For Guild Wars 2, things haven’t been great in recent months. Controversies keep arising, including last week. However, this time some players have gone off track. Still, it shows that many are concerned about the MMORPG.
What happened? On Friday, January 17, a player opened a reddit thread concerning lead designer Jennifer Scheurle. In it, he mentioned that her biography on Twitter only stated “Lead Designer at ArenaNet,” but not the Lead Designer of GW2.
This sparked a discussion about developers being reassigned to a new project, likely a game for consoles. During the layoffs in February, it was revealed that many ArenaNet employees had been working on other projects and not on Guild Wars 2 anymore.
Many fans had hoped that ArenaNet would refocus on the MMORPG. With the departure of president Mike O’Brien in October and now the change of the lead designer, they viewed these hopes as crushed. However, that turned out to be false.
What was wrong with that? Jennifer Scheurle responded to the thread with a tweet. In it, she confirmed that she is not working on Guild Wars 2 as a lead designer; however, that is also because she has never worked on the MMORPG:
I saw this Reddit thread emerge, stating that I left GW2 as lead designer, and I want to clarify that this is inaccurate information since I have never been a designer on GW2.
This shows that many players have no idea about the distribution of roles and the events behind the scenes. It also illustrates that the fears surrounding Guild Wars 2 have taken on increasingly bizarre forms.
Everything is worse than before
What are players afraid of? There are constantly threads and discussions predicting the downfall of Guild Wars 2. It doesn’t even need a real reason, as the incident with Jennifer Scheurle illustrates.
However, the game is now heavily criticized for its day-to-day operations:
- The shop is a topic of discussion because there seems to be a big focus on it. However, shop updates have occurred every Tuesday for more than 7 years.
- Players fear a maintenance mode, although the developers have announced content for every month of the year. The last three content patches had gaps of 10 and 11 weeks between them, less than in previous years. In the meantime, events for Halloween, Christmas, and Lunar New Year have taken place.
- Guild Wars 2 presents roadmaps with clear goals and even completely new content for the first time since its release.
Many of these points fuel fears that don’t necessarily need to exist. Nevertheless, these have also reached many non-GW2 players, who are then put off by it.
What is still criticized? However, there are content aspects that are being criticized by players and are comprehensible. Expansion content has been promised that hasn’t made it into the game yet.
Also, communication from the developers has become very quiet. This is particularly challenging for fans of instances, as no new fractals or raids are in sight at the moment.
Even a promised WvW update has been pending for almost 2 years.
Only in PvP are there two developers, Ben P. and CmC, who keep the players constantly informed about progress, no matter how small. Unfortunately, it takes a very long time for these innovations to actually make it into the game.
Is the end of Guild Wars 2 approaching?
What does the future of Guild Wars 2 look like? Guild Wars 2 has been on the market for over 7 years and still delivers good quarterly numbers. It is the only title from ArenaNet and therefore also the only source of income.
In the long term, new games need to follow, so the developers can stay afloat. Therefore, it makes sense that work is being done on other titles and that Guild Wars 2 will no longer stand alone in the company’s portfolio.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of GW2.
The MMORPG has had a positive impact on the entire genre with its features like the removal of level barriers and loot for all. It still ranks among the MMORPGs with the most interest in Germany. The community in the game is still very active and helpful.
What Guild Wars 2 currently lacks, in my view, is simply a fresh breeze. The updates have been identically structured for nearly 4 years. This bores the veterans.
Now it’s up to the developers to counter the trend and surprise the players. This is still possible if the desire is there. Guild Wars 2 will certainly never be the biggest MMORPG ever again. But it can still continue to be successful for many years to come.
