Out of all the collective changes made to the game in multiple updates and builds, you players are the worst thing that has happened to this game, and this community.
I’m speaking of the people that have made “How many people play this game now?”, “Anet are liars”, “This game is just a WoW clone” threads. The players who continue to fuel negativity over the recent (or any) changes by reiterating the same complaints daily on these forums. The people who write walls of text solely on how Anet have broken their trust, or squandered the reputation/brand they took years to build. Here’s news for you: trust and reputation are just as much of a player/community responsibility to establish and maintain as it is the developers’. Here are some points for your perspective:
- Continually filling up the forums with infractions, flame posts, and meaningless comparisons to other ‘failed’ games/concepts creates a hostile environment for communication. Communication and dialogue from developers comes less frequently, because every single sentence and word has to be delicate, measured, and deliberated in the hope of not starting a PR kitten-storm. Players demand attention from developers, but they make these forums a thoroughly unwelcoming place to warrant it.
- Anet introduced changes in an attempt to address a community-raised concern; their decisions were unpopular. It is a complex issue because our community is divided between those who appreciate a departure from traditional MMO formulas opposed to those customers losing interest through not having their expectations met in the end-game. It is an issue that will probably require several iterations of adjustments and changes before coming to an acceptable solution. Exploding like children in the forums sets a poor precedent for the numerous cooperative efforts between the community and developers (that will undoubtedly be required) in the future.
- The concept for the future of endgame in GW2 reflects some major changes, but the actual implementation in the game has been very minor (new tier of gear, but only a few pieces released). These changes have not unbalanced the game yet; people are not winning landslide victories because some of their players have ascended trinkets. FoTM are not consistently failing because people don’t have ascended rings. The stats ‘ascended’ gear require can be easily adjusted, reversed, and changed. The requirements for FoTM can also be adjusted and changed based on constructive community feedback.
So I’ll make my point now before I lose your interest: grow up guys. The developers love and continue to love the game as much as we do. They can act and communicate according to our feedback, if we facilitate a constructive and positive forum environment for them to do so. Thank you to those players who have and continue to make efforts; to preserve the community and enthusiasm that we shared from GW1.
And to those players who don’t: please work together with your community and the developers to make GW2 the game you want it to be.