Guild Wars 2

When I look at this years and last years Winters-day I can only remember the first Winters-day. When Lions Arch was covered in snow and you could walk up to the old lion statue and there were dozens of npc’s throwing snowballs, it was so hard to walk through them with out getting pegged a couple times. Gift dolyaks running around and players chasing them. I mean kitten can’t forget about the free wizards hat in the gem store. That was the most memorable content for me and I want to see that again, it made me feel so at home in GW2 unlike this and last year. Also before I conclude I want to say that the first dragon bash was also amazing and gave me that feeling of wanting to wait all day for the fire works by the lion statue, doezens of players doing the same while entertaining each other. What happend! (sad face)

I agree completely.

The first Halloween was grandiose as well. Since the first year all the festivals have lost much of what made the game alive for me.

Finally somebody else makes a thread about this issue! Nobody seems to even notice that there is no winter in WvsW or Lion’s arch or in many of the other places…
It doesn’t help that we have these megaservers now as well. It’s just random people all the time…I miss having a sense of community and belonging. I don’t even see the point in differentiating between borderlands anymore…we might as well just be all the same, it’s less depressing if you think about things like that since it’s like everyone is still on the same server only it’s huge. Wintersday….Halloween….the game itself…it’s all gone downhill from what it achieved it’s first few months of being live.

Divinity’s reach is the new lion’s arch for the duration of wintersday. I don’t even use Lion’s arch right now. That’s kind of cool I will admit, since it divinity’s reach never had any real purpose for visiting on its own after story is done. But tink visited the grove the first christmas….and that had winter skin and events……AND LA Had a winter reskin and fun things going on. Now apparently all the races except humans hate wintersday….so the cool moving from homeland to homeland thing is effectively dead.

What are you guys talking about?! There is so much content to explore this Wintersday!

You can:

• Grind mini-games day-in-day-out for the materials for a cool shoulder piece!
• Alternatively, you can whip out the credit card to buy the gold from the gemstore like what most people have admitted to doing! Either way, you’ll probably get hospitalized from alcohol poisoning in the process!
• Go to the gemstore and buy a mini which then can be used unlock a wool glider!
• Oh, and don’t forget, you can go to the gemstore and buy a winter-themed outfit, so y’know, you look like you’re celebrating something!

See? Plenty to do!

Who needs cool events like Dragon Bash, SAB, Festival of the Four Winds, or Queen’s Gauntlet when you can have so much fun this Wintersday?!?!

yay

(On a less cynical note, I do enjoy the mini-games. In moderation. When they’re not buggy.)

Now I would never compare Guild Wars 1’s Wintersday to Guild Wars 2’s, but if I were to do so, I would post a list of what you could do in Guild Wars 1 for Wintersday.

A list such as this.

The Wintersday grand finale runs every 3 hours starting at 12:01 am PST on January 1st, and ending 12:01 am PST on January 2nd in Lion’s Arch. Finales also take place in Kamadan, which, historically, runs 15 minutes later.
The finale involves the Avatars of Dwayna and Grenth opposing each other in a mini-game similar to Nine Rings at the Shing Jea Boardwalk, but the price is Candy Cane Shards instead of Festival Tickets. The gods earn points for each supporter standing on one of their rings. Playing this game counts towards your Lucky and Unlucky title tracks. Each round costs 1 Candy Cane Shard. Players standing in the winning ring receive a Wintersday Gift and three, four, or five shards (depending on whether one stands on the center, edge, or corner rings respectively) plus an equal number of Lucky points. Those standing on an adjacent ring receive two shards and two Lucky points; everyone else receives 1 Unlucky point.
At the end of the finale, approximately a dozen Wintersday Gifts will be added to everyone’s inventory, regardless of whether they played the mini-game or not. The gifts appear about once a minute for 15 minutes, so remain in the district until the winning deity says farewell and leaves. One random Wintergreen weapon (not dependent on the primary nor current secondary profession of your character, nor weapons that are equipped) will also be added to everyone’s inventory at the end of the first finale attended by each account.

Decorated cities: Ascalon City, Lions Arch, Droknar’s Forge, Kamadan and the Eye of the North. All redecorated in a suitably festive (and snowy) style.

Quests
Lion’s Arch
Old Nickoles
The Greatest Snowman Ever Made
A Very Grentchie Wintersday
Kamadan, Jewel of Istan
Grandfather Kringle
Save the Reindeer
Find the Stolen Presents
Spreading the Wintersday Spirit
Elder Skruuj
White Mist
How the Grentches Stole Wintersday
The Gift of Giving
Lion’s Arch and Kamadan, Jewel of Istan
Brrrnadette
The Polar Depressed
Krunch
A Humbling Gift
Priestess of Melandru
Fighting in a Winter Wonderland Repeatable quest
Rift Warden
In Grenth’s Defense Repeatable quest
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grenth Repeatable quest
Straight to the Heart (Eye of the North required) Repeatable quest
The Strength of Snow (Eye of the North required) Repeatable quest
Eye of the North
Casey Carpenter
The Three Wise Norn
Charr-broiled Plans
Snowball Dominance Repeatable quest

Other festivities

Each Wintersday will make the Dwayna Vs Grenth Snowball Fight arena available for use along with The Great Snowball Fight of the Gods. Candy Cane Shard, Eggnog, Frosty Tonic, Fruitcake, Mischievous Tonic, and Snowman Summoner will also drop from PvE foes for the duration of the event.

Sounds nice, but how do they continue to fund it?

There’s even a little joke in-game, about how humans are better funders of Wintersday, than the other races, if you’ve noticed?

Pretty sure Anet are making a satirical reference to the funding of the game, in general.

They probably felt they could afford that kind of generosity, when the game was brand new and they had just received $millions from people buying it.

But, then, as time went on, they (or their accountants) realised that the money from those initial purchases wouldn’t last forever.

Remember sub games?

Where you just paid to play a game; not for every individual reward?

There again, unless you’re a “real” raider (which most people aren’t and never will be), you can’t always rely on getting much, even if you do pay a sub…

Imagine a game, where all its customers had to pay a small sub, but they all got treated fairly and no one let the vocal minority steamroller over the majority, at every turn…

Now, wouldn’t that be nice?

Tigaseye.2047:

There’s even a little joke in-game, about how humans are better funders of Wintersday, than the other races, if you’ve noticed?

Pretty sure Anet are making a satirical reference to the funding of the game, in general.

They probably felt they could afford that kind of generosity, when the game was brand new and they had just received $millions from people buying it.

But, then, as time went on, they (or their accountants) realised that the money from those initial purchases wouldn’t last forever.

I thought the same, but way more cynical. I just thought “So that is Anet’s way to tell us that we need to spend more money on the gemstore if we want a proper wintersday…” And it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

The first Helloween with the journy to get the two books was great. Also the first Wintersday, collecting the stuff to craft the minis…. With Tixx visiting each city and everyone was excited. The first events have been the best.

Ironically, the rehashed holiday events in this game are still better than the events in most other games.

Tigaseye.2047:

Sounds nice, but how do they continue to fund it?

I don’t see why they couldn’t upload existing wintersday skins back onto certain map/zones. Why was attention given to just Edge of the mists? Why couldn’t they change desert borderland back to alpine for Christmas? WHy couldn’t they add dolyak christmas skin back to WvsW?
Why couldn’t they add festive lord skins back? Why couldn’t they reupload old eternal battlegrounds winter decorations/snow back in? I mean maybe alot of map changes have been made there, enough to make it so they maybe couldn’t reupload the entire old map with its skin. But specific skins could easily be done as well as specific decorations.

Why couldn’t reupload the 2012 ‘the grove’ wintersday map reskin? Has the grove map changed significantly enough that they couldn’t upload the old one? I mean LA, that’s the reason they can’t upload the old wintersday reskin….but if they didn’t have money to begin with why the helllk would they reskin LA for a world event nobody really cared about.

And if gems were so important why wouldn’t you throw the biggest wintersday possible after launching the expansion? THe expansion effectively made everyone rebuy the game, and brought in many new players with f2p and new people joining/rejoining the community for the expansion. People who played at the start and then quit….and then rejoined at the expansion have got to be angry at the state of things. They are more likely to quit again or leave sooner than they would have originally. Similar arguments can be made for new players and everyone else.

Anet you are doing it wrong.