It's been some time since I played Guild Wars 2. When it was first announced, I was really impressed with its ambitious-looking design, the way it provided, for its time, a fresh new sort of MMO gameplay with dynamic events and group play taking precedent over linear fetch quests for stationary NPC, a combat system that emphasized mobility and customizing fighting style over spamming special attacks (while standing in place taking turns with the enemy hitting one another), a more personalized storyline, and several other features that are being seen in more MMOs these days. Oh, and most importantly, NO SUBSCRIPTION FEES.
For some time after it first came out the game was -the- hot new contender for the best MMO on the market. You could easily argue that it was revolutionary for its time, or if not revolutionary then at least different from the majority in the combination of elements it brought to the table. I for one was a huge fan of it at launch and for some time afterward. But in time, the game changed. The easygoing pace the developers seemed to be taking with the game's overarching plot was dropped (rather soon, in my own opinion) for what a friend of mine rather accurately referred to as a "monster of the week" format, where a new plot-relevant event that spanned the entire game world would happen. In truth, in GW2's case, it was about once every two weeks, but still that seems incredibly frequent, at least to me. Even at its worst, WoW would usually have content patches that announced the next big event in the overall storyline maybe once a month.
For me, that wore out GW2's appeal fast. Being given time to digest and work through all the content provided in an MMO at my own pace had been, in the beginning, one of the huge selling points of GW2 to me. When the developers suddenly decided they were going to try and run the game like an HBO series, with some time-sensitive event occurring every other week, I got tired of it. I kept missing events because I'd occasionally feel like taking a break and concentrating on another game during my free time. But apparently I was expected to play the game at least once a day. I can only speak for myself, but nothing kills fun for me quicker than turning something into an obligation. I quite even before the end of the Scarlet Briar plot; I was just so sick of feeling like I didn't factor into the plot of a game that had been marketed heavily on the promise of my story being key. I felt the game had turned into just another theme park MMO, with little to no roleplaying value in it.
Sometime after leaving GW2, I'd heard that with the end of the Scarlet Briar arc, there was some sort of change to the game, though exactly what was changed seemed hazy to me. It sounded like there might have been some sort of change to the plot progression, but I wasn't sure and even then, I wasn't motivated enough to go back and see for myself. Now, however, it seems like news about the game has gone silent. I haven't heard anything new about GW2 for some time.
I have to admit, this has me curious. Does anyone know what's going on with GW2 lately? Have they picked the "new plot twist every two weeks" format back up again? Have they given up on the bi-weekly plot events and switched to expansion packs? Is the game just flat-out dead and no longer getting developer support? I'm curious what's happened to this game that started out with so much potential, but seemed to stumble and flag behind after time.
For some time after it first came out the game was -the- hot new contender for the best MMO on the market. You could easily argue that it was revolutionary for its time, or if not revolutionary then at least different from the majority in the combination of elements it brought to the table. I for one was a huge fan of it at launch and for some time afterward. But in time, the game changed. The easygoing pace the developers seemed to be taking with the game's overarching plot was dropped (rather soon, in my own opinion) for what a friend of mine rather accurately referred to as a "monster of the week" format, where a new plot-relevant event that spanned the entire game world would happen. In truth, in GW2's case, it was about once every two weeks, but still that seems incredibly frequent, at least to me. Even at its worst, WoW would usually have content patches that announced the next big event in the overall storyline maybe once a month.
For me, that wore out GW2's appeal fast. Being given time to digest and work through all the content provided in an MMO at my own pace had been, in the beginning, one of the huge selling points of GW2 to me. When the developers suddenly decided they were going to try and run the game like an HBO series, with some time-sensitive event occurring every other week, I got tired of it. I kept missing events because I'd occasionally feel like taking a break and concentrating on another game during my free time. But apparently I was expected to play the game at least once a day. I can only speak for myself, but nothing kills fun for me quicker than turning something into an obligation. I quite even before the end of the Scarlet Briar plot; I was just so sick of feeling like I didn't factor into the plot of a game that had been marketed heavily on the promise of my story being key. I felt the game had turned into just another theme park MMO, with little to no roleplaying value in it.
Sometime after leaving GW2, I'd heard that with the end of the Scarlet Briar arc, there was some sort of change to the game, though exactly what was changed seemed hazy to me. It sounded like there might have been some sort of change to the plot progression, but I wasn't sure and even then, I wasn't motivated enough to go back and see for myself. Now, however, it seems like news about the game has gone silent. I haven't heard anything new about GW2 for some time.
I have to admit, this has me curious. Does anyone know what's going on with GW2 lately? Have they picked the "new plot twist every two weeks" format back up again? Have they given up on the bi-weekly plot events and switched to expansion packs? Is the game just flat-out dead and no longer getting developer support? I'm curious what's happened to this game that started out with so much potential, but seemed to stumble and flag behind after time.