I Get It Now

It kind of hurts me to post such a scathing opinion of a company that's making a game that I'm extremely excited about, but they're just annoying me too much right now.

ArenaNet.

Guild Wars 2.

Fascist Non-Disclosure Agreements.

Why?

I'll tell you why.  They want to prevent regular people like you and me from posting our opinions about the game.  They can't control our opinions.  They can't control what screenshots or videos we post.  This is why they have such a fascist NDA that doesn't even let people mention that they're taking part in whatever's going on.  This is also why they give much less restrictive NDAs to popular internet gaming news outlets.  Because they know they've got those places indoctrinated and that they'll only give good reviews and opinions.

This is not about protecting any "trade secret".  If there were any "trade secret" to protect, they wouldn't have shown gameplay at multiple game conventions or had computers set up at those game conventions where people could play the game.  It's quite obvious they want people to know what's in the game.  They just look at the free and open internet and go "oh no we can't control that gotta clamp it down".  In that sense, they're no better than the RIAA, MPAA, or any other supporter of SOPA or SOPA-like legislation.

There are aspects of the game that have never been revealed to us either through official articles or articles from their indoctrinated news sites.  I want to know about these aspects.  I want to know what the party interface is like, how using skills on allies will work, what the racial bonuses are, what the stats are, what the traits are, and more.  But they're not telling or permitting anyone who's played the game to tell.  The only way we'll find out is after the first Beta Weekend Event.

I'm sure Guild Wars 2 will be an awesome game.  Everything I've seen from their indoctrinated media outlets has said so, at least.  But I don't want puppet opinions.  I want public opinions.