Guild Wars 2

My fave quote from the official post: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-mist-champions/
“Turai Ossa will be the default Mist Champion available to all players once Stronghold is released. Grymm Svaard will also be available to all players, though he will need to be earned by completing his reward track in PvP. You will need to own Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ to be able to access the reward track that unlocks Nika. Additional Mist Champions will become available in future live content releases and will also require Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns to unlock them for your account. We will be temporarily unlocking all of them during upcoming betas for pre-purchasers of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.”

Good on you though ArenaNet for splitting the queues. That was a necessary thing to do and I appreciate it. Skill splits need to happen now though before you keep heading down this road of segregating the populace even more with Elite Specs and Champions that require certain DLC. This stuff flies in mobas because they are free and you buy costumes that you want. Hiding PvP content behind a paywall is a dark road to go down when nerfs or buffs invariably happen.

I wish there was a thing where games had test servers so this kind of thing didn’t make it to live. Or barring that where we lived in a perfect gaming world and QA did it and players didn’t have to do dev work for free. On top of that you want me to pre-purchase HoT without knowing exactly what I am getting or if it will be in a working state?

No thanks.

So before the physics changes they weren’t actively working on it because not many people played it the second time around(according to ArenaNet’s metrics)and now it’s because of physics changes?

Or nah?

I thought the cash shop was supposed to subsidize content creation? So far it has, but most of it’s bee temporary. Remember the Marionette? Battle for LA? The tower event in Kessex? Aetherblade attacks?

I think a better solution would be going back to their roots. New permanent content. Dungeons. Fractals. Open world events that are permanent. Evolving quest chains. Redesigns of Temple events that reward successful defenses. There are so many more options.

Sure, we have gotten content over the years but a ton of it has been temporary or is instanced and drops no loot. Where’s the incentive to replay season 2 instances? There isn’t any. It took a ton of man hours to make that content and it offers little to zero incentive to be repeated. It makes mistakes in its designs that GW1 thrived on and their solution with the x-pac is to hide content I want to complete(battling boss Mordrem)behind a mastery gate meaning I have to do content I may not want to do to earn mastery points in order to do the content I want to complete because said content can’t even be attempted without a certain “Mastery Rating”?

No thanks

There has been overwhelmingly strong opinions in the RNG thread made by ArenaNet’s economist and yet here we are still feeding the obligatory RNG Machine. Actually, what does it matter to me? I don’t even play anymore outside of finishing my dailies in case the desire to one day return overtakes me. I really wish ArenaNet would think outside the box with this stuff though.

Alekt.5803:

List of things not broken:

Glyphs in general.

would you say they are in a good spot in general or are they in need of a shave? Is a shave still on the table or is that something you aren’t talking about internally?

I don’t see the value in it at all. Why? Because we don’t know how big or small it is. I’m not gonna pony up coin for a pre-order for a product I know little to nothing about. ArenaNet in the past have had really cool CEs. I bought the Factions CE and never regretted it. It’s amazing. If I decide to wait to get HoT until I get more info, I could be spending as much money as I did on the base game. That’s asinine to me.

I agree with Mad Queen on this. Heck, even if we put away his/her comparison to Nightfall, compare the CE for the GW2 base game with the CE for the x-pac. It’s awful.

I’m waiting to purchase this til there is more info. I am not confident enough in ArenaNet to put out the type of quality they used to be capable of. THey also aren’t putting out the type of content I like in their games anymore so this product isn’t really for me. As a ten year fan of the franchise who owns multiple accounts in both games, it pains me to say that. This is one of my fave franchises ever and it seems to be headed in a direction that isn’t in line with what I am looking for in terms of marketing, communication, game play, or cash shop.

I named my guardian Le Charr Purrton.

Have you seen what our characters say to the new dungeon vendor in LA? They call the dungeon items, “relics” i.e. forgotten things of the past. That screams abandonment. It’s too bad they are tossing aside instanced group content. I know I am in the minority, but dungeons and fractals were my fave part of this game.

The optimistic way to look at it is that because there are less combinations to choose from, there are less garbage builds possible. You’re welcome.

This thing was not ready for live servers is the bottom line. I have a feeling this was pushed to live servers so we could test it for them. Thanks, Hobama-Tron.

Someone needs to lighten the purse strings over there and get some real quality testing time going on. I spent more time testing today and I can say unequivocally that this is the most broken stuff has ever been in a Guild Wars game in all my years of playing. It feels like you guys are on to something in a few areas, but there are other areas that feel completely haphazard in terms of traits/specs/skills. IDK what to say. I feel like you are using the player base as a test bed for the x-pac, in a 3 year old game, and as a customer it’s kinda insulting.

At first blush I would say the most apt and broad thing you could say about HoT is that it’s Dry Top combined with Silverwastes on steroids.

It looks as if it will always be b2p, but with every subsequent x-pac release you will get all the previous content bundled with it. My concern is getting the big content gaps in between x-pac releases. I would hope that in the future they keep the Living World teams building that content concurrently while the other larger teams builds the x-pacs. That way there is a steady stream of content. That to me would be the most attractive way to do it.

For me, having 8 months of Gem Shop releases without content isn’t something that makes me want to play. Sure, ArenaNet needs to make money but don’t players need content? Isn’t the point of a cash shop to get paid but also the reward structure? ArenaNet puts out gem shop stuff and content. I play the content and make money and then buy the gem shop stuff with real money or I convert the gold I earned from the content they released and buy the gem shop stuff. That’s the optimal way for this to work. Why should I buy stuff if there is nothing new to play.

My concern now is instead of getting glider skins and weapons and armor sets to earn in the x-pac that we are paying money for, we are gonna be paying for the x-pac and they will release a bunch of stuff on the gem shop instead of it being earn-able in game. With how they have been handling stuff lately, that doesn’t seem altogether an unreasonable educated guess as to how things are going to go down and it’s disappointing.

They took the old eye patch off because they have a new Magnus eye patch they want to sell you on the shop, but they forgot to add the new one to his broken peeper!

If they are really going to give us warhorn as our new weapon why not just give us focus main hand instead? My dream of a focus/focus character would be complete!

This is great and all but can we finally get that Quaggan genocide we’ve all wanted since launch, please? Where’s Peter Fries when you need him? Take action friend!

“We Heal as One!” is a shout and the tooltip is not reflecting regeneration being applied when the trait “Resounding Timbre” is being used.

I feel like I could spend all day finding this stuff but I didn’t buy this game to test out if tooltips are accurate. There are so many glaring issues. This is really frustrating. I have never seen you guys release something this half-baked ever. Full stop.

F3 for pets after using “Guard!” is really delayed.

The Trait “Resounding Timbre” is correctly applying regen to “Strength of the Pack!” but the tooltip is not showing that regen is being applied.

Imma do some free testing for you? In the live environment? In a 3 year old game? And you want me to also pre-order an x-pac that you guys won’t even tell me how big it is so I can " get access to beta so I can have the priveledge of testing the game for you"? You want me to pre-pay to do free testing of a product that you won’t even tell me all of what’s in it? I had no problem doing this for the base game of GW2. You guys let us know the bulk of what was in the game. It was an unreleased gigantic product.

This is totally different because so much of this release is completely broken. Teq. is dying in 2-3 minutes. People are stacking quickness to insane times. Burning is borked. Stealth stacking is broken.

I have been asking for skill splits for the better part of 2 years! Ranger pets haven’t really been truly addressed since before launch in a way that is meaningful to the class.

I guess what I am tryna say is that it’s really frustrating and disappointing .

It looks fantastic. Seriously gorgeous work all. Pat yourselves on the back.

P.S. – I would however like to speak with the Council about holding all the gold I gave them during the Pavilion Event for the rebuilding effort all those moons ago – I am sure the interest they collected was a pretty penny and I’d like 25%.

bugged forums ftw!

Divine Flavor.2016:

The new system is nice, but the real surprise is that we didn’t log in this morning and see a fresh pile of points to spend and a blank canvas.

Instead we logged in and found the new system, along with a message that says a program automatically spent some or all of our points to recreate the current build we had.

It’s incredibly short-sighted. It assumes my warrior specced into Strength because I like Strength over Tactics, when I just needed the power boost. Now those points are already spent unlocking the Strength tree and now I can’t buy anything, change over to a new tree, etc.

^+1 to you for clearly explaining the issue. Why the heck doesn’t my Ele who has everything under the sun done in this game and then some have to spend my points on unlocking two spec. lines and some utility skills?

Randulf.7614:

So just like all pre-purchase schemes then?

It’s exactly what marketing teams are paid to do, promote and push a game ahead of a launch using exclusives. Conan did it, TSW did and does it, Lotro does it, Diablo 3 did it. The list goes on.

As a “day 1 veteran” (which is meaningless anyway), I have not felt misled at any point on this.

Except that a couple years ago, you could use ArenaNet as an example of a developer that wouldn’t stoop to this type of tactic. After the gem shop fiasco, that ArenaNet is no longer a thing anymore.

Actually it is vertical. Is it more powerful stat-wise than exotic gear? If not then it’s not vertical progression, if it is, then it’s vertical. A good way to look at gear is between Ascended and Legendary. If you have a Legendary Greatsword and I have an Ascended GS , they both have the same stats, numbers wise. That’s great. There is a nice horizontal progression thing baked into the Legendary GS though: It can switch its stats on the fly.

It doesn’t matter if ascended was .05% stronger than exotic. It’s vertical progression. The other great part is that if you don’t want it, you can still be competitive. Most games can’t boast that. This is one area where I feel ArenaNet did a great job appeasing the most people possible and they should be praised for it. If you go through my post history you will notice a lack of a lot of praise from me for them recently.

Evans.6347:

That’s assuming that spirit shards will still be in champ bags of course. I don’t know if this has been confirmed.

Yeah the spirit shards are replacing skill point scrolls in the champ bags. they will be fairly easy to come by. i like the change. it gives ascended armor a nice bonus for people that took the time and gold to make it while also not getting rid of the usefulness of exotic grade armor and weapons and still keeping legendary weapons as BiS because you can switch the stats on the fly. ArenaNet ultimately did a good job with this stuff which is refreshing.

Seriously, can we get a response to this stuff please? If I buy this x-pac and there are a bunch of glider skins added to the gem shop a week after release and none for me to earn in game for playing the game I will feel so duped.

What’s in this expansion?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Character-Slot-for-Heart-of-Thorns-Merged/first

All of this could have been avoided had they just listened to the sound logic and advice given by veteran players. I said in the thread if it a character slot didn’t come with the x-pac that my Asura warrior would eat one of her Greatswords. Crisis averted.

That’s a great way to handle things. Hopefully in the future, the people that make these decisions will see the types of issues that could arise because of said decisions before they happen and address them accordingly. Giving character slots to people when you add a new profession was amazing in GW1 with Factions and Nightfall. The addition of it here with Heart of Thorns is a good trend to continue.

Hopefully this type of communication can continue in the future as well.

I still want to know exactly what I am getting before I open my wallet though.

• How many zones are there?

• How much content is here when compared with GW2’s base game?

• How much future content will require Heart of Thorns?

So many more questions, but that is a good start. A good start at open communication.

Been playing this franchise for 10 years. I own multiple accounts of every game in the GW franchise. I made a few decisions after thinking about it for the last few months.

1.) I will play with the new trait system tomorrow. I haven’t been playing for the last 3 months or so. Colin’s post about skill points/hero points was good though. It’s a good first step to addressing concerns. If I like the new trait system, it could sway my decisions on playing the game.

2.) HoT information. I want more information on HoT before I decide to pre-order I bought a second copy of the game a few months ago when it was on sale to save me money for when HoT comes out. It’s actually going to cost me more money now because they changed their mind on the necessity of owning the base game. That is a big deal to me and a big knock against them. The people signing off on this stuff aren’t paying the sort of attention that the customers need. It’s a gaffe. Is it forgivable? Sure, if they are open-handed about the reparations.

If I don’t like the new trait system though, I just bought a few MMOs to diversify the MMO portfolio as it were. I am done with locking myself in one game and having my gaming time be dictated by shifting “Pillars” or “Core Principles” of game development. Devs switch that stuff whenever they want to and don’t tell you they are shifting it. By me choosing to play 4-5 different MMOs I can cherry pick the experiences I want to have and if devs decide to go off their original manifesto visions and core design philosophies, I just jump to the next title in my MMO kitten nal.

Tyria’s been a great place to spend the bulk of my time. I am just happy that I found a crazy Asura scientist to create me a rocket to travel to new star systems and different worlds. After tomorrow it just may be a case of, “I’ll see ya when I see ya.”

Gene Archer.8560:

Iason Evan.3806:

Their communication has been awful for a good long while now too. Hopefully that starts to change.

It was already supposed to have changed.

Maybe that is the actual reason behind burning the vets with the HoT prepurchase stuff.

This conversation illustrates:
ArenaNet Staffer #1: “Should we throw in some bonus for the vets since we are throwing in the entire base game to new players that didn’t even consider buying the game for 3 years?”

ArenaNet Staffer #2: “Are you kidding!? Those guys are all jerks. A few of them were posting terrible things to my personal twitter account. Charge them the same price and maybe they’ll go play another game. Good riddance if they do!”

^If that conversation actually happened I couldn’t say as I would blame them. Well, as long as they don’t blame me for criticizing the way they have handled communication with the community. It’s really bad.

I agree completely. You hit the nail on the head. Perception is huge. Their communication has been awful for a good long while now too. Hopefully that starts to change.

I like the idea of the items coming back infrequently. It rewards people at different times for different items if they happen to be active at that time. I have a fairly rare set of armor from when you could craft pvp items and I’d like it to stay exclusive, but whatever.

Involving real life pride in some fake weapon or set of armor in a game is borderline cuckoo.

Stoked on this. Not stoked that this wasn’t the no-brainer decision during meetings about it to begin with. There are some fundamental things with progression that have changed over the course of the years and hopefully this marks new approaches being considered going forward.

I would hope going forward you guys and gals that make the decisions keep this filed away for future discussions. Past progression should never be considered a thing that can be altered.

Vayne.8563:

KGS.9842:

waaait a second
“As a structure the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you’re doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there”
-Ree Soesbee, game designer

did they actually fix that somehow without me noticing, I must have been busy in a zerg somewhere

Immediately after the manifesto was posted, there was a clarication. Colin is talking about events. Ree is talking about the personal story.

So you’re saying their communication issues stretch back to pre-release?

Vayne.8563:

Except they they’ve been selling that game for $10 multiple times already, so OP, how did you feel that thousands of people (probably more) bought it for $10?

It made me feel crappy. I bought a second copy of the game for $10 only to find out if I had waited I would have gotten it bundled with the base game. Now, even if I spend the $50 for the x-pac I need to spend another $10 for a character slot.

In the future I hope they will consider releasing all of the information about what is contained in the game before doing pre-orders. Some players will have to pay $60(x-pac+character slot). That’s the same price as the base game. The xpac fits into a small corner of the map. They don’t share the same worth to me.

Knighthonor.4061:

June 23rd trait patch drama will overshadow all this price drama in the coming week.

True. For those that still play. For people like me that have only been logging in for the daily reward and then logging out we will still be talking and thinking about how we spent money on accounts during sales when it was revealed HoT required the base game to play.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Iason Evan.3806:

Axelwarrior.9084:

ANet never guaranteed to you at any point from whenever you bought the game to now that you’d be able to have characters for all classes at once.
Why would you make that assumption, then?

2 of GW1’s 3 complete games(Factions and Nightfall)both had 2 new professions and ArenaNet set a precedent with those games of giving you two character slots so that you could play those professions if you wanted to. Just an FYI. They have set this precedent before. It’s not a blind assumption. Their one and only x-pac for GW1 did NOT have any new professions and rightfully did not come with any slots. HoT has a new profession and doesn’t come with a slot. This actually goes against how they have handled it in the past.

Just because they did something in the past doesn’t guarantee they’ll keep doing it, unless they’ve said so. If they ever said “We’ll offer a character slot every time we introduce a new profession, in all our future games”, then you’re right to be kittened.
Also, I don’t accept facts from a different game as arguments.

You specifically asked, “Why would you make that assumption, then?”

I gave you reasons why that assumption would be made. If ArenaNet has done that before on 2 occasions it would stand to reason they would do it again. It wasn’t just a blind assumption on their part. It was an educated guess that they would do something that they have done in the past a 3rd time.

Axelwarrior.9084:

ANet never guaranteed to you at any point from whenever you bought the game to now that you’d be able to have characters for all classes at once.
Why would you make that assumption, then?

2 of GW1’s 3 complete games(Factions and Nightfall)both had 2 new professions and ArenaNet set a precedent with those games of giving you two character slots so that you could play those professions if you wanted to. Just an FYI. They have set this precedent before. It’s not a blind assumption. Their one and only x-pac for GW1 did NOT have any new professions and rightfully did not come with any slots. HoT has a new profession and doesn’t come with a slot. This actually goes against how they have handled it in the past.

ArenaNet please shut this thread down. It’s just the OP having the same argument over and over. It’s run its course.

Jongi.7612:

Why exactly do some of the veteran players think ANet owes you anything? I see a lot of vet players understand that nothing is owed to them, but the vocal majority of vets here on the forums think something is owed to them.

The expansion is $50 bucks, end of story. If you dont already have GW2 and you buy HoT you get it for free. Its so that it brings in more players.

Veteran players have already gotten their fair share of free stuff, living story which if these new players want to experience they have to pay for, free level 20 boosts for being active during the anniversaries, free skins, free level 80’s if you didnt waste your tomes, and who knows what else was given out.

So what exactly are you guys complaining about? Its just like these spoiled kids that didnt get the car they wanted, or the 64gb iphone and rage at their parents. Its stupid and I hope ANet sticks to their guns.

The ONLY people that should be kittened off are the people who bought the core game recently and now have to dish out another 50 for the expansion in turn making the expansion more expensive. Give them a free skin, gems or something. Everyone else has gotten their monies worth from the game.

If you think you are owed something because you have been playing for 3 years and new players get the core game for free to increase the size of the community that is the exact definition of entitlement.

It’s multiple things. When they announced the game they said that the base game was required to play HoT. They then had multiple sales for the base game. At no point did they tell the existing player base that the core game would be bundled for free with the game. People have a legit reason to be ticked. I am not saying ArenaNet did that on purpose. They decided to add it later, but that doesn’t change the fact that had people known the base game was being bundled with the x-pac now, a lot of us wouldn’t have bought second or third or fourth accounts until now. That is money we have spent on the game for no reason.

There are other legitimate reasons as well for people being ticked. Some are purely opinion-based. Perceived value is one. They rightfully offered incentive to new players to get the game and that’s great. Not only is there no perceived value offered for vets, but if you don’t have any empty character slots you have to pony up an extra $10 to play the Revenant. You are now paying $60 for an expansion pack that has significantly less perceived value than the core game.* Does that make sense why some people would not feel like they are getting their money’s worth?

^That in and of itself is no big deal except for the part where ArenaNet has given character slots in previous games when a new profession was added. In Factions and Nightfall(standalone GW1 campaigns)when they released 2 new professions per game, if you owned a game previously you were given 2 character slots to provide you with a way of adding those professions to your roster. With EotN they didn’t give a character slot but there was not a new profession added to that expansion. A precedent had been set of them giving a character slot for a new profession being added. It added value to the package.

There are a ton of other reasons as well, but I hope you can see why some people are ticked and rightfully so.

It’s a perception issue as well. They are offering value to new players. There really isn’t perceived value offered to vets. On top of that, they said the base game was required to purchase when they announced HoT and then ran a bunch of discounts on the base game. They have since changed that policy but people who purchased a first or second copy of the game in preparation of the x-pac when it was on sale are screwed as of right now. People have a legitimate reason to be ticked about this. Full stop.

“Hey new players! You get the base game thrown in for free!” <- That in and of itself is Awesome. I am stoked they want to get new people in the game.

“Hey vets! Buy the x-pac for $50. If all your character slots are full buy a character slot as well. The game will cost you $60 which is the same amount as the base game.” <- There is no perceived value. Where’s my incentive to do that? The x-pac is obviously a good deal less content than the base game+all they have added along the way. I don’t see the value in that for my money at all.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Seriously. I don’t think we’ve reached Dead Sea levels of eye-searing, fish-killing, meat-preserving crusty brine yet.

I just counted – there are currently four threads on the front page of this board talking about something other than how immensely pants-bruised people are over the expansion pricing, and this despite a huge E3 showing by ArenaNet and something like eleven hundred blog articles on guild halls, a feature people have been demanding info on since forever ago. This is up from two non-pricing threads the last time I counted.

I get it. You guys are cheesed. Even the gaming news sites have all picked up on how incredibly rustled your collective jimmies are. I fail to see why this brouhaha is such a thing – if you figure fifty bucks, or a hundred bucks, or whatever, is too much to ask? Then don’t pay it. Funnily enough, this conclusion is what all the news site articles I read which bothered to venture an opinion came to as well. The stink is ridiculous, it reflects poorly on “the friendliest, most welcoming MMO playerbase in gaming”, and frankly there’s other crap to talk about.

Either ArenaNet fixes it and they sell preorders, they don’t fix it and don’t sell preorders and thus learn their lesson, or they don’t fix it, they do sell preorders, and clearly it’s not as big a deal as you guys are all making it out to be. Especially when you all know this was Marketing’s brilliant idea and has absolutely nothing to do with the actual dev-side folks you’re all threatening repeatedly.

I’m not telling you to buy or not buy Heart of Thorns. I’m not telling you that you’re entitled greedy jerks, or conversely that you’re being an idiot ArenaNet fanboy too stupid to know better. I don’t care – what you do with your money is on you, what I do with mine is on me, and there’s no reason for either of us to have any opinion on what the other decides.

What I’m saying is that you folks have made the MechWarrior Online forums – a collection of bittervets, salt miners, crusty codgers, and dev-hating megatrolls which cannot be equaled this side of League of Legends – look like a reasonable and respectful community.

I honestly did not think that was possible.

You’re embarrassing the Torment out of yourselves, folks. The ludicrous angstsplosion in this house is a complete and utter turn-off, and if I were an ArenaNet developer I wouldn’t want to talk to a bunch of ragecanoes either.

Settle down. The world is not ending. The sky is not falling. ArenaNet is not the Devil. Keep calm and talk about guild halls already, would ya?

Your list here is missing a lot of the reasons why people are ticked. Watch some videos. Read these forums. Toss out the ones that are just blind rage and vitriol. Look at the ones that are reasonably stating why they think ArenaNet could have handled this better. There are actually things that were handled poorly on ArenaNet’s end. It’s starting to be a trend. In a lot of ways this is a culmination of a lot of different factors.

I think it’s fine to “freak out” in a negative way or positive way about the game. It’s not OK to freak out at people at ArenaNet in a personal way.

When they announced HoT at PAX South in January, they made it seem like it contained a lot more than it does. A lot of that stuff is stuff that will be available to everyone now which is really cool. Things like Stronghold, the new Borderlands map etc.

I look at the map though and realize just how small the x-pac is. We are almost paying the exact same price as we paid for the base game(if you have to buy a character slot for Revenant because all your slots are full you are paying the exact same price as the base game at release:$60). This x-pac is just a fraction of the map in the base game. Perceived value is a real thing.

“Is this worth my money?” is a totally valid question to ask about this product because for what amounts to me personally as costing the same as the base game($60)I am getting a lot less perceived value for my money. It just doesn’t seem like as much content. I don’t think that is an unreasonable opinion to have.

The base game for me is one of my favorite MMOs of all time. I adore it. This x-pac doesn’t even seem near the breadth or scope of that though. It doesn’t hold the same perceived value. Couple that with the fact that ArenaNet’s communication to us has been downright atrocious at times, I am leery of what exactly this is.

I feel like they are doing what the mobile games market is doing: Go after new players constantly. Let people play the game for a month or two and do very little in terms of retention. Go for constant turnover. That’s fine. I can take my business elsewhere. That bums me out though because I have played this franchise for over a decade. They seem to have had a change of heart about how they wanted to do things and instead of communicating that to us with their words, they did it with their actions.

I have quite a few questions about this pre-order before I even consider purchasing this.

In no particular order here they are:

• How many maps are there?

• How many sets of armor are there for me to earn through actual game play?

• How many weapons are there for me to earn through actual game play?

• Is every weapon type getting a new Legendary weapon?

• What is this challenging group content that hasn’t even been shown yet?

• How many glider skins are there for me to earn through playing the game -i.e. a vendor that I earn currency or reputation for and then once I have acquired enough of said currency I can get the glider skin-?

• Is the base game’s content getting new content to go with the “Old Tyria Mastery System”? I know that there is a separate mastery system being implemented for “Old Tyria” that is wholly different from the HoT Mastery system, what’s in it? Am I just replaying old content? I know we get credit for things we’ve done in the past, so are some of us who are crusty old vets just going to have all of this unlocked upon logging in and therefore will be finished with it upon login? How’s it work?

I have so many more questions, but this seems like a good base. I feel like asking me to pre-order a game that I know very little about, that has no hint at a release date or breadth of content contained therein is in really bad taste. This bad feeling I have coupled with the current perception issues and terrible communication going with your company right now is a red flag that I shouldn’t purchase this until I know more.

My feedback would be that a pre-order shouldn’t even have happened until all the info was released about what we are getting. Having to purchase this to get to see the beta is the wrong way to go about it. We should all get to play the betas for free to see if we want it at all. “Early Access” games are so hit or miss. Just because so many game makers do it doesn’t mean it’s in good taste.

Home instances were supposed to be more than they are now at launch. The good part is they decided against it so that they could monetize it later.

ArenaNet,

Jump in my time machine! We are setting the controls for January 2015, we are all at PAX South, and Mike and Colin are announcing HoT all over again. The hype is as real as the smell emanating from the mouth breathers and the neck beards. It’s the realest.

The HoT montages play. The crowd noisily bangs their noisemakers. People are in a frenzy. At the end of the presentation, Mike says, “New players, you will get the core game included with Heart of Thorns!” Everyone goes nuts!

Then he says, “Existing players, you will pay the same price as new players but you will only get the expansion!” The room goes dead silent. My bad. I switched the cue cards to be honest during the announcement so you guys could see what a mistake all of this is.

Think back to that day.

• You announced the new WvW Borderlands Map as if it was a part of the expansion pack. It isn’t a part of the expansion pack.

• You announced the new Stronghold PvP format as if it was a part of the expansion. It’s not.

• You announced the Revenant as part of the expansion without an asterisk that said, Character slot not included

I am done being diplomatic in my feedback anymore. It’s to the point with you guys where it’s downright dishonest in how you are selling us stuff. It’s not marketing anymore. It’s snake oil. Someone at that company has an idea that it’s OK to get up on a stage in front of people and sell the game as one thing and then offer something totally different 6 months later. It’s not OK. It’s deplorable.

Unless something changes dramatically: for the first time in GW history, Heart of Thorns will be the first standalone game or expansion pack that I will own zero copies of. I own multiple accounts of all the games.

• I am super stoked you are treating potential customers amazingly. You should. It’s called being a cool company.

• I am not stoked that you are treating those of us who have been with you for over 10 years like Ascalonian sewer feces.

EDIT: I went to edit this a few hours ago but the servers went down.

I am ticked because I purchased a copy of GW2 during a sale you guys had a few months ago because I wanted multiple copies and because the base game was required to get the x-pac. What better time to purchase a second copy than when you guys did a great sale for $10? Awesome! I got my second copy.

Fast forward to E3. I didn’t actually have to buy a second copy back then? Wait, what? Not only am I ticked about that, but it actually will be more worth it financially to buy the expansion and get a 3rd copy of the base game instead of linking the x-pac to that $10 second account I got a few months back. That way I will get extra laurels etc. from daily logins. Instead of doing that though, I think I will pass altogether. We don’t seem to be on the same page anymore when it comes to a customer/game maker relationship.

Gern.2978:

Masteries are literally the definition of horizontal progression. You do things in the world to level them, and they give you different benefits.

Masteries for making precursors are literally the definition of horizontal progression. Masteries for HoT are literally the definition of vertical progression. When you are required to do something in order to progress in a map it’s vertical progression. See that Mordrem over there? You can’t kill it without 5 points in that mastery. That’s vertical progression. Other games would say you need to be in this set of armor to do this content. ArenaNet has replaced gear score with mastery score. Same vertical progression, different coat of paint. Cosmetics=Horizontal. Game Progression=Vertical Progression.