Guild Wars 2

Why do Charr have horns?

So Logan has something to hang onto!

Maybe I just always feel the need to throw some levity into the discussion grinder, but I got to thinking about something as I proceeded to roll my Charr warrior like a big, furry snow-plow through the Orr zones.

Those zones will regularly stack an entire city block of risen into a space roughly equivalent to an average New York City studio apartment with a respawn rate that would make any Asian grinder MMO jealous (but hey, at least the gold farmers will feel at home, amirite?). It’s not that I’m just itching to kill hundreds of slobbering, foul-smelling, hammer-wielding knock-down stun machines, but I can’t exactly ignore them either. Believe me, I’ve tried. Add to this the loot and karma DR from killing too many mobs in a certain space of time.

So, let me get this straight: Anet cranks respawn rate up through the roof to the point where if one were to stop and actually admire the scenery they’re running past, the unwashed hordes would immediately chew their face off AND THEN you also put a DR system that kicks in when a player kills too many monsters. I think I understand what’s going on here.

Anet is trolling the player-base. I mean it, this has to be some sort of practical joke. The respawn rate in those zones (in all zones, really, to an extent) made me actually start laughing, it was just that ridiculous. The risen shake and wobble around like hyper-active kindergarteners in clown car sized packs slamming their hammers and chain-stuns/immobilizes, and meanwhile I find myself thinking that this isn’t the game I started playing a month and change ago. The scenery is still beautiful, the world is still compelling, and the game still feels remarkable. Except for this one puzzling, unavoidable aspect.

So that’s what I think: the devs are playing a big joke on all of us. The only other explanation would be gross incompetence and/or not caring about whether the player-base is actually having a good time.

I’m going to choose to believe this is just a joke, and will be “adjusted” shortly.

Honestly, at this point I’m less upset about about the “lost hour” of progress than the official response (on Twitter, no less) of “Due to the nature of the outage, we will be unable to restore any progression or items. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience .” ^MK

Seriously? Are any steps being taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again? Quite frankly I don’t really feel like playing again until I at least know what happened and have some sort of official statement towards a repeat of this incident not occurring in the future.

If compensation cannot be forthcoming (and enjoy the fallout on that, btw), then at least do the professional thing and address this issue in an official channel (not Twitter).

I really like this game, and I can put up with a lot of problems, but if I’m going to randomly lose an hour or so of progress just like that, it’s time to take a break.

Torchlight II is waiting in my Steam Library; I’ll be back in a few weeks. Hopefully this crap will have stopped happening by then. Sorry, my limited leisure time is not something I’m willing to gamble with.