Guild Wars 2

Take a few minutes and browse the forums, or spend some time in Lions Arch and you’ll quickly realize that people have a lot of time and a lot of opinions.

In my eyes, it seems counterproductive to have a forum where the same topics are brought up, discussed, then locked. How does anyone know if the ideas presented are in fact representative of the whole community?

I think that in addition to the trading house, and the crafting stations, the game should have voting houses.

These voting houses would allow players to visit, read, and vote on features they would like to see in the game. I mean, I’ve seen people in the game that were so bored that they’ll spend ten minutes jumping around the jewelry station, so why not give them something productive to spend thier time on?

This would also be a huge benefit to the devs because they could collect all the information in one place, and be able to assure that every player has a chance to be represented. They could even offer a sweet reward for those who take the time to vote.

Anyway, just an idea.

Cool idea, i’d like to see that as well!

Arson, do you think anyone would use it? My girlfriend kinda ho hummed at the idea. I think if it had a “world completion” prize attached people might be encouraged. Course, if it’s an easy reward, people might just blast through it for the prize and skew the results.

I think a number of people would use it. I’m very community minded and would definitely take the time to vote on features that would help everyone to have a better experience.

I agree that a reward would definitely skew results. It would have to be something that people did out of their own desire to make this game better, both for themselves and their fellow players.

One thing I love about GW2 is that there is a sense of community and players wanting to work with other players, so this is something that could definitely work to ArenaNet’s advantage.

I would vote every single time on every single question that I cared about.

Cool idea. I think people would get involved if they think there is a chance the features will actually be implemented. No rewards though (at least not anything tangible).

How about a title or something? Devoted Voter, Cares a Little, Generally Ambivalent

+Kudos to the Idea. A Live voting system in main towns? I can toast to that.

that is a awsome idea… its beyond the one I suggested… and I like it

Lol @ “Generally Ambivalent”. That should get some people moving if its publicly displayed.

Absolutely no rewards whatsoever, including titles. That would guarantee skewed results.

The idea isn’t a bad one, but such a thing would have to be more like Steam Greenlight than an actual voting system. On Greenlight, the community isn’t actually voting for the next Steam games. They’re only expressing their interest in games in a way that is convenient for Valve to see what would be popular.

This would also have to function as a simple menu in the game. Requiring players to travel to an actual location in the world would result in less people bothering to vote.

Maybe somewhat cynical, but most players don’t really know what they want, because they don’t appreciate what effects their requests are likely to have on the game as a whole. Devs do look at what players say they want, but need to filter it the light of both feasibility and knock on effects. If you are a software analyst you say to your users: “Don’t tell me what you want – tell me what you do” – in a polite manner, of course, but that’s the gist.

There are two problems with voting ?

What happens when an idea is popular with the voters, but ANET refuses to implement it ?

What about a very unpopular idea that ANET does implement ?

For an example of both, lets use balance changes in sPvP. ANET makes them based on the statistics they collect on the server. If a class is winning too often (compared to the number of people playing it) then it’s overpowered somehow. Winning too little, it’s clearly underpowered.

But the players perception differs from reality. Add in people who don’t care enough to vote and:
– Someone calls for a nerf on a class because he can’t figure out how to defeat it.
– People like him vote yes.
– Other people see lots of complaining, assume that the complaining means there is a problem, so they also vote yes despite not knowing either way.
– The vote shows lots of support for a nerf.
Now ANET comes along, looks at the statistics, and decides the class isn’t winning as often as other classes. So they buff it.

Imagine the uproar after that happens. Lots of people will be very unhappy at ANET ‘ignoring’ the vote. But the only mistake ANET has made in my scenario is allowing the vote in the first place.

On Left 4 Dead 2, they had a weekly votation, that was used for all sort of things, from decisions that would affect all players to silly things like what would they sell in a merchandise store.

Any game with a community benefits greatly from such a feature, as in-game polls, unlike polls in sites, even official sites, are way harder to miss.

Are those polls created by the players or developers ?

Developer created polls are a different story, as ANET can avoid asking problematic questions.

I would think that their could be two ways of this working.

1. User Submitted

The players in the game could submit ideas using an in-game tool similar to the way the reporting system works. The user could choose a category, and then manually type in the suggestion. For example:

PvE > Environment > Visuals & Art > Night should be darker

Depending on the complexity, the tool could require users to justify the idea with separate input box. ANet could then take these suggestions, review them, and then add a proper vote. Example:

PvE > Environment > Visuals & Art >

Players have indicated that they would like nighttime to be darker. This would allow..,.

Please rate this idea: 1 2 3 4 5

This would allow ANet to control what features get voted on, (since they may never intend to implement a talking bunnies mode).

2. Anet Created

ANet puts up five questions for each section that they would like feedback on before spending resources developing.

For example say they’re trying to decide whether to implement a darker night mode, or a camera tweak. There are only enough programming hours in a day, so something has to take priority. If the community were to vote “Camera Tweak” as a higher priority, then ANet would spend time working on that instead.

The advantage to ANet is that they don’t get slammed for releasing patch notes with features no one asked for (or cared about), they can dedicate time and resources to features the community actually wants to see, and it allows the community to feel they have a say in what is developed next.

This idea does mean some great ideas (such as this amazing one) may never make it in, but we have to be realistic in that ANet can’t just magically make everything happen in one night.

Both of the options that you, Crazylegsmurphy suggested feels that it could realisticly be implemented. And I would be very happy if Anet did something like that.

I would perhaps like a variant of the first option and include a proper voting system, and that Anet can give special attention to some of the user created topics with a symbol besids its name to know that they are interested in this question. Having a free topic voting system that is not microcontrolled by Anet would allow players to give opinions on things that might not just affect the game’s continued development but also allow players to give limited advice and share their impressions on for example;
Lore: Should X have happned instead of Y? 5-Strongly Agree, 1-Strongly Disagree
Personal story: Is the K race personal story line good?
Spec: Is spec Z good for WvW?
Weapon: Is Axe for class H good?
Farming areas: Is zone B good for farming C?

I’ve figured out a way to have Titles be a voting reward and help prevent abuse. I’m sure a brunette or redhead could help improve this idea…

When the voting dialog pops up, the Submit button is greyed out. The button is disabled until a) a timer expires and b) all the questions are answered. The purpose of the timer is to help prevent people from just clicking choices and submitting invalid data. The timer should be variable based upon the number of questions/choices and the complexity of the questions. The devs/PM would have to decide what a reasonable completion time would be for each poll.

Once the poll is submitted, a simple algorithm is used to determine if valid data was submitted: if the user selected the 1st, middle or last choice for all the questions (an example of what a lazy person who just wanted a title would do), an ‘invalid data’ flag is set for that submission and the devs can ignore it.

In addition, the player has ‘valid vote’ counter which is incremented by 1 when valid data is submitted and decremented by 1 when invalid data is submitted. If the ‘valid vote’ counter hits a certain negative number, they are awarded the rank ‘Voting Booth Vandal’. That is the only negative rank. When the counter reaches a certain positive number, the 1st rank, ‘Generally Ambivalent’ is awarded and as the counter increments, the player moves towards the next rank.

There should be a Titles tab on the Hero page listing all the titles they are currently eligible for, where they are in regards to earning the next rank for that title and the name of the next rank.

This idea is sponsored by the Blondes with Keyboards Leqgue

This could be really great if done right. ANet could only submit things for worldwide voting that they would be willing and able to implement if people wanted it.