What happened here?
i realized just how fucking much i hate anet and how theyve treated gw2 so in the trash it all went while i play games that are actually goodĀ šŖ
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Claire Keane
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@canach
What happened here?
i realized just how fucking much i hate anet and how theyve treated gw2 so in the trash it all went while i play games that are actually goodĀ šŖ

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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who up thinking about how the story was teribble to Caithe for being under the literal control of a FUCKING ELDER DRAGON vs them giving Rytlock a light slap on the wrist [if that, even] for freeing a genocidal god of his own free will just to relight a sword. LOL!!!!!
Like, caithe makes a mistake because of A FUCKING ELDER DRAGON!!!!!, is threatened with death, and when she tries to apologize the PC is angry with her a year after it happened. rytlock makes a mistake and is forgiven instantly.
vs Rytlock's "confrontation"
boats and fishing announced as central expansion features
Player name: The Best Ass In Tamriel
Description: an elven character with an absolutely nonexistent ass. just all sliders set to 0 ass. nothing back there at all.
Anyway, Iām not sure if Iāll rebrand this blog to content of MMOs I actually play or not, Iām not all that interested in partaking in any fandom anymore to be quite honest but either way. Catboys are good though.Ā

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
What Killed The GW2 Tumblr Fandom?
(And I do just mean the tumblr fandom. Iāve not really noticed the fandom as a whole having this problem.)
So full disclosure before I talk about what Iāve noticed personally and why I think this jazz is happening: Iāve never been the most active in this fandom. Iāve tried to be in the past but even at my peak Iāve always felt a lil outside of everything? Iāve been playing GW2 since launch and Iāve been making a Gw2 comic at @torasteals for the fandom for almost 5 years at this point. For most of that time Iāve felt like some weirdo tossing shit into the void and only vaguely being aware of what else was going on in the tumblr fandom beyond the few blogs I followed. I want yāall to keep this in mind cause it does paint my perception of what Iāve seen as different from someone who may have been far more involved in the fandom than me.
Okay with that in mindā¦
Hereās what Iāve noticed:
The death of engagement within the GW2 fandom as Iāve noticed it seems tied to at least three things: Tumblrpocalypse of 2018, the migration to FFXIV, and the Pandemic of 2020.
Tumblrpocalypse of 2018
Does anyone else remember this shit? Tumblr had that change of policy around nsfw art and changed how they treat links that basically murdered a bunch of creators on tumblr? Everyone remember the mass exodus of artists and creators leaving tumblr for twitter? Yeah tumblr has definitely chugged along alive since, somehow miraculously, but the effects of this can still be felt to this day. We lost a large chunk of creators for the fandom during this. I wouldnāt be surprised if a large chunk of fans, who donāt create fan works, left for this reason as well.
Personally, tumblrās changes in policy and algorithm during this time nearly killed my comic. I lost a lot of readers and a lot of engagement with my work. I wouldnāt be surprised if other artists went through something similar here.
Even so, I do recall there still being a lot of creators that held on during this time and who persisted to create works on tumblr. But thenā¦
The Migration to FFXIV
From what Iāve seen, a lot of people, creators and just fans alike, have simply moved on from GW2 to FFXIV. Like, a LOT of them. Nearly every artist that I used to follow for GW2 content just doesnāt do that anymore. Nearly all of them have moved onto FFXIV (and sometimes some other game entirely, but itās usually FFXIV). I donāt know what this says about the state of the game itself right now, but Iām not sure weāre getting as many new fans as weāre losing right now. That might change when End of Dragons is released, since expansions have always historically brought in an influx of new blood, but Iām no fortune-teller.
As it currently stands, I legitimately donāt know how many of us are left in this fandom. Hell, I still regularly make content for this fandom weekly and I can tell you Iāve been burned out on the game and needing a break from it for awhile now. I wouldnāt be surprised if this isnāt a common feeling.
Pandemic of 2020
I would honestly argue that this is what put the nails in the coffin for the fandom at present. I couldnāt begin to tell you exact reasons why, but I can tell you that as soon as shit really hit the fan last year, engagement in this fandom basically died. My posts that used to get a handful of reblogs, have turned to nearly zero over the course of this crisis.
My dashboard used to be littered in GW2 posts. So much so that even if I didnāt directly follow them, I could tell you who the big names in the tumblr fandom were. I canāt do that anymore. I have no idea who is big and popular on here anymore. Itās not just that people have stopped engaging, itās that people have stopped creating as well. Iāve seen honest to god radio silence from creators who used to dominate the GW2 tag.
Again Iāve got nothing but guesses as to why this is? COVID has done a number on all of us I think. Itās harder to create and itās harder to engage. Itās incredibly depressing on a number of fronts.
So is this it then?
Iād like to hope it isnāt?
I donāt really want to end this on such a doom and gloom note, and Iām sorry for that. I donāt think the fandom will straight up die forever but I do think weāre havinā it rough right now. And thereās no guarantee of when shitāll pick back up again as far as Iām aware.
If anyone else has thoughts on this, Iād love to hear it. Iām sure my picture of what Iāve been seeing is incomplete, so if anyone has stuff to add or has noticed things Iāve straight up been blind to, Iād be very curious to know.
I feel like my reply to this will be a lot more negative than others on why I left GW2 completely after being around since 2012 and having played over 10 000 hours of the game, and the fandom by doing that, and itās pretty simply because ANet seems to be 100% incapable of delivering anything worth caring about in the game primarily, and just the godawful monetization second.Ā
Personally started being jaded around HoT when the cracks on the wall on how directionless GW2 is and for how little the story is thought for if you care for anything but human lore. The other races are constantly losing their identity when the current narrative team completely fails to make the characters more relatable and likeable without having to resort to things like oh no Rytlock, a Charr, who are famously known for putting their children in fucking war kindergarten and forgetting about them, suddenly has big baby feefees about his kids that heās never known :((( and as war as Iām aware theyāre still completely ignoring the sylvari situation since HoT.Ā ANet abandoning any and all new content people enjoyed and having a glacial pace updating Fractals just about leaves that godawful, directionless story with unlikeable characters left (because of course they kill or abandon the likeable ones, as you do when youāre writing good and engaging story, you know) in the roster about the only thing coming in anymore aside from whatever they want to sell to you in the gem store.
Also as far as Iām aware GW2 is STILL missing a game director since the last one left around mid to late 2020.
Also ANetās monetization of GW2 is insanely predatory, which it only skirts from gaining more scorn because people still buy the wholeĀ āoh it doesnāt have a subscription fee!ā model, but the game has multiple lootboxes with FOMO baked right into them to get people to gamble, majority of new weapon skins are locked behind someone having to gamble the Black Lion chests for the tickets, most interesting pieces of armour, not outfits, are shoved into the gamble boxes, mount skins are behind lootboxes unless you want to pay 3x the price of the box for a skin you want, which matters a lot more in a game where the only endgame left is the aesthetics. Not to mention things like having to pay for LS drops on top of buying the expansion theyāre a part of if you werenāt playing when they dropped which just keeps increasing the adoption cost for new and returning players, having incredibly limited build and gear save slots when the extras you buy are character bound. Iāve realized at least myself that I could keep up 2 or 3 subscriptions to other MMOs and still save money compared to trying to keep up my characters with multiple builds and aesthetics I enjoyed in GW2.Ā
Like sure, GW2 doesnāt have a sub, but something like XIV for that subscription gives you all the story updates in an expansion even if you didnāt play when they dropped, a consistent update schedule with actually new content and aesthetics that youāre not paying extra for. While I wish that a sub based MMO didnāt have an extra cash shop, but then again, that cash shop doesnāt also have FOMO lootboxes soĀ ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆĀ
And the whole point of this tirade is Iām not the only one who feels like this about ANet and GW2, and why would people keep playing a game and stay in the fandom if it offers nothing for them. GW2 truly was a golden goose for a new MMO format around 2013-2015, but instead of letting the goose lay those eggs ANet decided to roll the goose in a carpet and beat it to death while saying this is better for everyone.
Anyway happy 2021 yāall I intend to not shut the fuck up about catboys all year