I Guess GW2 Really Doesn’t Want to Win Me Back
Not that I’ve had a lot of interest in coming back to GW2. It’s still installed on my laptop somewhere, but I had even given up logging in for the daily rewards once I got my third (or was it fourth) level 80 character from the tomes.
I never bought HoT. I’m not all that interested in HoT, especially after hearing folks who enjoy the kind of game play I enjoy saying it just wasn’t fun. I know they’ve been working to fix a lot of issues, but if I can’t log in and have some fun soloing in the world, while helping out folks I just happen to run across (like the game used to be), then it’s not for me.
Also, I’ve never once seen HoT on sale. Nothing like the sales they used to have on the base game. (Update: A week after I published this post, ANet announced they would have their first ever sale on HoT with the release of Season 3.) I just can’t justify paying full price for an expansion I’m not sure I’ll enjoy, even if it does come with an auto level 80 character. I have lots of level 80 characters already, and leveling was actually the most fun part of the game, IMHO. Anyhow…
Living World Season 3 Announcement
So, I heard about the new Living World season coming out. It’s the first big GW2 news that’s had me click on it in a long time. I was curious where the story was going, even though I’ve long since been lost to the story because I didn’t play HoT.
When Mordremoth was killed, all the magic he held was released into the world, and of course, there are plenty of factions coming out of the woodwork to claim it. Chief among them are the White Mantle religious cultists who worship the mursaat and are trying to harness the power of the Bloodstone to resurrect one of their gods.
There’s some good news, though, as hypercute Asuran researcher Taimi is working on figuring out how to take down other global, dragon-related threats. Meanwhile, the players found and protected a dragon egg from Glint, an ally to Tyria’s races. While Anet is teasing that the child may or may not side with the Tyria mortals, I’m wondering how Taimi’s going to react to the whelp.
Ah, Guild Wars 1 references are ways to get me curious. As long as they’re written well.
Okay, I might log in and try out this new season of… oh wait…
…you do need to own HoT and have a level 80 character to access it…
Well, scratch that, then. Living World story is now gated by expansion. Guess they don’t want me to come back to try it.
Regardless of whether you own HoT, you’ll want to log in while each episode is active to “bank” it for your account to play through in the future.
Yeah, thanks, I think. Like I’m coming back months later to playing old story that no one is involved with if you ever put the expansion on sale enough for me to consider picking it up. Come on. It’s been a year or so already?
This could have been the perfect thing to lure those of us who enjoyed the old updates and Living World stories back into trying GW2. I probably would have tried it out. Who knows, I may have enjoyed myself again. But instead, they’re gating it behind the expansion (though you don’t have to finish the expansion story to play it – makes sense?), and losing out on an opportunity to earn back old players who felt burned by the development direction long ago.
Yes, I understand that the game needs to make money. My Steam library proves that I’m not against putting money into a game or an expansion if I respect it. This game used to get plenty of fluff buys from me in the gem shop when I enjoyed the game play. But for a long time now, GW2 has been telling me that I’m not their target player anymore. So they haven’t been getting my money.
See, this is why I don’t blog about GW2. I’m still grouchy and bitter about the direction this game stumbled off to. I’ll go to my corner now, and dream of how great Tyria was… before it got monetized to death.
