VerdantThorn.9345

No, they're not less valuable. However, in this conversation their desire is irreconcilable with my own. I'm asking that something be changed, they're asking that nothing be changed. So, they are not someone who I can convince by changing my idea, and thus I can only really accept that they exist and then move on. Is their existence valueless to me? Not at all. It's as valuable as anyone. However, where fundamentally irreconcilable with my own, it just has to be accepted as a given. I hold no malice toward that view, I just can't alter my request in a way that pleases both of us, and nor can I just not make it without ignoring the reason I made that request in the first place. That's not what I said. Please don't take me out of context. I gave specific examples of arguments I've heard so far, so it's not "no matter which," it's "given these examples," and yes, my request still stands in light of that. My confidence is the kind that one can only have after... well, the life I've lived. There are a lot of stories. Maybe you'll hear them some time, and maybe I'll hear yours. That seems reasonable, though at the same time Guild Wars 2 is not run as a democracy. It's a corporatocracy, with ArenaNet being the sole proprietor in the business of pleasing us and pleasing their other financial stakeholders (I'm not certain of exactly who they are). I'm not sure going to that effort is worth it, given that ultimately they'll just make whatever decision they'll make based on their own values and corporate interests. Also, baked into that is the assumption that the audience who'd respond to the poll is representative of the audience who'd care about the change, and that's not an assumption that necessarily holds water in my mind. Internet polls are terribly unscientific because of a self-selection sampling bias, and the opinion of the forums is not the same thing as the opinion of the player base. No, it's not. What I meant by "not infantilized by society" was that I wished to live in a world where disabled people were not treated like infants - i.e. like people who can't care for themselves, or are not capable of speaking, acting or making decisions on their own behalf. Further, a world where they also were not treated like that to such a degree that BEING treated like that was a callback to tons of bad memories for them. "Treated no different from [able-bodied people]" is a very, very different idea. It calls to ideas like removing wheelchair ramps - "why should they get them when we have to use the stairs?" - or disabled parking spaces - "why do WE have to walk all that way when they don't?" - or disability assistance - "I can work and make a living, they should have to as well" - and is a completely different thing than my not wanting to be treated like a child.

Sure you can! And, I thought about just that point ever since people mentioned it a while back when they brought up "Bookah mode." Three things have floated about my brain, in particular (it seems that I like to think in 3's, lol). First, in some of those cases it is clearly not JUST the in-game Asura talking to the characters, but the out-of-game developers talking to the players (albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way). In particular, with the "Baby's First" collection/achievement set, which is non-diegetic (hey thanks for that reminder of the existence of that awesome word via the patch notes, devs!). That is, there is no in-world counterpart to that collection, so clearly that Asura could not have programmed that. It is like the background music in the zones - there for our benefit as part of the game, not something that were we actually in The Commander's head we would actually hear/see/whatever. That is the GW2 game devs talking to the GW2 player who selects that mode. That's not the case with "Infantile Mode" itself, but the achievement could not exist without the mode enabling it. Second, that is just not a phrasing that feels natural coming out of the mouth of an Asura. When you have words like "progeny" or "Bookah" that are already clearly rooted parts of the Asura lexicon and in-game voice, the name of that game mode just doesn't ring as natural. I will grant that is a subjective matter and I will also grant that after arguing this point for two days it may have grown in significance in my mind, but combined with the prior point it makes it for a sour gaming experience. Like, we all know that quest dialog and such exists in a liminal space between diegetic and non-diegetic, yeah? It is understood that it serves an immersive purpose of keeping us in the game, yes, but that it also serves a mechanical purpose of advancing a quest along a path toward a destination... and so it's not purely "words spoken by NPCs" nor is it purely not that either. Like, if an NPC were to give a tutorial on how to use Dodge, we imagine that they say "you do it like- [they demonstrate it]" but the in-game text reads "You hit [key] to Dodge" and so the voice of the developers does come through that somewhat, and it's not just "the words that character would say." Which brings me to my last point. There is already a line - or a number of lines - the devs don't cross when it comes to words. They don't because saying certain things doesn't make for a positive gaming experience, regardless of whether characters would say them or not. The existence of a profanity filter, and the banning of those words from player/character names is already an indication that there is a line past which the developers don't want to go. So, why didn't that Asura - already a jerk, already insulting, already a narcissist - call that mode "R****d mode"? The developers, unconstrained by such filers, COULD have done that. Because the game developers know WAY better than to be saying that, obviously. It's the same reason we don't have racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc slurs used by NPCs in game, even by characters who have all the moral fiber of a septic ooze. Yes they probably would say those sorts of things, but no having that sort of language in a game does not make for a fun gaming experience. So, out with those words and in with kittens. From the start of this I hesitated to make this fully "about" ableism (I've especially hesitated to use that word), because turning the conversation in that direction almost always brings out ugliness. But, at least for me, that's what it IS about (also, ugliness done happened in spades already, so I might as well). I just don't want to have that kind of language in my life in places where I can avoid it, especially in places I go to relax. When I can act to fix it, I do what I can. So, when I saw this, I spoke up about it. Will something be done? I have no idea. Will that be the end of my trying to fix these types of problems? Not in the least. Is this the most important issue of that type facing GW2, or society more broadly? No, not even close. But, when you see a pothole, you report it to the City. You don't have to wait it grows to car eatin' size before you report it. I wish I'd caught this one years ago when SAB first launched, but c'est la vie. And yeah, I'm fully aware of ways I can work past that. I can get with groups to get past hard content and get all sorts of help, and I do in fact do those things when appropriate. Thanks for the advice, really. I'll use it when and where I need to.

Of course people care. I care. The several pages of comments demonstrate that others care. And yeah, as you say, that's the whole point of my speaking up. But, I think there is a difference between "I want to keep the current name because I prefer the status quo" and "I like 'Infantile Mode' specifically." I'm hearing a lot of arguments for the former, but not a lot for the latter. While there are some that say it's a good callback to 90's gaming, I think there are ways to balance that desire - to have a name that calls back to those games - and my desire to not have that specific label be used to do it. In other words, there are several intersecting value arguments to be had here, and it is worth taking them all into consideration. The people who want no change whatsoever across the board... well, I don't think they will necessarily be DISpleased with the new name, or at least not for long. Whatever it changes to, that will swiftly become the NEW status quo, especially if whatever the change is happens between SAB 2022 and SAB 2023. The people who want a lore-appropriate name have a valid concern, because they want something that doesn't break immersion. The people who want a callback to 90's gaming have a valid concern, because that's the whole aesthetic of SAB. The people who want something funny have a valid concern, because the whole event is meant to be a joke/parody/prank. And, I think I have a valid concern in not wanting that joke to be at the inadvertent expense of disabled people.

The fact that a thing has been a given way for a while (and lets be clear, we're not talking centuries here - we're talking like a month of actual playable time spread across the several years SAB has been a thing), is not inherently an argument for keeping it as-is. Lots of bad things existed for a long time, and then didn't. The point of my post is that in certain ways and for certain people, it IS broke. It's not broken for you, and that's fine, but I'm saying that there are people - myself included - for whom it is. It's okay to not understand my point of view on this. A lot of people don't, because they don't have my background or history with this. I don't expect them to get it. What I do hope they do, though, is at least attempt to empathize with where I'm coming from. I hope they try to see things from my perspective as best they can, even if just for a moment. But, if not, then c'est la vie. Like I said, I'm not trying to convince everyone this is a good idea, just the right people. They will then, I hope, do something to rectify the situation in the most reasonable and straightforward a manner as they can.

I was born in 1983, so yes I'm aware of all of those and played all of the aforementioned. I very much hope that you recover your memories and full cognitive function! I've been down that road (that's the core of a lot of my disability issues), and have both lost and regained a lot of that. It's incredibly tough, and a massive uphill battle. You've got some mondo boss fights ahead of you, but suit up and do your best for them so you can come through it as well as possible! Listen to your doctors as appropriate, work hard in the right ways, but don't push yourself to the point of further injury. ❤❤

I simply don't see how changing a name is less feasible or reasonable than, say, increasing the enrage timer on Soo-Won by 2 minutes (proposed but not done) or decreasing the number of random AoEs or adding a health popup for her tail or allowing players to buy the turtle egg for currency rather than as an event drop (which is fundamentally an accessibility accommodation, just unrelated to disability)... or any of the other things they have already done based on player complaints, not of harm, but because it just kinda made their play experience less fun. Like those all involve, I'm sure, a BUNCH of programming and testing and QA and everything else... but this would be comparatively straightforward. At least, it seems. I'm willing to allow for the possibility that I'm wrong about that, and if someone in a position to know says "well it's not so simple for [reasons]" then okay, I can deal with that. Sometimes accommodations that seem reasonable, turn out to be unreasonable, and that's just how the disability cookie crumbles. You find a different cookie store, if that's the case. I like those changes, btw. I think they were good changes (though the latter one did really deleterious things to the ability of anyone to find a group that was large enough to tackle the meta, IME), and I'm glad they were made. I'm all for rebalancing the game. The idea that they have the time and effort for that but not for changing a name, though, seems a bit of a stretch to me. I get ultimately that you are concerned about "but what if more people start asking" and... well, maybe that WILL happen. I don't know what to say about hypothetical futures, other than to look at the (admittedly anecdotal and thus not) data. I can't think there of an example of that ever happening, though I can think of lots of examples of the contrary. There are a lot of changes in this vein that are long-overdue and barely-sufficient, once made, and only made with the utmost reluctance. The fear of slippery slopes often creates sticky tar pits, is I guess what I'm getting at. The world isn't flush with disabled parking spaces and wheelchair ramps and accessibility aids of other kinds, and often it takes massive campaigns to get blatantly offensive things changed or removed (you can pick your own examples on this one, I'm not getting into that fight). It has barely what's needed, and often not even that. I don't think changing the name of this mode of this parody game-within-game is going to reverse that larger societal trend. Though, you are still free to feel differently, and to disagree with me. That's okay. I've gotten comfortable with being on the other side of a lot of issues with people. That has been the story of my life, and it'd be weird for it to change now. That said, I hope that my reasons and reasoning are convincing enough to the right ears, to make a difference. That's all I'm hoping for.

That also works for me! It would certainly keep with the aesthetic of the clouds and rainbow bridges. Like I have said before, I'm not fixated on one solution, I'd just like this problem solved in some manner. Whatever is most agreeable and most feasible for ArenaNet to do, and that fixes the problem, I'd like them to do.

That's fair. It's cliché to say "the comments got to me" but they did, and that was just about the point I started simply ignoring people who were being particularly internetty all over the topic. It was less to do with you than others but all the same I'm sorry for taking you at something other than your intended meaning. Anyway, what you are essentially saying is that I'm part of an insignificant (on the basis of it being vanishingly small) group and therefore my complaint is not worth acting upon, because if one complaint of one insignificant group gets acted upon then all complaints of all insignificant groups must therefore be acted upon. I disagree with that argument on three points. (also note: I'm not intending "insignificant" there as a pejorative, but more in its scientific usage. As in, "below the threshold of significance." I'm not saying that you are saying I'M insignificant.) First, while I might be the only one *complaining* about this right now, disabled people who are treated this way are not an insignificant group nor is this a particularly rare experience. You can look up scientific literature (I found a "Society for Disability Studies" and "Journal for Developmental and Physical Disabilities" article about autism and about a range of disabilities after a brief search, the former of which one may or may not fairly consider a disability but I consider the research itself still relevant to my point) or grey literature (I found pieces on "Medium," "Psychology Today," and others) on the subject to see that it is not something that I've pulled out of thin air. I did that research before I started this topic, because I wanted to check myself to be sure that this was not a "me" thing, even though I was fairly certain it was not. It's not just me. I might be the one feeling this way and I might be the one complaining right now, but I am doing so on behalf - ostensibly, at least - of a larger group of people about a broader problem. There are a lot of disabled people in the world, and while every disabled body and disabled story is unique, this is one fairly common thread running through the disabled experience. Not every disabled person has to or will agree with me and I'm not asking them to, though, which is why I didn't start this post *with* that research or studies. I only wanted to speak for me, because my voice *should* be enough on its own. However, given it is germane to the conversation to mention it... it's not just me, and the group and problem I'm speaking to are not insignificant. Second, it does not necessarily follow that if this one change is made that all changes of this type must therefore be made after. If a person were to ask for a certain boss's mechanics to be changed because their build is unable to meaningfully engage with the fight due to the unique circumstances OF the fight... would that then imply that all bosses everywhere must therefore have their mechanics changed in the same way? No, of course not. One change does not necessarily imply another. The slope is only slippery if one change makes another easier in some way. Changing things in this way - by speaking up and voicing a concern - is not easy and is not getting easier. You get hate for it. You get abuse for it. You can read up the thread and see what comes of even the mildest of requests, for the smallest and most arbitrary of changes. A reasonable person only walks into that with the utmost reluctance. Absent that, ArenaNet can still say "no" whenever they like, based on whatever interest they feel is applicable. I very much doubt that if this change were made, the floodgates would suddenly open and NPCs or game modes or quests or achievements would be having their names changed every other day in order to suit the whims of individual players who complained. Third, even if one were part of an insignificant group, that would not necessarily mean that a complaint weren't worth acting upon. I would hope that even if it were one person, a genuine complaint of genuine harm would be enough to be worth acting upon. That does not necessarily imply that you need to do the thing the person asks for, because sometimes just an apology and a genuine pledge to try to do better in the future is what's warranted... but one needn't stay silent for harm done up until the point it meets a certain threshold of significance. One can act whenever one wishes to act, and I would hope that one acts as soon as they realize that they've caused harm, and in the way that best rectifies that harm, whatever that happens to be. Look, I get that a lot of people disagree with me about this one. That much is clear. I hope, however, that ArenaNet realizes that sometimes silence is not the same thing as assent, and an idea not being popular on the forums doesn't mean it's bad (nor that it's good, frankly). They'll do what they'll do, ultimately, and I'll accept it. Still, I hope they act to rectify this, because it does still bother me and would mean a lot to me - and, I'm sure, to others - if they did.

I can certainly see that many people consider it to be absurd, yes. My growing ignore list attests to the heat with which that feeling burns in them. But, I don't think that people on the forums considering something to be absurd is necessarily the same thing as that thing *being* absurd. If the game were designed based solely on the sentiments expressed in the forums it would be a broken, buggy, inconsistent mess. We also (myself included) all simultaneously think OUR idea is a good one, and we all think it should be implemented... but we all also have a very poor perspective on the actual challenges of actually designing the game. Hence, I asked. I'm still hoping a dev will see the request and take it under consideration, if it is indeed feasible for them to do. I didn't, I'm not, and frankly I won't "demand" they change anything. I'll ask, and they either will or they won't. That'll be the end of it. If they don't I just won't play SAB. At this point though, that's less to do with the original issue, and more to do with the ugliness in this conversation - not between you and I, but overall - having left a very, very bad taste in my mouth of which I don't want to be reminded. If they do I will play it. I'll be eternally grateful to them for it, thank them in spades for having heard my request, and probably have a super fun adventure time in Super Adventure Box thereafter. Either way, it's not as though I'm going to take to Change dot org or contact the ACLU about it or something. It's just the name of a game mode for a parody game-within-a-game of a somewhat but not super popular MMORPG. It's something that I think it worth fixing, because it seems incredibly easy to fix, but it's not something that is cataclysmic or apocalyptic in scope or impact. Finally, lets say this AGAIN... Lots of people are projecting things onto me, including you with words like "internalized" and "personal offense" and "victimizing yourself" but also "triggered" and associated words from posts I've already ignored which suggest some sort of psychological or emotional frailty on my part (e.g. a "victim mentality"). Bearing in mind that you - the broader "you" - have absolutely no idea what life I've lived, and I have no idea what life you've lived, lets just agree to not do that to each other, okay? Maybe take a step back and reassess your approach, if you find yourself doing that. It helps no one, and adds very little of worth to any conversation ever. Note: the above is in reply to your post, Kitta and uses examples drawn from it, but it's also not. You're far from the worst and I'm not admonishing you in particular. It just so happens that the folks I AM directing that to, are folks I've already ignored, and folks who in the future I will ignore without replying to. However, even below the threshold of people I simply ignore, I want to make that note because that aspect of the conversation has both been covered already and is a bridge to nowhere.

If a legal mandate on the subject were to happen contrary to the public interest, THAT would be censorship. Anything shy of that would not be. But, never mind. I'll just sit with my discomfort and write SAB off for the foreseeable future. Y'all enjoy your joke.

(Okay and now that I read the comment as posted and out of edits, those "time marching forward" bits changed to all be the same "time ago" - yay for good programming of the forums' backend! No complaints there LOL!)

Absolutely true. Adding accessibility options that make the gaming experience enjoyable for the broadest possible range of people is certainly preferable to renaming things, if that's the choice I'm being offered. But, when the problem being addressed is the name of something, then changing the name of that thing is the solution to THAT problem. Are there broader problems of access for disabled folks in Guild Wars 2? Yes, there doubtless are. I do not think the only paths forward on those are either "solve all of them" or "solve none of them," though. I specifically called out this because it is an easy fix to an event happening right now, being rebalanced (and thus actively worked on) right now, and is a fix that would not in and of itself take a whole lot of time and/or resources. I don't think I'm an edge case. Based on the experiences of friends of mine within a number of different communities, and based on what scant data exists on the subject, it is not an at all uncommon experience. If by "treatment of the condition" you mean making it such that disabled people are not infantilized by society, yes that would in fact be lovely. However, I think changing the name of this game mode of Super Adventure Box is probably more immediately feasible. If there is a path forward on that, though, I will gladly show up to lend whatever help I can. Yes I understand that, thank you. If the heterogeneity with which that label affects people were not clear before I made this post, it very much is now. (also, side LOL at time marching forward - 8 minutes ago, 17 minutes ago, 24 minutes ago - as I repeatedly quote your post to make mine.) I don't see that as unfair. Let them speak up if/when they encounter something that offends them, and I hope they're listened to. To the extent I can and the extent I hear about it, I'll help. What you are essentially asking, though is, 'if we change this, then where does it stop?' and the answer is 'somewhere.' It stops somewhere. I'm respectfully asking the developers to change this name, not mandating - as though I had the power to - that they change all names or gameplay elements that offend even a single person forevermore going forward. I don't think that's unreasonable. To put it another way, though: precisely how many people does a name or whatever have to offend before it becomes worth changing? What is that number, and how was it arrived at? There is clearly already a threshold of offense in the game, above which players and the game developers do not go. There are certain words and phrases that they don't use, and likely certain story elements that they would never include, out of respect for the player base and a desire to not cause overt offense. So, they already pick and choose. I'm asking that in their picking and choosing, they choose not to stick with this name going forward. I disagree with your "slippery slope" analogy. Making this change does not require or imply that the developers should make any future ones. Certainly, if there are any that come to MY attention - whether because they bother me, or bother someone else - then I will argue for them. But, it isn't the case that this becomes some sort of binding precedent upon which ArenaNet MUST act. It's just a request, argued and presented on its own merits, and hopefully acted upon because of the same. Changing a name harms no one. Certainly, no more than changing a zone meta's mechanics, or a boss's DPS, or an item's drop rate, and those are things that ArenaNet does all the time. Does ArenaNet changing ONE boss's enrage timer, or changing the size of their hit box, mean that they must therefore change all other enrage timers or hit boxes in the game if they bother people? We push for them to make - and they DO make - far more impactful mechanical changes all the time. This is purely cosmetic, and is - or ought to be IMO, I'm no computer programmer though so I could be wrong about that - an incredibly simple fix. It's just changing a name. Given your issue, a good analogy is if they rendered the text in a story section in such a manner that screen readers could not parse it. You could probably find a workaround for it because you've probably got a number of tricks up your sleeve for that, including friends who could just read it to you directly if all else fails... but that still wouldn't fix the problem. The problem would be that they made that gameplay element inaccessible to you, and the solution would be rendering the text in a manner that could be read by the appropriate software. I can just skip SAB this year (and at this point probably will), and I can also just bear that burden. I've borne bigger burdens in my life, surely. But, neither of those is a solution. The solution is doing whatever it takes to remove the burden, and between the two - changing the name of "Infantile Mode" and changing society so that it does not leave many disabled people with a very twitchy relationship toward being infantilized - I think the former is probably a more reasonable request. However, you do bring up a good point about accessibility issues. I think that needs to be talked about more. Tag me in a thread about those broader issues and lets talk about the ways that Guild Wars 2 can be made more accessible. That applies both for visually impaired and blind people (I'm functionally blind [20/100 acuity and double vision] in one eye, among other things, and that contributes to the aforementioned visual confusion), HoH and deaf people (also HoH - yay multiple sensory deficits!), and the whole spectrum of other neurological, musculoskeletal, cognitive, and other disabilities and states of health that are relevant to game. We can and should talk about those broader issues, while at the same time also isolating and fixing - I hope - these particular issues.

Okay, to return to the topic - It should be easy to change the name of the game mode, and the associated achievements/collections. It is just a find/replace exercise, which does not involve mechanics or balance whatsoever. I don't see the harm in doing it. I don't have a single replacement I'd like to see, but basically any of the options - Easy Mode, Beginner Mode, Novice Mode, Bookah Mode, even Progeny Mode - are improvements to varying degrees. For the achievements/collections tied to it, something like "First Steps toward Super Adventure" or whatever seems fine. I'm honestly not the greatest at naming things, so I'm sure someone else could come up with a better name than that. What really matters at the end of the day, at least to me, is that it not sound like the game devs are calling the player a child. I'm sure that was not the intent, but the intent of an action matters less than the effect of that action at the end of the day. Now, one final thing worth thinking about, in the whole "is this REALLY them calling the players that?" discussion: Achievements and collections, absent those that confer unique rewards, don't have an in-world reality to them. They are messages sent largely between the game and the player. As has been pointed out in the thread previous to this, other players would have to work really hard to see any of that, and it's not as though NPCs are voicing any of it. Achievements/Collections are just the game - not SAB, but Guild Wars 2 - talking to the player, through the progression mechanics that are baked into it. All I'd like is for those messages to not be ones telling players who play a certain way that they are babies/children/infants. Similarly, I'd like for in-game messages in the same vein to either be removed or be very clearly denoted as things that NPCs are saying, since things like quest dialog and whatnot aren't ever fully in character and that blurry line is what creates a lot of the problem.

Then HECK, call it "progeny" mode. Use the terminology that Asura tend to use when referring to their own children. Sure, it's in character infantilization... but that actually doesn't bother me. In character a**holes exist, and that's fine. I care that they chose a term with out of character emotional weight and baggage attached. Also, you need to stop dictating to me how I should feel. Just stop doing that. It is rude and condescending. I won't tell you how you should feel; you stop telling me how I should feel. Stop telling me to relax, to breathe, to just lie back and enjoy the content, and to do anything else like that. Not only does that not actually do any of those things (since when has telling someone to relax EVER made them go "oh gee I think I'll take that sage advice"?), it actively makes this whole discussion less productive. If you don't, I just won't reply to any further messages from you.

You're right, for someone who hasn't been - like many, MANY disabled people - dealing with this for a long time... it can be hard to understand why this is so bothersome. It can seem irrational. It can seem totally out of proportion, because "infantile" is not a word that gets bleeped or blurred or anything like that in everyday usage. It's not a slur. But, that doesn't mean it's not causing harm. I'm certain I'm not the only one who's bothered by it, though I might be the only one complaining about it. Disabled folks are routinely told... well, a lot of the things I've been told up the thread... whenever they complain about things like this. No matter how mildly they do it. Or, heck, maybe I'm alone in this and community consensus on this is it's fine. Whatever. Now that I've seen it I'll just not play SAB. It's not the first gameplay experience in GW2 I've skipped, and won't be the last. I'd rather not skip it for this reason, but that's life for you. It's not the first business - or in this case, element thereof - I've chosen not to patronize because of accessibility issues.

It seems to me that the one label that Asura - a species that is naturally small of stature - would avoid like mad, is "infantile." They probably already get that in spades, since there is often a reflexive penchant in at least Humans (and probably the other sentient species of Tyria, though maybe not Sylvari because of the way they reproduce) to equate size with prowess, strength or worth. Being naturally short and slight of build, Asura probably already get slighted all the time and infantilized in dealing with Humans who don't have much experience with non-Human species. I like the suggestion above of using the already-established derogative ("Bookah") that Asura have for non-Asura. That doesn't have the real-world emotional weight to it, implies a game-world rather than real-world basis for the term, and thus very neatly - IMO - removes the sting from the term. It's a fine compromise, though the other suggestions given work just as well.

Here's the rub to that: "You said you felt that you were being called an infant... [that's not] true." No, it IS true... for me. I DO feel that way, like I am being called thus. You may and are allowed to feel differently, but you are not the arbiter of how I feel about this or anything else. Like I said before though, this is a "debate" that can only turn into "nuh uh," "uh huh," "nuh uh," "uh huh," because you are claiming that something that is subjectively true for you - that the game mode's name is not insulting to you, and not meant to be reflective of or directed at you-the-player - is objectively true for everyone everywhere. That's not a productive discussion, and not one I'm much interested in having. I just don't want to be insulted by the games I play to relax, and ask that this one small change be made to make my experience measurably better. It's really not - or it ought not to really be - that big a deal. It wouldn't take that much effort to change. But, it would measurably impact my gaming experience, and I venture that I'm not the only person for whom it would do so. And, at the same time, it *helps* practically no one, so why NOT do it?

Thank you, but I'm sure you can see how stating "you're wrong" and leaving it at that doesn't create any meaningful avenue for further discussion. The only response one might have to this is, "no, you're wrong," and then we go back and forth forever. That's not a "debate" I have any interest in having.

Of COURSE I realize it's a joke. And, of course I realize it's meant in good fun and good humor. That is why the request was coming not from a place of hate or derision, but because I like this game and want it to be as fun as it can be. I'm a huge fan of this game and have been playing it off and on for like 8 years now. So while I realize that it was INTENDED as a joke and to be in good humor, and I'm sure it lands fine for most audiences, there are audiences for whom it does not. Hence, the suggestion to change it to something else. It's not like this is something core to the experience or that would damage a critical gameplay experience by changing it. It's just an arbitrary label. Changing it to something else requires very little effort, certainly not on the order of creating new gameplay features or redesigning levels or rebalancing zone bosses, or whatever else people ask for on a regular basis. Several fine ones have been made in the thread already. Easy Mode, Safe Mode, Starter Mode, Novice Mode, Beginner Mode... all of those are fine. Hell, keep the happy clouds and rainbows and whatnot. Those are aesthetically appropriate, even in those cases, and appropriate to an 8-bit-esque experience. You don't need to change really anything other than the names of things that literally imply that people playing this mode are babies or infants or whatever. Because, I really don't enjoy the game developers called me a baby for sometimes wanting or needing help accessing some of the content. That is... well, infantilizing. If you haven't spent a good chunk of your life being treated like an infant by well-meaning but ignorant folks, because of physical disabilities that don't in the least impact your mental faculties... I don't know that you can really get how much that stings. It sours the entire experience for me. I play this game to escape from that sort of thing, and for the most part they are very, very good about being thoughtful and empathetic in their writing, and flexible and accessible in their game design. That's why this is hardly a criticism overall, just a request to rename this one thing. Sure, do that. My own issues aren't with the other modes but if people feel strongly that they should also be renamed in the process, then rename them by all means. I don't think one change necessarily implies a need for the others, but I can see the logic in what you said as well. My issue isn't with other players knowing, it is with the game developers implicitly calling me an infant for playing that game mode and then thereafter calling me a baby every time I make progress in the world. Even if no one else ever knows, I'm still consistently seeing popups at the bottom of my screen calling me a "baby" or an "infant" and I get enough of that sort of treatment in real life, thanks. I don't want it in the spaces I use to escape from that sort of treatment.

To start off with, I really have enjoyed the game for the past long while since I came back to it (a bit before the xpac dropped, and consistently since). This is not a general complaint about the quality of quantity of gameplay, the story, or anything like that. That has all been lovely. Soundtracks have been lovely. The visuals have been lovely. The writing of the core story - and side stories - have made me really impressed. Please bear in mind that this request is coming from a fan, someone who really likes and has been impressed with your game so far. Please change the name of "Infantile Mode," and the associated "Baby's First" achievements. It is not necessary to call them that. I don't know when it got added, or even if I just forgot and it has been there all along, but I think it really needs to be renamed. It's something that is insulting to people who turn on 'easy mode' as an accessibility tool, because of any number of neurological or musculoskeletal disabilities. It also adds nothing to the game, even for people with no accessibility issues whatsoever. The only people it helps are those who want to look down on others for how they play the game, and given the core ethos of Guild Wars 2 seems to have always been "Play How You Want"... a statement like that seems very much antithetical to that goal. Just ask yourself: what would *Taimi* think of "Infantile Mode?" Yes it's a challenge to be overcome, and yes she'd want to overcome it, but would she really appreciate some other Asura calling her an infant? I really, really appreciate the frank and empathetic storytelling focusing on the disabled experience that centers on her; I really don't want that to be counter-weighted by something as tone-deaf as the name of that game mode. For me personally, I find it very very difficult to advance in SAB because of visual confusion issues stemming from post-surgical brain damage and manual dexterity tied to the same. I have overcome much of it (just look at the number of JPs I've been able to do, including ones like Loreclaw Expanse with enough camera shakes to give me vertigo) but I have specific compensatory strategies for that. Sometimes that means using things like an easy mode or a walkthrough, to get me past a particularly hard section. Other times it means other things. Basically all of SAB post 201 has been a Particularly Hard Section for me (judge me for that however you like). I don't think folks in my position, or even folks in the position of just wanting an easier gameplay experience or to *finally* get to the end of SAB, deserve to be called names for it. It's not a hard thing to fix, and would cost you nothing, so I ask that you please do.

I commented yesterday, but I've been ruminating on it and I have more to say. Everything I said before is still true - this is disappointing, it is IMO exploitative and underhanded, I really was hoping that ArenaNet would be better than that - but there's more to my view than that. And, I think it's important this be said, if for no one else than for me. I have already spent money on this, a significant amount. Not enough to buy all the mounts, because no, but enough to get about half of them. That was $50. I know me, and I know that eventually my completionist itch will have me going back to get the rest. After all, for having dropped that money on it, there's still two skins I want buy haven't unlocked. I'm sure I'm not alone in being in this or a similar circumstance. So, I'm faced with a choice. I can spend more money than I should to get the rest, or I can just not play the game so I won't be tempted. Maybe it won't be a cold turkey thing, but I'll play less and less, until I don't play at all. Black Lion chests and dyes didn't do this because I can craft most of the dyes I want, and I can play Personal story or do map completion to get Keys - oh, and the loot wasn't that critical anyway. It was nice, but it wasn't something that I was legit looking forward to like mount skins. So now I'm faced with leaving behind 5 years of game play in a game I legit like in order to not spend irresponsibly, since I know that this batch of mounts is only the first... or doing the other thing. That is a really terrible choice. I love this game, but I also love being able to live a decent life because I didn't spent past my disposable income for a given month. That I have to make that choice is... well, I really don't like it. I hoped you guys were better than that, and I understand there will be many who put this on me rather than you. Those people aren't wrong, and I get that, but the position I'm in isn't unique to me, and in fact I feel like it's fairly common. This system will be profitable, without a doubt. People will buy into it, and if you keep building on it then at some point the furor will die down, the player base will shrug, and things will return to normal. Only, they won't be normal, because the community you guys focused on creating - an inclusive, fan-centered, welcoming experience that I really legit enjoyed - will at that point be nothing more than a veneer. Oh, and I won't be a part of it any more, and I won't be pushing people to your game any more because I won't be able to recommend it in good conscience. Please fix this. I understand that you will be financially shooting yourself in the foot in so doing, because there is no other model that is as profitable as this one, but please still do it. Your decision is ultimately out of my hands, but I really do hope you back away from this because I like your game and want to keep playing it.

Let me preface this by describing the kind of player I am - I'm not against spending money on this game. In fact, I do that rather frequently. I buy outfits. I buy upgrades. I buy all kinds of stuff. Heck, sometimes I even buy black lion keys. I buy dye packs, but I vastly prefer the ones that let you pick a dye over the ones that give you a random set, and prefer the ones that give you a guaranteed rare over ones that don't. I play Fashion Wars 2, because of course I do. I have Ascended gear. I'd like to have and am working toward legendary gear. I do fractals, quests, collections, and all kinds of varied play. I farm stuff. I generally, really enjoy this game. I enjoy GW2 in particular because ArenaNet seems to care about its players. The game is easy to play, with a ton of quality of life elements that WoW has shamelessly copied over the years, and in general ArenaNet seems to revel in cutting out middlemen and distractions to allow you to just get to playing however you want to play. I think that's awesome and I want to reward that (and I like pretty Fashion Wars 2 because I'm a grown man who apparently likes virtual dress up dolls.... .... shut up don't judge me :P ). I like to put my money where my mouth is, and support people Doing It Right. ArenaNet Did It Right. To put it mildly, the mount adoption licenses made me angry. I thought about it, though, and I was as angry as I was not because I was just mad about the cost or whatever, not because I wished it were cheaper... but because I was disappointed. I was let down. ArenaNet let me down. The reason is that you gave in to a monetization strategy that in increasingly popular in games these days, but is also underhanded and manipulative. It makes money for the same reason Vegas makes money. It is glorified gambling. I thought my game was better than that. I was really, really let down by ArenaNet, and my anger was just a way to express that disappointment. But, rather than just dwell on that, what I want to focus on is what I'd like to see you do about it. This isn't a ransom note, I'm not going to hold my continued play time (as though your bottom line depends on one player - I know it very much does not) to you doing what I say, this is just what I think you could or should do to fix what I think you see clearly is a problem. So... Remove the adoption licenses from the game. Even if they come back in a similar form later, they are at this point tainted and I guarantee there will be players who close the gem store if ever they see adoption licenses go on sale or something. Add some non-gem store mount skins to the game. Add something you get from a collection, or achievement of some other kind, or whatever - something that's not just (or primarily) $$$. Take out the mount skins that were just filler. You know which ones I'm talking about - the boring, uninteresting ones that were the "lose" on the roulette wheel of the adoption licenses. Make mount skins able to be bought directly. It can be for 2 or 3 times as much as whatever is the random loot bag, that's fine, but maybe not 5 times like you have now? That's pretty damn ridiculous. That's $25 for a mount skin, when it is $7 or $8 for an outfit which is more-or-less the same thing. Then, and only then, should you put mount skin loot bags back in the game. Ideally, by a means that you can rarely acquire via in-game means, akin to BL Keys.That is what I'd like to see. I hope to see that or something like it in the near future, and I'm sorry people have directed such hate and bile at you over this. I'm certainly mad, but I've tried to refrain from calling anybody names. You have earned some trust from me, and faith from me, and I have hope you will fix this. I also know SOMEone will argue and say I am just wrong and shouldn't be mad, but, well, I am. Telling me I shouldn't be isn't going to change that. I hope that you do something that does, though.Thanks,