Guild Wars 2

gumoor.5674:

Unique, don’t buy the “unlucky” indictment. When someone says that, they are making an unfounded moral statement about you (or you’re doing it to yourself). If some were “luckier” than others then where are the multimillion dollar research grants to be able to find these people. Certainly, governments and businesses would be just as interested as the casinos.

I’m trained in statistics at the doctoral level, ok? Not bragging…just prefacing what I’m going to say next. In statistics, people think that it’s an objective science. That’s only true when it comes to the data. At the end of the day, a decision about the data is made from comparing it to some probability of certainty. Usually, they’ll say that such-and-such would only occur 5% or less of the time, so by that number, this finding is “significant”.

But, note that the 5% comparison is just some universally agreed upon standard for journal publication. But out in the real world, we deal with subjective probability. People draw their own conclusions based purely on observed data. That, in of itself, is not the way to go. However, when enough people come together sharing the same experience, the anecdotal experience now becomes shared by an increasing number of people and increases what is called convergent validity….and whether someone says “not enough data” or “you are unlucky” is irrelevant because people have already made up their mind that this bullkittens and they just aren’t buying it anymore.

10/10 post, well said.

For all we know the base odds of a rare or exotic item dropping could be so infinitesimally low that any bonus % to it would be negligible.
As long as we don’t know what number we are boosting by those +% we can assume whatever we want based on anecdotal evidence. And so far that evidence suggests that the base value may as well be 0

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

So why is this open world hidden behind 80 levels? Why not make the whole world an even playfield like it is for level 80s?

Why stop at WvW. Make everyone scale up or down to the area, everyone wins.

It worked for karka island, it works in the labyrinth, why not everywhere?

Because that’d wreck any sense of progression. Its like having a Mario game where world 8 is open to you straight away or a RPG where the first area is the final area, then you can go back and do the other areas. It doesn’t work.

Sure did for GW1

I’d have no qualms with it if they had lowered the level cap and made more areas level 80 zones.
Right now your character’s full potential only comes out in a select number of places.

Vayne.8563:

I have an idea. Let’s have one story for everyone and that’s it. Why have variety at all? And we should have one profession too. Maybe just one skill.

If someone just plays a warrior and nothing else, they’ll miss stuff in most games that other professions get to experience. Anet moved that from being a profession thing (most games have profession specific quests) to a race thing. That’s all. But they improved it.

One of the problems with MMOs IS replayability. Maybe you don’t like alts. That’s fine. But for people who do, maybe they don’t want to do the same thing over and over. In fact, for many people, having something that differentiates you from others of the same race and profession is golden. It’s one of the things I like best about this game.

One of the hardest things about MMOs is differentiating yourself from other people. Everyone has the same stupid gear. The same skins. The same dyes. Sure you can get a look if you work on it, but that’s just a look.

Of course, RPers make their own story but not everyone RPs..yet there are many people who there who don’t RP but still “feel” their character. The personal story makes it just that…personal.

And if you can’t experience all of it, I’m not sure why that’s such a big deal. It’s like any game where there are professions quests you miss out on if you don’t play every profession.

I agree.

If anything I think Anet should have “exclusived” the story even more.
I was kinda disappointed that your choice of profession does not affect the story in any way.
I was looking forward to find out how, why and where exactly my orphaned street rat learned the dark arts necessary to summon a blood fiend from the get go.
Oh well…

Vayne.8563:

And herein lies the problem. Nothing is “needed” per se, but there are things people want, and some things people want a lot.

Things aren’t implemented because you need them or I need them. They’re implemented for reasons. For example, keeping people playing the game is Anet’s reason for doing it.

See Anet created this game and thought this is a fun game, people will stay for the fun. But no amount of content is fun enough without new content to keep people logging in. Without people logging in, people say the game is dead and by word of mouth the game becomes dead.

So these not needed things to keep people playing are only not needed if you’re looking at the trees rather than the forest.

Does the game need to keep players logging in for the good of players who do like the game. I think the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

Sure some people will hate it and be lost along the way. That’s only natural. And those people will complain. That’s also natural and perfectly okay.

But is it needed. Unfortunately, it probably is.

No.

They could have focused on introducing extra skills, making more things a viable options (just how often do you see guards loaded up with spirit weapons, and engineers using the less popular kits?), fine-tuning balance, figuring out how to handle conditions properly, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

There are a TON of things Anet could have done to make people regain new interest in the game and keep them playing it, many of them objectively necessary for the quality of the game, but they chose the laziest way imaginable – the introduction of time gated, grindy, vertical progress that by your own words wasn’t even necessary.

It’s nothing to worry about.

I mean, I still haven’t been banned, seriously..

Ashadow.6874:

Pariah.8506:

If you were ranting about BiS gear I’d wholeheartedly agree but a Christmas Mini?
That’s as vain as vanity items go, it contributes nothing to the actual gameplay so truth be told I don’t see a problem silly items being hard to get.

Going off your statement, BiS gear could be considered just as vain. Seeing as you don’t need Ascended Gear, and it hardly gives any advantage over Exotic gear.

So basically what you are saying, is as long as it doesn’t affect you. It doesn’t matter.

Welcome to the reason why EVERYONE is being screwed over by the latest changes.

Because “it doesn’t matter to me so I’m not going to bother standing up against it and let them steamroll through with crappy ideas.”

The reason why they are doing all of this, is because the community (our community, not theirs, because they aren’t even part of it, they are designing the game for themselves and “allowing us graciously” to play it) is so fragmented, that we can’t stand up as a community against atrocious issues.

There are some smaller issues, some normal issues. And then there are the issues where they are steam rolling all over the player-base just because they can. And people “don’t think it affects them.”

If it wasn’t needed than it shouldn’t have been implemented in the first place. Because let’s face it: The game has tons of issues that need attention over implementing the stuff that by your words “isn’t needed”.
Second I don’t agree that it doesn’t make a difference at all, the bonus DPS is estimated to be between 5 and 10%, not to mention it will only increase once Ascended Armour makes its tragic appearance. We are at a point where less skilled players can outperform simply because they’ve spent the time grinding / bought their way to Ascended equipment.

Thirdly I disagree on your notion that every issue is equally important to the game. You can’t seriously tell me a minipet is equally important to problems with class balance, bugs, the state of conditions, content design etc. You can’t argue that all things are equally important to the game, yes, perhaps there should be something done about the materials necessary for the mini, but only after the true issues have been addressed.

http://youtu.be/LWwbHt8Au2c?t=10s

Never gets old.

Ashadow.6874:

So I remember this game, being touted as not being a grindy game.

Is this a sign of things to come?

Should we start preparing to save 10-20,000 of every item in the game, so that we can possibly afford the new content as it comes out?

Am I going to need 15,000 snowflakes to make a new Christmas Mini.

Why are you doing this to the player base? Is it fun for you to tell us we are not going to get a grind-y game, and then smack us in the face with the biggest grind-fests possible?

Thanks for the fair game, fun, casual game. Oh wait…

Also, by the way casual players. You no longer matter.

If you were ranting about BiS gear I’d wholeheartedly agree but a Christmas Mini?
That’s as vain as vanity items go, it contributes nothing to the actual gameplay so truth be told I don’t see a problem silly items being hard to get.

You guys are all having OP dreams..

This comes from someone who mains a guard.

Too bad team chat disappears once you’re kicked.

It’s like the system encourages this kind of behaviour.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

So… let me see if I understand this…
People are going into a server that isn’t being used anyway and are fighting/farming/whatever each other.
This effects you… how? This is detrimental to the game… how?
No exploits being used. No breaking of the ToS. No hacking of the game.

I don’t see any problems here…

I think it undermines how on can show off his rank.
On one hand you have the PvPer that goes through thick and thin and builds up rank which he is identified and respected by by strangers and on the other hand you have the guys that stand around naked taking turns killing each other attaining the same rank in a couple of days of excessive grinding.

In the end it devalues any meaning and prestige of PvP rank rendering it worthless.
IMO this isn’t a huge issue in the game but I can certainly see how people can get aggravated over it.

Katai.6240:

Pariah.8506:

KeyLimPi.9031:

Necro I can’t accurately tell you too much about aside from with dire gear, you’re going to be the biggest, tankiest, beefiest pair of training wheels you can be =P. It’s super simple and you can still be a massive help in zergs and havoc.

Not with how conditions work you can’t.

Conditions work fine in WvW. Epidemic would be your bread and butter. Propagating conditions to a huge patch of the enemy zerg is pretty fantastic.

Aside from that, though, Power Necros do incredibly well. Their Wells do fantastic AOE damage, and their death shroud benefits from Berzerkers as well.

Yeah, I was referring more to open world stuff where having more than 1 necro at any time is meaningless. I can agree on the WvW, from what I’ve picked up, haven’t done it much since it was always too dependant on numbers for my taste.

Lostwingman.5034:

Wolfheart.1938:

And do the 30 minutes a day to mine Ori/Ancient also give you the 60+ globs of ecto and 60+ T6 mats needed to level up one profession?

No, just playing the game does. I don’t even focus on grinding anything except maybe doing a few fast dungeon paths when I can. After about a month I had nearly 90 ectos and that’s with not even trying. Honestly I really should learn to stop listening to the initially whining on game forums. It’s way overblown how hard it is to acquire this stuff.

I agree.

The only thing people need to do to easily get Ascended gear is be like Lostwingman.
You just need to have the same RL time schedule and responsibilities as Lostwingman, play as much as Lostwingman, prefer the same playstyle and content as Lostwingman and have the same online circle of acquaintances as Lostwingman.

Problem solved, case closed.

Belenwyn.8674:

Even DEs and some Dungeons like COF are temporary content since they are not permanently available.

How pedantic.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Necro I can’t accurately tell you too much about aside from with dire gear, you’re going to be the biggest, tankiest, beefiest pair of training wheels you can be =P. It’s super simple and you can still be a massive help in zergs and havoc.

Not with how conditions work you can’t.

Work.

I’m serious, let’s assume you live where I live and go by the minimum wage here: 8.43€ / hour for a 38 hour week.
Roughly estimated you’d need to work for 3 hours to buy a 25€ (Because € and $ are apparently equivalent) gem card netting you 2000 gems.
100 gems currently sell for 4g 25s according to gwspidy, meaning that 20 × 4.25= 85
To sum it up: 85g / 3 hours or 28g 33s / hour

A good farming standard is 10g / hour, which is obviously blown out of the water by the money buying method by a factor of nearly 3.

In other words you’re better off not playing the game, just don’t forget to buy those gems, valued customer.

Einlanzer.1627:

They need to focus on permanent growth and expansion of the game world to actually keep players engaged and motivate lapsed players to return to the game.

What? You don’t like the Southsun cove?

Some weapons are simply useless. Will they get fixed, or just completely reworked as they should be?

No, they won’t.
Meanwhile we still have stuff like the No.3 skill on Thief Pistol and Dagger with no offhand which just boggle my mind why they are there in the first place.

If you like playing support than your best bet would be to roll an elementalist, they have access to a lot of combo fields that can be helpful provided your teammates aren’t stupid enough to use them properly.

Mesmers are notorious for their boring levelling since most of the class’ depth lies in the traits which you can only fully explore once you’re 80.

Great post OP!!

Don’t listen to the critique Anet, why should the words of those nasty haters matter anyway?

The only thing I miss from these is the spiffy look, but that’s an engine issue and another discussion altogether.

Other than that everything in these trailers is in the game, albeit just less cinematic because you know.. these are trailers, they do what trailers do.

EverythingEnds.4261:

In other games which contain PvP, this behavior is usually even forbidden and you can be banned for this, but it seems in GW2 ANet doesnt care.

Yes they do.

chemiclord.3978:

Nokaru.7831:

Finally, the way they handled Agony Resistence is ridiculous. It was meant to be a form of progression for Fractals of the Mists, but now you can attain more Resistance via Guild Missions and now Ascended Crafting. How does it make any sense that players progress through Fractals of the Mist by not doing Fractals? It is completely dysfunctional progression.

It WAS initially only available through Fractals.

Players whined and complained that they shouldn’t have to do Fractals to get the gear that only mattered in Fractals. I’m not kidding.

Except it not only has more stats but also way more stat combinations than craftable exotic trinkets?

generalraccoon.3857:

Vayne.8563:

generalraccoon.3857:

I hate RNG as well, but I have to say, I don’t mind so much the fractal/ascended rings mechanic right now. I got lucky a number of times with them, I stored some and heyy, eventually when refining my alts build i can actually use some of those rings. Otherwise that pile of pristine relics would do just the trick.

Fractal weapons are a different matter. You have to go through ALL the stuff to see if u get a chance for it or not. I got 2 so far after countless running, but neither are the ones I really want. I got a focus, which a good friend of mine wanted but since these are account bound, i cant give it to him. Similiarly 2 guildies that ran with me got my one true fractal holy grail, the Fractal Rifle, and NEITHER of them really use rifles. They would have given it to me in a heart beat, if they could… but of course, account bound.This for me is the 2nd most annoying RNG in the game, and its quite close to the 1st.

Top spot for annoying RNG for me, by principle, were those karka/sclerite skins and those jade dragon skins. Not only were they temporary, but even their gemstore method of acquisition is RNG. on the gemstore. where real money could be involved.

See this game really is like Guild Wars 1.

Voltaic spear, frog scepter, celestial compass, mini yakkington, mini polarbear, zodiac weapons, hell even just ecto and lockpick drops. Black and white dyes.

People who play Guild Wars 1 say there’s nothing in Guild Wars 2 like Guild Wars 1. I submit that they’re wrong. lol

lol, wasnt really there for GW1. Wish I had but oh well… I guess things were bad back then too huh?

Yes, it was horrible.

You could acquire BiS gear for PENNIES if not for FREE! The horror! The horror…

My guild is the only reason I still log in on weekends.

Mesket.5728:

jheryn.8390:

Pariah.8506:

Nobody forgot the GW1 fans.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Because nobody cared about them to begin with

What a tool. There was no reason for this comment.

Ignore him. There is always that one guy… 99.9% of the time is pure envy

Can I at least know what I’m supposed to be envious of?
Thank you ^^

Vayne.8563:

Oh and you ENTERED that area, or you saw it floating above you while you stood at a tent in LA.

Yeah….some city.

You mean a kingdom would keep refugees from entering the actual city, allowing them only access to a small area in front of the main gate? Gee, sounds almost like something from real life!

Not to mention the kingdoms of Tyria were all fighting each other before the Charr invasion shook everything up, those Ascalonian refugees and armed forces were basically the very recent enemy of Kryta.

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who can begin to compare something like LA with something like Divinity’s Reach in Guild Wars 2 is being completely disingenuous.

Look everyone, it’s a painting you can look at but can’t enter.

So you’re holding GW1 culprit of running a 7 years older engine? Really?

So when is it exactly that Ascended armour is going to rear its ugly head? Next Update? Or will it be announced later?

Vayne.8563:

I’d probably be more sympathetic to your statement if Prophecies has anything that even remotely resembled a city in the first place…but it doesn’t.

I think the old Lion’s Arch looked more like an encampment than a city, and I was very disappointed when I first got there, after hearing about it.

Whatever you say Vayne

Nike.2631:

To complete the trifecta, you need to die from an elementalist who never once targeted you and an engineer who isn’t even there (yay turrets).

People use turrets?

leng jai.2961:

Just when you thought Anet couldn’t put anything more ridiculous in the gem shop this happens.

Well you know there is the transmutation stone reset thingy…

Because you know, you buy a transmuted weapon and want to change it back to its original look.. Oh wait

Adine.2184:

( build diversity my centaur it was all PvX wiki)

Any game, sport, competitive activity will always be min/ maxed and optimised.

Does that mean only professional players can enjoy a game of soccer?
Does it mean chubby people can’t run a NY city marathon at their own pace?

No, it doesn’t.
Of course there was the PvX wiki but that doesn’t mean you had to use it, you could come up with a myriad of your own builds truly unique to your playstyle and enjoy the game just fine with that.

Here I cannot do that, I can not remove and replace Thief D/D skills No. 3 & 4 from my skillbar even though I don’t use them. I can’t make a build that resonates with how I play, because no matter what over half the skills on my bar are there regardless whether I want them there or not.

Oh and expanding the lore vastly differs from shoving some things up the attic and blatantly retconning others.

I’m sure you’ll soon be able to salvage it into Bloodstone Dust

Hawkian.6580:

If you want to kill him and are on a server that does kill him consistently, great. You’ll probably need to give yourself some time beforehand to make sure you get a spot, and the window varies from server to server, but otherwise you’re all set.
If you want to kill him and are not on a server that kills him consistently, you can join one of the kill squad guilds specifically for this purpose. Or you can rally your guild and lead an overflow yourselves. Make squads, assign roles, give instructions in map chat and drop helpful items. It’s actually pretty kitten fun.
If you do not want to kill him, just leave him to terrorize the Splintered Coast and go about your day.

You’re absolutely right, it’s not a big deal to have to wait for over an hour to do the content you want, it’s not a big deal to have that time wasted by people afk or purposefully trolling on the turrets, it’s not a big deal getting disconnected and thrown out of the event you helped organise so carefully – barring you from any and all rewards, it’s not a big deal the game engine is not optimised for this kind of event making the intended strategy a gamble (jumping over the lagging wave animation etc.), it’s not a big deal that the game does not provide the proper platform for the level of organisation this event requires, and it certainly isn’t a big deal the event makes entire classes obsolete due to a flawed and long overdue for fixing condition system.

There is indeed nothing wrong.
At all.

khani.4786:

Places polls could appear
1. In-game popup – immersion breaking but reaches the most number of players
2. In-game icon (top left)- not immersion breaking but easily ignored
3. In-game mail – not necessarily immersion breaking but might just be ignored
4. To our login email address – reaches everyone but easily ignored
5. Login Screen – reaches everyone that plays regularly but unless it is prominent no one will notice it.
6. Forums – You’ll only get people who visit the forums and not a representative group

Just give achievement points for answering the poll. Maximum participation guaranteed.

Nobody forgot the GW1 fans.

No.

You’d have to remake the AI to actually play the same game you’re playing, rethink how players are rewarded instead of endless RNG, add more skills to actually give us full skillbar customisation, which would require rebalancing the entire game from a DPS race into meaningful roles in combat, rethink the placement of mobs in the open world to reflect said changes, severely minimise time gated content and etc. etc. etc.

I agree with all the replies you got Charak, it’s all your fault, the game is perfect in every way.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Pariah.8506:

GW2 is releasing (and is going to release even more) ‘higher numbers’ gear to give people a faux sense of progression – the one that levelling failed to offer.

I disagree with this assessment. However, having read your other posts I’m not going to bother arguing with you as it would be a waste of my time. I will simply leave it at your opinion and mine differ greatly.

Let’s strike a deal: You give me your reasons for disagreeing because I am genuinely curious about other people’s point of view and in turn I promise I won’t spin this out into a long discussion. I promise not to reply to your explanation and just leave it as is.

rjnemer.7816:

Dungeons (as they are now) should not reward ascended gear.

I can’t wait to see dungeons becoming a wasteland à la Southsun once ascended armour is released.
It’ll be glorious.

Leo G.4501:

the game helps to harbor team cooperative play and tactics

lolwut?

Leo G.4501:

I think the game has a lot it can improve on, but it doesn’t need to dumb down the enemies, that’s for sure.

Nobody said anything about dumbing them down. Look at the ‘GW1 had better Ai than GW2’ thread, in GW1 you had enemies that were university professors compared to their GW2 counterparts and didn’t have CC galore nor were they the massive damage sponges GW2 dungeon enemies are.

But it seems that as far as Anet is concerned it thinks that challenging diffiuculty is nothing else but the sum of a mob’kittenpoints and its amount of CC abilities.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Answer this question, while you’re at it. Why do so many players who complain about lack of difficulty reject the suggestion that they just kitten their character?

It’s a mental thing. A lot of people only feel ‘good’ about their character when they can generate those huge numbers. They don’t feel like they are getting any better unless they have the ever climbing stats. “Oh look at me, I’m awesome, I do so much damage I can just faceroll through the game. No skill required”

shrug We could go into the whole human psychology thing… and I started to, but opted to delete it. It’s just too long and boring to be honest. Chalk it up to its a mental drawback of the human ego, the inability to outgrow the need be “the big bad.” Some might say it’s a form of compensation….

WoW has increasing numbers to everything over the course of its expansions to give players a faux sense of progression, that their grind is paying off.
GW2 is releasing (and is going to release even more) ‘higher numbers’ gear to give people a faux sense of progression – the one that levelling failed to offer.

Notice the similarity? This is it, it is the future of Guild Wars 2, today. Witness it and bask in its infinity.

Dondarrion.2748:

Regarding pt. 3 and the ascended crafting… you loved GW1, I take it. Obsidian Armor, Destroyer Weapons, Vabbian Armor… was it for everyone?

Newsflash: All that expensive gear was all look and had the bloody exact same stats as a broadsword you could buy for literally pennies.

Buttercup.5871:

Vayne.8563:

You’re right. You shouldn’t have to keep at at all…and you don’t have to keep up. There’s no reason to keep up. All the content can be done in rares, never mind exotics. The only exception is high level fractals which aren’t really casual content anyway.

MMOs need content for everyone. Saying a game is casual friendly doesn’t mean a casual should be able to do everything in the game.

As it is, a casual can still do most things in the game. There’s plenty of stuff to keep casual players busy.

What casual players shouldn’t be doing is stopping Anet from coming out with more challenging content for everyone else.

After all 90% plus of this game is casual.

Wow. I very rarely agree with Vayne. But I think Vayne is making a very, very good point here which goes to the very heart of this discussion.

What do you need ascended weapons for? Ask yourself this question, and answer it truthfully. Think about it.

You need it for very limited content that is not designed to be played by casuals. What people fail to acknowledge is that that’s ok. There can and should be content that is not designed to be bested by everyone. It’s healthy, and it gives everyone in the game something to strive for.

Let go of this concept that anyone should be able to achieve everything this game has to offer. Just let go, it’s OK.

If it isn’t necessary than there was no reason to waste resources implementing it. The game has far more serious matters pending attention than a new tier of geargrind. And Anet ended up investing time and money into something that was unnecessary and appalled a lot of players who were expecting – going on what Anet had been saying over and over – to have an easily attainable even equipment playing field with a grind that would concern cosmetic looks only.
They could have instead do oh so many things that urgently needed to be done since the beginning of the game but chose to do something that was not necessary, uncalled for and pure hypocrite in regard to their former statements.

Vayne.8563:

Pariah.8506:

Draknar.5748:

How can I decrease my fun factor to a more appropriate level, more in-line with the forums’ viewpoints,

You can go play Anet’s previous game and realise what could have been.

I played Guild Wars 1 for five years. It was a great game. In many ways, it was a better game than Guild Wars 2.

And in many ways Guild Wars 2 is a better game than Guild Wars 1.

I know a lot of Guild Wars 1 players have these rose colored glasses, but you know, I felt like I was this ranger, exploring the wild, and I’d come up to a log look at it mournfully, knowing I couldn’t step over it and I had to turn around. Some ranger I was.

Guild Wars 1 was a great game…but it had its deficiencies too. Frankly, if I never sell anything in Spamadan again, it’ll be too soon.

You could say GW1 was more.. grounded.

But in all seriousness yeah, the game is lacking in some points, simplistic movement being one of them.

As for trading I really though Anet would combine the best of both worlds, I met many people that would become my in game friends through trading, trading forced you to interact with other players, which was great. It made things personal and bolstered the community.
And at the same time the most basic items should have been kept for a Trading Post system to avoid the tedium of standing and shouting how you’re buying Iron fruitlessly for half an hour until the right person comes along.

The pity about GW2’s auction is that it ruined the economy making absolutely everything available through it and it alone. I seem to remember some economists even used GW2 as an example of the real world’s financial crisis pointing out how it would be cheaper to buy the end product than to buy the ingredients and manufacture the product yourself using your own skill.

Draknar.5748:

How can I decrease my fun factor to a more appropriate level, more in-line with the forums’ viewpoints,

You can go play Anet’s previous game and realise what could have been.

Raine.1394:

All designers, and especially new hires, should be forced to spend a week there and then write a paper on what is wrong with it.

Please, I don’t think the suicide statistic needs to be any higher than it already is.

Buttercup.5871:

Smith.1826:

Thanks for the write-up, OP. It’s nice to be able to read it in full.

On that note, it honestly just feels like one big fancy commercial.

And while we’re on the subject of posting things said by devs, my favorite piece has to be the one by Jeff Strain, “How To Create A Successful MMO”: http://www.guildwars.com/events/tradeshows/gc2007/gcspeech.php

That speech was an extremely interesting read. Thank you!
Here is why:

“An MMO must deliver content at three distinct stages: the early game, which is the first twenty hours, the mid game, which is the first few hundred hours, and the late game, which is at a thousand hours and beyond.”

Now compare it against the last PAX interview, given by Colin:

http://imgur.com/a/Bk3UN

During this interview, Colin essentially explained that they made a mistake in their development of the game. He said that they had not expected players to reach the exotic tier gear so quickly, which is essentially why they introduced the ascended stat tier.

Now put 1 and 1 together. In order to fix their mistake, and remain a succesful MMO, they had to make a choice:

1) make a change to the “late game”, so that GW2 would have the necessary ingredient they considered essential for any succesful MMO. Namely, that your game should be designed such that players will reach the late stage of the game after having played it for more than 1,000 hours; or
2) distance themselves from the manifesto, and disappoint players that thought they had already reached the “late game”. In order to ease this pain, and to keep the old customer base happy, new content was promised on a 2-weekly basis, which admittedly is something no MMO to date has been able to pull off.

They had to make a very tough choice. It could well be that they made this choice based on the future. Let’s not forget that this future includes, amongst others, attracting millions of new players from Asia.

“I, for one welcome our new Chinese overlords”

penatbater.4710:

Even if you’re facing multiples of them, you still should be able to kite, dodge, and stunbreak their knockbacks/knockdowns.

Go aggro several reef drakes and fight them in open field combat.
Don’t forget to record the fight, this forum can use a bit of entertainment.

Red Falcon.8257:

cesmode.4257:

Why was ascended really introduced into the game?

Because most of this very community demanded for it during the first 2 months of release, threatening to quit in mass if it wasn’t introduced.
They wanted another tier to work for slowly, Anet didn’t want to insert a treadmill, people wanted it.

But yeah, it’s easy to just blame Anet for what players did.

In the immortal words of JC Denton: “Do you have a single fact to back that up?”