Swizzle.7982

I think it’s just a result of this being a modern trend in the industry, I doubt it was done with malicious intent. The whole “toxic” fad is pretty amusing, and it’s partially due to the way we imagine everyone on the internet to be generally just like us. We forget that there are children and people from very different cultures that we interact with online. In real life we make allowances for this type of thing but since we can’t do so online it can be easy to view the same thing In an online space as being more toxic. Death threats for instance probably wouldn’t be taken as very serious examples of toxic gamer culture if we found out that, for example, those comments came from a nine year old. Similarly in the real world we might excuse the behaviour of someone who is obsessively focused on a topic (and perhaps not being so in a very socially acceptable way) if we’re aware that they have autism - for instance. As for the real issue - Anets silence and poor communication -this has been an issue for YEARS, the last time it blew up I remember Anet making a promise to do better, but it never lasts. I’m not really sure what people expect. Since we don’t get openness and honesty we have to assume they don’t see that as being good for business. Take that as you will.

It’s simply branding. It happens with movies and games all the time, by the time they get to around the 3rd or 4th entry they start to drop the number. It’s a way of getting new people into the series without alienating them. Living World Season 5 suggests you should probably have played the last 4 seasons. Calling it a Saga sets it apart, without hinting to new players the amount of catching up they’ll need to do, hence making it a more convincing entry point for new players, simple.

Just speculation, but could this somehow be related to Abaddon? Kralk's mention of torment and anguish stood out to me, and on top of that the form that Kralkatorricks's Torment took on had a clear resemblance to Abaddon. Maybe it's not so much that Abaddon caused Kralk to go insane, but perhaps there's something else out there that caused both Kralk and Abaddon to go mad?