I caught up (both on the article and the thread).
On the article, Retro is right. It sucks. Not because it's negative (it really isn't), but because it's bad. The interview contains no new information and the presentation of the article is essentially provocative in premise without following through on that premise, existing just to get clicks. Everyone should agree that consolidating and streamlining the use of the various currencies in the game would be a good thing. I cannot imagine who would oppose such a change. Simply making every kind of account-bound stackable item able to be deposited in the bank would, for me, get us 90% of the way there.
The thread, on the other hand, isn't about the article. The thread is "post what you think is good or bad about Guild Wars 2." And I have yet to see any compelling explanation as to how such a "debate"- more a series of isolated lists of complaints occasionally countered with either contrasting opinion or objective correction, both of which will be largely ignored- is good for anyone on any "side" of the discussion.
I'd like to make a single post in there essentially extending an invitation to people who are interested to join the guild and experience the best the game has to offer, but despite the good intentions of the few (credit due to Einbroch, indeed) the overarching atmosphere is hostile. This is incredibly common in discussions about MMOs that are not self-selecting; i.e., people joining that thread to post a comment may have been browsing GAF for absolutely any purpose, not specifically to talk about GW2 (whether they enjoy it or not). The exact same thing was witnessed in the OT in the first weeks after launch, and the first few pages of this OT2. So I will continue to do what I began to do then, which is simply PM the above invitation personally to those posting in the thread who might get something out of it, rather than engaging directly.
I was surprised and sort of humbled that so many of you (GAFGuild) were in there posting factual counters and defending the game. It does make me feel a little guilty for not getting involved when I see obvious misinformation or deeply lazy criticisms, just because I don't want to deal with getting embroiled in it. I admit it's mainly a pet peeve, but it is always excruciating to read "the combat is shit." Everyone should be able to recognize the difference between this, a subjective opinion expressed as objective fact, and "I hate the combat," which is an opinion expressed as an opinion.
This has already been covered, but it's pretty important to acknowledge the difference between
true problems- I'd use the number of currency items that occupy bank space, and culling as very solid examples- and issues of personal preference. The vast majority of complaints in that thread and about the game in general really do fall into the latter category. No one,
no one is on the side of "culling is great for the game and should stay in." But when it comes to ascended gear, the holy trinity, the combat, "grind," "gear treadmills," vertical versus horizontal progression, content additions, "endgame," dungeon quality, how much there is to do, how fun or stable WvW or PvP are, how unique or bland the skills are, how traditional an MMO it is, the direction the game needs to go-
all of this comes down to personal preference, and ArenaNet cannot and should not code their game to cater to
your individual personal preferences. What they should do is devote resources to solving
true problems and adding
new stuff. I've been thrilled to see that the overwhelming majority of the time, this is exactly what they have been doing every month.
I did want to address a small number of posts in there.
The new daily grind 'living story' and downright terrible Lost Shores stuff certainly didn't help. Why launch a new zone devoid of interesting content (other than a mining node) ?
I am dying for what's coming to live up to its potential, rendering this pair of sentences hilarious in hindsight.
Spend most of my time as a Guardian cycling through my auto attack animations. Every 5 seconds when using a hammer I can press 2 for extra damage.
What a riot.
My friend, my Guardian is level 16 and I can already tell there is way more to it than that. With the trait options I've been looking over plus full runes and sigils it's pretty clear to me that it will eclipse my expectations for the class as far as depth. I previously assumed all your comments about Guardian being boring were coming from a place of knowing the class really well and just not finding it to your taste, but maybe you need to dive into it a little more?
Trying to please to cater for all, instead of just providing for the core. No one is happy.
Since you came into this thread and called us out for not engaging in conversation in
that thread, I feel compelled to point out how absolutely unconstructive your posts in the thread in question have been. A vague, subjective generalization like this with zero basis in fact adds nothing to the discussion and,
were the discussion actually worthwhile, would actually get in the way of the debate by being so void of value.
- ArenaNet is not trying to please or cater to everyone. If you are looking for an actual hardcore gear grind, which in the right game can be deeply addictive and enjoyable, Guild Wars 2 will be incredibly disappointing. They do not care at all about providing that sort of experience. In the same vein, ArenaNet will never remove downscaling/sidekicking from the game. If you want to be invincible in the newbie zones at max level, GW2 is not the game for you.
- They are absolutely providing for the core. Providing an enormous number of things, actually. More than I would have expected this far out from launch, and more types of changes for the core than it would even have occurred to me to provide. The problem is that you are considering the wrong segment of the playerbase to be the core. Hint: the vocal minority is not the core, and it is barely ever even close to a decent representation of it.
- I don't know how one would gauge player happiness by any reasonable metric, but if we can agree just to use concurrency, literally hundreds of thousands of people are happy, which would make "no one" something of an undersell.
"Yes, but that's not grinding. It's just a reward for playing the game!" but if WoW does it... yeah that's grinding, cos it's bad, mkay.
This appears to be basic trolling. It should be obvious to anyone who has played a single character halfway to max level how wholly distinct the design philosophy is with regard to this sort of thing between the two games. If you wish to label both "grinding" nonetheless then go for it, but that does nothing to change the reality of the experience. Maybe you could clarify why you said this.