Guild Wars 2 is the most hyped game release of 2012 and rivals, if not surpasses, the hype over the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic last year at Christmas. There is a huge difference though, the fan base for Guild Wars 2 is far, far more forgiving of ArenaNet than players and non-players were (and are) to Bioware. Is that justified? In my opinion, it is not and for two very simple, basic reasons: the auction house system and game forums.
When SWTOR released, Bioware had completely functional forums and the Galactic Trade Network (auction house) was viable, stable, and functional from the first day of head start. ArenaNet has yet, almost two full weeks from the official launch date and less than 14 hours from two weeks post head start, to have a functional Trading Post (auction house) that is stable and consistently up and available for all players all the time. Players, fans, and most media outlets for some reason are giving ArenaNet a complete bye on the fundamental aspect to the game, the game economy, and the player experience. It makes no sense, unless they are blinded by advertising money and/or “handouts” to keep quiet about the flaws in the game. The fans have no excuse for continuing to praise ArenaNet for their failures to correct the problem.
Game forums are like bread and water to a starving man. They provide a place for gamers to go to discuss the game, builds, strategy, and a centralized location to receive communication from the developers. SWTOR, for all it’s launch issues and headaches, had fully functional forums from beta through launch and currently. Those forums, especially the customer service forums, sometimes had answers which frustrated or down right pissed off customers but there was clear, concise, and direct communication with customers via the forums.
That is just blatantly not true for Guild Wars 2 players. Forums, in limited fashion, opened this week. Communication is spotty at best and doesn’t seem to help ArenaNet when they do speak to their players. From my brief time in their forums this morning, there is no negative comments or grumbling. It is extremely odd for forums to be all happy and perky which tells me that ArenaNet is policing their forums and removing all negative comments. While they have every right to do that, it is a sign that the corporation is very fearful of the truth and does not want to hear it.
SWTOR had launch difficulties, queues and too many servers, but it does not get credit for the many things it did successfully at launch: functional Galactic Trade Network, forums, direct forum communication from developers, and actual story lines to follow. GW2 is a failed launch in almost every respect. The game is still unplayable for thousands of people, they have closed digital sales on their own website because their servers cannot handle any new players, forums are not completely open, trading post is not stable, functional, or reliable, but by golly, that cash shop works 24/7!
So, why are you still playing Guild Wars 2 and not something else?
Because it has fun, unique pvp gameplay that is actually competitive through gear normalization and a strong talent system.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the only reply here is with a newly created account. Quite the anomaly. Is GW2 now policing social media?
DeleteI agree - GW2 has been the biggest disappointment of the year................and as I'd been looking forward to it since 2007, I'd say it's been the biggest gaming disappointment I've ever had.
ReplyDeleteComing from GW1 to GW2, GW2 is pretty - but with endgame being the design concept it's dull.
Others on the official forums seem to love it - but by their own admission, many are casual gamers.
For those of us who grew up with RPG's and latterly MMORPG's, the game has little to offer.
Maybe PvP and WvW is fun, but from what I can gather you end up spending real money to have any fun in those.
Good to see I’m not the only one feeling disappointed with this. I have to admit, I’m a little bitter as I actually really enjoyed The Old Republic and yet I had to put up with people telling me it was rubbish all the time and making out that everyone should play Guild Wars 2 instead. Now I’ve bought Guild Wars 2 I’m finding it very disappointing and yet when I’m honest about that people get very defensive like Arenanet can’t do anything wrong. All of the hype and hate for mmorpg’s is being taken way too far these days and all I really want to do is to be able to sit down and enjoy them, and perhaps to be able to discuss openly about how I feel about each experience afterwards. I’m actually surprised to say that so far I prefer Guild Wars 1 and The Old Republic to Guild Wars 2, but I still intend to play all of them anyway.
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