Guild Wars 2

Gibson.4036:

goldenwing.8473:

While scanning the forums is a good indicator for the community at large, it’s not comprehensive and may not include my concerns.

True, but if that concern isn’t prevalent on the forum, it probably won’t be prevalent in the thread, either, and they can’t address everything.

This isn’t about what is prevalent, or what they can or cannot address.

This is about feedback to ANet. I provide my concern. ANet gets to make a call on whether it is addressed, or whether others have the same concern.

The loudest and most frequent posters on the forum do not necessarily represent a good cross-section of the playerbase as a whole.

e.g. Just so we are clear: my voice is no more nor is it any less than any other person. I fully understand the playerbase is a collection of communities.

We are lucky that Exalibur know what is better and he’s here to save us. /s
The problem of the champions can be solved like the CoF speedruns.
I know a lot of players don’t like time gated content (to some degree I agree with them), but if devs work on increasing the type of rewarding tasks we can experience and mantain them balanced it could work.
In some way CoF was nerfed, but at the same time other dungeons were made more rewarding (even if for some of them time/reward can be reconsidered a bit).
The result (imo) is that now we have more players spread between all the the other dungeons, so this was not a bad move.

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Please forgive me for not believing in what you wrote. I have seen many a fantastic post go unnoticed and unheeded when it was a suggestion that could’ve improved the game immensely.

I have waited, waited, and waited for the suggestions, criticism, and helpful thoughts that other people give to you to be put into the game or fixed to a certain extent. I, myself, gave a few incredibly good solutions to issues that were never addressed, and it was never even looked at.

As such, I agree 100% with the first post. I will not believe it until I see it. I do hope I am proved wrong and that many suggestions are looked at thoroughly and given careful thought.

And yet…I wonder how many of those posts you would have thought would improve the game that others might have thought would destroy the game.

That’s the problem with people in general. They think they know what will make the game good or make the game bad.

Do you remember how many people wanted better loot drops and more loot and champions to drop stuff? And now we have champion trains. Is that better? Does it make a better game.

Some people clearly thinks so…I’m not one of them.

Who is right…them or me?

You see posts that you think are great suggestions…but that doesn’t mean everyone will think they’re great suggestions or even the majority will.

I thought I might see this come up. I agree with you. I may see a suggestion that I think is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen while someone else thinks it’s trash. All I can say is that the suggestions I saw would improve the game for the majority of the players, if not all. I remember there being a suggestion about magic find. Why not make it so that once you explore a certain zone, you would get bonus magic find for that zone only. (This was before the account mf patch). That was never looked at by Anet. A long time ago I saw an amazing suggestion about how to improve the Living World and it was basically flawless. I couldn’t foresee any future consequences, and I’m usually good at predicting things that will fail or change for the worse because of a new patch that is implemented. Unfortunately, that post was deleted for no reason at all. The OP was not rude, sarcastic, or insulting in the least. I wish I could remember his name, because I’ve never seen a good suggestion that flawless in my life.

Of course a lot of suggestions are made for personal gain to improve their playtime, which makes them not worth looking at, but Anet doesn’t have to ignore and delete the good ones too.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Don’t worry Exalibur, the forum can’t be the only metric.
No one will steal your shiny vertical sword
Relax and enjoy this new experiment.

Just because someone doesn’t light a torch and take to the streets at the mention of vertical progression, doesn’t mean they’re in favor of it either.

I’m on record as saying I would personally prefer a game without vertical progression…and that if there is vertical progression in the game I don’t want the game balanced around it.

As long as I can do pretty much all the content in the game without the highest, grindiest tier, it doesn’t make much difference to me.

Then again, I don’t WvW much and if I did, I might feel differently.

Said Excalibur that has already farmed his ascended stuff.
Btw let’s not derail even this thread in a flame war.

Galtrix.7369:

I remember there being a suggestion about magic find. Why not make it so that once you explore a certain zone, you would get bonus magic find for that zone only.

I don’t like this suggestion, what incentive would players have then, to go to other zones and complete those, when they have much better magic find in the first zone they completed. It’s the exact opposite of what would be good for variety.

Chris, it’s a good start.

But it’s only going to remain that for now. I’m waiting to see what actually develops from this, other than just one more long thread to read.

You’ve lost me as a loyal player basically since Ascended, and as a player at all since around April/May.

One of my beefs was poor communication/interaction with ArenaNet – and that does not mean I think ArenaNet should answer every inflammatory troll post out there.

I do think it means that there are some recurring, major themes that should be addressed.

RNG – Tier Gear – Grind – Deviation from the Manifesto – Raising Level Caps – Unfriendly UI – Quality of LS are a few that come to mind.

So I’d suggest just being straight up, open, and truthful with players. You’ve had over a year to think about these things; I’d expect that many decisions have been made and courses chosen with respect to them.

How about telling us, in straight up terms what ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 are about? How about you re-release the Manifesto, and be clear about what’s different today than when it was initially released. People may or may not like a new one, but if you did it right, the quibbling would stop and folks could get on with the business of playing the game.

I still follow these forums, mainly because of the huge amount of time I spent having a blast in Guild Wars. But I’ve completely lost interest in GW2 for now, and am playing something else.

Because I don’t know who you are, and what kind of game and community you are actually trying to make. What you say and what I see don’t jive far too often for my comfort.

Who are ArenaNet? From a player’s perspective, what do you stand for? What kind of game is GW2? How is GW2 different from everyone else out there?

How about a new Manifesto, with a bit of attention paid to the hot, thousands-of-posts long topics from the first year of GW2?

Erick Alastor.3917:

Said Excalibur that has already farmed his ascended stuff.
Btw let’s not derail even this thread in a flame war.

I farmed nothing. I had stuff in my inventory already and made an ascended weapon. I have 20 characters and an ascended weapon on one of them. I play all the other characters as much or more.

Getting something doesn’t mean you love it. But I didn’t grind for it either (and I won’t).

My idea for polls are not so much ‘in-game’ but ties into logging in on the game client. What about doing it on the patch client, after logging in, where the “Auto-play” box normally auto-logs you in, instead of pressing Play. The poll could easily be displayed on that page. The user can easily respond to it, ignore it, or save it for a later time.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Please forgive me for not believing in what you wrote. I have seen many a fantastic post go unnoticed and unheeded when it was a suggestion that could’ve improved the game immensely.

I have waited, waited, and waited for the suggestions, criticism, and helpful thoughts that other people give to you to be put into the game or fixed to a certain extent. I, myself, gave a few incredibly good solutions to issues that were never addressed, and it was never even looked at.

As such, I agree 100% with the first post. I will not believe it until I see it. I do hope I am proved wrong and that many suggestions are looked at thoroughly and given careful thought.

And yet…I wonder how many of those posts you would have thought would improve the game that others might have thought would destroy the game.

That’s the problem with people in general. They think they know what will make the game good or make the game bad.

Do you remember how many people wanted better loot drops and more loot and champions to drop stuff? And now we have champion trains. Is that better? Does it make a better game.

Some people clearly thinks so…I’m not one of them.

Who is right…them or me?

You see posts that you think are great suggestions…but that doesn’t mean everyone will think they’re great suggestions or even the majority will.

I thought I might see this come up. I agree with you. I may see a suggestion that I think is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen while someone else thinks it’s trash. All I can say is that the suggestions I saw would improve the game for the majority of the players, if not all. I remember there being a suggestion about magic find. Why not make it so that once you explore a certain zone, you would get bonus magic find for that zone only. (This was before the account mf patch). That was never looked at by Anet. A long time ago I saw an amazing suggestion about how to improve the Living World and it was basically flawless. I couldn’t foresee any future consequences, and I’m usually good at predicting things that will fail or change for the worse because of a new patch that is implemented. Unfortunately, that post was deleted for no reason at all. The OP was not rude, sarcastic, or insulting in the least. I wish I could remember his name, because I’ve never seen a good suggestion that flawless in my life.

Of course a lot of suggestions are made for personal gain to improve their playtime, which makes them not worth looking at, but Anet doesn’t have to ignore and delete the good ones too.

Okay I don’t like the zone magic find achievement. Exploring a zone is too easy and there’s no feeling of progression once you get it.

One of the big things about this game that people complain about at max level is not feeling that they’re making progress on anything. I like the progression the way it works on magic find. I like that it’ll take ages for me to get to it. I like that it’s not that bad if I don’t max it out ever.

So Anet didn’t listen to one suggestion by one guy…but they did change magic find. Just not with that suggestion.

Not every suggestion you like is the best way to handle something. There are more considerations than just each individual item…such as how it fits into everything else that’s going on.

You strike me as being a tree person. You see things in great detail and that makes you great at certain types of observations. I’ve never been a tree person. I’m a forest person. I’m never going to find every detail about something, but I thrive on seeing the way things come together.

Anet didn’t ignore the problem with magic find, they just used a different solution than one you particularly liked.

Does that show they’re listening or not listening?

“Hi there, I’m Lyssa. Hey, Listen. We are hearing your prayers, but we don’t like to answer them – it’s kind of a bother. But we do really like being worshipped… so if you could save humanity, that would be great for us. K THANKS!”

http://youtu.be/DxmkAoLC6_4?t=1m49s

Chris I just wanna know:

Zacchary.6183:

when can the thief forum expect to see more red posts? There are a few things that we need to talk about. LOTS of a few things.

Vayne.8563:

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The same goes with you saying the exact opposite based only by what you see on your T1 server where “Overflow has overflows”.
He said “people”, not “all the people”, “most people”, “the vast majority of people”.

Thank you Chris for all your responses

For the in-game poll my suggestion would also be for an in-game tab/ mail.
the tab can either go at the top or even on your hero panel.

The in-game mail can work in the same way that the LS mails work now- someone had a great suggestion about flavour text but actually making all that for a poll might not be realistic in terms of time and resources
It does not have to be pretty so much as comprehensive.

It is easy to misinterpret results so the more information you guys actually get the better.

Actually maybe you can use the poll to get a broad idea and then use the forum process to elaborate on the why’s and wherefores?
Maybe with a link in the poll to the appropriate thread so that people who might not use the forums have the opportunity to participate in a more in depth discussion if they wished?

As for the collaboration process I think it would be a very good start to put a topic and rotate it every couple of days.
This can only really work though if a relevant person actually replies to the topic- even if it is just to say " we see it- too busy to respond right now"

Oh and you “shooting from the hip” as it were is more than acceptable- props to you

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The same goes with you saying the exact opposite based only by what you see on your T1 server where “Overflow has overflows”.
He said “people”, not “all the people”, “most people”, “the vast majority of people”.

The implication is in the phrasing. Saying “people want something” implies most people, because if only a minority of people want it, there’s no much point bringing it up that way.

The entire post implies that there’s this huge group of people who want this. I submit that people don’t really know what the majority wants.

Vayne.8563:

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The same goes with you saying the exact opposite based only by what you see on your T1 server where “Overflow has overflows”.
He said “people”, not “all the people”, “most people”, “the vast majority of people”.

The implication is in the phrasing. Saying “people want something” implies most people, because if only a minority of people want it, there’s no much point bringing it up that way.

The entire post implies that there’s this huge group of people who want this. I submit that people don’t really know what the majority wants.

No you are reading way to much into one specific word. When I read “People want more sPvP modes”. I don’t read it as “most”. Why are we nitpicking words anyway?

People want “x”. Couple imply 20,000 people or 100% of the audience.

Could we also use PR speak and instead say “A huge chunk of the audience want more sPvP modes”? And not define what “huge chunk” means? I think we should do that instead. This way people won’t nitpick one word within an argument.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Go home Chris or you’ll be here all night… we’re a demanding bunch remember.

Just got home. If it’s ok with everyone i am going to relax a bit with the family and get back to chatting tomorrow morning?

Meanwhile this is what i think the current status of the discussion is:

1: Yes to a forum on each of our core pages (WvW, PVE and PvP). One topic at a time. Each topic stays up for two days and then cycles and rotates? Ordering of priority of topics to be discussed.
2: Polls are generally a good idea. Discussion to continue about how they would work?

Thanks for conversation i am really enjoying it. See you tomorrow,

Chris

2. This is how poll should work:
http://www.planetside2.com/roadmap
https://www.everquestnext.com/round-table

Just move it to ingame, so more people will be willing to participate.
Polling each event, and each action in game is pointless, as people will quickly just start pressing random buttons just to get rid of that window.
But posting roadmap of features that are going to be added and polling which should have priority or how they should turn around, us good idea.

Yes, yes, people wil lcomplain if you don’t add features they see on roadmap. My advice ? Screw them. Noone that have at least quater of brain will treat the seriously.

Vayne.8563:

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The same goes with you saying the exact opposite based only by what you see on your T1 server where “Overflow has overflows”.
He said “people”, not “all the people”, “most people”, “the vast majority of people”.

The implication is in the phrasing. Saying “people want something” implies most people, because if only a minority of people want it, there’s no much point bringing it up that way.

The entire post implies that there’s this huge group of people who want this. I submit that people don’t really know what the majority wants.

You’re wrong. “People” is plural. Plural can equal two. A qualifier (e.g., all people) is required if you want to state how many people you are referring to. Leaving that out, people could mean any number greater than one. The statements referred to are fine as they were written, you’re just trying to obfuscate — again.

On the subject of immersion for the poll…

Do you think it really matters? We’ve already ran over the line and then some on breaking immersion. I mean, every time we complete a daily, monthly, Personal Story, or an Achievement milestone, we have a giant picture of a chest with boxes in the middle of our screen. Not to mention whenever we get “special” mail, we get a giant letter in front of our screen as well.

And then there is the gem store items. Baseball hats with the GW2 logo on them, RayBan Sunglasses, Fuzzy Animal Backpacks, 8bit Weapons and Backpacks, T-Shirts with the GW2 logo on them, a “legendary” bow that shoots unicorns with the Arenanet logo on it, Modern Hoodies, etc etc the list goes on.

I think we are way past breaking immersion with a small poll in the corner of the screen. Honestly, it seriously feels like you guys don’t even care about immersion with half the stuff you release, so I don’t think an in game poll is going to matter.

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

Valanga.5942:

Vayne.8563:

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The same goes with you saying the exact opposite based only by what you see on your T1 server where “Overflow has overflows”.
He said “people”, not “all the people”, “most people”, “the vast majority of people”.

The implication is in the phrasing. Saying “people want something” implies most people, because if only a minority of people want it, there’s no much point bringing it up that way.

The entire post implies that there’s this huge group of people who want this. I submit that people don’t really know what the majority wants.

No you are reading way to much into one specific word. When I read “People want more sPvP modes”. I don’t read it as “most”. Why are we nitpicking words anyway?

People want “x”. Couple imply 20,000 people or 100% of the audience.

Could we also use PR speak and instead say “A huge chunk of the audience want more sPvP modes”? And not define what “huge chunk” means? I think we should do that instead. This way people won’t nitpick one word within an argument.

Except that the post I first replied to wasn’t talking just about SPvP modes which affects no one but PvPers. And therein lies the problem.

If someone says people want vertical progression, for example, I’d want to see the numbers before saying Anet should or shouldn’t commit to vertical progression. That’s about the size of it.

If someone had said people want a more stable game, you’d not hear a peep out of me. Sometimes context is everything.

SonicTHI.3217:

That is exactly what you do. You need to take a hard stance on design decisions that are the pillars of your game and you can not under any circumstances back out on them. They did that back in november and look where we are because ANET wanted to please everyone. They chose a path almost every other MMO had chosen. The easy way out with mechanics like grind, dailies and content made only to keep people playing. The EXACT thing that they promised us to stay away from.

Yes you need to ignore a lot of people. But unfortunately ANET chose to ignore their core playerbase. Not only have they ignored the people that supported them for over half a decade and made GW2 possible in the first place but they also lied to us. Take a wild guess why we are not happy with a product that is not as advertised.

Personally i think i m done wasting my time by giving feedback to a wall. ANET has over the course of a year proven that they just do not get the idea of a game that was presented to us over the course of 5 years with numerous blog posts and interviews. They ve repeatedly ignored feedback or even bothered to ask for it, disregarded performance and drove the “living” world into a joke.

What if the hard stance they take is not the one you like, would you be happy with that? how can you be sure we who dont like vertical progression are their core base rather then the minority you think should be denied? Just cause we played their previous game it does somehow make us preferential people and our desires dont take presidency over the over all good of the game. Thats not all you’re assuming everyone who loved Gw1 has issues with how Gw2 is turning up. Well Gw1 was my favorite MMO and I have 0 issues with anything Gw2 has. Sure I dont like Vertical progression and would definitely rather ascended gear was never put in game but things arent black or white because the game lets me completely ignore ascended gear I have no issue with it. I recognize that some want it, I recognize it helps the game reach a bigger range of players which in turn makes the game more successful. The more successful the game the better it can evolve and I benefit indirectly from that as well which why I am totally fine with ascended gear (so long as I am not forced into it)

ANet didnt choose to ignore anyone, the problem here is people think that if they dont do stuff exactly the way they wish then it means they’re being ignored. Again the world is not black and white there are shades of grey and thats what they did. They didnt completely ignore their Gw1 players, they didnt completely forget about people who dont want VP, they devised a system that stands in between. I seriously dont get people saying they went the path of every other MMO because I played most other MMOs and there isnt a comparison between what Gw2 did and what most other MMOs do.

Sure they moved a bit in the direction most other MMOs go but they’re far closer to where Gw1 was then they are were other MMOs are.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also note that the main intention of the initial forum post is to build a bridge with you all and develop some processes together for Collaborative Development through the forums. we can build up some ideas for what will work best and go from there.

That’s what many people have been saying from the get go. More interaction. Sometimes we don’t even need a bug fixed right away. Very often a small post like “In fact we’re working on it” or “Not included, we are coming up with a better idea”. etc.

Especially on very long threads, with 30+ pages, we just need a lifesign from you guys

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

Hi Chris,

You absolutely right, it can affect to the immersion.
But if the implementaion will be right then immersion will not be affected at all.

Btw, please look on my previous post. Definetly in game poll is a great idea about structured feedback from players. You can have feedback not from 100 people from this forum, but from up to millions of players. It will be much more representative.
During beta I always used it.

As an idea: Just create an “option” in the menu. It can appears to all once with question would you like to enable it? If enabled then after specific events / story / etc small “?” will appear in the right bottom corner. Then player who keep enabled it can click on “?” and give a feedback. This “?” should not be invasive and will dissapear after 1 minute if player will not click on it. So who not like pools just will disable it. Who like it can answer if he wants. The immersion will not be affected at all.
You will be surprised how many players will give you their opinions.

btw, please include to the poll the possibility to add short “comments/ideas” regarding corresponding poll’s theme.

Vayne.8563:

Except that the post I first replied to wasn’t talking just about SPvP modes which affects no one but PvPers. And therein lies the problem.

If someone says people want vertical progression, for example, I’d want to see the numbers before saying Anet should or shouldn’t commit to vertical progression. That’s about the size of it.

If someone had said people want a more stable game, you’d not hear a peep out of me. Sometimes context is everything.

It doesn’t matter what it says, “sPvP modes” or even “Vertical Progression”. “People want vertical progression” also is just as valid of a statement.

Regardless, I don’t see why you are trying to deflect the issue of what the post actually said by nitpicking one random word. This thread is about feedback that people are giving devs. It isn’t about people telling others their point is invalid.

This isn’t about you and “what you want to see”. It was feedback by players to ANet and ANet can do with it what they please. Stop trying to argue with other players and telling them their point doesn’t “count”. It is annoying.

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

There was a number of general “no endgame” complains, that’s true, but among those, the people that asked specifically for new geart tier were a tiny minority. Even most of other complainers didn’t want gear grind. They wanted new content – dungeons, new maps, new cool skins. Some wanted raids. Af all those things, Anet picked one that was the least wanted.

You’re right they asked for a variety of things but did arenanet really just give us ascended gear? Because actually they release a new map on their 2nd update and that is the same update that had the ascended gear and associated fractals. In addition that updated included new dynamic events, new jumping puzzles, new crafting.

Which of those did the majority of the players concentrate on? The new map with the added difficulty that people asked for?

The map was boring. It was (and likely still is, even after revamps) the most boring and uninteresting map we have so far. As far as dynamic events went, it was practically empty – it felt dead. And the difficulty was more hps and stronger damage on mobs. Compared to it, FotM was exactly what lot of the players asked – a hard content with a variety of interesting mechanics. It was just fun.
The choice was very simple. And it didn’t have much to do with ascended gear at all.

yeah like most other zones are? cause its not like Southsun is the only zone that has a small population compared to more profitable zones like Orr or Queensdale! Its not that southsun is boring, it isnt if taken in a single month context, it has really nice visuals in fact I’d go so far as to say its one of the most beautiful zones in game with its running waters, rock formations and quite a bit of verticality in some places. It has challenge, its the only zone thats actually a bit hard to solo and it was new. Sure it didnt have the content to support itself for a whole year as it didnt have that many dynamic events but it had enough for a single month worth of play. Yet it was only popular while the one time event when on. How could arenanet justify spending resources on it or in creating a new map like it when players made it clear they didnt care about that kind of content?

goldenwing.8473:

The loudest and most frequent posters on the forum do not necessarily represent a good cross-section of the playerbase as a whole.

And the loudest and most frequent posts on the forum can represent a good cross-section of the playerbase as a whole. We don’t have any evidence either way, so it is silly to make such arguments, and try to dismiss it as such.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

On the subject of immersion for the poll…

Do you think it really matters? We’ve already ran over the line and then some on breaking immersion. I mean, every time we complete a daily, monthly, Personal Story, or an Achievement milestone, we have a giant picture of a chest with boxes in the middle of our screen. Not to mention whenever we get “special” mail, we get a giant letter in front of our screen as well.

And then there is the gem store items. Baseball hats with the GW2 logo on them, RayBan Sunglasses, Fuzzy Animal Backpacks, 8bit Weapons and Backpacks, T-Shirts with the GW2 logo on them, a “legendary” bow that shoots unicorns with the Arenanet logo on it, Modern Hoodies, etc etc the list goes on.

I think we are way past breaking immersion with a small poll in the corner of the screen. Honestly, it seriously feels like you guys don’t even care about immersion with half the stuff you release, so I don’t think an in game poll is going to matter.

Ouch. Touché.

Nevertheless, polls dont really matter, what matters is the game concurrency numbers. If the numbers are up, Anet can just ignore the “noise” generated in the forums as “minority” concerns. If the numbers are plummeting like a rock, I am confident that as a for profit company Anet would gladly eat some humble pie and reverse their decisions concerning their product like other billion dollar companies in recent gaming history.

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

There was a number of general “no endgame” complains, that’s true, but among those, the people that asked specifically for new geart tier were a tiny minority. Even most of other complainers didn’t want gear grind. They wanted new content – dungeons, new maps, new cool skins. Some wanted raids. Af all those things, Anet picked one that was the least wanted.

You’re right they asked for a variety of things but did arenanet really just give us ascended gear? Because actually they release a new map on their 2nd update and that is the same update that had the ascended gear and associated fractals. In addition that updated included new dynamic events, new jumping puzzles, new crafting.

Which of those did the majority of the players concentrate on? The new map with the added difficulty that people asked for?

The map was boring. It was (and likely still is, even after revamps) the most boring and uninteresting map we have so far. As far as dynamic events went, it was practically empty – it felt dead. And the difficulty was more hps and stronger damage on mobs. Compared to it, FotM was exactly what lot of the players asked – a hard content with a variety of interesting mechanics. It was just fun.
The choice was very simple. And it didn’t have much to do with ascended gear at all.

yeah like most other zones are? cause its not like Southsun is the only zone that has a small population compared to more profitable zones like Orr or Queensdale! Its not that southsun is boring, it isnt if taken in a single month context, it has really nice visuals in fact I’d go so far as to say its one of the most beautiful zones in game with its running waters, rock formations and quite a bit of verticality in some places. It has challenge, its the only zone thats actually a bit hard to solo and it was new. Sure it didnt have the content to support itself for a whole year as it didnt have that many dynamic events but it had enough for a single month worth of play. Yet it was only popular while the one time event when on. How could arenanet justify spending resources on it or in creating a new map like it when players made it clear they didnt care about that kind of content?

Galen, SouthSun is a bad example of a new map- it is pretty I agree and it is a nice difficulty but it is also dead and boring because there is nothing going on.

If you take it and compare it to any of the other maps in the world you can see this.
It lacks the vibrancy and the little details, nevermind the events poi, vistas, hearts etc.
It doesn’t mean that we should now have hearts but they do serve a purpose in making you feel that people actually live there.
If nothing else it needs many ,many more DE’s

After the Southsun Cove story the map changed a little but it needs to change more for it to actually feel like a place

It has a lot of potential but it is not a finished zone by a long shot.

It also has no lore- sure it has an interesting story that we saw happening before our eyes but that needs to be built on- it is just sort of in limbo now as a space for Karka queen to go on a rampage- why I am not sure since I thought we cleaned up the Canach mess

Players care very much about new areas don’t mistake implementation and the response to it for lack of interest

Chris Whiteside.6102:

…
I wanted to say thanks for both some great feedback (community members posting what they like and don’t like) and that it has been useful to see some health debate regarding our interaction with you all.
…
We don’t listen to negative feedback.
I just wanted to clarify this is not the case at all. Constructive feedback can be both positive or negative feedback. Un-constructive feedback in my opinion is when the post is muddied by overly emotional context such as being rude, disrespectful or making wild assumptions. Therefore please understand that negative criticism about the game is something we value and is core to collaborative development.
…
So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

That’s a really good idea which raises an interesting point. i am well versed in the game globally but not necessarily in the specifics of certain areas. So here is what i will do, i will post one in general asking for PVE specific feedback and then nominate two other members of staff to do the same in WvW and PvP and we can go from there. Note i am not going to do this over night as i do want to create some guidelines (set by me) for what the team can answer and can’t that way you guys can be frustrated with me rather than a specific developer (-:
Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I feel we do regularly state our pillars but clearly we need to do a better job. Yep i think its a really good idea to state our pillars. I will work out how best to do that.

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

/respect

If you keep to your word Chris, i will “again” provide constructive feedback and you will certainly have my “/respect”. I wonder however why this kind of approach wasn’t made sooner…

But please remember one thing. Both players and the devs work to make this game better. It’s a shared responsibility that everyone embraces easily for the game they love to play. But in the same way players can’t provide 100% quality feedback (a lot of the feedback would be related to their frustration → “ig: invis. Thief killed me, nerf needed”), developers also make misjudgments and mistakes. Trial and Error is part of human behavior as no1 is perfect.

Acknowledging mistakes and work to correct them, do not make a developer more or less capable! So having a step back to do two steps forward sometimes is the best approach. Don’t let that developer’s pride blind you!

/cheers

First, let me say, that i really appreciate you showing up here trying to talk to us. This game really needs that – your presence here means that perhaps there is still hope. That saying, based on the past experiences, I’m going to stay a little bit cynical, and wait till the words are followed by actions. After all, the previous time i remember you engaging in a discussion with the community (the infamous November Reddit AMA) that discussion ended being just empty words, with no actions to follow it whasoever.
You really need to avoid repeating that.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

As many peple already mentioned, one big thread is likely not the best approach. Several aggregate threads for different elements of the game (sPvP, WvW, Open world, Living Story, skill balance), as well as more specific threads addressing the major contention points in this game would be a better choice. A single thread is in a greater danger of turning into a mess even if the emotions won’t run high there.
Also, seeing what you would consider “major contention points” would tell us a lot about how close you are really following player feedback these days, and how serious are you about this “collaborative development”.
Just don’t make it like the last attempt at “ascended feedback thread” – where you asked for feedback once and then seemingly stopped paying attention. Feedback needs discussion – you really need to talk to us in threads like these. We need comments on the ideas posted, we need to know what you have taken from it, and what is really out of the question – without it we really can only assume that those threads are not even read (even if they are).

ColinJohanson.2394:

I’ll try doing the once every 6 month Gw2 status updates every 3 months starting in 2014 (the next one will be in January) and see how that works going forward. If every 3 months is still not frequent enough we can all discuss that as a community at that time, though I’m not sure a big blog post saying we’re still working on the same stuff each month would be very useful or well received

In general, a quarterly update on the state of the game seems reasonable. That of course depends on how detailed that update is – the less specific it is, the more often you need to repeat it. That is for PvE/Living Story however. I am afraid that PvP/skill balance side would really need both more frequent updates, and closer communication lines.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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.

Breaking immersion is indeed an important point, yet some feedback tool would still be nice. Beta-style automatic popups are definitely not an option here, but the tab idea (or something similar to current bug report tool) might be a nice addition.

I do have a lot more to add, but this is really not the thread for it. Perhaps once the right discussion threads will be opened… (hint hint).

Hi Chris, thanks for posting in this thread, its a refreshing change to see the developers talk so candidly to us players.

However…

There has been heaps of discussion on how both the developers and players can communicate better, and that’s fantastic, however over the last year we have been providing feedback on these forums with almost no action taken on serious most talked about/requested issues.

For example, the scavenger hunt and precursor farming, perhaps the most request feature since the launch of the game. You acknowledge in multiple threads in the past that precursors are a problem, you listened to our feedback and responded in the forums (just like you’re doing now) but you did not take any action. none. zero. nada. nothing.

One year later no scavenger hunt, and now precursor farming might be pushed to next year.

Whats the point in providing feedback that you listen to, make promises to fix the problem, then refuse to follow through on that promise?

There is no point asking for feedback if your just going to ignore said feedback.

That is why i remain highly sceptical of this thread, because we have heard promises of collaboration before and nothing came from it.

I hope that this time is different.

Khal Drogo.9631:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

On the subject of immersion for the poll…

Do you think it really matters? We’ve already ran over the line and then some on breaking immersion. I mean, every time we complete a daily, monthly, Personal Story, or an Achievement milestone, we have a giant picture of a chest with boxes in the middle of our screen. Not to mention whenever we get “special” mail, we get a giant letter in front of our screen as well.

And then there is the gem store items. Baseball hats with the GW2 logo on them, RayBan Sunglasses, Fuzzy Animal Backpacks, 8bit Weapons and Backpacks, T-Shirts with the GW2 logo on them, a “legendary” bow that shoots unicorns with the Arenanet logo on it, Modern Hoodies, etc etc the list goes on.

I think we are way past breaking immersion with a small poll in the corner of the screen. Honestly, it seriously feels like you guys don’t even care about immersion with half the stuff you release, so I don’t think an in game poll is going to matter.

Ouch. Touché.

Nevertheless, polls dont really matter, what matters is the game concurrency numbers. If the numbers are up, Anet can just ignore the “noise” generated in the forums as “minority” concerns. If the numbers are plummeting like a rock, I am confident that as a for profit company Anet would gladly eat some humble pie and reverse their decisions concerning their product like other billion dollar companies in recent gaming history.

That’s a very good way to sink a ship you have there. Numbers are good, number are good, numbers are good, hey what happened no one is playing any more.

When it comes to games you for the most part have one shot, screw it up and you will have lost your audience. There are simply to many fish in the sea.

Well if you guys ever want Living Story to feel the way you want then you know that eventually heavier phasing technology needs to be used. A hospital blows up in a race’s story-line and you go right to that place after and find that it is still there.

I am quite surprised that more phasing hasn’t been used as I can’t think of much better ways to show the player they impacted the world in some way.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

This thread is about discussing the post from Chris Whiteside, not the moderation on this forum. Please focus on the topic at hand. Any further posts discussing things not related to the original post will be removed.

One of the things Chris discusses is keeping a civil tongue when discussing things about the game in the forums. I agree that everyone’s feedback should be heard and opposing views can be disagreed with as long as it’s respectful. However, I see a lot of dismissive posts from some people coming to the ’aid" of ArenaNet that stay on the forums.

I don’t want to discuss what ArenaNet moderators should and should not do regarding posts, I’d just like to say civility should be on BOTH sides of a topic. Dismissive posts like “if you don’t like it, don’t play the game.” are just as counterproductive as “this game sucks, I quit.” and neither should be tolerated.

Provide argument on the topic and not the person and we all can help move Guild Wars 2 forward. Even with the changes made to the game that I disagree with, I still believe in ArenaNet and it’s people. You have made the only two MMOs I continuously come back to for the last decade!

P.S. I’d LOVE to see the in-game polls come back to GW2. I think they were helpful in the beta, and I think they can be at least as effective now.

Conner.4702:

That’s a very good way to sink a ship you have there. Numbers are good, number are good, numbers are good, hey what happened no one is playing any more.

When it comes to games you for the most part have one shot, screw it up and you will have lost your audience. There are simply to many fish in the sea.

I would like to disagree. If what they have implemented (ie Ascended weapon time sink) is working and has managed to maintain audience retention, it is an indication of success like a TV series which has gone on into its 2nd season still in its prime time slot drawing the all-important demographic they were targeting.

If audiences are willing to sit though that weekly hour of entertainment without changing channels, it indicates they enjoy that content or at the very least don’t find it to be annoying / boring / flat-out bad / a waste of their time.

So kudos to Anet kitten many other commentators on these forums has mentioned. May GW2 march on to its 3rd year and beyond. No other MMO has ever come close to its community outreach.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sarrs.4831:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t know if a single thread would be the go. There are more than a few hot-button issues, at least on the WvW side; having a consistent dialogue on each of those would be good, but having a single thread try to encompass them all would be ineffective, I feel.

How about this then? We create a forum thread on the main forum to discuss high level aspects of the game with Colin and I, and meanwhile on this thread people put forward ideas of how to move forward with a process for collaborative development from the forums? Then a method can be picked and we go from there?

Chris

And you toot the horn for people to do the same on spvp and wvw forums, I’m guessing, and those threads branch out from there? That sounds like it could work.

Throwing my chips in on the ‘collaborative design’; first things first, we really need to get access to your brains before launch day. This blow-by-blow dialogue we have in these last few pages is pretty solid. There was Josh Foreman talking about SAB W2 as well; that was great. This kind of dialogue really helps to show that there are people with real investment in the game on the other side, and it’s not just us.

I agree, please do understand though that part of the problem really has been a lack of time. We work at a break neck pace and as i have said we need to carve out more time to do that. So the speed at which i am posting now is extremely difficult for most and will be difficult for me to but what i am hoping is we can work to build a communication process that is great for all involved.

There have been many many times i have wanted to post and i would imagine this is the case for the devs to but finding the time to give it the attention it deserves and also getting the courage to do so has been difficult.

This is something i want us to get back to and in answer to the question of why did the communication cadence lower in the first place, it is simply down to how busy everyone has been. You can take it or leave it in terms of believing this but i am telling you it is the truth (-:

I am really excited about rebuilding the communications bridge and this conversation in general.

Chris

As an added way to get feedback, would it be possible to add links every now and then to the launcher for optional surveys that we could fill out?

Hi Cris,

It would be great to have some place on forum where we could discuss things with team directly.
I already have some things on mind that would love talk about. Last 3 updates changed game so drastically and if you want to continue this way it surely need lot of debate with us.
Now it seems to me like you have some vision of the game and you want to fulfill no matter consequences it can have. Don’t take it wrong please :-)
I am just worried about games future, becouse i enjoyed it much, especialy content like Bazaar, Politics, Dragon Bash, Jubilee and other. And i would love to continue to enjoy the game.
There are a lot of angry people now, but even if they are behaving how they should not, something angered them. I am not defending bad behavior just saing that opnion or problem of that person can be same valid or important as opinions and problems of others. They just have to learn how to behave.
Thanks for reading and possible response.
And sorry if my english is too bad :-)

Khal Drogo.9631:

Conner.4702:

That’s a very good way to sink a ship you have there. Numbers are good, number are good, numbers are good, hey what happened no one is playing any more.

When it comes to games you for the most part have one shot, screw it up and you will have lost your audience. There are simply to many fish in the sea.

I would like to disagree. If what they have implemented (ie Ascended weapon time sink) is working and has managed to maintain audience retention, it is an indication of success like a TV series which has gone on into its 2nd season still in its prime time slot drawing the all-important demographic they were targeting.

If audiences are willing to sit though that weekly hour of entertainment without changing channels, it indicates they enjoy that content or at the very least don’t find it to be annoying / boring / flat-out bad / a waste of their time.

So kudos to Anet kitten many other commentators on these forums has mentioned. May GW2 march on to its 3rd year and beyond. No other MMO has ever come close to its community outreach.

You are basing this on assumption without proof. It might just be to use your analogy that there is simply nothing better on at the time of the tv show.

daros.3407:

Hi Cris,

It would be great to have some place on forum where we could discuss things with team directly.
I already have some things on mind that would love talk about. Last 3 updates changed game so drastically and if you want to continue this way it surely need lot of debate with us.
Now it seems to me like you have some vision of the game and you want to fulfill no matter consequences it can have. Don’t take it wrong please :-)
I am just worried about games future, becouse i enjoyed it much, especialy content like Bazaar, Politics, Dragon Bash, Jubilee and other. And i would love to continue to enjoy the game.
There are a lot of angry people now, but even if they are behaving how they should not, something angered them. I am not defending bad behavior just saing that opnion or problem of that person can be same valid or important as opinions and problems of others. They just have to learn how to behave.
Thanks for reading and possible response.
And sorry if my english is too bad :-)

I haven’t read any rants so far or the moderator had deleted those posts. So I think either people are beyond the point of anger or the GW2 “noise makers” are actually quite a polite bunch.

Conner.4702:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Conner.4702:

That’s a very good way to sink a ship you have there. Numbers are good, number are good, numbers are good, hey what happened no one is playing any more.

When it comes to games you for the most part have one shot, screw it up and you will have lost your audience. There are simply to many fish in the sea.

I would like to disagree. If what they have implemented (ie Ascended weapon time sink) is working and has managed to maintain audience retention, it is an indication of success like a TV series which has gone on into its 2nd season still in its prime time slot drawing the all-important demographic they were targeting.

If audiences are willing to sit though that weekly hour of entertainment without changing channels, it indicates they enjoy that content or at the very least don’t find it to be annoying / boring / flat-out bad / a waste of their time.

So kudos to Anet kitten many other commentators on these forums has mentioned. May GW2 march on to its 3rd year and beyond. No other MMO has ever come close to its community outreach.

You are basing this on assumption without proof. It might just be to use your analogy that there is simply nothing better on at the time of the tv show.

Well that may be true, if there is nothing better on, I would be playing games

Morrigan.2809:

Galen, SouthSun is a bad example of a new map- it is pretty I agree and it is a nice difficulty but it is also dead and boring because there is nothing going on.

If you take it and compare it to any of the other maps in the world you can see this.
It lacks the vibrancy and the little details, nevermind the events poi, vistas, hearts etc.
It doesn’t mean that we should now have hearts but they do serve a purpose in making you feel that people actually live there.
If nothing else it needs many ,many more DE’s

After the Southsun Cove story the map changed a little but it needs to change more for it to actually feel like a place

It has a lot of potential but it is not a finished zone by a long shot.

It also has no lore- sure it has an interesting story that we saw happening before our eyes but that needs to be built on- it is just sort of in limbo now as a space for Karka queen to go on a rampage- why I am not sure since I thought we cleaned up the Canach mess

Players care very much about new areas don’t mistake implementation and the response to it for lack of interest

I am not disagreeing that compared to other zones it has a lot less to do, its understandable they only had at most 2 months to build it. I am not disagreeing that it lacks longevity of other zones of course it doesnt have the amount of dynamic events those other zones have. But it did have enough to keep people busy a couple of weeks at least but players didnt even give it that. Even after the 2nd update its not like a lot change in terms of player activity where as something that takes a lot less resources to do like the invasions or even a simple drop tweak to champions kept players busy for weeks and will probably do so for months.

So if you’re part of Arenanet have limited resources and need to develop something to keep players busy, what would you do? expand on Southsun and hope there is a dynamic event critical mass where as once there is enough to do the zone will become popular? Create a new zone that has less difficult mobs hoping that southsun isnt popular because its too challenging for the average player? Or Create some repeatable content thats profitable?

Dont get me wrong i really want then to choose 1 or 2 and really hate option 3, what I am saying is us players arent making it easy on them!

I kinda like the idea of having an ingame poll that you can opt-out off. Doesnt need to be fancy just a little option in the settings that allows you to turn the poll off if you find it immersion breaking.

Could be a useful tool for collecting feedback.

Galen Grey.4709:

Morrigan.2809:

Galen, SouthSun is a bad example of a new map- it is pretty I agree and it is a nice difficulty but it is also dead and boring because there is nothing going on.

If you take it and compare it to any of the other maps in the world you can see this.
It lacks the vibrancy and the little details, nevermind the events poi, vistas, hearts etc.
It doesn’t mean that we should now have hearts but they do serve a purpose in making you feel that people actually live there.
If nothing else it needs many ,many more DE’s

After the Southsun Cove story the map changed a little but it needs to change more for it to actually feel like a place

It has a lot of potential but it is not a finished zone by a long shot.

It also has no lore- sure it has an interesting story that we saw happening before our eyes but that needs to be built on- it is just sort of in limbo now as a space for Karka queen to go on a rampage- why I am not sure since I thought we cleaned up the Canach mess

Players care very much about new areas don’t mistake implementation and the response to it for lack of interest

I am not disagreeing that compared to other zones it has a lot less to do, its understandable they only had at most 2 months to build it. I am not disagreeing that it lacks longevity of other zones of course it doesnt have the amount of dynamic events those other zones have. But it did have enough to keep people busy a couple of weeks at least but players didnt even give it that. Even after the 2nd update its not like a lot change in terms of player activity where as something that takes a lot less resources to do like the invasions or even a simple drop tweak to champions kept players busy for weeks and will probably do so for months.

So if you’re part of Arenanet have limited resources and need to develop something to keep players busy, what would you do? expand on Southsun and hope there is a dynamic event critical mass where as once there is enough to do the zone will become popular? Create a new zone that has less difficult mobs hoping that southsun isnt popular because its too challenging for the average player? Or Create some repeatable content thats profitable?

Dont get me wrong i really want then to choose 1 or 2 and really hate option 3, what I am saying is us players arent making it easy on them!

The thing is we are talking about two different types of content that appeals to different types of players.

On the one hand you have people who like exploring, taking their time and running DE’s- in short I think of those as the immersion types, play for fun and kicks

On the other hand you have the type of players who go for the shiney and the max profit/time- I think of those types as the farmers

We have seen content very much loaded toward the second bunch- and yes it will keep them busy because it is what they do- run something over and over again ( the champ farm and invasions and pavilion are examples of this type of content)

We have not really seem content so far for the first bunch.
Ideally the game needs both kinds of content.
Long term you certainly need it because it prolongs the life of the game

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

Let the player decide on the polls under display options and have a check box to display them/ hide them from appearing. Or you could even tie it to the living story. Say an NPC that works for Ellen Kiel and you talk to said NPC and a poll pops up to fill out? If something isn’t emmersive, there’s no reason why you can’t make it immersive. Just my 2 cents. Thank you for this topic. I’ve been browsing through it.

I was absolutely obsessed with GW2 and eagerly awaited it to come out taking tons of time off to play the BWE’s. After it was released I think I no lifed until the karka event which discouraged me a little bit (part of just jealousy at other loot or w/e it was). I absolutely loved fractals but was weary it may start attracting elitism attitudes and I feared the community would take a turn for the worst.

I played on and off again throughout the rest of the year but nothing nearly as major as I was. Partly because I would enter the living story and I would be bombarded with too many things to do/achievements to get/things I didn’t understand that was new to the game. I would come back to the forumns regularly but sometimes they can get pretty…toxic. I was guilty myself of doing a few rage posts a long time ago haha.

Anyways the past month I have started playing regularly again and I find myself enjoying the game immensely! I’ve been just immersing myself in the world and doing things that seem like fun to me instead of “Omg run arah exp all day and show off my leet gear” like I was the first month or two the game came out.

I think I enjoy the game more now because I am starting to shed a lot more of my elitism and vertical progression habits that have been instilled in me from playing other mmos for so long before gw2. Now I take the good and the bad and just enjoy it! Wiped a few times in the new twilight arbor dungeon? No sweat! Finished it? Great! The community is still great and abnormally friendly! Everyone is respectful and helpful except of course those rare few but of course no bigge!

tl:dr

Looking forward to collaborating in the development of this game. It’s come pretty far it’s first year and I look forward to seeing the improvements and changes made in the future!

Morrigan.2809:

The thing is we are talking about two different types of content that appeals to different types of players.

On the one hand you have people who like exploring, taking their time and running DE’s- in short I think of those as the immersion types, play for fun and kicks

On the other hand you have the type of players who go for the shiney and the max profit/time- I think of those types as the farmers

We have seen content very much loaded toward the second bunch- and yes it will keep them busy because it is what they do- run something over and over again ( the champ farm and invasions and pavilion are examples of this type of content)

We have not really seem content so far for the first bunch.
Ideally the game needs both kinds of content.
Long term you certainly need it because it prolongs the life of the game

Well I wouldnt go so far to say we explorers didnt get anything. I mean we got jumping puzzles and mini dungeons. We got some new dynamic events here and there. LS gave us NPCs to talk to which gave us lore. We got southsun and Labyrinthine cliffs. We got cragstead (I know no biggy but I love that town, every update I have to go visit there to see if there were changes but its been a while now since things actually have changed since the secrets of southsun ended I am afraid)

I mean yes except for labryinthine cliffs we didnt really have a release targeted at us specifically be there were some bones thrown at us with many updates.

That being said I would definitely not be against more stuff for us of course More new zones with new dynamic events chains would be really great (though havent even finished all the existant ones yet .. I am so greedy!)

goldenwing.8473:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

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’.

This. Start simple. And build from there.

It’s a simple question.. but weighty.

There’s a lot of fantastic discussion happening here that’s bringing a lot of hope and energy. On the idea of in-game feedback surveys, I’ve already forgotten what problem this was going to solve! The forums are full of ideas, opinions, and feedback from players, and someone said earlier that it’d be great to hear more from the non-forumers and have their say included. The general sense I was getting from the original post and the following posts was that players or posters were wanting to hear more meaningful responses from the dev team to our opinions and suggestions. Would polling our feedback during the game help us feel heard? I suspect it would go part of the way in getting better Communication, but it wouldn’t help solve the problem of knowing the team has heard us. I know that every time I completed those beta surveys I speculated a lot on how the data got collated and analysed (and mostly wished to see the results!!)

Would it be the most helpful for the results to get reported regularly back to us? To see what we are saying, and to hear what Chris and Colin think of those results specifically? Then, when what we’ve said has been returned to us (plus some value added to it by Chris, Colin, and others), would we truly feel better heard?
Thoughts?

Btw out of curiosity how goes the launch of GW2 in China?

Atherakhia.4086:

I have no idea how many players play PvE exclusively vs WvW exclusively etc. I’d like to think that any overlap between the playerbase favors WvW though, but I couldn’t tell you. All I know is the PvP (PvP + WvW) community has been let down big time for 3 months now. No information has come out. Bloodlust is a bust. No class or balance changes in months. etc.

460.000 player average online in gw2. 48 server * 300 ( 3 factions ) * 4 ( 3x border + eb )

= 57600 max players in wvw online at the same time, if 100player / server / border is correct.

12,52% of the average online playbase is able to play wvw

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 agree with what you are saying here, Chris. Stopping to analyse our experiences puts our perceptions in a different “frame of mind” than dealing with the usual interactions within the game. It’s not just decision making and evaluating the game world, but self-reflecting and evaluating ourselves.
There’s already lots of great ideas happening of incorporating a poll into the game. I normally favour in-game mechanics such as NPCs and tools for player-world interfacing, but doing this for something that IS recognised as immersion-breaking (like a game play poll) would be a bit like that strange feeling the uncanny valley creates for animated human faces. If I bumped into an NPC who was talking about feedback to Arena Net for game improvement, I would feel a lot more jarred than if the poll were tucked nicely into the interface somewhere.

By the way, thanks for dedicating so much time to being here with us yesterday! With the infinite To-Do List you’ve probably had the last few years, it’d be easy to keep de-prioritising this task of connecting and communicating with us.
Thanks deeply for putting aside those other pressing things to focus on us! Seeing you do this makes me feel like you really believe we are fundamental to your work or values. Please do what you need to to keep it up!