I’m a guild leader of an old GW1 Guild, created in May, 1st, 2005, that was reborn in GW2. We have ca. 30 Members in our guild, ranging from 24 to 58 years old. We all are standing in the middle of our lifes, have jobs, families and we were very happy with all what ArenaNet has provided to us in this wonderful game so far. Sure there were a few bugs in the beginning, but nothing to complain about. We were happy to play und that was exact what we did, playing and enjoing our small amount of free time in Guild Wars 2.
There was no need to post about the bugs in forums wildly, no need to make complains and / or suggestions, we simply trusted in Arenanet to solve the problems and keep up with their good work as they did since 2005.
Our guild is a part oft the silent majority of players in GW2. Content, silent, and therefore unnoticed. Until now.
At this point, our guild has convinced me, that is time to come out oft the shadow, and tell you our opinion:
With this new coming update, with the introduction of a complete new tier between exotics and legendaries, you, ArenaNet has broken your own words.
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of ArenanetFun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”
– Colin Johanson
You stated many times, that in GW2 there will be no item grinding, no gear treatmill. But thats exact what you are introducing now.
And you know it!
There was no Colin Johanson, no Mike Obrien, no Martin Kerstein, who tell us the „new future of item progression“. No, you pick a new fresh name, a „redshirt“ to tell the world, how your betray your own MMO-Manifesto.
And to calm down the ongoing storm in the forums, their was another „redshirt“ called for duty, and again there was only silence from the writers of the manifesto.
My opinion is, the opinion of all members in our guild is:
You have broken your word, you have broken our trust in you and you have broken seven years of faith in you that ArenaNet is listening to their community.
The only thing left, is sadness.