Guild Wars 2

i wich i could say i didnt buy hot due but i bough it….. its like those people who bough no mans sky…

Fiddlestyx.9714:

This game isn’t worth spending money on anymore.

For what reason?

Was it the steadily worsening RNG trying to force you in to the gemstore for anything but one new cosmetic item per update and a handful of armorsets and weapons for an entire expansion? Am I the only one who noticed we’re now getting a lottery-ticket item in the BL chests per event cycle. This game is looking more and more like the waning days of city of heroes, and other korean grinder MMOs they try and squeeze the last bit of milk out before kicking the dried old cow over and running with whatever they managed to get.

Or how about the high-tier content which is completely void of strategy or depth and only difficult because of stat scaling, time restraints, and forcefully hidden mechanics complied with by a single droning strategy? And yet which they continue to work on in spite of a 99.999% of the playerbase having no interest in it to the point that the larger portion of them left before attempting to complete it?

Or maybe the expansion that was 1/16th the size of the original game and yet sold for the price of a full game?

Or the fact that that expansion was one of the worst pieces of game design ever seen from a studio with ANets record? I mean good grief, you know what word I would typify the expansions design by? “Why” For all the times I perfectly complied with and applied mechanics the way playing the base game taught me to, only for the game to throw them back in my face with no explanation, no tells, no signs or learning curve, and call me an idiot for not knowing what there is no logical reason I should have known. Situations to which I could only respond by staring blankly at my screen and asking in utter confusion “Why?”.

How ’bout the selling out their buy-to-play playerbase for free to play? Considered in the MMO genre to be the harbinger of a dying game. And the giving, of all things after the controversy surrounding the wardrobe changes, an outfit as compensation.

The total turn around from the no-grind philosophy they sold the game on to one of the worst grind in a western designed MMO?

Or perhaps the complete turn around from the no-trinity, all roles welcome, strategic high tier content they also sold the game on which they never even attempted to make because it was too hard? Three years of the absolute laziest passing attempts to fix the problems with most of the stats having no use in most content, and not even once cracking open the games base mechanics for overhall, not one instance of exploring a single non-bandaid solution to opening up the game to anything besides the zerker dodge-or-die meta, until, of course, they gave up and devolved down the evolutionary chain to the trinity.

Conncept.7638:

Fiddlestyx.9714:

This game isn’t worth spending money on anymore.

For what reason?

-snip-

My reasons are all at the bottom of page one. Although, all of your reasons work.

I wish I hadn’t pre-purchased it and bought it on sale instead, Anet have been going a completely different direction that what they made and sold gw 2 on, if I knew the game would turn out how it is now I would have waited til vanila was free before playing it.

Any money I would have spent on this I now spend on other games and I doubt I will buy the next gw 2 expakittenil it is on sale.

Although I did buy HoT and do not regret it, I can answer from the perspective of when I was still holding out on the purchase for as long as I did.

The short answer is that I used to play another game that deeply and completely betrayed its original premise, and heard from map chat that HoT was doing the same to GW2. However, because what I wanted from core GW2 (dynamic event chains/meta events) was different than what others apparently wanted (a super easy mode casual experience), I convinced myself that buying HoT would be fine. And I was right, in that I love HoT.

The longer answer:

I’ve posted this on occasion in other contexts, but I am a SWToR refugee (the current EA/Bioware Star Wars mmo, for those who don’t know).

SWToR was sold to me, and others, as a game distinct for its strong story writing. Initially this was true: there were 8 completely distinct storylines, complete with unique companions, conversations, and other features. I’d say 2 or 3 of those stories are well-written enough to be their own game, really. Without getting into more detail, suffice it to say that the dev team there has utterly and completely betrayed that original premise; now every single character plays an identical story. You have non-Jedi/Sith running around talking to Force visions, fighting Force battles, and other such nonsense. Even your once-unique companions are basically skins of one another with the same base functionality.

When I first stepped into core Tyria as an f2p, I fell in love immediately with how the world felt alive. No trinity, and a game world that seemed to change and move on with time. I absolutely loved that the tower in Kessex Hills remained toppled, and thought it was quite daring that the devs destroyed the beloved central hub city and remade it as a shadow of its former self. I did feel a bit sad that I missed out on Scarlet and the old LA, but the world felt so much more alive this way. I knew that dynamic event chains would eventually repeat and all would have a chance to do them, but the chains initially seemed long enough (and the new camps/WPs opened stayed long enough) that I felt like my character was making a real difference in that corner of the world. There being pretty much 0 gear grind was a very thick layer of icing on what I found was an already delicious cake.

As I considered buying HoT, I was warned that HoT was quite different from all the things I mentioned above. There was a certain level of power creep involved (although gear grind beyond exotic remained largely optional), and gravitation towards meta builds for higher levels of play was expected.

I wavered for some time, but eventually bought HoT just because I loved the experience of GW2 up to that point. I read as much as I could on reddit, these forums, and elsewhere about what HoT entailed. I concluded that although HoT did betray a bit of that initial feeling of map-aliveness, that shift made sense to me because we’d be fighting in a jungle. Working through wild places that belong to the enemy (not civilization) seemed to fit with the idea that player actions couldn’t ever really tame the zones.

So yeah. I didn’t come to GW2 seeking super casual faceroll, so HoT did not seem like a total betrayal of the core game to me. Since what I wanted was more meta events, HoT was a purchase that made sense. I took the time to confirm this as best as I could before buying, and I’m not disappointed that I did.

I really want to buy it, but on sale, due to currency exchange rates and my countries weakening dollar the xpac is the price of a full AAA game, even more. I returned after a long break, farmed some gold, only about 30 levels off having every profession maxed, filled my favorites with exos, doing my dailies, playing spvp and WVW if I catch a good train but now I feel completely blocked if I don’t get HoT. I am still hoping for a mid April sale.

I feel PVP is incredibly accessible, even with it’s downsides it’s quite fluid to get into, but PVE outside of the world just seems completely shut down.

So in short, I haven’t bought it because I bought the full game and feel like I am rebuying the original at that price, but I WILL buy it once it’s on the 50% sale.

^^ at current HOT price at £34.99 and assuming a 2 year window for each expansion, hot costs 5 PENCE a day, and you could play for 24 hours a day for that 5 pence if you so desired. Compared to any other game in any other genre that’s a snip, not sure why people think this is a lot.

to put this into perspective, its costs about 6 pence an hour to simply have your pc switched on or 5 pence to boil your kettle twice.

The biggest reason for me, is simply that I haven’t felt like there’s a reason to. It’s been on my radar on and off, but I’ve managed to pass every time so far.

The things that tend to get me most excited for expansions are things like new races and classes. Heart of Thorns did not have the former and the Revenant just isn’t my cup of tea. The elite specializations are okay, Chronomancer seems neat, but it’s not enough on its own.

Similarly, I don’t really care for the Maguuma Jungle. I’ve seen Heart of Thorns played, it’s certainly a beautiful location, but it doesn’t grab me (it probably doesn’t help that it’s where I stopped playing Guild Wars 1 until some friends got me back in during Factions).

I don’t hate it or anything. I’m upset that they added raids after all, and that they gave closure to an old story (and I’m still more interested in the old stories than the Elder Dragon ones), but it doesn’t look like it’s dominated the game yet.

Also, there was the thread I made elsewhere, where Heart of Thorns makes me feel like I have to make some choices that I’ve really had a hard time with (and they’ve only gotten worse since), but that’s more on my end.

Otherwise it sounds like more of the same to me, in a good way, but there’s not an exciting enough draw for me to prioritize it over other things.

^^ You hear lots of people blaming devs for design decisions here and there, or difficulty, or not being casual friendly, but the reality is this is the best answer you can get – it doesnt appeal to someones personal taste. If everyone was honest enough to simply admit this there would be no arguments about HOT +1

Jokubas.4265:

The things that tend to get me most excited for expansions are things like new races and classes. Heart of Thorns did not have the former and the Revenant just isn’t my cup of tea. The elite specializations are okay, Chronomancer seems neat, but it’s not enough on its own.

I agree with you on rev. I made one just because the female Norn rev in the character creation page seemed really striking lol. Overall, it’s definitely my least used class and not my cup of tea either. If “yay shiny new class” is what you were looking for out of HoT, maybe the purchase really isn’t for you.

I think what you – and many others, no doubt – may not like about elite specs is that they really hone in on a particular choice for your character (as you already mentioned, perhaps, in passing at the end of your post). For instance, my ranger is my first and main character, and I rarely ran her as a straight dps character. However, as a druid, I do more healing than anything else these days. I did put together an ascended viper set for condition builds, which allowed me to bring that toon back into the dps game. This is a big change from what I ran pre-HoT, which was a standard power longbow + shouts setup, low dps and all.

That being said, being a full support druid is a ton of fun, and seems like a better version of the healing role that I often played in other classic trinity mmos.

Only happen to see this post as passing by in something like a six month looky to see what’s happening.

First a little background, bought every installment of Guild Wars, back in the day, and man what a ride. I felt invested in the story line, I felt for the characters, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to our hero’s.

When Guild Wars 2 came out after waiting it seemed a dogs age, it was a beautiful game, in the literal sense of the word, with the vista’s etc. The characters were not as enthralling to myself as in the first Guild Wars saga, (with the exception of one—-apples anyone?) but hey, this was Guild Wars, the game I had invested so much time into, it did not matter, and was wiling to over look such minor things. Even the bugged out final (anti) ‘climatic’ battle I was willing to overlook because—-this is Guild Wars 2.

Then the new ‘hero’ characters, came on, and (again, I’m speaking only for myself, so don’t bother trying to counter argue, I’ll probably not see it in any case) the story line’s seemed to revolve around teen angst, and listening to some hero moan and groan about how bad they have it, and listening to some half baked ‘hero’ hickup—-constantly. Great, if you like that sort of thing, but for myself found it a source of constant irritation.

My time lines a bit messed up here so please forgive me. It was a few weeks (months?) before the launch of HOT, and I was one of the multitude to farm like a hyped up skritt looking for shinies, only in this case it was for the beta drop for HOT.

On the day HOT launched went in, and I felt quit literally a shiver run up my spine to the base of my neck. Unlike in previous editions of Guild Wars, where by we would have the complete story etc, we were to be drip fed the story line, as in the manner of penny novels. Again fine if you like that sort of thing. Added to that, I had come to loath the hero’s that we were supposed to be empathaising with.

I logged on the other day, (month? was around xmas to say merry xmas to some freinds) and saw that Anet had sent me a free voucher to go into HOT. They can keep it, I have zero intention of using it.

The other thing was the inclusion of Free to play. Fine, go with it, their game their rules, I knew that from the beginning. Yes I i’v heard all the back and forth arguments for and against, the words entitled, fine say what you want, your dime. But, it was people like myself who put the time and effort into the game, and at the end of it, it felt like a slap in the face—thanks for coming, and all that, but you are surplus to requirements.

So it was time for me to get off this particular bus. Made some great friends in Guild Wars land, but all good things must come to an end.

PS, didn’t have any intention to write an essay, but hey ho, but like I said previously, probably wont see any replies.

HoT have a relation of Love and hate.

You love the new class, the prestige class, new weapons, new fractals, guild halls, and a lot of things.

You will hate the HoT maps, because is too dificult to play alone, you are forced to farm mastery skills to not die in the jungle.

Atma.4175:

HoT have a relation of Love and hate.

You love the new class, the prestige class, new weapons, new fractals, guild halls, and a lot of things.

You will hate the HoT maps, because is too dificult to play alone, you are forced to farm mastery skills to not die in the jungle.

You should probably say “I” instead of “you”, because I don’t find HoT too difficult to play alone, I didn’t feel like I was farming mastery skills, and I didn’t particularly die that much in the jungle.

I did buiy HoT

I’d like to say, for what it’s worth

• yes HoT failed to deliver the promised expected content:
  - It only featured 4 maps
  - it delivered a -SHORT- mostly non branching story line
  - it delivered content most people found to challenging for Open world
  - it didn’t deliver the legendaries , legendary armors, or new races.
  - it didn’t deliver a revitalisation of WVW, actually it pretty much fatally injured the mode by introducing a map, which was rejected by the community, but was implemented still.
  - it didn’t give exciting new class balance, it was mostly madatoiry HoT specialisation builds, in present meta most builds still have no vanilla options anymore worth competing the newer elite specialisations
  - The new stats also destroyed condi builds with vanilla only gear. The inaccesibility of the newer stat trinkets, being locked behind Raids almost 100% made making decent builds hard, if not impossible, for non raiders
  - Newer foods appeared, mandatory for some gamemodes (-> WvW), requiring WVW players to do PvE to unlock them, same for runes and stat combinations.
  - A lot of content was behind forced regrinds of the new meta maps, wwhich were ok for the better part, but 1 wasn’t easily accepted by the community (Tangled Depths).

BUT in my opinion some if not all of these things have been addressed partially or whole except maybe te dependance of meta builds depending on HoT content.

• There have been 4 new maps since HoT in the Living world. bringing the total to 8 with more incoming,
• Legendaries are trinkling in, albeit slowly. some are pretty nice, and they are legendary now. No longer can you buy ’m at the BLTP.
• Legendary Armor is being worked upon, albeit slowly. Maybe there will be legendary armor in PvE, but as is I’m glad it is starting to solidify and we have seen a preview,
• content and creatures have been reassest, no more zerker slaughter in HoT maps…
• the power of builds has/have been balanced more or less.
• WvW got acces to a new vendor, autoloot and the stats, while the map was partially removed. this however only partially reviatalized WvW..
• Gw2 finally decided to let go the idiot dream of becoming an ESL game and can now finally focus on being a high end MMO again.
  In the end HoT almost 2 years after the release is at a point where all the complainers wanted it to be, maybe without a new race, but with decenty content and a reason to play.

And if you didnt try and are convinced your own opinion is right who am I to tell you otherwise?

But the final word form me would be: When at 50% off Heart of Thorns will be worthwhile to buy and to play. Especially when you didn’t give up on this game you will get your LS parts as well.

And if you turned your back on the game you could wait untill expansion 2.
And if you would buy Expansion 2 you should decide to reenter, I think you’ll still be amazed by the content associated with HoT. But It’s just my opinion.

@Pax

Stuff you listed as promised content, wasn’t actually promised. We were told before the launch there would be 4 maps. We were told there would be no new race.

Nor did Anet promise a branching story line for HoT.

Not sure where you got that from.

I don’t want a branching storyline tbh. I want 1 good storyline, with some flavour depending on race or class shoved in there (like in raids for instance). Branching storylines are sth great for singleplayer games but the Personal Story showed that in GW2 where resources need to be spent on so many other things in the game a good story with many different branches/choices/options is very hard to do. Stick to 1 well-written storyline like we’ve been seeing in the latest Living Story updates.

Vayne.8563:

@Pax

Stuff you listed as promised content, wasn’t actually promised. We were told before the launch there would be 4 maps. We were told there would be no new race.

Nor did Anet promise a branching story line for HoT.

Not sure where you got that from.

Arenanet developer’s have said multiple things in developing both GW2 and HoT

These remarks have included more info then just the short ramp up to HoT. Developer talks on livestream have hinted to more then was ever delivered, but we were watching with anticipating and extrapolating vision, and the hype made a bit of dough blow up like puff pastry. Unfortunately with way to much air… luckily our light crust has been suplemented by decent filling in the period after the Launch and teh LS S3 has been a great addition.

• It was known only 4 maps would be included with HoT, they would be multilayered, which was achieved in a different way then most expected cause in some views ppl expected the leayers to be separate maps.. Even though the maps are extermely nice IMHO it was to few for a lot of people, but since we had 4 more, bringing the total to 8 and there are decent indications there will be more maps. Thise doesn’t include the map area’s for the 4 raid segments.
• a new race might happen (during Gw2 vanilla), but a specific time was not given. Later on it was said no new races would be included with HoT.
• a new proffesion would happen with HoT. Revenant was a major selling point
• a new WvW map was available and would be implemented. The map was playtested and rejected by the majority of the WvW community, and still included as a complete replacement for the frost maps, whcih was changed after heavy protest and the near collapse of WvW, of which it didn’t recover fully (being political here)
• Developers hinted they were working on new legendaries while the hype train was on the fast track so this was interpreted as new legendaries included with HoT, these legendaries were put on hold after a few were realease, and the developpment has since been restarted. Legendary arrmor was noit hinted towards but the envoy and the collections proved it to be included in HoT, but it was not ready.

Still I am happy how it turned out, though some things might have gone smoother with more communication, and less hype, player expectation might (….might? it was) have been a bit overhyped.

I corrected some things in my former post. And am duly aware most things were my own expecatons based upon several years of developer talks and the sunbsequent “hypetrain to nowhere.”

vesica tempestas.1563:

^^ You hear lots of people blaming devs for design decisions here and there, or difficulty, or not being casual friendly, but the reality is this is the best answer you can get – it doesnt appeal to someones personal taste. If everyone was honest enough to simply admit this there would be no arguments about HOT +1

On numerous occasions I’ve gone into mathematical detail and contemporary game theory and objectively proven most of the elite specs are being badly-designed content.

One can have opinions on the map structure, or story, or what else, but many mechanical features provided by HoT have objectively been poor decisions and have objectively been failures based on the surrounding evidence and statistics. So far, I’ve also been 100% accurate in my predictions of ANet’s income post-expansion, coming directly from the perspective of a market analyst and former game co-manager.

I’m not here to bash the expansion – I’ve already done so on other threads – but such a blanket statement is simply untrue, particularly since the most fundamental pillars of gameplay – profession design (fun-factor) and numerical balance (fairness) – have had their integrities so savagely violated.

DeceiverX.8361:

On numerous occasions I’ve gone into mathematical detail and contemporary game theory and objectively proven most of the elite specs are being badly-designed content.

No objectively you haven’t. You proofs have always started with the assumption that HoT is badly designed and then backwards forced everything to conform to that assumption.

Elite specs in their current form are better designed than the core game was. They brough mechanical complexity to a combat system sorely lacking in any kind of complexity.

The core game was a excellent buildcrafting game. The gameplay however was simplistic especially in PvE. Look at core guardian where you literally never use your virtues because leaving them on passive is better than using them. Look at core necro where shroud has no use beyond being a HP sponge. Look at core Warrior where the entire rotation is three buttons. Look at core ranger which was bad at everything no matter what changes where made. Look at core Mesmer which where just portal bots pre-Hot.

And don’t tell me these where not problems before HoT, they totally where.

There are so many new things brought in by elite specs. Condi warrior exists where it didn’t pre HoT. Power Guardian is a thing instead of being burn or support all the time. Necros have use beyond being a HP sponge. Mesmer isn’t just a portal bot. Rangers are actually a thing.

Crinn.7864:

DeceiverX.8361:

On numerous occasions I’ve gone into mathematical detail and contemporary game theory and objectively proven most of the elite specs are being badly-designed content.

No objectively you haven’t. You proofs have always started with the assumption that HoT is badly designed and then backwards forced everything to conform to that assumption.

Elite specs in their current form are better designed than the core game was. They brough mechanical complexity to a combat system sorely lacking in any kind of complexity.

The core game was a excellent buildcrafting game. The gameplay however was simplistic especially in PvE. Look at core guardian where you literally never use your virtues because leaving them on passive is better than using them. Look at core necro where shroud has no use beyond being a HP sponge. Look at core Warrior where the entire rotation is three buttons. Look at core ranger which was bad at everything no matter what changes where made. Look at core Mesmer which where just portal bots pre-Hot.

And don’t tell me these where not problems before HoT, they totally where.

There are so many new things brought in by elite specs. Condi warrior exists where it didn’t pre HoT. Power Guardian is a thing instead of being burn or support all the time. Necros have use beyond being a HP sponge. Mesmer isn’t just a portal bot. Rangers are actually a thing.

Meta for guard pre hot was power guardian. Necros still aren’t used much in high end content like raids, Mesmer wasn’t just used for portal pre hot, it was used for stealth for skips in places like arah, and it provided quickness as well. Not like it does now. but still. Rangers…yeah you got me me there. Condi ranger proves that core specs can be viable over elites though. Elites weren’t supposed to be upgrades, they were supposed to offer an alternative way to play the class. Honestly, ranger is about the only class that seems to have gotten that balance right. You lose healing but gain damage with core, you lose damage but gain healing with druid.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Vayne.8563:

@Pax

Stuff you listed as promised content, wasn’t actually promised. We were told before the launch there would be 4 maps. We were told there would be no new race.

Nor did Anet promise a branching story line for HoT.

Not sure where you got that from.

Arenanet developer’s have said multiple things in developing both GW2 and HoT

These remarks have included more info then just the short ramp up to HoT. Developer talks on livestream have hinted to more then was ever delivered, but we were watching with anticipating and extrapolating vision, and the hype made a bit of dough blow up like puff pastry. Unfortunately with way to much air… luckily our light crust has been suplemented by decent filling in the period after the Launch and teh LS S3 has been a great addition.

• It was known only 4 maps would be included with HoT, they would be multilayered, which was achieved in a different way then most expected cause in some views ppl expected the leayers to be separate maps.. Even though the maps are extermely nice IMHO it was to few for a lot of people, but since we had 4 more, bringing the total to 8 and there are decent indications there will be more maps. Thise doesn’t include the map area’s for the 4 raid segments.
• a new race might happen (during Gw2 vanilla), but a specific time was not given. Later on it was said no new races would be included with HoT.
• a new proffesion would happen with HoT. Revenant was a major selling point
• a new WvW map was available and would be implemented. The map was playtested and rejected by the majority of the WvW community, and still included as a complete replacement for the frost maps, whcih was changed after heavy protest and the near collapse of WvW, of which it didn’t recover fully (being political here)
• Developers hinted they were working on new legendaries while the hype train was on the fast track so this was interpreted as new legendaries included with HoT, these legendaries were put on hold after a few were realease, and the developpment has since been restarted. Legendary arrmor was noit hinted towards but the envoy and the collections proved it to be included in HoT, but it was not ready.

Still I am happy how it turned out, though some things might have gone smoother with more communication, and less hype, player expectation might (….might? it was) have been a bit overhyped.

I corrected some things in my former post. And am duly aware most things were my own expecatons based upon several years of developer talks and the sunbsequent “hypetrain to nowhere.”

This is largely the problem with a lot of the expectations set around HoT, though. A lot of people came with their own expectations. Probably not the best way to buy a product.

The problem has always been that people want to ride a hype train. I watched the same videos and announcements everyone else did, and I didn’t get disappointed, because I didn’t bother making assumptions.

Of course, not making assumptions is hard. And there were areas where Anet did say things that didn’t happen, particularly the Fractal Leaderboard (which I didn’t care about at all) and legendary weapons.

I think the HoT maps are massively more complex, and more interesting as they are than having three seperately flat maps that are just flat. Nor did I expect three maps from the description. I expected, more or less, what I got.

At any rate, I’ve always thought HoT was overpriced and would have sold a lot better at around the $30 mark.

Edit: You know thinking about it, there were a couple of things that worked the other way too. For example, we were originally told gliding wouldn’t be usable in core Tyria, and later it was enabled in core Tyria, which was a bonus that we couldn’t possibly have expected, but it was a huge game changer for a lot of us.

Another thing was how HoT was marketed. At the beginning, I said, and was often ridiculed for saying, that HoT wasn’t a boxed purchased but more along the lines of a season pass. That as the living story came online there’d be more and more value from HoT. A lot of people didn’t agree, but that’s how it ended up turning out.

The game has always been a game that keeps giving more for the purchase price, even long after you’ve bought it.

If you’re into raids, you’re getting new ones, same with Fractals. If you’re into story you’re getting more of it. If you’re into maps you’re getting more of those.

At the end of the day, Anet marketed HoT wrong. Instead of telling us the expansion would be light on content (which they did) they should have told us it wasn’t just about what was in the box, but what you’d get over time.

I do agree the value keeps going up.

susana.7814:

Meta for guard pre hot was power guardian. Necros still aren’t used much in high end content like raids,

But the mechanical quality of necro is so much better.

Core necro never uses shroud beyond HP sponging. Reaper uses shroud both offensively and defensively, and reaper shroud’s skills offer interesting combo and counterplay options.

Mesmer wasn’t just used for portal pre hot, it was used for stealth for skips in places like arah, and it provided quickness as well. Not like it does now. but still.

So you used Mesmer for skipping content not for actually doing content.

Elites weren’t supposed to be upgrades, they were supposed to offer an alternative way to play the class.

As far as I can tell the purpose of Elites where designed to increase quality of gameplay to classes sorely lacking in any kind of interesting mechanics.

DH virtues are a upgrade so that guardians will use them actively rather than camping the passives. Reaper’s shroud is a upgrade so that necros will have not just a use for their shroud, but to make using that shroud engaging. Berserker is a upgrade so that warrior rotations have interesting mechanics rather than just auto spam while waiting for F1s.

People declare Elites badly designed because players are only judging by the number of possible builds, while never giving a thought to the positives Elite brought in terms of gameplay.

Crinn.7864:

People declare Elites badly designed because players are only judging by the number of possible builds, while never giving a thought to the positives Elite brought in terms of gameplay.

Not just that, but they also judge based on the number of “accepted in theory as part of the meta-game” builds, without paying attention to the fact that there are significantly more builds possible than just what random other players blessed as “the best, for right now”.

(…and by “possible” I mean “suitable for use in completing any and all content the game offers, including raids.”)

I played GW2 for a while and enjoyed it immensely. I liked it so much that I abandoned one of my cardinal rules of gaming: NEVER PRE-ORDER.

That was a mistake.

After that came the 5 stages of grief. Or what would have been the 5 stages of grief if the decisions and direction in regards to the game didn’t keep me at stage 2.

It’s their game, so they can do what they want with it. And I’m sure there are people who like the way things have gone. But I just found myself logging in less and less, asking “why are they doing that?” a lot more, and finally just stopped playing altogether.

Lesson re-learned. No matter how great you think a game or a game company is, they can still totally wreck a game for you. Maybe just you, but that doesn’t really matter.

I still check the forums and such from time to time to see how things are going. I still see that they’re on the same path. If it keeps raking in the money I see scant reason for them to stop, but I certainly haven’t come across any incentive to get me playing again.

Vayne.8563:

Reddit would probably be a better way to check, since free to play players can post on reddit.

Here’s some forums vs reddit

Xyrus.6037:

I played GW2 for a while and enjoyed it immensely. I liked it so much that I abandoned one of my cardinal rules of gaming: NEVER PRE-ORDER.

That was a mistake.

After that came the 5 stages of grief. Or what would have been the 5 stages of grief if the decisions and direction in regards to the game didn’t keep me at stage 2.

It’s their game, so they can do what they want with it. And I’m sure there are people who like the way things have gone. But I just found myself logging in less and less, asking “why are they doing that?” a lot more, and finally just stopped playing altogether.

Lesson re-learned. No matter how great you think a game or a game company is, they can still totally wreck a game for you. Maybe just you, but that doesn’t really matter.

I still check the forums and such from time to time to see how things are going. I still see that they’re on the same path. If it keeps raking in the money I see scant reason for them to stop, but I certainly haven’t come across any incentive to get me playing again.

self awareness is a powerful thing, have you wondered why you didn’t return to the content you used to play prior to HOT if you didn’t like the HOT content?

No disrespect, but I’m going to destroy your entire argument.

So, I found this thread again and thought I would answer this.
I will start with the fact that I used to play WoW so I was looking forward to GW2. I started GW2 at launch.

The main reason I have not and will not buy HoT is because of the way the game has gone/is going.

1: Anet originally set out to make an extraordinary MMO unlike any other, but has since gone in a different direction. I feel like with the Manifesto, they promised a lot and delivered little.

The “Manifesto” has been discussed ad nauseum. Every MMO evolves and changes over time. Every single one. I fail to see how they’ve gone in such a radical different direction.

2: Stagnant content. I really don’t think this needs to be explained. Look at dungeons and world events, once you’ve done them there is no reason to do them again (unless you play Fashion Wars). Anet had an answer for stagnant content, dynamic events, it didn’t work.

Dungeons and world events are stagnant? I see entire huge groups at every world boss still. And dungeons are still a fantastic way to make money. Not only with the loot, but every 8 unique dungeon paths you run, you get 5 gold and additional tokens. Have all the sets already? Spend your tokens on some exotic weapons and throw them in the forge. You may get some unique skins out there.

3: I recently made a pvp character, because I thought maybe I was just bored with pve. WvW seems dead, also it’s still the same it was years ago. Eotm, hop in the train and run around mindlessly. Yeah, that’s fun. As far as structured pvp, it’s not for me and from what I hear is ruined anyways.

Pvp isn’t ruined. The population is a little lower this time around because of how they changed the ascended rewards, which I don’t personally agree with. WvW isn’t dead either. I’m on a lower tier server, and every single battleground was queue’d on reset on Friday.

4: Raids. I would never be able to do a raid because I play my way. I have 6 fully geared lvl 80s, but none of them have meta builds and never will. I have no doubt that if I tried a raid, I would be kicked out. I have no desire to play the min/max game (I know GW2 players hate that word, but let’s call it what it is). I was at one time a top rated raider on WoW and came to GW2 to get away from that. Yay, meta builds.

So you have 6 fully geared level 80s, but can’t find yourself changing just one of them to try and fit into a raid. Sounds like stubbornness to me. There are many guilds that do raid training, or you could find a guild to join that does the same thing. Raids in this game aren’t like hardcore raiding in other games – you’re not forced to raid.

5: DPS meters, here we go. Anet originally said no to them, now we have them. How long will it be before Anet caves again and we get an inspect panel so that players can kitten at me for not playing their way?

Players will find a way to “kitten at you” no matter what Anet does. Currently it’s linking how many items you have for raids. Again, there are options out there to avoid the hardcore part of any of this.

6: Problems. There are a lot of problems with this game that Anet needs to address. I am only going to focus on one because it shows how Anet deals with problems. Underwater combat. This was something that was new and exciting, unfortunately players didn’t like the way it works. It needs to be reworked, because it is a great idea. Anet’s answer, let’s just abandon it. Get used to this answer, you will be hearing it more.

They’ve currently put underwater combat on hold because it’s a terribly minor portion of the game. You realize there’s an underwater elder dragon, right? They can’t ignore it forever and it will likely see a rework at some point.

7: Forced content. I’m not going into detail about this, because I already heard all the lame excuses about how nothing is forced. I will say this, if you look at SAB there is a normal mode achievement that requires you to do tribulation mode. How does that make sense. You force me to play a mode I don’t want to play in order to get an achievement for a mode that I do play.

How are they forcing you to do anything? Why do you need the achievement so badly?

8: The community. It didn’t used to be like this.

I see “Wow, this community is so great!” on reddit every day. Not sure what you’re reading.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Xyrus.6037:

I played GW2 for a while and enjoyed it immensely. I liked it so much that I abandoned one of my cardinal rules of gaming: NEVER PRE-ORDER.

That was a mistake.

After that came the 5 stages of grief. Or what would have been the 5 stages of grief if the decisions and direction in regards to the game didn’t keep me at stage 2.

It’s their game, so they can do what they want with it. And I’m sure there are people who like the way things have gone. But I just found myself logging in less and less, asking “why are they doing that?” a lot more, and finally just stopped playing altogether.

Lesson re-learned. No matter how great you think a game or a game company is, they can still totally wreck a game for you. Maybe just you, but that doesn’t really matter.

I still check the forums and such from time to time to see how things are going. I still see that they’re on the same path. If it keeps raking in the money I see scant reason for them to stop, but I certainly haven’t come across any incentive to get me playing again.

self awareness is a powerful thing, have you wondered why you didn’t return to the content you used to play prior to HOT if you didn’t like the HOT content?

OFC I can’t speak for Xyrus but he raised a lot of points I agree with (well the 5 points of grief I reserve for more lifechanging experiences than a computergame).
As for returning to 4 year old/8 alts played content: I could just start a new f2p account to relive that! It’s old, played through – Wth would I pay to replay that?
HoT added gliding in old maps: Great but not exactly a reason to relive old content.
Most other content requires contentgrind I simply dislike. I was looking for new similar (not same) content.
HoT marked a new direction. A direction I dislike but basically: It’s Anet’s game – It’s their decision.
My time/money: Better spent on something that caters to my ideas of great entertainment!

Halandir.3609:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Xyrus.6037:

I played GW2 for a while and enjoyed it immensely. I liked it so much that I abandoned one of my cardinal rules of gaming: NEVER PRE-ORDER.

That was a mistake.

After that came the 5 stages of grief. Or what would have been the 5 stages of grief if the decisions and direction in regards to the game didn’t keep me at stage 2.

It’s their game, so they can do what they want with it. And I’m sure there are people who like the way things have gone. But I just found myself logging in less and less, asking “why are they doing that?” a lot more, and finally just stopped playing altogether.

Lesson re-learned. No matter how great you think a game or a game company is, they can still totally wreck a game for you. Maybe just you, but that doesn’t really matter.

I still check the forums and such from time to time to see how things are going. I still see that they’re on the same path. If it keeps raking in the money I see scant reason for them to stop, but I certainly haven’t come across any incentive to get me playing again.

self awareness is a powerful thing, have you wondered why you didn’t return to the content you used to play prior to HOT if you didn’t like the HOT content?

OFC I can’t speak for Xyrus but he raised a lot of points I agree with (well the 5 points of grief I reserve for more lifechanging experiences than a computergame).
As for returning to 4 year old/8 alts played content: I could just start a new f2p account to relive that! It’s old, played through – Wth would I pay to replay that?
HoT added gliding in old maps: Great but not exactly a reason to relive old content.
Most other content requires contentgrind I simply dislike. I was looking for new similar (not same) content.
HoT marked a new direction. A direction I dislike but basically: It’s Anet’s game – It’s their decision.
My time/money: Better spent on something that caters to my ideas of great entertainment!

Of course you should pay games you like. But it doesn’t change the fact that every single MMO I’ve ever played suffers from exactly this complaint. People who play for thousands of hours end up running out of stuff to do except grind.

That’s because we consume content faster than devs can create it.

When games are made and they’re new and fresh, the devs have five years with no players in the game to create content. They don’t have to worry about anything but creating content. They create a huge amount of content, because they’re not actively running the game.

Then the game launches and it’s a constant battle to adjust to player expectation, and as that happens, content comes more slowly. This is true of every game.

Do you know what happens to WoW, 3 months after an expansion hits? People say they’re done with the content, and they stop playing. Maybe for some people it takes six months. That’s how it is.

Have you found an MMO where people have not had the same complaint?

This doesn’t mean a new person coming in won’t have thousands of hours to catch up to you though.

yep agree ^^ even if you only rack up a few hundred hours you will probably have seen all that is to be seen, and have moved into the achievement/character refinement/instance/pvp phase. Devs will never be able to produce unique interesting content fast enough to give a constant stream of new content.

Now for me what makes mmorpg unique is the virtual persistent world and long term character/avatar that you invest time in, and if done well this can become a very enjoyable thing in its own right. A player find’s stuff to do with their char because they enjoy playing and ‘being’ their char, slowly improving in some perceived way be it personal skill, builds, achieves, wealth, skins etc. If however you do not connect with your character and only care about consuming content then things are going to dry up for you, and there’s nothing you can really do about that.

This is what i was getting at earlier, If HOT doesn’t appeal, and you don’t feel like returning to GW2 then the real issue is that you are bored with GW2 as a whole and no expansion is ever going to fix that.

Main acc has HoT. ‘Saving’ my other core Guild Wars 2 account for who knows what and when, like for instance Elona and Deldrimor maps, oh, and that Seventh Dragon, for whom we will need full aquatics that we keep making fun of. WHOLE maps, not just a tri-layer club sandwich of terrains served in morsels like HoT. I like jumping puzzles without gliding throwing me off target. I like Tyria as-is. Also, HoT is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to World vs World and PvP – save for builds and gear. Otherwise, story can go hang as far as PvPers are concerned.

HoT maps are hurried fixes to a financial problem. Whatever the dreamers were dreaming, they were put out in a massively orchestrated rush.
These maps are narrow and layered, instead of widespread and varied in terrain, with fun ambient conversations to overhear like beautiful Tyria proper. The warrenlike navigation of some will only appear to the Rabbit-spirited among us.
I think if they spent money on fixing what they already have, sifting the core code for bugs, it will sell.

Don’t forget the other giants out there: Black Desert Online, for one. Courtesy of NCSoft.

Up their server speed and down their bugs. Market. Make playing less of a run for materials and more of a game.

I would love to buy the entire world just to run in it.

Anyone got billions?

I actually did buy HoT, but without really knowing what the game would be like. My assumption was that it would follow in some sense the core ideas of GW2.

What I found was that HoT was a full realization of the ideas expressed in Dry Top. Well, they were core ideas first expressed in jumping puzzles I suppose. The difference in HoT was that the core game was advanced through platforming. Don’t like platforming? You won’t like HoT. There was also the difficulty jump but I relate to it more as annoyance than difficulty. Do you remember the original Orr? Mobs everywhere and with limitless CC. Their CC wasn’t anything like my cooldowns, I’d pop mine and they were gone; the mobs on Orr never ran out of CC. So, it was get caught in a CC chain, pop your cooldowns, die. Someone must have thought this would be fun for players. Long story short, they tuned Orr so that it was a fun place to play. HoT was the lessons of Orr forgotten. Annoying mobs everywhere, hard to avoid, and don’t park your character for a brb.

The one thing that HoT got right was simple gliding. Man, what fun. Too bad it got tied into forced platforming. I’ve toyed with the idea that HoT may have been worth buying for the gliding alone, but I suppose that depends on your budget. I stay out of HoTland entirely now, and I suppose I could do without gliding. Oh, I did get the pets for my rangers there but got out as soon as I could.

And yet I don’t find any more “forced” platforming in HoT than I do in the core game.

Healix.5819:

Here’s some forums vs reddit

As I expected.

The number of posts and the number of counts on reddit are relatively stable while the numbers for the official forum are on a continuous (but steady) drop.
The number of new accounts posting on Reddit is also much more stable than the same number on the official forums which is on a constant decline.

The drop is normal as all games have attrition, however, new players are supposed to replace those stopping and we don’t see that happening on the official forums. However we can see it on reddit, as unlike the official forums, we’ve even had increases in new account posting over the last few quarters.

Is it because Reddit is much more popular than the official forums, or they are mostly free accounts who can’t post on the official forums, that’s not something we can safely answer with the data, although I think it’s more than likely to be free players rather than anything else

PS: I played a new character lately and I found it very refreshing to see so many new players exploring the world of Tyria. I don’t think the game has a problem with finding new players and the population is fine.

maddoctor.2738:

Healix.5819:

Here’s some forums vs reddit

The number of posts and the number of counts on reddit are relatively stable while the numbers for the official forum are on a continuous (but steady) drop.

I’m sure the relative quality of user experience of the two, one focused aggressively on forum style chatter, and the other mostly unchanged from the forum technology of five years ago, has nothing to do with that.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

I’m sure the relative quality of user experience of the two, one focused aggressively on forum style chatter, and the other mostly unchanged from the forum technology of five years ago, has nothing to do with that.

The devs also starting using reddit a lot more.

maddoctor.2738:

The number of new accounts posting on Reddit is also much more stable than the same number on the official forums which is on a constant decline.

The (en*) forums will die out at this rate. It’s not like it matters though, whereas reddit’s public stats can easily be used to estimate an MMO’s health. It’s why it’s more important for the devs to be active outside of their own forums.

I heard ESO was recovering well after a failed launch, so I also did their reddit at the same time. It’ll take another 6 or so months however to see the results of their expansion, which was announced early 1Q2017 and launches at the end of 2Q2017. HoT was announced early 1Q2015 and launched early 4Q2015 for comparison.

Free to play players get the best part of the game, and cant post here on the forums. HoT is continuing to bleed players and so posts here are down.

slashlizardy.9167:

Free to play players get the best part of the game, and cant post here on the forums. HoT is continuing to bleed players and so posts here are down.

Do you have any evidence for this? From perception it’s not my experience, though I agree, during SAB there will be less players in the rest of the game. Plenty of people playing HoT from my experience. I don’t believe it’s bleeding players.

I do believe that players who don’t like HOT think it’s bleeding players though.

Conversely, players who do like HOT think it is not bleeding players. bias goes both ways.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Conversely, players who do like HOT think it is not bleeding players. bias goes both ways.

Actually this isn’t really true. I never made a claim one way or another. I asked for proof about someone else’s claim. It doesn’t seem to have lost much steam to me, but the truth is, no one really knows. I don’t know. You don’t know.

The difference is, I didn’t come here to make a post claiming something. I simply said my experience doesn’t necessarily bear out what someone else said.

Making definitive statements with no proof is generally pointless.

I wasn’t making a claim about you Vayne….. I was generalizing a group of people just like you were….. you said those who didn’t like HOT think it is bleeding players and I observed that players who like HOT don’t think it is bleeding players…… I made no definitive statement…. just a lazy generalization…. I don’t think I am the only one guilty of that either : )

Dashingsteel.3410:

I wasn’t making a claim about you Vayne….. I was generalizing a group of people just like you were….. you said those who didn’t like HOT think it is bleeding players and I observed that players who like HOT don’t think it is bleeding players…… I made no definitive statement…. just a lazy generalization…. I don’t think I am the only one guilty of that either : )

That, in any case, is almost a complete certainty. Doesn’t change what I’ve said though.

The problem is so many people listen to what’s said on the forums, fairly or unfairly and don’t buy HoT because of it. I met another player in game today who put off buying hot for ages, because everyone told him it wasn’t soloable, except she’s finding it easy enough to solo.

That’s the problem with generalizations in general. They affect how people feel about a product, even if what they’re saying isn’t true for everyone. It’s definitely affected HoT sales.

Vayne.8563:

…

The problem is so many people listen to what’s said on the forums, fairly or unfairly and don’t buy HoT because of it. I met another player in game today who put off buying hot for ages, because everyone told him it wasn’t soloable, except she’s finding it easy enough to solo.

That’s the problem with generalizations in general. They affect how people feel about a product, even if what they’re saying isn’t true for everyone. It’s definitely affected HoT sales.

That was a surprising statement from you Vayne: “The problem is so many people…” – Really? I would consider that a marginal reason why HoT underperformed. Especially since much of the negative feedback came 2-3 months after realease when most copies were sold.

The state/quality of the expansion, the amount of content vs. price and the new “direction” was IMO “the problem” – Anet is responsible and could have fixed that. No amount of Apple-logic applied by fans (it’s the clients doing it wrong) can!

And yes, your statement as well as mine is a generalization

I really don’t understand Anet. With their new direction they painted themselves into a corner. In their next expansion they can choose to please the people who loves HoT, or try to bring back some of us who felt that the new “direction” destroyed the game we liked. Doing the latter would probably alienate quite a few of the HoT fans. Option 3 would be yet another change in direction to attract a completely new crop of players.

So far they have tried:

• Casual content and storytelling
• 3 “faction” PvP/RvR
• Their version of E-sport
• 5-person instanced content
• Largescale PvE events
• Gliding/“flying”
• Raids
• Increased open world difficulty
• Rep. grind as horizontal progression

If they continue their strange “fuzzy logic” way of determining development direction, it seems only a few options haven’t been explored:

• Traditional gear progression
• Mounts
• Corpse running
• Full/partial loot open world PvP.

I will be interesting to see which way the next expansion will push this game

scrumsome.7198:

Vayne.8563:

…

The problem is so many people listen to what’s said on the forums, fairly or unfairly and don’t buy HoT because of it. I met another player in game today who put off buying hot for ages, because everyone told him it wasn’t soloable, except she’s finding it easy enough to solo.

That’s the problem with generalizations in general. They affect how people feel about a product, even if what they’re saying isn’t true for everyone. It’s definitely affected HoT sales.

That was a surprising statement from you Vayne: “The problem is so many people…” – Really? I would consider that a marginal reason why HoT underperformed. Especially since much of the negative feedback came 2-3 months after realease when most copies were sold.

The state/quality of the expansion, the amount of content vs. price and the new “direction” was IMO “the problem” – Anet is responsible and could have fixed that. No amount of Apple-logic applied by fans (it’s the clients doing it wrong) can!

And yes, your statement as well as mine is a generalization

I really don’t understand Anet. With their new direction they painted themselves into a corner. In their next expansion they can choose to please the people who loves HoT, or try to bring back some of us who felt that the new “direction” destroyed the game we liked. Doing the latter would probably alienate quite a few of the HoT fans. Option 3 would be yet another change in direction to attract a completely new crop of players.

So far they have tried:

• Casual content and storytelling
• 3 “faction” PvP/RvR
• Their version of E-sport
• 5-person instanced content
• Largescale PvE events
• Gliding/“flying”
• Raids
• Increased open world difficulty
• Rep. grind as horizontal progression

If they continue their strange “fuzzy logic” way of determining development direction, it seems only a few options haven’t been explored:

• Traditional gear progression
• Mounts
• Corpse running
• Full/partial loot open world PvP.

I will be interesting to see which way the next expansion will push this game

See this is the kind of logic/post that I’m talking about.

I do believe the expansion underperformed. However, you’re making an assumption that it under-performed based on your issues with the expansion.

The expansion underperformed based on a TON of issues, many of which was solved early on, but it often doesn’t matter once you get to that point. I know this as someone who sold games for most of my adult life. If you don’t get the launch right, what you do after is just a band-aid. There are exceptions to this,. but there are very few of them.

For example, a lot of people didn’t buy the expansion, in my opinion,. simply because it was priced to high for what was offered, and if you don’t buy the expansion, you very often move to other games. If this expansion were $30, in my opinion, you’d not be able to make that post.

Add into that the original decision about the character slot…that hurt the company. It was a bad decision in my opinion and set up a bad situation. Now you have two reasons why people might not buy the expansion, and they have very very little to do with the content of the expansion.

Just the price for what people perceived they were getting alone, could have tanked the expansion. Keep in mind, the drection of the expansion wouldn’t really have been known during the pre-order period and far more people might have preordered it, if the expansion didn’t look too expensive and people didn’t wait to see.

But then, Anet made the decision to make the elite spec be unlocked for 400 hero points, meaning, that people who didn’t have a lot of extra hero points, had to do every hero point in HoT to unlock their elite spec. That was a bad decision that received a ton of negative publicity, which was fixed early on.

Other complaints about HoT were fixed in the patch last April, and even more recently when they applied fixes to the last story instance.

Most people seem to think that it was “their” issues with HOT that prevented people from buying HoT. Instead what HoT had from almost day one was very bad publicity. Not sure how anyone can assume that wasn’t the largest contributing factor.

Vayne.8563:

Most people seem to think that it was “their” issues with HOT that prevented people from buying HoT. Instead what HoT had from almost day one was very bad publicity. Not sure how anyone can assume that wasn’t the largest contributing factor.

Yeah, the bad publicity started right from the very beginning of the preorder sale (due to pricing and the treatment of veteran players), and continued right on throughout the betas. And when the people started actually playing, there was a new wave of complains.
Basically, throughout the HoT history, the bad publicity was always present, and (what is even worse), the good publicity was never strong enough to offset it.

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

vesica tempestas.1563:

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

If you were following meta critic at first, the game was down around 50. It LATER came up to 85. There was a concert effort by people who were outraged to downvote it on metacritic and that number was very low. I remember posting about it at the time.

Game review sites are meaningless anyway. Most games are sold by word of mouth or advertising. Anyone who wanted to do a search on Guild Wars 2 at that time would have encountered articles in places about fans being dissatisfied, and even reddit, which is usually quite positive about the game, was on the warpath.

In general terms, if you post a stupid negative post on reddit, it gets downvoted to hell. The negative posts on reddit are few and far between. Back then, reddit was on the warpath and the first page was filled with negative posts that remained top rated posts for days on end.

I agree there are often a few loud complaints that take front and center, but this was something completely different.

I’ll be honest right here and now. I played since the beginning, heck I played since nightfall was out. I did played till the season 2 ended. and then I was considering on buying the expansion. but they released the game for free and the expansion cost 50$. so they chipped in the character slot. we all felt a slap to the face. and here I am back again. obviously I wouldn’t read the forum if I didn’t consider coming back. but 50$? and I’ll have to pay 16 more for the living story…. I would buy the game for 10$-20$. 30 if it included season 3 and a character slot. Now would be a good time for Anet to drop prices.

Vayne.8563:

…
Other complaints about HoT were fixed in the patch last April, and even more recently when they applied fixes to the last story instance.

Most people seem to think that it was “their” issues with HOT that prevented people from buying HoT. Instead what HoT had from almost day one was very bad publicity. Not sure how anyone can assume that wasn’t the largest contributing factor.

Erm no. Sorry I don’t think that people refrained from buying HoT because of the same reasons I disliked it.
Just as you said I think people had many different reasons to not buy.

I did buy HoT on my primary account. The April “wonderpatch” did not solve any of my issues so I never bought HoT on this account. There was NO bad publicity involved – Only my own experience of: “This is no longer a game for me.”

Bad publicity can OFC be something spawned by an aggressive competitor, I get that, but it is extremely hard to pull off if the targeted product proves the attackers wrong.
Sorry – Not enough tinfoil for creative hat making to subscribe to that point of view!

A sub-par product getting bad PR? Yeah – Of course that happens. It happened to ESO and FFXIV. They changed their products radically and seems to be (slowly) recovering.
HoT? None of my concerns have changed (April patch included) so of course I’ll keep responding, when asked, that I no longer play GW2 because of x, y and z.

Short version: Products that (some) people find overpriced/under-delivering tend to get bad PR even when (some) other people consider it sliced bread v. 2.0.

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

If you were following meta critic at first, the game was down around 50. It LATER came up to 85. There was a concert effort by people who were outraged to downvote it on metacritic and that number was very low. I remember posting about it at the time.

Game review sites are meaningless anyway. Most games are sold by word of mouth or advertising. Anyone who wanted to do a search on Guild Wars 2 at that time would have encountered articles in places about fans being dissatisfied, and even reddit, which is usually quite positive about the game, was on the warpath.

In general terms, if you post a stupid negative post on reddit, it gets downvoted to hell. The negative posts on reddit are few and far between. Back then, reddit was on the warpath and the first page was filled with negative posts that remained top rated posts for days on end.

I agree there are often a few loud complaints that take front and center, but this was something completely different.

I said publicity, and those sites along with advertising is the publicity/word of mouth and on average HOT was well received, and is well regarded then and now. The fact is on average the typical punter who has not played GW looking for an opinion on HOT are going to see this and videos, and not disgruntled self-centered highly vocal posts on forums and reddit.