Guild Wars 2

Chris,

Does your new commitment to collaborative development extend to looking back at your old commitments?

10 months ago, you offered to discuss social systems in MMOs by PM:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/c7756ah

I’ve since contacted you twice by forum PM and once by in-game mail, to take you up on that offer. I haven’t heard back from you at all.

I’m sure I just got lost in the shuffle. You’re a busy guy, after all. But, if you’re too busy to read and respond to PMs that you’ve invited, perhaps you shouldn’t extend the offer in the first place.

If your team is too busy to collect feedback the old fashioned way, by talking to players, I don’t think all the cute feedback-collecting mechanisms in the world are going to get you the information you want. If you’re too busy for something, gotta hire more people, no way around it. Is ANet budgeting any cash for this whole “collaborative development” initiative?

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Why are Legos one of the most wildly successful toy lines ever created? Because they are not a toy. Rather, they are the infrastructure that permit children to build their own toys. Legos facilitate and support a child’s creativity rather than dictate to that child what they can create (at least the older generation of Legos did; let’s leave aside for the moment all the themed, market-driven, movie-tie-in, rigid sets that have come out in recent years).

But you CAN’T leave aside that, it’s core.

Lego went down this road because kids over the last 30 years have ceased to be able to think for themselves and now are programmed to follow pre-defined paths. This change to Lego is symptomatic of a societal change that can also be traced to the way games in general and computer games in particular have changed.

Text adventures disappeared because they required the player to think, instead they were replaced by pictures you mindlessly could click on and eventually ‘solve’ the problem.

Fast forward to today and you have ‘sandbox’ and ‘theme park’ MMOs, and the trend is inexorably towards the pre-programmed, no-thought-required theme-park variety.

Rigid thinking and tunnel vision is as the heart of this, free-thinking isn’t what many kids do these days and that carries on and is expressed in the way MMOs as one category of games have gone.

In education, modern politically correct dogma says no child must be told they’re a failure, even when it’s patently obvious they have no talent for something. The way you ensure no one fails is to dumb down things to the point where only a total moron (in the dictionary definition senses) can’t do it: see the pattern in games, especially MMOs?

Warrior is fine, what should be happening is condition dmg should not be as bad as it is and the other classes that are sub-par should be brought to the warriors level of usefulness. There’s no point in nerfing any class in any way, improving the others is what should be happening.

I think guardian and warrior are the two most balanced classes, with ele/thief following a close 3rd. I don’t play ranger or engi but from what I’ve seen in groups they seem relatively weak and not very useful at all.

Necromancer needs some better bleed traits. Considering they’re technically supposed to be masters of conditions I duno why other classes can stack conditions quicker. Necros traits are relatively weak regarding blood/poison/fire compared to other classes and that needs a buff for sure. 25 caps should be removed.

Personally I don’t think there should be ANY caps on abilities like vulnerability or bleed. It makes skills that people are using in groups and large events completely useless which is just lame when you think about it. It makes the game feel more like a gimmick of what’s actually happening on the playing field.

Chris (and ANet…): First of all, if you want to have a meaningful discussion with your players base, you really need to stop alienating yourself with all the PR talk your official posts are riddled with. Your first post here… it was difficult to read without cringing: if you want honest meeting of minds, stop being dishonest up from.

Please take a look at how Digital Extremes handle their forums for Warframe.
They are honest and upfront. There is almost no PR talk (that I can assure you a lot of your “most dedicated fans” are allergic to by now, one and a half years after your Manifesto – but since you read the forums you should know that!). And they have a brilliant “Weekly hot topics” where their Customers Relation representative highlights what was hot on forum and what team thinks about the feedback / what they plan to do.
Also, they never hide their mess-ups with – again – wall of PR garbage. They are not afraid to bluntly admit: guys, we kitten up, badly. We are sorry, here is what we are doing about it.
It saves a lot of bad blood, but also actually opens grounds for ACTUAL conversation.
Unfortunately – let me state it again – what ANet seems to be doing alienates fans. Stop it. Don;t let PR spin doctors edit your posts. Honestly, we can see through them. They are silly.

Edit:
Warframe forums require login. While the game is free, to lessen your hassle, copy of latest (October 4) Community Hot Topics: This is how it’s done!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lxn1Pfg3zgDiT_u1wZnZp9owt8i5GM9rX5eyAPDbrQs/edit?usp=sharing

I just thought of something. Does Chris even have the power to make any of our thoughts a reality? Because, I think none of the game developers who are giving us living story crap actually care about the community.

cherrie.8907:

Chris (and ANet…): First of all, if you want to have a meaningful discussion with your players base, you really need to stop alienating yourself with all the PR talk your official posts are riddled with. Your first post here… it was difficult to read without cringing: if you want honest meeting of minds, stop being dishonest up from.

Please take a look at how Digital Extremes handle their forums for Warframe.
They are honest and upfront. There is almost no PR talk (that I can assure you a lot of your “most dedicated fans” are allergic to by now, one and a half years after your Manifesto – but since you read the forums you should know that!). And they have a brilliant “Weekly hot topics” where their Customers Relation representative highlights what was hot on forum and what team thinks about the feedback / what they plan to do.
Also, they never hide their mess-ups with – again – wall of PR garbage. They are not afraid to bluntly admit: guys, we kitten up, badly. We are sorry, here is what we are doing about it.
It saves a lot of bad blood, but also actually opens grounds for ACTUAL conversation.
Unfortunately – let me state it again – what ANet seems to be doing alienates fans. Stop it. Don;t let PR spin doctors edit your posts. Honestly, we can see through them. They are silly.

I do have to agree. Every time I see the blatant PR speak I just skip the post as irrelevant. People love the active back-and-forth, even if it doesn’t end how we, as players, may want it to. Josh’s SAB posts proved that. We may not have liked all the responses, but the dialogue was refreshing and wonderful. It felt like we were talking to a person instead of a machine, which PR responses basically are.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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’m sorry, but I need to chime in.

You worry about player immersion in a game that has disco-ball wand, a pink unicorn bow making characters leave horseshoe footprints, jack-out-the -box scythe mining pick and some other notorious gem-store items?
You really don’t have to.

Game poll would be part of UI anyway and that’s how it should be treated.
Noone is complaining the Settings window is breaking their immersion. Or mini-map. Or “Switch character” button.

1. Make a survey
2. ???
3. Profit

Do it like some other companies with F2P titels where it is:

1. Make a survey
2. Add some gems (in game currency) as reward
2. Profit

You will get more feedback than you can handle. People are greedy, free stuff is what people want. This won’t ruin your economy, if you only hand out like let’s say 100 free gems. Still it looks like worth the time for players.

Hello Chris, surely the safest and most effective place for polling would be the launcher or character screen.

Just wanted to say. Really appreciate the amount of replies you’ve been giving Chris. Also, they come across as you actually listening to us instead of management-muzzled replies. That’s even more important. Keep up the good work.

Hi Chris,

Just to say a job well done. This is basically the first step to improving the company’s image. Having a staff members like yourself that talks to the community is definitely in the right direction.

Suggestions I like to make are as follow

1) Bug Tracker
This will not only save you man hours of sifting through all those internal bug reports we send, but also a central place for players to submit and keep track of the issues. Users that have submitted a ticket will receive an email with a ticket number, along with a link to the bug tracker. Using their GW2 login, they can modify the ticket to upload screenshots / log files.

2) Testing process, i like the idea plus you get a pool of testers for free (yay). My negative for this, I can imagine a few bad seeds that would abuse this. IE, discovering a game breaking bug and not reporting it. Not to mention your live update leaks. My suggestion forth is NDA and account termination. Maybe a process for users to apply to access PTR?

3) Community Reach. Just like what you are currently doing, we don’t mind seeing a post from dev about an idea or process.

In Game Suggestion

Seriously man… where’s the dance synchronization command we used to have? Don’t you want a row of manly Naked Norns dancing in unison? GW1 had /dance (countdown number) and anyone else that /dance in that period would dance in unison

High-Resolution screenshot (set resolution you want) – this needs to come back as an option. This is essentially free PR for you guys. Think of the screencaps people can do in social media saying “hey guys, i am playing this awesome game. Check out my screencap of my awesome toon”

Thanks for reading.

Hi Chris,

Is it possible to contribute to the boundaries you are drafting for the Collaborative Discussions? I keep mulling over the idea of “Improving it without Removing it” to focus discussion on being additive to the current state of the game rather than posting just to have something taken away from the game. It would seem to me that removing game aspects only to replace them with another suggestion is either backwards stepping for this production, or stuff that could be reserved for brainstorms on GW3 or whole, other new games.

So I saw the timeframe is one of 2 days, don’t you consider this to be a bit short? Personally I prefer one of a week since there are days some people don’t visit the forums due to lack of time or other things.

Also I suppose talking about guilds is PvE?

Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to answer here, it is really appreciated.

Being an avid forum reader, I noticed that often people are just not informed of things that have already been announced / precised by the devs. This, together with the broken search feature, leads to multiple similar threads, suggestions and complains: for example I saw a post in this thread complaining about precursors being complete RNG, when a scavenger hunt has been announced for late 2013.

I think there should be a place (probably a forum thread) where all the released informations about what is coming / what is being worked on is gathered.

It should aggregate:
- The half-year blog posts
- The official forum posts/announcements
- The various interviews given by the devs (this part is probably harder)

Each topic having:
- A status: “coming soon”, “is worked on”, “we’re thinking about it”, etc.
- A release date (even something vague like “late this year”)
- The details of the feature as they are disclosed

Such a database would greatly help us, players, have a better understanding of where the game is heading to and as a consequence improve the quality of our feedback/suggestions. Also, it would be a great help to have this sort of “ultimate reference” when we want to back up our forum posts with dev information.

I’m surprised that they only read feedback which is sugarcoated instead of being able to calmly read a post regardless of content and pick out the fundamentals. Sounds like a bunch of care bears where they work o.O…

Hi Chris, thanks for taking the time to answer here too
I hope my idea will go back up to ArenaNet :
Here I’ll talk about the layout of it and not the content
Immersion is super important! especially if you want the content even if it happens to be going through because what is important is the story you are trying to tell and to live players to be essential for an epic wind blowing into it .
If the formatting is flawed , the story will not be as we understood by everyone and will blow after a smaller impact in the light of what happened in the previous update . The shape is as important as the background , you’ll understand why after reading .
Why not make a living history in this style because I remember that the devs have told us to see living history as a series :
- You speak (pnj of living story)Herault will show you a cutscene on the update of the fifteen days ( in previously on Gw2….. + introduction and intrigue of the update )
- You get your little mail as usual.
- You start the contents of the update
- End of content + cinematics that we saw a little hint on the next update( intrigue ==> cliffhanger for example)
" The" cliffhanger “a dramatic and exciting ending to an episode of a serial, leaving the audience in suspense and anxious not to miss the next episode:”
That it ! already it lays the foundation for understanding the history it seems more structure to be a little more immersed in the story alive after the content itself is another matter, but as it is important and is now almost nonexistent in the level of history.
For the story it should be optional and deepen what should have already known on the update compared to diagram (above).

If it’s going to be a free-for-all, no-holds-barred feedback session, the priority list would just deteriorate into a wishlist.

I think there should at least be some context about the topics being discussed. Maybe Anet can start the ball rolling by starting a few threads like:

[Discussion] Crafting
[Discussion] Ascended Gear

So by looking at the thread and post count we know which topics garner the most input.

More importantly, the devs should at least share what confines/constraints they are working under:

Some issues may have technical limitations (eg condition damage)
Some issues may require significant academic knowledge (eg economy-related issues)
Some issues may have political or strategic business implications (eg Cantha)
Some issues may have divided views among playerbase (eg Scarlet as a main villain)
Some issues may conflict with Anet’s philosophy (eg no instanced raids, no traditional trinity)

If we don’t understand these constraints, then our feedback won’t have much value.

Actually, I realized yesterday night the thing that annoyed me the post

I could have the most beautiful armor and weapons and having a blast playing, but then suddenly a bug will show it’s nasty face and I’ll go berserk. And it’s not new bugs, I get that new content are prone to bugs because no amount of testing will eradicate all bugs, but old and known bugs…those are extremely annoying, such as old events being stuck or falling through the textures when you are in WvW in a moment when you are trying to defend your tower >.>

It’s been mentioned multiple times in this thread as well as in most class forums and dungeon forums, but I think we should have some insight on the state of PvE mechanics, such as dungeon development and damage dealing, specifically in the case of direct damage versus condition damage and the massive disconnect, rendering condition classes effectively useless in most content.

Many moons ago there was a post stating that the technical limitations of bleed caps and the what was being done to make these players more useful in content, but nothing ever came of it.

cherrie.8907:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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’m sorry, but I need to chime in.

You worry about player immersion in a game that has disco-ball wand, a pink unicorn bow making characters leave horseshoe footprints, jack-out-the -box scythe mining pick and some other notorious gem-store items?
You really don’t have to.

I’d just like to add that the top right nag text section of our screens, the (4-ish foot long in my case lol) bright orange unremovable XP bar at the bottom and raggedy frame around the entire border are huge immersion breakers already.

If ANet are concerned with immersion then please, please, please allow us to remove these annoying immersion breaking UI elements. There are loads of threads about this so it’s not just my personal gripe.

I’d also just like to add that occasionally when I have my inventory screen open and move around with it up my fps dip drastically (approx. 20 fps at least when it happens) so I’m curious if even these UI elements could be linked in part to the issue people have with lower performance? Sure you can hide them (ctrl + shift + h) but are they still there running in the background instead of actually off?

Hi all,

I think is a good idea this thread to receive new fresh opinions of possible fixes and features by the community to the game.

I would like to share with you all 2 of my multiple ideas that I think a major part of the people would like a lot and sure keep people happy and playing.

1. COSMETIC SLOTS

It would be stunning to have the possibility to have several cosmetic slots, like other games. This slots could be free or gem store purchased. Let´s say for example we have 3 slots. This slots can save different outfits and use the stats of any of the 3 slots. (example you can use berseker´s slot 1 appearance in clerics dungeon´s gear in slot 2).
The outfits only can be changed outside combat. It still requires fine transmutation stones because you need to have the gear phisically before equip it in cosmetic slots, but once you have equipped a slot, you can save your gear in that slot, letting the bags free.
It only saves armor, no jewellry or weapon.

It could be more or less (is only a idea) this:
http://i.imgur.com/XZM3bV4.jpg

Look at the top of the hero menu: we have 3 differents slots, and the first one is selected (green point).

Let´s change to the second slot.

http://i.imgur.com/mGzNyBl.jpg

Our outfit has changed but our stats remain the same. We have selected the second slot (green point).

I think this will make people collect new outfits, playing to search that piece that they love and more happy to use fine transmutation stones or buy slots with gems. Good for all.

2. HOUSING

It would be great to have a house like other games. In the house we can buy housing items for decoration (furniture by example) from the Auction House, or as a reward for some events (it could be exclusive events furniture for example in halloween), or in gem store.

Also would be fine to have a bank for personal use. An access I mean to our bank.

And the most stunning feature could be to have our alts shown, in predefined places of the house. Only standing, like ar npc and with no interaction, but standing in idle animation.

Let´s see some ideas in this screenshots.

Entrance to the house (You have to choose a main character an the house will be always in his home world. An asura in rata sum, and all your alts will be in rata sum´s house. if you choose an human as your main, then your house will be always in Divinity´s reach, and all your alts too).

http://i.imgur.com/ICsKtcT.jpg

And once in the house, you can see your alts. (Actually I have 7 alts but only make photoshop with 1 due to simplify the work ^^)

http://i.imgur.com/3dl5MLu.jpg

I think this ideas would like to most of the people. Are not set in stone, only thoughts. Can be improved. But people wouldn´t get tired of the game with feautres that they can customize in some way like this.

Hope you like it!

Reesha.7901:

morrolan.9608:

I just want to add that I’m in exactly the same boat, I’m doing the grinding/crafting for ascended weapons but I hate it.

I am afraid this goes for me as well. I am hoping the ascended topic makes it to the final choices for PVE alongside RNG more than anything else.

Well, if it won’t, it will be an answer in itself. It’s just impossible for Anet to not know the main elephants in the room by name at this point. If they decide to skip discussing those, for whatever reason, we’ll be able to safely assume it’s just another publicity stunt, just as the previous “attempt” at starting better dev<→community communications (which was mentioned almost a year ago, just after ascended introduction – and which ended up being just words).

Paul.4081:

3003kittenerrie.8907:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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’m sorry, but I need to chime in.

You worry about player immersion in a game that has disco-ball wand, a pink unicorn bow making characters leave horseshoe footprints, jack-out-the -box scythe mining pick and some other notorious gem-store items?
You really don’t have to.

I’d just like to add that the top right nag text section of our screens, the (4-ish foot long in my case lol) bright orange unremovable XP bar at the bottom and raggedy frame around the entire border are huge immersion breakers already.

If ANet are concerned with immersion then please, please, please allow us to remove these annoying immersion breaking UI elements. There are loads of threads about this so it’s not just my personal gripe.

I’d also just like to add that occasionally when I have my inventory screen open and move around with it up my fps dip drastically (approx. 20 fps at least when it happens) so I’m curious if even these UI elements could be linked in part to the issue people have with lower performance? Sure you can hide them (ctrl + shift + h) but are they still there running in the background instead of actually off?

I’ll top that, everything not on the monitor is immersion breaking they need to find a way to fix that.

is there a TL DR version ?

DanH.5879:

is there a TL DR version ?

Devs are going to be holding discussions about issues the community feels need fixing / improving. I.E., Condition cap in PvE, Ascended Gear, RNG

I agree with Neural that the Ascended crafting gives you a concrete goal to work toward. You have to work, you have to wait, but your hard work is not going to be utterly negated by random bad luck, like the precursors.

I look forward to discussing RNG.

diamondgirl.6315:

I agree with Neural that the Ascended crafting gives you a concrete goal to work toward. You have to work, you have to wait, but your hard work is not going to be utterly negated by random bad luck, like the precursors.

I look forward to discussing RNG.

I look forward to discussing both RnG and Ascended in general-and no I am not fan of either

diamondgirl.6315:

I agree with Neural that the Ascended crafting gives you a concrete goal to work toward. You have to work, you have to wait, but your hard work is not going to be utterly negated by random bad luck, like the precursors.

I look forward to discussing RNG.

They can’t please everyone.

I don’t want goals to work towards assigned to me. I don’t want people who have more time, or people who are willing to do unfun things many times, to have a numerical advantage.

The reliance on random rewards smells like cheap conditioning tricks to hook players.

Interesting topic, they read constructive feedback, and yet when an update goes live its with changes that no one askes for, your community on here really isn’t that important to you, you will develop this game how you see fit, ( WvW Bloodlust ) hell, the dev for WvW even posted himself that the WvW community on these forums where the minority, then he made a hasty retreat into the depths and hasn’t been seen posting on here since.

How about instead of developing more and more in such a short space of time, they take the entire dev team up to the bug section/ tech support and fix or try to fix some of the game breaking bugs that have been there since beta last year………..no point in having a game if your players cannot play it because of bugs / glitches that are out of there control.

Else you should just remove the bugs/tech section of the forum and put a single post in there that reads, contact support direct to get told an answer from a book.

I agree with you regarding random rewards; that’s whatI want to discuss.

Shiren.9532:

I’m skeptical of what this will accomplish. I have been posting on the forum for over a year now under the impression that what I write (provided it was constructive and respectful, which it isn’t always) had a good chance of being read by someone it was relevant to. I still assume that’s the case – that forums are read just not frequently commented on.

What exactly is the goal of all these threads and polls etc? I don’t see how they would appease people or lead to more satisfaction unless actual actions in game followed (which my understand is that won’t happen for 3-4 months in the best of cases). If a thread is created in the ranger forum asking what issues ranger players are most concerned about, what would happen if 90% of the posts talked about pet AI or pet survivability in challenging content (WvW, dungeons, World Bosses etc)? This is already a known issue and has been well documented since the beta yet it becomes worse and worse with each content patch (most of the dungeons this year kill the pet with certain mechanics – electric fields in Aetherblade Retreat, everything in the Tequatl Encounter etc). Devs talking about it in a forum thread isn’t going to change anything in game. What if rangers raise issue with the main hand sword auto-attack leap chain and the character control issues it causes? What if the thread becomes split between PvP rangers that love the cruise control to stick on their target and PvE players who hate the inability to dodge DoD (dodge or die) attacks because of a useless (to them) leap function?

What happens if players themselves aren’t clear on what they enjoy? The Crown Pavilion and Scarlet’s Invasions were very popular content. Is it because they demonstrate the best gameplay experience in the game or is it because they gave out large and imbalanced amounts of loot compared to the rest of the game? What if you get a lot of praise about the mechanics of Tequatl and Twilight Assault but a month later people only run the other two TA paths because they are easier and faster despite the new path being more “fun”?

What if you get a lot of negative feedback about Ascended tier equipment? What if the company has a hard stance supporting ascended regardless of what the feedback says (as long as the metrics are fine)? What about Scarlet? If there is a lot of negative feedback to her as a character and her central role to the stories being told (and how poorly received they are by many people) we know you can’t just kill her off – the story has been building up to her and stuff down the pipe line will involve her so until that’s resolved she’s here for better or worse regardless of what the feedback says (the Living Story has gone all in on Scarlet at this point). Then we have the issue of forums representing the vocal minority and only a small subset of the community. It’s easy to dismiss or devalue forum criticism on the grounds that it doesn’t represent everyone.

I’m not looking for a specific reply on any of the issues I raised above, they are just examples of the scenarios that will be raised and I can’t see how threads on the forum are going to change these situations or appease the people they are important to. Is the goal simply to raise the visibility of developer consumption of the forums, or is the goal to create a new paradigm which will give player feedback more power to influence the future of the game’s development? I am under the impression the later already happens with the forum and I don’t believe the former is likely to result in any real changes in the game, just player perception of the forums.

TL;DR What does all this hope to accomplish? Is this going to have any real potential to change the direction of the game differently from how the forums currently work? How is a new way of handling forum feedback going to impact on the content releases for GW2?

Quote for truth^

It took reading through almost 17 pages to find the best post in this thread.

I too am skeptical of what this will accomplish, and concerned for what will come. All I see in this thread are expectations being raised again, and when those expectations are not met, the following kitten-storm will make the last few ‘testy’ months a joyful playground of contentment.

Anet is taking a huge gamble with this, and I see it not ending well. Sure the ‘warm-fuzzies’ of dev attention might carry over for 3-4 months, perhaps 6 months.

But once people realise that discussion does not mean everyone’s pet issue, let alone the big, glaring issues around since game launch, do not get fixed or dealt with, what do you think will happen??

Chris, if you are looking for topics to discuss, either internally at Anet or on the forum, I suggest you start with the questions Shiren raised in the quoted post.

Oh, and good luck mate, you will need lots of it …

I think an In-Game polling system is the best form of feedback from the userbase.

Yes, in the game options you should be able to Opt-Out of it. Key polls can be sent just as new Event notifications to the player’s in-game Mail. They click it, it pops a user interface asking a few questions.

Attach some silver to the poll or something like that to incentivise people to answer the poll. Or a Poll Participation achievement of some sort that advances based on the number of poll questions you answer.

Just adding a poll to the forum will leave you in the same situation where only those that read the forums will provide feedback, and that entire situation of “Forum Bias”.

I think just trying this a few times you will find a LOT more and varied feedback from players and it will reveal perspectives that you may never have read on the forums, or heard at your in-person developer meet and greets.

I really, really think that for true Collaborative Development, feedback and communication systems need to be integrated IN – GAME. Yes, the vocal and motivated minority will perhaps use the poll system more but I think even casual players will make some use of it, which is more than they are doing now. The majority of the people I play with have never visited the forums, or the main website, or any of the other related websites to find out information.

They just go directly into the game. The game is their source of information about the game.

The external WIKI is ok…but it still requires the player to leave the game. Also, not many people know about it.

RNG has and always will be in every MMO, ever made. There’s no point in discussing it, as it’s not going away.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Meanwhile we are still discussing how to prioritise the topics of the 3 threads here.

Chris

This is one area where you don’t really need player feedback. The topics to be discussed should be determined by the development team itself. What topic would bring feedback that would most help the devs RIGHT NOW? What are the topics that you are discussing in-house next week? Where are you stuck, where would a sliver of inspiration drawn from the brainstorming of hundreds or thousands of players most help you? That’s the topic you should choose.

For example: No matter how many people say they would like to talk about guild amenities, if the team is not focused on those issues right now and the topic goes forward the player base will end up believing nothing has changed — even if the thread is gone over with a fine tooth comb 3 months from now it will seem to the players that they are still being ignored.

Perception matters. Let us see that our collaborative process does indeed have an impact on the game instead of humoring us on what we want to talk about.

The problem with an ingame polling system is that it wouldn’t reach people like me who don’t log in any more. So you’ll never find out why they left.

You’ve got everyone’s email addresses – why not send out surveys to those, like CCP does?

Ok I Did It.2854:

Interesting topic, they read constructive feedback, and yet when an update goes live its with changes that no one askes for, your community on here really isn’t that important to you, you will develop this game how you see fit, ( WvW Bloodlust ) hell, the dev for WvW even posted himself that the WvW community on these forums where the minority, then he made a hasty retreat into the depths and hasn’t been seen posting on here since.

How about instead of developing more and more in such a short space of time, they take the entire dev team up to the bug section/ tech support and fix or try to fix some of the game breaking bugs that have been there since beta last year………..no point in having a game if your players cannot play it because of bugs / glitches that are out of there control.

Else you should just remove the bugs/tech section of the forum and put a single post in there that reads, contact support direct to get told an answer from a book.

If they made a game with only stuff in it people asked for, I predict the game would bomb. People aren’t game designers. They know what they think they want, without considering the ramifications of what they’re asking for.

So many times we’ve seen the forums explode with stuff like killing a champion isn’t worth it. And the more worth it it becomes, the more the game deviates from its original intent. So Anet listened and made a change, based on, presumably, pressure from the fans.

And now we have champion trains and Scarlet invasions and people running around in mindless circles farming the same champions. Doesn’t sound to me like the game I bought.

Anet isn’t obligated to do everything fans want (assuming fans can even agree). And fan feedback isn’t necessarily going to be the way to go.

There have been games in the past where drop rates increased and money was easier to get, and all it did was create inflation to the point where new players couldn’t even get started.

once again (its the fourth dev thread) Ascended tier complaints are clear in this feedback topic.

Will we have a different “collaborative developement this time” or will we have armor implemented like ascended weapons?

One last thing bothers me about this thread – beyond the nitty gritty of what to talk about and how to do it.

What exactly is going to change that will result in ArenaNet developers coming here and having open and frank “collaborative” discussions with their (volatile) playerbase?

Or – put another way – these forums have been here for a year, yet it is a select subset of developers who have chosen to post at all, and an even more select subset (i.e. maybe enough to count on one hand) who could be considered to be frank and honest in their feedback.

The evidence that we have (which I guess shouldn’t be talked about) indicates that interacting on the forum is not really popular with a number of developers, and that when some devs do interact more constantly it leads to some strife between co-workers.

So I guess my question (and concern) is “what is going to change in the current culture such that more and varied developers from all areas of expertise will want to come here and have more frank discussions with the forum dwellers?”

I mean, I can’t see anything good coming of forcing developers to post here that don’t like posting on forums, nor can I see anything good coming from more red posts saying variants of “good stuff is coming but we can’t talk about it until it’s done”.

Maybe it’s pessimism, but it’s been on my mind since you started this thread and I thought I’d put it out there.

About the whole in-game poll thing, in Beta they had in-game polls asking you how would you rate this out of this, and all I did was click on the maximum number every time.
So I don’t think that really helps the Devs to understand how the game feels at all if everyone is mindlessly just clicking away just to get the survey done.

The discussion would not be whether RNG would be removed.

Grimthagen.6019:

One last thing bothers me about this thread – beyond the nitty gritty of what to talk about and how to do it.

What exactly is going to change that will result in ArenaNet developers coming here and having open and frank “collaborative” discussions with their (volatile) playerbase?

Or – put another way – these forums have been here for a year, yet it is a select subset of developers who have chosen to post at all, and an even more select subset (i.e. maybe enough to count on one hand) who could be considered to be frank and honest in their feedback.

The evidence that we have (which I guess shouldn’t be talked about) indicates that interacting on the forum is not really popular with a number of developers, and that when some devs do interact more constantly it leads to some strife between co-workers.

So I guess my question (and concern) is “what is going to change in the current culture such that more and varied developers from all areas of expertise will want to come here and have more frank discussions with the forum dwellers?”

I mean, I can’t see anything good coming of forcing developers to post here that don’t like posting on forums, nor can I see anything good coming from more red posts saying variants of “good stuff is coming but we can’t talk about it until it’s done”.

Maybe it’s pessimism, but it’s been on my mind since you started this thread and I thought I’d put it out there.

My guess is they’re starting to wake up to the fact that they’ve driven off a large number of players by not really listening to them, or even asking the fundamental question “Is this fun?”.

I’ve got no way to prove this, but I suspect numbers have been declining for a while, with short spikes every two weeks that are becoming shorter and shorter.

It’s good that they seem to have realized that their interaction with the community over the past year has been rather poor, and that people have been alienated by decisions made based on this poor (or lack of) community interaction.

But I doubt they just woke up the other morning and decided “lets be more interactive with the community”. Moreover, this isn’t the kind of thing that you have on your to-do list and eventually get around to. I think ArenaNet are nervous about something. Something’s got them worried. I can’t really think of a simpler answer than that.

Please note, before you start flaming, that I’ve been very clear that my post is all speculation and guesswork.

So, how many people got their posts deleted at the beginning of this and banned? I got banned from the forums for 3 days for calling them out.

I think it’s hilarious that they can’t take negative feedback, and delete it, they only want positive feedback, how do you build on only positive feedback?

TL/DR: It’s nice of them to get our hopes up, but try to restrain yourselves from getting your hopes TOO high.

It’s admirable what they’re starting to do, however it could backfire for both ends…

For instance, there might be some discussion in the future that the players will go completely against a feature(in a very broad sense, something that will be implmented) or what’s coming up. If Anet still decides to implement the feature, it will kitten everyone off on the forums – causing people to leave with solid proof the Anet didn’t give a ____ . Better yet, if they say, “Yeah, sure we won’t do it”, then do it anyways and say “Nothing is off the table” or other excuses used in past. Only reason I’m bringing this up is, the infamous manifesto, and how the game is not about grinding for best stats/gear (how they wanted everyone by 80 to have max stats… there’s a quote out there, I just don’t have it handy).

They also can’t please everyone, and if you fall into the minority in a discussion of the up comming feature, prepare to be dissappointed, or prepare to have a hoard (the majority) of people dissappointed (quitting/leaving/kittening). Another scenario that might happen there might be two roughly (or) equally weighted sides on a feature, one side against and one side for, not a lot of good will come from that either.

I guess all I’m saying is don’t be too happy/naive about what they’ve said in this or the comming posts. And just remember, you’re just a player, players rarely have voices to begin with… Anet is the maker of this game, really what they ultimately want will trumpt your voice/opinion. The only sense of “power” you can certainly feel over a game is the ability to leave/quit it (and oppositely, re-join it). Sure Anet is trying to pave the way into that (where your opinion/voice “matters”) with the “Collaborative-Development”, it doesn’t mean the way has already been paved and we’re already at the end of it. If this makes sense. You can say, we’re in a way stock investors for them, but even then, there’s a lot of gamers… and if they don’t appeal to this community…

It’s nice of them to get our hopes up, but try to restrain yourselves from getting your hopes TOO high. I’m not trying to sling mud at them here, just be weary of your’s, their’s and everyone else’s position, along with what already happened.
More then likely this post will be deleted….

Aye.8392:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Meanwhile we are still discussing how to prioritise the topics of the 3 threads here.

Chris

This is one area where you don’t really need player feedback. The topics to be discussed should be determined by the development team itself. What topic would bring feedback that would most help the devs RIGHT NOW? What are the topics that you are discussing in-house next week? Where are you stuck, where would a sliver of inspiration drawn from the brainstorming of hundreds or thousands of players most help you? That’s the topic you should choose.

For example: No matter how many people say they would like to talk about guild amenities, if the team is not focused on those issues right now and the topic goes forward the player base will end up believing nothing has changed — even if the thread is gone over with a fine tooth comb 3 months from now it will seem to the players that they are still being ignored.

Perception matters. Let us see that our collaborative process does indeed have an impact on the game instead of humoring us on what we want to talk about.

That is a very good insight. Indeed, feedback threads on topics that won’t be addressed anyway in the foreseeable future because you are concentrating on other things don’t do much good (though it may be useful when you are yet undecided about priority of discussed topic).

What i’d like to see besides player feedback – and i think is equally important, and yet seem to be glossed over by Chris now – is feedback flowing in the other direction. Topics where we can ask (and be answered) about reasons for some mechanics and changes – something that will tell us not only where we’re going, but also why. Currently, we’re pretty much in the dark about both of those. And this is really stuff we should know.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the feedback over night and this morning.

Please note i am going to be afk for most of the day but will catch up as frequently as possible.

What i will do is create a thread on the PVE, WvW and PvP forums asking for the community to name 1 area of the said area that they would like to discuss first and then we will start the discussions on Monday.

Overnight there have been a lot of questions as to why we are trying to reconnect. The answer is simple: I want us to get back to a better state of collaborative development as i feel this is in the best interests of everyone. Like i said in the thread we read all posts both positive and negative, we just want the forums to be a more constructive environment for everyone to post in.

Speak to you all soon,

Chris

Actually the negative posts get deleted and we get infractions for them, and eventually we get banned for them. NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ON THE FORUMS IS NOT ALOUD! I have been banned for it numerous times, moderators saying that negative postings is not aloud.

And I expect to be banned for it this time to, and like before I am not being rude, just telling you how it is.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the feedback over night and this morning.

Please note i am going to be afk for most of the day but will catch up as frequently as possible.

What i will do is create a thread on the PVE, WvW and PvP forums asking for the community to name 1 area of the said area that they would like to discuss first and then we will start the discussions on Monday.

Overnight there have been a lot of questions as to why we are trying to reconnect. The answer is simple: I want us to get back to a better state of collaborative development as i feel this is in the best interests of everyone. Like i said in the thread we read all posts both positive and negative, we just want the forums to be a more constructive environment for everyone to post in.

Speak to you all soon,

Chris

Please close this thread. It has been divided into so many different aspects that it is really hard to keep track.

However, create a sub forum with specific set of rules to be the place where this collaborative work is set.

/cheers

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the feedback over night and this morning.

Please note i am going to be afk for most of the day but will catch up as frequently as possible.

What i will do is create a thread on the PVE, WvW and PvP forums asking for the community to name 1 area of the said area that they would like to discuss first and then we will start the discussions on Monday.

Overnight there have been a lot of questions as to why we are trying to reconnect. The answer is simple: I want us to get back to a better state of collaborative development as i feel this is in the best interests of everyone. Like i said in the thread we read all posts both positive and negative, we just want the forums to be a more constructive environment for everyone to post in.

Speak to you all soon,

Chris

You devs have nerfed Ranger so much…You have killed that class.. by nerfing pets and spirits. Instead of writing nice words on the forum, fix that kittening class or simply delete it from GW2.
Shame on you all, tons of rangers are quitting the game becouse of your blindness.
Next Update October 15th will be last train for many rangers like me.
If you fail…simply consider ranger class died out.

Rama.6439:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the feedback over night and this morning.

Please note i am going to be afk for most of the day but will catch up as frequently as possible.

What i will do is create a thread on the PVE, WvW and PvP forums asking for the community to name 1 area of the said area that they would like to discuss first and then we will start the discussions on Monday.

Overnight there have been a lot of questions as to why we are trying to reconnect. The answer is simple: I want us to get back to a better state of collaborative development as i feel this is in the best interests of everyone. Like i said in the thread we read all posts both positive and negative, we just want the forums to be a more constructive environment for everyone to post in.

Speak to you all soon,

Chris

Actually the negative posts get deleted and we get infractions for them, and eventually we get banned for them. NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ON THE FORUMS IS NOT ALOUD! I have been banned for it numerous times, moderators saying that negative postings is not aloud.

And I expect to be banned for it this time to, and like before I am not being rude, just telling you how it is.

You totally have my support mate.
Arenanet simply loves censorship. Deleting negative comments it’ s their style. ( DICTATOR STYLE )
We should quit the game THAT ’S IT.