Guild Wars 2

If immersion breaking or interrupting important game play needs to be avoided (which it probably should be), would one option be to put the poll/feedback mechanic in the character select screen? If you decide to try and get focused feedback, you could put up a poll and include a link to a specific and related thread on the forum if the player wants to give more detailed feedback, it’d also be easy to skip over and won’t annoy the player as much as an in game pop-up, but is more accessible than an in game NPC.

I can’t see polling ever being so critical that it has to occur during gameplay, but as mentioned there still should to be a way to be in contact those not frequenting the forums.

Considering the amount of interaction ArenaNet has always had with its fans pre and post launch I was taken aback that the feedback processes you’ve been discussing Chris weren’t already in place! On the one hand it speaks wonders of the team for doing so well this far, but also reveals why there is a cohort of dissatisfied players feeling they are being ignored.

I think polls ingame or otherwise are an inherently bad idea. The number of ‘liked it’ or ‘hated it’ people as a number is pretty useless when you dont consider the context.

Look at the Tequatl Rising update. People that couldn’t get on a highly populated enough server with organisers that knew what they were doing to have a successful kill will tell you it was ’the worst content yet. Problems such as the guesting and overflow system were barriers to their having fun. On the other hand, the people that did manage to kill Tequatl a few times will tell you it has been some of the best content yet. (Im one of them, the Tequatl update was genius btw).

You cant get the intricacies of ‘why’ a person loved some aspect of an update from a poll.

To be honest, the best thing the players can do to be in the spirit of the ‘collaborative development’ ideology is to keep doing what they have always done. Provide concise and constructive critisism to help the developers see what the problems are. The developers just have to keep up their end of the bargain by showing they are listening. There will always be trolls and flamebait posts which can easily be ignored.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

Of course it should be one topic at a time. Trying to sort out multiple discussions is confusing for everyone.

If an ANet dev started a new post, with a clear and honest topic, I think you’ll get a lot of good, focused replies.

Take a page out of Josh Forman’s book. He was really good at staying focused, and explaining why things were done, acknowledging good ideas, and giving honest feedback on ideas.

We understand that not every topic will lead to exactly what we all collectively want, but it would be a really good start to getting some great feedback.

The trick here will be to word things in a way that is conducive to getting great feedback.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

I would say either the Poll/Survey NPC’s, or Login Screen poll both seemed like good ideas. The only reason I would prefer NPC’s is they can be placed in the appropriate area, so a player’like myself who really has no interest in PvE doesn’s have to sift through a poll to find the WvW relevant items.

Wow some people complain about the “lack of immersion” but 2 post below they would like ingame polls.

Mega epic facepalm

I posted this on another thread. But since Anet is actively reading this thread, I will include this here. It is very important for Anet to realize that:

1) World Event > Dungeons.

2) WvW > sPvP

I had talk to many people over the past few months, both in game and in the forums. And that’s the general conclusion most people agrees to. I cannot prove it. But just take my word for it.

1) Dungeons. When you talk to people about them, most of them talk about “rewards” and “armor&weapon skins”. Yup, that’s all they care about when they do dungeons. They don’t repeat dungeons because its fun. They do them for rewards and skins. And as soon as they finished farming that skin, or gold to trade gems, they never repeat that dungeon again.

Most player I know only did the new dungeons once, and never went back. There were a few that continue to farm the new TA dungeon for that mini. But most people don’t care.

I am almost certain that dungeons takes more development time (a lot more) than world events.

Everyone knows how frustrating it is to look for a group if you are not a warrior, guardian and mesmer. And everyone know how PUGs can fail in dungeons.

World events needs no introduction. Just read up the number of comments on Teq, compared that to the # of comments on TA Assault, and you can clearly tell that the player base cares a lot more about world events. And guess what, most of those comments isn’t about rewards for these world events. They talk about “slow spawn rates”. They talk about “Teq is too hard”. Why? Because people want to get it done! People want to play the content because its fun!

For the record, I don’t hate dungeons. I actually love the MA and TA dungeon. But I only did each of them once. I just don’t think its worth the development time Anet spent on it.

Many players appears to “hate” World Events. This is a common misunderstanding. The players hates Teq because they don’t think its well designed. They think its too hard. They think they are always stuck in overflows. They think the wait time between retry for Teq is too long. They do not, I repeat do not, hate World Events. They hate “the problems” that they face when they try World Events.

TBH, there is not a single well designed World Event in GW2 yet. Not even one. So it should be obvious that most players have no idea what a good World Event looks like. Teq is already the best World Event of what we have, but even that is pretty mediocre I got to say. There is tons of room for improvement and potential for World Events.

2) sPvP, where should I begin. I guess I will start by saying that their maps are ridiculous detailed and beautiful. Yes, go into a sPvP match right now, and check out the maps. They are some of the most beautifully made areas in the whole game, putting many PvE areas to shame. That shows how much time and effort Anet put into sPvP. Yet, almost no one plays sPvP.

I had met and talk to many people over the past few months. I only know a small handful of players that players sPvP regularly. Most just use it as a training ground for WvW.

If Anet would now totally abandon any update on sPvP, and put all their effort on WvW, very few will complain. Not one person in my guild even cares about it. sPvP already got more than enough updates for their super tiny player base.

So Anet listen to this. You are wasting a lot of resources on dungeons and sPvP, which draws very few players relatively. Look at your player’s gaming hour statistics. Compare Teq against TA dungeon. I am confident that I am right.

Please focus on World Events, and ignore dungeons for now. Do not work on a new dungeon until you guys get the World Events (like Teq) settled down. Trust me you will need to do a lot of trials, errors and player feedback to get World Events right. There is no time to lose. I mean the only “mob invasion” event we got so far was the Karka invasion of Lion’s Arch, and that event was poorly done and filled with bugs. The players already waited over one year for something like Teq. Get these World Events out there asap.

Focus on WvW, and ignore sPvP. This should explain itself.

World Events and WvW is what set this game apart. Dungeons are nothing new. Many other MMOs have dungeons. Many other MMOs have sPvP. It is World Events and WvW that will raise GW2 to new heights. So please pull more resources into developing these two areas of the game.

Also check out my other thread for Living Story recommendations.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/How-would-you-make-LS-better

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Long post.

Hi Asuka,

So how about 1 topic at a time in each forum with a dev or devs on each? Over a series of say 3 days then we move on and repeat?

By the way i am starting to run out of steam a bit and need to drive home soon. When i get home i will carry on discussing with everyone but at some point i NEED to get in game and have me some WvW action!

Chris

Hi Chris,

Pretty much – the problem with threads like this is you get 1000 different issues raised, and what was discussed on page 2 may not exist on page 10, so it easily to a different topic. Having a different thread, for each ‘major’ issue, would help to sort things out.

It may seem like a lot more work for you guys, but may give a better appraisal of the communities stance, and there are some things which really need to be looked into – like the bloodlust buff in wvw or condi cap in pve. Also the morale on the forums would really go up. Even if it is just one topic a week, maybe split (so one pve topic, one pvp topic, one wvw topic etc).

Also, nice job on this thread and the real effort to improve communication. With the number of points which always seemed ignored and how long it has taken for a balence patch I was starting to loose faith, but between the communication surge recently and being able to discuss WVW tactics with a developer in game, it has been a great change. Keep it up!

Btw, when game was released there were constant AMA’s on reddit or general Q&A sessions with Dev’s. Now these seem restricted to external sites and not the main forums or even reddit anymore. An occasional AMA or Q&A session, even once a month, would be great.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

No worries thanks for being so collaborative with the discussion.By the way i have to disagree though. I personally feel that a poll is less immersive then the bouncy chest. Mainly because the chest is still in the theme of the game world and more connected to the gamestate. Where as the Poll is more abstract in terms of goal and gamestate.

This said we are having a discussion and i am just giving my opinion.

Chris

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
(Specifically, I’m Talking more about this)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

I have a question for you.

Do you think it would affect it any more or less than?

- The constant bugs that remain and are introduced each month.
- The artificial time-gated content
- Living World stories that come and go without much change
- Living World remnants that never get removed, solved, or changed
- Purple player models, invisible enemies.
- Fuzzy animal hats
- Zerg farming
- etc

At this point, we can pretty much agree that the level of immersion in is game isn’t exactly super high. The Living World feels more like a scripted episode of “Full House” more than it does a dynamic, living, growing exciting, unpredictable world.

At this point, I would rather you provide an in-game feedback system and use it to effectively improve the game, than continue to “experiment” and hope it works. Neither of us has unlimited time, resources and patience. We meet to optimize all of those thing the best way we can, so we can get this game straitened out before it’s too late.

You’re asking for our patience, but honestly, you’re asking a lot. You’ve not done enough as a company to gain the trust an loyalty of many players to be asking for such things. I feel that you need to put your egos aside, and understand that in the short term, listening, and tpgathering feedback from the players you still have, will to only help solidify our relationship, but hopefully improve the game to the point where this isn’t an issue.

I am sorry you feel this way, personally i feel the team has worked really hard in an extremely challenging and important endeavour. I can also guarantee you that whilst the team is human and makes mistakes they certainly don’t have an inflated ego (-:

But i digress and disagree and look forward to getting back to the productive side of this forum discussion.

Chris

I never said you weren’t working hard, or that you didn’t care. When I talk about ego, I mean that it can be hard to admit when something just isn’t working as intended.

I’m a graphic designer (formally a makeup artist) so I know that feeling when the client doesn’t jump for joy, or understand your vision. It is very hard to get past that, “pffft, what does that jerk know, I’m the pro here!” mentality.

Approaching your community with clear, honest tones (like you’re attempting here), is a much better approach than telling us were nothing more than a vocal minority, and that “we are listening” only to not listen.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

No worries thanks for being so collaborative with the discussion.By the way i have to disagree though. I personally feel that a poll is less immersive then the bouncy chest. Mainly because the chest is still in the theme of the game world and more connected to the gamestate. Where as the Poll is more abstract in terms of goal and gamestate.

This said we are having a discussion and i am just giving my opinion.

Chris

You know, a poll would make more sense.

Also it would work in game for things people do on there. The forums aren’t populated by many of the players. If an ingame poll or survey or something showed up, it would bring in more data as to what the thought of that particular event/dungeon/activity is. You would have to make it so that it doesn’t show up for every single thing a person does. That would get annoying fast, but, have it so that it’s set to random. Like every nth thing a survey shows up. It would help the devs the most in designing content. And maybe have one at the end of every LS sequence just to see what people thought of that particular element.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1 thread at a time in each main forum that runs for a few days. Then we move onto the next topic and rinse and repeat?

Not perfect but hey it’s a start! (-:

Chris

I personally think this would be a good start, but I am curious on how you would decide on the topics?
(Maybe we should make a poll regarding that lol).

Hey chris, are you ready for release of an expansion?

I know you will not give me an answer, ‘cause surely you don’t waste the “bullet” here and the annunce will implement in a living story in the future.

I’m telling this ’cause (talking with my friends and guildmates) i realize when a player hit 8000 AP he starting become bored of the game cause he usually do all non-griding contents.

Living story have the role to “charm” players to log in 1 times every 2 weeks at least, but, if you don’t release an expansion LS will lose its work, LS by LS.

On the topic of 2:Game Feedback Collaboration, one of the things I’m seeing throughout this thread is the request from players for a sense that they are being heard. It might be worth taking a cue from some of the “bug compilation” and similar threads that players take it upon themselves to start and maintain. The original poster watches the thread, and updates the OP to reflect and summarize the discussion that follows.

Imagine a developer in charge of a specific area creating a feedback request thread. The developer posts a targeted question. Perhaps they set a particular time frame, such as three days later. People who would like to reply know they have three days to do so, and don’t expect the developer to get back on the thread until the end of that period, so no “why aren’t you responding?” posts are necessary.

Then, when the times up, the dev takes some time to read through the responses, then updates the OP with a list of bullet points summarizing what they’ve gleaned from the responses. They could also ask further, very targeted questions for clarifications or to float ideas at that point for additional feedback if needed (with another deadline for compiling and response).

With something like this, there’s defined expectations about everyone’s part in the conversation. The developer isn’t expected to be sitting on the forums having a conversation all day, but the players can expect a specific “I hear you saying A, B, and C” and maybe a “what about D?” before “thanks for the feedback, I’ll get with my team”.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Long post.

Hi Asuka,

So how about 1 topic at a time in each forum with a dev or devs on each? Over a series of say 3 days then we move on and repeat?

By the way i am starting to run out of steam a bit and need to drive home soon. When i get home i will carry on discussing with everyone but at some point i NEED to get in game and have me some WvW action!

Chris

Hi Chris,

Pretty much – the problem with threads like this is you get 1000 different issues raised, and what was discussed on page 2 may not exist on page 10, so it easily to a different topic. Having a different thread, for each ‘major’ issue, would help to sort things out.

It may seem like a lot more work for you guys, but may give a better appraisal of the communities stance, and there are some things which really need to be looked into – like the bloodlust buff in wvw or condi cap in pve. Also the morale on the forums would really go up. Even if it is just one topic a week, maybe split (so one pve topic, one pvp topic, one wvw topic etc).

Also, nice job on this thread and the real effort to improve communication. With the number of points which always seemed ignored and how long it has taken for a balence patch I was starting to loose faith, but between the communication surge recently and being able to discuss WVW tactics with a developer in game, it has been a great change. Keep it up!

Thanks Asuka i really appreciate YOUR communication to. How about this then:

1 thread at a time in each main forum that runs for a few days. Then we move onto the next topic and rinse and repeat?

Not perfect but hey it’s a start! (-:

Chris

<3

Try it out and see how it goes! Then you can have a poll to determine if your way of polling the community is working (yo dawg, getting meta here :P). I think you’ll be surprised how much effort people will put into explaining problems and solutions instead of complaining, if they are given a real chance to do so.

Evening Chris,

Regarding surveys and immersion etc, I really don’t think that’s really a factor here when you have notification mechanisms that already break it. Current example is the Scarlet Invasion notifications, which are using the system you originally designed to give Patch and Restart notices. So, why not leverage that? “We have a new survey about the current patch, it can be accessed from [insert method here].”

And keep that mixed in with an in-game mail at much lower frequencies (say once a month) – or, have a more ‘static’ MOTD on your login program (though that really needs to be larger to accommodate what I have in mind).

As for access, a /survey command sounds like the easiest way to do it, and would re-direct to the actual survey in a relatively ‘safe’ manner. Accessing it from the same screen as Bug Reports (again, just kicking off your browser) would work very well too.

Now, one point not mentioned yet: Please make sure to publish results – no matter how bad that may end up for either your group or us players – and your planned response/changes in light of that. This continues the give-take of communication and encourages more and more players to participate (they’ll see there is an impact).

Shorah b’shemtee (peace be with you) and good luck,
—S_A

Skan.5301:

Also it would work in game for things people do on there. The forums aren’t populated by many of the players.

I’ve been saying this for a while now.

The problem with using the forums as the place for information is that many players don’t use it. When asking for feedback, I think it needs to be in-game. It is the only way that ANet can get the best possible representation of the community at large.

While the “vocal minority” on this forum aren’t necessarily right, nor wrong, it is a very small sample size of the overall player base.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

1. It might be best if first we’d figure out whether in game polls would be opt-out or opt-in, or both.

1a. Opt-out – If doing opt-out it makes sense to make it very visible. It’d be important to provide a very simple opt-out function for those who would prefer immersion not be impacted. Having a setting to toggle the opt-out shouldn’t be forgotten.
1ai. The login screen would be a logical place
1aii. Being a UI element upon immediate login could work

1b. Opt-in – If doing an opt-in approach it makes sense to have this be more of a hidden feature.
1bi. A menu item to access it could work
1bii. Also I saw a suggestion about using an in game npc, which would help with immersion.

That all said, there’s probably very little preventing both an opt-in and opt-out from approach implemented to accommodate the most amount of people. Since, they can feasibly be mutually exclusive of each other it may make sense to do.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Skan.5301:

Also it would work in game for things people do on there. The forums aren’t populated by many of the players.

I’ve been saying this for a while now.

The problem with using the forums as the place for information is that many players don’t use it. When asking for feedback, I think it needs to be in-game. It is the only way that ANet can get the best possible representation of the community at large.

While the “vocal minority” on this forum aren’t necessarily right, nor wrong, it is a very small sample size of the overall player base.

Exactly. That’s why if it’s in-game, the potential to get the whole playerbase is there. There might be few who ignore it, but, most would be willing to participate and take 30s out of their life if it was introduced and explained why, in this case to garner information on what players think of whatever they just participated in to further improve the state of the game and future updates.

The explaining part would be the key, as people would then express what they really think of the content instead of just hitting 5’s on everything and submitting. Have a box to add any additional thoughts as well. Then the devs have more insight.

Shockwave.1230:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

1. It might be best if first we’d figure out whether in game polls would be opt-out or opt-in, or both.

1a. Opt-out – If doing opt-out it makes sense to make it very visible. It’d be important to provide a very simple opt-out function for those who would prefer immersion not be impacted. Having a setting to toggle the opt-out shouldn’t be forgotten.
1ai. The login screen would be a logical place
1aii. Being a UI element upon immediate login could work

1b. Opt-in – If doing an opt-in approach it makes sense to have this be more of a hidden feature.
1bi. A menu item to access it could work
1bii. Also I saw a suggestion about using an in game npc, which would help with immersion.

That all said, there’s probably very little preventing both an opt-in and opt-out from approach implemented to accommodate the most amount of people. Since, they can feasibly be mutually exclusive of each other it may make sense to do.

The in game mailing system could potentially be used as well.

That’s a great idea.

Shockwave.1230:

Shockwave.1230:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

1. It might be best if first we’d figure out whether in game polls would be opt-out or opt-in, or both.

1a. Opt-out – If doing opt-out it makes sense to make it very visible. It’d be important to provide a very simple opt-out function for those who would prefer immersion not be impacted. Having a setting to toggle the opt-out shouldn’t be forgotten.
1ai. The login screen would be a logical place
1aii. Being a UI element upon immediate login could work

1b. Opt-in – If doing an opt-in approach it makes sense to have this be more of a hidden feature.
1bi. A menu item to access it could work
1bii. Also I saw a suggestion about using an in game npc, which would help with immersion.

That all said, there’s probably very little preventing both an opt-in and opt-out from approach implemented to accommodate the most amount of people. Since, they can feasibly be mutually exclusive of each other it may make sense to do.

The in game mailing system could potentially be used as well.

That could work. Send an official mail like the ones for the LS with the star or something so people aren’t like this is an attempt to hack my account.

Set it into the account profile to opt in or opt out and have people log in and choose one. This requires some work but it would probably be the best way.

People are ready to explain when they know they’re heard. At that point, it won’t just be complaining, it’ll be pitching potential solutions to fix a problem.

This could not go unnoticed by me

A few things I’ll comment on and then leave this thread for good(probably).

-Where are the semi-frequent AMA’s you said you wanted to do almost a year ago Mr. Whiteside?(im not trying to be condescending, apologies) You said the same thing then as you say now, that you want to communicate better in the future. Here we are, almost a year later and you are still saying the same thing.

-Living Story and Ascended gear are the two most controversial items. Unless I am proven otherwise, I cannot believe that an overwhelming majority of the playerbase supports Living Story or Ascended gear. From the official forums, to fan sites, to in game chatter…theres enough disbelief in these two systems for me to say that it they are both controversial items…highly controversial. They are not slam dunks like we might be led to believe.

-The one thing that stood out to me was when Mr. Whiteside began asking “is this the place you want to be”? One can interpret that as "We are listening, but we have a direction and if you’re not on board, tough. " or “This game is not for everyone”, yet Arenanet tried to cater to everyone by introducing ascended gear and progression into the game. When I spent my hard earned money on this game, I truely thought that this was a game that anyone could pick up at any time and play. It has drifted from that core concept. And now the Studio Director is asking us “is this game for you”? Well, now that you mention it, I guess it isn’t. It was fun while it lasted, and many can argue that the first 3 months of the game were the best.

Regarding poll location – I’d put it in the launcher. It’s the one part of the game that every active player sees and interacts with on a regular basis. If it’s in the UI somewhere people will miss it, or they’ll get in game and get occupied with everything and forget to fill it out.

If the poll is put on the launcher, it should override the Launch function but give the player the option of declining to answer (which is a stat that should also be reported) or putting off answering until next time they launch. Leave it run for a week or so and you should have a pretty powerful sample of the population.

I’d also suggest publishing the results to the playerbase rather than keeping it hidden.

I’d finally suggest not being too overconfident in your in-house ability to design polls properly, it’s actually tougher than it appears if it is to be done correctly.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Simple enough, let the pigeons do the dirty work.
You can advertise a new function via an e-mail and dedicate it a separate section.
The new icon may change color once a new survey is available.
No one will be forced to respond, and invasiveness will be minimal.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1 thread at a time in each main forum that runs for a few days. Then we move onto the next topic and rinse and repeat?

Not perfect but hey it’s a start! (-:

Chris

I personally think this would be a good start, but I am curious on how you would decide on the topics?
(Maybe we should make a poll regarding that lol).

That’s the next question we have to resolve is folks like the basic idea.

Chris

Just go back to your first idea of making a thread for ‘What top 3 do you think need to be worked on/looked into by the development team’.

If polls are introduced in-game with an opt-out option, please implement an alternative way to do them.

I’m happy to give detailed, written feedback, but found pop-up polls to be almost as disruptive as the constant reminders that subscribing would make my game a lot smoother in another game I won’t mention. It was the main reason I never got past level 10 or so in said game. I’d hate to opt-out, however, and lose the ability to participate in feedback.

Perhaps there’d be a way to log on to the website and get my questionnaires I would have gotten in game?

Chris, can you talk about the reasoning behind not having a public test server? I’ve never seen that directly addressed, and it seems very pertinent to this discussion about involving the players in the development of the game.

Shockwave.1230:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

1. It might be best if first we’d figure out whether in game polls would be opt-out or opt-in, or both.

1a. Opt-out – If doing opt-out it makes sense to make it very visible. It’d be important to provide a very simple opt-out function for those who would prefer immersion not be impacted. Having a setting to toggle the opt-out shouldn’t be forgotten.
1ai. The login screen would be a logical place
1aii. Being a UI element upon immediate login could work

1b. Opt-in – If doing an opt-in approach it makes sense to have this be more of a hidden feature.
1bi. A menu item to access it could work
1bii. Also I saw a suggestion about using an in game npc, which would help with immersion.

That all said, there’s probably very little preventing both an opt-in and opt-out from approach implemented to accommodate the most amount of people. Since, they can feasibly be mutually exclusive of each other it may make sense to do.

There is nothing to say you can’t pop up a opt-in notice for the first time the player logs in.

“Would you like to turn on in-game surveys?”

“We value your feedback, and as such we are asking players to provide feedback as they play. Choosing “yes” will mean that in certain places you will receive a special chest that contains a survey on the content you just competed."

“For a more in depth discussion, join us on our forums.”

“You’ve chosen not to participate, if you change your mind, you can turn this option on in the setting menu under "whatever""

Then, as player complete in game tasks, they are presented with a survey chest, which they can skip, or complete.

I’m trying to figure out how this would work for non-combat/event aspects like RNG, gem store items, etc.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Seriously afk now

3rd time’s the charm, right?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So by the way we have two main topics of conversation now:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?
2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

Chris

In answer to above:
Polls could be sent via mail to each account concerning a myriad of items from development direction, to suggestions, to what we liked in the past, what we dont like in the current, and what we want in the future. So much could be accomplished.

It would also be really good to see a developer post these statistics online. Does the community support living story or not? Ascended items or not? The recent zerg updates or not? All of the themed updates or not? The cadence of updates or not?

I for one would be very interested in this. I personally would love less frequent, but larger and more substantial updates.