Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Tbh the CDI really ought to have its own sub forum.

The suggestions forum was closed because it was moving topics away from the people who needed to see them. We still get “What does CDI even mean?” questions every week. Putting CDIs in a forum where only the well-informed can find them is hiding them from the players they touch on most.

The suggestions forum was axed so that developers could get the relevant information in their own sub forums, not because players and non anet forumers couldn’t wade through it.

Placing CDIs in a top forum near this forum or even near news would give it the visibility.

I’d like to say my opinion on this topic:

I think CDIs in general should be quicker (no more than 2 weeks) and at the same time more publicised by ANet.

I mean, every time I have to explain to my guildies what are CDIs, what CDIs topic we discussed, summarize the entire thing…

My suggestion: next time in the patch notes, after listing all the in-game changes, you put a big, shiny “NEW CDI HAS STARTED! TOPIC: COMMANDER SYSTEM. FEEL FREE TO JOIN!!!”.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading.

Orpheal.8263:

Warlord.9074:

Everything can be said that needs to be said in smaller posts. Put a cap on post length and people will chose words more wisely and stay on topic.

People tend to write walls of text and say absolutely nothing. It is like people who talk just to talk, but they write just to write.

Thats not correct. It leads only to the point that people will start to make much more double, triple and quadruple postings if its needed to post something as clear as possible in one go.
A posting length limit will change nothing

Any change is a change. Your argument that the change will make no impact because people will circumvent the rules to make multiple postings proves my point.

My point the posts they are making would be convoluted otherwise. Convoluted posts are anything but clear. Not everyone is a good writer, but some people think they are better writers than what they are and like to get carried away.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

Would the expectation be that the split topics are parked and then tackled in order or that they are running together. Because if it is the latter then I can say without question that I personally wouldn’t have time to engage appropriately on more than one thread at a time.

I think calving off new threads as a way of formalizing topic shifts is promising. The question is do you lock the original thread on your way out? Right now the power of CDIs for me is in the social contract “Every post gets read by the hosting Dev”. If a thread loses focus to a branch, is it fair to leave it open, collecting “I just arrived and here’s what I think” posts that won’t actually be read by a Dev? I fear that may poison the process. Do we go with a grace period? “New CDI thread and questions starting [here], this thread will shut down in 36 hours.” Maybe let the new branch thread percolate for a day without Dev response while checking for any stragglers in the trunk for one last day? Or does the thread stay open on the promise a Dev will come back to it? That’s great for inclusiveness, but sometimes the subject really has evolved to the point where responses to post #1 just aren’t relevant anymore…

From experience the magic number is between 20 and 30 pages – after that the thread gets seriously riddled with “I haven’t read it all, but…” Something has to be done around the time the initial thread hits that length.

Nike.2631:

The longest responses already circumvent the size limits of the boards by multiple posting. Now you might engage in more active moderation by simply deleting anything past the first post-in-a-series as a way of encouraging brevity, but I think the issue ultimately is the threads are open too long. The problem is more the accumulated volume rather than any one poster’s enthusiasm, and as the CDIs get more established you have to expect more people will participate and they will grow in length even faster than they do now. *Total length is the barrier to involvement.

On that note. It would help if CDI’s began on a certain date and ended on a certain date. People would know when the CDI ends, hop in to post their feedback, and come back only if they wanted to read others’ thoughts or participate in discussion.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

The suggestions forum was axed so that developers could get the relevant information in their own sub forums, not because players and non anet forumers couldn’t wade through it.

The problem is symmetrical – Devs couldn’t be reasonably expected to look in two forums for matters of importance to them. Player’s shouldn’t be forced to look in two forums to find the most important threads about WvW for example. A WvW CDI belongs in the WvW board where WvW players will find it without checking an arcane schedule over when WvW is active in the CDI boards.

Morrigan.2809:

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

How will a poster know when a topic they want to participate in is coming up? They wont unless they participate in a 30+ page topic conglomeration.

The issues with thread length mostly have to do with organization and this proposal makes the CDI process more unorganized.

Suggestion: Why not have a CDI topic poll every 3 months and tally up which topics get the most requested. Do them in order from most requested to least requested and at the end of 4 months have another poll for more subjects. If topics ever eventually dry up than you can reduce the frequency of CDI’s.
You might want to reduce the frequency anyways so no-one gets burned out.

Nike.2631:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

The suggestions forum was axed so that developers could get the relevant information in their own sub forums, not because players and non anet forumers couldn’t wade through it.

The problem is symmetrical – Devs couldn’t be reasonably expected to look in two forums for matters of importance to them. Player’s shouldn’t be forced to look in two forums to find the most important threads about WvW for example. A WvW CDI belongs in the WvW board where WvW players will find it without checking an arcane schedule over when WvW is active in the CDI boards.

That isn’t difficult to handle. You put a sticky in the WvW section informing us over there that there’s a WvW based CDI in the CDI section and include the link. As passionate as WvW players are, they’ll be over in a heartbeat.

The idea of a CDI section to the forums would work best, I think, if the creation of threads is restricted to ANet people such as Chris. It becomes quite easy to keep the section neat that way, and when a CDI topic is closed all relevant sub-threads can be migrated with it to a historical section for the CDI topics. If the players see an idea come up that they’d like to see have it’s own thread they can simply ask.

Technical question about your forum software:

Any idea if its possible for a thread to be displayed in two places?

Would it be possible for a single “CDI – WvW: Handicapping for competitive matches between uneven populations” thread to be made visible in BOTH the WvW board and a dedicated CDI board?

Finnway.2183:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

How will a poster know when a topic they want to participate in is coming up? They wont unless they participate in a 30+ page topic conglomeration.

The issues with thread length mostly have to do with organization and you’re proposing making the CDI process more unorganized.

(btw, sorry if that comes across very pointed. I’m not trying to poke at you)

Suggestion: Why not have a CDI topic poll every 4 months and tally up which topics get the most requested. Do them in order from most requested to least requested and at the end of 4 months have another poll for more subjects. If topics ever eventually dry up than you can reduce the frequency of CDI’s.

You are quoting something I said not Chris- I think the quotes got mixed up

My intention was not to make the threads more disorganized and I totally agree that the problem currently is thread length.

What we did see in several topics though is that they made very clear branches- what I propose is that those separate branches get discussed separately- one at a time.

Not as a bunch of threads running at the same time

This way we have a focused discussion one one thing at a time.
hope that clarifies

It’s the nature of forums that long rambling posts cause a long of disagreement, get a lot of responses, and have a high profile. Please don’t ignore the accurate posts that get little attention because nobody argues with them. These accurate posts are actually the best feedback you could get and the process should not lose them amongst the noise.

I actually read very little of the CDI threads because they are so long and full of noise.

Here a list of topics you guys can make into a survey and let us too choose from it with surverymonkey and post it on the game client news and website so people can easily find it.

01 new classes and class mechanics
02 new playable races
03 new skills and weapons
04 personal story development
05 mounts vs teleportation vs cosmetic
06 side quests, mission bonuses, order quests
07 solo and group content
08 character development
09 instanced content vs open world content
10 new trait’s system
11 day and night differences
12 PvP game modes
13 WvW mechanincs and world conquest
14 Guilds (UI, Missions, Guild Halls)
15 Housing and social features (emotes, role playing features)
16 PvP in PvE
17 Graphics (skills effects, UI customization)
18 Sounds (voice overs, music, environment)
19 Servers, Overflows, Districts
20 Chat channels, LFG tool, player interaction
21 New zones
22 new events, hearts, vistas, PoI
23, personality system and consequences
24 easy mode, normal mode, hard mode, insane mode
25 mini-games and fun activities
26 vertical axe used in land combat
27 aerial combat
28 wardrobe
29 crafting system improvements/changes
30 ways to acquire gear, skills, skill points, etc
31 alt-friendly mechanics
32 companions (heroes, mercenaries and npc helpers)
33 gear development (runes, sigils, enchanting, customization)
34 account bound and soul bound items
35 tutorials

I still think we need to see a Primer in the first post of each thread (with the rules of engagement in the second post). The Host-Dev can use the first post as a platform to help us understand the topic at hand and give us a little common language/jargon to discuss it with.

In Chris’ interview, one thing that was mentioned that I think is incredibly important: CDIs work better now than they would have before launch because the player base is better educated about the game. We can make examples based on things we’ve actually seen and played through on the live servers. Its very true, but we’re also self-taught for the most part. The Host-Dev could do a lot to expand our education and elevate the entire discussion with just a little effort right at the outset through a good Primer.

I personally think and I know this is maybe not what you want to hear a very key Point of making the CDI better in my eyes is to:
Be honest….

Just be honest if you know you won’t give an answer to fractal reset…

I mean I’m waiting now for 2 motnhs the first post of the CDI Progression was about fractals…. you told than you will answer this but you still are thinking… but in the latest time it seems just to be ignored…. I think it is very unstatisfieing if you invest time and effort to get somthing out of the CDI PROGRESSIO THREAD (basicaly why does ANET reset Progress without any compensation?) and you just get the answer: Hey will be answering this… but in the end you just ignore it…

Maybe this is just another slap in the face after the actual reset, or the Posts of izzy that you were well Aware that you delete laods of effort from Players but you oauln’t care less….

i think the cdi is doing pretty well now however communication outside the cdi is often sporadic and frustratingly bad. during the fractal update there was 0 explanation for the bugs and poor design decisions. people necroed old threads where dev’s said they would fix fractal problems that went unfixed or made worse in the fractal update and the response was 0. i think you need to do a better job at communication outside of the cdi’s now that the cdi’s themselves are going well. I also like the alternating cdi topic some based on player votes some based on anet picks.

1) This is a tough one:P I haven’t been able to be very active in these threads(partialy cause of this problem) and thus I am unaware of what exactly creates the problem(too many posts, too long posts, too many unconstructive posts, etc.).

Making a cap on the length of a post might work, however it can just as well just end up in people making 3 posts in a row to get that extra text.

“Forcing” people to make their posts as point by point posts without any longer arguments might work. However this could make it hard to make a proper discussion going and it might feel a bit stale. It can also make it hard to get the “proper” message out, having to make short arguments with few words to back them up.

I have had a thought about letting the thread being open for 2-3 days then having it closed for 1-2 days to let people catch up. This would also give the frequent posters time to make better posts, both shorter, more on topic and better arguments/wording. Before every short break a question(with good connection to the discussion had so far) could be posted for people to create the sub-topic of next open session.

2) And now the easier one.

I think that you should let the players say what they think would be good topics. Then, by either counting the votes or just getting a general understanding of what is the most popular topic, the devs, with the players opinions in mind, will choose the topic they think would be the best. I believe thath the devs have better understanding of which topics could create a constructive discussion and a chance of impacting the decisions made in development. Plus, this game and forums is under control of the devs and they should thus be the ones to make the final decisions, but with this being a collaborative development the opinions of the players should still be considered.

1. I doubt limits will help because multiple posts will be done then and it may become worse.
—I like the idea of creating a format that people can use with the posts. I also like the idea of copy pasting and filling in the blanks with data to keep things a bit more uniform.
—With responses and discussion around posts though, this would not be possible. But it would be nice if more posts were quoted, especially when directly responding to it or others like it.
—Maybe discuss formatting and presentation on what best suits the topic at hand too. There are a variety of topics and some may provide different ways of responding.

2. I would prefer to see the community vote on topics presented by anet. I.e. provide a top ten list (maybe with possible discussion topics if it is vague) and then commence voting on the top 3 for 1 week, each vote counting equally, so no one has to figure out the priority of the top 3, just which one gets the most votes. Then the top 3 are used for the next 3 CDI discussions.

If the forum software permits it, to keep multiple posts from happening, you could do a flood control of a few minutes in the thread. For some people, it’ll matter, but for most who post something and leave to come back in an hour, it would be nice to see that the same person isn’t flooding the thread with posts.

In addition, I don’t feel any topic should be so broad that someone needs longer than a few paragraphs to make their point.

IMO some more interaction from Arenanet would be nice, especially from the teams involved in what the CDI is about. I can see U (Chris) are very commited to this which is nice, but sometimes it seems like you are almost alone in that (whether it being because lack of time, "fear, or whatever other reason) and other people stay at the side which is a point which I think should be improved upon. You said you are working on that so I am hopeful we see more people pop up in the next CDI’s.

For ideas for new CDI’s, why not make a pool of suggestion from what devs would like to have input on and what the community wants to talk about and vote after, or 1 CDI chosen by devs, the next by the community?

This is what I posted in the previous evolution thread. I think that it still pertains for this one as well. I updated it with examples from the progression threads, rather than those from the LS.

1. +1 forum feature
Is this reviewed? I used this on a few posts in the CDI thread, but wasn’t sure if it was used when posts were read. It could be a helpful feature for future discussions as a way to determine popular ideas.

2. Anet posts
Summaries indicating what has been taken away up to that point would be nice. However, it would be very helpful to include a follow-up as to what has been well received and what isn’t possible within that summary later. I’m sure that not everything can be delivered as feedback due to specific restrictions on communicating, but even saying that you can’t comment is better than not knowing anything.

I don’t know that I agree with the idea that negative posts should be responded to with the same frequency as positive ones because depending on the response it could foster more negativity and it might not be constructive to the thread. However, if several posters have the same criticism, maybe a question or comment on that critique could be used to make sure that the understanding of why it is generating negative feelings is a take away.

3. CDI sub-forum
If this is an ongoing project, it would make sense to have it more organized than it is currently.

4. Additional topic threads
If the CDI is in its own sub-forum, it would be a good way to organize topics that come up for further discussion in new threads. A good example for this was the question on subclasses. It was jumbled in the main thread and made both difficult to follow by being lumped together.

New topics can be created and locked until the end of the original topic or left open. However, if left open, it will create more threads to follow and possibly fewer posts by Anet since there will most likely be more to read. These new posts would be linked to by Anet with information regarding the commenting period, i.e. over the next three days the post will be open or until the end of the original topic, etc.

5. Clarity of the topic
I believe that the two progression threads had good discussion, but lacked an overall point to the discussion. I realize that we gave the topics and it was generally what everyone wanted to discuss, but it seems that there were different reasons why it should be discussed. It would be helpful to have the top 5 (or less) reasons for discussion.

For example, using the Horizontal thread (and Chris’s ideas), discussion should revolve around: a. Role diversification, b. Hero Recognition, c. Sociopolitical Diversification, and d. QOL improvements. Thread posts should use those as the heading of the post and then the ideas to follow. This would help keep posts more clearly relating to one thing for the discussion, rather than everything in one (or five) jumbled posts. It would help with shorter posts, although not less frequent.

6. Shorter commenting period
The main post should clearly define the end date and time for the thread and stick to it. If further discussion on something needs/wants to happen, then a new thread can be opened and linked to in the original thread. My suggestion is two weeks, depending on when it started to encompass at least two full weekends.

7. Surveys
In game surveys would be helpful to get more players aware of the CDI and interactive with the topic at hand. A before survey and an after survey for the current CDI would be nice. This could provide information on where people stood before the discussion and afterwards if anything changed their perspective. Also, a survey on the takeaways to get a larger picture of what ideas were actually thought of as good by the players.

Nike.2631:

The Host-Dev could do a lot to expand our education and elevate the entire discussion with just a little effort right at the outset through a good Primer.

This would help tremendously. One thing I complained about in the last CDI was that the overhead post did not include a definition of Horizontal and Vertical progression. Even when I made a comment about this it still wasn’t added and people kept asking what the difference was.
It would also benefit the discussion to lock the title-post to the top of each page. That way it could be edited to include questions developers ask in the middle of the thread.

1: Teach people to use spoilers to make posts more manageable. That is, have a template with a TL;DR section and spoilers for different parts of the text. Then you can read what you think seems interesting and skip what doesn’t apply to you.

2: Voting seems the most fair and shows you what the players think is an issue. You can also start CDIs about relevant stuff spontaneously, like the gem store, due to recent events.

At Chris’ request, I’m going to further define the structure I laid out in a previous post regarding User Stories.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, user stories are a method of determining requirements or opening discussion for the development of a software project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story

• The story is written as one or a couple of sentences where the developer (in this case, each one of us) makes a request or statement that they want the piece of software to perform. The statement is usually written in the most simple language or vocabulary as possible, as if a user (or in our terms, a player) were speaking to the developer directly.

For example – As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

“As a WvW player, I want stronger defensive tools/rewards, so that zerging across objectives is lessened and defense is more valued.”

• After the basic story is established, the poster could spend a couple paragraphs detailing their design. Again, whenever possible, the most basic language and vocabulary should be used. This way, any player of any language can understand the design, critique it, and offer their own insight.

• The idea of simplified user stories would allow people like Chris and other contributing Devs to get a quick overview of what the player wants and why they want it. If the Dev agrees with the player or the player touches upon an aspect or design that may already be in discussion or development by Arenanet internally, then the developer can read through a player’s detailed design suggestions.

• Interesting user stories Devs can “Favorite” or “Tag” to be explored further, or used within the final proposal at the company roundtable.

Essentially, it puts us, the players, in the developer’s chair as if we were at one of Arenanet’s SCRUM or Sprint meetings.

Personally, I feel establishing a format for a concise presentation like a user story would help us cut down on a lot of the redundancy, confusion, and length that have existed in previous CDIs.

As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

Something akin to this structure or user story template at the beginning of every player’s post would make elements like type of player, intent, and scope much more visible from a simple statement.

Essence Snow.3194:

2) I’m not sure here as if by votes we might end up with flying mounts and if via Anet the community might feel ignored. Maybe a balance of the two?

I think votes would be the better way to go. However if something is about to set in stone, the whole GW2 community should be asked (For example: You will get a letter ingame which announces this vote). At the end ANet has to decide which suggestion should be implemented, so we don’t run into flying mounts anytime soon.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Essence Snow.3194:

2) I’m not sure here as if by votes we might end up with flying mounts and if via Anet the community might feel ignored. Maybe a balance of the two?

I think votes would be the better way to go. However if something is about to set in stone, the whole GW2 community should be asked (For example: You will get a letter ingame which announces this vote). At the end ANet has to decide which suggestion should be implemented, so we don’t run into flying mounts anytime soon.

Or just do it the evon vs kiel way, where the vote is part of an event. I really felt that was the ONLY time when all players could influence the development of the game. It’s still my favorite event.

Malchior.5042:

At Chris’ request, I’m going to further define the structure I laid out in a previous post regarding User Stories.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, user stories are a method of determining requirements or opening discussion for the development of a software project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story

• The story is written as one or a couple of sentences where the developer (in this case, each one of us) makes a request or statement that they want the piece of software to perform. The statement is usually written in the most simple language or vocabulary as possible, as if a user (or in our terms, a player) were speaking to the developer directly.

For example – As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

“As a WvW player, I want stronger defensive tools/rewards, so that zerging across objectives is lessened and defense is more valued.”

• After the basic story is established, the poster could spend a couple paragraphs detailing their design. Again, whenever possible, the most basic language and vocabulary should be used. This way, any player of any language can understand the design, critique it, and offer their own insight.

• The idea of simplified user stories would allow people like Chris and other contributing Devs to get a quick overview of what the player wants and why they want it. If the Dev agrees with the player or the player touches upon an aspect or design that may already be in discussion or development by Arenanet internally, then the developer can read through a player’s detailed design suggestions.

• Interesting user stories Devs can “Favorite” or “Tag” to be explored further, or used within the final proposal at the company roundtable.

Essentially, it puts us, the players, in the developer’s chair as if we were at one of Arenanet’s SCRUM or Sprint meetings.

Personally, I feel establishing a format for a concise presentation like a user story would help us cut down on a lot of the redundancy, confusion, and length that have existed in previous CDIs.

As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

Something akin to this structure or user story template at the beginning of every player’s post would make elements like type of player, intent, and scope much more visible from a simple statement.

This is a great idea, and has my vote so long as the post length is not changed from the standard forum length. Brevity is important for communication of ideas, but we are talking about a multimillion dollar business, and the Devs need to be able to go back to that short idea and look at it more in depth as to what the user wants.

When you only use one sentence to impart a concept to someone else, it opens the floodgates for misunderstanding and bad conclusions.

To take a much maligned but oft spoken of subject, let’s say user x.1234 posts in a CDI thread “I want to see mounts in GW2, because I think it would make the game more enjoyable.”
It’s an easy one to understand, but looking at it from a completely outside point of view, how do the devs know this person is asking for mounts that you can actually ride? Perhaps they are just requesting an addition to the NPC landscape where you might pass by a stable and see a horse or two?
And if the devs move on the idea that they perceive, and just add NPC extras like horses in a stable, look at the mess it would cause on the forums from people assuming that it means ridable mounts were in the future, etc. (note: this is not to say that the devs would do such a thing, it is merely a silly example).

The ability to elaborate on such simple concepts allows Arenanet to come back to the threads and see an in depth description provided by the player, thus removing the need to ask for clarification of the idea, and when you start getting into subjects such as changes to the economy, or trait systems, and so on, the elaboration of information can quickly become a lot of words.

Mikuchan.7261:

1: Teach people to use spoilers to make posts more manageable. That is, have a template with a TL;DR section and spoilers for different parts of the text. Then you can read what you think seems interesting and skip what doesn’t apply to you.

Honestly, the moment I see spoiler tags I move on to the next post – if you can’t fit your thoughts on the page, folding the paper over them is NOT a replacement for taking the time to make an editorial pass for brevity.

Its unfair, I’m sure, but to me it’s tantamount to recognizing your post has a problem with length and then refusing to actually fix it.

2: Voting seems the most fair and shows you what the players think is an issue. You can also start CDIs about relevant stuff spontaneously, like the gem store, due to recent events.

Voting and most other highly formulaic, rigidly formatted input seems like poll/survey fodder to me. Something that if managed gracefully could be extended to encompass a lot more of the playerbase than just the forumites .

1 – No, please do not limit by word count or post count further than the forum does. Sometimes people do have a lot to say on a topic and I know for sure I don’t want to have to “soundbite” something into a TL;DR summary to keep things manageable. Some other method may be useful, such as fragmenting off topics which go astray off the main topic yet have a lot of players discussing it into a separate “CDI Discussion”.

Of course, doing that we might never make progress on the core one, such as the talk of Horizontal Progression going completely sidetracked to “housing options” or “subclasses”.

2 – Compromise. ANet tells us what topics they feel they can focus on realistically, and we vote by posting in the thread which one we want first. This way you don’t have the players dragging you to talk about something you aren’t ready to or otherwise cannot discuss.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

1. Ehhhh… forcing conciseness is a nice idea, but sometimes things need to be said. Also, people will just worm around it by using multiple posts. Suggestion: Develop a standard post format that makes each post easy to figure out at a glance; something like an abstract at the top, a PVE/PVP tag, etc.

edit: The ‘user story’ format discussed just above would be ideal.

2. Create a small pool of topics by vote, then have Anet choose from there. This focuses on the direction the community wants, but allows Anet the flexibility to pick the areas that they are best able to work on at the time. Only the devs know their technical/schedule/design limitations after all; they should have the final say. Don’t have a new vote until the entire pool is exhausted.

Nike.2631:

Mikuchan.7261:

1: Teach people to use spoilers to make posts more manageable. That is, have a template with a TL;DR section and spoilers for different parts of the text. Then you can read what you think seems interesting and skip what doesn’t apply to you.

Honestly, the moment I see spoiler tags I move on to the next post – if you can’t fit your thoughts on the page, folding the paper over them is NOT a replacement for taking the time to make an editorial pass for brevity.

Its unfair, I’m sure, but to me it’s tantamount to recognizing you post has a problem with length and then refusing to actually fix it.

2: Voting seems the most fair and shows you what the players think is an issue. You can also start CDIs about relevant stuff spontaneously, like the gem store, due to recent events.

Voting and most other highly formulaic, rigidly formatted input seems like poll/survey fodder to me. Something that if managed gracefully could be extended to encompass a lot more of the playerbase than just the forumites .

You can’t write everything in one sentence.
Especially when you need to argue for your point.
Then it’s nice to fold the paper and say “here I’m saying this” and “here I’m talking about something else”. It provides a structure for the post.
That’s how you write an instruction manual, a scientific report, a book or whatever you want.
You group text into easilly navigated slots and name them appropriatedly.
Furthermore, spoilers don’t increase the page length. They just decrease the length you need to scroll to get past them.
I see no problem with them, rather the contrary.
Very good for structuring your post and make it easilly navigateable.

I do agree it would be nice to include non-forum people somehow. But I have no idea how, except for adding back the beta poll system to the game but in a nicer fashion.

As a <duck>, I want <it to rain> so that <I can laugh because everyone but me is all soggy>.

I usually post my larger offering framed as “previews for upcoming releases” – those have a pretty definite format. I’ve always been surprised only one other person has done that that I’m aware of. Its how ArenaNet presents these kinds of ideas, it should resonate for them~

RELEASE TITLE
“Quote” from in-game character

Brief Introduction

BANNER TITLE
Core concepts

ENTICING TITLE
Follow-on Details

((personal comments here were warranted))

PUBLIC TRACKER IDEA

Actually.. Something I thought about earlier today..
It’s more or less related to this, but still not entirely.

It would be very nice to have a public Jira or other issue/bug/feature request tracker where everyone can go and post issues they find, features they want, bugs to report, etc and then follow them as ANet asks for more info or tells how they are progressing.
If someone posts something that’s a duplicate of something else, you just flag it and a moderator can fuse the posts together or remove the duplicate.
A voting system could help keep track of what the community thinks would be important to fix.
ANet can of course keep their private internal tracker at the same time.

Google has it, Second Life has it, many others have it.
It would be the epitome of CDI.
The community managers can probably manage such a thing together with the community.

Pros:

• Helps the community help you.
• Shows the community that you make progress on their issues.
• Makes it easier to avoid making duplicate requests / bug reports etc.
• Is a nice and structured way to do it.
• One more place for ANet to gather information from.

Cons:

• One more place for ANet to moderate.
• One more place for ANet to gather information from.
• Needs time and effort to set up.

edit: added a headline just because I thought it looked nice in Nike’s post

Mikuchan.7261:

You can’t write everything in one sentence.

You can’t think I’m endorsing such a limitation .

That’s how you write an instruction manual, a scientific report, a book or whatever you want.

I don’t own any books that do that. It may be a way of organizing your thoughts, but its not how final presentation works in any medium except this one. And good presentation defeats the need for it in the first place.

Furthermore, spoilers don’t increase the page length. They just decrease the length you need to scroll to get past them.

People aren’t coming in and saying “it took me too long to scroll down…” They’re saying “This thread is over 20 pages so I didn’t even look at those pages…”

Spoiler tagging has no impact on the actual barrier to entry we’re seeing.

I see no problem with them, rather the contrary.
Very good for structuring your post and make it easilly navigateable.

My friend who does website design never fails to regale me with tales of how adding even one more click than you have to is attention that you’ve lost. If the 1-3 sentences preceding a spoiler tag are sound enough to make me want to read more, I’d read it on the open page just fine – and if they aren’t why would I open the spoiler to follow it further?

Mikuchan.7261:

Actually.. Something I thought about earlier today..
It’s more or less related to this, but still not entirely.

It would be very nice to have a public Jira or other issue/bug/feature request tracker where everyone can go and post issues they find, features they want, bugs to report, etc and then follow them as ANet asks for more info or tells how they are progressing.
If someone posts something that’s a duplicate of something else, you just flag it and a moderator can fuse the posts together or remove the duplicate.
A voting system could help keep track of what the community thinks would be important to fix.
ANet can of course keep their private internal tracker at the same time.

Google has it, Second Life has it, many others have it.
It would be the epitome of CDI.
The community managers can probably manage such a thing together with the community.

Pros:

• Helps the community help you.
• Shows the community that you make progress on their issues.
• Makes it easier to avoid making duplicate requests / bug reports etc.
• Is a nice and structured way to do it.
• One more place for ANet to gather information from.

Cons:

• One more place for ANet to moderate.
• One more place for ANet to gather information from.
• Needs time and effort to set up.

I had thought about a public JIRA or Confluence, but I feel that might be too confusing for a majority of players. Not to mention, it would require significant infrastructure, actual software access to JIRA for contributors, and perhaps even more employees for Arenanet to enact, review, and police the JIRA tracker properly.

JIRA is more proper for internal use. For public involvement, the only ones I see getting involved will be people already used to software development or project management in general.

The CDI is just a discussion board. JIRA is taking it a little too complex for the CDI’S needs.

Finnway.2183:

On that note. It would help if CDI’s began on a certain date and ended on a certain date. People would know when the CDI ends, hop in to post their feedback, and come back only if they wanted to read others’ thoughts or participate in discussion.

It can be really hard to predict how a CDI thread will evolve. (Though we do get more knowledge with every CDI) So I am against certain dates, though I am all for an end date. (With the possibility to change the date as the thread progresses, much like what we have already.)

It would be good to have that date in the OP.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

2 – Compromise. ANet tells us what topics they feel they can focus on realistically, and we vote by posting in the thread which one we want first. This way you don’t have the players dragging you to talk about something you aren’t ready to or otherwise cannot discuss.

We may need to discuss things that Arenanet doesn’t feel that they can focus on realistically.

Some parts of the forum are not getting any dev attention. A CDI topic like dungeons, may for example not be something that is on the Arenanet agenda. While it is unlikely that the dungeon topic would have an immediate impact on plans already in motion, they could draw extra attention to this matter and put it on the Arenanet agenda.

Nike.2631:

Anti-spoiler arguments

I think spoilers are a pretty good place to expand on something. Especially when giving elaborate examples, like here.

Without those spoilers the opening posts would look a lot more scary. (As far as 7-post OP’s go, I think that one went really well)

Malchior.5042:

User story

Nice!

The Lost Witch.7601:

We may need to discuss things that Arenanet doesn’t feel that they can focus on realistically.

Some parts of the forum are not getting any dev attention. A CDI topic like dungeons, may for example not be something that is on the Arenanet agenda. While it is unlikely that the dungeon topic would have an immediate impact on plans already in motion, they could draw extra attention to this matter and put it on the Arenanet agenda.

I say this because there may be things they don’t want to discuss because of upcoming content, spoilers for things in progress, or generally “we don’t want to give this idea out to our competition”.

Or, alternatively “we don’t have people who can work on/with that topic right now”.

Nike.2631:

You can’t think I’m endorsing such a limitation .

You can’t think that I think that you’re endorsing such a limitation
The point still exists though. You can’t always write everything that’s necessary in just a few lines.

I don’t own any books that do that. It may be a way of organizing your thoughts, but its not how final presentation works in any medium except this one. And good presentation defeats the need for it in the first place.

If any of your books have pages and an index, that’s exactly how books do it
Just instead of clicking a button to get to read what you want, you have to navigate to the right page number.

People aren’t coming in and saying “it took me too long to scroll down…” They’re saying “This thread is over 20 pages so I didn’t even look at those pages…”

Nope, but post length was what you complained about and what the issue is about. Wether or not you should limit the number of characters in a post or how you otherwise should make it more structured and easilly navigated.
The thread length is probably not possible to fix unless you go on the JIRA idea in my last post. But I don’t think a JIRA should replace anything but instead be in addition to what currently exists.

My friend who does website design never fails to regale me with tales of how adding even one more click than you have to is attention that you’ve lost. If the 1-3 sentences preceding a spoiler tag are sound enough to make me want to read more, I’d read it on the open page just fine – and if they aren’t why would I open the spoiler to follow it further?

You would open the spoiler because you think the subject is interesting to read about and discuss. If you don’t, feel free to skip it, then you won’t read it anyways.

Black blobs with white text in them are much more contrasting than a “headline” that’s just bold and underlines.
You may want to scroll to the next place where your subject is discussed but when doing so, you may miss it since it may be discussed in the middle of a post that otherwise contain, to you, uninteresting ideas.

Thus, when using spoilers, you can easilly navigate all ideas discussed in a post regardless of where in the post they are discussed.

You are here because you want to give and receive attention. On a webpage you want to catch the attention of people who aren’t there to specifically give it. That’s why 1 click can be dead important on a webpage, while the same doesn’t really apply here in my opinion.

However.. Based on experimentation..
They seem to havechanged the way spoilers work.
Making the argument obsolete.

So no spoilers I suppose.
EDIT: Or was mine just too short?
EDIT 2: Nope, I was just wrong in some way.
.
.
.
About tracker / JIRA / etc
It should be in addition to what is currently existing and it should be easy to use.
Google’s is easy to use.
You make a new post just like on a forum.
You get a message to write about what the issue is in as much detail as you can, but still short and concise.
You write it and post it and you’re done.
There is a search box where you can search for stuff that has been posted.
It’s basically a forum but engineered and dedicated to posting issues and requests.
I don’t know what systems you’re talking about, but I think the one Google has is very easy to use. At least the android one, which is the one I’m referring to.
I would imagine that most anyone could use their system.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I say this because there may be things they don’t want to discuss because of upcoming content, spoilers for things in progress, or generally “we don’t want to give this idea out to our competition”.

Or, alternatively “we don’t have people who can work on/with that topic right now”.

Yeah, I’m allright with certain topics taking priority according to arenanets capabilities at that time. I am just afraid that with the CDI’s active, and so little response to other sections of the forum, that leaving all the choices of topics up to arenanet is not a very healthy solution.

I would rather have us pick 10 topics and them choosing the order, than them picking 10 topics and us choosing the order. Ideally though, I would like to have a mix of topics picked by the playerbase and those picked by arenanet. That way we are likely to have tough topics picked by the playerbase, but alternated with ‘easier’ topics for the devs to respond in. The hard CDI’s wouldn’t always feel equally worthwhile for lack of dev interaction, but they would at the very least make sure that our problems are heard.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I say this because there may be things they don’t want to discuss because of upcoming content, spoilers for things in progress, or generally “we don’t want to give this idea out to our competition”.

Or, alternatively “we don’t have people who can work on/with that topic right now”.

Yeah, I’m allright with certain topics taking priority according to arenanets capabilities at that time. I am just afraid that with the CDI’s active, and so little response to other sections of the forum, that leaving all the choices of topics up to arenanet is not a very healthy solution.

I would rather have us pick 10 topics and them choosing the order, than them picking 10 topics and us choosing the order. Ideally though, I would like to have a mix of topics picked by the playerbase and those picked by arenanet. That way we are likely to have tough topics picked by the playerbase, but alternated with ‘easier’ topics for the devs to respond in. The hard CDI’s wouldn’t always feel equally worthwhile for lack of dev interaction, but they would at the very least make sure that our problems are heard.

Better idea about a list which will be worked through but the order of it is picked by vote. Really, I now just want the CDI to work across the board even for the ones I’m not paying attention to.

Why don’t you make a CDI subforum whenever one is going on. Like the LS subforums.

The mainpost will be the CDI with limits and general idea descriptions. If you want to add more informations about the idea, you can create other threads and link them. Perhaps with naming conventions so different devs can easily identify posts.

No problem with you choosing topics.

I think another huge improvement would be, if you (the guys behind this forum) could make upvote-counts visible, so you don’t have to bump or repeat a suggestion you like but just hitting the upvote-button. Also, you, the devs, could sort the post by reference to the upvotes to see what topic is most requested.

For post structure I highly favor the suggestion Malchior.5042 has made

Mikuchan.7261:

You can’t think that I think that you’re endorsing such a limitation

I would never think that you would ponder that they would consider that we would contemplate that anyone would imagine that… wait, wuut? _

If any of your books have pages and an index, that’s exactly how books do it
Just instead of clicking a button to get to read what you want, you have to navigate to the right page number.

An intriguing comparison. I just don’t generally start a book I’m reading or writing with the index .

However.. Based on experimentation..
They seem to havechanged the way spoilers work.
Making the argument obsolete.

Ooo. Good experiment .

((adds new arrow to the quiver))

Nike.2631:

Mikuchan.7261:

You can’t think that I think that you’re endorsing such a limitation

I would never think that you would ponder that they would consider that we would contemplate that anyone would imagine that… wait, wuut? _

If any of your books have pages and an index, that’s exactly how books do it
Just instead of clicking a button to get to read what you want, you have to navigate to the right page number.

An intriguing comparison. I just don’t generally start a book I’m reading or writing with the index .

However.. Based on experimentation..
They seem to havechanged the way spoilers work.
Making the argument obsolete.

Ooo. Good experiment .

((adds new arrow to the quiver))

(Totally off-topic) Spoilers work differently when in the middle of a line

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

I believe people should be able to write anything they want, as long as they have a clear and concise summary at the end. I don’t mind if someone writes 6 paragraphs on flying mounts, as long as they summarize in a couple of sentences or so at the bottom so that I (and by extension you) can skim the post but still have a good idea of what the whole post was about.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Truthfully, I think that there should be another option, such as “most mentioned” or some such. If 65 people mention how (X) affects (y) compared to 12 people who want (z) added to the game, then the first group should take precedence if you have to make the choice of pursuing one or the other. If you can do both, fine, but the more something is mentioned, we can extrapolate that the more it needs to be discussed and should take precedence over something that is less visible.

Something else that would be immensely helpful to me, personally, is to carefully moderate the threads for off-topic posts. A rapidly evolving CDI thread can very easily be derailed by someone bringing up something totally unrelated to the subject at hand.

For instance: If we’re talking about the cost of Ascended vs. the cost of Legendaries, and someone starts posting about how much better Ascended is in WvW, all of a sudden, we’re not talking about costs any more, but effects. After 2 or 3 pages of this, we lose the original goal of the thread.

TL;DR

1. Don’t limit the size f the posts, but give a clear summary of wha was said at the bottom under a “TL;DR” (as this one is.)

2. Add other ways of deciding what gets discussed besides voting or personal preference of the devs. Something like “most often mentioned” or similar idea.

3. Finally, be more diligent in moderating off-topic posts. It’s hard to sift through them while trying to find the original goal.

Thanks for listening to us. We really do appreciate it.

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
This definitely needs work. I know for a fact that I routinely skip posts when they are too long, regardless of how well formatted or well written they are. If the goal here is to actually foster discussion between players, as seems to be the premise of the CDI at this point, this is a major issue.

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?
Given that we are already so lacking in actual ANet interaction, I’d say ANet should at least pick the topics we are discussing.

On the CDI in general:
I continue to be disappointed that there is very little interaction with the players in what was initially proposed as a project involving collaboration between players and developers. This is even more worrying when the commentary we do get from ANet is actually visibly stepping back from it’s initial proposal, even to the point where it was put forth that players would/could be asked to elect their own representative to write their own proposal at the relative culmination of a CDI thread.

If the mission statement of the CDI has changed, I think it would be a good thing to openly address just to temper expectations of those getting into at now. Rather than being a process where players and developers collaborate in development of the game, it’s much more a case of a series of developer sponsored suggestion threads. I’ll readily admit that, at the end of the day, the result may be the same but the process is not at all what it was initially stated to be.

Malchior.5042:

Nike.2631:

Mikuchan.7261:

You can’t think that I think that you’re endorsing such a limitation

I would never think that you would ponder that they would consider that we would contemplate that anyone would imagine that… wait, wuut? _

If any of your books have pages and an index, that’s exactly how books do it
Just instead of clicking a button to get to read what you want, you have to navigate to the right page number.

An intriguing comparison. I just don’t generally start a book I’m reading or writing with the index .

However.. Based on experimentation..
They seem to havechanged the way spoilers work.
Making the argument obsolete.

Ooo. Good experiment .

((adds new arrow to the quiver))

(Totally off-topic) Spoilers work differently when in the middle of a line

See

hide spoiler

Compared to when they’re on their own line themselves

Mikuchan steals Nike’s arrow from his quiver

On topic though…
A CDI subforum would be very nice indeed, good idea.
There could be the main thread with brainstorming and random discussions about the subjects and then people can make subthreads about each topic so that it can be discussed more in detail undisturbed by other discussions.

Given the scope of the balance summary posted today after nearly a full quarter since the previous one, what results can we reasonably expect to see from these CDI threads over the next 12 months?

Either some serious resources need to be allocated to associated development or we wont see results for years. By then it wont matter.

I still maintain (from last time this thread was held ) that part of what gets in the way with the CDI is the forum format itself. It’s a completely flat structure within a thread, which means that zeroing in on discussions that I might have something to say on proves a little bit difficult. Multiple threads would fix that at the cost of not being very organic – if the topic starts to diverge, you then have to have a moderator split the thread to retain that kind of structure.

The format used by Reddit conversations seems far more suited to this kind of thing. I don’t know if forum feature additions for the sake of the CDI are realistic, but if it is within ArenaNet’s abilities, it should definitely be considered.

Until then, we can still attempt to mitigate the issue with those “TL;DR” blocks. I don’t advocate a post length limit because it isn’t going to be easy for everyone to deal with (and while editing your work to shorten it is a valuable skill for published work, it just slows things down for this). But trying to use a “summary” followed by “detailed explanation and examples” structure at least means that people can read a small block of a post to quickly gauge its topic before committing to read it or more on to the next. That way I don’t have to participate every day (or do a big chunk of heavy reading) to know whether something I am thinking has already been said.