Blood.7254

But you've no right to be disappointed with your purchase because there are other mmo releases that were worse at launch. In comparison this is great. I'm having fun. /s My issue is integrity. Anet botching finale of IBS and pretending as if it's a genious move with "fun" content like Dragon Response Missions, disregarding any and all complaints as if they never existed. Complaints from people who love their past releases and content. Complaints from people who were part of the game's community for years, from people who did Anet's marketing on social media for them, from people who got their friends/family into GW2, from people who spent a lot of money on GW2 thinking it's fine cause they're supporting a developer who has integrity. We were more or less disappointed with IBS finale, but we were thinking the new expansion would be worth it. It wasn't. EoD's value, in retrospect, cannot be judged on its own as a standalone product. And even if it could it would still come up short. EoD's value should be seen through a prism of making the botching of IBS finale worth it, something EoD has failed to do on pretty much all fronts. It's due to this that I lost faith in hoping for the best with the next shiny release, with the next shiny hype... cause there's a theme here. A theme coinciding with the latest changes in NCsoft's Arenanet. I'm happy the game is doing well numbers wise, but I don't enjoy it anymore. I'm happy I was there for the "golden age" of GW2. I sincerely think we have peaked already and are on a steady decline. People will have to realize some day that the quantity of the players does not represent the quality of the product. Once you lose your players' trust, it's very hard to get it back.

It feels surreal seeing how many people are not only happy to play subpar content, but defend it from any criticism like their lives depend on it. Every time we pay money, we abandon the games cause they suck, we get sold on a new hype and repeat the cycle. And the gaming industry grooms that behaviour. I loved how GW2 felt like a game made by a studio with integrity. Great content, fun, immersive. But I am disappointed with the end of IBS and this last expansion. I am sadened by how studio went straight into hype generation with today's expac 4 announcement. Like guys, there's a time to talk about new projects. How about you fix/improve the current stuff first. But the worst part is how they completely ignored to even acknowledge any criticism towards the latest releases. We abandoned the elder dragon storyline, we rushed to end it and it shows. IBS ending and EoD are blatant example of "hurry up, let's get this wrapped so we can get on to the new shiny stuff we want to focus on." I know people worked hard on it, and parts of the new expansion are really good... But the whole product is subpar and feels like an afterthought, like a "oh let's just finish it somehow". Like, how are people so easy to forgive this? I feel like the dragon storyline that I've been invested in just got cut with an anticlimactic finale, twice (IBS & EoD). I know there are quite a few examples of Anet abandoning stuff... I am not getting hyped about the "new, shiny thing" anymore, but people are seemingly very happy to do just that no matter the history.

I logged on today, played DE all day, got 1 successful meta out of 4. Quit after the 4th time when I just joined the instance without doing any pre-events and pulled top DPS without the buff. First of all, how in the seven hells??? Second of all, how did Anet ever think grooming casuals for 10 years can be undone with one spicy release... Smh.

Well, I think today was truly the 1st time I've ever uninstalled GW2 in cca 7 years. Even when I didn't play it for 7 months prior to EoD release I still had it on my SSD. It's just, this time I actually feel let down. I really wanted this expac to be great. I pre-purchased the ultimate version, purchased quite a bit of gems since release. In the last 2 moths I think I've spent about over €250. Not as much as some players, but I'd guess more than most. I always felt money spent on GW2 is never a waste of money. After all it's me supporting the dev team which gives us amazing free Living World Seasons, fractals, raids, strikes etc. I'm not so sure about that logic anymore. I joined too late to experience LWS1, but I played every release since. I absolutely loved HoT (except navigating tangled depths lol, hate that kitten even today). The vertical feeling and the design of the maps just felt so different and unique, metas were epic and worth doing (I actually felt like an important part of the Pact), elite specs, raids, legendaries... LWS3 had some of the most memorable maps, you could purchase trinkets and backpieces for map currency, and it had the most painful gaming experience of my life (chalice of tears, naturally), loved the story. Path of Fire was a great experience, but I did not play it that much after I got achievements that I needed, unlocked mounts and skins (if it was a viable way to craft legendaries I would have no problem playing PoF maps and metas). Living world season 4 might be my favourite content in GW2. Epic metas, beautiful maps, great collections and achievements, amazing legendaries, skyscale... Absolute peach of experience. Story also got me emotionally involved more than other releases, great villains, Aurene's music theme, her ascension... It was impactful, man. IBS started off VERY promising, Bjora Marches (Grothmar Valley to an extent) was a great vibe, awesome way to set a tone for an ice themed dragon, politics, conflicts of interest etc. Drizzlewood coast was amazing and unique mix of WvW and PVE... But the quality then rapidly dropped off. And this part is what bugs me the most. After spoiling us with an amazing LWS4, and going into a new LWS rebranded as a "saga with expansion level content", the final result left a LOT to be desired. Instead of getting an expansion per Dragon, we didn't even get a LWS per Dragon. The immense weight of who Primordus was for this franchise has been completely ignored and he was rushed to a COMPLETELY anticlimactic end (sorry devs, just my honest feelings on the subject). Primordus became an afterthought, a rushed plot point they needed to get rid of. Obviously I don't know what's going on behind scenes at Anet, but I really felt like the "expansion level content" definitely felt like a bad joke. Boom poof, off ye go, you've got two dead elder dragons without even fighting them yourself, nor getting a proper buildup and resolution for Primordus. To add salt to injury, through EoD dialogues between Soo Won and Aurene they painted him as a momma's boy too... Sheesh, writers. Sheeeeesh. But after the first wave of post-IBS dissatisfaction, people calmed down because "They are all working hard on the new expansion. All of their resources are diverted towards that." IBS was finished poorly, we all said it's OK cause the expansion will be great (which is still wrong to condone), but now we have an expac that feels subpar too. Should we be OK with this too? Or are we going to lie to ourselves and move the goalposts? I see a LOT of people defending this release on reddit and in game. It's okay to like it. Look, I love the new strikes for example, the music is sometimes amazing... But in it's entirety, this release is not just below the high standard we've come to expect from Anet, it's actually unjustifiable given how we "made peace" over rushed and botched IBS ending. Other people highlighted the biggest issues with this expac, but the main things for me is how non special anything about it felt. I chored through the story, the voice acting for Ankka, Yao & Soo Won is bland and flat. The death of Mai Trin was telegraphed and kind of expected by the time it happened. Most of the narratives we went through felt like they were written by some barbie fan-fic messaging board instead of a fantasy team of writers. For a while now, GW2 story and dialogues are notoriously lacking the sense of weight and are often ruined by wiseass, cute or comic remarks. Some of my favourite characters are becoming punching bags for lame humor, and without going too deeply into the quality of certain representation this writing team produces lately, let's just say they're heavily presenting one gender as either incompetent, clumsy, nerdy, anxious, redundant/expendable for cheap laughs - or cruel despots/fascists. The new maps were interesting to explore the first time, and then became redundant for me. Even in design they don't particularly look very striking. The only map that I wanted to do all achievements for is Dragon's End (cause I like the cape skin), but I can't cause some of the achievements are straight up bugged, locked behind a meta that takes 2 hours to fail and retry like a RC car repeatedly hitting and bumping against the wall. Fishing is not content in my book, it's cool to have, but it's not a selling point for me. I maintain these new legendary weapons should've been a Black Lion skin set... Some people like everything about the new expac. Some people love the way events are done in Dragon's End (upscaled, constantly repeatable pre-event quests etc). Some people love that DE meta is failed by most PUGs, some people are even delusional and say most of the PUGs now finish the meta successfully. Some people are saying this expac is jam packed with amazing new features... That's all great, I just think some opinions have more weight than others, and I hope Anet recognizes that. I've seen people getting ostracized for voicing their discontent with EoD in game or on social media, basically being told to leave the game and see if anyone will care. Well, I'm not trying to say these players should care if I stay or go, but I hope Anet thinks they should care if players like me leave. I will personally walk away from GW2 for now. I can invest my money and time into another franchise. Listening to "yes men" is never healthy for any studio. I hope Anet understands that people like me are not haters. I absolutely loved previous releases in GW2, and I think most of them were done at a very high standard. I know I had tons of fun with this game, but since that dreaded 2019 things started going downhill, gradually. Good luck, and I hope to see you again someday.

If we don't fight a big Jormag's minion at the end of this episode in a snowball fight, I'll just uninstall.

Fine, I'll be the devil in this one B)For people saying "hur durr, either you want a rushed and buggy release or you're patient and they release the non buggy version" - EVERY released version will be buggy. Whatever is causing this delay must be game breaking buggy. Once that's half sorted, we'll get the regular buggy version =)

Rubi, you're the real MVP =) Fingers tripple crossed it's soon. Not "snowstorm" soon tho. If ya know what I mean.