Guild Wars 2

I’m a PvE player, the main reason I played PvP was Transmutation Charges. I’m pretty disappointed in the change, especially in trade for something that only interests those who want Legendaries, and probably won’t be worth that much on the Trading Post given how easy they will be to get (unless you need a lot of them I suppose).

I personally am never going to buy something just to use something I already have. So I will never buy a transmutation charge off the gem store. Maybe I’m alone in this I don’t know. But I thought it was fair to leave my thoughts here. You’re not gaining any gem sales from me from this and I’m less likely to play PvP on a regular basis.

There’s a lot of good feedback here and I’m pretty sure the devs got the general idea what was wrong with the event. But those problems are just a symptom and I’d like to talk about the source a little bit.

There are almost no devs working on the live game and there hasn’t been since the conclusion of the Season 2 Living World. The problems with this event have little to do with ANet not knowing how to throw open world events. Open world events is what they DO. Instead it has everything to do with this being a small side-project with few Devs assigned to it and that it was likely rushed through testing as right now their testers are busy with HoT’s.

Nearly everyone is working on Heart of Thorns and possibly post-HoT’s content. And I dearly hope that pays off for the players and Anet come the end of Oct with a massive influx of new players who stay with the game. I truly do.

However, if this is the sort of content drought we can expect with the announcement of every expansion, then it means I will be dreading all future expansion announcements.

Back during S1 and S2 we were told that only a small part of ANet made up the Living Story teams while the majority of ANet was working on something else. That gave me the mistaken impression that when an expansion was announced the living world teams would continue to give us content and do away with the content droughts that happen in many other MMO’s that have boxed expansions while the majority of ANet worked on the expansion.

And maybe that’s happening. Maybe their Living World team is working away at the post-HoT’s content in an effort to keep the influx of new players in the game after the expansion launch. Maybe by sacrificing the majority of 2015 the game really will be stronger for it in the long term starting in Oct and ANet will find their groove as they work on expansions and live content at the same time. Maybe this is the only time we will have to go through this.

I really hope that’s true.

I understand we’re “building a foundation” here, but after Oct that’s over and you have to deliver on your potential. From that point onward this game needs to be dependable where it comes to content delivery across all of it’s game types. Content that is thought out, with depth, that’s tested and without leaving certain content types feeling totally abandoned for years. That means living story, open world events, fractals, raids, and WvW and PvP.

And if you need to, then open a public test server. Maybe it’s just time to break down and do that.

I’d love to see their echoes in the Mists one day. Assuming they had the same voice actors.

Mai Trin is in the Fractals of the Mists but she is still alive. The Mists shows an echo of everything that once was. You don’t have to be dead to be found there.

My list:

-Player housing (not just guild halls)
-Lore Panel added to the story journal
-Polymock
-New weapons and skills
-New race
-New zones
-Personal Story additions (probably about a season’s worth of living story but added all at once)
-Something that makes WvW feel like it has a point
-Stacking eliminated from dungeons forever, whatever that may take

Not only is the WoW expansion out of the way, but every major expansion and new MMO is out of the way too. Well with the exception of FFXIV’s expansion.

What if the 10 year anniversary is when they RELEASE what they announce at PAX South?

This is ANet. This isn’t going to be an announce something and then wait a year for it to come out. Once announced it will only be a couple of months away going by their recent history.

Guys, you’re not seeing the big picture here. They’re not sending the president of the company, along with Colin Johanson, and renting the main theater for the morning for the usual stuff. This is going to be something different.

Whatever this ends up being, it’s what the majority of ANet has been working on for more than two years most likely. Or at least a significant portion of it. At the very least it’s going to define our GW2 experience for 2015.

Whether it blows us away or is a huge disappointment, it’s going to be huge one way or another.

Just from a rewards perspective, you only have to log in every day to get the same rewards you were getting before. So from that point of view you have MORE choice, because you can log on, get your reward, and then do anything you want in the game without having to worry about what you’re doing at all and still get the rewards you used to have to do “chores” to get.

The sPvP and WvW rewards seem pretty good. On the PvE side the rewards are lackluster anyway, I’m not sure why anyone would bother with them even if there were more choices of dailies. I think the rewards and dailies for PvE need to be heavily revised.

And Daily Activity should always be a daily everyday. It just gives you an excuse to do something different.

It seems very vague about laurel rewards. It does NOT say you get a laurel for doing the daily meta achievement, just 10 APs. And the rewards for the daily login only has six laurel bags. So that’s only a confirmed six laurels instead of the 28 we would normally get. The rest of the rewards there are mostly filler. None of them would exactly have me logging in to be honest.

If there is no laurel for the daily meta this new system is going to be a huge disappointment that came out of nowhere. Otherwise it looks like a greatly improved system.

I’m hoping for the best! I’d hate for some poor dev to have to miss out on part of their winter break fixing this when we all go ballistic. Because we will. This is waaaaaay bigger than commander tag colors.

In addition to all the other reasons given, it could be during this “Point of No Return” that something so devastating and tragic happens that it would make no sense for anyone to be celebrating Wintersday afterward in it’s immediate aftermath. So even if they had planned better and had the Season end on Dec 2nd instead, it may have STILL not worked out. Possibly they planned it exactly the best way possible.

Would we have really wanted to celebrate Wintersday immediately after the Battle for Lion’s Arch for example? I remember last Wintersday as the last happy moment for Lion’s Arch before it all went horribly wrong for the city.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I mean, I can illustrate it right now:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

We had to make our point clear with a 1000+ post and countless locked threads and negative PR on various gaming websites that would scare away any potential consumers in the feature while damaging the image of the company.

It’s go loud or go home I guess. If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes.

. . . any major changes your developers make to the game from now on? Expect to do it under siege.

But you say it as if it’s the players fault rather than ANet’s astounding lack of communication during the spring and summer of 2014.

It’s a little of column A, a little of column B, and a little of column C. It’s the astounding lack of good communication, sure, we can both agree that didn’t help much. But you think the players don’t have some fault at all? That they don’t hold any responsibility for their behavior? I don’t agree with that – there is nothing to totally absolve people of the behavior where they shoot the messengers rather than raging over the message. (Which has happened . . .)

And then there’s column C – which is basic psychology. Reinforcing a behavior by responding to it. This is why I am just thinking it’s a smarter idea to just walk away from the game before it becomes more common . . . “SAB or Riot” wasn’t all that long ago, and I really don’t feel it’s all that out of the question to expect similar things now that players here have been conditioned.

Basically? I’ve said it before, and I continue to say it. Just because you:

- Don’t like a policy.
- Don’t care for what you heard.
- Want something different than what was offered.

None of that gives you a right to get nasty. Not just protesting . . . which isn’t so much the issue . . . but being abusive, dismissive, and treating staff like garbage. They’re people, so you talk to them as people. Calm, reasonable, and trying to curb your passions before you hit “post”. Do all the threads and posts you like. But do them with some minimal respect for the other person . . . even if you don’t respect what they have to say.

The forum will be so much nicer for it.

We’re in agreement there. There is never a reason to treat the devs in such a horrible manner. Or anyone for that matter. And it is the players forum raging last year that created the lack of communication in the first place.

MMO forums: forever a place for people to gather to hate against something they love.

The difference between critiquing or complaining, and ranting and raging is one many people have a hard time with for some reason.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I mean, I can illustrate it right now:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

We had to make our point clear with a 1000+ post and countless locked threads and negative PR on various gaming websites that would scare away any potential consumers in the feature while damaging the image of the company.

It’s go loud or go home I guess. If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes.

. . . any major changes your developers make to the game from now on? Expect to do it under siege.

But you say it as if it’s the players fault rather than ANet’s astounding lack of communication during the spring and summer of 2014. I’m one of ANet’s biggest fan boys and I really dislike forum ragers (especially the precursor scavenger hunt people who got us into this situation in the first place!) but even I know ANet has put themselves in this situation. They’re taking steps to fix things, but it takes a lot longer to climb out of a hole than it does to dig it. And they keep making really obvious mistakes that could be easily avoided if we ever got a chance to leave feedback on upcoming changes.

It’s becoming painfully apparent we really need a PTS server for a wider testing of new features and UI changes (not story updates).

However, where it comes to this particular situation, all is well. There WERE indeed problems with the old gem exchange, so hopefully we’ll get the best of both worlds now.

I miss the finding the pages of the Mad King’s Journal mini-scavenger hunt. It introduced the lore of the Holiday in a really fun way. It gave the Mad King a creepiness he otherwise lacks.

Without those lore bits, he seems little more than a clown with a pumpkin head.

Also, this game has a remarkable lack of lore to be found in-game already. Removing any is just a bad idea.

Darmikau.9413:

People are suggesting that a 1 or 2 person guild should have access to a guild hall as well, but my question is “why would they need a guild hall?”

For a meeting place, and for RP purposes. In GW1 my guild has fallen down to just three active members. We still use our guild hall all the time. In GW2 I manage a small RP guild with only 3-5 active members. We still want a guild hall to RP in. There’s absolutely 0 benefit to excluding small guilds from getting guild halls.

+1 to this.

And for those who don’t know, small RP based guilds are some of the people that would be most excited for Guild Halls.

GW2 is one of the few success stories in the post-WoW MMO genre. Yes, it certainly has a bright future. Whether that bright future includes things you specifically care about I can’t say.

Just so that you are well informed, unlike what was stated earlier, all new content is permanent starting last June.

I’m saying that if I’m in my guild hall with my guildies, I don’t want to see other guild halls or interact with those communities unless we choose to. I don’t want to see how they’ve customized their guild hall, I don’t want to hear them in my chat window, I don’t want them intruding on our community in any way, shape, or form.

Unless we choose to. If it’s some kind of toggle then it’s fine.

Also, I’m against all guild halls being an airship in general. That seems very limiting. Though I’m all for an airship theme if it’s one among a number of themes a guild could choose from.

“Well the sky-map idea was similar to the mist but it would be more ‘open word’ because you are there together with all the other guild halls and see them all.”

I personally am not sure I would want to see them honestly. It sounds immersion breaking and I even tend to avoid Lion’s Arch and use Divinity’s Reach instead so as to avoid player types I would rather not encounter. Why would I want to see those types near the community I enjoy being with?

I understand that in certain games that’s an awesome idea. Sandbox games that are about that kind of thing. But GW2 isn’t a sandbox.

However, there’s certainly room for compromise. In SWTOR’s new housing a person can choose to make their stronghold public or not public. Which would seem to make everyone happy.

On the matter of Guild Alliance Halls, I have nothing against those necessarily, but they are absolutely not a replacement for small guilds having their own guild hall.

From a RP’ers perspective though, that could be a really awesome way to have a fully RP’ed town or other shared experience. I think the RP community would really enjoy that.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

The answer to what is the smallest size guild this system should be suitable for greatly depends on if this system will be released alongside player housing or not. If there is no player housing incoming, then the smallest size guild this is useful for should be one person.

No seriously.

If there is no other outlet incoming for creating your own place in the world (and the personal home instance is completely inadequate for that currently), people are going to want to create guilds just for this one feature. And if it keeps them in the game and playing then why shouldn’t they?

But even putting aside that concern as being outside the scope of this CDI, guild features in MMO’s almost always make the crucial mistake of encouraging larger guilds, at the expense of punishing smaller guilds (such as our very own Guild Missons system!). And I’m not sure why. Many people want to be in a guild “where everyone knows your name” as opposed to a larger guild where “no one cares who you are”.

I feel that any size guild should be able to get any unlock for the guild hall. The currency should simply scale to the number of players in the guild. Thus the difficulty remains consistent no matter how many players you have.

In addition, I feel our current Guild Missions system shows exactly how to NOT do a guild reward system. Locking certain types of Guild Missions behind certain research trees that are for certain types of game play, and having to unlock one type of guild mission before others. There are guild missions locked in the WvW oriented research trees. Why? I don’t know. You would think there would be WvW oriented guild missions there. But nope. Let’s put guild bounties in there… just because we have nothing else to put in there. It’s these kind of random and illogical gating I would greatly hope to avoid with any guild halls implementation.

Devata.6589:

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

The more customization you have with open world guild halls, the more opportunities for guilds to absolutely destroy the beautiful and immersive world that ANet has created. Unless guild halls are a separate thing out in the Mists, where you’d basically be “instanced” off anyway.

Customization should trump open world if there is a conflict, this isn’t an open world sandbox anyway. And seeing the guild hall of “Uber looter Dudz” doesn’t make it feel like a Living World to me.

I am 100% behind having different themes however, and getting “blueprints” and decorations for those themes in areas of the world it makes sense thematically to get them. And I’m all for a reason for a guild to go out into the world together.

However, if it works anything like the very grindy Collections system, I’d be against that. Not that there couldn’t be some hard-to-get grindy rewards, but that’s pretty much all the Collections system was, which has made it a great disappointment so far. I hope nothing in the guild halls unlock system works like: “Buy all these items you don’t want off the TP to get one item you do want.”

My most sincere condolences for you and your family Chris. I had to have my cat put down a few years ago and it was literally the worst day of my life.

Ugh, please no. There’s not enough new armors coming in, don’t waste any of them on skimpy male clothing. Or skimpy female clothing. In fact don’t spare the cloth/leather/plate for either gender. Unless we’re going to Elona where it’s a desert. Then it might make sense.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Personally I’d rather see housing than Guild Halls. Guild Halls is exclusive for players in guilds, housing would be for everyone. This could then be expanded to Guild Halls where players live in neighbourhoods of other guild members, having a specific number of players and their homes located in an instance. Huge guilds will have more than one neighbourhood and players could visit homes of other players.

see: LotRO http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Housing

I find some ideas here quite odd, some guys seem to forget that there are guilds as large as hundrets of players, not 5-10.

The only issue with this is that it would take up a LOT more resources to have one house per user than it would to have one hall per guild.

I mean, if you REALLY desperately wanted a house to your own, when Guild Houses are implemented, you can just make one for a “personal guild”. Plenty of people already have personal guilds (I have two myself), so it’s not really much of a stretch to create a “personal guild hall” from there.

That is a little bit silly. LOT’S of games have player housing. And rarely are Guild Houses implemented in a way that it would be easily available to a single player. You can already see people on here talking about “upkeep costs” and “prestige”. That does not bode well for individual players.

And of course you have the GW1 players who mistakenly think the point of Guild Halls are to be a fancy PvP map. While that is certainly true from their perspective, the opportunity lost if that is all that is considered would be staggering.

I know this thread isn’t about player housing. But it’s not fair to dismiss a feature of that nature that would add so much to this game for so many people in such an offhanded manner.

Frankly, player housing would do more for this game’s player retention than guild halls ever could. If it can only be one or the other, I think it would be very foolish for ANet to go with guild halls. Player housing makes nearly all players more invested in the game where guild halls only invest players that are in a strong guild. And even then it’s really only the guild officers that will get to customize it.

It’s hard to discuss guild halls when we don’t know if such a feature would be developed at the same time as player housing. The answer to that question could potentially change the entire conversation. If there were to be no player housing, then you can absolutely not make this a prestige, hard-to-get thing as there will be no other outlet for players to claim a part of Tyria as theirs (and thus become much more invested in the game than they are now). If there were to be player housing released around the same time, then there’s a lot more room to make this something a guild works toward as a group.

Either way, if it is not highly customizable, then it misses a huge opportunity to bind guilds to this game by giving them a little slice of Tyria to make THEIRS. Refer to Blizzard’s upcoming Garrison feature in Warlords of Draenor as a perfect example of completely missing the point of a housing feature.

Be careful of making it centered around GvG. Most of your casual, PvE focused player base will never make use of that. Don’t let that aspect overshadow everything else. Not that I’m saying GvG shouldn’t be a factor at all, but don’t be blinded by a very vocal minority here on the forums.

I don’t think champion loot bags should be removed, you just shouldn’t get them if the event associated with the boss fails. Players should NEVER be rewarded more for losing than for winning. That’s just bad design. And this should ESPECIALLY never happen when that event is required to complete the Living Story.

There’s an easy way to find out if there are too few players for such content. Up the rewards by a significant margin in the Twilight Arbor Aetherpath and see how many people bite.

We did get to see the sinkhole in Divinity’s Reach made into the Queen’s Arena. So that’s at least one instance where a damaged area got restored (even if it was damaged before the start of the game).

An entire city being outright destroyed isn’t something that is rebuilt quickly. It’s rebuilding SHOULD take years. And when it is it won’t be the same Lion’s Arch we remember.

That doesn’t mean they’ll leave it the same. We’ll probably see small changes over time that slowly add up.

Purple Miku.7032:

I’d just revert the game back to pre-ferocity tbh.

Then I’d fire all the college graduates that don’t actually know squat about the game and start hiring people interested in actually improving GW2.

Oh wait, that’s not “ruining”… nvm

This is a fun thread. Not yet another complainer’s thread. Seriously, do that somewhere else. Not every thread has to become toxic with jaded comments on whatever someone’s pet complaint happens to be.

Criticism has it’s place. But when that’s all you do, people stop listening and you lose your voice. And it also just makes you bitter and unhappy in a game that is supposed to bring you joy.

New race: Skritt. Racial ability, pickpocket random items (even account bound and soulbound items) from a player’s bags.

Second racial ability: drop one item to distract your pursuers while you get away with all the rest of your shinies!

Basically just make the treasure skritt a class.

Behellagh.1468:

5 episodes. The last one started March 18th.

Plus two feature packs, mostly filled with features and quality of life improvements players have been asking for over the last two years. Plus the Story Journal (a very welcome addition from my perspective).

People complain because there’s no expansion yet. But Mists of Pandaria launched about the same time as GW2 did and they’re only now releasing a new expansion. And though WoW had a couple of big patches, if you add up all the content both games have had the last two years, I’d wager GW2 has had more.

I really do hope they announce something big for next year, but ANet has done a lot this year regardless.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DragonWhimsy.6489:

I’d like to humbly suggest that the Golem Chess game from Metrica Province either be restored or moved to Rata Sum. I was so impressed with the level of detail in Tyria right from the beginning on seeing those.

Actually adding them to Rata Sum is a great idea even if they are restored to Metrica Province.

And I’d totally buy one for my personal instance in the gem store. Just sayin’.

I’d say this is indeed something which is worth adding back somewhere in the game. Also, I’d say it’s worthwhile to add Polymock once again.

I am sooooooo down for polymock. But I don’t want to derail the thread.

I’d like to humbly suggest that the Golem Chess game from Metrica Province either be restored or moved to Rata Sum. I was so impressed with the level of detail in Tyria right from the beginning on seeing those.

Actually adding them to Rata Sum is a great idea even if they are restored to Metrica Province.

And I’d totally buy one for my personal instance in the gem store. Just sayin’.

You can turn it off in your options menu.

Or maybe all the cynical, jaded posts are paid sock puppets of rival MMO companies?

More likely, this is an internet forum and not everyone will agree with you all the time OP. Consider this a useful life lesson for you.

Right now the dragons seem busy bashing US.

Actually Skyhammer is my favorite PvP map. Because it’s FUN. The other PvP maps are often less so, no matter how “balanced” they are.

It looks like some of the rewards for the BL items collections may be Black Lion Tickets. So it’s a way to get some of the tickets back that you spent.

laokoko.7403:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Theftwind.8976:

I suppose one could ask “Why if it does not bother you that they are leaving should such a post interest you enough for you to read it and then make a negative comment on it?”

Perhaps it’s that there is so much complaining about the game in general. Even when they develop what players ask for they complain. I’ve never seen one RED post following one of these. They might have better success sending a PM to Gaile.

So you are telling me Anet keep heading into the direction of living story because people asked for it?

I think you are delusional. I see a few poll over the year. And living story is clearly not what the players want.

There is a poll a few days ago. People dont’ care about the living story. And everything else people want is not implemented.

People do care about the Living Story or GW2 would have failed a long time ago instead of being right there with SWTOR as the most successful western MMO after WoW. If you don’t like the Living Story then you’re playing the wrong game. It’s like playing World of Warcraft and hating dungeons and raiding.

People just want other areas of the game to get some attention too. And that’s fair. And ANet has let that simmer so long that now people are growing bitter and Living Story gets all the blame by those people.

There’s actually only a small team of people working on the Living Story though. It really isn’t the LS’s fault. It’s whatever else they’re working on and not telling us. Which is really starting to hurt their PR at this point.

I think the OP is letting his biases blind his outlook. Because it’s about as obvious as it can be that there are far more people who care about the Living Story than a 1v1 Arena Mode.

It’s fine to want a feature, but to say “Please Anet… get working to content and platforms that people are ACTUALLY waiting for”, is really arrogant. Who wants that exactly? It doesn’t seem to appeal to GW2’s main audience that’s for sure. It may be a cool feature but you’re making it sound like it’s the one feature the entire playerbase is waiting for and ANet are fools for not seeing it when in reality you’re the only person I’ve ever seen ask for that specific feature, and there are already 1v1 dueling arenas that players themselves have set up and ANet even made a map specifically for them.

Actually I have a friend who came over from World of Warcraft (he’s played that game for years) and he’s found GW2 to be confusing to get into. Many of the problems he’s mentioned to me (that I hadn’t even noticed myself because I’ve played so long) are being fixed in this patch.

Those of us who have been playing for 2 years are pretty much blind to the problems in the leveling up process at this point.

I’m happy with the game overall but I have a touch of concern.

Going over the events of 2014:

-I was really impressed with how Season 1 of the Living Story ended. The Siege of Lion’s Arch is definitely one of my most memorable MMO events.

-I was blown away by the massive additions with Feature Pack 1. Megaservers, Wardrobe, PvP reward Tracks, and so much more. It was a HUGE patch. It may not have had content but it was certainly an expansion pack’s worth of features.

-I love the new Story Journal and really wish it had been here all along. The game felt incomplete without it.

-Season 2 of the Living Story has been a much more cohesive story and much more enjoyable as a result. I’ve been very impressed with it.

-Dry Top is a smaller but very densely packed and fun to explore zone. Filled with lore and interesting mechanics such as the zephyrite crystals and sandstorms. It feels different from any other MMO zone I’ve explored before.

-Feature Pack 2 isn’t as major as Feature Pack 1, it’s more a refinement patch, but it does have a lot of additions, even if they often seem minor in comparison. But I definitely welcome the improved crafting UI which will be a huge help in making crafting more enjoyable (or at least less annoying). And being able to equip mini-pets FINALLY. And as I have a newish level 30 character I’m leveling it will be fun to level with the new changes.

So on many fronts ANet has done awesome this year. The game is much stronger experience now than it was in 2013 beyond a doubt.

But there are some worrying concerns. Most of it comes from their increasing lack of communication about their vision for the game going forward. We as fans have no idea where we’re going and that creates a sense of unease. Especially in communities for play styles that seem ignored. With the lack of the roadmap blogs, the players feel adrift.

A great deal of this comes from how entire play styles have crippling problems that seem to go unaddressed. Stacking in dungeons. Team balancing in hot join PvP. The zerging and base swapping in WvW. Daily Activities having no point to them (they rarely even show up as a daily anymore). The waiting to fight the Raid difficulty raid bosses.

On the outside, GW2 seems to have this broad scope, with so many play styles catered to. Log on and do whatever you want. Much more than most MMO’s have. But on closer examination so many of those play types are crippled. These aren’t minor problems, and it seems strange that not only are they not fixed, but we don’t even know if they will ever be fixed. Or even if ANet agrees that they are problems in the first place.

I doubt that any of the new leveling or personal story rewards would be anything level 80 characters would care about. It’s probably safe to assume they’re level appropriate. And it’s probably soulbound or account bound, so it’s not like you’d be able to sell the items on the TP. I’m not entirely sure what it is you think you are missing out on. Low level crafting materials?

Well they just released in China and these features were meant to make their intro to the game go smoother, and it took them very little time to port that stuff here I would think.

However, there have been many clues to something big on the horizon, and there has been for a very long time. So this may be ANet getting double mileage out of the work it took to create these features.

1. PLAYER HOUSING
2. Polymock (not copied from GW1 though, something new and more exciting)
3. In-game event calendar (like the one they have in WoW, NOT just for guilds either).

There are urgent fixes some game styles need, but I don’t call those features, even though they are usually released during a feature pack.

I’d also love to see a huge injection of lore into the game. I’m not sure if that counts as a feature though.

Hey Colin, I’d just like to add my support for your idea. I’m not sure it’s entirely enough but I also realize it’s the best that can be done until someone higher up the totem pole changes company policies. And it would go a long way combined with the resumption of the CDI’s.

It may not be perfect, but it would be a vast improvement over what we’ve had this year.

Another idea that would help in addition to that would be to change the forum dev tracker to not show technical support items. No one clicks on that to see “I’m having a problem buying gems”. If you want to see that you go to the technical support forum.

I find the world, art style, music, races, and characters very heartwarming myself. I always feel my spirits lift when I log onto the world of Tyria in a way I don’t in any other game.

And of course there are those players here who have become my IRL friends too.

I’m glad others find this game an uplifting experience as well. Though we’re all here because we love the game, it’s nice to see a post praising the game, rather than just complaining. There’s a need and place for such feedback, but we should never forget why we love this game in the first place.

Thanks for sharing your story.

SolviteSekai.9816:

Seriously this is the 6th mmo ive played where people expected the developers to communicate with the playerbase.

Nobody does that.

It’s not just Arenanet. I mean, I’m not defending them for it.

But ANet USED to do that, that is why they have so many fans, not just of their games, but of them as a company. They had a personal face, and you wanted the game to succeed because you wanted the devs to succeed, because you could clearly see how passionate the devs were for the game.

Hey Mike, great to see you post here. It’s good to see that our concern with the lack of communication has been noted.

Though it is understandable you don’t want to promise something that may be changed later in development, I think you are erring too much on the side of caution. In fact, I think ANet has taken events from last year, and interpreted them incorrectly.

Let’s take the biggest example from last year: Precursor Crafting. It was mentioned as in-development in the summer 2013 six-month roadmap and some very vocal players freaked out when it didn’t make it in during that time, or even the six months after that. And it’s true those players were VERY vocal indeed.

An understandable position to take for you is to not tell us anything “until is is ready to be released”.

I would argue the problem was instead not communicating MORE. The Precursor Crafting was announced in a blog post that was announced on blogs all over the internet and was announced in GW2’s own game launcher. Anyone paying attention at all would have read that blog post. In contrast the announcement that Precursor Crafting was pushed back was revealed in some out-of-the-way social media or interview somewhere (I can’t remember offhand at the moment) and only the most dedicated of GW2’s fans would have seen it. And that information was given with almost no context of why.

If there had just been an official blog post last December that said: “We’re pushing back Precursor Crafting until we complete the full Precursor Scavenger Hunt, because during development we realized that made the most sense to do. We are sorry for the delay but we promise it will be so much better when we do release it” then I think a lot of the backlash would have been eliminated.

But more importantly than disappointment over this or that feature being pushed back, the player base as a whole no longer understands what ANet’s mid-term vision for the game is. We’re not sure where you’re taking us, not just in specific particulars, but even in the most broad strokes. It’s creating a lot of uncertainty among players I feel. Even among your most devoted fans.

You certainly do not owe us more communication. But I think it benefits both ANet and your fans if you do so.

ANet is obviously filled with creative and passionate devs who are truly invested in GW2. That’s a real strength of the company and the environment that is fostered within it. Don’t hide it away. Embrace it. And don’t be afraid of your fans. Just be open, transparent, and explain why you do things. Your fans will love the game and the developers behind it all the more, even if sometimes they don’t like this or that development.

Having said all that, I did love Feature Pack 1, the first half to Season 2 Living Story, and the Story Journal. So keep up the good work guys!

Server DOES matter because it will change what shards you get put into by default. You’ll have alot easier time getting into the “RP’ers” version of Divinity’s Reach for example if you are actually a TC native.

For example when Dry Top opened up, I went there and there were people RP’ing in-character even while doing the events. You won’t get that much if you are a native of another server.

Not that you’ll always run into RP’ers even as a TC native. But you’ll do it a lot more often.

minbariguy.7504:

DragonWhimsy.6489:

It’s a shame two devs had to give up part or all of their weekend to fix this. All the bad publicity could have been avoided if they were more communicative and got feedback on the implementation earlier. And the devs wouldn’t have had to give up their weekend.

Quoted for truth and bolded for emphasis. Not that people don’t appreciate the fact that two devs were dedicated enough to work through the weekend to fix this, because I truly believe people do appreciate their efforts. But the fact remains that ANet’s sloppy and ineffective communication style is at fault here. It would be completely unnecessary to have to do last-minute implementation changes like this if they were communicating in a timely manner. They have only themselves to blame.

Only I bet the two devs who worked overtime weren’t the ones who decided on the new “silence is golden” policy. I hope they at least got good overtime pay out of it.