Curse

stevedallas · Jun 23, 2007, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Hi

Admittedly, I stopped playing GW regularly in late April. A few things in the game that I felt needed to be addressed by aNet were never addressed and some of the updates to skills - well, they did a lot to push me away from the game.

I logged in tonight for the first time in a while to check out the Templar armor I read about (bought it, nice addition by the way) and was a bit surprised by what I saw.

As a prelude to the remainder of this post, I've been involved in another MMO (no, not Wow) since I left GW. At the time, aNet was still getting blasted on fansites about a long list of player complaints (which is also a factor in my decision to stop playing the game regularly). This was probably between late April - late May of this year. Now, on to my question...

Tonight, in no fewer than 5 outposts, I was witness to groups of players slamming aNet about their discontent with the state of the game. Players were still complaining about the same things they were complaining about 6 months ago.

I was a bit disturbed by much of the commentary and decided to check out some old posts on some of the fansites. I cant help it, I'm insatiably nosey. I had to find out what the real story was.

Much of what these people were complaining about seemed to be somewhat justified. Those of us who are familiar with the Game & Dev forum on this site are likely familiar with many of the sorts of things that players are growling about. Some things, like the lack of a trade system (a chat channel is not a system), have been addressed by aNet. On this specific example, aNet has flat out stated that they will not be adding the much requested auction house to GW1 and that there probably wont be one in GW2 at least not initially. With this specific example, in my mind, that means the subject is closed and that's that.

Gaile said it herself once, though. About 10 weeks ago, she flat out said that plans for hard mode became the telling instead of the doing. Honestly, the previous issues with some of the NF titles were a factor for me pursuing another game (well, after I completed them after HM came out). Fixes for these titles took more than 6 months and that was frustrating. I was surprised, though, to see that some people were still upset about that.

Everywhere I went tonight, I saw nothing but animosity towards aNet. I understand that people can easily become obsessive over something that grips them enough where they can be passionate about it. In the past, I too was very passionate about GW. But when my frustration with the game grew to a certain point, I made the decision to look elsewhere. So I don't understand why people who have such hard feelings towards a product wouldn't simply stop using the product.

Is this really a human characteristic? I dont mean to sound like a dunce but, could someone explain that to me?

One of the things that I saw mentioned was that people believe that aNet is interested in transitioning people off of GW1. This, of course, would seem logical when GW2 comes out but, I can't see aNet pursuing that now.

Anywho, I have a question or two that I would like aNet to address. I dont mean to put aNet on the spot and by all rights, aNet should not feel obligated to respond to this and the Guru moderators might even flag this post for deletion but, I figured I'd ask anyway because I'm curious to learn aNets perspective and to learn if what I've experienced with their customers reflects what they've been experiencing.

I'll itemize my questions:
1. Has aNet noticed a trend of animosity from their players?
2. If so, what does aNet feel is driving it? Is it uncertainty about GW2 or is it really discontent over game features and updates?
3. If so, how does aNet feel about it? Does aNet feel it is a passing trend? Does it make aNet feel unappreciated?
4. Thinking of a few responses to threads and posting of threads made by aNet staffers, does aNet feel that commentary made during the past two or three months is appropriate, professional and accurately reflects aNets feelings towards is customers?
5. If aNet has noticed this, does aNet have plans to address it? If so, how?

I'd again like to state that I dont mean to put anyone on the spot. I'd also like to request that nobody looks too deeply into any of these questions as I'm sure that they could be very easily perceived as hostile questions. That's not my intention.

I would have emailed aNet directly but, every time I do I'm told that my message wasn't read and that I should post it on a fansite.

I'd like to thank you in advance for reading this message and for responding if you choose to.

Best of luck!
-Steve

Inde · Jun 23, 2007, 05:26 AM // 05:26

stevedallas, while I appreciate the message and questions you are posing in this thread we have several all ready discussing these issues:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10170481

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10168366

You can feel free to move your post to one of these but I don't think another thread on this would be beneficial right now.