In Memory of Wintersday Past

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.

Well written

PR Lied about something regarding wintersday? Facts, not general statements please.

You had me until the "the unfinished feel of EotN."

Yes, they're moving on to GW2 WAAAY too early, and should be kicked for that, but GW:EN is still the most fun I've had playing GW in ages!

Even if my new, beautiful, Norn Ranger armor was one of those reskins that people enjoy crying about so much, I'd still be having a blast playing GW:EN.

EDIT: zwei2stein, he's referring to Gaile specifically stating the mini polar bear was a false rumor, but it was found to be actually true on like, the last day of the festival. Now anyone that wants one gets to fight over the tiny handful in existence, or wait until next year.

Well written, your thoughts mirror what I posted regarding gold drops and pug groups.

I still had fun this year doing the quests and grabbing presents with my girlfriend, but snowball arena turned into a kiddies' daycare centre full of "omg u noobs" and "lols ur gonna get pwned", after in the first and second years it had been lighthearted silly fun. Also the way that presents in towns could be hidden from grentches and never respawn was irritating; and, lastly, the drop rate on the mini polar bear is so horrendously low i doubt more than 10 people will end up with one by the end of the event.

Nice post, but you beat around the bush alot. If you wanted to say make MINI POLAR BEAR availbale to everyone just say it.
But lets face it, the community will QQ alot and Anet will be a bunch of idiots saying "You will have a chance next year". Yeah right 1 mini isnt worth the waste of a whole year in a game thats economically is dead and the fun factor is slim to none. Only reason i can find my self to log on these days is because of the poeple i have met on this game, not the game itself, and that wont be changing anymore anyway. Once people have finished off what they want to achieve, they will leave either leave or log on to chat.
They could have made a neat little quest with this polar bear which required you to play with other people. Find XYZ and so on. Sadly Anet have lost either their Creativity or they simply cant be arsed anymore with GW1

QFT the snowball arena felt different this year, but I still had fun and the new Rift Warden quests were a nice addition..even though it's a farmfest now ;p

i didn't quite literally mean make the bear available to everyone, but i'd prefer we had to work for it; for example i like how we have to collect items and go places and go to final assault to make the black moa chick. It's creative and complicated, and a very cute mini that many people can enjoy. I guess it's disappointing they didn't do something similar for the mini polar bear, and instead made it into a luck of the draw grindfest where the odds of finding one are quite possibly mathematically insignificant.

Edit: say, for example, you had to do the grenth quest line to defeat Ursula the White (the mini polar bear's model comes from her) and they could have given us a new quest line or something for the mini, whereby we might have had to (for Dwayna) go back to where we killed Ursula (for Grenth), find her red ribbon and bell, take it back to Grandfather Kringle and undergone another quest to have ursula ressurected as a Miniature. Just an example; pretty much anything would be better than hours of grind with as much chance of winning the National lottery.

/Signed

//I've watched IRL friendships feel the strain from tension created by GW since hard mode and EoTN

You make some good points Mork. I've known in the back of my mind that something was off about the community lately, but I don't think I ever realized it. Now that you mention it, there has been a decreasing snense of community lately.

Also, another thing I have noticed to add to your list is...

What ever happened to UW/FoW?

Since they changed the system for favor of the gods, favor is no longer much reason for excitement. Especially coming from the American district, it used to be so great when we would get favor. I remember when my guild and alliance would all cheer when America began to take the Hall of Heroes. Then if we got favor, everyone would head to the appropriate outposts to make teams and go to the Underworld and Fissure of Woe. Now, the world has favor 90% of the time and it is nearly impossible to find a party for the UW or the FoW. I check out Zin Ku Corridor occasionally, only to find that it is a ghost town. In addition, the Hall of Heroes is less important. Winning it for your region no longer gives benefits (at least I don't think it does), and it no longer gives a sense of unity throughout each region. I think the new system was a good idea, but maybe it's time that it is revised again.

Also, like B/P Ranger said, I have noticed that friendships on Guild Wars are straining. I think it might also be a result of people loosing interest in Guild Wars, possibly due to all the reasons which were pointed out.

OK.

It was my first festival, I'd have to say you should be more appreciative that NC has events at all. The polar bear thing is fine- except that they cant win that situation....no new mini, ppl think the devs are slacking and dont care... New mini that everybody can get, people will be mad its too common and that everybody has one.Ah heck, lets just face it....your not even chafed about wintersday this is about treasure....which yes GW needs its treasure system tweeked badly. The devs seem to believe in keeping things rare to maintain value, which has its merits....but they dont see and hear the anger in people that play their game...the anger that comes from scraping whole map areas and barely getting 2K worth of stuff, only to go to a city and be totally in awe of the people trading things for more platinum than the game even lets you carry at any given time. My favorite is sharing my gold and item drops with heroes and henchies, and then having to pay for thier equipment- thats the one that kills me. The rarity of the Polar mini wasnt the problem...at least not entirely.... the ideal approach would have been to make several new minis and at least hint to people somehow of thier existence in wintersday treasure....took people all the way up until after midnight last nite to finally stop disbelieving in its existence.

anyways, I hope you can get back to havin fun with the game...maybe if we are lucky A-net will "fix" things complained about here somehow.

I didn't find it disappointing at all.

Still, I continued reading and I think you do have some valid points - except I never thought EotN felt unfinished, and I think community spirit is alive and well once you find yourself a good guild - and it's always been that way. Outside of your own guild the community has sucked for almost as long as I can remember (for the most part, there are always exceptions... and your guild will try to recruit the "exceptions" ;-D). Maybe it sucks even more these days, but I have always stuck to my guild most of the time and am largely unaware of the ups and downs in the wider GW community.

I totally agree with you here. Anet should have made this pet just like the Black Moa.
Weirdly enough 2 days before the thread on GW online, my friend and i talked about a new mini and a mini polar bear, reindeer and penguin. And how anet could make a nice wintersday quest with this mini as reward at the end. The mini polar bear was her favourite out of the onces suggested between us. And i was rather pissed off when i found it acctualy did exist and how you were able to aquire it.

Lol, my bf and I discussed a mini Ursula before the event as well. I even capped a polar bear and named it Ursula when EOTN came out. ;p

I could just imagine it, having to go back to where Ursula was defeated, getting her bell, then say snowballing your way through the grentches lair to find a, say, tonic of grenth that would be required to ressurect ursula as a mini. perhaps then you'd have to find an actual polar bear, get within adjacent range and use the tonic on it to creat the minitaure. At least something more involved and creative than enter quest, run to end, kill, open, repeat x 1000.

Exactly! Anet fumbled the ball IMHO. If this was made available through achieving some really difficult Winterday quests, rather than grinding the same one over and over and over again, there'd be a lot less complaining. Some people would still complain, but I think for the most part, the community would have been happier.

And I agree the Black Moa chic quest is a golden idea that for some reason A-net just doesnt seem to realize...there should be way more quest only things like that in the game..... it's the %chance of drops for grinding/farming that makes people nuts about "values" of things (or lack of value)

Also Bonus Mission packs gripe: it doesnt bug me that the weapons cant be sold, it bugs me that I didnt even start he game in time to catch the promo, and just get to stare at quest NPCs that mean nothing to me, and The BMP seems to be an incentive to buy stuff online thru NCsoft, but the mission pack isnt available as something to buy thru NCsoft....smart stuff. (In general, A-net or the devs or whatever just doesn't seem to get how bad people dont like being left in the cold....this game is really good at making newer players feel like they are on the outside lookin in)

Anyways, back to mah coffee...was up til 3am last nite "farming" for polar bear

P.S. doubt Gail Grey was "lied to"....it's more likely that she wasnt told, or that she was told to keep a lid on it.... I believe the former over the latter because gail and the devs may not even speak the same primary language, or just might not speak often....and cant come up with any good motive for keeping it hush-hush.

Honestly, nobody was lied to here. The rest of the dev team doesn't have to tell Gaile everything. And she doesn't have to tell us everything she knows. It's nice to have surprises every once in a while. She didn't tell us there was no mini polar bear, she said she didn't know. I seem to remember her not knowing about the mini Ghostly Hero either.

Also, the wintersday quests last year from the rift warden were solo too. Personally though, think of how lame it would be if we had to LFG for half an hour for FUN Wintersday quests. What a waste of time during the holiday season.

Oh and I wish people would get over the hat. Nit-pick about more dumb stuff please.

You should delete the rest of your post after that. As it has absolutely nothing to do with Wintersday present or past.

You're overreacting. The Arenanet was on vacation and Gaile probably was not give forewarning of the polar bear thing.

As for the ice crown, you know on the submission page the disclaimer that it will not look exactly like the submission? They told us beforehand.

Minis not = accomplishment. Minis = play a long time, open a chest (Mallyx), win a contest (Kanaxai, Vizu, etc.) or buy it.

You seem to forget.. mini = character birthday and mini = quest reward

(purchase of minis aside here) I disagree. The black moa chick is a perfect example of a minitaure that requires accomplishments; you have to have gotten to certain areas in all campaigns, gotten to final assault and defeated Zho in the norn tournament to get a moa. The ghostly hero, you have to have won the hall of heroes with your team and gotten him from a chest. Gaile herself has said that players' enjoyment of miniatures takes priority over their marketability.

Minis are accomplishment....even minis that you got by way of extreme luck are still a symbol for how lucky you are, just like the "lucky" title itself. And staying around for long enough to get B-day presents is quite an accomplishment.

Did someone call 9-Wah-Wah? Because I hear the sirens on the Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahmbulance starting up.

If you dislike the current direction of the game so much, please for the love of all that is human, go play another game or play some hockey or something. ANet has more player interaction than any other major game out there, and I really appreciate that attention to the player. We get updates weekly, they put on these cool events for us, they add new stuff to surprise us (shock, you couldn't grind for the bear because it was relatively rare and no one found out about it until the last day? And even then all the QQers claimed it was fake puh-lease).

Losing friends in RL because of GW? What are you, like, 10? Thats pathetic. Wait until you grow up, life will really suck and you will realize the RL friends you have will not be friends anymore for much more serious reasons.

Man, I have to start questioning why I even bother here. I guess I am trying to represent the silent majority of STFU!

I guess they misdialled and rang Trolls-R-us, hence your presence.

edit: futhermore, it seems as though you havent read people's posts. We were saying how much more fun and creative it would have been to have had a wintersday questline or somesuch give the mini bear, something as creative and complex as the black moa chick.

Yeah that phone rings quite often unfortunately, and since our motto is "If you Waaaah, we Troll", we kinda have to react to those messed up calls.

I see what (some of) you are trying to say, but (most of) it is so smathered, sandwiched, and battered with crying, claims of ignorance, and shouts of loss of creativity, that the entire usefullness of such statements goes so utterly lost that I can't help but "fight" back. It seems reasonable execution of ideas has gone lost to dramatic representation of emotion.

I will repreat my not-so-trollish mantra (which I could be a lot worse of a Troll if I wanted to be, I could just state the stupid Wahmbulance thing and make it a post, but I do have some sort of intelligence); If you are having a hard time in game, take a break, play something else, and be happy.

You CAN let it go, it IS possible, you ARE special!

This was never the case for the past few years anyway since all groups are formed in the international districts.

To the OP: Well written and it expresses a lot of my thoughts. I've drastically cut back my playing time and would probably play even less if it wasn't for a great guild and alliance, and doing things with those people.

The black moa chick was one of the best things recently added to the game. I sure would like to see more 'treasure hunt' things like that. It actually gave me incentive to do all the SF quests.

To the trolls ....... no comment needed.

Yeah, that's called Next-Gen.

Next-Gen is defined by:

- good graphics (but the engine itself may be really buggy, like Source, particularly the version used in Dark Messiah that prevented most users from actually getting past the first loading screen)
- very weak storyline
- rushed out
- untested (if a game is done right then there should be no need for patches, at least not major patches)
- incomplete (I hate buying an unfinished product just because a developer does the job for the money, not for pride in creating a work of art)
- steep system requirements or requires a console
- if in a series, often violates the series in unspeakable ways (examples are Oblivion of the Elder Scrolls series and Thief: Deadly Shadows of the Thief series)

And so on. As one might guess, I hate the whole concept of next-gen because the games advertised next-gen are generally trash in comparison to old-school games.

Please, ArenaNet, turn things around. Give Guild Wars 2 a focus on story, gameplay, and community. Stop the focus on elitism and grind.

Well written first post, only 2 spelling mistakes so far

I really thought the purpose was to complain about mini polar bear, but I was wrong.

PR said the polar bear was a rumour untill the last day of wintersday.

I for one would have been farming for it everyday had I known about it from the start.

However, leaving it as unconfirmed untill the last day, especially with a sux ballz drop rate was completely ridiculous. I could have farmed the mission for all 12 of the wintersday days and not gotten one, but I would have been rewarded enough with CCS. But they have to keep it such a secret that no one knew about it untill yesterda, and now we have 1 day to try and get one.

Sorry, but this is a joke. And I'm not complaining about the pet being hard to get at all. I never got a greased lightning, but at least I were able to try knowing that people on the ladder for roller beatle racing would recieve something. This time around, they put an uber rare mini into the game, tell absolutely no one untill the final day, and expect everyone to be happy about that decision!

Oh, and the hats suck terribly too. I'm just running around with a yule cap instead of this years hats. First they ask the community to design hats for them because they are too lazy to pay someone to do it, and when they get a brilliant design they completely butcher it.

Are the people currently working at A-net the same ones that they had when the game started? It seems like they've got a pack of monkeys working for them now that get dumber and dumber everyday, and they dont do anything about it.

all of the people that were working on the game when it started are now working on GW2....new highers and fillers are working/maintaining GW1.

As to the mini polar bear...i would imagine anet will put it into the chest of wintersday past...after this event is over...or in the zashien chest/hoh chest.

I myself have stopped playing as much as i used to do....and the main reason is lack of community...and lack of an economy....why run around killing things for drops that you can only sell to merchants....because the economy is full of perfect items....

Some reverets/changes that are needed imo

Heros Limited to 1 per real person
Expert Salvage Kit....change it back to how it was random mod salvage
Inscriptions...get rid of them on gold items...blue purple fine leave em..just don't make the perfect 15^50 ect... leave them 1 or 2 off perfect
Missions make them require atleast 1 other RL person to play with


Just to let you know...i play almost exclusively with H/H but i had much more fun playing GW before I could successfully beat most areas with henchman..

Firstly, gaile has said only the winterday chest drops the polar bear.

Secondly, those Ideas are dumb. Increase heroes to 7, not reduce to 1 lol. The economy is fine. Since when should weapons have to cost 100k + xxx ectos? FFS they are just weapons!

Well written, this expresses lots of my opinions and thoughts too

I'm beginning to suspect the same thing.

I got the strong feeling that the Wintersday hats were designed by a new inexperienced hire or intern so intent on showing their stuff that they missed out on some very basic and important elements of design. In my opinion, they were modelled, not designed.

And I could be very wrong, but I feel like whoever coded the drop rate for the mini polar bears forgot to factor in the length of Wintersday festivities (probably through inexperience) inadvertently making it the rarest minipet in existence.

I think it's great to give new hires and interns opportunities to learn through hands on experience, and I think 'mentor' supervision is a very valuable teaching tool as well.

The polar bear will likely end up in the wintersday past chest, once this wintersday has actually passed...

Your other suggestions would probably make me quit playing. I really dont play GW to talk to people, I would rather do mish's with just me and my heroes (although i do like PvP for "team" play)....they need to get rid of henchies and let you just have heroes instead....and your ideas about weapons and salvage pretty much would kill the already weak amount of actual valuable treasure i can get to rite now. If anything they need more weapon skins (the thing that really drives weapon value currently) and they need to change some of the other mods so that people actually care about anything besides 15^50's and 20/20 sundering on thier weapons. (ooo poison mod, that extends the time on the poison effect my opponent removed after 3 seconds....really some wep mods are just total crap) Also, would be nice if heros and henchies didnt take your treasure AND make you pay for thier upgrades...one or the other please.

yes the OP has much of what I had been thinking as well.

If you look at past events, say the first wintersday the quests were things you could do with a group, you had things you had to jump to different cities to collect (I remember running my first mesmer thru the ascension missions JUST to get to dorks for king jalis, I also remember the gunk guy and all the "lfg gunk" from toa)...
the 2nd wintersday added some nice quests---some of which you could also do with a group. (and the 2 uw ones you could not....that made me unhappy last year)
this wintersday added only 2 new quests which were both solo..... major disappointment (esp if you didnt have eton). So not much new here and the content was not for groups.

Hats....first year since it was pretty much a new idea they were great! (and I still have mine---never trashed it!). Second year, well with sooo many people unhappy they had missed the first year they did a redressing of them--BUT also gave us 2 new ones as well (and my monk just loves his freezie crown to death)....this year...only 2 hats, one of which they only had to make from a design already in place.....
so once again not much thought into it (yeah the wreath took some time to develop, but they only had to make 1 new design not 4 like they did last year).

They did bring back most of the previous years stuff which is good since there are still a ton of newer people who never got to do them---and the grenches were fixed a bit (I like watching them explode themselves in LA )..so they did fix part of it, but not for kamadan. And they fixed the gift drop (for the most part---I have a screenie from one of kamdans district with a bunch of gifts on the ledge again this year)....and the lag fest, while partial not anets fault just didnt add any fun to this years event-just frustration.

so my wintersday report card for anet

bringing back previous quests/collectors/presents : A
New quests: .................................................. C
hats: .................................................. ......... C
new content?:......................................... ....... D

(I wont EVEN get into the frustration of the ubersuperuberrarerthansnowinhell mini pet)

so overall this wintersday gets a C--

Very well writen post. I would have to agree with the EOTN unfinished and way to buggy, I have not been to EoTN since I hit 1 bug after the other about 3 weeks ago, I'm talkin bugs that make you /resign and start again.

As for the community Meh never really cared for the kids in town I have local and trade turned of nearly 95% of the time when Im on GW due to the complete lack of intelligence of people, Have you guys just stood in a dist and read some of the shit people talk about. (IT is really bad in international Heros ascent dists.) My community is guildies and alliance members but even most of the alliance members are retarded as well so I have that turned of most of the time.

And for Anet simply holding info or releasing small bits of info just to get speculated on then shot down. Meh this happens all we can do is brush it of and continue to play.

The hats are just for show like every hat I get show to trader and delete never to be used again.

I do think Anet has forgot or lost the records for how many people play GW so they just put in the .0000000001% chance to drop and call it a day.

Did i say that things should cost 100k +xxx.... NO

Look at the current economy...it takes forever to sell any item...UNLESS it is one of the ultra rare items that people pay 100k +XXX for...

The supply of items far exceeds the demands of any normal item. If you look at the cost of "pefect" weapons from the weaponsmith you will see that Anet figured they should cost around 5k... tell me when is the last time you sold a NON rare item for 5k? I know i have stood around in any of the major trading hubs and advertised req 8,9,10 weapons/items for less than 2k each...and have sold very few...as too the salvage .... i think it adds a bit of randomness to the game that is lacking....it was a great feeling when you salvaged an item before and got the 30hp mod that you was desperately wanting instead of the barbed hilt or whatever.

The basic concept in GW is to play together to kill things and sell what they have drop..to others or to NPCs... or to PVP.... PVP is dying...as is PVE...get used to the fact, the writing is on the wall....

as to limiting heros to 1 per RL person...it will bring back the community interaction... if you want 7 heros...go buy a standalone RPG...and get out of the online game playing...

In my opinion a.net should of told us at the beginning of the event that a mini polar bear is able to drop from the chest. They say they wanted us to just "find it" like the mini ghostly. Well unlike the mini ghostly the polar bear was only available for what 12 days? Mini ghostly can be gotten 365 days a year. That was a big flub on their part. "we want you to just be able to find it" So not tell us that we only have 12 days or so to get a rare mini.

In all honesty if they told us at the beginning, noone would be upset.