Guild Wars 2

bman.1683:

Is anyone aware that the legendary gear is going to be upgraded to ascended level as they continue to release more?

Do you mean, the Exotic gear will be upgraded to Ascended level? It was my understanding that Legendaries would remain the most powerful items in the game. I don’t really actively seek info about the game and in particular upcoming changes but rely mostly on second hand knowledge of friends who do actively seek such info so it’s completely possible you know something I don’t. Just curious…

1. Trolls. Wanting to see how big of threads they can create and how much attention they can get.

2. Kids and teenagers getting their first taste of the excitement that comes with protesting a large company. At this point they are selfishly victimizing Anet for their own entertainment.

3. People who gain pleasure from making demands from Anet, because in real life, these people have nobody they can demand from. They may be poor, meek, and bullied in real life, and they are venting through the forums taking their anger out on Anet.

Mayam.8976:

bman.1683:

Is anyone aware that the legendary gear is going to be upgraded to ascended level as they continue to release more?

Do you mean, the Exotic gear will be upgraded to Ascended level? It was my understanding that Legendaries would remain the most powerful items in the game. I don’t really actively seek info about the game and in particular upcoming changes but rely mostly on second hand knowledge of friends who do actively seek such info so it’s completely possible you know something I don’t. Just curious…

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
This may help

While the OP is entitled to his opinion, its is completely irrelevant to my decision making process in regard to how I chose to spend my money. I have some advice for the gentleman, mind your own business.

When a company does an about face, on the nature of their product, to the point where where it looks like deception I take it upon my self to have things clarified.
When you sell a product based on a premise that you advertise and then you don’t honor it, there will be problems.

If you do not have the disposition to be able to tolerate the boards, then I suggest you don’t read them.

People who think “If you don’t like it quit” is a valid point don’t help GW2 in the long run. Not the worst, but certainly not the best. People like that should change their names to Ben Dover.

well, a community shapes itself to some degree. Just look at this thread, you start with a statement like “grow up”, insinuating people being upset about recent changes being kids and immature. Then look how often some fine ladies and gentlemen use terms like “whiners” in this very thread. Before the game shifted pro-grind, everyone defending the status quo was attacked as a “fanboy” and stuff like that – ironically to a large degree by people who are now adamantly taking that position themselves. I´d say this behaviour of people in this very forum itself is a major reason for over the top reactions.

Then, you are in no position to tell people how to voice their opinion. Yes, some posts are very emotionally fueled, to a degree it debases the posters themselves, but their general feedback is as legit as yours. If you want to see what is wrong with your Smiley-Stalinist approach I may refer you to Huxley´s “Brave New World” or the classic Dr. Who sequel “Happiness Patrol”. Or you may reread your constitution along with its amendements, in case you are American.

Columba.9730:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Columba.9730:

Inferior to most of the players.

Inferior to some. Again, overexageration and hyperbole are exactly what this topic is about avoiding.

. If only some,then why the huge uproar? Why the 12k thread?

Why? Because you are right.

Rhotsbin.8579:

The biggest haters of the game are those who loved it most a week ago. There is no greater enemy to a game than a fanboi betrayed. I’ve gone from supporting this game with my heart and soul to wanting to see it burn miserably to the ground, and I’ll be neither quiet nor apologetic about it.

I am impressed. I’ve never seen anybody refer to themselves as a fanboi. The fact that the devs can chase away a player like you means they have real problems.

While I am not a fanboi, I feel I hd a lot invested. I anticipated GW2 for years. I prepurchased it. I played through the betas. I also tried to give consturctive feedback. I submitted bug reports/ Reported botters. I just feel there has been insult after insult.

I think you are going to get your wish. The game is crashing and burning. The servers are barren. The cash shop must have taken an enormous hit. In the end, that is really what is going to tell the tale. They at least implied that there would be no expansions like GW1, so the cash shop is their only means of sustaining themselves.

Ebon.7641:

Buttercup.5871:

OP: let me explain what happened to cause the “inflammatory posts” you so loathe.

Example 1: Anet promises to do X, but never to do Y. Anet lays down this promise in a very important document. To stress its importance, it calls it a “manifesto”.

Anet does Y.

Players want security. They bought the game, invested time in the game, because they wanted X, not Y.

Anet says nothing.

Players, with nuance, say to Anet: hey, what’s happening? What are you doing to the game.

Anet says nothing.

Players become anxious. They want an answer. With more vigor, they want to know what’s coming. Speaking for myself, I convinced an entire guild to come to this game, because of promise X.

Anet says nothing.

Players become desperate. What do they have to say to get an answer? They now become rude, because they are angry. They feel they have been lied to, because the decision to do Y is not reversed. Even worse: Anet STILL says nothing.

This is just one scenario that is happening right now. Another example promise upon promise upon promise to the ranger community that things would be fixed for their class. Instead, they get severe nerfs to their class due to the introduction of “bug fixes” which introduce more bugs, lowering their overall damage by about 15 to 20 percent.

You have to understand that silence, as well as repeated broken promises, lead to anger. And rightfully so. I followed many posts on this forum from its very introduction until now. I read very quickly, so I’m able to read a LOT. I could see the shift. Heck, I could feel it! The players are, in my opinion, in no way to blame for the turn-around on this forum that you detected. It was a gradual process which, at many different points, could have easily been stopped by Anet had it decided to answer the core questions of its playerbase.

It’s been like a week. Clearly something big is going on over there. Give them time to figure out what’s going on. It’s completely unreasonable to expect them to have some sort of miracle statement when YOU want it.

The give them time argument has worn thin for me. They began major overhauls just three weeks into the games release. (starting with DR). Now less than 3 months in and there’s a new gear stat level?

They’ve had time and have used it poorly. It’s been one fiasco after another. Their fixes broke a lot of what was actually working. Rather than adding new content 3 months in, wouldn’t they have been better served fixing bugs like the atrocious camera?

We are three months in. does anyone have 5 -8 maxed characters in legendaries and exotics yet? Why are we even at the point of new stat levels? Not that we shouyld ever be, but its especially ridiculous so soon.

gwawer.9805:

1. Trolls. Wanting to see how big of threads they can create and how much attention they can get.

2. Kids and teenagers getting their first taste of the excitement that comes with protesting a large company. At this point they are selfishly victimizing Anet for their own entertainment.

3. People who gain pleasure from making demands from Anet, because in real life, these people have nobody they can demand from. They may be poor, meek, and bullied in real life, and they are venting through the forums taking their anger out on Anet.

And then there are people who are afraid others may have a point, and do everything they can to try and counter it. You can spot them by thier propensity to label people with contrary views, usually in a manner that paints them in the worse light possible.

The worst thing that has happened is fear. Fear from the side that are against the changes, because they are afraid the changes will continue, and fear from the side that like the changes, because they are afraid that they may end up in a barren game.

From my perspective a lot of the framing rhetoric that follows with these types of negative criticism such as:

“They lied.”
Demonstrating that something they said several years ago was intended to decieve you into purchasing the game so that they could to suddenly change it once they have your money, will be considerably hard to prove or demonstrate… It’s also considerably hard to believe when the rest of the game is in line with their manifesto.

“They broke their promise.”
You are the type of person who when their girlfriend or boyfriend splits up with you, you lash out at said person with something along the lines of “You promised you’d always love me.” when no promise was really made, just the intention to try.

“I bought an orange and got a banana.”
A strawman at the base level… No you bought a product from a genre that is well known to get continuous changes to its design over a long period of time. And because you think one of those changes is bad, that is enough to justify claiming the product was being sold in a deceitful manner, ignoring the very nature of the product.

They are sub-consciously using this kind of negativity in the hope that they upset other people. In order to make the situation more negative overall. In the hope that if they make the situation a lot more negative Arenanet might be more likely to cave to their demands.
They’re basically trying to back up their opinions with an angry mob in order to be heard.
And then you see posts like “X number of people were this pissed off, we clearly deserve direct feedback.”
And what they fail to qualify is they expect it on their time frame and not Arenanets.

If Arenanet has demonstrated anything with their public communication, it is that they only make press releases when they are absolutely sure of something.

Your degree of anger does not entitle you to anything more than any other GW2 player. The only thing a GW2 owner is really entitled to is a few hundred hours of good gameplay. After that everything else is given at the behest of Arenanet. That isn’t to say I think that Arenanet shouldn’t at some point go into greater detail on ascended items and how this feedback has effected it. But at their own pace when they can fully explain to us how the situation will be handled from here onwards.

It’s depressing because the snowball of meaningless negativity overwhelms all discussion going on in between the actual players of either side of the issue.

Do state you don’t like something.
Do State why if you can!
Don’t try and create a movement of negativity to enforce your opinions, you will undermine your own feedback by making it non-constructive and destructive.
Don’t expect Arenanet to solely react to you, there is a lot of us here and your investment in GW2 was in no way any more valuable than everyone elses.

I agree with the OP 100 percent.

I am so tired of forum whiners and complainers. It is disgusting and I am sure it turns away far more gamers than ANY DEV CHANGE WOULD, but these complainers don’t care………….. because as far as they are concerned any game is that is not the game they want = doesn’t matter.

Its just a fact of MMOs and the modern day mmo gamer. Its enough to make one wish for a new epic solo RPG and leave the massively whining masses behind.

I am staying . . . .if you guys dont like it . . . just go and please spare us the “dear john” posting, no one cares why. Seriously… we don’t.

/endrant

I get from where the OP is coming, but I don’t necessarily agree with them.

Sinisterpink, you’re but a rock in a river, hoping to change its course, but are met with futility. Over time, the river will weather you to what fate decides; you’ll be smoothed into a shiny stone in the riverbed of Guild Wars 2, or you will be washed back out into the sea of today’s variety of MMOGs from which to choose.

Your heart’s in the right place, but Guild Wars 2 has become a sort of melting pot for the eclectic brands of gamer MMOGs breed. Any opposition to the status quo is destined to be met with resistance. Any attempt to inject common sense into a message board will be interjected by basement dwellers who lack any. Any attempt to suggest that the ire of paying customers isn’t justified when a cheeseburger is served without cheese is asinine and just plain wrong.

That’s what’s at stake here.

Guild Wars 2 drove prospective gamers to store shelves and pre-order counters on the premise of a manifesto that stated GW2’s player progression was horizontal, not vertical; there would be no treadmill. Recent developments show otherwise. I could—to a reasonable extent—understand if they made this decision under the scrutiny of a myriad of chiding critical reviews, but Guild Wars 2 was critically-acclaimed by many at launch—critics and players alike.

Just take a look around.

The game at launch was a mess from a UI and grouping bug standpoint, not gear, gameplay, balance, or progression. The implementation of Ascended/Infused gear was done completely wrong. In Guild Wars 1, such equipment was a part of the story, to protect the player from the havoc the Mursaat would wreck with Spectral Agony. I don’t see any Mursaat in GW2, yet, much less any REAL reason for this armor to exist. We had enough of a treadmill with Legendary Gear; we didn’t need another grind.

I can remember when Abyss Dye cost a little over 5 Gold in September/Early October. Last night, the cheapest I found was 13 Gold, 99 Silver! REALLY? For a cosmetic item? Anet swung wide of the mark on that “fix,” one of many that would follow. Call it human nature or developer fatigue; regardless of your excuse, Anet is showing a lack of coordination in both their efforts to fix the game’s issues, and their means to communicate their intentions to us.

We’re three months in; people are justified in their anger. People are justified in their pursuit of refunds. Were they not, Anet wouldn’t be granting them.

Being negative and angsty toward Anet (with reasons why) is one thing; going postal and affronting each other over a difference of opinion is something entirely else. There are only two options here:

1. Unite as a community and find which majority rules (Ascended RIGHT or WRONG).
2. Exercise the power of your wallet. Get your refund and go play something else.

Like many others who feel affronted by the premature addition of Ascended Gear: I had a manifesto telling me there’d be cheese on my cheeseburger, so that’s what I expect to have paid for.

sinisterpink.7912:

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.

The key word in this text is “yet”. When should we start to complain, when they’re done rolling out everything? We can already tell what the minimum stat difference will be judging by the items we know so far, and they surely will not introdce items that are worse in the future.

I have not done the fractal dungeon (or most dungeons), i am in no hurry to do it (or most dungeons), and this gear they released is only good for that dungeon.

What exactly am i missing? Where is this unwanted but necessary grind i hear people talking about?

Someone point out as i don’t see it (but perhaps because i am not looking for it).

If i don’t want to grind that gear out i don’t have too.

Is this a mistaken assumption? I dont understand the rage. . . and i LIKE gear progression….. but is this even that?

xtorma.1283:

gwawer.9805:

1. Trolls. Wanting to see how big of threads they can create and how much attention they can get.

2. Kids and teenagers getting their first taste of the excitement that comes with protesting a large company. At this point they are selfishly victimizing Anet for their own entertainment.

3. People who gain pleasure from making demands from Anet, because in real life, these people have nobody they can demand from. They may be poor, meek, and bullied in real life, and they are venting through the forums taking their anger out on Anet.

And then there are people who are afraid others may have a point, and do everything they can to try and counter it. You can spot them by thier propensity to label people with contrary views, usually in a manner that paints them in the worse light possible.

The worst thing that has happened is fear. Fear from the side that are against the changes, because they are afraid the changes will continue, and fear from the side that like the changes, because they are afraid that they may end up in a barren game.

This is exactly what I am seeing every day here. Such “propensity” seems to originate from the plethora of Anet apologists that infest these forums with their talk of “your investment is no better than anyone else’s,” and such nonsense, as if some of us didn’t already know that.

What they fail to realize is the principle of the matter. We’re quick to judge our own government or Wall Street when they allegedly “steal” from us, but it seems that if you get your nose stuck up a company’s butt far enough, you stop holding them accountable for selling you a Pinto when you were titled a Mustang, because “playing nice” keeps an infraction-free status on the message boards.

Good for them; it doesn’t justify bait and switch.

To further elaborate on what I said in my previous post: I’d be far less upset at this ordeal if this game had been out a year and it was time for such an advancement in gear (because sooner or later it has to happen—just not three months into it). This move by Anet, their decision or otherwise, was premature. Period.

dirtyoldgoat.5496:

I have not done the fractal dungeon (or most dungeons), i am in no hurry to do it (or most dungeons), and this gear they released is only good for that dungeon.

What exactly am i missing? Where is this unwanted but necessary grind i hear people talking about?

Someone point out as i don’t see it (but perhaps because i am not looking for it).

If i don’t want to grind that gear out i don’t have too.

Is this a mistaken assumption? I dont understand the rage. . . and i LIKE gear progression….. but is this even that?

The game was meant to be based on skill, not gear. If they removed all bonus stats from WvW and made them PvE only, like it already is with PvP, most of us were fine. Some people would still be angry because they don’t want the second best gear in the game, but that’s a personal problem I wouldn’t agree with.

“You are the type of person who when their girlfriend or boyfriend splits up with you, you lash out at said person with something along the lines of “You promised you’d always love me.” when no promise was really made, just the intention to try.”

I love how the relationship argument is cropping up more and more and becoming this idiocentric crux the WoWionite community is sticking on its self.

STOP EQUATING YOUR VIDEO GAME TO YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.

This is more like buying accounting software that does the US, the UK, and Canada.

2 months in, they updated – they no longer service the UK and Canada. They now only do accounting for China, Japan and the US. It’s still accounting software, but if you bought it from the US or Canada, you are now no longer using that software.

Should you be granted money back? Yes, you bought accounting software that works in Canada and no longer have this. Is this the same here? Yes. We had a grind free MMORPG, now we have a grind based MMORPG – it’s still an MMORPG but the rest of us were lied to. Lied to on a product we -bought-.

Unless you pay for your girlfriend, I’m hoping you ended up going out with her because of mutual want. ANet never gave me no 300$ for my time, but I gave them 300$ for their product – a product which is now gone and replaced with a similar items I do not want.

STOP SAYING YOUR WIFE AND GW2 ARE THE SAME.

“Some people would still be angry because they don’t want the second best gear in the game, but that’s a personal problem I wouldn’t agree with.”

I know you’re kind of on my side, but this is also a stupid statement. Should we run a sewage line through the middle of your house because it won’t affect the rest of your neighborhood, or should another solution be found? Obviously, you’d be the only one affected by raw sewage being pumped so it’s definately a go ahead!

ArenaNet backstabbed a whole community with the implementation of Ascended Gear and you really wonder why people complain?

suppenkasper.5371:

ArenaNet backstabbed a whole community with the implementation of Ascended Gear and you really wonder why people complain?

I am a member of that community.

I was not backstabbed.

dirtyoldgoat.5496:

suppenkasper.5371:

ArenaNet backstabbed a whole community with the implementation of Ascended Gear and you really wonder why people complain?

I am a member of that community.

I was not backstabbed.

Maybe you just have better armor

Iruwen.3164:

dirtyoldgoat.5496:

I have not done the fractal dungeon (or most dungeons), i am in no hurry to do it (or most dungeons), and this gear they released is only good for that dungeon.

What exactly am i missing? Where is this unwanted but necessary grind i hear people talking about?

Someone point out as i don’t see it (but perhaps because i am not looking for it).

If i don’t want to grind that gear out i don’t have too.

Is this a mistaken assumption? I dont understand the rage. . . and i LIKE gear progression….. but is this even that?

The game was meant to be based on skill, not gear. If they removed all bonus stats from WvW and made them PvE only, like it already is with PvP, most of us were fine. Some people would still be angry because they don’t want the second best gear in the game, but that’s a personal problem I wouldn’t agree with.

If some among the WOW community could get a grip and realize this, they’d be amazed to see just how good people can be in mere Mastercraft gear, instead of demanding everyone “link” their gear prior to a paltry 5-man dungeon.

Mayam.8976:

bman.1683:

Is anyone aware that the legendary gear is going to be upgraded to ascended level as they continue to release more?

Do you mean, the Exotic gear will be upgraded to Ascended level? It was my understanding that Legendaries would remain the most powerful items in the game. I don’t really actively seek info about the game and in particular upcoming changes but rely mostly on second hand knowledge of friends who do actively seek such info so it’s completely possible you know something I don’t. Just curious…

Exotics and Legendaries are the same in terms of stat points right now. For some reason, a lot of people think the stats on a Legendary are better, numerically speaking. They are not. They are the same.

Legendaries will be adjusted to match the Ascended gear numerically. That is power creep. That is increasing the stat ceiling on a game balanced around 80 Exotics being the
Ceiling for as high as you can go and that is why people are upset, at least as far as Ascended.

Perhaps the new content was intended to be released at a much later date. But it was just pushed ahead of schedule and released at the wrong time, causing it to have exploded like it has now.

PSA: There is a CORE Testing group where people play this content before its released.

That forum, the core testing forum, was littered with negative feedback expressing concerns that are currently frustrating us players on live. Despite their best efforts and constructive feedback, the patch made it to live.

So the OP doesnt really understand how ANET or the QA works, so I can understand why he/she feels some sympathy for them and in turn blame the players for ruining the game.

ANET is partially responsible for Gw2, which is a business. They have to strike a balance between a game being fun and profitable. This patch, if one is supposed to go by customer feedback, is the wrong move. I have seen my guild dried up, LA and the world looking empty, greyed out Contacts list. If you can log into non-overflow LA — with the rest of the world being empty because everyone is in LA spamming “lfg fotm”-- your server is empty compared to what it was pre-patch.

Also, to people saying WoW rejects are to blame for the negative feedback, noooope. The most dissatisfied players I have come across are GW1 players. When I think of WoW players in GW2, I can place them in three categories:

#Those who hated the gear increments and looked forward to GW2
#Those who liked gear increments but got burnt out and picked up GW2
#Those who liked gear increments and played both games

Number 1 is pissed about the patch. Number 2 welcomes it or is ambivalent. Number 3 doesnt like the patch so he just continues to play WoW.

The problem is NEVER the customer. ANET got all the types of feedback about the patch, before and after it came out. The customer’s reaction to the business’ action is typical. I mean, how dare them try and defend their $60 and time spent in the game prior to the patch.

I’ve just never been exposed to as many terrible analogies in my life. Those who are on the complaining side of this issue have brought up papayas, the government, cheeseburgers, and all sorts of scenarios that aren’t really very well compared to the situation to justify their arguments (although the papaya thing was fun, and the cheeseburger thing was less of a stretch).

I do believe that someone, after a few days, needed to post a thread like this. Now we have a few, and sadly, I doubt its gotten anywhere. Despite all the conspiracy theories (Nexon has a 15% stake and is telling everyone what to do!), terrible analogies (They promised me a papaya and then turned into the federal government!), displacement of blame (the locusts are here!), imagined promises (Marketing campaigns are never wrong!), exaggerated statistics (We can’t be wrong because a few thousand of us represent 99% of more than 2 million people!, very minor changes in gear are game-ending!), gross theories of entitlement (Let’s affect positive change by ruining the game’s well-deserved positive reputation! We couldn’t possibly be behaving selfishly!), and plain insulting (If you ain’t with us, you’re just to dumb to realize how righteous the cause is!).

There’s even a thread stating that if the devs address this at some future date and say “Well, we didn’t really believe ascended gear was vertical progression because the stats aren’t that great and make practically no difference.” that no one intends to believe them. It seems to me the most logical conclusion to come to. The philosophy of being much, much less gear-centric as other games of the genre is still very strongly intact, and like other people have pointed out already, Guild Wars One still exists. If they were looking to add to GW1’s gameplay, they might have made an expansion and not a sequel, right?

I don’t think anyone’s arguing that those who are upset by the changes don’t have a right to say so, but seldom has it been done sensibly. There’s even an attitude that anger is its own reason and is somehow, by itself, justified. No it isn’t. Anger’s got a reason and isn’t a worthy cause in and of itself. I don’t think anyone can make sense of an argument that simply states, “I don’t think you understand just how /angry/ I am about this!” as its own justification.

Actually, I don’t care if about any of that, I take it back. Just stop behaving like you’re the majority and that you should tank the game’s sales, and I’ll stop paying any attention. It would help if some of these analogies weren’t so strange, but I can live with that.

Whenever I get annoyed at the screen, my girlfriend pretty much always asks me the same question “what you playing?”. It immediately helps me relax and it reminds me that no matter how invested I might feel I got into a game, it remains that : just a game.

Now I don’t want to dwelve more and more into the darker parts of the gamer’s psyche… but what this really comes down to is that some developers released some content and massive nerd rage ensued.

Now that content fits the lore and is not that hard to get either.
It still respects the legendary tier as the top tier (which doesn’t even exist yet at the moment so woop dee doo there shall be more “grinding” ahead), also it is an achievable goal for those who are already lvl80, fully kitted out in exotics and a bit bored of farming skins.

I was chasing legendary as well but when I saw the skins for my weapons of choice daggers and shortbow (thief here) ressembled my little pony or a freaking lightsaber I thought to myself “nah”. So I spent my ectos on the ascended backpack, so yeah I found it was pretty easy to get.

People who say that GW2 has no grind make me lol. Instead of grinding for stats, players grind for looks and silently judge those not who do not look as l33t as they do…much in the same fashion the elitists of other MMOs treat other players with weaker stats.
It’s all about personality status and prestige, so please do not be mistaken by what you are playing here. We’re all minuscule pixelated drops in a pixelated ocean so when somebody notices us we just want to make an impression. I don’t blame them, it’s only part of human nature.

The only difference ( and that is a big one) is that looks won’t lock you out of playing content. But since farming mats is what GW2 is all about and these mats aren’t that hard to get once you are level 80…what’s the problem ?
Instead it looks like most complaints come from people who even aren’t lvl80 themselves and wouldn’t know where or how to start farming endgame mats.
And why would Anet take feedback from people who haven’t got a clue about how endgame works ? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Do not get me wrong, if it turns out they DO keep releasing new tiers while “updating” legendary to that next new shiny tier ad libitum then I will more than happily join the bandwagon of unhappy disgruntled customers… but until then I will give Anet the room and respect it deserves so it may maneuver its future content as it sees fit.

Just because I might be worried doesn’t give me the right to behave like a jerk. But anonymity does that to people…

bman.1683:

Perhaps the new content was intended to be released at a much later date. But it was just pushed ahead of schedule and released at the wrong time, causing it to have exploded like it has now.

…and had it been done in such a way, so that existing launch players can finish the main course already on their plate, this probably wouldn’t have been an issue. A small, annual increment in gear is manageable for most players; to completely clone the vertical progression of a subscription-based competitor, however, is a recipe for failure. To do so when your entire PR campaign was based solely upon the opposite is a death sentence in of itself.

I think the message is getting lost in the player-to-player mudslinging and community fragmentation I’m seeing across the message boards. An impassioned community in a furor over a presumed “Bait and Switch” scheme has been reduced to a polarization between the affronted and the “Anet Apologists” who claim the former are unjustified in their ire.

ArenaNet currently trends a tenuous line between unethical and illegal, depending on who observes the complaints of the customers. Perceived in the wrong light, and bad press from these days may yet cause irreparable harm to the future of GW2.

As said many many times before: They released this too early. They should have released gear Infusion much in the same way they did with GW1: As part of the story, giving it a tangible reason to exist, rather than being just another carrot you’ll never reach while running on a treadmill.

Terrbo.2563:

SNIP

The problem is NEVER the customer. ANET got all the types of feedback about the patch, before and after it came out. The customer’s reaction to the business’ action is typical. I mean, how dare them try and defend their $60 and time spent in the game prior to the patch.

Careful, some people think that’s being “selfish!”

It should never have been about whose investment is worth more than whose, or whether or not someone is entitled to this that, or blah blah whatever.

It’s principle. Principle. Period. Accountability. Like you said: It goes through CORE and QA. When feedback rebukes the meat of the content but you push it anyway, it’s because someone already greased your palms:

1. Your shareholders
2. The 2 million customers who bought your “Lateral progression” that was actually a treadmill

In the end, minor changes or not, the principle is that they favor the glory hog player with a cozy job living in the basement on mom’s payroll who will buy 800 gems a week until his pores are bursting day-old pizza, not Jack and Jill Smith with two kids and bills to pay, despite the manifesto that told them otherwise.