There are a few separate elements that tend to get mixed up.
1) The manifesto and all interviews that say this game is not about a treadmill. By itself this turn around came without warning and just is a complete 180 on your original course. By itself that is a slap in the face for many people like myself. I don’t like surprises like this because you broke a promise. That’s what your manifesto was, you should’ve realised that when you released it.
2) The actual effects of the FotM dungeon on the community. Aside from actually implementing a treadmill, be it very basic to begin with is also done in a way that is splitting the people who are still playing it seems.
3) Also adding stats to the infusion upgrades and adding a new tier really gives the game a new feeling, one I don’t like. I can’t log in anymore because of it.
4) Then the issue of communication. You respond to the bugs during the weekend but haven’t addressed specifically point 1 here. You cannot convince me that you didn’t expect this kittentorm, but you chose to let it just hit and stay silent on it. Just one attempt at easing people’s minds which totally didn’t help because of what was implied more than what was said and really ignores the key issue: You made a promise and didn’t keep it and have been acting as if nothing happened. That reeks of intent.
5) You wanted to make GW2 and let GW1 be and were excited about creating a persistent world. So you made one. Guess what, you have now sealed the fate of the persistent world by making sure people are either in WvW or FotM / LA. You might as well close down the persistent world and give people access to dungeons from LA and let them level in WvW.
I just don’t get what you did here, but to me it’s a big failure. You see, even if you took a million precautions, a lot of people just won’t believe you anymore when you say it’s not that bad and we are making sure it won’t affect casuals…Why would they believe you when you so obviously broke a promise and then refuse to address as if you are hiding something?
That just feels like either malicious intent or incompetence to handle communication. Either way, it’s not very encouraging for the future.
I totally agree with the post above not to mention others that have posted their unhappiness!
It was poorly planned/thought out.
You have to remember that we as people have a real life and things we have such as job, family, and other obligations takes precedence over a game.
I have a job, it requires me to be there from this this time until this time in order for me to get $.
Now, I’ve paid you to entertain me and you thought this was a good idea? To make me be online in the game at a certain time or lose out on something, not to mention the that it was very buggy.
Please don’t try to make me play when “you” want me to, because if you do and I’m only speaking for myself, will be finding something else to do with my free time and $.
I talked friends into buying and playing this game, now I feel like a totally idiot for it!