pdavis.8031:

@kta

So your upset and predicting the end of guild wars 2 as we know it becuase its not like other MMOs? Guild wars never set out to be like other mmos. Their vision was for something very different. I and MANY others enjoy it. Like the direction its going. And thing ANET is doing a wonderful job. Sure somethings could be fixed/added. But MMOs are a work in progress.

I grow tired of these threads. I dont know why I bother posting in them anymore. Much of it is based on anger/frustration/ignorance/whatever. Of course you do have the right to express your feelings about the game. But it mostly turns into a “white knight” vs “hater” argument that leads nowhere.

I agree about the threads being tiresome. However, you’re statement about their vision and their actual release couldn’t be more wrong. Originally prelaunch they had that vision to be different, they didn’t stick with it however, and this is the result. Complaints. If they had listened to the playerbase in the first place on Nov2012 when they announced Ascended gear and Fractals for the first time we wouldn’t be having these valid and well thought out complaints 2 years later. You see we told them this would happen, that the dungeoneers and the hardcore crowd were a very small portion of the population overall, and that they would eventually leave en masse for newer games whos focus was originally hardcore dungeon/raiding from the beginning. But nobody listened and now we have a game with some weird updates that the casuals that do stay with games for years and years are tired of dealing with.

If they are on their way back to their system of being different of returning to the manifesto of updating monthly their open world environment with lots of new events and metas and revamping their rewards system to actually be rewarding then I’m hopeful that they’ll attract those of us who left originally because of the sudden change in focus, back. But to say they did something different is not true. They followed the crowd, the put in a dungeon focus, they put in a gear treadmill, they even put in an eastern style economy where new players are required to pay to progress. It’s not different I hate to tell you that.

I also find it amazing that the people who were for getting these dungeons are now asking the question is anyone actually happy with the game at large because here we have an ironic situation. You see when they announced fractals as a thing as the new focus and casuals told them what would happen by this time, we were all told that we were not happy people that our concerns were not warranted and that we needed to go play something else which was the basic message of the so called “hardcore” crowd. Now that dungeons are no longer the focus of the game development and we’re seeing outcries in the forum that question is asked again but they’re saying different things this time and no one is telling them to go play something else as a general response. So it’s amazing to me to see history repeat like this, it really is…

laokoko.7403:

Devata.6589:

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

You almost make it seem as if it’s not so important because it’s a minority but that’s of course not true. Sure the people on the forums are a minority, it are the people willing to share idea’s, suggestions and dislikes about the game. That does however not mean that all people not on the forums are happy including those playing (as proven by the forums because people who have complains in the forum are likely playing so even that is not a good indicator).Player base is more an indicator for the longer term (2 to 3 years).

I kind of agree with him.

Well, don’t.

Statistically, silent majority only accounts for an average 30-40% margin of error – certainly not enough to warrant invalidity.

Sure there are exceptions to the average but…

Just no. That silent majority logic is wrong.

No, not happy here at all. With GW2. Was all hyped, now I feel like there’s nothing worth playing at the moment.
Very happy with Sims 4, my little SimCity city I built as part of a russian project map, and my month of Wildstar subscription. lol.

I’m going to be perfectly honest, I really feel so little for the game these days I only log in to snatch a living story chapter, and even that’s just to be a spiteful leech, really.

I gave up City of Heroes for Guild Wars 2, and while I regretted it before, I can honestly say I would give up BOTH Guild Wars games and Arenanet itself to have Paragon Studios and City of Heroes back.

I enjoy the game and generally am happy with it. I suppose buying gems at the rate I do, I either have to be enjoying something or insane.

However. . . .

The game is getting a bit “stale” because ANET makes minor changes versus big one’s in terms of how the game plays out. . . especially in WvW.

I love balance patches and they are necessary, but what about as the next big project just changing out the whole map? That makes the whole experience brand new for quite sometime in ways that these little changes don’t.

It would be like adding 2 new ways to fight in PvP (last man standing, capture the flag etc).

The game is the best one on the market but it is getting a bit stale or it feels like all the innovation is cosmetic.

Sometimes I think ANET is just risk adverse and, well, just trying to hang on versus have that fire in the belly that made GW2 quite different than GW1. I remind clients all day long that being risk adverse may be a slow way to die but is sure way to die.

I want to see more bold and creative. Surprise me from time to time.

hannah mee.7925:

Well, don’t.

Statistically, silent majority only accounts for an average 30-40% margin of error – certainly not enough to warrant invalidity.

Sure there are exceptions to the average but…

Just no. That silent majority logic is wrong.

That is a fascinating statistic, where are you referencing that from?

A 30% margin of error is enormous. The results of any survey with a margin of error in that range would need to be completely disregarded.

Elric.6971:

I’m going to be perfectly honest, I really feel so little for the game these days I only log in to snatch a living story chapter, and even that’s just to be a spiteful leech, really.

I gave up City of Heroes for Guild Wars 2, and while I regretted it before, I can honestly say I would give up BOTH Guild Wars games and Arenanet itself to have Paragon Studios and City of Heroes back.

I’d trade GW2 for City of Heroes in a heartbeat, but I’d want to keep Guild Wars. Guild Wars and City of Heroes were my ‘home’ games – the ones I’d always come back to after whatever else I decided to try got old. Never forget, never forgive.

Tachenon.5270:

I’d trade GW2 for City of Heroes in a heartbeat, but I’d want to keep Guild Wars. Guild Wars and City of Heroes were my ‘home’ games – the ones I’d always come back to after whatever else I decided to try got old. Never forget, never forgive.

I just miss my base and my friends so much!

The one friend who I played GW2 quit and its made even logging into the game for living story chapters painful and lonely.

gaborkaldy.3210:

AEdge of the mist just made it worse. You barely see an oldschool guild out there. Zerg over all.

Anet doesn’t seem to care that nobody plays EotM as it was intended. People actually avoid all fights use to get the PvE loot and they are not fixing it.

Mostly PvE players go there now, due to the fact that the PvE content/rewards is good while the WvW implementation is terrible (no PPT, no rewards for defence, etc).

Speaking for myself here,

I am not entirely happy with Guild Wars 2, for several reasons. The biggest reason for me was the direction to move away from the Guild Wars 1 motto. Guild Wars 2 started off with solid mechanics (for the most part), and I figured the game was only expand into another great collection of games.

The lack of build versatility was a huge letdown for me. Not being able to create “off the wall builds”, and utilizing a second professions skillset.

Another huge disappointment for me was the direction of the story. The current story of Guild Wars 2 has become controversial in plots, scenes, and other obscurities. Of course every player has their own taste in story. The story has seem to include “real-world” issues that removed that sense of “fantasy” for me, thus becoming a negative all together. The issue with ret-conning very large history facts from the Guild Wars 1 series really put the story to rest for me. I could ramble about this for awhile.

Gear Acquisition is another failing point for me. When I log into Guild Wars 2, every player is bright with colors and has armor that brings no context to the world around them. Everyone is so different that they look the same. I value no player in this game because I have no clue how to view them. Did they work hard to earn their gear, did they buy armor from the Gem Store? is the armor respected? All things lost in Guild Wars 2 for me.

In conclusion,

The game has become to spent on becoming “fair” or “equal” with no real challenge or plot worth becoming enriched in.

To start with a positive note, I think the upcoming changes suggest ANet is seriously listening to the complaints of the players and making changes based on specific points players have made, including the changes to the Ranger (some of which reflect specific points raised in the Ranger CDI thread, including one that I think is very important), nerfing the Warrior a bit, and the multi-colored and account-bound commander tags for WvW. This is the first time in a while where I’ve felt like the game is going in the right direction and I’ve been spending some money in the Gem Store again as a result of it. Unfortunately, it still feels like one small step forward after two giant steps backward and I still have serious concerns about the long-term direction GW2 is going in and I’m more unhappy than happy.

Broadly, I’m concerned about the game taking design direction from the Asian market and incorporating changes from the Chinese version of GW2 into the NA and European version. I don’t think the tastes of the two markets always match very well and few people seem happy with most of the changes being brought over from the Chinese version of GW2.

Beyond that, I have some specific areas of concern about the direction the game is going in several areas that I think represent trends in the wrong direction:

Megaservers

• Destroyed existing server communities and turned every zone into (too) high population play. This is the problem that caused me to take a month off from playing the game. I came from a low-population server where a handful of poeple would try to do the Frozen Maw or (the old) Taquatl. I’d see familiar faces and guilds at the champion events and the Frozen Maw actually plays better with fewer people (more on champion events below) because the Svanir Shaman actually moves out into the ice a bit. Now, every event is a mob scene with lag, reduced FPS, and is basically an excercise in applying DPS until the boss dies. Worse, I no longer see familiar character or guild names at events, just a random blob of strangers. Yes, there were problems with the low population servers (many events almost never got done) but this has lurched too far in the other direction. If I wanted massive high-population server player, I would have transferred.

• The above also creates problems for role-players who need to wind up in the same instances with each other. Forcing players to join guilds or party together to wind up in the same instance is not really a substitute for the high-level server identity that’s been lost.

• Not being grouped with people from your server in PvE has badly hurt the ability of WvW players to recruit from the PvE players in the game or to call out for help in PvE because the players from their server may be distributed across several megaservers and there is no way to chat with only the players on a person’s server.

• Fixes Needed: Reduce the population cap on Megaservers so there aren’t as many people in them and only squeeze in more if they share a party. Mix only a fixed number of servers (or only one for the high-population servers) and restore guesting, if necessary, to restore some sense of server community on the Megaservers. Give players a server-only chat option so they can map chat (or even broadcast chat) to the other players on their server only for WvW recruiting and (until they are changed) guild recruiting. Assign megaservers based on the guilds a player belongs to and not simply the guild that they represent, so that players can set up affinity guilds that they don’t always have to always represent to be grouped together (e.g., a role-players guild, an Eredon Terrace guild, etc.).

PvE

• Several event bosses were buffed to make them tougher and give them time limits, but I don’t think it actually improved the quality of the encounters. Maybe I’m a minority, but I don’t think standing around a champion a doing DPS and healing for 10-15 minutes while the boss repeats the same attacks and animations is all that interesting. It was often more interesting watching the Shadow Behemoth go down before the repeated their sequence the second time than watching it go on for 3 or 4 after the timer was added. Longer and more isn’t always more fun.

• The disparity of drop rates for certain materials (specifically cloth) and the use of even lower level materials in ascended gear has made the costs of some of those materials prohibitively high, especially for a starting character trying to work their way through a craft that requires those materials at lower levels. I’d hate to be a starting character trying to craft cloth armor today and you’ll notice that one of the biggest concerns about tuning armor drops to match the class getting the drop is that it will make it harder for medium and heavy armor classes to get cloth drops.

• I personally don’t like the Living Story grind (it feels very much like a grind to me) and I’ve largely given up on them, yet it seems to be consuming a large amount of resources for GW2 development. At the very least, I think the GW2 developers need to figure out how to make the player’s characters central to the story rather than having them follow a bunch of NPCs around for their story. That’s the main complaint about Trahearne in the personal stories, and it’s a problem in the Living Stories, too. If you have tabletop role-playing writers on your team, ask them what a GMPC is and stop doing that.

• Guild Wars 2 is a beautiful game and a lot of the Living Story events have been trashing the map and making it ugly. Lion’s Arch was a fun city to roam around but now it’s an ugly ruin. Kessex HIlls was a beautiful map that now is covered with garbage from the Living Story. Basically, the map is getting uglier and I’d hate to be a new player that only knows the ruined Lion’s Arch and not the beautiful and fun city that was destroyed.

• The person most responsible for getting me in to GW2, who has several screens worth of different characters, who spent plenty of money in the Gem Store, and who has more than 10,000 achievement points hasn’t played Guild Wars 2 in months, and one of his main reasons is the gutting of town clothes so they can’t be customized and mixed and matched. That was an important feature for him and role-players and taking it away didn’t make the game any better. It only made it worse for a lot of people, and I will never spend another dollar in the Gem Store buying any out-of-combat skin because of it, either.

• Fixed Needed – Longer isn’t necessarily better. Adjust cloth drops, in particular, so prices don’t become prohibitive, especially on low-level materials for starting players. Don’t make the whole game revolve around the living story. When you do tell stories, make the player’s characters more central to it. Stop trashing the map or move the main dragon story forward and clean up some of the desolate maps going the other way. Restore town clothing and customization for people who want to role-play outside of combat.

WvW

• Servers win because of population and coverage and, as a result, people stack on servers, which only makes their population higher and coverage better, making the problem even worse. This will persist as long as the score doesn’t take population and coverage differences into account and so long as the winner (determined by population and coverage) gets the best rewards.

• Hacking is a problem in WvW because it allows players to walk through walls, see what they shouldn’t be able to see, destroy what they shouldn’t be able to destroy, and survive damage they shouldn’t be able to survive. You can’t have a fair fight against hackers. And because the policing of hacking is so uneven and some of the hacks are so subtle, that it makes players wonder whether everything strange they see is a hack or exploit (such as the enemy team that seems impossible to catch because they can always skip just far enough away to get away from attacks at the last moment).

• Class balance is a problem in WvW with a few classes widely being seen as dominant. It’s not uncommon to see certain strong classes reliably win in 2 or 3 v 1 battles against good players playing weaker classes (see also hacking, above), which is a problem in a player vs. player setting if you want a diverse class mix in the game.

• WvW is endlessly played on the same maps that most experienced players know nearly every nuance of. Players have been asking for new maps for a while now and if you added new maps, you’d see players return to WvW, even from other games, just to play and learn those new maps.

• Fixes Needed – The game needs some sort of score handicapping so that less populated and covered servers are more competitive (I know it won’t be easy to do right so that it can’t be gamed by the players, but it needs to be done). Stop rewarding the “winners” with better loot during competitions until “winning” means more than numbers and coverage to stop encouraging stacking on the all-too-predictable league winners or, alternately, reward players for playing for the underdog to encourage the players to spread out. Do a better job policing hacking (e.g., flag characters that are in locations they can’t legitimately be in) and give players a way to report suspected hacking for further investigation. Continue working on class balancing taking WvW into account. Add new maps to the WvW game (if monetization is a problem, start a Kickstarter campaign to pay for it).

What I’d Like To See Added to GW2

• More sandbox features such as guild halls and housing.

Nope. I’ve played GW2 since Pre every day and the last year or so has been one of disappointments and rage rants. Oddly, that is not what I play a game for.

Things that I like and keep me playing

o The look of the game. Kudos to the Art Group

o Combat is easy to learn and hard to master

o Both the Economic and Customer support are Stellar

Things that are really wearing thin

o Living Story: Love the idea, hate the implementation. Even at it’s best it has all the depth of a mud puddle. It’s time for Anet to face facts, if Living Story was gonna work it woulda worked by now.

o These tiny Content and Feature patches. I swear from my side it looks like Anet is putting more effort into the PR side of the drop rather than the actual content. I feel punished every time I get excited for a release only to find the hype was badly distorted when compared to the actual delivered content. SouthSun Solo “Dungeon” anyone?

o Wordsmith Releases. It’s a Feature Patch, Content Patch or a Balance Patch or maybe some combination of all of the above. As a System Engineer living in Silicon Valley who has successfully managed many projects; this type of splitting frog hairs is typical of a team in way over it’s head. Get back to the basics: A patch is a patch.

o Development Priorities. For two years now players have asked for A and the Devs proudly march out B. To make it worse B is not only something didn’t ask for but it also breaks many players Characters play style. This is wrong on so many levels.

o The CDI’s. Walls and Walls of TL;DR text and few changes. Given the consistent outcry of the community the problems are well documented. They are not a tool for gathering requirements but rather come off as a ploy to calm the masses.

o Balance Team. Why do we even have a Balance Team? Why do they always seem to take the easy way out and nerf the players? Why does Game Balance always seem to be something that happens to us rather than for us? This is a sure way to annoy the customers yet they keep going back to that Well. Again, this is not something we’ve asked for.

In closing, Guild War 2 is a good game that could be a great game but not with the direction they are currently headed.

Am I happy?

Yes and no.
The big thing about gw2, the absolute top point for me, its the world Tyria. It is a fantastic and beautiful world. I will probably wander about in it long after I lost all interest in the game. The graphic and the music I still find wonderful, and the world is full of little snippets of conversation between npc’s, little stories and small dramas.
It really makes me smile every now and then.
The drawback with gw2 is its wonderful world. The living story kinda dont live up to it. In this world, arguing about the price of comm tags doesnt fit. I dont know if I can explain it better.
The lack of a “grand plan” from Anet is disheartening. For some time now its almost as a bunch of random people have had turns of steering this ship, with no set direction. At the same time, Anet is slowly but steadily chipping away at stuff I found fun. For me and my playstyle anyway, cant talk for anyone else.
The Lore isnt so fascinating anymore, what point to learn something when its changed later?
But again, what a world Tyria is!

Chrispy.5641:

How best to answer the question….

…..snip….

/rant

I want to add onto my already long rant….

Its not that I’m unhappy with the game itself. I am actually very satisfied with the core experience in Guild Wars 2. The supporting systems as they were presented in guild Wars 2 in 2012 were amazing (the base achievement system, the base dye system, the base bank system, etc.), and the core experience was already superior than almost every other MMO I have ever played combined (except one).

What I don’t understand is the never ending need to spend so much time and resources on improving those already solid supporting systems at the grave expense of the core experience (combat), which is almost never touched, looked at, or even considered for some developer love and attention?

You fight everywhere in this game, and 90% of the new stuff implemented, while not combat related, still means that you are doing combat at some point along the trail. Why is it then, that combat isn’t even being touched in this feature pack? Why isn’t that being expanded in any significant way? Why does combat have to go stale for 5-6+ months at a time between balance patches if its such a large part of the game?
(And no, I do not consider Profession balance part of the feature pack. I will once again say that Balance is not a feature, it is necessary for an MMO to exist.)

That’s my gripe, and it the main thing that I’m unhappy with. The biggest part of the game, the most universal part of the game, the part of the game that you will always be doing at some point whether you like it or not, is being ignored.

(There’s smaller thing’s I’m unhappy with too, like the lack of lore, the lack of variety in WvW(which relates to combat/fighting), the incomplete experience as it relates to crafting(6 of 8 are at 500, but the last 2 have been sitting at 400 for almost a year) and a few other things, but Professions, Profession balance, and combat in general is the big thing.)

I think Berk stated very well most of my issues with this game, and he/she even suggested some fixes which are sound.

Personally, I have fun.. and I don’t. To be perfectly honest the only thing that really keeps me here on a (mostly) daily basis is that I’ve invested a lot of time and money into the game and my characters. I bought gems. Lots of gems. My characters all look exactly how I want them to. But then it is boring. I like having some chuckles with my guild mates. It’s fun to earn some gold. But everything is getting so repetive and boring. CS is the only place to make any decent coin, so 80% of my time is spent there doing the same events over and over. I play WvW but I can’t dedicate large amounts of time there because I don’t have that much time to play (and not make gold).

I found the Season 1 living story somewhat fun. This season’s LS is torture, and I find I can’t bring myself to even step foot in Dry Top for the last few weeks. I hate jumping, I hated SAB. I hate that you have to, again, do the same events ad nauseum to get anything worthwhile from the place. It’s … just… boring. And I agree with Berk. I feel like an “extra” in the story line. I find the story line uninteresting.

So I started a new character to level up by going out into the world and doing some mapping. I’m level 67 and have 3 traits. So there’s that fiasco.

I don’t have twitch capabilities to PvP with any success. I don’t have enough time to dedicate to doing dungeons; nor do I want to be “stuck” at the computer, which I would be in a dungeon, because I would feel bad to leave my party early if necessary.

I’m saddened that the last several things to come out in the gem store are outfits. If the latest armor was actually armor or something I could switch pieces out on, I would buy it. But I can’t, so nope.

I finally got my first precursor out of the MF after 2 years. And I don’t really want the legendary (The Dreamer), but at the same time, if I take time to gather all the 5 million things I need for it, I can at least sell it for 3000g … which I don’t know what I’ll do with.

I think loot/drops in general are abysmal and uninteresting. I sell/salvage everything. I can’t even remember the last time I got a drop and actually kept it thinking “oh sweet!”. So, I play to make gold and buy stuff off the TP. Maybe this should really be called TP Wars, because that, to me, seems like the only end game there is.

TL;DR: I’m not necessarily unhappy. Just bored and feeling too invested to drop the game.

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

This paragraph especially. Its pretty much what I think about feature packs :::

How could things have gotten so far out of hand? A great deal of the backlash came from people Savage Leaping to conclusions and there’s really no excuse for it, but it was fed by having few recent clues as to GW2’s overall direction. Since ArenaNet can’t even reveal yet whether expansion-level content is being developed, players are left to guess; on top of that, as I mentioned last column, features that were requested along with very detailed feedback are sometimes implemented in baffling ways. The trait revamp made getting traits more difficult for new players and characters but hasn’t provided much in the way of increased fun. Commander tag colors will now all be unlocked with a single purchase, so it’s great that ArenaNet made that change according to feedback, but it’s troubling that it was even going to be implemented in a way that completely missed why players had asked for the feature in the first place. If ArenaNet is only able to tease stuff that’s a few weeks out from release, there’s much less time to get feedback on implementation — and when even small features are kept under wraps before a big reveal, it can lead to what I really would like to avoid calling “hype burnout.” Since I don’t have a better term for it, there it is.

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Hmmm, maybe the “new player experience” wasn’t just for the China release. Maybe there is something big around the corner that they expect will bring in a fresh Western audience.

Tachenon.5270:

Elric.6971:

I’m going to be perfectly honest, I really feel so little for the game these days I only log in to snatch a living story chapter, and even that’s just to be a spiteful leech, really.

I gave up City of Heroes for Guild Wars 2, and while I regretted it before, I can honestly say I would give up BOTH Guild Wars games and Arenanet itself to have Paragon Studios and City of Heroes back.

I’d trade GW2 for City of Heroes in a heartbeat, but I’d want to keep Guild Wars. Guild Wars and City of Heroes were my ‘home’ games – the ones I’d always come back to after whatever else I decided to try got old. Never forget, never forgive.

City of Heroes… How I do miss that game.
As much as I miss it though, I freely admit there is no small amount of rose tinting my glasses… I’m not even a fan of Western Style Comics, to be honest… but that certainly didn’t stop me from enjoying the hell out of playing it…
No… CoH was special in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Great article.

I liked this paragraph:

The output of the living world releases are consistent with a team working with less than the studio’s full resources. This is another issue where greater transparency would go a long way toward reassuring players because the distinction here is huge: If the living world is meant to take the place of an expansion, it’s not living up to that job and the fact that ArenaNet’s resources seem stretched thin by it is worrying. Conversely, if the living world content is meant to tide us over between expansions, it’s not only working well but is pretty kitten ed impressive. The problem is that we don’t know which it is, and the vast expanse of uncertainty between those two possibilities explains a lot of the hostility toward the living world in general.

Svarty.8019:

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

My guess is part of the problem is that WvW doesn’t earn ANet a lot of money in the gem store because it’s pretty self-contained. So it might help to suggest ways ANet could make money, or at least break even, improving the WvW experience.

In my reply above, I suggested using a Kickstarter for another WvW map set. They could offer gems or other benefits (an exclusive WvW patron armor skin) as rewards in order to encourage participation in the Kickstarter. A new map set would make the game feel fresh and would likely draw players who left out of boredom back into the game. It could even be used as an incentive for people to transfer down to the lower-tier servers by introducing the new map set to the bottom tier first, then the bottom two the next week, and so on until each tier gets to play the new maps, and then rotate them once everyone has seen them with the old maps.

The Metabolic Primer is an example of an item that’s useful for WvW players, but I can think of others, including versions of superior siege weapons (in particular, arrow carts, ballistas, and trebuchets) that don’t expire for 12 hours (so they don’t have to be continually refreshed), traps that done expire for 12 hours, some sort of instant supply camp drop (like the bonfire) that let’s players get more supplies in the field until it’s deleted, and so on.

One thing I forgot as an example of a change making things worse is that when they changed the transformation system, they made it impossible to get runes from karma or badge of honor armor without an expensive extractor that usually makes it more economical to just buy the runes again, instead, since you need six of them to recover a rune set. We should be able to salvage and destroy karma or badge of armor, even if doing so yields only the materials and runes (which shouldn’t destabilize the game economy) and not globs of ectoplasm or or dark matter. Buying and using karma or badge of honor armor should not make runes impossible to recover conventionally.

All of these examples of things getting worse, not better, when they are changed create the impression that the game is getting worse, not better. And it’s a serious problem when things are taken away from players that they already had and relied on as part of an “improvement”. Taking things away from players that they like really annoys them, especially if you tell them that it’s an improvement.

ipan.4356:

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Great article.

I liked this paragraph:

The output of the living world releases are consistent with a team working with less than the studio’s full resources. This is another issue where greater transparency would go a long way toward reassuring players because the distinction here is huge: If the living world is meant to take the place of an expansion, it’s not living up to that job and the fact that ArenaNet’s resources seem stretched thin by it is worrying. Conversely, if the living world content is meant to tide us over between expansions, it’s not only working well but is pretty kitten ed impressive. The problem is that we don’t know which it is, and the vast expanse of uncertainty between those two possibilities explains a lot of the hostility toward the living world in general.

The problem with his logic is he assumes an expansion is even a likely possibility. They very well could be completely bullkittenting us when Anet and NCsoft say there’s no expansion coming and just release one out of no where like “haha kittenes thought we weren’t gonna do it huh?” but why do that? Over hyping is one thing but nothing bad comes from at least letting people think there will be a new injection of content in the game. Square Enix does it all the time in FF14 and people don’t burn down the forums when bloated expectations aren’t met.

Hiding it just makes people frustrated and feel like a game that amounts to various optional, long term grinds isn’t worth it.

The much more likely scenario is that there is no expansion and the LS is all we are getting.

It doesn’t cost me anything to get updates so on that note… I can’t say I’m being screwed.

But one thing that is lacking is any standout rockstar content developer.

Josh started to do well with Super Adventure Box, then he was put in some corner somewhere. The Fractals stuff was amazing, then it was put in some corner.

And we get living story which is just starting to be decent with season 2, but still the game itself lacks a sort of unified “this is why it’s fun all the time” idea.

Xillllix.3485:

I would imagine that like me, most of the people who complain actually love the game and just want more of it.
The deception for me only come from the lack of new WvW maps, GvG maps, new skills and new end-game dungeons (that deception is surely greater for those who have player GW1, where there were much more skills, expansions and GvG).

There is also the class balance issues, but none the less this GW2 still has the best MMO combat engine.

Vayne.8563:

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

I disagree. I would be very surprised if the devs from NA & EU are working on content for the China server. The government there is suspicious of all foreign media workers. Foreign companies have to link up with a Chinese company to sell their wares on China’s mainland. Ryan Budish, a member of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, told the Washington Post in today’s article on business in China, “You can’t exactly just move in there and do business.” (Quote comkes from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/03/linkedin-thinking-twice-about-its-adoption-of-chinas-aggressive-censorship/)

There is a long process that foreign game companies have to go because of the the government’s “famous” censorship policies. All companies from the West have a separate team that communicates with their Chinese counterpart. I would be very surprised if Anet’s devs are doing the work that a specialized “China business team” would do.

I don’t think the devs are training their Chinese counterparts either. China is has alot of already trained software developers and game artists. The Chinese have also been making their own games for at least a decade. Perfect World, the infamous pay-to-win MMO, comes from the People’s Republic of China.

Links that give an overview of the Chinese game industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gaming_in_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_gaming_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China#Video_games

There’s a very high chance that the Sept update was most likely created by game devs from mainland China, not by the NA / EU devs. It’s illegal to show images of death in China, and that’s why the Downed State was censored until level 5. For sure, the company is testing to see if the censored down state would be accepted here. I’ve seen this political / social move before (FYI: It’s helps to be part of a family that has been doing international business for 500 years!). It’s also why we don’t also have a tutorial for the Downed State, most of the changes in the feature pack are cosmetic, and why we’re not seeing any much needed content updates.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

kta.6502:

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to?

Eating cupcakes?

This game and it’s devs just have such a love/hate relationship with the playerbase, it’s either “omg new WvW map and it’s huge and looks so kittening amazing” then it’s “wow this map is terrible it’s just a karma train and zergs” People just get tired of things and get cranky so when their needs aren’t met things get ugly, I know as i’m one of these people. Also they just don’t work on everything, they seem to be working on LS or Dungeons (not, lol) or PvP. It’s never doing things in all areas it’s one at a time and when your game-mode isn’t being worked on it makes those people upset.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

kta.6502:

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to?

Eating cupcakes?

ROTFLMAO!

Maybe they’re expecting us to feed them with our cake guns?

kta.6502:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

I think most people believe they have been working on a full fledged expansion this whole time, including the person you are quoting.

Fernling.1729:

kta.6502:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

I think most people believe they have been working on a full fledged expansion this whole time, including the person you are quoting.

I dont’ know if they are working on the expansion. But I always have the feeling they also need to consider China when they release their expansion.

I don’t think their release an expansion before or near their China release, so my perdiction is always if they are going to release their expansion, it’ll be 1 year after the China release.

That being said, the NA/EU will continue to leek players during that time.

kta.6502:

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

Don’t get your hopes up believing they’ve been working on other things.
They published the game with Kong Zhong, a Chinese publisher.
The NA/EU had assets related to them testing out eastern stuff in our version. Example of this is the datamined stuff from posted from reddit that caused an uproar over here.
ANet have been working on the game for the Chinese release, not some offshoot Chinese branch.

Believing there’s an expansion being worked on. Yeah…unlikely.
Problem is that they’ve done a lot of work leading up to now and threw many of it away.
The amusing thing is that they intend to bring back Living Story season 1, so expect them, at some point of time, to spend a lot of resources to redo it. And remember it needs to be redone to fit the journal format, so that’s a lot of work involved. Veterans look forward to it, haha!

BlueZone.4236:

kta.6502:

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

Don’t get your hopes up believing they’ve been working on other things.
They published the game with Kong Zhong, a Chinese publisher.
The NA/EU had assets related to them testing out eastern stuff in our version. Example of this is the datamined stuff from posted from reddit that caused an uproar over here.
ANet have been working on the game for the Chinese release, not some offshoot Chinese branch.

Believing there’s an expansion being worked on. Yeah…unlikely.

If they haven’t even started working on one, that would mean we are still at least a year out. I think they will lose a lot of their playerbase by that time. As others have pointed out in the past, they only have a small portion of their entire team actually working on the living story. There just has to be something bigger going on in the background.

kta.6502:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

I disagree. I would be very surprised if the devs from NA & EU are working on content for the China server. The government there is suspicious of all foreign media workers. Foreign companies have to link up with a Chinese company to sell their wares on China’s mainland. Ryan Budish, a member of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, told the Washington Post in today’s article on business in China, “You can’t exactly just move in there and do business.” (Quote comkes from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/03/linkedin-thinking-twice-about-its-adoption-of-chinas-aggressive-censorship/)

There is a long process that foreign game companies have to go because of the the government’s “famous” censorship policies. All companies from the West have a separate team that communicates with their Chinese counterpart. I would be very surprised if Anet’s devs are doing the work that a specialized “China business team” would do.

I don’t think the devs are training their Chinese counterparts either. China is has alot of already trained software developers and game artists. The Chinese have also been making their own games for at least a decade. Perfect World, the infamous pay-to-win MMO, comes from the People’s Republic of China.

Links that give an overview of the Chinese game industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gaming_in_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_gaming_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China#Video_games

There’s a very high chance that the Sept update was most likely created by game devs from mainland China, not by the NA / EU devs. It’s illegal to show images of death in China, and that’s why the Downed State was censored until level 5. For sure, the company is testing to see if the censored down state would be accepted here. I’ve seen this political / social move before (FYI: It’s helps to be part of a family that has been doing international business for 500 years!). It’s also why we don’t also have a tutorial for the Downed State, most of the changes in the feature pack are cosmetic, and why we’re not seeing any much needed content updates.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

So when they said they’ve all been busy with the China release they were lying?

Vayne.8563:

kta.6502:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

I disagree. I would be very surprised if the devs from NA & EU are working on content for the China server. The government there is suspicious of all foreign media workers. Foreign companies have to link up with a Chinese company to sell their wares on China’s mainland. Ryan Budish, a member of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, told the Washington Post in today’s article on business in China, “You can’t exactly just move in there and do business.” (Quote comkes from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/03/linkedin-thinking-twice-about-its-adoption-of-chinas-aggressive-censorship/)

There is a long process that foreign game companies have to go because of the the government’s “famous” censorship policies. All companies from the West have a separate team that communicates with their Chinese counterpart. I would be very surprised if Anet’s devs are doing the work that a specialized “China business team” would do.

I don’t think the devs are training their Chinese counterparts either. China is has alot of already trained software developers and game artists. The Chinese have also been making their own games for at least a decade. Perfect World, the infamous pay-to-win MMO, comes from the People’s Republic of China.

Links that give an overview of the Chinese game industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gaming_in_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_gaming_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China#Video_games

There’s a very high chance that the Sept update was most likely created by game devs from mainland China, not by the NA / EU devs. It’s illegal to show images of death in China, and that’s why the Downed State was censored until level 5. For sure, the company is testing to see if the censored down state would be accepted here. I’ve seen this political / social move before (FYI: It’s helps to be part of a family that has been doing international business for 500 years!). It’s also why we don’t also have a tutorial for the Downed State, most of the changes in the feature pack are cosmetic, and why we’re not seeing any much needed content updates.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

So when they said they’ve all been busy with the China release they were lying?

Right but I’m not sure the NA / EU players care what they are doing in China.

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

Actually, after clicking through to and listening to the interview with Devon linked to in that article, I’m a bit more optimistic about where WvW is going. He doesn’t actually promise much, because he can’t, but he spends a lot of time talking about the many issues involved with things like creating a new WvW maps or dealing with the coverage problem that, through the details he mentions, strongly suggests they’re doing work on them and we might see some of those things down the line. The one discouraging comment was that they intend all the maps to feel “full” and I think that’s a problem. I don’t really want every map and event in PvE resembling a 3 server zerg fight for Stonemist Castle, lag and all.

Fernling.1729:

BlueZone.4236:

kta.6502:

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

Don’t get your hopes up believing they’ve been working on other things.
They published the game with Kong Zhong, a Chinese publisher.
The NA/EU had assets related to them testing out eastern stuff in our version. Example of this is the datamined stuff from posted from reddit that caused an uproar over here.
ANet have been working on the game for the Chinese release, not some offshoot Chinese branch.

Believing there’s an expansion being worked on. Yeah…unlikely.

If they haven’t even started working on one, that would mean we are still at least a year out. I think they will lose a lot of their playerbase by that time.

Probably.
My opinion is as long as they remain silent, people will remain hopeful, even if it’s not true. And it’s obviously working.

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

This rings true except for when those “happy players” are no longer happy. That’s when you see the forums and social media explode with discontent, like we are seeing now.

Frankly its warranted. GW2 has taken a vastly different path versus its predecessor. In some aspects it feels like the games were developed by two different companies.

I’m one of those happy quiet players you see around. I would say I’m a pretty content MMO player most of the time, even ANet lacking content updates doesn’t affect me that much. But not anymore.
I respect the work of ANet, with the impressive art style and high quality content paired with their good business model.
But, these can only go so far for so long, especially since I’m a gem spender. Most of the stuff that appeared after the first version of the game, is mostly lackluster. Content is reused (toymaker tixx for e.g.), short & boring (most of season 1 living story, that was horrible). The only good content update was few and far between(Fractured update, good job on that, we need more content updates like these).
tl;dr I’m starting to turn into an very discontented quaggan