In Memory of Wintersday Past

Disagree. Profoundly disagree.

I consider drawing winning artwork a very worthy accomplishment indeed. I consider farming all the hours god sends and actually getting enough money to buy X rare mini to be a worthy accomplishment. It shows discipline and dedication. To me anyway.

The only instances where its not an accomplishment is if it's aquired via gold duping/buying.

I exausted myself farming for the Polar bear. 20 hours it must of been. Can't do it anymore and I have'nt gotten one. Can't say that im not a little pissed off at Anet.

Ive heard of stacking the odds but come on.

PS - before im flamed by Anet lovers, ad told to "get over it" by some troll, I clearly dont mind grind, except we were all given maybe 27 hrs to do it in.

I dont think id of gotten one even if I DIDNT sleep and farmed 27 hrs straight (and drove myself to Illness, im not ill because I did get some sleep)

Meaning for some ppl, no matter WHAT they did, they'd of never of gotten the pet. I don't know about you, but to me that's unreasonable.

No matter how many games I play, I always run into people that whine about how it was in the golden days of "Insert Game* and beg to bring those days back by sacrificing any and all updates that actually improved the gameplay.

The bolded area of your second paragraph is right, but your idea is wrong. Arenanet did not intend to make any perfect weapon cost around 5k. The idea they had was to center the item value around cosmetics, and not statistics, same with the armor, and for that I applaud them. But seriously, with the amount of people who play the game, and the ease of new campaigns and thier new skills *Cough* Ursan *Ahem* there's no way we can expect an item to retain its old value through a changing econamy.

Rule of thumb in ANY game where there is item trading between players.

~The value of an item in the game, as long as the item continues to be brought into the game, depending on the rate of spawning, and the ease of new updates will depreciate to less and less worth until it becomes worthless.


This has happened to a majority of weapons, IE, the Elemental Sword, the Sephis Axe, the Nightmare Scythe, The Zodiac Axe, etc etc. The idea is not to make all perfect weapons cost 5k. It is to make equal play between casual and elite players, but also give the elite players a good way to show off accomplishment, if you use the table that wealth = accomplishment, which most games do.


When it comes to salvaging, the way it was set up was just idiotic. It compares to putting a dollar in a vending machine and pushing a button for a random candy, several which you may not like. There's no reason to bring it back, as it was nothing outside an inconvenience. If you think bringing it back will stifle the influx of perfect mods, you're dead wrong. There are way too many ways to get them, now with HM released for the price ever to rise again.

Please understand. The prices of the older rare skins or perfect mods will NEVER I repeat NEVER be as much as they were. Nothing can change the fact that they are devalued slowly as everything in the game is. Taking away good updates is NOT the solution.



As for your thoughts on heros, no way. That would be a great idea, if seven eighths or more of the "Community" as you say, were not greedy, self centered, ignorant on skill or builds, and refused to learn. Heros saved this game from collapsing a long time ago, since if everyone was forced to PuG at this point, no one would be left to PuG with except a select few guilds that were on 24/7 to cling to the idea of "playing together". Forced player interaction is seriously not good for a game, no matter the intent behind it.

I'll end my rant at your post now.




To the OP- Well written, I applaud you.

Very true, except the polar bear wasn't turned on at the start of the event. Anet just screwed this one up horribly.

I don't believe for a minute that the Polar Bear was available from the start, I think the drop code kicked in either after the hats were given out or at the strike of 2008 (when most were trying to get their hats so had stopped farming the quests for cc shards). The GW community just can not keep a secret when it comes to minis and people were farming those quests for shards like crazy for the entire event. Too convenient they only were reported in 2008.

I like the option of doing either as the mood comes to me, thank you. Thinking that forcing people to play together is gonna save the game somehow is a little off.... I run with heroes and henchies based on my experience with pickup groups, I wasnt impressed.

Maybe instead of bemoaning the "lack of community" in GW, you should go play Second Life, a game entirely dedicated to hanging around talking to people about how cool your digital stuff is. (From experience is amazingly similar to how many like to actually spend thier time in GW)

Please don't tell other people what to play. It makes you look dictatorial.

Not to mention it's a useless endeavour, as no one will listen to you.

The fact that ppl are HERE is a clear indication that theyre interested in (talking about) GUILD WARS. Not Second Life or WoW etc.

I personally think anet is just giving up on this world and working towards gw2. This is one of the first rpg's I have played of many that after a couple years disolves like this. Even everquest is still shooting out expansion packs. Eotn was a total let down being it was suppose to be elite but turned out to be a joke being that any hardcore player could be lengendary master of the north within a week of hm being realeased. Then there was the whole cost thing of eotn but thats an other thread.

As for this event it was pretty boring. They really need to change how they do things in gw2 when it comes to these events and not have rehashed stuff every time. So they added two quests yippee but I wonder if that was at the cost of only haveing 2 hats instead of 4 like the previous in which this years hat was I got it, I put it on, gave to festival hat guy, then deleted. Over all the hats sucked. May sound harsh but thats my opinion of them.

This whole issue of the polar bear has made many frustrated. I find it odd that for example they had mini pig where they screwed up and had to many why they didn't try and balance so more of these polar bears came out. I think introducing so limited an amount ( so far I have only seen 2 and im not even sure if they where the same one) of them wasn't very festive like let alone we all found out at the last minute and I was under the impression they extended wintersday to the 8th or 11th but with the last update doesnt look like it. So gg for making a few people instant millionaires lol. Was the polar bear really available all 12 days. My opinion on this is no and they just said that it was to cover up yet an other screw up.

To the people being cheerleaders for gw and yapping about how people are crying about the state of the game. Well this is just showing that the gw community is starting to feel let down and as far as I know everytime you try and contact anet to give imput they say for us to come to one of the communities and post it so a good majority of people do so thus you have people with complaints. We have been seeing more and more complaints on guru in my opinion since ther release of eotn.

But overall yes this game is free but in my opinion lately it has been feeling lacking like they dont have a decent beta team or they are just running out of ideas. I would like to note if they are having this much problems after almost three years will gw2 be any better. And yes yes they say they where held back by the dynamics of this system but I find that hard to believe after the many many rpgs I have played online over the last like 10 years. They have a lot of work to do to convince me to get gw2 this far. I hope that when gw2 comes out that they learned from the massive amount of mistakes they have made in gw and come up with better strategies.

As for gaile I think she is doing her best but there seems to be a communication problem between the developers and the public relations division. They really need to start to get on the same page because as many have stated they don't trust what Gaile is saying. I have nothing agasnt her but I don't pay attention anymore to what she says about the game.

I am not sure where you have been for the last four years, but there has been no lack of complaints on GWG. There always will be. God could come down on this earth, make peace with everyone (even me), and announce that Guild Wars was his ultimate creation and people here will say its too good now.

First off gw hasnt been around 4 years, And second I stated that I think there has been more and more complaints since eotn not that there was never complaints before hand.

People need to remember these three words when QQing over anything.

Opinion does not constitute fact.

I just want the Gift Giver back because I have ~300 shards that never got converted because I fell asleep.

I'm not too concerned about the Mini Polar Bear because it should now qualify as an item for the Chest of Wintersday Past. I also understand it was supposed to be a nice surprise added randomly in the event, but they should realize it takes a LONG time for people to find that crap. You can't give it the same drop rate as the Ghostly Hero when it's a temporary chest, especially when people only know about it ONE DAY before the chest disappears.

Oh well, I guess people can farm the hell out of the Secret Lair in HM 'til Gaile says whether it's a possible drop or not. ^_^

Your time frame is anything but right... and yes, there are complaints. The fact remains that 99% of those complains are based off whines from people who refuse to learn the game and wish it to be easier.

The anology was sort of dumb on the second part, but the idea was correct. Edited from an over reaction caused by seeing many stupid trolls on this thread.

Trust me dude, there are just as many complaints now as there were then. There are just a lot more annoying ones now because people don't know how to properly articulate them, and since ANet is generally good about communicating with us, they expect more and therefore find complaining a route to fixing their own sometimes insignificant problems.

And yes: Since first betas, Guild Wars is in its fourth year.

It wasn't a demand, it was a suggestion....a suggestion made in response to somebody trying to suppose that everything would be better if we couldnt have heros and henchies and instead were forced to find groups. (the irony of it all)

Aerian go away or stay on topic. This is about Wintersday last I checked, not the general state of complaints on this site. Or for you to derrive satisfaction from putting down so called "whiners". This is about Wintersday.

I disagree for the following reasons.

1. The drop chance is so incredibly low, there are all of 2 (or around that) known to be in existance.

2. Instead of repeated, endless repetitive dull grind to farm this new mini, many many many people would have been much happier to have gotten some interesting new ideas or content to obtain it. Something along the lines of the Black Moa Chick, for example, now there is a minipet that was fun and complicated to obtain.

3. I also honestly doubt it has been in the whole 12 days (although it could possibly be so, with the drop rate they have). All in all, it wasn't very well thought out and just seemed to be botched in at the last minute without any prior thought or preperation.

Um no

We are just about to get out third year minis. And beta was in december of 04. We just started the year 2008, for four years it would have to be december 08.

And as for where have I been well I have been a member for awhile and I may not post alot but I do read alot of content so I base my OPINION off that!!!!!!

And from my recollection it got a little bit worse with factions, then it died down a bit while nightfall then it went in an uproar when eotn came out lol. And this is based off also listening ingame too. Again just an opinion in which I like to thin I have earned for the amount of time I have put into the game.

Sorry that I am off topic but think it needs to be addressed!!

This is the Idea that wins again and again over this whole polar bear fiasco.... If it was something people could accomplish, like say by completing all of the wintersday quests or something, people wouldnt be anywhere near as cheezed about the deal as they are now.

I think the polar bear should have been a rare item from the wintersday gifts.

No, they'd be cheesed that's it would be too damn easy to obtain and they wouldn't be able to make any money off it.

Anet: Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Poor buggers.

yeah, in another thread i wrote something about a quest line where, after defeating ursula the white (for grenth) dwayna could have a quest where you have to retrieve ursula's bell, then take it into the lair of grentches and fight your way through them for some kind of item that would be required in the resurrection of Ursula as the mini (tonic of grenth or some name appropriate), then who knows what from there. Either way i thought that up off the top of my head so i'm sure Anet could have quite easily have came up with something compelling, challenging and engaging to do with this new minitaure, but alas it was not to be so. Oh well, who knows what they plan to do with it next wintersday? they could very well take our opinions into account and act upon them.

not necessarily; obtaining the black moa chick took a lot of complicated steps and a lot of time had to be invested. I can't remember all of the steps, but I do know one had to complete all of sorrow's furnace and have access to final assault, defeat zho for her book, get quite far into all of the campaigns to have access to all of the materials required for the incubation kit. It was definitely really interesting and a lot of steps were involved. They could probably have came up with something similar with the bear.

edit: sorry double post :x

This is also true

EDIT: Another quick ray of sunshine for those feeling left in the dark over the polar bear, for those that have been around that long, 3rd year B-day presintz are looming around the corner..... another way the Bear may be available in the future.

Well-written, but this looks like just another "pleaz give moar time 4 bear pet" thread.

Devs are playing a new game: GW2. Stop worrying about Wintersday, because there's a whole load of other things that you can do in GW that don't need it.

I think most people are ticked about the Polar Bear because having it as a drop from the chest made them figure "If I do this enough times I should be able to get one". 100+ runs and no bear=Angry. People spent hours farming the quest on a shred of hope that the more they tried that it should eventually happen. At least with the contests drawn outside of the game you knew there were only so many to be given out or that whoever did the best job at something got rewarded. This seemed to be a false hope crapshoot.

Very well written, you grabbed many points I was too lazy to write down myself...

I'd like to share my insight on some of them:
I agree with you... I usually play with my close friends, sometimes we spend hours upon hours in GW just slacking around.. Thats why I haven't done the Rift quests much - they were all solo quests! In an online game!
I understand that some mini-games are cool, but since EotN launched, I have a nasty feeling that only things Devs have left to offer are: more titles and more mini-solo-games. Brawling, Norn tournaments, Polymock, Bonus mission pack, now Wintersday quests... they are all solo! And I must say thats the reason I have done them all once to check them out/unlock skills and never again, I'd rather do anything else with my friends than solo quests...

I don't think taht Gaile actually lied, she simply wasn't informed about the new mini... Imho the problem with Mini Polar Bear is that it was given an extremly low drop rate in a quest that wasn't so much popular in the community and left for players to "discover" withing the 1 days of the event... This is the major fail, imho... Noone knew it existed!
Again, I totally agree with you that the best way to add new minis to game is the Mini Moa-like one: a quest (but not a solo one!!!) to work for your mini. I don't like the idea of items that are as rare as 1 per 1m of players... I don't even see much sense in that; and I don't like the idea of those items being randomly dropped, because this randomnes means that the highest chance to get one of them goes for farmers, not for casual players. Quest makes them not as common as the Piggy (tho again, I don't see whats wrong with minis and all other items being common..) but still aviable to all who are willing to work for them!
On the side, I miust say Mini Moa is my favourite minipet because it has a story of it's own; the story from following Zho's Journal combined with how me and my friend were gathering all that's necessary, and those moments of fun are so precious to us!

Again, I must agree... All GWEN is in my eyes is cutting of cupons from GW before GW2 is ready... GWEN is not only a half-product assambled from leftovers from abandoned Utopia, it's a product that changes GW principles!
GW used to a a game where skill>time; NO grind was necessary to play, there was no difference between characters being a year old and new, few-months old ones, which was awesome! Gwen, with the introduction of a massive ammount of PvE skills with efficency based on grind titles changed that totally... A character that was played more simply became better (f.e. look at Ursan teams in DoA...)!
What's more, GWEN enforces players to choose a primary, which imho is one of the greatest mistakes ANet ever made... as one of my friends put it, "I used to have 8 fully unlocked characters (meaning lvl 20, many skills and elites unlocked, one or more campaigns completed, others underway) - now I'll have only one..." I don't have to explain that for him the possibility of playing all of them w/o being forced to focus on one only was one of the greatest features in GW... He quit GW now...

Yep, I spent the day on it. I'd previously chosen not farm this wintersday, because I'm really not interested in the consumables, but the pet discovery got me going... alas, a wasted day.

QFT, had a lot of fun going after the black moa chick with my girlfriend

I'd much rather have that than another Asian minipet debacle...

IMO it is another ridiculous step in the wrong direction. They should be encouraging teamwork and community spirit. Instead they reward a solo quest on the basis of pure luck.

Somebody who is a total ass-hat playing for 1 month and thinks WoW is better and abuses people left right and centre could wander into that quest and get it first time.

Then someone else who loves this game, helps people out as much as he can, plays with 'the right spirit' all the time and dedicates a great deal of time and money to supporting Anet. hears about this and knows he can never .... EVER afford yet another thing. (I am the second example BTW ).

Why do Anet keep finding ways to make me feel more and more alienated and excluded?

Edit: I say 'yet another' because of so many other things but in this context. Why does somebody picking the right magazine off of the shelf, mean they deserve more money in game than I will ever see. Or (unlikely as it is that they would keep it) a minipet that I would love to proudly display. They make it harder and harder to earn decent money by playing the game normally, then put in more and more items that are super rare and you need to be incredibly lucky to get. They must want us all to power trade/scam/ebay.

Well sorry that aint why i bought the game. In fact I can't even remember why I did.

I know I keep saying this in other threads....but if I (a fairly level headed older player) am feeling like this and maybe about not playing much more/ buying GW2, then how many have they already pushed away?

The sad thing is, is that the topic isn't about Wintersday. The title is.

The OP is full of off-topic rants that have nothing to do with his first few paragraphs about Wintersday. Which is why this thread is full of so much crap right now. Everybody technically is on-topic because the actual topic is more like 6 topics.

I have to say, the OP shares my thoughts almost perfectly.

EotN, while an enjoyable game to play through, seemed unfinished. And it certainly did not seem grand enough to finish the GW1 epic and provide an end to our characters. The title requirements and skills only served to alienate me, as well as apperently a lot of other people in the community.

The Mini Polar Bear, while I would have enjoyed selling one for a couple billion gold, I don't care too much about. I didn't even find out about their official existance until reading this topic. However, I do agree with the OP that it should have been provided by a long quest chain centered around wintersday instead of endless farming in a dungeon somewhere.
I have a collection of about 12 or so minis, most of them cheaper ones that I bought becuase I like them. However, my most valued minis are my Mini Moa and my Mini Pig. Not becuase they are rare, or particularly spectacular, but becuase of the fun I had in obtaining them. I had a great time collecting the items for the Moa, and I relish the small sense of community I felt when the player base first discovered them and were working out how to hatch them. The most fun I had over the past year was joining a PUG for Sorrows Furnace to go hatch my moa egg. I had a great time attending CNY, and loved the delightful bonus of getting my little piggy. I hope that in the future, if they do decided to add more minis, they make them part of quests and accomplishments, and not grind or blind luck.

The community itself I have noticed has been declining. I have been a frequent visitor of GWGuru since November '06, and the complaints I've seen have shifted from being about various game mechanics, such as what skill needs to be nerfed or buffed, to the feeling that Arenanet has shifted away from the community and it completely engrosed in producing GW2. And that what major updates we have had for the game seem to be centered around individualistic and grind based play, and not really providing a situation for the community to interact.

Arenanet has a great product in GW, and I'm glad my friend introduced me to it. However, I do think this topic brings up some good points about what the present situation is like.

You. Are. Wrong. At least do some research before showing blind loyalty.

Damn some people need to wake up.

GW was a good game made by a bad game company, and now that they have messed it up beyond repair, they've jumped ship. This past Wintersday is an example of this, exactly as the OP said in his post. Yes, the OP listed a few more examples, but honestly could have listed many others.

I suppose then you'd have more then "6 topics" in that case, and I'm afraid some people wouldn't be able to count that high in order to make their useless posts.

Where is your research smarty pants.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaile/Frog_Talk/20071226

I didn't realize sticking up for the truth was blind loyalty. Is it my fault other people can't read. We seem to have a large problem with reading this Wintersday, specifically in the hat region.

Meh.

What the OP wants to say is that he felt this wintersday was similar to the other wintersdays he's experienced, and so didn't do much for his excitement.

Also he's upset because he was unable to get hold of one rare drop which probably was intended from the start to be a very rare drop.

Personally I think this wintersday was the best to date, yet weak because...
1) Server crash and rollback upon start of event. Not really ANets fault, but not pretty either. I lost about an hour of gaming.
2) Nothing was done with the showdown between Grenth and Dwayna beyond a game of nine-rings. Uninspired, IMO.
3) Removing collectors before the collectable drops had stopped dropping. Yes, they did do that; the gift giver & wraith disappeared at 9 o clock CET, while I was in The Strength of Snow, so I could neither cash in my CCshards or get the quest reward for completing the quest. The collectors should've been left in place for a few days.

Still, this wintersday was better organized than the previous ones, and although information can still be improved, it was better than it has been for previous events.
I especially remember the first one, when the finale was between 9 in the evening New Years Eve and 9 in the morning on New Years Day (CET), and ANet didn't give out any official information about when or where or how, all information was by rumor and word-of-mouth between players, which at least in europe didn't work. At all. I didn't get any hats that time.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...239459&page=11

see gailes post #205....she was quite aware that there was a polar bear mini---the thing she didnt know (so she says) its that it was implemented.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaile/Frog_Talk/20071226

says she knows nothing about it.

put the evidence in anyway you want....

Minor but important correction above. The implementation is more than an year old and some players probably already spotted this a while ago according to Gaile's statement. She simply didn't know it was activated for this Wintersday until someone exposed the situation on GWG.

I loved this wintersday event, the quests, and such were great. The only thing i thought sucked was the crazy lag, and the fact i didnt find out about that mini polar bear til literally hours before event ended . I mean, the chances of geating one is probably 1:1,000,000 ... but the point is, I wouldn't be complaining even if i had spent all wintersday event trying. I just wish I had known lol, it was a tad bit discrete. Would have been better to have even announced "a new mini will be added" , as vague as that is.
I'm not out to have these polar bears made super easy to obtain, cus i know what that would do to their current values (and how p*ssed their current owners would be). Just a little heads up would be cool.
A good example would have to be the miniature roller beatle. atleast they had said ingame "top 100 scores will get a prize" .

Pretty well written, but edgy in some parts as others have pointed out.

In terms of the "rushed fell of GW:EN", I'll have to second that. The armors are okay I guess, but still a bit disappointing for a lot. The thing that irks me the most are the dungeons. The fact that they would reuse the same areas was pretty depressing.

With you 100%. I'm no farmer, but I enjoy a bit of soloing now and then, just proving I can work with my build and do it. I've won most of the solo quests in GW:EN... but most of the time, and especially during special events, I wanna be with my friends. I did a little of the Rift Warden stuff, but it was halfassed because I wasn't having much fun by myself. I quit those after maybe one playthrough.

I like the new mini, but I'm not much of a bear fan so I don't really care one way or the other. I'd like to see a quest like the moa chick one -- there's no denying that that was a great idea -- but if one doesn't appear I won't QQ in Sardelac over it.

I guess Wintersday this year was less magical. Recycled quests, interesting headgear, the general brattiness of the community... oh well. What can ya do?