Guild Wars 2

Am I the only person who feel’s recently Anet has been making one bad decisions after another?

I wanna explain my point of view and hopefully help the company out by showing them how I as a “CUSTOMER” feel.

The last few months (since maybe Dragon Bash) the living story has been lacking. When Scarlet was introduced the living story took a definitive turn for the worse. Part’s of the previous living story updates where completely glossed over.

I seriously wonder how many people remember us voting for Council. After that happened we had a statue of the winner in lions arch for like a month then it was removed.

Also it seems that every living update comes with fewer obtainable awards in game and more Gem Store items either RNG BLC or just straight buy items.

The Halloween event feels like it was cobbled together and took back stage to the new WvW seasons. This Halloween we got a candy corn mini and a mask that looks like the generic Mesmer mask already being sold on the Gem store. We had a bunch of gem store exclusive items for Halloween some new BLC RNG only weapon skins and a 10min instance that had great lore that left me hanging wondering more.

I am starting to feel the direction your company is taking is the same one that Activision/Electronic Art’s did. Where the player was second string to the cash flow. I am really hoping thats not what your becoming.

Mod I know I most likely get in trouble for my post but I want to leave you with this parting thought. When you read thought my post hopefully you read the entire thing. Ask your self why would someone feel this way and is this really what our company wants and is this what Arena.net wants to stand for ?

Well to be fair the Scarlet concept is actually interesting versus more killing of dragons.

However it is true that all of the following releases feel “disconnected” from each other and somewhat random. Because Anet doesn’t preview content to be in the future it is hard to say now whether there is a “direction” or not.

I think it is easy to criticize the gem store but it is full of non-essential items. Other MMOs would have put the wallet into the gem shop as a purchasable item, or made the wallet part of a purchased expansion. We got the wallet for free.

(It doesn’t matter that the wallet only solves banking issues created in game, other MMOs would still have charged us real money for it).

Stooperdale.3560:

I think it is easy to criticize the gem store but it is full of non-essential items. Other MMOs would have put the wallet into the gem shop as a purchasable item, or made the wallet part of a purchased expansion. We got the wallet for free.

(It doesn’t matter that the wallet only solves banking issues created in game, other MMOs would still have charged us real money for it).

I actually think gem store the only good thing in this game, but there are other “items” i dont agree how game is being taken care of.
WvW could also lead into a BLT use if game was cleverly developed, but this is a common and normal themepark game.

I don’t think Anet has made one bad decision after another (not to say they haven’t made bad decisions). I just think that making decisions that please everyone is nigh on impossible. Take the Living World Stuff as an example.

Now, I loved the Bazaar of the Four Winds update. I loved two of the three minigames it introduced, I loved the setup of the place, and I liked the whole election thing.

I also, however, liked the Tequatl battle and while a lot of people don’t, there are people who play this game and really enjoy that fight. And many don’t.

And I really liked the new path of Twilight Arbor. To me that’s the best dungeon in the game to date with the possible exception of some of the fractals. And a lot of people do like the new path of Twilight Arbor.

Content is coming out every two weeks, and some of it is going to be better than others. My two biggest issues with what’s come out is the amount of mats you need to level your crafting to 500 before you can even start working on an ascended weapon and the frequency of release of content which I think is too often. I feel like I never have time to relax and play the game because there’s always something else I want to do that has to be done within a specified time frame.

Whether I like that content or not is not all that relevant to me. I’d prefer to do content on my own schedule and have time for other stuff I enjoy. I think people will eventually get burned out from this pace.

But no, I don’t think Anet has made as many bad decisions as the OP seems to be implying. I just think not all of their decisions work for all of their players.

Seems to me coming on to the forums to write down what you do and do not like is not terribly effective. Your in-game activity is what matters, like real world money. In the real world if you don’t think something is worth $X, you don’t buy it. If enough people don’t buy it, the merchant changes the prices. In a game such as GW2, if there is an activity you don’t like, then don’t do it. If enough people don’t do the activity, ANet will get the message and change its ways. So “vote with your feet”. I don’t much like LS, so I don’t do it very often. End of story.

My thought is that they began making bad decisions on 11/15/2012. The game that launched was the best MMO that I had ever played. I believe Anet’s weakness is in managing greatness over time.

My beef with the direction of the game is more with the players than ANet. I believe that ANet would have been happy to create new zones, and to expand on the DE system if that’s what players wanted. However, player impatience, focus on rewards, focus on return on time invested and disdain for DE content have led to what we have now.

Short version – Yes!

Completely disagree with you OP. Pretty much disagreed with every point you made.

I don’t know if it they have been bad decisions or not. I might be part of a very small minority but the changes brought by the last couple of months have pretty much killed my motivation to play.

IndigoSundown.5419:

My beef with the direction of the game is more with the players than ANet. I believe that ANet would have been happy to create new zones, and to expand on the DE system if that’s what players wanted. However, player impatience, focus on rewards, focus on return on time invested and disdain for DE content have led to what we have now.

The OP made a multiple-statement post, and I am happy to be able to comment it in a precise and concise way.

I disagree with every statement he made.

what scares me most is the bad decisions they are making artistically. Yes, it does sound stupid but a bad event or a bad change can be reverted… bad looks will stay here forever.