Guild Wars 2

1) Yes. Points should be kept short and to the point.
2) I’m not sure here as if by votes we might end up with flying mounts and if via Anet the community might feel ignored. Maybe a balance of the two?

In response to questions…

1.) I do not think putting limits on words of posts would be wise. This is a discussion after all, and sometimes ideas and critiques cannot be summarized in a few lines or paragraphs. Sometimes, detailed examples or explanations are needed to convey a complex point. Of course, this differs among people. I guess the overall suggestion is to keep posts clear and concise, and if needed, provide an example to supplement your point.

2.)
By votes (not sure how we can implement a polling system since it’s not allowed here).

When questions are managed by the panel, it leads to bias. You end up with questions that many people may not have been wondering, while the real questions that the community wishes to be answered (that have not been answered previously) end up being ignored (Such as my quest to get a response on why we still have DR in this game)

On the flip side, minority topics which may really interest certain parties will never see the light of day. For example, I’m sure Living Story/WvW/PvE trump most people’s minds on these forums. But topics such as API development/Lore will never reach the top of polls.

I think instead of having an either/or, we have an alternation of both. I.e. CDI 1 will be voted upon by the community, while CDI 2 will be pushed by Anet, and back and forth.

1. I think word limits on posts would be useful for me, if not, a requirement for a tl;dr. It’s tough to read through massive blocks of text.

2.It would be nice to have you, or other developers, decide on what they want to talk about, because that way our suggestions have a better chance of being considered, as it is on a topic that interests you and the devs.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

1: as much as I like posting walls of text that requires peope to hire a sherpa and buy some oxygen tanks, just so they can read it through to the end…….it definitely doesn’t make it very accessible. There are always posts that say “I haven’t read everything yet”, then we get duplicate posts saying the same things even though we might have already ground that topic into dust and moved on. The giant length of the posts is definitely one of the causes (also the several thousand replies that you have to read through). I have no solution for this one. I’ll leave it for other people…

2: Combination of the two? Anet chooses a few that they think would get the most feedback and make the most sense for the game, then asks us which one we want to do next, and we vote?

That way, we don’t get an entire CDI on flying mounts that make no sense in a game like this.

Would the size of the posts be limited by some technical aspect of the forum or by the ability of the poster to keep it short?

1. Forum limited: would make it mandatory
2. User limited: would make it doubtful

Speaking as one who tends to make lengthy posts in these things I would find it difficult to get my full idea across(as you are probably already painfully aware)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Seriously? I mean to both questions.

1) I think a word limit would work quite well. It’s demotivating to have to read through thousands of words to keep up.
Keep it short and concise, maybe with a short headline – which would also make it easier to make the summaries.
Whoever posts an idea first, could possibly make a separate thread about that suggestion, and put a link to it in his/her post in the CDI, and people could go to that thread to discuss that idea specifically.

2) I think a mix of the two could be used.
Either Anet could put forward a list of things they think needs discussing, and then we could vote which one we would like to talk about first.
Or we could “vote” which things we want changes in, and Anet could pick from the most wanted things.

Maybe the Devs could post a list of topics they would be interested in hearing feedback about, and the community could then vote on those topics. I agree it might be pointless to discuss a topic that has little to no chance of ever, or in the foreseeable future, being implemented or impacted.

As for the thread itself, I have no ideas how to make it more readable and/or more easily engaged with. It explodes beyond being able to keep up with within the first day, it seems. Even the summaries are too large…too many links, too much information to digest, too much time is required to stay abreast of what the current sub-topic of the thread is. The only thing that seems to ‘restart’ the discussions within the thread are Dev posts.

Good to see you, again, Chris. =)

1. I think there should probably be a limit on the amount of words in the posts.

2. I also think the topics should be decided by community vote rather than Anet telling us we should think is important

Thanks for your time!

1. tl;dr for long posts would be more helpful than a word limit. If a word limit was imposed, people will just break their posts up into multiple posts to get around it. Making what they’re trying to say that much harder to understand since others may post while they’re posting their 2 or 3 other parts of what they have to say.

Plus, it will make the summarizing of them easier.

2. A bit of both. I like Vol’s suggestion of one CDI being community chosen via voting and the next being ANet chosen, then the next being community chosen and so on and so forth. That way ANet can get a feel for what we want and ANet can get input on things they’re considering changing.

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

Like that will work. I personally don’t have a problem with a single lengthy post, I have a problem that the same people post shorter messages all day long and steer the whole conversation in a way they want it, making it that other issues cannot properly be discussed. Maybe a limit on the amount of posts per week per person.

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

I’d like to see a vote system INSIDE THE GAME. Cause the forum is such a small section of the playerbase.

Chris, even more so than the two elements you’ve presented, I feel the CDI could benefit from being isolated from the forums.

The limited structure of the forums is not very conducive to large roundtable discussion amongst a large group of people. Even more importantly, it’s not ideal when a sub-topic arises or the focus of the conversation changes between parties.

For the long-term growth of the CDI, perhaps something like a collaboration site, or user storyboards would make not only Player to Dev interfacing easier, but also Player to Player interfacing. TBH, some of our best ideas and proposals have come from a handful of people discussing ideas left and right, with minimal interjection from Arenanet. Perhaps using an open-source user storyboard could allow players to track their favorite users more efficiently and allow everyone to source their ideas into categories, which can then be tied back into the overall focus of the CDI discussion at the time.

On that note, perhaps a structure for discussion, proposals, or user stories could help keep suggestions more concise and less lengthy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story

As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

Example below

As a PvEr, I want stronger Dungeons so that groups can be challenged more and more cool rewards can be added to the game.

^ Basic User story. From here, can expand into discussion or proposals to achieve user story.

I have long proffered the idea that there needs to be a more concerted effort in acknowledging and identifying the ideas that the community puts forth. This whole CDI program fits the mold, but it has not yet spilled over to other parts of the forums.

Case in Point: about 21/2 months ago in the bug thread, an Anet employee responded to a pretty important bug, Slaying Potion cause you to take 10% more damage, rather than 10% less as stated in the description. The Anet employee stated he would post to the forum after he checked to see if this was a bug, and when we could expect a fix. He was transferred to a new position the next day, and never responded. The bug has not been acknowledged by anyone since because they see the red post marker, and they think someone else is handling that bug.

As a Customer Service professional for years, there are clearly huge gaps in what the community thinks is important getting recognized, and what the Anet team recognizes. Just a simple, "we are aware " and then responding with a clear and concerted response of either “a bug, we will get to it sometime” or not a bug, wording fix coming", would allow Anet to seem connected in some way. Two and 1/2 months of no response makes it feel like you are not even looking at the threads. That said, I think it is necessary to assign a small group of people to track and disseminate to the Anet team the scores of problems, and then have that person act as a communicator in responding to said reports.
In the CDI, I understand that you are formulating your ideas, and it is better to be closer to the talking points. In the case of Bug Threads, Skill threads, discussion threads, and the like, a more collective effort with collective response is needed.
Just as Gaile handles the community for complaints, there needs to be someone for bugs, discussion and other threads as well to condense, mitigate and respond to every thread. I also understand that that is in a perfect world, but IMHO, you are not moving in that direction, and that causes the derision in the forums over how Anet seems to not think that a response is necessary.
My idea in a nutshell, get someone to note and respond to all bugs reported on a daily basis, hire a communication specialist to make sure that it goes correctly to repair and improve your reputation.

One other point, if I may…

The summaries have, seemingly, mostly been a list of links to people’s ideas. That isn’t a summary that I find useful, or what I was expecting. I thought the summary would be more of a TLDR of the main topics being discussed. It takes almost as much time to follow the links and read the long posts, as trying to keep up with the thread.

I do acknowledge all the hard work by those that collated the information and posted the links, and I thank them for their hard work. It just wasn’t as helpful as I was hoping a summary for the CDI threads would be.

1) There’s no need to place an arbitrary word count limit on concise, informative posts.

2) A voting system seems like unnecessary ‘bureaucracy’ (for lack of a better term). You guys can just base the topics on what players seem to be interested in. If one topic doesn’t generate much interest, then go another direction for the next topic.

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
Post length is OK, however the community should learn how to make efficient contributions.

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?
Using the in-game poll system you had in the BETA. Let the player base decides and not the small forum active players. By using the in-game beta polls you would also encourage players to go to the forums if the selected topic is amongst their interests.

Essence Snow.3194:

1) Yes. Points should be kept short and to the point.
2) I’m not sure here as if by votes we might end up with flying mounts and if via Anet the community might feel ignored. Maybe a balance of the two?

1) There shouldn’t be a limit, but instead an earlier splitting off of “Hot Topics”.
When you see, that out of the CDI is crystallizing itself a new discussion specificly around 1 made idea/proposal and that discussion raises in its size very quickly to the point, that it draws all the attention out of the original thread’s topic, then open up a new official CDI thread for this Hot Topic.

Example: The Horizontal Progression Thread had basically 2 very big Hot Topics.
Housing and Sub Classes. 8howeve,r the last one already will get later its own topic, so much is already sure)

The original thread would have been much clearer and smaller, if the Devs would have reacted earlier on this way, how the discussion is flowing.
Would they have made for Housing and Sub Classes their own CDI Threads, two very large parts of the discussion would have been shifted over into their own places where people could have discussed further specificly only about these topics.

This would have made the whole discussion for everybody easier to read, without having tons of completely different suggestions and discussions over X other things being mixed together followed later by tons of summary postings so larger the thread became…

2) ANet should choose absolutely. They know best, what of our ideas are even feasible and which not. You can’t say, that we get ignored, if they choose out a topic from a gargantuan list of topics, that we have discussed together

And even if they would choose as next CDI the topic about Mounts, then you would have to accept that! Completely regardless of what you personally think about that topic, if you like it or not. Especially if a topic like this would come out of a Player Voting, this would show even more that behind this topic stat alot of people, which like this feature, when a feature like Mounts would win a Voting (not to mention the constant creation of threads about them would be already more than enough to show anet, that there are already alot of people, who do like them)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: More Focused Topics! (Done!)

I think that this could still use some work. If not in the boundaries of the original topic, then perhaps in the way the topic moves forward. The character progression topic had a lot of subtopics that came up several times. This made it difficult to check what had been said about a given subtopic so far.

I do not have a good solution for this yet, but it is still a problem.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: Build out more time for Devs to engage (This is already in progress)

Good, we could use more time for devs. (The well-deserved vacation clearly showed and lead to frustration for some)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

3: Thread owner to post a summary every three pages (The community did awesome here, but I want to build out more time to do this)

Allright, ideas? Because it’ll be really tough to keep up with a three page guideline.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

4: Post writers should aim to be concise and to the point using examples where necessary. (We need to improve here)

Do you mean that there are not enough examples or too many?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two areas I think we need to work out or improve on are:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

There is already a limit per post and it is countered by writing multiple posts in a row. I don’t know how effective an artificial limit is. Perhaps a ‘Please keep the readers in mind!’ – kind of post every now and then would help though.

The risk of only allowing short posts is that there is no room for the nuances and we’ll get stuck in generalisations. Posters had very different ideas about subclasses for example. But this only showed clearly in their more lengthy posts.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

I believe we could take turns? If we only go by votes the CDI may not always be the most easy to act upon for arenanet, but if we only go by arenanets choices, we may never get the discussion topics many of us are so eager to see.

In the end leaving it all up to arenanet wouldn’t work. If the community is eager to talk about dungeons and arenanet has other things on the agenda like gemstore changes… they may not get a good view of what the community is asking for. So a vote every now and then is in my opinion necessary. But when arenanet requires community input, the CDI is an awesome way to get some. So… a mix!

It is your turn arenanet!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

Pick narrower topics. “Horizontal vs. Vertical Progression” is almost as broad as you can get. When you pick broad topics like this it eats up developer time and poster time just trying to catch up with the thread and it discourages posters from posting.
You’re also getting feedback from a narrower group of people who have the time to read the posts and get caught up, and who also post actively (hence making the thread longer and contributing to the problem).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: More Focused Topics! (Done!)

I would argue this wasn’t accomplished the Horizontal/Vertical progression threads. You changed the community chosen subject —Ascended Gear-- to progression in general.

1) wordlimits are good on one side, because it forces the people to say, what needs to be said and nothing more. But, you want feedback, so listen to everything everyone wants to say. I know, this takes time, but its for the best of GW2.

2) We have alot of topics that werent discussed, since the last vote. Maybe a vote on which of the missing ones should be first, or atleast do the next 3 and then vote.
I dont think that all those votings and things help in the end, we need results at some issues, (condition damage, class balance, AI). I know, they cant be fixed in one day, but building the way where GW2 leads to, is good to know.

And when the topic is choosen, take small steps (for example class balance, do one class after another for max. 3day each), let us know, how you see those things ( for example whats the “role/meaning” of every class) and what technical limitations are there (condition cap). There are some points, we discuss and everyone shouts “do this and that” but in the end, its not possible.

Maybe even start suveys at some points, where you not 100% sure, if it would be good or not.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

1. Maybe break the CDI in to two separate topics a proposal stage where people can suggest their improvements without discussion, followed by voting and then a separate topic discussing the merits and drawbacks.
A forum poll ability would really assist in that regard.

2. By voting would be best with special cases deemed urgent been given a CDI sooner than non-critical/ long term aspects.
Example: The running of the Gem store is causing some major contention right now and would be something so get a topic on to agree lines and limits as to what is and is not ok.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two areas I think we need to work out or improve on are:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

Though I don’t like reading 5 posts for one idea by one poster, I can’t see how limitations like this will be successful.

I do like the idea, maybe encourage more “elevator pitches”, but I just can’t find a constructive way to help with this.

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

ANet should choose a small collection of topics they feel ready to tackle and we vote on the winner. We discuss the winning topic, put it to bed, and then take on a brand new topic.

Maybe the solution to both of these questions is really an issue of platform rather than anything else. Forums are definitely good for fostering discussion, but might not be so good for this in-depth of a collaboration effort.

It would be cool if there was a page (outside the forums) where we could post suggestions (word limited) and be able to up/down vote. From there, the GW2 team could take the top up voted suggestions or others of interest and do shorter CDI runs on the forum, again with a limit. Personally, I didn’t participate in any of the CDIs so far because whenever I tried to check it out it all looked a little… eh, you know what I mean!

If you had a separate page with up/down votes, it would be easy to see what has already been suggested too, I know there were a lot of repeats in the CDI threads now and then.

If not that, make a page that just gets updated so we don’t have to fish through the thread to find the summary!

Appreciate all the work you guys are doing.

1. I think that a size limit would not have any advantage. If long winded posters don’t say what they want within their allotment, they will continue on another post. Also if you want examples, these may require more space.

2. Someone above suggested a combination that I like. ANet suggests a list of topics that will help improve and move the game forward. The community votes on which topic it will be. Again, echoing others, less flying mount CDI topics this way.

1. I don’t think you should limit people like that. Let them express themselves freely and in any creative way they want. However, do suggest them to add tl;dr version.

2. I think few favourite posts should first be chosen by community (voting) and then the others by Anet.

1. I don’t think a limit on sizes of posts is a good thing— however, I would not mind requiring players with long posts to have a summary portion (TL;DR) in their first or last post.

2. I think letting players choose a broad topic at first is the best idea, followed by both ANet and players dividing it into specific issues for discussion every so often.

I really appreciate the CDI threads, and hope we will be seeing some of the ideas here implemented in the future.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As a note. The two topics were separate and discussed as separate entities.

Chris

Yes, but even after they were split in half they were still too broad. The more gameplay systems a CDI touches upon the more there is for posters to brainstorm on and post about. Horizontal and Vertical progression both cover most of the game.

J Season.9156:

Maybe the solution to both of these questions is really an issue of platform rather than anything else. Forums are definitely good for fostering discussion, but might not be so good for this in-depth of a collaboration effort.

It would be cool if there was a page (outside the forums) where we could post suggestions (word limited) and be able to up/down vote. From there, the GW2 team could take the top up voted suggestions or others of interest and do shorter CDI runs on the forum, again with a limit. Personally, I didn’t participate in any of the CDIs so far because whenever I tried to check it out it all looked a little… eh, you know what I mean!

If you had a separate page with up/down votes, it would be easy to see what has already been suggested too, I know there were a lot of repeats in the CDI threads now and then.

If not that, make a page that just gets updated so we don’t have to fish through the thread to find the summary!

Appreciate all the work you guys are doing.

This format already exists somewhat in the form of reddit, it really helps being able to comment on a comment and have branching discussions. Along with voting so instead of repeated suggestions there can be more focused discussions on really good ones.

I personally haven’t participated in the CDI’s because the huge wall of text is so burdensome to get through.

1. I agree with Vol up above. Limitations on the comments would be bad as it is about discussion, and I’ve seen many extremely well written posts that take up more than the standard limitations.

2. Only the ones I choose (well, you did ask).
Ok ok.. realistically, I think the topics should be chosen by the players, but Areannet needs to step up to the plate and drop in-game surveys on people. Even if it’s as small as an e-mail saying “we’re making changes, make your voice heard. See the CDI call for topics thread on the Official GW2 Forum, and make your opinion known!”.
All to often MMO’s are derailed by the minority that participate in the forums. People pay to play a game, not participate on forums, so they are not often inclined to ever even sign in on the website.

Everything can be said that needs to be said in smaller posts. Put a cap on post length and people will chose words more wisely and stay on topic.

People tend to write walls of text and say absolutely nothing. It is like people who talk just to talk, but they write just to write.

The last couple CDIs, to me, felt like they drug on past their intended shelf lives. While there was a ton of good stuff in them in the early pages towards the deeper pages they seemed to shift into just a general, drifting rambling. Perhaps there needs to come sooner the time when it’s noticed that an individual thread is becoming crushed by it’s own weight, at which a handful of ideas and concepts from that thread can be taken out and given distinct threads of their very own.

For example in the horizontal thread there was the idea of ascended gear being given the ability to modify the stats on it due to the cost of a single set. That idea itself could have spawned out into a unique thread that maybe wouldn’t have lasted more than a handful of pages but would have been focused and less… wandering.

In a nutshell, possibly spawn sub-threads for specific ideas that can generate a lot of discussion so as to prevent the main thread from getting bogged down.

An idea could be to modify the forum structure such that there’s a Guild Wars 2 > Forums > Game Discussion > CDI > section itself which would allow for main threads, sub threads etc in a neat, organized place and you’d reduce the possible clutter in General Discussion if sub-threads actually were implemented.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

1. I think a word limit would just lead to multi-posts. I think we need to come up with a format to present ideas. How do you present ideas internally? If we could mimic your internal documentation I think it would make it easier put the ideas we have on your table in a form you are used to.

2. Can we take turns?

I see alot of people saying it will do no good to limit how much people can write in their suggestions, both because sometimes you need more room to explain something, and because some people will simply just make several posts at once, as we saw in the horizontal CDI.

Couldn’t it be a solution, if we decided on a specific form for the suggestions. Like a template.
It could be something like this:

Headline
Short description of the suggestion.
Short example if needed.
Link to external thread for more indepth explanation and/or discussion of the suggestion.

This way, everyone can catch the attention of the others without making the CDI thread a massive wall of text page after page.
I think this will also make it more likely that the more “casual” forum readers might join in on the CDI, if they don’t have to read through 50+ pages to check if their idea has already been suggested.

In short: Keep the CDI posts short (like a teaser) and put the specific discussions in other threads.

First i would said there should be a special section of the forum for the CDI. That would made the threads easy to find and easier to manage.

Thread size: i think the best way to manage it would be to pick a general topic, then let people give general ideas. Then the managers can select the ones they think are more viable or are more interesting to talk about and can make a specific thread for each of those ideas.

For example, in the previous CDI we had ideas about Quest Orders, Wardrobe, Housing, etc. Then a thread about each of those things could be created.

This would make the size more managable but would increase the amount of threads the staff should check.

Word Limit: i think that put a limit isnt the best thing to do. Since many times we are asked to give more details about an idea.

Ideas:

-Ask for a summary at the start of a long post. This way one can see the main ideas.
-Or keep the posts short in a main thread and let people extpand in sub-threads (like the horizontal and vertical progression ones).
-Or keep the posts short unless the manager ask to expand about a specific idea.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Welcome back.

The two areas I think we need to work out or improve on are:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?

No.

(If only all answers could be so brief )

The longest responses already circumvent the size limits of the boards by multiple posting. Now you might engage in more active moderation by simply deleting anything past the first post-in-a-series as a way of encouraging brevity, but I think the issue ultimately is the threads are open too long. The problem is more the accumulated volume rather than any one poster’s enthusiasm, and as the CDIs get more established you have to expect more people will participate and they will grow in length even faster than they do now. Total length is the barrier to involvement.

Its also been suggested limiting the number of posts per player over a period of time. I think that’s a play environment that heavily discourages active discussion – the “dropping off my proposal and never coming back” sort is totally unaffected, while people committed to the process of discussion are weighing “do I talk to a fellow player about his ideas or save my handful of responses for my own ideas?”

I will mention I was on 600 second flood control for a while during the last two threads. That certainly inspired a little bit of extra consideration of my once per 10 minutes opportunities, and there was no chance I’d be stringing a series of posts together. Everything had to fit in the limits of a single post. I don’t know if you can set flood control on a per-thread basis instead of per-user, but you might ask the techies about it.

2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

My impression is that when a CDI topic or branch of the discussion overlaps with something going on in the offices already, those are the moments we have the greatest chance of making a difference, having an impact. Those kind of tangible results are going to be the best chance for the CDIs to prove their value to players rather than come off as a bit of PR handholding. We’ve had them by chance, so maybe it’s not an issue, but I think those opportunities can be better orchestrated by the Devs pushing forward topics on which they can actually take action in a timely fashion.

That said, ArenaNet really needs to work on some sort of voluntary polling/survey system so they can be better in tune with the pulse of their audience. Consider a weekly brief survey that credits your account with 5 gems or something. Fill out 5 surveys and get a black Lion Key mailed to your account. People want to tell you about their experience, more than just those of us on the boards. Gathering information like that could help you choose your CDI topics in a way that reassures people that their concerns outside the pet-project of the month have been heard.

I honestly don’t have time to weed through walls of text that to find the whole point of the post which is generally one or 2 sentences surrounded by 2 paragraphs of anything but.

Sins.4782:

1. I don’t think a limit on sizes of posts is a good thing— however, I would not mind requiring players with long posts to have a summary portion (TL;DR) in their first or last post.

2. I think letting players choose a broad topic at first is the best idea, followed by both ANet and players dividing it into specific issues for discussion every so often.

I really appreciate the CDI threads, and hope we will be seeing some of the ideas here implemented in the future.

I agree. Is like in the articles, you can put key words at the start, then a summary and then the wall of text. That way people can read something short and decide if they want to read all or just stay with that. It also make it easier to make general summaries, know how many posted about a specific idea, etc.

Warlord.9074:

Everything can be said that needs to be said in smaller posts. Put a cap on post length and people will chose words more wisely and stay on topic.

People tend to write walls of text and say absolutely nothing. It is like people who talk just to talk, but they write just to write.

Thats not correct. It leads only to the point that people will start to make much more double, triple and quadruple postings if its needed to post something as clear as possible in one go.
A posting length limit will change nothing

Orpheal.8263:

1) There shouldn’t be a limit, but instead an earlier splitting off of “Hot Topics”.
When you see, that out of the CDI is crystallizing itself a new discussion specificly around 1 made idea/proposal and that discussion raises in its size very quickly to the point, that it draws all the attention out of the original thread’s topic, then open up a new official CDI thread for this Hot Topic.

Example: The Horizontal Progression Thread had basically 2 very big Hot Topics.
Housing and Sub Classes. 8howeve,r the last one already will get later its own topic, so much is already sure)

The original thread would have been much clearer and smaller, if the Devs would have reacted earlier on this way, how the discussion is flowing.
Would they have made for Housing and Sub Classes their own CDI Threads, two very large parts of the discussion would have been shifted over into their own places where people could have discussed further specificly only about these topics.

This would have made the whole discussion for everybody easier to read, without having tons of completely different suggestions and discussions over X other things being mixed together followed later by tons of summary postings so larger the thread became…

2) ANet should choose absolutely. They know best, what of our ideas are even feasible and which not. You can’t say, that we get ignored, if they choose out a topic from a gargantuan list of topics, that we have discussed together

And even if they would choose as next CDI the topic about Mounts, then you would have to accept that! Completely regardless of what you personally think about that topic, if you like it or not. Especially if a topic like this would come out of a Player Voting, this would show even more that behind this topic stat alot of people, which like this feature, when a feature like Mounts would win a Voting (not to mention the constant creation of threads about them would be already more than enough to show anet, that there are already alot of people, who do like them)

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

They can even be sticked at the top of the main thread

A TL;DR would also be helpful- more so than limiting the word count

2) I like Vol’s idea here were we alternate between player chosen concerns and things the Anet team would like to discuss
Alternatively Anet should just decide what they would like player input on

Tbh the CDI really ought to have its own sub forum.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Regarding:

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

Would the expectation be that the split topics are parked and then tackled in order or that they are running together. Because if it is the latter then I can say without question that I personally wouldn’t have time to engage appropriately on more than one thread at a time.

Chris

If the CDIs had their own dedicated forum section and the threads could only be created by yourself and other ANet employees there wouldn’t be an issue with this I think, would there? Spawn out sub-threads based on what comes up in the CDI (if worthy) and you’d have time at your leisure to go over them, plus with control over thread creation you could easily keep the section from becoming a jumbled mess.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morrigan.2809:

Orpheal.8263:

1) There shouldn’t be a limit, but instead an earlier splitting off of “Hot Topics”.
When you see, that out of the CDI is crystallizing itself a new discussion specificly around 1 made idea/proposal and that discussion raises in its size very quickly to the point, that it draws all the attention out of the original thread’s topic, then open up a new official CDI thread for this Hot Topic.

Example: The Horizontal Progression Thread had basically 2 very big Hot Topics.
Housing and Sub Classes. 8howeve,r the last one already will get later its own topic, so much is already sure)

The original thread would have been much clearer and smaller, if the Devs would have reacted earlier on this way, how the discussion is flowing.
Would they have made for Housing and Sub Classes their own CDI Threads, two very large parts of the discussion would have been shifted over into their own places where people could have discussed further specificly only about these topics.

This would have made the whole discussion for everybody easier to read, without having tons of completely different suggestions and discussions over X other things being mixed together followed later by tons of summary postings so larger the thread became…

2) ANet should choose absolutely. They know best, what of our ideas are even feasible and which not. You can’t say, that we get ignored, if they choose out a topic from a gargantuan list of topics, that we have discussed together

And even if they would choose as next CDI the topic about Mounts, then you would have to accept that! Completely regardless of what you personally think about that topic, if you like it or not. Especially if a topic like this would come out of a Player Voting, this would show even more that behind this topic stat alot of people, which like this feature, when a feature like Mounts would win a Voting (not to mention the constant creation of threads about them would be already more than enough to show anet, that there are already alot of people, who do like them)

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

They can even be sticked at the top of the main thread

A TL;DR would also be helpful- more so than limiting the word count

2) I like Vol’s idea here were we alternate between player chosen concerns and things the Anet team would like to discuss
Alternatively Anet should just decide what they would like player input on

Regarding:

1)I like this a lot- we can start with a broad topic like Horizontal Development was and as soon as it becomes more focused split it into separate CDI threads.

Would the expectation be that the split topics are parked and then tackled in order or that they are running together. Because if it is the latter then I can say without question that I personally wouldn’t have time to engage appropriately on more than one thread at a time.

Chris

I would be fine with them being handled in order , one after the other.
it does not seem reasonable to expect you to spend all your time reading the forums.

Actually that might make it easier to digest and participate in for everyone concerned

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Tbh the CDI really ought to have its own sub forum.

The suggestions forum was closed because it was moving topics away from the people who needed to see them. We still get “What does CDI even mean?” questions every week. Putting CDIs in a forum where only the well-informed can find them is hiding them from the players they touch on most.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Thanks for your collaboration in both the Vertical and Horizontal progression threads. We had some great conversation, ideation and commentary in both of the threads.

This Process Evolution topic is all about how we can improve our best working practices and processes for the CDI. The results of our last one were as follows:

1: More Focused Topics! (Done!)
2: Build out more time for Devs to engage (This is already in progress)
3: Thread owner to post a summary every three pages (The community did awesome here, but I want to build out more time to do this)
4: Post writers should aim to be concise and to the point using examples where necessary. (We need to improve here)

The focus of the conversation of this topic is therefore on how to improve the CDI and is not about specific areas of the game or features.

The two areas I think we need to work out or improve on are:

1: We need to keep thread and post sizes more manageable. Should we put a limit on the word length of posts?
2: How are we going to chose topics moving forward, for example, by votes or by Anet choosing them etc?

Chris

Post size limits would be a great idea.

Have you considered doing in game email surveys, voting on cdi topics and feedback? The forum can still be the go to place for providing in depth feedback, but it would be nice to at least get a majority vote on important topics. I don’t know about your tech capabilities, but would it be possible to have a simple click box voting survey?

Nike.2631:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Tbh the CDI really ought to have its own sub forum.

The suggestions forum was closed because it was moving topics away from the people who needed to see them. We still get “What does CDI even mean?” questions every week. Putting CDIs in a forum where only the well-informed can find them is hiding them from the players they touch on most.

Not a lot of people wandered about the suggestions forums. However the CDIs generate a ton of interest. A post in General informing people of new topics in the CDI section would go a long ways towards keeping that flowing.