Guild Wars 2

I read a lot of stuff in the forums, but I never actually post. I logged in today just to submit my vote of no confidence.

I remember waiting years and years for this game. From the moment it was announced, I clung on to every bit of news about it, waiting for the day it would be a reality. Then it launched, and for a while, I really liked it. It had enough to keep me going, even though it never felt as good as it could have been. I’ve left and come back over and over, waiting for things to get better. I hated the first living world season. HATED it. I hated the way it was implemented, I hated the story… pretty much everything. I was hopeful things would improve, and overall I feel like season 2 has been an improvement… but it still is disappointing. I want content that feels big, and so far I just haven’t been satisfied by the way they do updates. I would rather just have a big paid expansion if I had to choose between that and what they are doing now, to be honest. New classes, new weapons, new big zones (non-instanced) and maybe some story/solo-gameplay that is actually compelling and immerses me in the lore and culture of the world… unlike the STUPID heart system that doesn’t give me anything at all. Ugh. I have so many friends who have been turned off by those kitten hearts.

This feature pack never seemed like a good idea to me – even though I do think there’s a lot to be fixed. Now that it’s here, I know I’ll be leaving again, only to keep waiting for things to MAYBE improve… some day far away from now. The new leveling experience is absolutely ridiculous. It is not fun at all. And, I have no scrap of hope that anything I will like is coming down the pipeline any time soon. I know that this is just one post in a sea of feedback, and I don’t have any faith that they are actually listening to what people are saying, but there it is. There’s no way to please everyone, but I’m just not sure who they are pleasing anymore.

The only thing I cared about as far as living story this “season” was a few meta-achievements. None of the story appealed to me, because it was so disjointed and random. Every new part jammed another piece onto an already confusing mess without going deep enough to actually make me care about any individual piece or providing satisfying resolution to each update. A lot of the villains and organizations are just downright cheesy (i.e. Molten Alliance (the name says it all), Aetherblades). I liked some of the quest concepts that were tried out, and I feel like the GW2 team really got their feet wet as far as learning how to develop and roll out the living story content. Now it just needs to be written better and stay a bit more consistent. It is definitely possible to have a more cohesive story and theme while still being friendly to new players and those who have taken a break for a while.

I really have faith in this game. I like it a lot, it’s beautiful, and its fun, but if it is going to survive it needs to rely less on gimmick (achievements, skins, quirky quests that seem more like a developer experiment than a story, skins, holiday evens, and more skins) and more on substance. Even if there is a master plan of interweaving plot webs that on some level makes sense, if players don’t feel engaged and purposeful in the moment, they won’t care. And yeah, a lot of the gem store gimmicks are what is bringing in money, not directly the living story, but you still have to keep players in the game to get them to buy that stuff.