Wednesday, May 16, 2007

GW: Sigh, Why Do I Bother?

What I posted last night got me to thinking. Not that I should be checking the date or, you know, editing because that would be, like, work. But about what I see as my problem with Guild Wars. Which, I think, can be boiled down to the various parts of the game - PvE, PvP and their various atomized parts – coming together into a coherent whole. Players like myself who genuinely enjoy many parts of the game are rare and, instead, the playerbase seems to have fractured into various, seemingly irreconcilable sides. That's why things like lowering the barriers of entry to new PvP players are so important, if you ask me.


I don't think it's an irreversible condition. But correcting it would take time and effort. Energy that's now, likely, going into development of the sequel, not the original (Which, I think, is the developers biggest flaw. Rather than correcting their mistakes, they'd rather rush out the next design which only compounds the problem. That's not surprising – and ANet is far from alone - because fixing a mistake is harder than making a new one but it is lamentable.).


From there, it's a short trip to wondering just why I care so much about a game I'm not even playing anymore. It's not like I expect my suggestions to have, well, any impact. At best, I'm hoping to fire some neurons about what's not right in the hopes that the GW2 can avoid the same pitfalls. But it's not exactly like I have a big microphone or any meaningful influence any more. At this point, it's more of an intellectual exercise, isn't it? But, still, I care. It's still important enough to me that I think about it, I dwell on it, and it matters. Not just because I've invested so much into trying, in whatever small way, to make the game as good as it possibly could be. But, more so, because of all the things the game does right and not what's wrong with it. It does so much well, gets so close to having it all right, that those last few steps away from perfection are going to bother me.

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