OP forgot to mention a few things.
Yeah, we didn't want to overload it too much. The idea for presenting it as a comic was to keep it light instead of an info-dump, and give room for some snark and guild personality to show through (one GAFer was banned for "proselytizing" in a gaming side thread, for example).
We knew some things needed larger explanations (Megaservers, PVP changes), while some things we could tuck into each other (account-wide dyes are in with wardrobe). We made a big list of all the features and whittled it down to the big ones.
Everything on your list could and rightfully should be in there, but in the interest of keeping it a little less wall-o-text-y we skimmed on the lighter features. I originally had a panel where the human was knocked out by a wall of text criting for 9999 damage though. Maybe I'll stick it back in and toss in the rest of your list. We mostly just wanted to get it up last night.
Account-wide dyes should have been there since Day 1.
Technically, they were there at Day -100 and change. Dyes were account-wide in the BWE, but instead of just clicking unidentified dyes to identify them, you found "Colorful Dye Seeds" that you then had to take to an NPC so they'd grow them. The whole process took 24 hours per dye, unless you bought Magic Plant Food from the gem store.
They cut the cash-shop option out really quick, but obviously there was room somewhere between the two. It's unfortunate it took a year and a half, but it's almost here.
I wonder if they will ever work on an expansion and introduce a new class or two. I'm waiting on and awesome update like that, I also really with mesmer was like it was in GW1 :/.
They seem content to stick with the professions they have now, but they've said nothing is off to table for future Feature Updates. We're more likely to see the existing professions get new weapon choices first, then new weapon types overall (which, because of the way weapons work, would be like adding a new playstyle to them), then probably new classes last.
As for Mesmers, one of their new Grandmaster traits is generating a lot of buzz because it specifically has shades of the GW1-style mesmer; "
Power Block: Interrupted skills now have a cooldown of 10s (default is only ~4s)."
I have friends who insist on telling me this whole thing does little to bring new players and does nothing but pissing off veterans. I have no way to tell though.
Get new friends
. A lot of GAFers (myself included) have been playing since the first Beta Weekend, which is about as 'veteran' as you can get without having played it at Gamescom. The response has generally been positive, so no, not
all of the veterans are pissed off.
The video you linked makes the same mistake that plexcide does above; this is a
feature update, meant to give players a lots of new mechanics, quality-of-life improvements and balance changes. It has never been advertised as a content patch, that's always been part of the Living Story. Someone who plays as much as Nike knows this, he's just dragging out the old "rawr, no end game" argument for... whatever reason compels people to do that. When he starts talking about "Endgame", "Speed Clear Records", etc. I start to feel a tad queasy. I also disagree with his statement that the feature patch doesn't add any replayability; it absolutely does, just not the kind
he wants. For example, traveling all over the game looking for new skins to add to the wardrobe is going to add a
shitload of hours to the game for a
lot of people.
Death and Taxes is just
waaaaaaaay too serious for this game's open-ended playstyle, I would take anything they have to say about Guild Wars 2's design with a bucket of salt. I mean, let's be completely fair and honest; Guild Wars 2 is a pretty laid-back, casual MMO, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But it's never going to be the kind of game those kind of players want, and that's a
good thing, because there's already too many of them out there now (and more coming soon). GW2 is different, and this video strikes me as the proverbial square peg bitching that the round hole should just change already.
But maybe the sale will last that long too!
Ends April 13th. Doesn't make much sense to me either, but if people want to pick it up now while the iron is eating up, that's the lowest damn price I've ever seen it.