Guild Wars 2

I don’t mean to be a smart kitten or anything, but I was wondering, is complaining like this standard procedure on mmo forums?

I personally think the game is pretty good. I agree it has problems, but it was released 2 months ago, so I’m keeping my hopes up that a lot of them will be fixed.

I was playing in the game and was talking to people in map chat and I caught somebody saying that the only reason people go to the forums is to complain, so I’m kind of curious. Is this true, or are the forums a good way of judging the thoughts of the community as a whole?

It’s pretty common, yes.

Here it might even be more common simply because anyone who bought the Game has lifetime access to the forums.

Yes. In general every game forum is mostly complaints of some kind.

Yes, this one is more heavily moderated vs the avg., so I reckon in your perspective it could have been worse yet.

People don’t often harp on about how great a game is on a forum, its very likely they like it for the same reason the devs expect them to like it for, or just a general consensus among the crowd.

Complaints however, are different. Everyone will think their complaint is slightly more unique than someone elses’ even if they are under the same ‘problem’.

Therefore, there are like 10 complaints vs 1 praise on forums.

Mmo forums are usually a lot worse Anet do a great job in moderating content

kKagari.6804:

People don’t often harp on about how great a game is on a forum, its very likely they like it for the same reason the devs expect them to like it for, or just a general consensus among the crowd.

Complaints however, are different. Everyone will think their complaint is slightly more unique than someone elses’ even if they are under the same ‘problem’.

Therefore, there are like 10 complaints vs 1 praise on forums.

Exactly this. People aren’t very quick to praise, but they are incredibly quick to complain about something they don’t like so you do tend to see much more complaining.

I don’t frequent this place very often, but from what I have seen this one is much better than other MMOs I’ve been apart of.

Yes, until a few months in when all complainers are finally gone complaining into another game’s forum and GW2’s real community remains.

Though I had to say, this is much, much more moderated than any other mmo forum I’ve seen.
It’s a big relief.

More or less just like this. Actually a bit more. This one is more heavily moderated, and the lack of the subscription fee seems to have dialed back the “paying customer” entitlement threads and “I won’t renew my sub” threat threads.

If they didn’t have anything to complain about they’d just be playing the game.

Forums are typically a very vocal (and often polarized) minority of a game’s population. The bigger the population, the worse things get. That said, useful discussion/information is there – it just takes a bit of sifting to find sometimes.

In my experience yes, MMO forums are generally like this. Long lists of complaints, a tone of “how the —-- has this not been fixed yet?!”, and whenever a change is implemented a bunch of complaints about how it’s the wrong change, doesn’t go far enough, and ruins everything.

At least the Players Helping Players forums is usually pretty polite and helpful!

It’s a simple equation why MMO forums are so bad.

Players with an axe to grind, having issues, or just unhappy come on the forum and complain about it. Players who are happy… are too busy playing the game to comment, let alone offer praise.

It’s a pretty small minority (ie me? :p) who come on the forum when all is well

They’re all this negative, yes.

And not even that all of the complaints are unjustified, but form your own opinion, don’t let the forums convince you that you aren’t enjoying yourself.

People generally critic/complain if they want the game to improve, if they don’t they just leave.

the last thing you’d want to do in any mmo is judge how good it is based solely of forum reviews, they all tend to be negative

even on the wow forums people complain about every tiny thing and that is the most successful game in the genre

the only time you could really justify judging an mmo by it’s forums is when the forums are dead empty, that’s usually a sign that there aren’t many players playing the game

Not all MMO forums are quite like this one – for a few weeks after live game release, Guild Wars 2 didn’t even HAVE any official forums. XD

See it this way : the more and bigger forum posts that rage at the game, the devs and the company, the more succesfull the game actually is.

Fun fact : when you read the Anet forums, you’d almost start to believe that GW2 is beyond saving. When you read some forums about GW2 on gaming community site’s, it almost seems to be a gift from heaven. The truth, as always, must lie inbetween.

People complain because they care.

As they say. “You learn more from failure than success.”

If some one doesnt feel like any thing is wrong with the game, but still want to see it imrpove, they will go to the suggestion forum.

the worst thing for a game is to listen to the fan boys that no matter what, say the game is perfect as is, Flaws, bugs, glitches and all and view any change at all bad.

Having managed and moderated many different MMO forums, yes. Every single one of them are like this. The majority are complainers with a few who actually submit constructive criticism and bug reports etc.

It takes a good moderation and community management team to keep the forums civil, otherwise it’s complete and utter chaos. My personal opinion on why such forums are like this, is because those who are actually enjoying the game are either playing it, or lurking on the forums for news on Updates, Events and Hotfixes. The record so far for me seeking the amount of lurkers vs. posters on a forum is 2645 lurkers vs. 80 posters, and those 80 posters have a mouth on them.

This is actually the best MMO forum I’ve seen… well… ever.

Yeah, all MMO forums are filled with whining.

People are not satisfied with anything.

Go see Diablo3 (okay I know it’s not MMO) forum… The game is bad, but the forum is worser.

I also never post any compliment to game but I may post complaints….

The last MMORPG I played was Lord of the Rings Online. While there were some complaints especially when something big failed, the general mood of the boards was playful and positive. I was kind of taken aback by the negativity and abrasive nature on the boards here. If I had read the boards before buying the game, I would not have. The boards give the impression that people just seem very unhappy with large game mechanics (ones that are here to stay). I am not sure if that’s due to the community we have, the state of the game, or both.

Game forums do tend to be skewed towards the negative, but by far the most popular thread I can see in this sub-forum is the “Was the game worth $60?” one, which is almost universally positive.

Yes most forums are like that. Especially the first months after launch are very negative. Usually the loudest complainers and those who want to change the game entirely to suit their needs leave after 2-3 months.

BAMFZILLA.1850:

I don’t mean to be a smart kitten or anything, but I was wondering, is complaining like this standard procedure on mmo forums?

I personally think the game is pretty good. I agree it has problems, but it was released 2 months ago, so I’m keeping my hopes up that a lot of them will be fixed.

I was playing in the game and was talking to people in map chat and I caught somebody saying that the only reason people go to the forums is to complain, so I’m kind of curious. Is this true, or are the forums a good way of judging the thoughts of the community as a whole?

Yes there are only a few civil MMO forums.

I remember the UO forums had so many complainers they made the decision to just shut them down. Didn’t need the hassle of babysitting a bunch of complaining whiners.

Skychok.7854:

That’s quite amusing. You must be new to the internet so let me inform you on a couple of things.

1. ArenaNet does a great job moderating the forums. Personally, I find it refreshing to be able to cycle through the forums and not have to wade through a bunch of trash. That being said, I still see plenty of whining, complaining, and rudeness. They let you speak your mind without it getting out of hand. It keeps things civil and is better for the community.

This right here is rude, insulting and condescending. The very things you posted you don’t like to see. You could have gotten your message across while being polite, you know. As it is though, you’re just a hypocrite.

Back on topic, I don’t get why people see complaints as negative. Complaints are a form of feedback, one that in particular motivates developers to improve the game. Isn’t that a positive thing? I, for one, would like to see the game improved, as I intend to stay here awhile. As far as I’m concerned, keep the ‘whining’ coming, folks. Don’t let the white knights discourage you from posting genuine feedback.

Bubbles, I have no problem with constructive feedback but the posts similar to
“This GaMe sUxOrz, Anet sUxOrz, AnybOdY wHo doSenT agrEe sUxOrz”(being kind here) arent constructive.

complaining about every aspect of the game isnt constructive.

complaining the game isnt GW1.5/GW1 MK2 isnt constructive.

spewing vitriol and hate because a games not what you wanted isnt helpful to anybody.

I see plenty of constructive posts, but they get burried by the “sUxOrz” type posters who just hate the game and for whatever reason cant/wont move on…..

they are lucky im not staff…..honestly i would be on a 3 strikes system, strike3=full account ban….doubt they would spend another 60bucks to troll the forums…..

SW:TOR forums were worse than this actually. I pretty much feared if they kept up that anger and vitriol the fabrics between reality and the Warp would breach and create a rift unleashing the forces of Chaos upon the world.

WoW forums are usually a pool of anger but it’s died down over the years but it was very much the same in the beginning. Rift forums were also rife with controversial debates.

I pretty much think it’s the usual suspects here, inbetween jaded MMO nomads who can’t be stimulated into a positive reaction anymore and people experiencing withdrawals after hype levels in their bloods are dropping you usually have a bunch of constructive posts. Usually your sight may however be clouded at those because of the monsoon of negativity which is blocking your sight.

Bubbles.1047:

Skychok.7854:

That’s quite amusing. You must be new to the internet so let me inform you on a couple of things.

1. ArenaNet does a great job moderating the forums. Personally, I find it refreshing to be able to cycle through the forums and not have to wade through a bunch of trash. That being said, I still see plenty of whining, complaining, and rudeness. They let you speak your mind without it getting out of hand. It keeps things civil and is better for the community.

This right here is rude, insulting and condescending. The very things you posted you don’t like to see. You could have gotten your message across while being polite, you know. As it is though, you’re just a hypocrite.

Back on topic, I don’t get why people see complaints as negative. Complaints are a form of feedback, one that in particular motivates developers to improve the game. Isn’t that a positive thing? I, for one, would like to see the game improved, as I intend to stay here awhile. As far as I’m concerned, keep the ’whining’ coming, folks. Don’t let the white knights discourage you from posting genuine feedback.

Don’t use White Knights or your argument will fall invalid. Try to form an argument without labels, thank you.

As for wanting to make the game better? This is going to be done with time. No MMO game starts out 100% perfect or had things to keep it super amazingly fun for years right off the bat. It gets added eventually.

However, when it comes to ’complaints’ there are many that do NOT help the game whatsoever. There are some complaints that are even illogical. Not all feedback is useful or helpful to the game/community.

I’m sorry, but those that can’t even see a silver lining in the game.. should honestly look for something else. There is no sense in raging and whining, calling out the devs or players simply because the game isn’t exactly your thing. Anyone with an ounce of logic, especially if they’re not liking over 80% of the game, will find something more accommodating. Posts like ’OMG FIX THIS NAO’ are nothing but spam.

Here’s a nice example. Way point Costs in PvE and Repair costs in WvW.

Before i hit 80, I’d hear so many people crying and complaining, demanding something be done about these costs because they were too high. Apparently money was hard to make in PvP and at 80 with all these costs thrown at you.

Yet.. I’ve been 80 for quite some time now, have managed to get all of my exotics, pieces of my cultural set, and still haven’t found issues with making money. I log on, port out to orr and hunt nodes for maybe.. 30 mins- 1 hour at most. Between nodes, I lend quick handss at events and kill things along the way, I make 50s-1g for casual play from selling everything I get to vendors or the TP.

Same with WvW. Attacking, defending, etc I make a ton of money to sustain what I need for my play times. For every time I have to repair my armor from dying, I’ve already made 10-20 silver in turn. Tonight I was just fooling around. Hitting a random node here and there, attacking or defending a random keep here and there, mostly just ganking people that strayed from the zergs. For a couple hours of being LAZY I made 1g 24s, having started at 0 copper. (I put my cash in my bank before every farming).

So no, not all complaints help improve the game. Some, many even, tend to be personal opinions and ’whining’. Anyone with a valid complaint will do it constructively in a neat and tidy post with lengthy reasons and potential solutions. Even better members of the community will add pros and cons to their ideas.

I would like to see more of this and less ’This is stupid. Fix it.’ posts.

@OP

Yes. This is the new normality. if you disagree with the complaints, someone will come along and label you a fanboy. (New Godwin’s Law ;D)

I’ve played one game where the forums weren’t that bad, but that was only because it was a 0 tolerance forum. It was nice, but the company itself grew very corrupt. Since then I’ve played a few other MMO’s and so far most have pretty terrible community members. Be thankful, however. GW2’s forum is probably one of the better moderated forums. The Mods do a good job cleaning up, merging complaints and quelling flame wars; Although at times, they do make mistakes or go a little overboard with the infractions button. lol Overall GW2’s forums are a tad better better than many others out there.

Don’t judge the entire community by the forums, though. In game, most people are pretty nice.

BAMFZILLA.1850:

I don’t mean to be a smart kitten or anything, but I was wondering, is complaining like this standard procedure on mmo forums?

I personally think the game is pretty good. I agree it has problems, but it was released 2 months ago, so I’m keeping my hopes up that a lot of them will be fixed.

I was playing in the game and was talking to people in map chat and I caught somebody saying that the only reason people go to the forums is to complain, so I’m kind of curious. Is this true, or are the forums a good way of judging the thoughts of the community as a whole?

Lord yes, complaining and dissing a game is the common thing on most forums. There’s always a handful of fanbois/Golems from other games who don’t want another game to take the lead over their precious. I call them Golems as well. Poor pitiful lonely creatures who cannot deal with the world and want everyone else to be as miserable as they are. So, they Golem the forums (much like a troll) on a daily basis telling how bad everything is in the game. I never understood why moderators tolerate them and yet punish those that defend the game. They will whine and cry over every little detail they don’t agree with or like.

Not just MMO forums either.

I’ve seen the same with other games, movies, music, even magazine forums. Especially the rediculous "I won’t renew my sub if you don’t bow to my every whim attitude. One forum for a gaming magazine gets that every single month from the same people. If you believe them the magazine has gotten dramatically worse each and every month for the past 5 years or so and every time they say they’re going to cancel their subscription, never buy it again and never come back to the forum, and yet they never seem to follow through.

I’ve seen worst than this Forum.

BlackPaw.5948:

People are not satisfied with anything.

Go see Diablo3 (okay I know it’s not MMO) forum… The game is bad, but the forum is worser.

Not to pick on Black, I also thought D3 could’ve been better, but it was so common to see people rip on that game after having played it for 200 hours or more.

I don’t know what it is, but something about a certain genre of game really brings out the complaints. Toss in internet anonymity plus some weird level of “this game should entertain me for the next 2 years” then throw in “I’m attached to my character class/playstyle” and you get a huge mess of complaints and whining.

You should check Warhammer online forum in the golden days. Flame wars till death. I developed my iron skin there, luckily. This is kinder garden in comparison.

All big MMORPGs is like this yes. Smaller more niché games only have dedicated fans on them. Although they rarely compain about the game there can instead be a huge elitist attitude there.

I don’t understand how the OP can be suprised over this? Look at Football fans. Look at any fans/haters of something.

Forums attract those with legitimate complaints. So, you’re going to get that.

It also attracts those who, when they see people having fun, it eats away at some sad angry core within them, and they come over to kick sand around to try to keep others from having fun. If you can stand the trolling, these people are the most entertaining – spilling their obvious dysfunction on every thread for all the world to see.

kKagari.6804:

People don’t often harp on about how great a game is on a forum, its very likely they like it for the same reason the devs expect them to like it for, or just a general consensus among the crowd.

Complaints however, are different. Everyone will think their complaint is slightly more unique than someone elses’ even if they are under the same ‘problem’.

Therefore, there are like 10 complaints vs 1 praise on forums.

Bingo. For every good deed done a person will tell 1 other person. For every bad deed done they tell 10. Applies in and out of game.

This is mild compared to what I’ve seen on other forums.

Go look at the swtor forums.

Personally I don’t find anything wrong with “negativity” aka criticism on forums. There is always a shift from when everybody is in fanboy mode before an MMO launch and when they become customers.

The larger the player base, the more extreme folks get on the forums to draw attention to their posts. It doesn’t matter that there are already 100 threads on the forums that say exactly what the rabid poster intends to say in his, ahem, constructive criticism, he needs to get attention for his thread. It cuts both ways too – not just the folks criticizing the game, but also the folks scolding the folks for having an opinion different from their own. It’s basically a battle where folks attempt to make their opinion look like it is the majority opinion so that it is somehow better than the opposing opinion.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and sometimes folks get a little cranky when they feel strongly about something. There is plenty of constructive criticism on this forum, but I think some folks don’t really understand how to make their complaints constructive. Here’s a hint – it is never useful to disparage the character of the person you’re trying to help with your constructive criticism.

I really wish the ignore function worked a bit better, but here’s how I cope in the meantime:

• Flag any thread that is yet another complaint about bots. Here’s the summary of the 550+ post sticky thread: We all hate bots. ANet is working on it. It’s a complex problem that takes time to resolve. If you see a bot, report it.
• Ignore any thread that has “devs plz read” or the equivalent in the title
• Flag any thread that “calls out” ANet or complains about the moderation (it’s against the code of conduct).
  • Side note: If you’re getting infracted, maybe you should take it as a hint to re-evaluate your tone. I’ve got an infracted post because I let myself get trolled off-topic – it’s a thump on the back of the head to snap you out of it. Contrary to what some believe, many threads critical of ANet are allowed to run their course as long as folks stay civil.
• Ignore the posts from folks that like to poop on positive threads and ignore anything addressed to “all you negative people” or the equivalent. Both sides of that coin are boring and pointless.
• If some post hits a nerve and makes me really angry, I never, ever, respond to it or flag it. OK, well I try, but I’m not always successful. If I have to, I type out a brilliant response that rips them to shreds, and then cancel the post and try to find a thread with funny screenshots or Logan Thackeray jokes.

The happier players don’t post as much because they’re off playing the game.

You should also consider the mindset of the person writing a complaint. Are they inserting consumer jargon, e.g. “I payed for x product!” Are they writing an exit review for a game with no subscription model? (I wonder if they do the same for Halo) Is the complaint nine pages long? Odds are these complaints are more egocentric than anything.

This forum is actually the most positive I’ve seen in a while. The worst I’ve seen was SWTOR. The game had flaws, but the community was absolutely vile.

Anyway yes, it’s very common.

Actually we tend to complain less on this one because the kittens aren’t hanging around here because they can’t flex their kittens to make themselves feel good
They can try but can’t

When I used to play Starcraft 2, the official forums was total garbage. Everyone was QQing, raging and trolling. But thank goodness for Team Liquid’s forum. If you think the mods here are heavy handed, check out the mods in TL.net.

I actually like how the mods handle this forum. In my experience, I try to stay away from the official forums because of all the QQ and whine-threads. If you want to check other forums, you can go to guildwars2guru.com or reddit.com/r/Guildwars2

This mmo forum is either heavily moderated or really lacks the sheer numbers of complaints you could see in most other mmos.

Sometimes I think I can judge the overall health of a game by its complaints. That said, the more complaints on the forums means that the game is still relevant.

@OP
Like Equanim said, this forum is nothing. ToR has tons of people crying about stupid stuff too. They cried about no content, now they are getting flooded with it along with another patch coming soon with a heavily anticipated new pet to unlock and people complain about that lol. The community in game for ToR is awesome, but the forums are horrible. Most of those people are Tera or GW2 fanbois so they just try to trash the game in hopes people will listen.

The bugs and stuff people complain about there either are non-existent or so trivial and small they just need to complain to complain. At least they don’t have a huge bot problem.

The forums aren’t really a good representation of people’s overall happiness with a game. Admitedly a lot of issues are brought up here which the devs have a chance to respond to.

Sadly there’s also a lot of drama involved. A lot of people seem to think they can get their point across better if they add in things like “THIS GAME IS DYING!” or “THIS ONE SPECIFIC PROBLEM IS THE REASON WHY TENS OF THOUSANDS WILL QUIT WITHIN TWO DAYS!”

And then there’s posts that really don’t contribute at all and their entire purpose is to hate on the game for who knows what reason.

Unfortunately…yes. Most game forums are cesspools of negativity.

Not only MMOs but every game will have its forums flooded with complaints a few weeks/months after release.

You should have seen Skyrim’s forum on release day. I was there since weeks before launch and as soon as the game unlocked on Steam there was nothing but complaints, some valid, some not so much.

I love those “if you don’t change this game NOW to be just like my last MMO, then everyone will leave, the game will die, and life on earth will cease to exist” posts.

Seriously, some people act like their lives depend on enjoying a game.