Guild Wars 2

While I agree, John, that the issue of the “liquid” rewards from dungeons throws the in-game economy out of wack, the thought of ANet nerfing all dungeon runs as a whole without accounting for a path by path basis is extremely disheartening. Ideally, each path should be balanced by the average amount of time and effort it requires to clear it. Make the easy paths pay less, then have the harder difficulty paths reward more. If not in “liquid” currency, then use materials or whatever the numbers you aggregate say to. The Aether path of TA is a glaringly obvious example. Beautifully designed and moderately challenging but partnered with pitiful rewards.

But, of course, it would make sense to put the effort into something that you desire to support long term. Taking monetary incentive away from dungeons, as you said John, is the best admission we have to date that ANet has no intention to support dungeons. I mean, as a player, I figured as much back when the dev team behind dungeons were let go after release but that simple “Yes” is the final nail in the coffin.

The only haunting suspicion I retain is that this attitude will remain prevalent throughout the rest of Guild Wars 2 life-cycle. Instead of using new and current content to keep players playing, we’ll get periodic “readjustments” from the devs to persuade us to try and play with the next new, expensive, toy. Replace Dungeons with Fractals, then Fractals with Raids, then Raids with the next big thing… and so on.

Well, this is all a bit disheartening to read through. Another opportunity for ANet to showcase their product is derailed due to a lack of actual information about said product. I feel sorry for those in the Marketing Department who are probably going to get the raw end of this uproar(as they’re undoubtedly following their marching orders from the top).

As a possible customer, however, it’s hard to justify pre-ordering when there’s little information to the scope of the product nearly half a year after it’s been announced. At its lowest price of $50 USD, what exactly am I getting with HoT? Sure, we know there’s a new map, playable class, Guild Halls, and story… but would releasing a quick bullet-point list of all the features shipping be too much to ask? Especially when you’re asking me to pre-order WITHOUT a set release date. That’s a leap of confidence I’m not capable of rationalizing.

Otherwise, vote with your wallets people.

I could see this update as being beneficial to new users if the lowest value was around the 100-200 gem ballpark. 400 is a bit too steep in my opinion, especially when new players normally don’t have that large of a gold stockpile to convert with.(I know I didn’t) Oh well, feedback is feedback I assume.