Guild Wars 2

I have seen a number of posts regarding the new wallet system working well for people, except with regards to Gold for some (and a few other things here and there), but I wanted to share that although I can understand some of the utility of this, making Karma account-based bugs me quite a bit. For a game emphasizing the personal story so much as to include a tailored opening cinematic at character creation always ending in “This is my story”, Karma was a welcome addition that helped enhance the personal nature of each character’s experience.

I currently have 5 characters, and have been considering additional ones, all of which I consider to be fairly independent and unique. Although I do trade items and gold across them from time to time, Karma was something I considered more personal to each character, and the mechanic supported this. If one character spent more time assisting in local events in their world, they would have more Karma, and more ability to benefit directly from that. I could almost imagine the use of Karma not being so much a handing over of little purple units of something at a shop, but perhaps a conversation with the shopkeeper regarding events, and that character feeling motivated to present the character with a token of appreciation. Now that the mechanic has been pooled, there isn’t any decent way to maintain that sense of personal accomplishment and reward per character, aside from the impractical method of taking notes (I’m not planning on doing that, btw…).

In my opinion, this change makes little sense with regards to what I felt Karma meant in game, and reduced it to simply another currency game mechanic. I’m not going to rant and rave about this, but I wanted to express that I am someone who is taking their time with their characters, trying to gradually experience the unraveling of their personal stories, and am disappointed that this aspect of the game no longer carries the significance that it once did.

Yep, I have the same issues OP. I wish karma had remained character bound..though when I was discussing it with a guildie, they pointed out that karma jugs already changed that whole thought process.

Karma jugs exist in the game and we get reward stuff that we can drink that gives up better karma, which moves it into the realm of just another currency…unfortunately.

Here to offer a different opinion on the subject.
Not saying the OPs opinion is wrong, but I just don’t see it the same way. To me, Karma was always just another currency. It wasn’t bad to have, though I really wish there was more you could do with it.
I never felt overly attached to the amount of karma that any of my seven different characters have. I am the kind of person that has saved every karma jug/vial/drop/keg/etc in my bank and divided it up between my characters as I needed it. Now, it’s all in one big account pool. So for me, that works out just great and is much more convenient. You know how much bank space has opened up for me? XD
Anyway, that’s my 2 copper…

The thing is, while Karma might have started out as a measure of how adventures, with the daily Jugs of Karma, that aspect is completely and utterly dead.

Even if you only use the Jugs that you get on dailies that you complete on a character, the amount of karma that you get far outweighs whatever you get from your Personal Story by a massive factor.

I am okay with it. To me it seems I get the biggest karma “bang” from the jugs and they are account bound so it doesn’t seem to matter much to me.