I’d like to add that many of the casual players are also quiet players. We will simply become frustrated with a game we used to like and then leave or cut down on playing. Many of us won’t complain about it much. Frankly, we tend to have pretty busy lives and would rather find something to enjoy than waste recreational time complaining.
As of late, I find that I just login and logout. I’ve been trying to rekindle my love of the game by taking my time leveling a new character through exploration of the world. There’s sort of a mournful feeling as I’m doing so. I’m really glad I’ve played so slowly through the game in general. I pre-purchased and beta testing and all that jazz, but only recently bothered to achieve world completion on my main- and she got to level 80 without ever seeing a dragon, doing her personal story, entering a level 80 zone, or even exploring outside the norn areas. I used to frequently solo the Frozen Maw chain and had a BLAST doing so. There were so many events I simply enjoyed doing, niches to explore, and NPC conversations to listen to. I used to actually read the mails I received with a heart completion and talk to every NPC I met. I’ve purchased way too many gems. But I was okay with that because I was enjoying the game (no harm on spending money on a hobby you enjoy).
I am one of the players that hasn’t bothered to purchase HoT yet. When I learned that it was a constant cycle of events… sure that can be fun for a while but… why would I want my exploration of an entire area to be so limited? I enjoy the events in places like Silverwastes for a little while, and then I get tired of the constant pushing. I’m still not sure if I want to pay for something like that which I won’t really enjoy. I would love to help my guildies out and learn to raid- but half the reason I don’t do fractals is that I simply don’t have the play time to devote to even a fractal run. I certainly don’t have time for a raid.
Of course I’m glad that players can have raids, pvp, and wvw at their disposal. I’m glad of it when I have time for such things. I wish I could have more casual play introduced too. I choose to think that in the long run, we will (because I’m happier thinking such a thing). One day I’ll buy HoT, but not today. I just don’t see how it will be ‘fun’ for me and therefore worth spending my money.
Personally I think that’s what this topic boils down to, that there are different ways to have fun in a game, and the casual player hasn’t been given anything really fun to do lately. In fact, a lot of the fun stuff has become not so fun. The things that are advertised as being fun, or fun things to have, are blocked by very un-fun things. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ‘ragequit’ (what casual player has the kind of reaction anyway??), it just means I’ll stop trying to reach for any of that stuff- because it simply isn’t fun for me. I still haven’t tried to complete specific achievements. It is more fun to have it happen organically as part of my normal play. That was how GW2 was advertised to be. It has simply been moving in a different direction of late. If I can’t ever reach goals set by the game through normal, casual gameplay, where’s the fun in that?
