@Wintyre: Very nice thread you started.
I hope ArenaNet takes the time to read what you wrote.
I’ll share my experience here.
My gametime has dropped from an average of 2hours/day to 4hours/week and in the end it went to 0 in the last seven days.
I didn’t think too much about it, I was and avid GW1 player but I started feeling really detached from GW2 and just spent my game time elsewhere. Then I realized when and why this change occurred. After the Cursed Shore event I saw that one of my main goals had become pointless because it had not only just moved farther, it had come with gated content (fractal levels) and grind. Then in the AMA I discovered that future updates were going to push farther away that goal. Am I gonna ever max out my character?
Some of us are casuals who are tired of playing games we have no hope of ever maxing out characters in. Others are more hardcore players who are sick of the gear-progression treadmills and want a more relaxed, less time-consuming MMOG experience. Still others are those who want an MMOG where competition between players is not permanently skewed by never-ending gear score differentials. Many others are frustrated with gear or stat-gated content that prevents them from experiencing areas or events because they don’t have the best, or specific kinds of gear.
This.
I don’t have countless hours to spend just to max a character, neither I like neverending races to arms.
I like a game where the objectives (max stats) are achievable with a reasonable effort, a game I can enjoy and that can satisfy my inner completionist in an healthy way (by “healthy” I mean without having to neglect work/school, wife/girlfriend, hanging out with friends).
I love Guild Wars because I felt it was the closest match for my needs in terms of time and effort needed.
In my opinion it’s wrong to say “Guild Wars 2 is a different game, change your expectations”, a large share of the player base comes from the previous installment of the franchise. The Hall of Monuments was offered to bring in players from the old game to the new one. War in Kryta and Winds of Change were there to make a bridge from GW to GW2. We played in anticipation of the new game, filling slowly our HoMs, all because we expected a similar experience.
I feel as if this game is still searching for an identity, trying to appeal at the same time both the old Guild Wars players and the mainstream MMO players. Are we sure this is something that can be reached?
As for the “content burners”: I’ve seen screenshots of a player with 1700 hours of gametime in just 3 months, that means an average of 18 hours a day, each day, for 3 months (I hope for him that a share of that time was spent afk). There are players who spend 10+ hours a day engaged in game activities. Are you surprised that at a certain point such players will complain that the game has nothing more to offer? How long can you keep entertained/engaged such players without adding insane grind levels? And which is the breaking point to which you will be alienating the ones who don’t spend their lives ingame? Is a gear threadmill the answer to that?
I understand the dilemma the developers will face each time they add new content, and the fine thread they must walk on to balance evenly the game, but I think they are giving in too much to the vocal forum crowd, where the percentage of hardcore players is way higher than inside the game.
The more casual/non vocal ones are less likely to come to the forums complaining. If they feel the game doesn’t cater to them anymore, they just leave and do something else.
I’m going to log in to see the Wintersday event, just to give a look, but I don’t feel that interest like I had before. I still care about GW2, and I haven’t lost hope it can grow beyond its potential.