I've tried to write this post a number of times in order to express my
disappointment in and frustration with the new
"Feature Pack"
that Guild Wars 2 released on April 15, 2014. It's taken me nine days to
personally digest the monumental game changes, sort through public opinion of
them, and boil it all down into something that makes sense to me.
Then I realized that through out the whole process one important question
remained unanswered. "Why?" Why did the development team at ArenaNet feel these
changes had to be made? Sure, they gave a myriad of reasons in the teaser
articles they shared under the guise of keeping us informed. Those reasons
ranged from the typical need to balance the game to untypical need to keep our
armor from clipping during combat. In fact, pre-release the game developers
seemed very free with information, as if they wanted us to understand what was
going to happen to the game. Looking back now, I see that those articles are
full of just enough of the right kind of information to head off a pre-release
revolt.
I have eight characters. Seven of them are below the maximum level of 80. Thanks
to the reengineering of traits, I now have no desire to level them the rest of
the way to 80. My sense of progression, my sense of accomplishment, has been
completely wiped out. If I wanted to grind levels, I'd go back to
Lineage II! The really
sad thing is, though, that when I heard about having to hunt grandmaster traits
in the open world a la the original Guild Wars, I was very excited. I loved the
thrill of finding the boss, killing it, and taking it's elite skill for my own.
How much fun would it be to do that in Guild Wars 2? Well, not much, to be
honest. Join a zerg (if you're lucky enough to be on at event's scheduled time -
because everything's scheduled now), auto-attack, and go get a snack. No thrill.
No excitement. Whooo, you got the grandmaster trait. Whoopee. Pretty soon I'll
be able to face-roll the keyboard and win the game!
One group this "Feature Pack" has shined a lot of light on are the role players.
I'm not a role player myself but I feel for them and the fact that their
communities, and role playing in the game in general, have been shredded by the
institution of the mega-servers. Not only are they are being trolled (sometimes
rather rudely, too), but they've lost the ability to tell the stories they want,
how they want, when they want, and with whom they want. They can't meet up with
friends or guild mates to role play because the mega-server has spread them
across various shards with no way to sync up except to log in and out
repeatedly. Even then there is no guarantee they'll all make it to the same
shard.
I'm not even going to go into the new wardrobe, dye, transmutation, and town
clothes fiasco except to ask, "Why?"
Why, ArenaNet? What was the thinking behind the redesign of these game systems?
As professionals, you should know that to take away a player's sense of
progression in a game is a huge, HUGE, no-no. You should also know that messing
with the cosmetic elements of the game is also a huge no-no. As an aspiring game
and narrative designer, I'd love to know what the thought process was behind
these changes.
As an avid player that loves Guild Wars 2, I'd love to see these changes rolled
back. Please. Give back my reason to pla
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