Guild Wars 2

I have faith that ArenaNet will add Mr. Sparkles to the Gem Store, but they really need to stop abusing their mini collector fans. These are the folks who spend a lot of money on this game, and in my experience they are the ones contributing a lot to the community by being helpful, constructive, and friendly.

Foostivoo was their first strike. Having a mini be accessible only by RNG was not a customer-friendly thing to do. Then Liadri was VERY difficult for many players who may not like super-difficult content that requires precise play. Strike two. And now if Mr. Sparkles is available only at cons and by winning drawings, that will be the last straw for most of the mini collectors out there. And ANet will have lost some of their best and most loyal customers.

I’m hoping they do the right thing. And I’m hoping they stop making these sorts of decisions going forward.

Yeah, it makes no business sense to demotivate their collectors since collecting in general is a big part of the game and is tied to their revenues. I could see a heckuva lot of former collectors that would have shelled out dough for the new mini pack 2 on the gem store simply saying forget it since they can’t complete their collections, anyway. All that lost money. Makes no sense.

Let me add the best part about this, just came back from Gamescom, and there is not even a single screen showing gw2. You can’t see anything about gw2 there just Wildstars. So probably nobody will even know you can get something for gw2 there, cause its just not made visible.

If anyone got a code and doesnt need it pm me ingame and we can work something out.

First off, let me say that I still believe this item will be available in-game. Until we get official confirmation that it is limited to Germany (or conventions), I think any freaking out or ranting is premature.

That said, I would like to refute some common arguments I’ve seen as well as put forward a case why mini collectors would like access to the opportunity to obtain the mini in-game.

Argument 1: Plenty of other games do giveaways at conventions, so ANet can too!

This is true. No one is denying this. However, just because other companies and other games do this does not mean GW2 should.

One common argument is that giveaways drive traffic to the booth and interest in the game. However, one would imagine that keeping existing customers happy would take priority over a bit of publicity. Furthermore, the mini was neither advertised beforehand nor do I see it getting any press. Big feature announcements drive media coverage, not giveaways to fans who don’t even know there is one. Meanwhile, it has caused angst amongst current customers who have demonstrated their commitment to the game and their willingness to spend large sums of cash, both in-game gold and real-world money (more on this later).

Second, most other MMOs out there have a trinity, loot tagging, fixed quests, raids, etc. all of which are things that GW2 does not do. This game is unique and has its own way of doing things. Its way of doing things tends to be more inclusive, offering more opportunity to players and reducing competition. That is part of its appeal.

Third, ANet has proven time and again that they do not want to exclude players. Weapons that were previously account bound in RNG gem boxes have now been made tradable. Many people have claimed ANet stated they did not want to do giveaways again after people were upset about the town clothing T-shirt being available only at cons. We got an apology after the Mad King Clocktower for it being excessively difficult as time limited content. All of this has been evidence driving customer expectations that the game strives to limit the amount of content that is rare and exclusive.

Argument 2: GW1 did it, so why shouldn’t GW2?

This is in many ways a corollary of Argument 1. Nothing about the way minis have been handled in GW2 is a repeat of GW1 (see: birthday gifts and account bound minis), so why should this be? GW2 has iterated and improved on many things from GW1. It is not unreasonable to think that they would not carry over extremely limited mini runs obtained only through out-of-game sources.

Argument 3: You don’t NEED to collect minis.

Everyone has their idea of what makes the game fun. The end game of this game is primarily cosmetic. Some people like getting titles, others like playing WvW, others like getting to the top of the respective leaderboards, others want legendary weapons, others like following the lore of the living stories, others like running dungeons, others like farming… the list goes on and on. All of these are valid goals and ways to have fun. Isn’t that what the game is about? Play the way you want, and have fun?

I think most people are aware that they don’t need to do anything in this game. But what makes collecting minis a less valid goal than getting a legendary? I guarantee that if they made an armor locker available or a town clothing locker available, there would be people who collected every set just because they could. And they’d have fun doing it, and ANet would have a gold sink/real money revenue stream as a result. Everyone wins.

Just because you don’t care about something doesn’t mean other people don’t care. And just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter at all.

So before you go off about the worthlessness of minis or say collectors have a disease, think about how many hours you’ve put into this game. A video game that has no bearing on the real world and really does not matter except in the passion and excitement it creates in people. Is that passion and devotion less worthy just because it’s about a fictional work? Think about the fact that you are taking time out of your life to go onto the forum of a video game in order to dismiss other people’s concerns as groundless. Think about your goals in the game and how much they matter to you, and then think about how you would feel if something happened to prevent you from reaching that goal and people told you that you are silly or entitled for wanting to accomplish that goal.

(cont. in next post)

Nice wall of text, but you are absolutly right.

Kojast.6304:

TL;DR: All we’re asking is that in-game rewards be obtainable by playing the game. We don’t want it for free. We’re happy to buy it off the gem store or earn it in game while people who go to cons get it for free. I think we’ve more than proven that. We just want a chance to get it.

I vote the devs should just mail every mini to every character upon release just so no one feels excluded and everybody gets everything.

Leo G.4501

I vote the devs should just mail every mini to every character upon release just so no one feels excluded and everybody gets everything.

After Kojast’s accurate, well-written, and well-thought out post, this is absolutely disgusting.

Argument 2: GW1 did it, so why shouldn’t GW2?

GW2 did it, so why shouldn’t GW2 do it again?

Kojast said everything I wanted to, far more eloquently than I could.

Mini collectors don’t want everything for free. Or anything for free. To me at least the challenge of getting them is part of the fun. But we do want it to be possible. Finding out after the fact that the only way to complete the collection was to attend one event and find a booth that was apparently easily missed is a real kick in the teeth.

ArenaNet Fix it!

I tend to disagree with the arguments regarding access to an item that appears to be intended to have limited presence in the game. I think that rare or unusual things in a game add to the game as a whole.

Kojast.6304:

(cont. from previous post)

Argument 4: You’re being entitled for wanting access to minis

There’s a difference between feeling entitled to getting everything with no effort and feeling entitled to have an equal opportunity to access content. Is it really unreasonable to say “Everything that is in this game as a reward, I would like to be able to earn in-game”?

And as for mini collectors being entitled, think about everything that has caused an uproar in this game. Think about all the things people complain about. If there’s ever been something you hated about reward acquisition in this game, chances are mini collectors have done it or that it is some aspect of the creation/acquisition of minis.

• Mystic Forge: Ever try to get an upgrade/precursor out of the Mystic Forge? That’s pretty much the main way to get exotic minis. And while the percent chance to get a precursor per forge is less, the cost of each forge is much higher for minis. At current prices, it’s about 40gold to forge 4 rare minis to try to get an exotic. Let’s assume you get lucky and get an upgrade every 5 tries. There are 7 exotic minis that can be obtained, and assuming you get super lucky and never get duplicates, that’s an average of 35 tries * 40 gold per try or 1400 gold to get all the exotic minis. And that’s if you’re super lucky.

• Buying off the Trading Post: So don’t try your luck Mystic Forging. Buy all your minis off the TP. Again, the prices are comparable to buying a precursor. At this point, a mini collector who used buy orders to buy all the minis would probably need to spend almost 1,000 gold getting the Set minis alone, much less the special edition minis.

• Account-bound RNG gem box gambling: Remember how much people hated the Fused weapon tickets and the like? Mini collectors had to put up with that too for Foostivoo. During Wintersday, mini collectors had to get six minis out of the gem store gamble boxes, all of which were account bound, and they also had to hope that there were 3 unique minis in those 6 to complete the Masterwork set too.

• Beat extremely difficult solo content. Liadri the Concealing Dark. Every single mini collector with a full collection had to beat her. Still want to call us lazy?

• Keep up with limited sales and living story meta achievements. Going to be out of town for work for a month? Better hope it’s not a month where there’s a limited time mini on sale. Better hope it’s not a month where the mini is the meta achievement. Mini collectors had limited time account bound minis to obtain in October, December, April, May, June, July, and August.

• Time gating. Do you hate grinding guild missions or dailies in order to get ascended gear? Not only do mini collectors have to do that, they have to sacrifice getting ascended gear and the corresponding stats in order to finish off their collection. Well, it’s not really a “sacrifice” since I think most mini collectors consider it a worthwhile tradeoff, but that’s what we have to do.

And on top of all that, we get very little from our minis. The collection as a whole cannot be shown off like a legendary. The title can be bought and sold or borrowed from friends. Minis go away if you switch zones or die. A number of minis also go away when you enter water. Minis barely keep up with you when you run. You have to buy an invisible bag to keep them from depositing. And despite all of this, mini collectors still like them. We collect them because we love the minis for being minis, not for any utility we get from them.

So next time you call us entitled, think about that. Someone who wants a full collection of minis has to go through just about every weird reward mechanism the game has to offer. We’ve sunk money into the game. We’ve sunk time into minis that cannot be bought. We’ve beaten difficult content that less than 10% of the player base is supposed to beat. And we’ve done it for something that gets us virtually no recognition and is dismissed by most of the player base. We don’t do it to show off—we do it because we are passionate about it.

TL;DR: All we’re asking is that in-game rewards be obtainable by playing the game. We don’t want it for free. We’re happy to buy it off the gem store or earn it in game while people who go to cons get it for free. I think we’ve more than proven that. We just want a chance to get it.

You should have included issues like Location – People might not be able to attend cons or acquire materials with Mini-codes i.e. magazines. People who live in countries without gem cards or bad currency exchange have a much harder time for gem acquisition aswell. It’s not as bad for me in Australia (even though we still have no gem cards) but say you go somewhere like Malaysia, South Africa, or even South America, the currency rates are pretty horrid seeing as Gems go by the USD.

Raire.7983:

I stopped trying to keep up with “special” mini’s last Wintersday, when they introduced the RNG ones, but I still find this irritating. There’s nothing positive about these kinds of promotions – they almost seem designed to irritate people.

Foostivoo was a real kitten and had me really close to stop collecting. I thought to myself that I’d suck it up that one time. I play a kitten lot and can afford converting gold to gems once in a while, so I manned up to buy the gems for it. 50$ later and a bad taste in my mouth I had the kitten ed minipet. Never again though. I’m not doing it again.

I refused to even try for the Wintersday box minis.

I’m hoping they’ll re-release them using a less rediculous system this year. Although it will be tricky to find a way to do that without further kitten ing off the people who got them before.

people buy a ticket for the event, attend the anet set there and get a “reward” for that. How is that unfair to anyone who did neither of these things? And how exactly does that hurt you? Seems like some case of “I don´t have it and so noone should have it” scenario to me.

Algreg.3629:

people buy a ticket for the event, attend the anet set there and get a “reward” for that. How is that unfair to anyone who did neither of these things? And how exactly does that hurt you? Seems like some case of “I don´t have it and so noone should have it” scenario to me.

The problem is that in this case the reward is part of a set. And for many people the main appeal of these otherwise useless cosmetic (and frankly awkward to display) items is to try and complete that set.

Restricting this to only people who came to one particular event (and not promoting this fact beforehand) ruins the chance anyone else had of completing the set and therefore kills a large part of the appeal of the whole group of items.

Imagine this happening with any other kind of collectable. What if a company started a new set of football stickers for example and most of them were available with magazines or from any newsagent and then, after the launch they announced that actually one of them was only available by coming to the factory on the day of release and no one else would ever be able to get it and would have a big hole in the middle of their book forever.

It’d be ridiculous. All they’d achieve is a lot of people deciding there’s no point starting a collection they can’t complete and not bothering to buy the magazines in the first place. Same thing here.

Danikat.8537:

I refused to even try for the Wintersday box minis.

I’m hoping they’ll re-release them using a less rediculous system this year. Although it will be tricky to find a way to do that without further kitten ing off the people who got them before.

I won’t even be mad if they release Foostivoo cheaper this year. And I feel dumb for falling for it the first time. I hope you can get your mini for something like 500 gems fixed.

You could not pay me enough to own a mini-pet named ‘Mr. Sparkles’. The name is completely lame, uninspired and is condescending to the game, the lore and everything the franchise stands for.

Elbegast.6970:

The name is completely lame, uninspired and is condescending to the game, the lore and everything the franchise stands for.

You realize that Mr. Sparkles is the Golem of Zojja and existed before?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mr._Sparkles
If you did know before, don’t mind me, just checking.

In a fit of translation rage, Mr. Sparkles got promoted to “Master” Sparkles in German. The only time that happened before was when Mr. Clean became a “Master” Proper upon the name being translated into German. Both times, it makes not linguistic sense whatsoever.

On the plus side, the translation of Sparkels into the German “Funkel” actually makes it a real German name. A rather mundane one, so any attempts Zojja had of naming her creature on the wild side, are totally lost in translation. Which might explain the promotion from mister to master, even though that causes Zojja to address her robot as if it was her superior. A problem easily avoided if the translation of sparkles to funkel had been a bit more creative.

There you have it, one reason why it is part of the lore and two reasons for you to hate him even more. Personally, I say it could be worse, could be a ranger pet.

Elbegast.6970:

You could not pay me enough to own a mini-pet named ‘Mr. Sparkles’. The name is completely lame, uninspired and is condescending to the game, the lore and everything the franchise stands for.

then you’re unfamiliar with the asura story line?

It’s up for sale now.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

It’s up for sale now.

Where? Just checked both gemstore and TP?

woops, i shoulda said it’s up for sale on a third party website

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

woops, i shoulda said it’s up for sale on a third party website

Ah. That was bound to happen. And I bet it isn’t cheap. Anet should know that will happen when they release content like that.

Another messed up decision, jeez this game, so now we’ll never get this mini one of the rare kitten ones i actually wanted..

You know what, I take back what I said. The detractors have completely convinced with me with their eloquent and well-explained arguments. There are valid reasons why the mini might be rare and unobtainable via in-game mechanics. It would be a fantastic surprise to the most dedicated fans willing to travel to Germany to visit ANet’s booth, and the rest of us who were not that dedicated do not deserve the consideration. If they choose to resell the code on a 3rd party site, well, that helps cover their costs to attend the con and rewards their interest further. It doesn’t matter that ANet didn’t announce the giveaway beforehand because that would just mean any mini collector who did purchase a ticket was purchasing it to fulfill their own selfish desire for the mini and not out of a general appreciation for the game and the company’s efforts.

Mini collectors, think about it rationally. A full miniature collection is worth probably around 1000 gold. 1000 gold could buy over $200 worth of gems. Conversely, it would take $366 to buy that much gold. This is on top of the box price we paid for the game.

Now that I’m looking at the numbers, I personally have realized I don’t believe a license to digital content in a video game (remember, we don’t own any of the content, we just license the rights to it, a license which can be revoked at any time and one day will, when the game is shut down) is worth that much money. I mean, it just fulfills a weird psychological urge for completion.

To those who are still mini collectors, if it’s worth that much time and real world money to you, all the more power to you. I fully support your endeavors and wish you the best of luck, because I think that everyone deserves special consideration. I really hope this mini does become available in game for your sake, even if it no longer matters to me.

However, the rest of us should be grateful to ANet for helping save us time and money by realizing the pointlessness of the whole endeavor. This scare has been incredibly enlightening.

So those of you who kept venturing into this thread to tell us we were wrong in our request, thank you! Honestly, thank you, I’m not being sarcastic (even if my writing may seem that way on first read—it’s difficult to convey emotion via text on the Internet). Thank you for helping me see the light and the error of my assumptions. Thank you for saving me from spending more money on a selfish, silly hobby.

Hi,

I know collecting special minis may seem a bit silly to many players and frankly, if I had known from the beginning that I wouldn’t be able to complete the collection, I wouldn’t really care. But for a year now, I and many others have spent time collecting all those special minis from GW1, events, the gem store, the trading post, etc. in order to achieve this goal. And guess what, I was ready to continue for years on. Just like other players want achievements, legendaries, PVP ranks and what not, others want to complete their mini collection.

If you have ever collected stuff, you know you want to complete your collection and you really don’t want a hole in the middle of your showcase. Especially when this hole is never to be filled just because you never had and never will have the possibility to earn the one mini in game.

I can take the fact that some minis are available for a short period of time and if you can’t log in during those few weeks when it’s available, well, too bad, but you had at least a chance even though you couldn’t make it.

With Mr. Sparkles, there’s just no way of getting it in game (at least for now and until ANet says otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be the plan) but only during conventions outside the game. Okay so, this is a game, we are collecting stuff in the game, and we are supposed to mix this with “real life” events to continue our collection in the game. I don’t get it, I really don’t. It’s just like saying: “hey guys, you are amongst our most dedicated players who collect stuff and pay for it so to thank you, we make you pay $X to travel around the world so your collection isn’t broken and if you don’t, you’re screwed”. I know it’s not meant to be taken that way but that’s just the way it feels and it’s really bad.

I understand them wanting to give a gift to those who attend the convention but why a special mini? It’s been done before with other things way more acceptable like T-shirts (some were in-game), collector editions, and so on. Why not a special skin or something like that? I wouldn’t mind as long as it has nothing to do with a collection one is likely to make such as special minis.

Please ANet, undersand that we have put so much energy and some of us quite a bit of money to complete the collection because we just like it, that’s an important part of the game for us. By doing what you seem to be doing with Mr. Sparkles, you are taking that part of the game away from us because I really don’t see many people continue the collection after that. I know my friends and I won’t because it’s too frustrating. And what it means for you is that many people won’t buy the future minis you will sell on the gem store. No collectors means no buyers (well, not many).

So please, make it possible to earn it in-game somehow, in an honest way. Don’t let us down, your most dedicated players are counting on you (and no, traveling around the world cannot be considered as a requirement to qualify someone as a dedicated player…).

Thanks for considering this and letting us know what this is all about and what you’re gonna do about it.

I don’t really mind if they give away some exclusive items in events, but please Anet do not show in my collections tab those exclusives… I live on the other side of the world and probably won’t be able to get one… I’ll have a blank spot on my collections T_T

Still it’s a game but looking at that missing spot will always be annoying.

What is this nonsense again. I thought they had the sense to do away with such exclusives for gw2 but right smack at the end of the first year they come up with this.
So disappointing.

Mirta.5029:

Elbegast.6970:

You could not pay me enough to own a mini-pet named ‘Mr. Sparkles’. The name is completely lame, uninspired and is condescending to the game, the lore and everything the franchise stands for.

then you’re unfamiliar with the asura story line?

I don’t play Asura. They do not fit in with the GW universe either. ArenaNet should have caused them to go extinct, in the past 250 years, rather than giving them a huge technological promotion.

Elbegast.6970:

Mirta.5029:

Elbegast.6970:

You could not pay me enough to own a mini-pet named ‘Mr. Sparkles’. The name is completely lame, uninspired and is condescending to the game, the lore and everything the franchise stands for.

then you’re unfamiliar with the asura story line?

I don’t play Asura. They do not fit in with the GW universe either. ArenaNet should have caused them to go extinct, in the past 250 years, rather than giving them a huge technological promotion.

Sorry that everything that strays one hair to the left or right of Tolkien ’doesn’t fit’ in with your narrow interpretation of ‘fantasy’. They belong in the game more than you belong critiquing the game, your personal bias is not evidence of creative mistakes on part of the developers.

Conncept.7638:

Sorry that everything that strays one hair to the left or right of Tolkien ’doesn’t fit’ in with your narrow interpretation of ‘fantasy’. They belong in the game more than you belong critiquing the game, your personal bias is not evidence of creative mistakes on part of the developers.

Nice strawman there.

FateOmega.9601:

What is this nonsense again. I thought they had the sense to do away with such exclusives for gw2 but right smack at the end of the first year they come up with this.
So disappointing.

What I honestly don’t get is, what do they achieve from doing this? What makes a kitten ed playerbase, even if a minority worth releasing a minipet outside the game? Why not hand the attendees a t-shirt and some keychain, mousepad or whatever?

Treeline.3865:

FateOmega.9601:

What is this nonsense again. I thought they had the sense to do away with such exclusives for gw2 but right smack at the end of the first year they come up with this.
So disappointing.

What I honestly don’t get is, what do they achieve from doing this? What makes a kitten ed playerbase, even if a minority worth releasing a minipet outside the game? Why not hand the attendees a t-shirt and some keychain, mousepad or whatever?

Well with those specific examples the downside would be the cost of making and shipping all those items on top of designing them. Whereas a mini only requires one person to be paid for the time it takes to shrink the model and copy over the code from existing minis.

But they could have achieved the same thing by giving away an in-game item that isn’t part of a set of collectables. Like the t-shirt they gave away before launch or the various hats. As far as I’m aware no one collects town clothes, the only people disappointed they can’t get those are people who want that specific item. It doesn’t affect the enjoyment or desirability of other town clothes at all.

Raire.7983:

I stopped trying to keep up with “special” mini’s last Wintersday, when they introduced the RNG ones, but I still find this irritating. There’s nothing positive about these kinds of promotions – they almost seem designed to irritate people.

i stopped at the same time too, i could see with the rng pets then that they were going to pull a gw1 panda scenario again at some point and this is it.

Well Anet…

This is my first MMO and had no idea that this was the norm in this genre . As someone who has bought gems with cash to get minipets ( yes even the RNG wintersday set, that cost some money -_- ) count me out of further gem purchases if this item remains unattainable in-game. So there!!!

Kittenhurt ( former ) mini collector

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Sorry that everything that strays one hair to the left or right of Tolkien ’doesn’t fit’ in with your narrow interpretation of ‘fantasy’. They belong in the game more than you belong critiquing the game, your personal bias is not evidence of creative mistakes on part of the developers.

Nice strawman there.

It’s much easier to label anything you disagree with rather than confront and defend your opinions isn’t it? When you have any ability to stand behind what was said, let me know.

Simple solution: make it avaiable in gem store. Those who were at Gamescom have it for free, the rest can buy it with gems.

This stinks as bad as the pandas in GW1.

Daala.4258:

Simple solution: make it avaiable in gem store. Those who were at Gamescom have it for free, the rest can buy it with gems.

I hope that’s the idea. In any event support was less than helpful

Lol! They don’t have information about their own product?

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Sorry that everything that strays one hair to the left or right of Tolkien ’doesn’t fit’ in with your narrow interpretation of ‘fantasy’. They belong in the game more than you belong critiquing the game, your personal bias is not evidence of creative mistakes on part of the developers.

Nice strawman there.

It’s much easier to label anything you disagree with rather than confront and defend your opinions isn’t it? When you have any ability to stand behind what was said, let me know.

You claimed something that he never said. He made no comment about his perception of Tolkien as a defining element of the fantasy genre.

That is a strawman argument.

FateOmega.9601:

Lol! They don’t have information about their own product?

I think it’s more a matter of support having no information that Mr. Sparkles will be available..

Yep. Agreed. I would also like to see it in the gemstore. 800 gems? Hell yea! Mr. Sparkles is effing cool and I wanna be able to get as many mini’s as possible, if not all (but I started a bit late and I’m not sure if I still can). I understand they want to reward people from coming there, but I still don’t agree.

I was the whole weekend at gamescom and didn’t find anyone from Anet… what a shame -.-

See I actually didn’t mind the panda in GW1.

I never got one, I never even came close to getting one. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even seen one. But because it was tradeable, even after being dedicated, I had a chance and that’s enough for me. It was possible, however remote that possibility might be, that I might one day have enough money and find someone willing to sell their panda, and then I could get it.

Whereas because Mr Sparkles is both limited to some Gamescon attendees AND account bound I will never be able to get it no matter what I do.

It’s more like if they’d had a mini tab/list in GW1 and had included the 3 frogs on it. Those minis were only ever given to Gaile Gray and she will (hopefully) never sell or give them away. No one else can ever get them. So they weren’t included in any kind of mini list, except a note on the wiki that they exist.

Direksone.3867:

Yep. Agreed. I would also like to see it in the gemstore. 800 gems? Hell yea! Mr. Sparkles is effing cool and I wanna be able to get as many mini’s as possible, if not all (but I started a bit late and I’m not sure if I still can). I understand they want to reward people from coming there, but I still don’t agree.

This. Gemstore prices are already ridiculous, but just to keep the collection complete I would pay 800 gems for a minipet. At least this one time.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Sorry that everything that strays one hair to the left or right of Tolkien ’doesn’t fit’ in with your narrow interpretation of ‘fantasy’. They belong in the game more than you belong critiquing the game, your personal bias is not evidence of creative mistakes on part of the developers.

Nice strawman there.

It’s much easier to label anything you disagree with rather than confront and defend your opinions isn’t it? When you have any ability to stand behind what was said, let me know.

You claimed something that he never said. He made no comment about his perception of Tolkien as a defining element of the fantasy genre.

That is a strawman argument.

No, that was an assumption based on the reason that most people who do not like the asura do not like them. And I do not know whey he doesn’t like the asura, nor could I, since his entire post could be summed ’I do not like this, therefore it is a mistake, and should not be." THAT is a strawman argument.