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Exposing the Truth, Past and Present.
Finit
Member Posts: 145
in Guild Wars 2
Purpose: In effect, what I intend to do is expose ArenaNet of lies, deceit, and otherwise facilitating or spreading false information for the sole purpose of garnering favor, attention, and playtime from the general public and its customers. I intend to do this relatively systematically with use of direct quotes from the company, a list of facts, occasionally brief personal experiences and commentary, and a logical conclusion.
(This was originally designed for the official forum, although due to length I am posting elsewhere and I hope to have an abbreviated form on the official site soon. I have taken careful consideration to keep this post from being incendiary or rude to the community, the players, and of course, the ArenaNet staff. Any names cited, were for sole purpose of attributing ownership to used quotes and not meant to insult, or be otherwise disresectful to anyone. I hope you agree, that I have followed the Code of Conduct to the best of my ability, to keep this thread from being deleted and to inspire useful discussions by all parties involved.)
Let’s start with something small. It’s the moment to moment details that reveal the work ethic of a company and its concern for its players. For those who don’t know Final Rest was a staff discovered in the game files that is visually unique and appealing to many. However, for months the staff could not be found in-game. Many player’s attempted to go to the forums, ask questions in interviews/AMAs, and even message employee’s in-game to discover it’s location or to show ArenaNet that it was indeed bugged.
Final Rest:
“I can’t give away any spoilers, but I can confirm that I’ve looked at the loot tables, and it is in the game. It’s a very rare reward from defeating a boss in the open world.”
"Just a quick note—I said the odds of it dropping was closer to .005 than the 1 in a million or so that was tossed out. Those aren’t the exact odds, but if my math is correct, 10 players running the event every day might expect one staff to drop after about 7 months. (And we haven’t been out that long.)"
-All from Jeffery Vaughn
The Facts:
-There are easily more than 10 (albeit likely different) people who participate in the event daily with various amounts of magic find.
-We were told it was not a bug, but a rare spawn that would take 10 players 7 months to see a single staff drop.
-In six months post-launch, we have not seen a single Final Rest.
-March patch = boom hundreds of Final Rests.
Logical Conclusion: When you said you “boosted” the drop rate in a recent quote, you really meant included it in the drop table bug free, and decreased it’s rarity several logs.
Question in a Recent Interview: Where's Final Rest?
Colin: Someday you will all discover it and everybody will be really excited.
How does a bug fix on a staff dropping from an event that many people do daily, make us all “really excited”?
As easily surmised, it’s not only easy, but probable a company will be make poorly worded quotes without malicious intent.
Ascended Gear
Let’s move to the now infamous ascended gear debate, albeit briefly. There are many arguments for either side that has been said and heard hundreds, if not thousands of times. I intend to avoid it, and expose direct quotes which are plainly “wrong.”
Ascended Gear Quotes:
“We absolutely design everything we do with minimal grind and will continue with this principal moving forward.”
-Chris Whiteside
What is your/ANet’s definition of grind?
Repetitive game play that is not fun. –Chris Whiteside
These quotes were taken from a Reddit AMA in November of last year. At the time Ascended gear could only be achieved through Fractals, a mistake that was later admitted to by the company. We have since moved to several, yet still unachievable in major features of the game like WvW, options of achieving them. You can do dailies for approximately a month for each ascended piece of gear. You can farm guild missions and commendations, and achieve them through a combination of gold and commendations, or 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasms. Or you can simply gain some from Fractals, or a combination of materials (gained from Fractals) and craft your own. The problem is that these are largely out of reach by a majority of the playerbase without investment of significant “grinding.” Dailies are often the definition of “do these things every day” and achieve a small reward. ArenaNet has now provided a diversity of things that we can do to achieve a daily, which has only missed the point. If you kill 20 rabbits one day, and then are asked to kill 20 underwater creatures the next, that doesn’t suddenly change the nature of the daily. It’s intended to be a short repetitive activity that is completed daily or nearly daily to artificially create a form of progression for an item. It’s still repetitive…and as one of the few opinions in this thread, is not fun. I have yet to find myself, friends, guildmates, or anyone exclaim “I’m excited to do my daily today!”
Recent Events
Let’s move to the current January/February Release window and talk about a quote that has been thrown around quite a bit by the community, and examine the recent releases of content.
January/February Release Quote:
"But January and February are actually our biggest updates to date. They’re even bigger than all the stuff we did in October, November and December. And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free."
-Colin Johanson
The Facts:
-The WvW patch that was slated for January, was pushed back to February, and then moved back to March was originally intended in the “expansion worth of content” Colin was referring to at the time.
-There are usually around 5 major features in each patch, which typically include, for lack of a better word, content.
-2 of the 5 for February’s patch were “Choosing Your Own Daily Achievements” and Previewing on the Trading Post.
-The only additional content increase in February were a couple of cash shop items, a new sPvP map, and essentially the addition of portals and non-unique enemies in the Living Story.
-January included guesting that was intended to be included at launch, an improved achievement system, and bug fixes to WvW.
-The major points of a patch should not include bug-fixes and revamps of existing, broken content.
Logical Conclusion: What we have seen is nothing even resembling an expansion worth of content. (Even if you want to include March’s content, which admittedly has yet to be fully revealed, it would not resemble an expansion.)
WvW
Let’s move to WvW, arguably one of ArenaNet’s most popular features. In six months of release, the only thing added to WvW were bug fixes. Instead of attempting to stop hacks and exploits by single players, ArenaNet chose to simply remove the orb system. Before everything was incredibly dynamic, due to mismanagement in realm populations (free realm transfers for roughly five months again due to guesting), and no, we see the opposite side of that coin, it’s static to the point of decay. Realm ranks are hardly changing, and each week the story seems to remain the same. The same realms place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd each week, rarely changing tiers. No forms of progression or reward have been added in six months, and we are holding on the promise that the WvW patch will come out next month. Even with the promise of new content, it’s the length of time that has passed that is discouraging for many of us.
We have seen dungeon revamp after dungeon revamp, waiting for you to finally get it right. We have watched you include temporary content again and again, without adding to the core of the game. We have been waiting for ArenaNet to wake up and improve on their original design.
Let’s examine material that has yet to be fully made, that holds the potential of promise, and a return to original design principles:
The Living Story
We have seen two installments of the story, with the promise of much more exciting material to come in March.
The Facts:
-The first installment included random NPCs walking towards two major cities in two zones that “needed” aid.
-It included collecting mementos, fixing signs, and curing the cripple condition off them, with less than 5 unique dynamic events and a single title to come with it.
-The second installment now includes two main objectives, fighting portal-spawning enemies, and providing refugees with lost items.
Logical Conclusion: There are not a lot of content or interesting things to do in-game involving the living story.
An addition of twenty dynamic events would arguably have more content than these last two installments of the living story. There is nothing that makes it special, unique, rewarding or even interesting to the average player. And once again, we are relying on a promise by Angel McCoy, a chief architect along with Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb that created the lackluster personal story. Even worse, it appears as though ArenaNet is making the same mistakes.
“In order to make this easier on ourselves, and on you, we’ll be introducing a set of characters specific to the Living Story, at the end of March. Hint: one’s a norn, and one’s a charr.”
-Angel McCoy
The Facts:
-In both the Lost Isles Patch and the Halloween patch,the ArenaNet team was largely criticized for a lackluster, initial phase of events because there weren’t many things a player could do.
-The Personal Story was largely criticized for revolving around a NPC rather than the player, making the player feel less than heroic.
-The Living Story appears to have the same flaws as both the previous patches and Personal Story.
Logical Conclusion:
ArenaNet is not learning from past mistakes.
I could use this remaining time to talk about the blatant lack of additional skins to the game. The large majority of skins released have been temporary releases. I could elaborate more on the failures of the Personal Story, and the complete reluctance by ArenaNet to address or fix it. I could address the growing concern by sPvP players that ArenaNet is not doing enough for the e-sport community. However, I think by now you understand my point. I am not satisfied with the games progress post-launch, nor do I find it acceptable for ArenaNet to continue to make false claims nor learn from previous self-admitted mistakes.
In conclusion, this post is meant to raise public awareness of ArenaNet’s past remarks and errors, and enact change to the game to make it better. ArenaNet, you can do better.
-Aeneas
Sanctum of Rall
(This was originally designed for the official forum, although due to length I am posting elsewhere and I hope to have an abbreviated form on the official site soon. I have taken careful consideration to keep this post from being incendiary or rude to the community, the players, and of course, the ArenaNet staff. Any names cited, were for sole purpose of attributing ownership to used quotes and not meant to insult, or be otherwise disresectful to anyone. I hope you agree, that I have followed the Code of Conduct to the best of my ability, to keep this thread from being deleted and to inspire useful discussions by all parties involved.)
Let’s start with something small. It’s the moment to moment details that reveal the work ethic of a company and its concern for its players. For those who don’t know Final Rest was a staff discovered in the game files that is visually unique and appealing to many. However, for months the staff could not be found in-game. Many player’s attempted to go to the forums, ask questions in interviews/AMAs, and even message employee’s in-game to discover it’s location or to show ArenaNet that it was indeed bugged.
Final Rest:
“I can’t give away any spoilers, but I can confirm that I’ve looked at the loot tables, and it is in the game. It’s a very rare reward from defeating a boss in the open world.”
"Just a quick note—I said the odds of it dropping was closer to .005 than the 1 in a million or so that was tossed out. Those aren’t the exact odds, but if my math is correct, 10 players running the event every day might expect one staff to drop after about 7 months. (And we haven’t been out that long.)"
-All from Jeffery Vaughn
The Facts:
-There are easily more than 10 (albeit likely different) people who participate in the event daily with various amounts of magic find.
-We were told it was not a bug, but a rare spawn that would take 10 players 7 months to see a single staff drop.
-In six months post-launch, we have not seen a single Final Rest.
-March patch = boom hundreds of Final Rests.
Logical Conclusion: When you said you “boosted” the drop rate in a recent quote, you really meant included it in the drop table bug free, and decreased it’s rarity several logs.
Question in a Recent Interview: Where's Final Rest?
Colin: Someday you will all discover it and everybody will be really excited.
How does a bug fix on a staff dropping from an event that many people do daily, make us all “really excited”?
As easily surmised, it’s not only easy, but probable a company will be make poorly worded quotes without malicious intent.
Ascended Gear
Let’s move to the now infamous ascended gear debate, albeit briefly. There are many arguments for either side that has been said and heard hundreds, if not thousands of times. I intend to avoid it, and expose direct quotes which are plainly “wrong.”
Ascended Gear Quotes:
“We absolutely design everything we do with minimal grind and will continue with this principal moving forward.”
-Chris Whiteside
What is your/ANet’s definition of grind?
Repetitive game play that is not fun. –Chris Whiteside
These quotes were taken from a Reddit AMA in November of last year. At the time Ascended gear could only be achieved through Fractals, a mistake that was later admitted to by the company. We have since moved to several, yet still unachievable in major features of the game like WvW, options of achieving them. You can do dailies for approximately a month for each ascended piece of gear. You can farm guild missions and commendations, and achieve them through a combination of gold and commendations, or 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasms. Or you can simply gain some from Fractals, or a combination of materials (gained from Fractals) and craft your own. The problem is that these are largely out of reach by a majority of the playerbase without investment of significant “grinding.” Dailies are often the definition of “do these things every day” and achieve a small reward. ArenaNet has now provided a diversity of things that we can do to achieve a daily, which has only missed the point. If you kill 20 rabbits one day, and then are asked to kill 20 underwater creatures the next, that doesn’t suddenly change the nature of the daily. It’s intended to be a short repetitive activity that is completed daily or nearly daily to artificially create a form of progression for an item. It’s still repetitive…and as one of the few opinions in this thread, is not fun. I have yet to find myself, friends, guildmates, or anyone exclaim “I’m excited to do my daily today!”
Recent Events
Let’s move to the current January/February Release window and talk about a quote that has been thrown around quite a bit by the community, and examine the recent releases of content.
January/February Release Quote:
"But January and February are actually our biggest updates to date. They’re even bigger than all the stuff we did in October, November and December. And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free."
-Colin Johanson
The Facts:
-The WvW patch that was slated for January, was pushed back to February, and then moved back to March was originally intended in the “expansion worth of content” Colin was referring to at the time.
-There are usually around 5 major features in each patch, which typically include, for lack of a better word, content.
-2 of the 5 for February’s patch were “Choosing Your Own Daily Achievements” and Previewing on the Trading Post.
-The only additional content increase in February were a couple of cash shop items, a new sPvP map, and essentially the addition of portals and non-unique enemies in the Living Story.
-January included guesting that was intended to be included at launch, an improved achievement system, and bug fixes to WvW.
-The major points of a patch should not include bug-fixes and revamps of existing, broken content.
Logical Conclusion: What we have seen is nothing even resembling an expansion worth of content. (Even if you want to include March’s content, which admittedly has yet to be fully revealed, it would not resemble an expansion.)
WvW
Let’s move to WvW, arguably one of ArenaNet’s most popular features. In six months of release, the only thing added to WvW were bug fixes. Instead of attempting to stop hacks and exploits by single players, ArenaNet chose to simply remove the orb system. Before everything was incredibly dynamic, due to mismanagement in realm populations (free realm transfers for roughly five months again due to guesting), and no, we see the opposite side of that coin, it’s static to the point of decay. Realm ranks are hardly changing, and each week the story seems to remain the same. The same realms place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd each week, rarely changing tiers. No forms of progression or reward have been added in six months, and we are holding on the promise that the WvW patch will come out next month. Even with the promise of new content, it’s the length of time that has passed that is discouraging for many of us.
We have seen dungeon revamp after dungeon revamp, waiting for you to finally get it right. We have watched you include temporary content again and again, without adding to the core of the game. We have been waiting for ArenaNet to wake up and improve on their original design.
Let’s examine material that has yet to be fully made, that holds the potential of promise, and a return to original design principles:
The Living Story
We have seen two installments of the story, with the promise of much more exciting material to come in March.
The Facts:
-The first installment included random NPCs walking towards two major cities in two zones that “needed” aid.
-It included collecting mementos, fixing signs, and curing the cripple condition off them, with less than 5 unique dynamic events and a single title to come with it.
-The second installment now includes two main objectives, fighting portal-spawning enemies, and providing refugees with lost items.
Logical Conclusion: There are not a lot of content or interesting things to do in-game involving the living story.
An addition of twenty dynamic events would arguably have more content than these last two installments of the living story. There is nothing that makes it special, unique, rewarding or even interesting to the average player. And once again, we are relying on a promise by Angel McCoy, a chief architect along with Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb that created the lackluster personal story. Even worse, it appears as though ArenaNet is making the same mistakes.
“In order to make this easier on ourselves, and on you, we’ll be introducing a set of characters specific to the Living Story, at the end of March. Hint: one’s a norn, and one’s a charr.”
-Angel McCoy
The Facts:
-In both the Lost Isles Patch and the Halloween patch,the ArenaNet team was largely criticized for a lackluster, initial phase of events because there weren’t many things a player could do.
-The Personal Story was largely criticized for revolving around a NPC rather than the player, making the player feel less than heroic.
-The Living Story appears to have the same flaws as both the previous patches and Personal Story.
Logical Conclusion:
ArenaNet is not learning from past mistakes.
I could use this remaining time to talk about the blatant lack of additional skins to the game. The large majority of skins released have been temporary releases. I could elaborate more on the failures of the Personal Story, and the complete reluctance by ArenaNet to address or fix it. I could address the growing concern by sPvP players that ArenaNet is not doing enough for the e-sport community. However, I think by now you understand my point. I am not satisfied with the games progress post-launch, nor do I find it acceptable for ArenaNet to continue to make false claims nor learn from previous self-admitted mistakes.
In conclusion, this post is meant to raise public awareness of ArenaNet’s past remarks and errors, and enact change to the game to make it better. ArenaNet, you can do better.
-Aeneas
Sanctum of Rall
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
“We absolutely design everything we do with minimal grind and will continue with this principal moving forward.”
-Chris Whiteside
Lol.
GW2 becomes more grindy with each patch. It just proves that it doesn't matter what devs say, most gamers will either buy it, ignore it or defend it.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
They've always said that there will be optional grind, and they've stayed true to that. There is nothing in this game that counts as required grind, a.k.a. treadmill content.
Oderint, dum metuant.
too much words......
since you took the time to research and type all that, can you do it again with SWTOR?, and TERA, and PS2, and RIFT, and WoW, and AoW, and so on and on and on and on......
please? i might want to read about those games.
You are missing some basic information. You kind of skewed your argument.
1. They did say that Legendaries would be a grind - that is all based on looks not stats. If you want the look you need to grind. It was the same in GW1.
2. They DID say (A.Net did that is) magic finder was initially broken but a can say it does work now.
[mod edit]
Rather than what you call "facts" and "logical conclusions", here's an actual statement from Colin regarding "expansion's worth of data":
I’ll throw out feature wise, many of the things we’ll be doing feature wise across the first half of 2013 are typically the type of features you’d likely only see in a paid expansion traditionally. We’re really excited about the opportunity to be able to do that for Guild Wars 2, and think there is something really compelling in that experience, which is really the only message we wanted folks to take from all of this. March will of course continue this tradition of free releases, major features, and of course the growth of living story as we expand its role in Gw2.
All of that being said, this is exactly why we try and avoid talking about stuff until it’s ready, if we say something early and it ends up not ending up exactly what people expect, it doesn’t work out for anyone. Saying something like “expansions worth of content” means different things to everyone, and is nearly an impossible goal to meet expectation wise since everything expects something different, which is a big part of why marketing stepped away from that plan very quickly after asking us to use it when speaking to the press/fans.
I imagine it’ll still get quoted until the end of time, but hope that helps explain where it came from, and what to expect. Just to re-iterate the post I made back in January:
“To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. In saying this will be an expansions worth of stuff in these releases, we’re talking about the number of new features that will be rolled out across PvE, WvW, and PvP in early 2013, which usually you’d only find in an expansion for a traditional MMORPG.”
Oderint, dum metuant.
Different colors might help, to separate all the quotes and subtopics.
Whatever their lies were past and present, GW2 failed to hold longevity for many of the original purchasers. That's probably the TLDR. They did do a great job selling copies though with what they said.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
He made that post this morning, and I have since seen and read it. I fortunately found it while I was researching a few quotes. Essentially, the quote is a whole lot of fluff attempting to validate his original claim. I love Colin, he's a great developer and passionate about his game. This quote however, was pure and simply wrong.
Edit: I made a (pretty bad) mistake on timing of quote. Sorry for the mistake and thanks for pointing it out.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
I might go back when I regain some energy. I tried to use italics, bolds, and underlining to keep everything seperated. However, this was originally made for the official forums and only briefly adapted for site mmorpg. In short, I feel your pain and I am sorry for it.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
huh?
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/January-updates-Any-sources/first
he made that post over a month ago
but all dev speak is usually marketing fluff that's nothing new
edit: oh i see he quoted himself from an earlier post he had made to add more onto it
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Oh I agree, there needs to be optional grinds in MMOs that facilitates longevity for hardcore players. You also should know that they have stated numerous times over the past several months (original quote possibly starting in November AMA on Reddit), that they do indeed intend to change the exisitng method and making it more progression based instead of mainly RNG. I think we'd all agree the rate-limiting step is gaining the precursor.
I'm not sure how #2 changes anything in my original post.
As other's have stated, I respectfully disagree with you. Tbh, I had to look up what a diatribe was xD.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
You are entirely correct. These quotes man...these quotes! It's hard to keep track of them, and thanks for pointing that out.
I'm off to the real world. Sorry for creepily rapid responses, I wanted to stick around to see forum reaction and at least provide some defenses against any unnecessary critique. I'll check in periodically, thanks guys.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
Well said. 99% of the things people have to say negative about this game can be said about pretty much any other game. Same with the positive things. It's to bad how the MMO player base in general is turning into such a cluster phuk of bitter people.
edit: I had to delete what I wrote here becuase I started to sound to bitter
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
When you must move your post because it exceeds someone's maximum length...that might be considered a clue, in some circles. Shy of 2000 words I, and most people, would consider excessively long for a forum post.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Oh yes, Shakespeare was the master of brevity...said no one ever.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
His shortest play is about 7x the length of your single post.
Anyway, digression, back to your thesis.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It's also one of his least famous, lowly regarded plays.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
The real truth?
Developers always get the short end of the stick.
We, the gamer, demand information, time tables, exact specifics etc. and we demand it as early as possible.
Once information is given to us, we solidify it into 100% pure fact and do not accept any variation on what we were originally told.
Things in development change, often, and with great degrees of variation.
When things change in development, developers tell us and we, the gamer, call them liars for not giving us 100% perfectly accurate to what we were originally told.
Or they don't tell us, and we discover it and then create our big fuss and call them liars and thieves etc. etc.
And actually, it's not any better to tell us about changes before they launch becuase we put up just about the exact same level of stink.
So developers are stuck not wanting to tell us anything that isn't 100% final, but nothing is ever 100% final in MMO development, and we demand information as soon as the developers get a glint of an idea in their eye, and then yell at them once something changes during the development process.
^ very much agree.. people expect to much.. and honestly how are devs supposed to make games the "players" want when you have 1000 people on this shoulder yelling at you wanting this and then 1000 on the other shoulder yelling they want the exact opposite.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Anyone else notice the heavy amounts of deflection going on in this thread?
My question is, what now? You know they lie to you, what are you going to do about it? If anything were to speak volumes of someone it would not be of their words, but rather their actions.
Careful, writing bad things about GW2 around here will get you MOD warning and temp account ban days later (talk about laughable)... they find a special kind of hate for people that might harm their "Precious".
I said I "played and liked" the game in one post but that I was tired of the over the top, non-stop fanboi'ism. WOAH they didn't like that.
But that's to be expected. I've been warned or banned multilple times on this site for descenting, social, religious, political, GAME, etc opnions.
They'll let some of the most vile, uncivil rants in the world go on for days, but disagree with THEIR opinion on a game or topic, BANHAMMER! uh-oh... I can feel it lurking...
The problem here is you didn't really expose any truth. It's a compilations of your thoughts about Arenanet. What you think they said they were going to do and what you think they did and did not do.
When I read your "purpose" and the title I thought this was going to be a lot more then what folks that don't like the game have been complaining about. There is nothing new and it's something that is relative to the observer. In conclusion you don't like certain things they did, many of us are ok and in some cases like those same things.
I think what you state, quite correctly, is that it is very hard to strike the right balance of communication and keeping content hidden until it's ready. However, making something hard does not mean impossible. For example, if ArenaNet would have made an open thread discussing the possibility of ascended gear they would have heard the community response to it. They have stated that they predicted the outcry against them, but at least they would not have made the same mistakes (i.e. not releasing it when it's only ready from Fractals). Open, careful communication would detract from most of the backlash. Very few people held the WvW patch to February. It's not like we are "RAWR..how dare you?" It's really much of a more, why haven't you added anything for six months? Many things are subject to change in development, however, it's one thing to change features around those views, and another to change your basic, fundamental principles that you sold/marketed the game under.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
No deflection at all - I call this making a mountain out of a moe hill. What he is talking about is perceived vs actual things that happen in the game. People take stuff out of context all the time and quote it as truth. That is all the OP is doing. Demonizing a gaming company for perceived slights in game is what posters on this site do. Ask the person what he means not read into it - you will be a whole lot better.
Smart people know things change. Sometimes they change for the better, sometimes they change for the worse.
Game is really good and I derive enjoyment from playing it, regardless of agreing or not with all the changes.
What about you? Does the fact people enjoy the game disturb you?
You know why there are double standards?
Because when a game is crappy everything makes it worse while when the game is good it doesn't matter so much.
Their actions is an awesome game for my tastes.
Simple.
And it is always like this toward companies that make good games and people that don't like those games never understand why people apply different standards to those games while to whatever crappy game those people play/like don't receive the same treatment.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders