A Look Back at 2009

How did you guys enjoy 2009 in GW? Good? Bad?

Obviously a lot of great stuff happened in April with the 1 big content update, but what were your favorite or least favorite things of the year?

Personally, I've enjoyed the makeovers and costumes (that I got for free), as well as zaishen stuff.

I have missed the XTH and I'm really disappointed in the festivals this year (especially the Wintersday hats).


What about you?

In 2009, I finally lost faith in ANET:

1. GW2 nowhere on the horizon...
2. GW1 received 1-2 good updates, everything else sucked...
3. Wintersday LAG ridiculous!
4. And now, no hats...WTF ANET??

Personally I think that with the team Anet has on the job, they did more than enough to keep the game running. But the question is how long until the regular playerbase (non-Guru peeps) start to question how well Anet can handle their games. Personally I think that if they would make a stronger attempt at communicating to the ENTIRE playerbase people would at least realize that the game is old before jumping to rash conclusions.

Met 3 really amazing guys, had one guildy quit, had 2 super-sweet guys come back to game and ended with me taking a break after accepting the fact that I probably won't be getting GW2 thus completely removing all my initiative to grind titles in GW1.

Lost the one guy I always play Guild Wars with. He got frustrated with the way the game was going, aka dying. I still hold out, but it's rather lonely. So 2009 was a sad year for me in terms of Guild Wars.

I wish there was some way to help out, I love this game to bits and would really love to see it come back to where it was at a few years ago. I still have faith. Really hoping this skill update just truly blows me away.

I enjoyed getting real, non hero group with ally members. Quite funny to be the only frontliner, and not really a tank xD

Stopped playing GW in march to play Diablo2 again.
In april patch 1.13 was announced for the end of the month and i decided to wait until Blizzard releases the patch and continued playing GW while waiting for it... still waiting...

Disappointed with 'update', started doing XTH the month before it stopped aswell.
But hey, the person I used to always play GW with came back... twice.

I liked the anniversary update, but other than that I've been more or less on a break, only logging in to be social or pick up event swag. Title grinding doesn't interest me much anymore, and without that there's really not a lot I still need to do here. I'm still on the fence about getting GW2.

My guild switched alliances this year too, which is interesting. It's nice to be around guilds that aren't completely dead.

2009 was overall not enjoyable. Good things are most definitely outnumbered by the bad.

If anything, 2009 was a good year for GW2.

2009 was good and bad here.
I wish the updates were better and responded to skills that really needed to be nerfed. (i.e. bloodspike).
Better content updates than just costumes.
Drama


On the good side, I left the PvE guild I was in for a year and started doing HA - got my wolf : >.

Got my first ever obsidian set for my assassin.

I farmed/bought a lot of high end weapons and only need a few more to finish my collection.

I won the henchman contest!

Played and talked to some real old GvGers.

On the other hand...
1. Anyone who pays attention to game releases would know that Anet was silly and over estimating themselves when they announced a beta in 2008, thus shouldn't be upset over the lack of the game.
2. The lid on GW2 has been blown off, and with 2010 here, we'll get the other part(s) of the pre-release information.
3. There was some nice new content which is far more than what could be said for years before 2009 that wasn't a "pay to get" content: I.e., Nicholas, zquests, Dhuum, Menagerie, Codex compared to buying campaigns/BMP (and during said times, only real content update we got was Sorrow's Furnace/Titan Quests, the Tombs change, and DoA).
4. The finalization of the Test Krewe which should help out a lot in 2010.
5. Some bugs/exploits fixed, while others remain.


Overall, a pretty damn good job considering the Live Team is filled with 3 people and PR and testers (QA/TK). But that isn't saying it was a good year, I'd say a decent year. Though for GW2, a good year, since while no release or beta, we got information.

Good:

Nicholas Sandford - By far my favorite update

Nicholas The Traveler - I don't really get his items much anymore, but still a great update.

Dhuum - Even though I've never tried him, I'm sure a lot of work was put into the quest chain and him, good work.

Account-wide HoM - Another great update, nice to view all my achievements instead of just my one character's

Pet Zoo (forgot how to spell it) - Just brillant, something the community has ask for, for the longest time.

Max AR Hats - Even though I don't like the micro-transaction costumes, wearing festive hats w/ out losing AR is awesome.

Guild Wars 2 news - Finally Anet

Test Krewe - I'm not on it, but it's still a nice idea.

Bad:

Community Management - When Regina comes, she never actually answers to real questions, and stick to answering the suck-ups. She also seems to respond to tech issues more than actual game issues.

Costumes - A step in the wrong direction (imo) and I really hope GW2 isn't micro-transaction based.

Ugly:

Skill Updates - What happened to the 2 month skill updates? Scratch that, what happened to having a skill update period?

Schedule - Seems like updates are being delayed longer, and longer. Anet is also getting more employees on the Live team, so you'd think they would push out content faster than when they only had 3 Live team members.

SF - It's still around. I don't care if it's nerfed or not, but it's just something the community has been in a uproar about since the day it was buffed.


8:5 good bad ratio, for me. Overall, I guess it was a good year. During the finally stretch of '09 it seemed that everything was tumbling.

2009 saw more content, which is good, no matter what it is. 2009 saw less skill balances, which is bad, no matter what they balance. 2009 saw more GW2 news, which is ...not always good, but at least better than nothing.

Guess that sums it up for me.

Good: RRday-Shadowform-Got "People Know Me"-Made my warrior good.
Bad-RRday-shadowform not being nerfed-Codex-servers-...... much more that i dont want to write about...

The 4th anniversary stuff was great.

Everything else though was pretty downhill.

This error is occuring 2010 you time freak!
JK...but still....

^
agreed! ESPECIALLY the skill updates (or lack of). First the delays, then the change from 2 weeks to a month, (with more delays during this period), and then the change from a month to TWO months! Followed by another delay!...which still hasn't been sorted out...since september...

That out of the way, some more good and bad points-

good-
.Zhaishen rewards (especially the extra equipment slot)
.the anniversary update in general (although the pricing for some of the content may not be)
.Making some classes more viable in pve (generally just rts and paras, and all from a single update which focused primarily on them, leaving other classes out for another month )
.Improving Heroes and Hench in general (in pve) A LOT (AI updates and new skill bars for henchies)


the bad-
Xunlai Tournament House. The lack of communication about this makes me think that their trying to make everyone forget it ever existed...

By far, my favorite thing about this year was the addition of Nicholas (both Sandford AND The Traveler). While I have yet to get a mini Gwen Doll (I want one!), the Rock Candies and the kegs of ale have helped IMMENSELY! I hit 10,001 drunk mins in Sept/Oct thanks to both Nicks.

I also LOVE the Zaishen Missions, and the Zaishen Rewards from Zoins. Easy ways to get Z-keys/tomes is GREAT!

Also, the buff to the rit. Making spirits cast almost instantly, along with the modification to Signet of Spirits, made my rit playable once again. That was worth it right there!

I disliked the change to the XTH and the subsequent shutdown to it. Bob only knows when it will be back up.

Mostly, I will remember getting Legendary Guardian, Incorrigible Ale Hound and Vanquishing both Cantha and Elona this year, 18 max titles and counting. ^_^

PvP-speaking :

- Insufficiant nerf to bloodspam issue.

- Only two "good" & effective skill updates in the entire year (May & June), considering in the other hand theses updates intends to fix the shitstorm created by the insane elite buffs in 2008 (hexes, warrior's endurance, omegaspikes).

- Still no fix for the tie-breaker issue : GvG is boring as hell and this leads to decrease the population even more. The "damage lord race" is an another way of exploiting the end-game (Me/Mo Illusion of pain, Me/N Dark Pact+ Vamp spirit, lightning reflexes rangers and MB eles).

- The weakness of the Guild Lord and another NPC's in the Lord's room tends to make the ganks and split easier without a real threat/cost for the players using this strategy. This issue favors "suicide splits" in order to quickly clean the base for the low cost of 1/2 rez signets or 15-30% DP.
In my opinion, the removal of VoD wasn't the good answer and it accelerated the vanishing of GvG playerbase.

- Even with reductions of qp required (and the easy way to obtain them due to the fact that 75% of AT aren't really played), the popularity of monthly tournaments is decreasing slowly :

Registering (=/= playing) guilds to MaT in 2009

January : 64
Feb : 51
March : 58
April : 50
May : 65
June : 53
July : 57
August : 58
Sept : 51
Oct : 51
Nov : 48
Dec : 48

- Despite their intentions, Anet doesn't learn from theirs errors. Since 2006, fast activation attacks result in imbalanced spikes or pressures (eurospike, hunter's shot, melandru's shot, power shot). Buffing assassin's lead attacks to 1/2sec activation is another failbuff with wrong consequences in the metagame.
Same story with hexes : why buffing theses skills when, in the past, hexes where just too strong for the game ? (2007 meta from the CT to firsts MaT's)

- Too much snares with damage and/or fast recharge (water ele issue).

- Maybe look a bit about ranger's interrupts. The way they are designed now promotes mindless spamin for lucky interrupts + damage (spike compressed dmg) + poison spread.

- Codex Arena was a noble intention but it was implemented too late. And i still think people prefer the 8vs8 configuration in large area's than 4vs4 confrontations in small areas.

-> Suggestion : give in game prizes (character's slots, makeover's charges, xunlai, dwayna/grenth costumes...) for the MAT's ?

-> Renew the ladder play.