Disclaimer: This is just my personal theory based purely on observation of Anet’s behavior through 7 years of GW1 and 5 yrs of GW2 development. I have no special insider information about Anet and as such this theory probably constitutes speculation. Please note, (although I don’t like the new gier tier) this is not a complaint thread about ascended gear so pls don’t make it one. I am also not commenting as to whether it is right or wrong for Anet to ‘go back’ on the manifesto, but rather only trying to provide what might be a plausible explanation.
In a nutshell, my theory on why GW2 deviates from the core values of the original GW (even after the PR manifesto) is because Anet is essentially not the same team as it was when GW was first created. Many who held prominent roles in building the original GW such as founders Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain, and team lead James Phinney are gone. Some of those members were the ones who championed GW’s values such as equitable playing field, horizontal progression, and anti-grind philosophy. Going from GW1 to GW2, Anet had to expand their team exponentially bringing in many new members with diverse mmo gaming values (coming from different backgrounds and such… many members probably never did play GW1 and/or had experience in other mmos who feature vertical progression much more prominently). I seem to remember one video of Colin (I may be wrong) saying how it feels strange that he can walk by employees in the hallway and have absolutely no idea who they are. This shows that Anet as an organization is quite horizontal in structure where members are given autonomy for the content they create. Many of these new members now hold influential roles in GW2 development and as such, the portions of the game they produce may not have been built with the original GW1 core values in mind. They’ve also hired some staff that (in my opinion) may have had a ‘not so nice’ influence on the game to fill (in my opinion) wholly unnecessary roles. Specifically I am referring to the ex-Nexon cash shop master and a chief economist. I honestly think the community would be better served if they used those salaries to hire some more skill balancers (2 ppl in that department =x).
I guess I’m not too shocked by the vertical progression b/c from the employees leaving (on amicable terms i might add), and the influx of many new staff, to the introduction of the gems concept, I already started to look at Anet as another developer altogether who only shares the same name as their ‘predecessor’. Their focus on statistics instead of player feedback and the monetization of the game through cash shop, made it clear that they were moving in a different direction than the “we make games for the players, they are our strongest inspiration and driving force” like they used to proclaim. I don’t blame them at all because after all they are a business. The only reason they made the manifesto was because they had to appease their most-likely initial playerbase (ex-GW1) players in order to generate hype and solidify initial cash flow (to cover 5 yrs of development costs and appease NCsoft). Again just a PR move based on a sound business plan. They probably never intended to use the manifesto as their ‘constitution’ in the first place.
SUMMATION: Arenanet has changed the direction of GW2 away from the manifesto simply because the manifesto is based on core values of the previous Anet team and does not really reflect the values of the current Anet. Again, this is simply my theory based on some things I’ve noticed.
