An Open Letter to ANet

Good point. I'm just disappointed it couldn't have been worked in here somehow; I much prefer the mechanics/feel/look etc.. of GWs to games such as WoW... I guess I'll keep my eye on Aion and GWs 2 (closet I can see being developed to what we have here).


Actually, it was meant to be playful but take it how you will.

This rage related to the ability to resurrect in Dungeons doesn't make sense to me. This isn't a dig at Malice at all, just to clarify, your post just caught my attention, and seems to be a viewpoint taken by a lot of people.

I don't understand what is srong with having Resurrection points in dungeons. If we think about other dungeons, which are described by wiki as being the Realm of Torment and Sorrow's Furnace...they have Res Shrines...yet noone complains about those. Other underground "dungeony" areas such as Bahdok Caverns, The Undercity and the Hidden City of Ahdashim also have Res Shrines. All except real "elite" areas such as The Deep, Urgoz Warren and DoA do, so, perhaps when Hard Mode is introduced to EotN, the Res Shrines will be taken away.

If someone could explain to me on what basis they're complaining that dungeons have res shrines in I'd love to hear it, because, right now, it seems normal to have them to me, and since Slavers' Exile is deemed "too easy", that seems to justify it having them too, since all the other easy dungeons have them.

EVE is far more hardcore then WoW tbh. I can't see how they'd work in hardcore PvE tbh, unless they done something along the lines of my example of hard mode.


Heh you had a valid point tbh...long winded posts do annoy me though, half of them just repeat what other people have said, the other half are complete garbage. Short n simple is the best way

The dungeon list on wiki is ridiculous in my personal opinion, because when you load into a dungeon, it says that it's a dungeon. The Deep, Urgoz, FoW, UW, DoA, The Hidden City, Bahdok Caverns, The Undercity, Sorrow's - these are not dungeons, nor do they claim to be. Having similarities does not justify classification. UW and The Hidden City are both on seperate maps not shown above ground; are they Realms of the Gods?

Regardless, my problem with rez points in dungeons is that it becomes impossible to fail. I have stated, however, that in Normal Mode I see no particular issue with rez points in dungeons, as it is Normal Mode. Hard Mode will answer that concern if the rez points are unavailable there. That said, I absolutely see no possible reason for dead allies to just... stand back up. Even in Sorrow's, if High Priest Alkar or Orozar or anyone else died, you lost. If they want to make it so that the NPCs are your "guides" and that their death means simply the loss of a guide and not the loss of the dungeon (which was a very specific selling point of GW:EN dungeons), then why don't they at least stay dead?

That sums up my feelings toward those who have been telling me I should play without armor, without weapons, and without skills for a challenge. My heroes have never had any runes on their armor, and they have no special equipment - just the preorder hourglass staves. My own armor and equipment and skills are all readily available to all players, because that is how the game is designed. I have no advantage that any average player doesn't. Why should I have to make myself suck to have fun?

I'm also compelled to mention to those who are calling me super-elite-amazing with this godly understanding of skills and mechanics: I am, but I didn't have to be. I ran Searing Flames and Spiteful Spirit and didn't lose. Is that really that much of a high end top secret build?

Also, to those who are dwelling on my example of Havok Soulwail vs. Remnant of Antiquities: I had no problem defeating either, personally. My concern was the fact that the Remnant had gotten an awesome new skill that made him an actual thread, while poor Soulwail was a rather anti-climactic Warrior boss with Giant Stomp.

To some degree you're correct, and you can trust me when I say I've already both played and have other games that I intend to play shortly. Regardless, Defket also makes a good point; if ANet was not hoping to have a partially hardcore, super-skilled fanbase, why did it put in DoA at all? Hard Mode? Even the Deep/Urgoz? Hell, Underworld takes HOURS to complete if you were so compelled.

I'm still hoping someone at ANet will take that big step and post here, or somewhere at least, and address these concerns, or others. I find it sad that even those who do not agree with me at all in this thread are generally still having entirely seperate problems of their own or are commenting that they'd like to hear something from ANet.

In the spirit of a couple deleted posts...

I love when... people name-call each other so that even if they had any valid points, they're completely lost amidst stupid bashing-each-other comments.

Stop it.

My view on this -

Urgoz/The Deep etc were added to keep the small percentage of hardcore players happy.

FoW/UW were needed to house the materials and armor crafter for the l33t armor, otherwise I'm not sure they would have been there at the beginning either.

TBH I don't consider UW/FoW hardcore PvE, neither area is that hard. Back in the day, maybe, but now..nah.

Can't comment of Urgoz or The Deep because I could never bring myself to go through the snore fest that was Factions.

Thank you,

We do need to get back on topic, instead of arguing amungst each other, we need to voice our opinion on what we think is wrong, so Anet maybe someday will give us the time of day.

I agree with the OP, my main concern are armor reskins and loot from dungeons. Of course i cant expect any new armors in an update but the loot you recieve in a dungeon is too little. One diamond? I got a req 13 jeweled chakram from beating another dungeon. Most dungeons are hardly worth my time right now.

If l33t loot dropped every time you finished a dungeon, it wouldn't stay l33t for long.

Rare drops will encourage people to play longer. Right now everything is about keeping the player base entertained until GW2.

Sorry i wasnt meaning rare drops. I was meaning something along the lines of maybe instead of 2 diamonds, maybe 3 or 4. Or instead of just a jeweled chakram, maybe two or three gold drops. Maybe a better reward for the quest givers than 1500 gold, maybe 3k. I know if they add hard mode this could possibly go up. But then it would make no sense to do the dungeons in normal mode. The rares will encourage me to play longer in a sense, but its discouraging to get the amount of loot for your time.

Finally, an intelligent comment. The imbalance in GW has always come from the fact that enemy mobs play nothing like human teams in PvP. Would human players just stand around and let you sneak up and hammer them with a AoE spell?

The idea of having random mobs is good. Maybe Anet could monitor the builds people use in PvP, and have enemy mob copy the successful ones. That'd reduce the amount of development work.

I would like to see some changes to the combat mechanics too (in GW2?). Right now, the so-called skills in PvE consist basically of not aggro management and focus-firing. Keeping circles from dots and pressing T when you hear a bell is not particularly challenging--or fun. It'd be more interesting if aggro and the radar are based on line-of-sight. To see an enemy you have to risk having him seeing you. Not sure what can be done about the over-importance of focus-firing. Maybe it's just a matter of giving enemy mobs more monks.

You have to factor the in the economy though. Having 2-3 diamonds drop is great but there will come a time when diamonds would have no value due to the insane drop rate.

Same goes with 2-3 gold drops, a time would come ehen those drops have been farmed to death and virtually worthless (think Dead Swords, soon to be worthless Runic Blades)

Because they finally realized how stupid that "keep NPC X alive, despite them doing their damnedest to get themselves killed" thing was?

What would be your opinion on VERY rare, auto-customized and VERY VISIBLE rewards (weapon/armor) ?

Well is not the economy already wrecked? Anyway nevermind lol. I guess in my opinion doing a dungeon for an hour or two doesnt warrant my time compared to what i believe is a decent reward. lol. Again i wasnt saying rare, i was thinking 2 crappy drops instead of one. lol. I have to be more discriptive in my posts. I was trying to fit in something that i thought was important to me. That a dungeon should be worth more than it is. I just wont play em until hardmode comes out.

Economy is casual palyer based..so yea it's a bit screwed from a traders point, and in great shape by a average kind of players point.

I fully agree with you, however, it's good to look at a subject from both sides.

Some reward for a 2 hour dungeon crawl would be nice, but which ever way you look at it, that dungeon reward will be worthles after it gets farmed to death.

I can see from both sides because I use to be a hardcore trader, now days I rarely log more then a few hours a week.

I have no problems with something like that. What do you have in mind?

I would like to remind some folks that saying a dungeon is "too easy" is only relative to you and you alone. And why did you feel the need to rush through and beat the game in 1 day? Bragging rights maybe? By doing that you missed out on a LOT of gaming.

I, for one, was caught completely off-guard when I entered the dungeon that you have to go through to get to Gadd's Encampment. I had my usuall build and hero/hench team and was blown away by the teams of Undead Wizards using Sock and Aftershock and their Priests healing any damage I was doing. I was all the way to the end and could see my staircase exit to get the hell outta there but could not get past the 2 remaining mobs cause I had a dp of -60% and was killed instantly each time I approached. I eventually made it out by using my heros as bait and me running like hell past them.

My first foray into Frostmaw's was another disaster in the making. I made it, but only with the use of some well used Candy Canes that I didn't anticipate using. Was I un-prepared? Maybe. But I didn't run to a forum to find out what build to use. I was exploring on my own and was not prepared for the challenge. Will I be prepared next time? You bet.

So, I for one, love the rez shrines and rezzed NPC's. Cause if I had to restart the whole frickin dungeon after treking all the way to it and then making it to the second floor and died and was sent back to town I would be pitching a fit and would probably never enter a dungeon again.

I won't say too much about the rest of your arguements. Just that I too have played for 2 years and I am still having fun and have no desire to leave. My key to happiness is taking breaks from GW. I play other games as well. That way I don't get burned out and think GW is going downhill like SOOOOOO many people on this forum think.

I have been saying that for ages.... nothing against no one, but if 1 persons whole freaking job in life is 1 thing... u would think they wouldn't be the one asking the questions like "oh everlasting beetle tonic, was that a reward or something?".... and especially not publicly where other players see her lack of game knowledge, of which she is paid for.


Very nice letter btw... im not gonna recomment on everything but very well put. My biggest thing, is Anet has no idea what is going on ingame with its players.... the PR person should be an actual player, a person who plays many aspects of the game.

A well thought ut and good OP.

Not being a top end player i am finding the game quite good, working through it relatively easily. The dungeons do seem to be easy though, i was expecting harder.

Main point I agree on is about HM though. A release time for this would be appresciated, and this would, as you say, answer most of your issues.

Dungeons would not quick you out untill the 60dp was reached i imagine though.

From what I've seen Andrew Patrick has really stepped up and is starting to do a much much much better job at PR since he actually plays the game with people. I don't know about Gaile cause i have never her seen her actually play. But I've faced Andrew quite a few times in HA, and that is reassuring, even if he was running Heroway. :P I think Anet needs more people like Andrew/Izzy.

So...some say Anet isn't paying attention to its players enough.

I have yet to see the blue dots go down in EotN. Guess what? The other games have good trafic as well(other than late Factions, but what else is new?). On weekends you are still getting 6-8 districts or more in Kamadan, which is good considering the release of EotN 12 days ago.

It's been mentioned by Jeff Strain, and by others in the thread. We....aren't....the....average....player. Right now the average player might be in a role-playing guild, acting it up in Loin's Arch. They might be having fun exploring the darks of Ferndale. They aren't hopping on GWG or wiki trying to find the 1337 farming build for their ele. They aren't looking at a sword in EotN and saying, "Geez! Couldn't Anet do better than this cheap reskin?" Do you think a lot of players KNOW what a reskin is? I know that before I started reading these forums, I didn't. Hell, most of them, when they get that red helmet for finishing the game, will try HM a few times, go "F*** this!", and move on.

Having things like Elite missions and HM proves they do listen to those on the forums and try to accomodate. Don't think for a second that no answer to you means no one is going to buy GW2. Maybe YOU won't. Maybe I won't. There are plenty of things I don't like about the game as it is now. Thing is, they are doing enough things right with the majority of players that, when the next game does come out, there will be plenty of people that remember the good times they had playing this game, and give it a try.

So, while the OP wrote a well-put-together letter, and it's ok to post concerns on the forums, as they try to address as many reasonable concerns as possible, don't think that you represent Johnny Q Guildie. Right now he's playing the game, and he's having fun.

when did / does he step in, as of the 6th.... Gaile still sporting the signature

Gaile Gray
Community Relations Manager
ArenaNet
The Guild Wars Site

Off-topic, but this made me laugh out loud because it is the exact same thing that I did.

/signed

i agree most of the question, this EotN has disappointed most of players,

1, art works are lazy.....reskin armor, old enemies, pets

2, too short, too easy, why we rez automatically in dungeons even inside the elite dungeon........

3, no full story line........i suddenly enter a dungeon, then a dwarf and a asura ask me to help them to fight against destroyers.....then i join a small group and defeat the destroyers.....i feel like its just a small easy hunt, i dont feel any threat from destroyers......

i help Gwen to free the ebon vanguards, but what will happen afterward? i want to know more and play more
why the dwarf and asura want to fight against destroyers? what happened before?

i just get 1/3 of the contents that i expect from EotN

i hope anet continuously add some contents to EotN, otherwise i doubt who will buy the products from anet in future.......

/signed

Remove all res shrines in dungeons.

i am a careful player, when my team accidentally lure two teams of enemies and my teammates are killed, i run away and want to use rez skill to rez them, however they will say

" dont run, just die, we will get rez"

i feel its too...... casual.......EotN is designed for 20 lvl players, players should complete at least one campaign and they are not newbies, it should be more challenging....

So basically we should CARE about how the designers have run out of ideas?

People buy GWEN more or less because they see "40 new armors". They are not wrong AT ALL to expect something cool out of the game.

Let me ask you this: You buy something in real life expecting to get something as stated on the box. But then when you open the box you find out that it's not quite what you expect, despite the fact that you don't expect anything beyond what the box says and your past experience with the products to begin with.

What would you say? Would you go "Oh. I understand. The company must not has enough resource/time/idea/whatever to do any better. I guess I'll have to take it as it is and buy another box when it's out"?

I HIGHLY DOUBT IT. And this isn't any different.

Evil, my guild doen same thing now, u would think... Any dungeon would = hardmode.... its hard goen from playen all hard mode, to this wonderful new Gwen, where its perfect, no hickups, no glitches, no broken skills or such...

oh wait, it is all kindsa broken....

oh ya, i think Anet joined up with Microsoft... GWEN will be ready to play sometimes next month....

HARD MODE WHAT?!???

[QUOTE]wrong

i bought an expansion of a game for things to see and do. not armor

the armor did not factor in at all.

can you actually comprehend that concept?

if they said *no new armor at all* i would have bought it just as quickly.

and yes i have been having more than my moneys worth of fun and i am early in the game.

i did not buy GWEN as an epeen armor pack.

i bought a game you bought an armor pack

[QUOTE=Loviatar]....which part of "more or less" you don't understand?

You don't care about a feature. But I do. So basically my opinion is wrong because it doesn't go in-favor with the game?

Nice.

Yeah, this needs to be read... I'm reading over those that don't agree with everything posted here, but I'm sorry, it's not close to what you need to say. The trouble is, and it was outlined in the end, that the consumer and company line needs to be crossed. This is a game based on enjoyment, sponsorship and etc. If quality content is put into a game, people will play. That's an end topic. Sure, you can't keep everyone happy, but for lord's sake we were promised something, and this is no where NEAR what we were promised. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

I'm a Guild Wars player since beta. I'm disappointed. I don't intend to get Guild Wars 2 unless ANET gets in contact with us and straightens up their act. Does it matter to them? Proabably not. I'm only $50 in their overall plan, but I'm not the only person thinking this way. ANET's in real trouble with this half-assed new content.

Reskins don't make people happy. Ingenuity keeps people happy. I hope many realize this, no matter how awesome and totally cool the old skins were; the point is they're old. NEW. ORIGINAL. These words aren't understood by many companies, and honestly I felt ANET would be different.

Also, I want many to understand this... We as the PLAYER BASE are trying to communicate to the supplier what we would like to see... Know what happened with a game that didn't listen? I've got a good answer for ya.

World of Warcraft.

Please, be different from those slime.

imo, i think gw started out as a pvp-oriented mmo initially. However, due to lack of interests in gw pvp despite of efforts being made by anet, anet starts to focus on pve portion in the future development of gw which is the root of the downfall of gw because now gw is neither a good pvp nor pve oriented mmos. As a result, they resorts to cancel any further continuation of gw 1 series and starts a new series of gw 2. Imho, GW:EN, instead of being a grand finale of gw1, for me, it is just a total letdown. I felt sad that what had started out well initially has ended up badly.

I think Anet might want to say this to you:

"What exactly happened to WoW, anyway? Last time we checked the thing you called "slime" has just got all the nearer to 10-million active, paying players. Are you suggesting us to STOP LISTENING to players, so we can be as popular?"

But at any rate, I suggest everyone try not to bash some other games and stay focus on GW. Trust me, it's doesn't make your beloved GW look any better; it's pathetic.

Any disappointment with GW:EN will directly result in less confidence in GW2.

Lose your hardcore players, and you lose key influencers, aspiration targets, and community leaders and contributers.

By the time GW2 is out, people's LotR, Warhammer, and Conan characters will be 1-2 years old. They'll think back to the last taste of GW in their mouths, which is GW:EN.

Well it was a good post, better than what I usually see on these forums. And I agree partially. I was thinking, oh 20sum dungeons= 20sum Underworlds/FoW COUNT ME IN. I was expecting them to be hard to where you felt good about beating it. i admit I have fun in the dungeons now but id like them harder.

At the same time I am conflicted with you, the arour is reskined? What else do you want a higher Al so the unbalnce you speak of becomes even more so? Not everyone can afford to rush out and buy gwen to get the better stats you speak of. Remember everything in every game must be balanced because of the link between them.
When I started GW I knew PvP was supposed to be the mainstay of the game and this was true. Before factions, nightfall, and gwen all we had for pve was the story line, Fow, and UW for things to do. We had no titles to work for, no green weapons to go hunt. The PvE was really limited as a game and after you finished the PvE side you either took up PvP or got bored and left.
The GW team has done a TREMENDOUS job at Implementing a new PvE aspect of the game. You say Guildwars is not catering to the PvE player because they have money in the bank they have no need to. Now that is true but they also want to release new games and have success with them as well right? You can't expect people to support you if you have no support. Anet does not hold an MMO monopoly and has a huge battle to fight to earn players into their game vs. another MMO.
I don't know what more they can do to turn an Pvp based game more into pve without doing what they are doing. I think you will see GW2 to be much more Pve based as the team knows now that a huge player base of Pve players wants to play guild wars. You can't just take the model a game was build on and change it up so darsticaly the game dosen't even fit with what it says on the box. That is why they are making GW2, if you read you will see they decided to make GW2 to make their system better for all players and to have a more versatile, longer lasting game than the origional game alows for.

So you do have valid points when it comes to Gwen, it is debateable on the difficulty of the game but you do need to remeber all of the people that are not as good as you, maybe that play the game casualy, why leave someone out because he can only play 1 hour a day and dosen't have time to get all the greatest skills, builds, weapons, and armour.
But trying to say the play system is flawed and that theuy provide no support is kind of outrageous imo. I don't know what more you could want them to do. If the game style is not what you like then maybe it is time to find a new game for a while and check back in a year or two and see if it has changed in your favor. There are a LOT more people enjoying the game than disliking it. The dev teams can see every player that comes on and off they can see when they have the most users playing and when they have a lul. The guild wars world is a closely monitored world and you can bet expansions like gwen were designed around the majority of what game researchers thought players would want. Their job is not to make you happy their job is to make money, unfortunatly for them making you happy is something that must happen to make money. Think of it as an annoyance for them not a will.

So on an end note, do i agree with most of the things you said? Hell Yes! I am just trying to show the cold hard facts of how it all really works and why it can't really be any other way right now.

Punjabi=Gaile Grey?

Just because someone disagrees that doesnt mean they're working for Anet. I dont work for them either and I dont agree with the TS.

Putting up a post that long and then basically stating "But HM will fix it" is exactly what Strain talked about in his GC speech, those are not the players you need to focus on as a dev.

I'll give you a Gaile Grey quote

"Thank you everyone for your opinions on the Guild Wars Guru Forums. We have worked hard to give you our final product of GWEN. The Devs here are proud of what we have accomplished and so should everyone of you. The reskinning of armors, weapons, and monsters actually make sense for GWEN and fit in with the lore of the land. We do not plan on making any new weapons or armors for GWEN, these are final products. The ressurection shrines in dungeons are there so that all players of all classes may enjoy what GWEN has to offer. HM will be released soon, as of now we do not want to release HM as of yet so that everyone can play the game as it is intended to be. There has been several similar threads for every campaign about concerns for Guild Wars. For most of you, you should actually take the time to explore and get to know GWEN. Then everyone would see the time and effort we put in this expansion for the community."

I am just bored lol. The sentence saying that "the reskins make sense because it fits in with the lore of the land" is an actual statement made by Gaile in her Gaile Talk Forum, what a lame statement. But for the majority, the OP is right and i never have ranted before on the forums until GWEN came out. I care what the future products might hold if i enjoyed the other campaigns and was upset at this new expansion.

I am happy with the difficulty of the EotN dungeons and missions. I am an average player, I play the game for fun. I have no wish to be a 1337 player, or to prove anything. For that kind of thing I have a Real Life and a Real Job. I do not want to study every build, character type, know the skills and stats of every monster, just so I can beat the hardest possible missions. Let me say this again: I play for fun, for relaxation and distraction, after a long stressful day at work. All in all I found EotN to be well desiged and laid out from a average base line.

However I do agree with the reskinning issue, I would have expected some new content to grind for, not some old stuff I already got in a different color. I grinded for some Dwarven armor, then realised its not even Ascended armor - that was a waste of a few hours of rare playtime.

I would have expected the same commitment and product delivery we had with the Factions and Nightfall campains, for this EoN expansion. We paid the same price anyway. For that GW:EN = Fail.

Hell, any of the three campaigns can be had for LESS than the cost of GW:EN now.

You didnt pay the same price so guess what? You = Fail.

I think Anet should introduce that hair stylist just to shut the whining up.

But you can bet some guys would even complain about that.