I am currently going to college for a communications degree and while I can’t claim to be any sort of expert I feel that ANets biggest issue right now is less about the lack of communication and more about how their message is delivered.
The Feature Patch News Posts
The most recent example would be the news posts that have been leading up to the feature patch. There’s a good number of these posts, but most of the contain only a small amount of information. This gives the impression that the feature patch isn’t all that big. If these posts had started closer to the release date and where larger in size, it would have made the patch seem much more impressive. Of course, there’s a risk of putting in too much info but most of the core player base would be more than willing to put forth the time.
In addition to this, some of the posts are poorly named. For example “September 2014 Feature Pack: Improvements Galore” hints that it’s going to be a lengthy list of changes. What you find when you read it however are a few short paragraphs. While they contain some good changes the use of the word “Galore” had many on forums/reddit saying “That’s it?” If this had been a part of another post or was titled something more conservative like “Upcoming Quality of Life Improvements” users would have probably reacted more positively.
Devs on the Forums
We’ve had a decent number of devs responding to users on the forum. This is great to see and most of them give well written responses that garner positive reactions. n the other hand, some make statements that either confuse, annoy, or at worse don’t really tell us anything. Most of us understand that you don’t want to hint at something that may never come to pass, that has burned many games in the past. But when we get non-answers that have the intent of saying “We hear you” it tends to do more harm than good. I’ve said this in the past but I think it would be good if the devs had the ability to mark a thread as “read” without having to actually respond. Perhaps it could look like a grey/black version of the red icon we have now.
It might be a good idea to have someone else read your posts before you submit them if you don’t already. I really like seeing a dev ask for more clarification on something but other posts do more harm than good.
Interviews with other Websites
It’s always nice to see ANet devs taking time out to talk with fan sites and the like, but once again we often get non-answers or information we already know. Sometimes this is the fault of the interviewer more than anything. They ask questions they know or SHOULD know will never get a response. As a player I would only bother reading an interview if I knew something I didn’t know before was being revealed there, or at least hinted. These sites can be a great tool for hyping up an upcoming press release, heck it could even happen on the same day but you could use the interview to gain momentum.
Again, I am not an expert in the field. However as a player I see some of these things and wonder just why some things were done they way they were. I enjoy this game and want it to grow but miscommunication or poorly done communication is something I feel has been an obstacle towards that goal.