Guild Wars 2

I thought the whole point of having a second installment of a game was that the second game was supposed to be better than the first… do they have monkeys making skins or what?

ANet has clearly stated that if something seems to good to be true, it probably is. So don’t forget that “We can do it, therefore it’s intended” is never a excuse.

They should give each event chain, separate event and standalone champion a node flag. Including champions in dungeons.

So each account can get bonus champion loot from each one only once a day, or even once a week.

That way people who really wants the stuff would have to travel the world for it.

Then remove any bonus loot from spawns in events, and give only a stack of event victory chest at the end, upon success. Bigger the stack the higher the event scaling, up to a limit. So sticking together following a commander still has its rewards, but only if the commander is also a traveler that goes all over the world.

From what I have seen the majority of the players doing the ember farm are the rudest players I have come across since this game was released. You’ll see a dozen or more downed players with maybe one or two people helping to get them up, the rest can’t be bothered to stop pressing 1 for two seconds to get the poor souls whose system can’t handle what is happening back on their feet. With so many people in such a small area two seconds is all it would take unless they are still in an AoE.
When the Zerg ran in Straits at release people went down and everyone around them helped them back up. Even now in the pavilion people revive downed players on the events and don’t make comments like “it’s your party’s responsibility to revive you”. The behavior of the farmers in Cursed Shore is just rude in general for the few that say anything in map chat other than lfg.
This is the exact opposite behavior Anet designed this game to produce, and if an event farm is creating behavior like that then it needs to go. If for now that only happens by brave souls willing to risk the wrath of the Zerg by completing the event then hats off to them till Anet adjusts this event.

Tarnished coast has once again broken the shackles of the ember farm. I do love destroying those cauldrons.

A simple fix for this would be to split the anchorage event in two. Let destroying the cauldrons be the first event, and let Andarzbad be the second event. The cauldrons can still be timed, but Andarzbad doesn’t need a timer. That way, it is incredibly easy to progress the event to the champion fight.

As it stands, the giant farm-zergs will often simply stop attacking andarzbad all together until the event fails. Changing it into two seperate events would ensure that a farm-zerg would not be able to block event progress.

Erasculio.2914:

Grey Warden.2983:

Just as it is none of your business how other people play, works both ways, except when you name something an exploit that Anet has refused to call an exploit.

Ok. So, when you say…

Grey Warden.2983:

What they are doing if griefing and it’s as plain as the nose on your face.

…You are naming something a way to grief that ArenaNet has refused to call griefing.

We can see how weak your arguments are by how they defeat themselves. If you claim no one can judge how other players play, you can’t judge your so-called griefers.

Grey Warden.2983:

People farm and play the TP because Anet has made every other rewarding activity and event in this game not worth doing.

Uhuh. People became rich farming CoF. This update prevented that, but it introduced a new area specifically for farming (the Crown Pavillion) as well as increased the drop loots for all Champions everywhere, including in places where there are a lot of them (the Frostgourge train).

The reason why people are exploiting Orr isn’t because there is nowhere else to farm – it’s because Orr gives a lot of money quickly, and the players there don’t think there’s anything bad about using loopholes in the game while not playing it as it was intended to be played. In other words, it’s because exploiters are greedy and they don’t mind exploiting, instead of becoming incredibly rich slightly less fast.

Vol.5241:

Who is the real selfish one here? The guy who attempts to complete one of the 5000 events in game but also griefs several dozen players, just to make a point against those ‘nasty, dirty farmers’? Or is it the zerg that wishes to make gold in order to encourage transactions in this economy?

The zerg, of course. It’s made by players that cause massive inflation for everyone else, while exploiting the game and concentrating wealth. They hurt the entire game, and one of the ways they do so is by creating the toxic atmosphere seen in this topic.

This guy. He gets it.

Gehenna.3625:

I think it’s a great idea, especially about the traits. What I do wonder is if Anet will be able to make such a big overhaul, because it could take quite a bit of doing. They’ve kinda put themselves in a corner with this as it is, since all content is designed around how the combat system works now.

On the other hand if they took the invulnerability out of the dodge and got rid of insta kill shots from bosses and allow more dodging at the same time, it could already solve a lot of issues that might occur in redesigning the combat system. Dodge would just be a way to get out of aoe quicker but without giving any additional protection if you will. That will keep dodge as a useful element but makes it less powerful and less needed as a crucial survival skill. That could open the way for additional changes as the OP proposes.

This is what I don’t get. Why change fundamental game mechanics that work fine elsewhere, when the problem is dungeons? GW2 is fundamentally 3 different games rolled into one. When you go changing core mechanics, you don’t just change how dungeon bosses work, you change how PvP and WvW work too. While I don’t want to disregard the hardcore PvE crowd, this game was made by ARENANet, not DungeonNet. GW1 was marketed, not as a Massivley Multiplayer Online RPG, but as a Competitive Online RPG. The fact that the game’s mechanics seem to largely be built around competitive balancing shouldn’t surprise anyone.

But I digress. The game’s core, fundamental mechanics are what they are, and for better or worse, they’re not going to change. The problem that is solvable, is the problem of dungeon mechanics. This can be done without fundamentally altering the game, and supposedly is already underway.

TL;DR It would probably be much more constrictive to suggest changes that actually could happen (ie dungeon tweaks) than changes to the core of the game itself.

I have to agree, not specifically about presursors as I don’t really care about them, but just about the general state of the in game economy. If the super lucrative farming is going to continue at even a fraction of what it currently is, it’s going to continue to drive the prices of everything upwards. This basically just means two things: First, status quo for those who do farm on a consistent basis as any extra money they do make will be siphoned off by higher prices. Second, those who don’t join in the consistent farming will just fall farther and farther behind the curve.

Of course, this also impacts very other area of the game not only economically but just purely in terms of activity. As COF1 demonstrated with dungeons, if there is One Best way to do something, that’s what “everyone” is going to be doing and any coimpeting activities will be drained of life.

Mirta.5029:

Kirschwasser.3972:

… Except that the games industry IS exceptionally sexist. And just because one incident of a very sexualized character (Lara Croft) not being abducted doesn’t make the trope any less overused, prevalent, or troubling.

If this year’s E3 was any indication, the gaming industry is still exceptionally sexist. You should look at the blogs of women in the industry and the kind of ridiculous things they have to put up with.

Also: Using “feminist” as a derogatory term is very insulting to anybody that’s looking for equal rights for women… which is what a feminist is by definition.

Except that I’m a woman and I can see that the industry is not sexist. Hell, like many other female developers (that worked on those games that you call sexist), I’m going to enter the industry myself. And want to talk about rights? Be an equalitarian and demand equal rights, instead of demanding women rights to be above men. And focus on real problems – like genital mutilation in Africa, women being put in prison for refusing to marry their rapists in Muslim countries. And in some cases fight for both – you don’t want women to be forced into military service? You know what? No human being should be forced into military service.
I really have no respect for people that invent problems instead of trying to solve real ones. And also please tell me what game in E3 today is sexist and in what way. Also if to invent a problem shouldn’t it go both ways? Men in video games are unnaturally attractive and muscular, they always have to show either their strength or their wealth. I find that extremely sexist against males. Why don’t we get an average bear gutted Joe with no job or income as our main character?

I’m just going to go ahead and stop this here, because talks about feminism in gaming tend to go pretty sour pretty fast and there’s no point arguing the matter on the internet. Needless to say, I disagree entirely and don’t find “I’m a woman” to be a valid argument against the matter.

Also: I’m not arguing for women’s rights above men and neither are most feminists.

Calae.1738:

I’ve already done it once and find it painful to do it again. It’s such a boring chore. I would pay money to unlock all POI’s, vista’s and way-points with the exception of skill points. No rewards.

And frankly, I’m getting sick of seeing that being thrown around. Are we, as a community, so spoiled that we expect a shiny new toy every time we do something in the game?

“That jumping puzzle sure looks fun, but I don’t do it. No reward.”
“I could revive that downed player, but I won’t. No reward.”
“This new player is asking for advice in map chat, but I won’t help. No reward.”

Edit: this isn’t directed at you, TC, or anyone in general. I’m just getting tired of seeing people claim to need loot-based motivation to play a video game.

As a casual player, based mainly on time available to play, I know that my chances of beating Liadri before the QG goes away this time are pretty slim. Knowing how difficult she is from player chatter makes me not too fussed about it, though. It’s not like you get a game-changing reward from beating her.

I’m all for making the game accessible, but I’d also say there needs to be very hard content available. I think it would be nice if it wasn’t time-limited, but that’s the only criticism I’d give. There are tough challenges in GW1 that I never did manage to beat, despite playing that game for 5 years. It’s okay. I survived.

i’m probably among the large % who can’t complete this event, but you know what? That’s OK. I don’t feel like I have to or need to. I’d say just fix the bugs and leave it the way it is. It’s difficult for a reason, they can’t please everyone. Plus there are many more updates to come in the future. Good work Anet, I really like this update.

I played games like WoW and Rift for gear grind, treadmill, raiding, rewards, rewards, rewards. Not because I was in love with the content very much, but because I was playing with a group of friends tackling difficult challenges. Healing in raids was/is very fun to me.

During closed betas, I perceived GW2 as an explorers paradise, cosmetic grind, with the ultimate goal of getting a legendary some day. Mix in some WvW, and there you have it. But mostly, Id be logging into my max level character some day, finding myself alone in some forest and just..run in one direction until I stumble upon some content, some event. And hope to have a meaningful contribute to the success/failure of that event, and let it be known if I succeeded or failed…was the town saved or are the NPCs dead because I failed? Is the town gone for a little while until an event kicks off to reclaim it. Was there true repercussions to failure, other than an event immediately kicking off to retake it.

So thats how I perceived the game. But with all of the rewards, minis, celebrations…the game has changed from intrinsically having fun to going after the closest carrot.

Maybe thats not arenanets fault, maybe partially. But this isnt the game I perceived.

When the next game comes along, TESO and eventually EQ Next, I’ll have different expectations for those as well and see if the games live up. I’ll probably leave GW2 for them, not sure about how TESO will hold up but EQ next definately will. I expect a gear grind from them, a treadmill, a grindfest and thats OK for THOSE games. I didnt think it was OK for GW2. Different expectations and I FEEL let down by it.

Gizmo.8623:

pavo.4371:

Devs should really stop ignoring this topic, posting only generic answers with no prospects of improvement.

Many times they have stated that they are listening and reading and are very busy with work so we shouldn’t expect to have dev come here and use much of his time answering to our pleas (or whatcha call it). It’s always nice but we should understand that and just write constructive feedback. Hope this thread is taken into consideration (fingers crossed).

A little communication can go a long way. The random dev comments, sometimes on some very specific areas of concern, add a lot to the relationship between the Devs and the Players.

I think in this case and for some other big picture issues, it’s a lot harder for them to comment, because what are they actually going to say? If they defend what many consider indefensible, it just makes people more angry. A Mea Culpa and commitment to change what’s broken in the process would be awesome, but that pre-supposes they actually have a change of heart and are willing to change direction for their ongoing development efforts.

Unfortunately, since they seem to be starting from a point so far away from those expressing concerns in this thread, to the point of being proud of content some of us see as a new low, it’s probably going to take a lot of ongoing pressure and measurable drop offs in player participation before they will make the desired course change.

I see the current direction as being detrimental to the game in the near term and potentially game breaking the further down this false rabbit hole the developers plummet.

If the studio was already split between Living Story and actual, substantive evolution of Dynamic Event content in the greater game world, then there is hope. If most of the Developers drank the cool-aid and believe content like this paves the way to success and salvation, then things will probably have to get a lot worse before they get better. Worse still would be if they sort of see the mistake, but are just too stubborn to admit they were wrong and proceed to double down on a failed strategy. In that case, there may not be much hope at all.

We sort of need a “that was all just the result of a fevered dream” sort of moment, with a resulting radical change of direction, but the developers need to actually wake up.

Always thought that hard work and perseverance will pay off. But not now…

Not to be a jerk, but the idea that “Time Spent” somehow equals – or should be a substitute for – aptitude is an annoyingly common thought process both in gaming and in real life.

Dasroth.9236:

Just be patient more main line story will come soon enough. Instead of being negative about what you felt you didn’t like about the patch why not just focus on what you did like. No one is forcing you to play the new content or the game for that matter.

For me it’s not the problem of being impatient. It’s the problem of the whole direction the game is taking, so no amount of time will bring the update I dream of – expansion of world, improvements of faulty systems, new ways to affect Tyria, interesting further story.

Listen, of course I can name positives and forget about negatives. But this way I won’t really and trully enjoy the game. I will be lying to myself of telling that I like the game only because I will acknowledge things I dislike. I’ve done the math and I’m really starting to dislike more things than like in a wonderful game that’s becoming only good in a beautiful world that’s neglected by it’s makers.

I really can’t change myself in this matter, I won’t start liking grind or content appealing to zerg. The game started to change, important things are put away for shallow content. I shout – “Please! Look in the mirror and see what you’re becoming! I don’t like it, but I really care for you and thus I don’t want you to lose me. And many others who really care!”

Gizmo.8623:

Dasroth.9236:

Just be patient more main line story will come soon enough. Instead of being negative about what you felt you didn’t like about the patch why not just focus on what you did like. No one is forcing you to play the new content or the game for that matter.

For me it’s not the problem of being impatient. It’s the problem of the whole direction the game is taking, so no amount of time will bring the update I dream of – expansion of world, improvements of faulty systems, new ways to affect Tyria, interesting further story.

Listen, of course I can name positives and forget about negatives. But this way I won’t really and trully enjoy the game. I will be lying to myself of telling that I like the game only because I will acknowledge things I dislike. I’ve done the math and I’m really starting to dislike more things than like in a wonderful game that’s becoming only good in a beautiful world that’s neglected by it’s makers.

I really can’t change myself in this matter, I won’t start liking grind or content appealing to zerg. The game started to change, important things are put away for shallow content. I shout – “Please! Look in the mirror and see what you’re becoming! I don’t like it, but I really care for you and thus I don’t want you to lose me. And many others who really care!”

Exactly. Arenanet seems to be in serious need of an “Intervention” and if some of us come off as a bit harsh or angry, it’s the frustration over what the game is becoming in relation to what it was and could/should have been that drives us.

Klawlyt.6507:

Whether its out of style or not, aren’t we playing a (mostly) fantasy game? I think that makes ye olde the norm.

We are oft’ to blame in this. ‘Tis too much proved that with a kitten’s visage and rifts in our faction, we do sugar o’er the grammar itself.

TottWriter.8591:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I guess for me, I don’t see being female/feminine as a weakness. I’m not the kind of person who judges ones value or capabilities based on what they are, or aren’t wearing.

That being said, I’m going to switch gears for a moment here.

Lets be honest with what is happening here. There are some players in this thread that are claiming sexism. They are projecting their personal beliefs onto these characters and looking for reasons to support those beliefs.

I appreciate that femininity can be seen as a strength, and I am certainly not ashamed of my own femininity, but there is a difference between appreciating it and fetishising it, and I am of the opinion that the Watchknights represent the latter.

A woman’s breasts and backside are far too often objectified for their emphasis in the models to be automatically put down to “embracing the strength of women”. I’m not a self-hating woman at all, and I would relish the sight of strong female figures in the postion of defending humanity. But that’s not what the Watchknights are. They are highly sexualised figures. And what’s wrong with that, you ask? What’s wrong is that it is a body shape which is glamourised to such excess that women are shamed for not possessing it. It is an unrealistic, disproportionate representation of what real women actually look like.

Real women have curves, yes. They might have slender waists and large breasts and comparatively long legs. But they still don’t look like the Watchknights. They still have far wider waists, shorter legs. A nude woman with breasts that size is not that perky, trust me. And what about women who don’t have that wonderful “sexy” figure? Do they just get airbrushed out of life in the same way that wrinkles and cellulite are? Either this is a sexualised fantasy, in which case it is “logical” (though still distasteful IMO) that they do not appear, or it is a “celebration of femininity” in which case, why is it only “celebrating” the women who conform to the most narrow, unrealistic version of beauty which exists?

If there were a genuine celebration of the strength of women in the game I would be all for it. And heck, there is, in places. You have female characters getting stuff done as opposed to simply being the damsel in distress. (Though let’s be honest, none of them are ugly or too fat, because that doesn’t sell. All the heroes and heroines in games must also be appealing to the eye.)

Yes, people here are of the “opinion” that the Watchknights are sexist, unrealistic depictions of women put there because they are attractive to the male eye. That’s because there is very, very little evidence to the contrary.

I’m concerned that you are comparing your human body to that of a mechanical clockwork robot in a video game. That doesn’t seem healthy at all.

My point of course is that mechanical clockwork robots in a video game are not human people and thus they cannot be sexist. They do not promote any ideal as far as body figure for humans is concerned because they are not humans.

Sometimes a mechanical clockwork robot in a video game is just a mechanical clockwork robot in a video game.

Here are the reasons why the Watchknights are NOT concerning for me.

When I look at these robots, I see strong, towering symbols of power and beauty. I see robots designed with the purpose to be respected and even feared.

I guess for me, I don’t see being female/feminine as a weakness. I’m not the kind of person who judges ones value or capabilities based on what they are, or aren’t wearing.

That being said, I’m going to switch gears for a moment here.

Lets be honest with what is happening here. There are some players in this thread that are claiming sexism. They are projecting their personal beliefs onto these characters and looking for reasons to support those beliefs.

That is their right to do so, but I wholeheartedly disagree with this.

Sexism is something we need to be aware of and discuss. We need to make sure we keep the conversation going so we don’t make the mistake of anyone being treated unequal.

However, we also need to be reasonable. We can’t allow ourselves to simply react when we see something, without first looking at it in context. Calling “foul” just because these robots happen to be feminine, and are “sexualized” is, in my opinion, being overly sensitive.

There is nothing about these robots that say anything about being weak, objectified, or undervalued.

I admit that my post is a little haphazard. The reason is because whenever someone walks into a conversation and starts throwing around claims of sexism, peppered with buzzwords, it becomes very difficult to have a counter opinion.

We have already seen in this post how because of the design of these robots, these automatically become some assumed sexual fantasy for males.

We need to be very careful here to keep our critical thinking hats on.

Kal Spiro.9745:

People really need to give this Manifesto a rest. The Manifesto is the shtick that every Development team has always proclaimed before the game actually became what it is.

Some of the stuff they said they were able to bring to the live game, but some of the stuff never was. Give it a rest, it’s not a real thing and never was. It was designed to get your interest and attention, and it succeeded akittens only purpose.

It was the set of ideals and aspirations that drove the game to be such an incredible achievement in MMO design at launch. If they had continued to find ways to realize more and more of those aspirations and ideals, the game would have continued to evolve and improve, solidifying the new paradigm they created and forcing every other MMO design studio to play catch up.

Abandoning the quest to realize those ideals is why most of what has been produced over the last year has been a complete waste of resources and damaged the ongoing potential for the game.

To “give the manifesto a rest” is to give up on greatness and embrace mediocrity.

Pawlegance.7012:

Personally, GW2 lost so much due to insecurity on ANet’s end. The game was praised for its new concept of a living and breathing world that came with dynamic events that told stories of specific and sometimes overlapping zones. What we got was great, a game that truly felt like an RPG. A game where your choices and actions mattered. In a small scale true and on a timer, true, but it still mattered.

ANet then turned away from the very core pillar of this game. It replaced most of the new content with quests. One time quests, that tell a story, but it is executed so badly that many people miss a lot of lore, because of bad presentation. I am not against story pieces forming slowly and painting a bigger picture, but everything feels so disconnected, fragmented.

Instead of adding player-driven content to the zones and expanding on the DE system, we got heavily scripted quests on a timer. Players need to rush through content, so they don’t miss an achievement or some hint on the backstory. I don’t want to be rushed, because playing is my leisure time. I want the game to wait for me, not the other way around.

From my point of view, GW2 has degraded a lot and lost a lot of the true potential it had in the beginning. Everything feels so generic and meaningless. Sure, we can vote on something, but does it really change anything. Like the story of GW2, which starts good and then gets really bad and bland, GW2 has devolved into something I don’t like and don’t support.

Some time ago Colin said that making expansions helps devs and players sync what they want. So far ANet has been doing whatever they want and a small percentage of players is throwing hundreds and thousands of dollars in their direction. Please, give others a reason to do the same.

After release, there hasn’t been a single content update I’d consider worth my money. And no, quality of life improvements is not content. This is how you build long lasting customer relationship.

I agree 100% with everything you said. I have some hope seeing the people who have posted to this thread and even if they don’t 100% agree with me, at least “get it” and appreciate that the game has been really failing at living up to it’s potential.

There have to be developers at Arenanet that get this as well. There is no way a studio that produced this awesome game could be devoid of developers who understand why the game worked, nor do I believe all those people left. I think my biggest hope is that discussions like this hear will get the developers talking about these issues and that the “Manifesto-ites” will once again overwhelm the “Last-generation-ites” and get future development back on track.

The sad thing is that at this point, we will need more than just a flip back to a focus on Dynamic Events. IMO, there has been very real damage done to the core concepts in the way that players have been systematically “trained” away from free-form, open world game play and towards jumping through a linear progression of hoops in exchange for flashy rewards.

DeWolfe.2174:

With the massive global market for theme parks, I don’t know why one would attempt to use the term in a derogatory manner?

I believe what might be an issue with the living story is it’s abruptness. That if things were to come online progressively, it would be more interesting and less jarring to the players.

I’m more concerned about the progression in difficulty of each Living Story. This appears to be catering to a small group of players that love suffering, stress, etc. I on the other hand, appreciated the Zephyr Sanctum and hoping it returns soon. I’d much rather have an expanded Zephyr Sanctum to act as a new Lions Arch.

The most disturbing feature of the update has been that it pushed me to spend over 10g and 100 laurels on new gear. Frankly, I’m annoyed as I’m now stuck with new gear I’m not thrilled with. This is 2.5 months worth of dailes and monthlies lost. Please allow us a place to test our PvE/WvW gear like there is in sPvP. Laurels are still a very bad mechanic for a currency. It’s unforgiving and very alt unfriendly.

I’ve always made the case that there is no black and white dichotomy between a Theme Park MMO and a Sandbox MMO, it’s more like a graduated scale. Even predominantly Sandbox titles can benefit from some structured content and story. Theme Park leaning titles definitely benefit from content that makes game play less linear, more free-form and at least tries to provide a convincing illusion of a living, breathing world.

When I say Queen’s Pavilion is the worst kind of example of Theme Park content, that’s exactly what I mean. GW2 has allowed us to scoff at titles that still think it’s ok to make a quilt work game zone, with pockets of mobs just standing around waiting to be killed by players in “kill ten rats” style questing. This update features content that is a blatant example of the absurdity of extreme theme park MMO content design.

More pointedly, Queen’s Pavilion reminds me a lot of the amateurish trash content produced by fans for games like Skyrim. The kind that usually only get’s a 2 star community rating for quality, but still is among the most downloaded. “Cheat content” designed to just provide players with a way to quickly accumulate wealth and advancement by continually grinding dense pockets of mobs with a higher than average reward to time ratio.

That kind of kitten just trivializes game play and all the content that the game’s developers spent years creating. In the end, it also cheats the players who decide to take such shortcuts out of the enjoyment the game was designed to offer.

That Arenanet would design and inject such content into this game is probably one of the biggest warning signs that something has gone horribly wrong with the Live Team and the management that is supposed to oversee them.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

snipped

Thanks for taking the time to comment Anthony.

First, I’d just make clear I don’t see this event in any way as a step forward. Concentrating mob grinding content in an area the size of a small baseball stadium has got to be one of the biggest steps backward for the game. I like the story, but the content is just bad.

Second, Dynamic Events. Back when Colin talked about the strategy for adding tons of new DEs to the game, he actually specified that the intent was to drop that content into the game with out fanfare, with each update, so that over time, players would continue to be surprised by fresh, new content in the game world. To now insinuate that the reason you abandoned that approach was because it received little attention and fanfare is just plain bizarre.

Dynamic Events can be added with as much or as little fanfare as you desire. It shouldn’t just be random events tossed into the game, it should be an evolution of events with in each zone in a way that makes sense given the events that occurred there previously. It would make perfect sense to use storytelling to bring focus on a zone where the more dramatic events for each update will play out, while still progressing content in other zones and building the foundation for big events to come. The writers would have plenty to do with out the Living Story framework.

It seems you gave up way too quickly on the content that makes the game special, in order to pursue gimmicky content that would never have made it into the game during pre-launch development. That the gimmicky stuff has been temporary just makes it all an even bigger waste of time, money, resources, talent and potential.

The issue I and others have is really multi-tiered. The wasting of development resources best spent elsewhere, the underwhelming impact and limited benefit of most content created under the “Living Story” and, at least as importantly, the abandonment of the evolution of the game world.

Tyria, outside of the temporary and gimmicky content, has not progressed or evolved. Dynamic Events only produce an organic, dynamic gaming experience if they themselves change and evolve on a regular basis and in a way that makes narrative sense.

Queen’s Pavilion would be considered a satirical representation of old school, mindless, unimaginative MMO game design if it weren’t so clear you seriously believe it represents progress.

The game world has become stale and static. The game has suffered under many months of events that draw people away from organic, free form game play in the incredibly vast and detailed game world, with the trend further reinforced by “jump through these hoops” dailies and monthlies.

Everything you have done this year has been designed to reward hoop jumping, cool-aid drinking, linear game play and then you wonder why so few people still free roam the long static game world ?

IMO, we are way beyond the point where fine tuning the current strategy based on player feedback is going to do much to preserve the ongoing potential of the game. The game, at launch, was an incredible achievement and sparked significant success. Why you would decide to undo everything the core game design and the Dynamic Event approach to content managed to achieve is just beyond me.

Arenanet laid out the case for this world design and the value of Dynamic Events as the core of the new MMO content delivery paradigm prior to launch. The game at launch proved the concept. Then you just toss it all aside because there was no fanfare about the DE content you added last October, after stressing that you would be adding such content with out fanfare? Please, clear up my confusion, because I don’t get it.

It almost seems that you guys didn’t have the patience for the long game, didn’t get the instant gratification you wanted from adding Dynamic Event content, so then started working on tossing out flashy gimmicks, hoping no one would notice that you gave up on the game world.

The game, at launch, was extraordinary, perhaps the best MMO at launch in the history of the genre. In 2013, the perpetual drum beat has been to drive a march towards the extremely ordinary, under the cover that you are “doing more than almost any other MMO developer has done”. Quality is probably more important than quantity, but it has been sorely lacking. That this year’s content actively undermines the core game content, rather than supporting it, sadly means that the game would probably have been better off with nothing than what was actually produced.

Stop designing live updates as if this were just any other ordinary, stale, quest driven, last generation MMORPG and start supporting, expanding and renewing what made the game special and successful at launch!

Personally, GW2 lost so much due to insecurity on ANet’s end. The game was praised for its new concept of a living and breathing world that came with dynamic events that told stories of specific and sometimes overlapping zones. What we got was great, a game that truly felt like an RPG. A game where your choices and actions mattered. In a small scale true and on a timer, true, but it still mattered.

ANet then turned away from the very core pillar of this game. It replaced most of the new content with quests. One time quests, that tell a story, but it is executed so badly that many people miss a lot of lore, because of bad presentation. I am not against story pieces forming slowly and painting a bigger picture, but everything feels so disconnected, fragmented.

Instead of adding player-driven content to the zones and expanding on the DE system, we got heavily scripted quests on a timer. Players need to rush through content, so they don’t miss an achievement or some hint on the backstory. I don’t want to be rushed, because playing is my leisure time. I want the game to wait for me, not the other way around.

From my point of view, GW2 has degraded a lot and lost a lot of the true potential it had in the beginning. Everything feels so generic and meaningless. Sure, we can vote on something, but does it really change anything. Like the story of GW2, which starts good and then gets really bad and bland, GW2 has devolved into something I don’t like and don’t support.

Some time ago Colin said that making expansions helps devs and players sync what they want. So far ANet has been doing whatever they want and a small percentage of players is throwing hundreds and thousands of dollars in their direction. Please, give others a reason to do the same.

After release, there hasn’t been a single content update I’d consider worth my money. And no, quality of life improvements is not content. This is how you build long lasting customer relationship.