Feedback: Birthday and Anniversary system

[Shinespark.5793]

So, I recently came back to the game, and it's been a LONG time since last I played. My stupid brain decided it would be a smart thing to delete my old characters and start fresh, since it's been such a long time and I wanted that nice start-over feeling. Little did I know about the birthday and anniversary system in the game, and the fact that GW2 offers no character restoration service (for silly dumb-dumbs like me).

Now, full disclosure, I am in the wrong here. If I did some research and some reading, I would have found this out, easy. It's on their website, clear as day that there's no restoration option. And I did actually clean out the gifts from my old characters before deleting them, so I got quite a lot of stuff. The thing I didn't realize (again, me dumb-dumb), is that it's not just a birthday system, it's an ANNIVERSARY system. So, deleting an 8 year old character just because I wanted a fresh start and use that characters name on my new one, hits a bit different with this knowledge now acquired...

So, I'm not here to plead my case to the Character Restoration Gods (dead, as they now are), but to offer some thoughts. And it's a simple thought, from a simple dumb-dumb:

Why aren't systems like this tied to your account, rather than individual characters? I know there was a shift some time back, making unlocks of most stuff in-game account-wide, rather than per character. I assume the birthday system is a relic of that old era, that never got modernized with the rest of the systems. Obviously, I'm no developer, and know nothing about the back-end systems governing something like this, but I still feel it would make a lot more sense if the system was more "Happy birthday to YOU, player! For playing our game!" rather than "Happy birthday, Xxsephirothxx! Here's some cake!"

 

Anyways, those are my 2 cents about the system. I assume I'm not the first, and I assume I won't be the last getting myself into these series of unfortunate events. Here's hoping for a more forgiving system in the future.  

[Zok.4956]

44 minutes ago, Shinespark.5793 said:

Why aren't systems like this tied to your account, rather than individual characters?

Answer: Because Anet made that decision when they created GW2. Character birthdays were already a big thing in Guild Wars (1).

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

The question should be:  Why is the Character Restoration feature no longer available??

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

The question should be:  Why is the Character Restoration feature no longer available??

Or why are people able to delete characters when the system knows there's stuff on them?  Require characters to be fully "emptied" before deletion.

[DeanBB.4268]

No. When needed, I use my key runners to rid my account of the "please type out this entire item's name so you can delete it" items. They normally have a portal stone, aquabreather, and lowbie gathering tools on them. It'd be more of a bother to implement this than to have people be responsible.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Or why are people able to delete characters when the system knows there's stuff on them?  Require characters to be fully "emptied" before deletion.

Disagree.  Deleting characters (Key Runners) is the best way to rid an account of certain items. 

[Shinespark.5793]

As a follow-up: I can totally understand being restrictive in terms of character restorations. That being said, it's really sad to see there being no leeway, whatsoever. Max 1 per account for example, or putting it behind a symbolic paywall. I'd EASILY pay a sum for someone to fix something like this.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It already had restrictions when it was available for many years.  Would be nice to know why it no longer is available.

Just like 'free server transfer' was available for all those years (if one deleted all characters).  Even posted about by ArenaNet personnel as a feature.  Then, suddenly, it became an 'exploit'???