Why did this last Wintersday seem so disappointing? After giving it a lot of thought, I believe the developers have lost their sense of community with the guild wars players.
The key to any multiplayer online game is that it is a group experience. The same game played solo on the PC would soon be forgotten once it had been completed a couple of time. The ability to interact with the other players is what makes or breaks an online game. And Guild Wars, as its name implies, had a tremendous sense of community. In this, the instanced play was a key ingredient. It removed the sense of competition and allowed you to choose with whom and when you would share your gaming experience. I have been frustrated and quit a couple of times but I have always come back, not because the game was great but because of the players.
Certain things the Devs have done have helped that sense of community. The Black Moa Chick was an excellent idea as people began to help one another find the ingredients and joined together to hatch the chick. for these things I have to give them credit.
But increasingly, it seems the Devs are losing their sense of the importance of the community in favor of the mechanics of economics and gameplay ever since the announcement of GW2.
This last Wintersday provide some extreme examples of that.
Their PR representative was lied to and consequently gave the community false information. As a consequence we will never be able to trust her again as a community. Even if she does tell us the truth, we will not know if she, in fact, has the information necessary. This is, I believe, an irreparable split between the Devs and the players.
Minis are important to many people simply because they are one thing you can show off and share with one another. They are a way of relating to the community. You can not show weapons in town and so minis, in spite of the fact they do nothing for the actual gameplay, have taken their place as ways of demonstrating what you have accomplished. You like to take out your most expensive mini and show it off. If you are like me, you don’t bother in places where you are alone. Yet the mini for this wintersday was placed in a quest that forced you to do it solo and placed in such small numbers that it was guaranteed to cause frustration and jeaolousy.
The Grenth ice hat – I don’t care that it was ugly. I have gotten ugly hats in the past. No big deal. You show them to the hat guy and trash them and don’t look at them again. But this time it felt like a slap in the face. Why? Because the one element that the Devs asked the community for input on was changed in a way that removed the charm of the winning artwork. The ice was made flat and lifeless. The heart of the one real piece of input from the community was thrown away and replaced with something unattractive.
Yes, there were good things in this wintersday event. But, by and large, they were the things from previous years. The new things showed an inattention to the community that is disturbing.
Other things can be pointed out, of course:
The unfinished feel of EotN. You get the sense in things like polymock, armors with poor antialiasing and a mismatched armor set that there was a great idea behind them but that they weren’t quite finished when released. I get the sense that instead of saying, “what can we do to really please people,” the attitude was, “let’s get this over with so we can get on with GW2.”
Or the BMP which not only forces you to play solo but rewards you with customized weapons you can never sell or give away.
I would also include the heavy handed nerfing of easy farm runs. From an economic or mechanics view things like the shiverpeaks runs and ugrgoz vamp trapping (not suicide) farms may seem to need nerfing. But things like them provided opportunities to play the game with new and different partners. With runs being easy and rewards being fairly high you could join a pug without worrying who had what skills or who might do the wrong thing at the wrong time. If things didn’t work out you had only wasted a few minutes instead of hours. Urgoz and the Eye were full of people who got tired of farming and decided to try the mission or even people offering to show inexperienced players how to do the mission effectively. Friends were made who went on to do other quests and missions together. That is gone now – Urgoz echoes like a graveyard and the Eye is once again just a way station on the road to other places. The only place I can still find groups that are just fun is Tombs of Primeval Kings. Nerfing may be necessary, but it should be done carefully and with an eye to the impact it will have on community. I will not join Pugs in most other missions and high end areas because they simply don’t give you a chance to know the other players. You are thrust into a situation where a mistake can mean disaster and loss of an hour or more of work. They do not create bonding but tension. Moderately easy, high reward situations creates bonding that leads to trying harder things with people you enjoy. They don't need to be as extreme as Urgoz and Shiverpeaks were. But there should be several opportunities that provide moderate ease with moderately high reward. There are very few of those in the game and getting less all the time.
In the end, community is the key ingredient unique to multiplayer games, and especially to Guild Wars. It’s loss will not mean the death of Guild Wars 2 – any new game will find a market for a while. And friendships and Guilds already formed will hold on for quite some time. But it does mean the ghost of Wintersday future is looking cold and lonely while something unique and beautiful is slowly disappearing from the Guild Wars experience.
So, please Devs, start playing your own game again so that you remember what it meant to be a community and can make sure that sense of fellowship does not die in the birth of GW2.
In memory of Wintersday Past
Ok - you can flame away now.
M
