Guild Wars 2

“This is likely on the bottom of Anet’s list of priorities right now.”
“If Anet does this, we will see less content in that other area.”

And several other versions of the same theme pop up in many threads that are about suggestions or bug fixes. Whenever someone wonders why we have no build templates, there will be a person who seems to know a lot of ArenaNet’s internal decision making process and claims that they lack resources, money and time to make it happen, and that there are presumably more important things to do.

Truth is, we know nothing about ArenaNet’s decision making process or their priorities or their financial strategy. And we are not making business cases here, we just find bugs or things than could be improved, and discuss them. We don’t even know how long a change takes or how difficult it would be. Those comments look like they come from corporate minded people, who would never do something new or risky, and they never add any value to the discussion.

Let me suggest something: sometimes companies do risky things, sometimes they do things because they are fun (Catmander anyone?) or challenging, or different, sometimes they do things they don’t expect to create any money, but add to the value of the product in less measurable ways. ArenaNet is a video game developer, not a commodity producer. The people working in the game industry are less corporate minded than those in the automotive industry, we should not assume the same approach. As far as we know, ArenaNet could have a program like Google that gives developers payed time to do stuff they just wanna do, and see if something useful comes out of it.

The only thing those comments achieve is putting people down with their ideas. The message is “It will not happen, there are more important things. Just stop suggesting things that don’t create direct monetary value. Nobody cares about this bug, it affects not enough people.” and so on and so on.

Just stop that, unless you are an ArenaNet representative.

(edit: adjusted wording of the title. I had to shorten it before and it didn’t express what I wanted to say
edit2: I cannot change the title…)

My original title was too long, and after shortening it, it does not express what I’m saying anymore.

tl;dr: claiming you know how Anet operates and what their priorities are and dismissing peoples’ suggestions and ideas adds no value and harms the discussion. Please don’t do it.

Sometimes you can listen to a company for a long time and draw certain conclusions. They may not be the correct conclusion but I think it’s pretty obvious that if something like build saving was a priority it would have been done. I can think of very few scenarios that say otherwise.

It’s called an educated guess. Asking people to stop drawing conclusions is like asking people to stop breathing.

It’s not going to happen.

Message Body length must at least be 15.

Vayne.8563:

Sometimes you can listen to a company for a long time and draw certain conclusions. They may not be the correct conclusion but I think it’s pretty obvious that if something like build saving was a priority it would have been done. I can think of very few scenarios that say otherwise.

It’s called an educated guess. Asking people to stop drawing conclusions is like asking people to stop breathing.

It’s not going to happen.

Agreed. And people will be people and like making predictions. It also makes for lively discussion which all goes to show we care about the game. If we didn’t, we should go away and play something else.

I understand why people make guesses, but OP has a point:
People should stop posting their (more or less) educated guesses as if they were facts directly confirmed by ANet. Other people tend to pick these guesses up and spread them as perceived fact. Of course ANet not clearing up such misunderstandings plays a part, too.

Example: There was a rumor that ANet doesn’t allow blocking the husks at triple trouble. I’ve asked many people and they all told me, that this was stated directly by ANet. However no one could give me a source. Years later, after wary players posted many threads, ANet finally cleared things up. Source

to OP, predictions even before know name of epansions:

I predicted HoT increase conditions
I predicted the nerf to make new specs mandatory (as in the new power creep level)
I predited DH
I predicted the new Revenant with static spirits
I predicted more shiny graphics with more condi spam for PoF

Why???

its easy to read the errors between lines from ANet, these guys arent good with their game innovation as they say

I can predict as well my future ban from this game

I think some people stop reading after they are done with the title, so I added a tl;dr to the end of my post for convenience.

And, sometimes, players give those reasons because the Devs have actually stated that that is why these features aren’t forthcoming. As in the case of splitting up Outfits into separate pieces. Or, allowing Weapons/Backpacks to be dyed. Sometimes, players/posters just don’t have the Dev quotes readily at hand.

On the other hand, sometimes players say rumors or speculation enough times, that it seems to become ‘fact’, as in the case of ArenaNet supposedly stating they would never offer Mounts. Which was untrue; they stated Mounts would not be offered at (GW2) launch, and didn’t discuss the option, again. And now, here we are.

Thus, one must examine each rumor/‘fact’/suggestion/opposition separately, as a blanket statement won’t cover them all.

Good luck.

I kind of agree with Faaris. But it’s not realistic to expect people to think too objectively about anything in this forum. People like the game and are generally biased to the game and any part of it.

It’s easier to rationalize that a part is too hard to change than to accept that it may not all be rose coloured.

I usually try to ignore the limitations of the systems and ArenaNet so I can think creatively about solutions to perceived problems that on the other hand I know are really hard to solve regardless of whether they actually affect me personally. (They rarely do)

I could joining in in pointing out the obvious that changes arent probable. I could even defend ArenaNets decisions every single time easily. But that feels too easy. Its much more interesting to think sceptical and challenge the system that is there. The game wont become better by suggesting the easy way, but challenging the existing conventions.

The thing is, we aren’t the cheering section yelling Go Team! for each suggestion. What this is is the suggestion and discussion forum. Part of discussion is pointing out flaws and problems with suggestions. If the weak points are pointed out then the discussion can work on fixing the problems, making them stronger and more likely to be considered by the Devs.

And then there are the people that suggest something that requires a complete remake of the game or that the Devs have already said is costly. It’s part of the discussion to point out that what the person wants is costly from known information and how these costs could impact the game. Discussions of possible consequences are a valid part of the examination of any suggestion.

I completely agree with the OP. On this forum, some persons are posting their personal thoughts, suggestions or simply what they found in the game and seems as a bug / glitch etc. Sometimes they express they feelings regarding ANet decisions.

Some persons instead posts on this forum in such a manner that makes the others think an ANet spokesperson is posting. If true, it may be correct to sign this kind of posts with ANet name.

“This is likely on the bottom of Anet’s list of priorities right now.” – well, we know this very well. And this is the reason the suggestions appears. To signal ANet that the players have different priorities. ANet can chose to ignore the signal, of course. But they stated once that they learned the lesson. (the lesson of HoT, when the players were completely ignored in favor of some obscure commercial schemes). So, the statement “This is likely on the bottom of Anet’s list of priorities right now.” cannot be an argument. I can see it as an assessment of ANet position in that moment. I expect the users of this kind of assessment to develop the post – with some arguments and suggestions of how to change this. Or if the suggestion debated is not agreed to tell why. Any statement involving ANet is not valid if not coming from ANet.

How we know that even the lowest priority can become a higher priority if properly signaled and demanded by the players? Look at the WvW and PvP armors (stat changeable) – the initial ANet position was that no other armor of this kind will be in the game. Look at the mounts – no mounts ever was the initial attitude. And so on.

So, again – I completely agree with the OP. Such kind of statements makes a deservice to the entire community. If this kind of statements don’t come from an ANet representative, that means it can be a wrong opinion. And the difference between this kind of statements and an opinion coming from a player regarding the game is that the player can be wrong regarding a bug in the game. Or demanding too much regarding a certain aspect (graphics / accessibility etc). This is what we should debate. But a statement implying ANet (Anet time / Anet priorities / ANet workforce distribution on projects / ANet funds ? dedicated to one project) can be wrong also and this can make a lot of players to lose their confidence in ANet.

Well, you can also point out positive points as well as negative points of suggestions. That what I meant with “kind of”. Pointing out the flaws is just as necessary as taking complaints “seriously”. The discussions get quite polarized because people nitpick over word choice.

When someone says it’s “Literally impossible to do X” I never think, yeah it is literally impossible. And more, why does he think that it is and what might be the problems and how can those be solved. The discussion usually turns to why it isn’t impossible for at least the first few pages, rather than addressing possible problems.

Like this thread appeals to stop making predictions… But that’s not really realistic, nor productive even. But I do see that alot of the pointing out the weaknesses do make it feel alot of suggestions are dismissed because of that. I see this more as an appeal to think about what the good parts of the suggestions are, as well as the negative points.

Basically, be constructive with feedback on suggestions from players. (And not just the changes Arenanet makes)

But they stated once that they learned the lesson. (the lesson of HoT, when the players were completely ignored in favor of some obscure commercial schemes).

And yet, this is not a statement that ArenaNet made, but a statement taken from an NCSoft quaterly report meeting.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

I understand why people make guesses, but OP has a point:
People should stop posting their (more or less) educated guesses as if they were facts directly confirmed by ANet. Other people tend to pick these guesses up and spread them as perceived fact.

Extrapolation of data is fine. Where the problem occurs is the latter statement. That is where we get unnecessary hype or echo-chambers and assumptions become “fact”.
People need to learn the difference between fact, opinion, and the fuzzy intersection known as a guess.

My biggest issue is with spoilers..

Lets be honest here a ton of so called story predictions about the end of LW3 and the expansion are far too accurate and completely came out of nowhere..

Balthazar being Lazarus.. despite absolutely no evidence to even hint at that.. not to mention Livia coming out of nowhere..

These sorts of predictions are nearly impossible without some kind of preconceived knowledge that these story points were even on the table..

There was a huge leak a while back not only for the expansion but also the end of the living world.. and I for one am convinced that all these ridiculously accurate predictions stemmed from those leaks and not so called educated guesses like some would claim.. and a good deal of it was spread by people who just wanted to either spoil upcoming content or make themselves look good..

For the most part this already spoiled the LW3 finale episode and the surprise of the expansion, it’s setting, features and it’s basic story direction..

As a longtime fan of this franchise to say I’m annoyed is an understatement.. and I encourage Anet to not just clamp down on the leaks but actively perma ban people’s accounts from the game for even discussing them on any official Gw2 sources..

I know people will rag on about social media and youtube for that but they are not the only ones at fault..
I’ve seen multiple groups of people in game.. talking about this crap right in the local map chat on multiple occasions..

This needs to stop.. and Anet need to make it clear that they will not tolerate people spoiling upcoming content for others.

Faaris.8013:

tl;dr: claiming you know how Anet operates and what their priorities are and dismissing peoples’ suggestions and ideas adds no value and harms the discussion. Please don’t do it.

I will repeat things that ANet has said (sometimes quoting, sometimes paraphrasing). I will also add my own interpretations of the business realities.

And I will also offer my opinion about the proposed idea. And I’ll offer my opinion about whether I prefer this idea over 1000s of other ideas proposed on the forums.

Can the OP explain how any of that is unreasonable?

For example, ANet has said that making LS1 repeatable is not a priority; I’ve have posted specific quotes from them about it as well as paraphrased. I have also said I’d love to replay it, if it’s done well.