A Lesson I Learned from Editing

A Lesson I Learned from Editing

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

As I’ve said many times, I used to be an editor. Not a copy editor, or line editor, but an editor nonetheless.

One of the lessons I learned a long time ago is that anyone can take a line from any book, or a number of lines and make the book look less good than it actually was by focusing on those lines. It’s actually quite easy. Dissecting a book piecemeal almost never makes a book better. There are overriding concerns that the book has to deal with as a whole that make a book successful or not.

What I see a lot on these forums are people dissecting individual tiny bits of an update and trying to make it look like the game is bad, the update is bad, the thing they specifically don’t like is bad.

The simplest example of this is something like the warrior nerf. People say why did Anet nerf the warrior. I was having fun. I was enjoying the game.

Then you point out that the warrior greatsword 2 skill did more damage than any other #2 skill in the game by a huge amount. And people said, well, yeah, why not just buff the other classes, that would be the smart thing to do.

But anyone who really stops and thinks about it would know how bad that would be for the game. If you buff all the other professions until they’re equal to a warrior, which was clearly overpowered at least in some areas of the game, then every single encounter in the PvE game becomes trivial. You would then have to adjust every single creature and dungeon and fractal in the entire game, every dynamic event, and what would you likely end up with.

One profession that everyone said was overpowered. You’d have to buff every other profession up to that, and it would never end. The time it takes to nerf a skill or two that was out of whack is minimal and frankly manageable. The amount of time it would take to buff every other skill of every other profession and then buff everything in the game to compensate would be ridiculous and wouldn’t allow time for anything else.

Anet doesn’t look at any system in isolation. Everything they change effects everything else in the game. And so we get to the New Player Experience.

Anet is looking at increasing the number of players in this game, perhaps at the risk of annoying players who are already playing the game. I’m sure they’ll find the right balance and compromise so a minimal number of people are affected so badly.

But a lot of what we’ve seen is people picking on individual points, not whole systems and that’s where the problem lies.

It’s easy to pick apart a book. Terribly easy. Even the greatest book. Because books aren’t about individual lines or words. They’re about something bigger.

The first 20-30 levels of play in an MMO for the largest bulk of the playerbase represent the smallest amount of time. Most people will spend far more time with their character at 80 than they will spend with it at all the levels to 80 put together.

This experience was not made for old players to do better, even though there are some benefits in it for old players. It was made for new players, who everyone seems to think they know about.

The MMO genre is a swamped genre. It’s filled with games made for people who have spent years playing these games. There is an untapped market out there of people who never really played these games but could, if someone would actually give them a change to get their feet wet.

Does it matter if you dance in front of a cow or feed it? Sure. It matters. But I’ve played this game for thousands of hours and I’m relatively sure I didn’t spent 1 hour of it feeding cows. And these are the types of complaints we’re getting.

The dumbing down only covers levels 1-10 or about an hour of play time. I can see where some might find that annoying. What I can’t see is the depth of the player reaction to what is essentially a change to the earliest experience in the game.

Yes, it was always going to need to be tweaked. But it’s still a relatively small part of the game.

People might argue that you get your elite at level 40, it’s half the game now. But because they increased the speed of leveling 1-15, it’s no longer half the game. And Colin has said you get your elite skill at about the same number of hours played. People are distracted by an arbitrary number that is the character level.

I’m sure that in the days ahead, changes will be made that will make most people happy, but sinking an entire update for what ends up being essentially small details out of a whole cloth is a bit like sabotage. You can always find a weakness to exploit in any game if you really want to. Try pulling back and looking at the bigger picture. You may like it, or you may not. But it’s what developers have to look at. I don’t think everyone on the forum necessarily sees that.

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

I just browsed over quickly.

I dont’ know where you are getting at, our job is not to come on the forum to praise how good the game is.

When people are happy, they don’t come on the forum, they just happily playing.

Usually when people dislike something, it is when they come on the forum and say something.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I just browsed over quickly.

I dont’ know where you are getting at, our job is not to come on the forum to praise how good the game is.

When people are happy, they don’t come on the forum, they just happily playing.

Usually when people dislike something, it is when they come on the forum and say something.

Your job isn’t to make games either. Anet’s is.

So you come to the forum, unhappy, and you say stuff like (and people have said it) why not buff everything else. The reason why is because nothing else could ever get done.

I’m not saying to praise everything. I’m saying not to take individual parts of a system and use that to judge the entire system, because your judgement will be skewed. It won’t make your playing experience better and many things people have asked for aren’t practical. They don’t think about how this system will affect the market or how that system will affect new players. They care about only their own desire to have the game they want. All well and good…except for one thing.

If any of us ever really got the game we want, there might be only a handful of people to play it with.

Games aren’t about individual details they’re about entire systems. Details can be altered, but entire systems are arguably more important. It’s like the people who say this MMO is like every other MMO because most things in it are found somewhere in some game. But the combination of these things all in the same game was Anet’s vision. If you can’t see the forest you can’t know the health of the forest, no matter how bad the tree you’re looking at is.

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Posted by: Sakri.7234

Sakri.7234

I am just offended that Anet seems to think that players are so stupid that they are confused and overwhelmed by the simplest things now.

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

I just browsed over quickly.

I dont’ know where you are getting at, our job is not to come on the forum to praise how good the game is.

When people are happy, they don’t come on the forum, they just happily playing.

Usually when people dislike something, it is when they come on the forum and say something.

Your job isn’t to make games either. Anet’s is.

So you come to the forum, unhappy, and you say stuff like (and people have said it) why not buff everything else. The reason why is because nothing else could ever get done.

I’m not saying to praise everything. I’m saying not to take individual parts of a system and use that to judge the entire system, because your judgement will be skewed. It won’t make your playing experience better and many things people have asked for aren’t practical. They don’t think about how this system will affect the market or how that system will affect new players. They care about only their own desire to have the game they want. All well and good…except for one thing.

If any of us ever really got the game we want, there might be only a handful of people to play it with.

Games aren’t about individual details they’re about entire systems. Details can be altered, but entire systems are arguably more important. It’s like the people who say this MMO is like every other MMO because most things in it are found somewhere in some game. But the combination of these things all in the same game was Anet’s vision. If you can’t see the forest you can’t know the health of the forest, no matter how bad the tree you’re looking at is.

honestly read your own comment. You are really troubled that people are making the game look bad.

So unless you are associate with Anet, you shouldn’t worry too much you are making them look bad.

Or if you are a “really reallly” passionate fan, I think you are getting a bit too passionate.

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

I’m not sure how the Devs would ever know to continue making parts of the game we do like if no one ever gave positive feedback about it. I certainly like them to know when I’m pleased, because I want them to continue to add those kinds of things to the game. I feel that is just as important as letting them know what isn’t liked.

Everyone, including Devs or the company as a whole, likes, and even needs to know when they are doing something right. There are many parts of the NPE and this Feature Patch that I like. I hope the Devs will continue to add content/features that I appreciate to the game.

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Posted by: pdavis.8031

pdavis.8031

@Vayne

How dare you come to the forums and present a logical and well thought out argument against nitpicking one aspect of an entire system as proof that the whole is flawed!!! Don’t you know we just want to QQ about the one aspect that affects us, instead of looking at the whole picture!? Geez….

That said, I agree, while there are some aspects I don’t agree with/could have been done differently, overall I think that the updates/changes are not that bad in general, and serve their purpose of trying to draw in new players and introduce them to the fantastic world of Tryia.

“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I just browsed over quickly.

I dont’ know where you are getting at, our job is not to come on the forum to praise how good the game is.

When people are happy, they don’t come on the forum, they just happily playing.

Usually when people dislike something, it is when they come on the forum and say something.

Your job isn’t to make games either. Anet’s is.

So you come to the forum, unhappy, and you say stuff like (and people have said it) why not buff everything else. The reason why is because nothing else could ever get done.

I’m not saying to praise everything. I’m saying not to take individual parts of a system and use that to judge the entire system, because your judgement will be skewed. It won’t make your playing experience better and many things people have asked for aren’t practical. They don’t think about how this system will affect the market or how that system will affect new players. They care about only their own desire to have the game they want. All well and good…except for one thing.

If any of us ever really got the game we want, there might be only a handful of people to play it with.

Games aren’t about individual details they’re about entire systems. Details can be altered, but entire systems are arguably more important. It’s like the people who say this MMO is like every other MMO because most things in it are found somewhere in some game. But the combination of these things all in the same game was Anet’s vision. If you can’t see the forest you can’t know the health of the forest, no matter how bad the tree you’re looking at is.

honestly read your own comment. You are really troubled that people are making the game look bad.

So unless you are associate with Anet, you shouldn’t worry too much you are making them look bad.

Or if you are a “really reallly” passionate fan, I think you are getting a bit too passionate.

Actually I don’t worry about people making the game look bad. I do what I can to help people understand why decisions being made may not be as silly as they think they are, because I’m an educator at heart. It’s what I’ve always done.

This happens on every forum of every MMORPG I’ve ever seen, so I really can’t be too panicked about it. But ever year that passes, I see the same conversations over and over and I feel it gives me at least a bit of perspective. I share that perspective. Maybe someone benefits from it and maybe someone doesn’t. Doesn’t change what I do.

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Posted by: Absconditus.6804

Absconditus.6804

I get a feeling Vayne works for ArenaNet anyways. It’s like this one person I used to work with, for a different game. He would post all the time on his private account (much to my annoyance), never being negative to anything, always defending the company and game. Vayne is following that formula perfectly as far as I’ve seen. Always sticking up for the poor employees who’s being “bullied” by people writing overall constructive negative feedback on aspects of a recent patch. Now I may be wrong, and if so, this Vayne user is just a guy that sticks up for ArenaNet and the game, fine. But if you are working for them, and this is your private account, stop it. You are somewhat going overboard.

Feedback is feedback, negatively loaded or not. They can as much as I did, overlook the rudeness to a post and find the message it contains, should there be one. If there isn’t one, they’ll ignore it and move on to the next one. People get passionate about something they care for. This is why people are upset and why they are posting. They are upset because they genuinely dislike something that’s been done to something they.. well.. love. Most posts here are people relatively mildly displaying their annoyance over aspects of the patch, with actual feedback on what they think could have been done better, alternatively, differently.

Even the “I quit” posts are for the most part actually listing reasons. Feedback for ArenaNet to take aboard. If nobody tells them why they quit, how are they to understand why they lose players? Through sending players who quit inquiries about why they quit? If I got one of those from a game I had gotten so annoyed at that I quit over, I would hardly give it the time of day to go through it. It would likely just be some sort of silly multiple choices form that didn’t cover my feelings anyways, so I’d click whatever felt mildly related to what actually got on my nerves. I’ve gotten a few of these question forms before.. they’re usually horrible and only covers what they think is wrong, not what I think is wrong. This is besides the point.

Vayne, if you work for them, and this is your private account, don’t be like my old colleague please. It’s really annoying for your other colleagues, I promise you that. And it starts to look like it to the rest of the forum goers, when you consistently only seem to post praise and defense. Let people be mad if they’re mad. ArenaNet is getting feedback, feedback is valuable. They aren’t children, they can handle some harsh language as long as a point is being given. If it isn’t, they are perfectly able to ignore it, I promise you that.

Vella Absconditus | Human Mesmer
Seafarer’s Rest

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I am just offended that Anet seems to think that players are so stupid that they are confused and overwhelmed by the simplest things now.

See here’s the problem. You’re thinking like a gamer. There are millions and millions of potential gamers that aren’t gamers and they have to start somewhere.

Anet isn’t dumbing down the play experience for level 80 characters. Dry Top has harder creatures than any other zone in the game. Modrem are tough. The wolves can almost one shot you if you allow them to flank you. The ones who are vampiric or poison are a pain in the kitten. There’s new mechanics in Dry Top. It’s a harder zone over all. In a month or so we revist that zone. I don’t know how you think Dry Top is dumbed down.

Anet has definited “dumbed down” the first 15 levels of the game, which is a relatively small part of most player’s experiences. They did this because it’s a business and it’s competitive business. There are a zillion MMOs out, more every day.

Somehow I don’t see a lot of new MMO players starting in Wildstar or Archage. In fact, there are less MMOs that appeal to new players now than there ever have been. This is a good opportunity for them.

People are insulted because they think Anet has a low opinion of them. Anet simply has a high opinion of expanding their player base.

Some of those people who never played a game like this before will come in and learn and become more experienced. They’re become veterans. But it won’t happen if you can’t keep them.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I get a feeling Vayne works for ArenaNet anyways. It’s like this one person I used to work with, for a different game. He would post all the time on his private account (much to my annoyance), never being negative to anything, always defending the company and game. Vayne is following that formula perfectly as far as I’ve seen. Always sticking up for the poor employees who’s being “bullied” by people writing overall constructive negative feedback on aspects of a recent patch. Now I may be wrong, and if so, this Vayne user is just a guy that sticks up for ArenaNet and the game, fine. But if you are working for them, and this is your private account, stop it. You are somewhat going overboard.

Feedback is feedback, negatively loaded or not. They can as much as I did, overlook the rudeness to a post and find the message it contains, should there be one. If there isn’t one, they’ll ignore it and move on to the next one. People get passionate about something they care for. This is why people are upset and why they are posting. They are upset because they genuinely dislike something that’s been done to something they.. well.. love. Most posts here are people relatively mildly displaying their annoyance over aspects of the patch, with actual feedback on what they think could have been done better, alternatively, differently.

Even the “I quit” posts are for the most part actually listing reasons. Feedback for ArenaNet to take aboard. If nobody tells them why they quit, how are they to understand why they lose players? Through sending players who quit inquiries about why they quit? If I got one of those from a game I had gotten so annoyed at that I quit over, I would hardly give it the time of day to go through it. It would likely just be some sort of silly multiple choices form that didn’t cover my feelings anyways, so I’d click whatever felt mildly related to what actually got on my nerves. I’ve gotten a few of these question forms before.. they’re usually horrible and only covers what they think is wrong, not what I think is wrong. This is besides the point.

Vayne, if you work for them, and this is your private account, don’t be like my old colleague please. It’s really annoying for your other colleagues, I promise you that. And it starts to look like it to the rest of the forum goers, when you consistently only seem to post praise and defense. Let people be mad if they’re mad. ArenaNet is getting feedback, feedback is valuable. They aren’t children, they can handle some harsh language as long as a point is being given. If it isn’t, they are perfectly able to ignore it, I promise you that.

I don’t work for them and if you think I do, there’s not much I can do about it.

And you still haven’t explained then why I came out publicly against RNG in cash shop boxes, or the new trait system.

As long as you only continue to look at my defenses, and not the points that I make where I say something against Anet, you’re demonstrably wrong in what you say.

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Posted by: Tachenon.5270

Tachenon.5270

Look at the bigger picture, eh? The bigger picture looks (disclaimer: to my eyes) like a series of desperate moves made in (drum roll) desperation.

  • Megaserver to hide the empty servers.
  • Trait System Revamp, in hopes people will confuse/equate it with elite skill hunting. Or maybe there really is something in the water. Who knows.
  • NPE – so many old guys are leaving, let’s try to hang on to new guys!

Your mileage may vary.

The table is a fable.

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

Actually I don’t worry about people making the game look bad. I do what I can to help people understand why decisions being made may not be as silly as they think they are, because I’m an educator at heart. It’s what I’ve always done.

I find it hard to believe that you are not troubled by people making the game look bad.

When someone make a negative comment or questioned the developer’s design decision, you seemed very passionate to fight back.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Look at the bigger picture, eh? The bigger picture looks (disclaimer: to my eyes) like a series of desperate moves made in (drum roll) desperation.

  • Megaserver to hide the empty servers.
  • Trait System Revamp, in hopes people will confuse/equate it with elite skill hunting. Or maybe there really is something in the water. Who knows.
  • NPE – so many old guys are leaving, let’s try to hang on to new guys!

Your mileage may vary.

My mileage does vary.

Megaserver: Because there are 25 quite large zones and every single MMO I’ve ever played including WoW had dead zones on servers. So yeah, doesn’t prove anything. Certainly COULD mean what you said, but it also could mean other things. Especially because Anet has said they didn’t want to add new zones until they solved the problem of older zones being empty. In almost every MMO the end game zones are were everyone hangs out with a few notable exceptions. Even Barrens chat is dead now on most WoW Servers. And that’s a game with a whole lot of subscribers.

Trait system revamp was poorly done. It needs work. No argument there

NPE – Every MMO has attrition. This game is two years old and yeah, people are GOING to leave. That’s sort of what happens in MMOs…virtually all of them these days. Why? Because there are always more MMOs coming out and people like new and shiny. Of course people leave. Which means you need to replace them.

You do realize that games like ESO and Wildstar and Neverwinter didn’t really make that much of a mark on this game. Certainly not the kind of mark you’re talking about.

Considering the last quarter wasn’t down in profits that much and it was the quarter both Wildstar and ESO launched, I’d say this game is doing fine.

I strongly suspect it will continue to do fine. And we’ll see soon enough.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

A single line can ruin a story.

Even so what many people are complaining about are the game equivalent of the first few chapters of the book. If those early chapters are bland, not engaging, etc then the impact is potentially absolute…the reader puts it down and never picks it up again.

For what its worth the Warrior was not universally agreed to be OP. It was arguably the easiest profession with which to produce high end results but other professions could achieve comparable or better, but required greater player engagement to do so. Its generally a good idea to have a profession capable of producing good results that is catered to mediocre player skill for the simple reason that many players will not be ome more skilled regardless of opportunity. Having a profession that provides such players with an avenue into higher end play increases the accessibility of a games most challenging content without dumbing it down.

The entire game is supposed to be endgame. Dumbing down beginning zones affects this aspect of the game. Making mobs weaker compared to launch while characters are more powerful effectively reduces the amount of game available to veterans.

The NPE changes may only affect a fraction of the game and is targeted at new players, but it affects veterans as well. How much of the game must be taken away from veterans before its acceptable for them to speak out against it ?

This patch has some elements that concern me but most of it doesnt bother me. Evens so the fact that it doesn’t bother me does not mean that it doesnt negatively affect others to a degree that impacts their enjoyment of the game. Trying to tell others that you know better than they what should and should not affect their enjoyment of the game, their fun, is not only foolhardy its a bit pretentious and insulting.

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Posted by: SpeedFiend.4521

SpeedFiend.4521

Look at the bigger picture, eh? The bigger picture looks (disclaimer: to my eyes) like a series of desperate moves made in (drum roll) desperation.

  • Megaserver to hide the empty servers.
  • Trait System Revamp, in hopes people will confuse/equate it with elite skill hunting. Or maybe there really is something in the water. Who knows.
  • NPE – so many old guys are leaving, let’s try to hang on to new guys!

Your mileage may vary.

Actually the megaserver thing was done to skimp on running costs by combining 20 maps with 3 dudes into one map with 60. Wildstar needs them boxes!

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Actually I don’t worry about people making the game look bad. I do what I can to help people understand why decisions being made may not be as silly as they think they are, because I’m an educator at heart. It’s what I’ve always done.

I find it hard to believe that you are not troubled by people making the game look bad.

When someone make a negative comment or questioned the developer’s design decision, you seemed very passionate to fight back.

The number of negative threads I actually post in is smaller than you think. I’m usually in five or six threads. There are probably more than that I never touch. Why? Because I don’t have a negative opinion about what those threads are saying or how they’re saying it.

I’m only in threads that I think are either unfair, or insisting on things that I think would likely ruin the game for me, and people like me. I didn’t post in the “Anet Please Stop Thread” and have no intention to. Or the my greatest fear thread. And there are some leaving threads I posted in that say, I hope you find the right game for you, and that’s the extent of what I post.

I posted several times in the Trait thread, but always to make a point about something I don’t like about the new trait system.

So yeah, I don’t care about “looking bad”. There are legitimately changes I like to this game that I support and yes, defend. Why? Get this. Because I like them.

I didn’t like the trait changes and I didn’t support them. See how that works.

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Posted by: AnAspieKitten.5732

AnAspieKitten.5732

“One profession that everyone said was overpowered. "

As far as I know Warrior suffers from its past. For exemple, it’s like the third or fourth DPS if I remember well, yet he is wanted in dungeon because it’s easy to play and because banners. So what do we do ?
1) Nerf it so it’s not wanted anymore and to doom its dps
2) Bring up the skillcap while buffing the class if necessary (and that’s not hard to do, as a warrior main since release I totally admit the class has a some things that are pretty much lowering the skillcap without any reason, mostly some traits)

I’m exagerating, I’m not saying it won’t be asked in dungeon ever again because of this nerf, but you’re not thinking from a game development point of view and you’re talking about old things. If you’re playing class X and class X gets nerfed, that reduce your fun. Feeling less powerful is much less enjoyable than knowing you can do best. Adrenaline is screwed now, and I feel like nerfing nonfun mechanics like GS 2 is is much less appealing than reworking it into an interesting spell instead of one that’s your highest DPS output and make you immobile and vulerable (which is not fun, and if you miss it then it’s even less fun because you have to gamble a lot on one spell and that might reduce by a lot it’s effectiveness in PvP).

That’s talking from the player enjoyement point of view, which a developer should always aim at. Then again, this comes too late ; as I said, Warrior is a low skillfloor class, which means anyone can do well with few practice, basically, but some other class are, when mastered, much better (still talking from a PvE perspective since greatsword was used there). If you nerf it, you make it useless at some point. Rather if you buff its skillcap and potential, then you make it more interesting, with more depth. The more singular every class is, the better it is, and I believe this nerf comes too late but also does contradict the “easy to play, hard to master” philosophy that makes the game more interesting (and also works much better for e-sport) and more fun because of how you can’t hit a certain point and go “yup, I can’t get anything more from my class, time to move on”.

Also, NPE has been basically “take away some things, ask the players to unlock them, slow down the progression so they don’t feel like they have everything too early, problem solved”, and again this is not healthy. They should’ve aimed at creating content, not locking some.
This patch is a huge change for veterans and the game was already really, really easy for new players, probably the easiest or one of the easiest MMO on the market, what they did make the leveling less enjoyable, thus I’m having troubles seeing where it’s gonna pay off and bring newer players.

Some players main a class. Some enjoy making alts again and again. ANet screwed them up this update and they know it, from what they said, and will fix it. For them, it’s not “details”, it’s their whole pleasure. It’s not focusing on the footnote to tell you the book is badly written, these are important changes and it’s also important people tell ANet when they’re unhappy.

The day noone comes on the forum will be the day the update is perfect, we already know that. I do think ANet did a good job a lot of the time and for the whole game, that doesn’t stop me from poiting out what I think to be mistakes and that’s our role, as player, to do so.

Also, look at their communication thread : they receive massive compliments. If they did that earlier, I’m 100% positive on the fact they’d get much less rocks thrown at them, because they very rarely showed up in person before, we weren’t even sure they were really reading, which plays in the fact that people feel like multiplying the “I don’t like that” threads and not compliment them, “I quit” and all the like, because there are more chances that when they take a glimpse at the forums they see what’s wrong. Now if they start truly communicating with us like they seem to be doing, they’ll get a lot more gratitude and positiveness, because GW2 community wants to see their game improve, because we know it’s unique and different and we like to play it, and as such it’s heartbreaking when they screw our part of the fun up. We just want it to get better. Most players are not here to say “.l. u” to the devs, they want them to fix the mistakes they make.

Dear Santa,
For christmas I’d like to get a crossbow for my characters.
With love, a cute kitty.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

A single line can ruin a story.

Even so what many people are complaining about are the game equivalent of the first few chapters of the book. If those early chapters are bland, not engaging, etc then the impact is potentially absolute…the reader puts it down and never picks it up again.

For what its worth the Warrior was not universally agreed to be OP. It was arguably the easiest profession with which to produce high end results but other professions could achieve comparable or better, but required greater player engagement to do so. Its generally a good idea to have a profession capable of producing good results that is catered to mediocre player skill for the simple reason that many players will not be ome more skilled regardless of opportunity. Having a profession that provides such players with an avenue into higher end play increases the accessibility of a games most challenging content without dumbing it down.

The entire game is supposed to be endgame. Dumbing down beginning zones affects this aspect of the game. Making mobs weaker compared to launch while characters are more powerful effectively reduces the amount of game available to veterans.

The NPE changes may only affect a fraction of the game and is targeted at new players, but it affects veterans as well. How much of the game must be taken away from veterans before its acceptable for them to speak out against it ?

This patch has some elements that concern me but most of it doesnt bother me. Evens so the fact that it doesn’t bother me does not mean that it doesnt negatively affect others to a degree that impacts their enjoyment of the game. Trying to tell others that you know better than they what should and should not affect their enjoyment of the game, their fun, is not only foolhardy its a bit pretentious and insulting.

A single line can’t ruin most books, unless it happens to be at the climax. That’s a pretty disingenuous statement, considering looking at the whole picture.

I’ve never seen a single line ruin a profession novel. I’ve seen some pretty bad amateur novels that were ruined by entire chapters, though.

I’ve often seen things in published books that sell quite well that are very bad lines. Worse than very bad lines, they’re also wrong somehow. They’re either contradicting something else that happens in the book, or they create a logical conundrum that makes the plot less likely or whatever. 1% of the people who read might notice it, but the reviewers seem to miss it. I single line or even a bad paragraph doesn’t ruin books.

Many authors are guilty of overwriting at times, but that doesn’t ruin books either.w

I don’t think most people come to MMOs and expect the first 15 levels to be riveting. I played Wildstar and ESO. I didn’t find the start up experience riveting. Because at some point you have to learn their system.

Compared to those games, even now the Guild Wars 2 system is far and away superior. Yes, it’s slower than it was, but it’s not nearly as bad as people are making it out. There are a few events in the very beginning of the zone 1-10 levels that affect the first hour of gameplay. If you’re slow maybe the first two hours.

But honestly, this is the largest over-reaction I’ve seen to date from this community. The ascended fiasco wasn’t an over-reaction. The trait change affects the entire game.

This change. I think people are focusing on a hot button issue of level gating, without ever acknowledging that this game had level gating from day one.

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Posted by: Tachenon.5270

Tachenon.5270

You do realize that games like ESO and Wildstar and Neverwinter didn’t really make that much of a mark on this game. Certainly not the kind of mark you’re talking about.

Considering the last quarter wasn’t down in profits that much and it was the quarter both Wildstar and ESO launched, I’d say this game is doing fine.

Uh… I never mentioned those and have never played them. Wildstar I won’t touch, as it’s a game associated with NCSoft (GW2 got a pass because of Guild Wars and ArenaNet), and as for ESO, I tried an Elder Scrolls game many, many years ago but I don’t even remember which one, so that should tell ya something.

Anyway! Carry on.

The table is a fable.

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Posted by: Andred.1087

Andred.1087

A single line can ruin a story.

Yes, if you allow that one line to bother you so much you refuse to read the rest.

“You’ll PAY to know what you really think.” ~ J. R. “Bob” Dobbs

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I will just called it middle age syndrome. never saw someone saying me me me me me me me me me I I I I I I I I in so many thread in a game forum. what are you trying to proof man? go away already.

And you don’t think most people complaining aren’t saying me me me. This change affects me? lol Okay.

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Posted by: DonQuack.9025

DonQuack.9025

tldr:
Vayne to community: Stop whining.
/thread

Concerns about HoT pre-order? Check here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9gVQB8gss

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Posted by: Cassandra Nea.2507

Cassandra Nea.2507

I get a feeling Vayne works for ArenaNet anyways.

This is actually unfair. I have plenty of problems with the direction of the game development itself, but from reading these forums I have come to realize that Vayne is actually NOT a white knight. It seems like he just takes offense to some of the hyperbole being spread around, and I don’t blame him.

In recent days there have been plenty of examples of people spreading misinformation about the patch and the changes to the levelling experience. Some of them openly admit that they haven’t tested these changes themselves – they are simply against them on principle and based on WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD from others.

This is not helpful in any way. We have legitimate reasons for complaining about parts of the feature patch, but that legitimacy goes out the window once people stop sticking to the facts. By using hyperbole, exaggerations and outright lies you are simply giving Anet reasons to not pay attention to us.

And if you really want to talk about white knights, I know a few that qualify more than Vayne: LordKrall is one (though he seems to be posting less lately) and so is Dusty Moon, who can be really detrimental to any kind of discussion because he gets downright mean in his replies to other people.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I do what I can to help people understand why decisions being made may not be as silly as they think they are, because I’m an educator at heart. It’s what I’ve always done.

I’m a bit of an educator at heart too and right now I think you’ve gone off the deep end. At this point, I think you are more obsessed with defending criticisms of the patch than anyone is with actually criticizing it.

It would be one thing if your message was general, but it’s obviously triggered by criticisms of this particular feature pack.

First you make a poll, now this. You are actually drawing out the negative discussion yourself.

As to your main point:
People are going to express what they dislike. This is just a human reality. You can try to get them to approach it more critically, but the truth is that when people post negative feedback without being particularly constructive, it’s because they’re upset.

You aren’t going to talk down emotional people by spouting logical exposition at them.

You know what one of the worst kinds of this scenario is though? When someone has a lot of repressed emotions going on and so that person can think that he’s being super calm and rational, when the reality is that he’s seething underneath and his emotions are distorting everything.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: skullmount.1758

skullmount.1758

A single line can’t ruin most books, unless it happens to be at the climax. That’s a pretty disingenuous statement, considering looking at the whole picture.

I’ve never seen a single line ruin a profession novel. I’ve seen some pretty bad amateur novels that were ruined by entire chapters, though.


Dumbledore(?) dies.
or
Darth Vader is Luke and Leia father, and the empire is defeated by Ewoks. (granted thats for a movie and not a book though)

Darkhaven server
Please give us a keyring…

(edited by skullmount.1758)

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Posted by: Nube one one seven.7039

Nube one one seven.7039

I`m just gonna leave this here as a reminder:

http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r

Oh wow look,a little more than 1.5K votes, less than 10% happy. So let me ask you this Vayne, as an editor, did you ever have overwhelming feedback point to something being an absolutely horrible change/feature/ect? If so, what did you do about it? Did you simply ignore everything that the feedback was pointing to as being horrible? Did you ignore any and all suggested fixes, did you attempt to figure out what specific parts were so hated, and why? Or did you simply do nothing?

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Posted by: Absconditus.6804

Absconditus.6804

I haven’t seen any of your posts about RNG boxes or the “new” trait system, I don’t follow you, but you post a lot (and so do I perhaps). I see your posts recently, and in all of them it’s been to pretty much defend the fragile ArenaNet employees and/or game. I’ve been responding to those, because I don’t think they’re fragile and unable to distance themselves from the negativity. They’re grownups capable of tying their own shoelaces, to make themselves breakfast and going to work. For all the negativity, it also means there’s someone that passionately cares about what they’ve created, Guild Wars 2. I’m pretty sure they realize that as well.

Also what do you mean when you say that I still haven’t explained why you came out publicly about something? When were I supposed to explain it in the first place? Have you previously asked me to explain that to you? As a previous editor, you must see how I find this statement to be confusing.

If you do not work for them, fine, you’re just a passionate player that wishes to defend them on their recent changes. That’s good too, but ease up on it a bit. They need the feedback. Negative feedback is good feedback too. The people tossing some negativity in their direction is passionate players as well. Just like you and me. When I worked for that other game, all feedback was feedback, a lot of it was highly negative, but there was a message beneath the layer of frustration. That is what I took aboard.

There’s some good changes, nobody that I’ve seen at least, has stated there isn’t. E.g., in the early starter zones, if you fall below a certain threshold of health, you get a nice fat arrow bouncing up and down over your healing skill. This is a tutorial, this is a tutorial done well. It could perhaps do with a tiny bit more explaining, but it’s not necessary. You do somewhat get it. This is what a lot of players reckon they should have rather done. Tutorials, intuitive tutorials when possible. Not locking things away behind levels. This is what the majority gets annoyed over. Them taking away bundles, taking away gathering in the earliest parts of the starter zones, hiding icons on the map, and forever directing you where to go, instead of keeping to their “pick a direction and adventure will find you” idea. If I get told where to go, where’s the adventure? Why not just make it auto-run me to everything as well? There are actually games doing that now.

Personally, I do think they sent out a survey to people who had quit. People who had no interest in partaking in their survey however. Who cares for surveys? Especially in a game that barely managed to get you to play beyond a certain level and get invested. A survey that likely had predefined choices in which many cases perhaps did not suit the previous players reason for stopping to play. It’s very typical, very standard in this industry. Unless they called in some tens of thousands of players to their offices and/or called them on the phone, they can’t really tell if a user was just clicking something to click something, or if they clicked something because it fit what described their reason for stopping to play.

I agree with their idea of the NPE, the game was confusing. I do remember it being confusing. It didn’t give me enough directions in the beginning. I agree. An arrow directing me to my first few hearts and events would have been wonderful. And it lacked tutorials. Intuitive tutorials like the low health arrow, bouncing up and down over the healing skill. I never felt overwhelmed by the skills however. If anything, I felt it took too long to get to the point of being able to make working builds. It was a nightmare to level Mesmer, a profession highly dependent on its Traits. It’s things like that which players are in an uproar over. They’ve made it worse, by locking things further away.

It comes down to; I have a hard time recommending this game now to anyone I know that hasn’t played it. That in itself makes the whole idea of their NPE to be a terrible implementation. I should be one of the people bringing one-two-three more players into the game. Not sitting idle by twiddling my thumbs not wanting to recommend it because it’s in a bad state. People I bring in, are people I can teach the ropes to. I’ve probably gotten 20 or so people to play over the course of two years, not that many, but still, it’s 20 more than none. Not one of them stayed. Two reasons, not rewarding enough, and no end-game promise. A lot of those quit between the levels of 15 and 40.

Vella Absconditus | Human Mesmer
Seafarer’s Rest

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Posted by: Tachenon.5270

Tachenon.5270

I’ve never seen a single line ruin a profession novel.

I have. The last line in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.

It was so bad it retroactively turned almost everything else he ever wrote into the work of a cheap dime store hack. Except for ‘The Body’ and ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’, which were so far above everything else they remained un-hack-ified.

The table is a fable.

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Posted by: Rococo.8347

Rococo.8347

Vayne, im sure you are a nice guy but I have rarely in my many years of playing games and popping onto forums every now and then had to deal with someone with the level of condescension and need to police anything anti game that you have – ive just recently started checking the forums since the patch – you are on here ALL.THE.TIME.

If there isn’t a negative thread you decide to attempt to dismantle then you create your own, showering the community with your ‘well meant lessons in gaming’ which is really just a thin veil of passive aggressive behaviour and consummate know it allness. Its obsessive compulsive – yes you disagree with some of the observations people are making but you just cant stop yourself posting on every single one of these threads can you?

You don’t as far as I know work for GW2 so you don’t ‘know’ all these ‘facts’ you have apparently gleaned of exactly why GW2 does things a certain way – they are just your opinions, nothing more nothing less and certainly not the company responses people are looking for sometimes. Yes some mistakes were made by people assuming some bug issues that were not as bad as first claimed – you do not need to go around all day policing every new thread that may slightly veer into that territory.

Stop policing threads constantly and telling people their opinions are ‘wrong’ – you were on EVERY thread I read yesterday.

For me to make the effort to post this when I had to listen to 12 year olds freaking out in WOW constantly and didn’t get annoyed says a lot – you really need to reign in yourself in, it doesn’t matter how ‘calmly or nicely’ you are doing it – just dial it down please – you give adult gamers like me a bad name.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

“One profession that everyone said was overpowered. "

As far as I know Warrior suffers from its past. For exemple, it’s like the third or fourth DPS if I remember well, yet he is wanted in dungeon because it’s easy to play and because banners. So what do we do ?
1) Nerf it so it’s not wanted anymore and to doom its dps
2) Bring up the skillcap while buffing the class if necessary (and that’s not hard to do, as a warrior main since release I totally admit the class has a some things that are pretty much lowering the skillcap without any reason, mostly some traits)

snip

That’s talking from the player enjoyement point of view, which a developer should always aim at. Then again, this comes too late ; as I said, Warrior is a low skillfloor class, which means anyone can do well with few practice, basically, but some other class are, when mastered, much better (still talking from a PvE perspective since greatsword was used there). If you nerf it, you make it useless at some point. Rather if you buff its skillcap and potential, then you make it more interesting, with more depth. The more singular every class is, the better it is, and I believe this nerf comes too late but also does contradict the “easy to play, hard to master” philosophy that makes the game more interesting (and also works much better for e-sport) and more fun because of how you can’t hit a certain point and go “yup, I can’t get anything more from my class, time to move on”.

Also, NPE has been basically “take away some things, ask the players to unlock them, slow down the progression so they don’t feel like they have everything too early, problem solved”, and again this is not healthy. They should’ve aimed at creating content, not locking some.
This patch is a huge change for veterans and the game was already really, really easy for new players, probably the easiest or one of the easiest MMO on the market, what they did make the leveling less enjoyable, thus I’m having troubles seeing where it’s gonna pay off and bring newer players.

Some players main a class. Some enjoy making alts again and again. ANet screwed them up this update and they know it, from what they said, and will fix it. For them, it’s not “details”, it’s their whole pleasure. It’s not focusing on the footnote to tell you the book is badly written, these are important changes and it’s also important people tell ANet when they’re unhappy.

The day noone comes on the forum will be the day the update is perfect, we already know that. I do think ANet did a good job a lot of the time and for the whole game, that doesn’t stop me from poiting out what I think to be mistakes and that’s our role, as player, to do so.

Also, look at their communication thread : they receive massive compliments. If they did that earlier, I’m 100% positive on the fact they’d get much less rocks thrown at them, because they very rarely showed up in person before, we weren’t even sure they were really reading, which plays in the fact that people feel like multiplying the “I don’t like that” threads and not compliment them, “I quit” and all the like, because there are more chances that when they take a glimpse at the forums they see what’s wrong. Now if they start truly communicating with us like they seem to be doing, they’ll get a lot more gratitude and positiveness, because GW2 community wants to see their game improve, because we know it’s unique and different and we like to play it, and as such it’s heartbreaking when they screw our part of the fun up. We just want it to get better. Most players are not here to say “.l. u” to the devs, they want them to fix the mistakes they make.

Arguably, in some ways the game is harder for new players. Even some older players are saying it’s more challenging now, because they have less skills and not a fully working downed state. I won’t look for the threads but I’ve seen it mentioned at least twice.

I know when I’m going through starter zones now, I have to move more. I can’t depend on skills. I have to be more careful because I don’t get those other slots that used to protect me unlocked as early.

Be that as it may, we’ve always had level gated abilities and I’m not so sure the time to unlock most of it is so vastly different, that it’s worthy of the outcry we’ve heard.

There are definitely issues with it. I’m not sure why Anet took away the hints section, even if they took away the achievement. They should put it back. It’s weird not to have access to hints and tips all the time.

I don’t think the choices made with the downed state are right at all, but it has nothing to do with level gating.

And I think it’s problematic that leveling with some professions for the first 15 levels is much harder/longer than leveling with other professions.

But over all, I think it’s a step in the right direction. It was always going to need adjustment.

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Posted by: Ishtar.6457

Ishtar.6457

I will just called it middle age syndrome. never saw someone saying me me me me me me me me me I I I I I I I I in so many thread in a game forum. what are you trying to proof man? go away already.

And you don’t think most people complaining aren’t saying me me me. This change affects me? lol Okay.

Oh yes they do, but not as much as YOU do, and they don’t add their CV about being editor etc and a brief history of their life in a random game forum all day everyday. IJS.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I will just called it middle age syndrome. never saw someone saying me me me me me me me me me I I I I I I I I in so many thread in a game forum. what are you trying to proof man? go away already.

And you don’t think most people complaining aren’t saying me me me. This change affects me? lol Okay.

Oh yes they do, but not as much as YOU do, and they don’t add their CV about being editor etc and a brief history of their life in a random game forum all day everyday. IJS.

People bring up their “CV” all the time to try to show that they have some expertise. I’ve seen people say they’re programmers, and they’re game designers and even that they’ve played MMOs since 1996 or whatever. That’s human nature.

However in this case, this was a lesson I learned while editing and I think it’s appropos. If you don’t, you’re free not to.

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

Stop policing threads constantly and telling people their opinions are ‘wrong’ – you were on EVERY thread I read yesterday.

I’ve yet to see him say someone’s opinion is wrong.

I’ve seen him tell people their facts are wrong, or their facts are opinion, typically citing sources to back it up. But saying someone’s opinion is wrong? Have yet to see that. That’s forum no-no #1, and he’s a forum pro.

People throw around a lot of opinion as fact, he simply calls them on it. The level of exaggeration on these forums is absurd. I think we can all agree on that.

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

tldr:
Vayne to community: Stop whining.
/thread

Not what I was saying at all. You obviously think it’s a good thing to pick apart systems without looking at the whole system. I just happen to disagree.

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Posted by: Ameepa.6793

Ameepa.6793

Vayne, just let it go. You cannot change everyone in game forums to behave like you want them to. Remember what happened last time, about a year ago? You got so upset that you decided to leave these forums completely. Now you are back doing the exact same thing again.

Just let it go and enjoy the game. You don’t have to upset yourself like this.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

Just because someone has an issue, and expresses it, with a particular system or change does not mean that they have not looked at the big picture. It is a bit of a stretch to claim that if someone’s opinion on something differs from yours they just aren’t seeing the whole picture.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Vayne, just let it go. You cannot change everyone in game forums to behave like you want them to. Remember what happened last time, about a year ago? You got so upset that you decided to leave these forums completely. Now you are back doing the exact same thing again.

Just let it go and enjoy the game. You don’t have to upset yourself like this.

I don’t know why you think I’m upset. Because I’m not. Not even a little. Sure a lot of people won’t listen to this, in part because I’m me, in part because some people would like to complain, but there are people who might read this and get something out of it too. I promise I’m not upset in the slightest. Bemused is a closer word, to be honest.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Just because someone has an issue, and expresses it, with a particular system or change does not mean that they have not looked at the big picture. It is a bit of a stretch to claim that if someone’s opinion on something differs from yours they just aren’t seeing the whole picture.

You’re right, of course. Just because someone has an issue and expresses is doesn’t mean they haven’t looked at the big picture. 100% right.

I had a guy on this very forum say it was okay to call devs stupid because – tough love. Really. Someone said that.

The thing is, some people do see the big picture, but if you think that the majority of players do, I’m not quite sure what to tell you. I know this post isn’t going to stop complaints. But it might give some people some insight into why systems don’t always seem to make sense. That’s all.

This post is for people who don’t know this stuff. I never claimed it was everyone. I never even claimed it was everyone who’s complaining.

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Posted by: Morfedel.4165

Morfedel.4165

I`m just gonna leave this here as a reminder:

http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r

Oh wow look,a little more than 1.5K votes, less than 10% happy. So let me ask you this Vayne, as an editor, did you ever have overwhelming feedback point to something being an absolutely horrible change/feature/ect? If so, what did you do about it? Did you simply ignore everything that the feedback was pointing to as being horrible? Did you ignore any and all suggested fixes, did you attempt to figure out what specific parts were so hated, and why? Or did you simply do nothing?

I lot of people havent seen that. Until this moment, I hadn’t. Furthermore, you seem to be missing the point, they didn’t make the new leveling system for people who already knew the game, they made it for newcomers.

They should have had a way for veterans to skip the new leveling system at least in part, but aside from that, you weren’t really the target audience for it.

Maybe talk to a few newcomers who have legitimately never seen GW2 before, and see what THEY think.

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

I`m just gonna leave this here as a reminder:

http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r

Oh wow look,a little more than 1.5K votes, less than 10% happy. So let me ask you this Vayne, as an editor, did you ever have overwhelming feedback point to something being an absolutely horrible change/feature/ect? If so, what did you do about it? Did you simply ignore everything that the feedback was pointing to as being horrible? Did you ignore any and all suggested fixes, did you attempt to figure out what specific parts were so hated, and why? Or did you simply do nothing?

I think it’s fair to say that a majority of old players don’t enjoy the new player experience. We didn’t need a poll to tell us that. We also aren’t the group of people for which the NPE was designed. Might as well poll a bunch of blind people on their car preference while we’re at it.

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: ipan.4356

ipan.4356

Vayne

The downside to what you are doing is that you contribute to the feeling that people are not being listened to, that their issues are being dimunized, and you come off as belittling people who have problems with the way the game is being developed.

This means that you are actually increasing the level of vitriol of these posters.

If you enjoy the game so much, and you think it’s doing so wonderfully – then go play it.

Stop spending so much time on forums telling people who have issues with it that they’re wrong – the truth is, Anet can do that themselves.

Are you worried or something about the health of this game? Is that why you are white knighting so much?

You end up ostracizing people who want their issues addressed, and after a time, some people may even begin to associate your opinions with those of Anet – reinforcing the idea that Anet (like you) is out of touch with it’s playerbase.

I’m curious, how do you believe these posts of yours actually aid Anet/GW2 in any way? I don’t believe they do, or at least not as much as you think. An occasional post of course is fine – but you set yourself up, painted yourself into a corner – to the point that some people believe you are an Anet employee.

How is that productive or useful?

I don’t believe it is. I think your constant defending of Anet (and not you alone – most of the other white knights as well) do more harm than good.

Because it looks like whitewashing, and that’s what people will become convinced it is.

Let the game – and Anet – speak for themselves.

White knighting does more harm than good (generally – it’s ok to offer praise once in a while when they do something right – but not what you’re doing currently).

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Vayne

The downside to what you are doing is that you contribute to the feeling that people are not being listened to, that their issues are being dimunized, and you come off as belittling people who have problems with the way the game is being developed.

This means that you are actually increasing the level of vitriol of these posters.

If you enjoy the game so much, and you think it’s doing so wonderfully – then go play it.

Stop spending so much time on forums telling people who have issues with it that they’re wrong – the truth is, Anet can do that themselves.

Are you worried or something about the health of this game? Is that why you are white knighting so much?

You end up ostracizing people who want their issues addressed, and after a time, some people may even begin to associate your opinions with those of Anet – reinforcing the idea that Anet (like you) is out of touch with it’s playerbase.

I’m curious, how do you believe these posts of yours actually aid Anet/GW2 in any way? I don’t believe they do, or at least not as much as you think. An occasional post of course is fine – but you set yourself up, painted yourself into a corner – to the point that some people believe you are an Anet employee.

How is that productive or useful?

I don’t believe it is. I think your constant defending of Anet (and not you alone – most of the other white knights as well) do more harm than good.

Because it looks like whitewashing, and that’s what people will become convinced it is.

Let the game – and Anet – speak for themselves.

White knighting does more harm than good (generally – it’s ok to offer praise once in a while when they do something right – but not what you’re doing currently).

This is a very good point. The first part of your post, not the second. This is how I see it.

15% of people post on forums. I know this from other forums I’ve moderated. This doesn’t mean 15% read forums. 15% post of them. And you know it might be 20% or 10%, but it’s a small percent of people reading are actually posting.

So, a person puts down a complaint, and it’s followed by another complaint and it’s followed by another.

If I were a person just reading, I’d see all complaints and no one actually saying, you know I like this, or this particular complaint is stating things that aren’t quite true, or this is really exaagerated.

That’s 80, maybe 85% of the lurkers, some of whom may not know better. They may, they may not. I don’t know because they don’t talk.

Would it surprise you that I’ve received thank you mails from people on these forums for posting? Fairly often actually.

You’re right. Sometimes the stuff I say gets people riled up. And a few people used to be against me and aren’t anymore as well.

But I still get thank yous from people every single week.

Someone must be getting something out of it.

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Posted by: Lucius.2140

Lucius.2140

Actually I don’t worry about people making the game look bad. I do what I can to help people understand why decisions being made may not be as silly as they think they are, because I’m an educator at heart. It’s what I’ve always done.

I find it hard to believe that you are not troubled by people making the game look bad.

When someone make a negative comment or questioned the developer’s design decision, you seemed very passionate to fight back.

Theres some thinking distortion there, ones the values of the other are different about the game, he starts and doesnt stop….

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

I`m just gonna leave this here as a reminder:

http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r

Oh wow look,a little more than 1.5K votes, less than 10% happy. So let me ask you this Vayne, as an editor, did you ever have overwhelming feedback point to something being an absolutely horrible change/feature/ect? If so, what did you do about it? Did you simply ignore everything that the feedback was pointing to as being horrible? Did you ignore any and all suggested fixes, did you attempt to figure out what specific parts were so hated, and why? Or did you simply do nothing?

I think it’s fair to say that a majority of old players don’t enjoy the new player experience. We didn’t need a poll to tell us that. We also aren’t the group of people for which the NPE was designed. Might as well poll a bunch of blind people on their car preference while we’re at it.

Not sure the analogy works since the changes affect the game for veterans as well as new players.

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Posted by: Sauncho.8076

Sauncho.8076

For me, it’s not so much the revamp of the earlier levels that’s the issue. For me, I have a problem with ANETs priorities.

I understand ANET has their metrics and so on and so forth. They obviously believe revamping the lower levels will make a better experience for new players, and therefore increase retention and the bottom line.

However, I already have the impression ANET is under staffed. Whether that’s accurate I don’t know.

But it seems to me when PvP has yet to receive a new mode, WvW updates are lacking, no new races, no new professions, no new weapon skills, only minor trait changes, balancing every 6 months, limited in game gear since the start compared to the gem store, limited dungeon additions, etc., why would they choose to revamp noob leveling. Obviously that’s resources taken away from other important facets of the game.

ANET is the only one who can really measure the impact of revamping the noob experience as compared to the things I mentioned above. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the player base did not prioritize revamping the leveling experience over expansion like additions.

You can make a better leveling experience all you want, but as some point these new players will also become vets, and then they too will want what the rest of the player base wants.

“Pimpin aint ez”

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

For me, it’s not so much the revamp of the earlier levels that’s the issue. For me, I have a problem with ANETs priorities.

I understand ANET has their metrics and so on and so forth. They obviously believe revamping the lower levels will make a better experience for new players, and therefore increase retention and the bottom line.

However, I already have the impression ANET is under staffed. Whether that’s accurate I don’t know.

But it seems to me when PvP has yet to receive a new mode, WvW updates are lacking, no new races, no new professions, no new weapon skills, only minor trait changes, balancing every 6 months, limited in game gear since the start compared to the gem store, limited dungeon additions, etc., why would they choose to revamp noob leveling. Obviously that’s resources taken away from other important facets of the game.

ANET is the only one who can really measure the impact of revamping the noob experience as compared to the things I mentioned above. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the player base did not prioritize revamping the leveling experience over expansion like additions.

You can make a better leveling experience all you want, but as some point these new players will also become vets, and then they too will want what the rest of the player base wants.

Anet launched in China in April. They had to have player retention there. It would be highly illogical to launch in China while retaining less players if they know there’s a problem with retention.

They had to modify the version of the Chinese release for us, but it wasn’t a from scratch job, so it took less time/energy.

And this wasn’t a content patch it was a feature patch. Whatever they’re working on, they’re still working on.

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Posted by: bob.5680

bob.5680

I’m no gaming expert (hardly, way too old for that), but I have played this game alot over the past 2+ years (more than I should, I have 22 lvl 80 characters currently). I Started a new ranger (my favorite class) last week to see for myself what all the fuss about the NPE was all about. Well, I found it more interesting/engaging to play than I expected (based on all the bashing here). In fact, recalling back to my earliest days during beta for GW2 and my first character, I could see that much of the frustration I felt back then would have been absent had I waited till now to start that first character.

I suspect that some folks here like wandering around not knowing what to do next (enjoying the thrill of discovery and learning something that your fellow players have yet to figure out) and how to get to different places (it was some time…maybe a week…till I figured out how to get to Lion’s Arch), but I don’t. I want to play the game, not feel lost.

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Posted by: Sauncho.8076

Sauncho.8076

For me, it’s not so much the revamp of the earlier levels that’s the issue. For me, I have a problem with ANETs priorities.

I understand ANET has their metrics and so on and so forth. They obviously believe revamping the lower levels will make a better experience for new players, and therefore increase retention and the bottom line.

However, I already have the impression ANET is under staffed. Whether that’s accurate I don’t know.

But it seems to me when PvP has yet to receive a new mode, WvW updates are lacking, no new races, no new professions, no new weapon skills, only minor trait changes, balancing every 6 months, limited in game gear since the start compared to the gem store, limited dungeon additions, etc., why would they choose to revamp noob leveling. Obviously that’s resources taken away from other important facets of the game.

ANET is the only one who can really measure the impact of revamping the noob experience as compared to the things I mentioned above. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the player base did not prioritize revamping the leveling experience over expansion like additions.

You can make a better leveling experience all you want, but as some point these new players will also become vets, and then they too will want what the rest of the player base wants.

Anet launched in China in April. They had to have player retention there. It would be highly illogical to launch in China while retaining less players if they know there’s a problem with retention.

They had to modify the version of the Chinese release for us, but it wasn’t a from scratch job, so it took less time/energy.

And this wasn’t a content patch it was a feature patch. Whatever they’re working on, they’re still working on.

Even if this is true, I still have a problem with the mindset. Regardless if the revamp was a modification and regardless if the last patch was a feature patch and not a content patch.

In the end, it’s been two years and hardly any of the things I mentioned before have been done (IMO).

This is clearly as leadership / managerial / vision issue. What direction do they want to take the game. I won’t speak for the rest of the player base as you (Vayne) have countered that point, but in my opinion they need to rearrange their priorities in order to make me happy.

Trust me, if the combat in this game wasn’t so darn good I would probably have moved on by now out of boredom.

“Pimpin aint ez”

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

For me, it’s not so much the revamp of the earlier levels that’s the issue. For me, I have a problem with ANETs priorities.

I understand ANET has their metrics and so on and so forth. They obviously believe revamping the lower levels will make a better experience for new players, and therefore increase retention and the bottom line.

However, I already have the impression ANET is under staffed. Whether that’s accurate I don’t know.

But it seems to me when PvP has yet to receive a new mode, WvW updates are lacking, no new races, no new professions, no new weapon skills, only minor trait changes, balancing every 6 months, limited in game gear since the start compared to the gem store, limited dungeon additions, etc., why would they choose to revamp noob leveling. Obviously that’s resources taken away from other important facets of the game.

ANET is the only one who can really measure the impact of revamping the noob experience as compared to the things I mentioned above. But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the player base did not prioritize revamping the leveling experience over expansion like additions.

You can make a better leveling experience all you want, but as some point these new players will also become vets, and then they too will want what the rest of the player base wants.

Anet launched in China in April. They had to have player retention there. It would be highly illogical to launch in China while retaining less players if they know there’s a problem with retention.

They had to modify the version of the Chinese release for us, but it wasn’t a from scratch job, so it took less time/energy.

And this wasn’t a content patch it was a feature patch. Whatever they’re working on, they’re still working on.

Even if this is true, I still have a problem with the mindset. Regardless if the revamp was a modification and regardless if the last patch was a feature patch and not a content patch.

In the end, it’s been two years and hardly any of the things I mentioned before have been done (IMO).

This is clearly as leadership / managerial / vision issue. What direction do they want to take the game. I won’t speak for the rest of the player base as you (Vayne) have countered that point, but in my opinion they need to rearrange their priorities in order to make me happy.

Trust me, if the combat in this game wasn’t so darn good I would probably have moved on by now out of boredom.

Colin said, and I believe this, that the uptake of new players was absolutely not good enough and that until that was taken care of they wouldn’t be able to provide those other experiences. Seems not unreasonable to me.