Guild Wars 2

Fixing bugged forum

Lilith Ajit.6173:

@Nike, I get that. I just feel like (like this morning) this thread had been pushed all the way to the second page, and stickies don’t work all that well, because people not always look at the stickies (see the Dolyak express). So in terms of exposure, the general discussion forum gets so much traffic for other unrelated things that it hinders the visibility by being here.

My opinion of course…

I completely agree the process needs to get better exposure.

I mostly find my way to Dev “hotspots” by using the Dev-Tracker. They tend to revisit places they’ve been recently. Its how I chased down BobbyStein to have a little chat about Player Voice in the Scarlet Climax.

I don’t think having a single “CDI Category/Board” is wrong, I just think that IF doing so pulls the threads out from in front of the faces of casual forum-goers the move is self-defeating. We have a CDI compilation stickied – make its steady maintenance steady for one thing.

And I should have said it earlier when the post was made – having CDI activity (start dates, stop dates, branches opening, whatever) broadcast via the big red announcements at the top of the page we see for things like server updates is a BRILLIANT idea. I think the mere existence of the CDI process needs a blog post linked via the log-in news feed, and I think when the reviews of “How CDI has impacted the new release” is gathered it also needs treatment comparable to the Evon Gnashblade Sales pages – get the word out there that ArenaNet treats players as part of the solution and not just part of the flock.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

@Nike, I get that. I just feel like (like this morning) this thread had been pushed all the way to the second page, and stickies don’t work all that well, because people not always look at the stickies (see the Dolyak express). So in terms of exposure, the general discussion forum gets so much traffic for other unrelated things that it hinders the visibility by being here.

My opinion of course…

I wonder if something as simple as a color change could lessen the sticky effect? Currently, all the stickies are red, so maybe making the Current CDIs blue, would make them stand out? Then, once closed/locked, they could return to red.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- Anymore ideas or thoughts?

Chris

I would introduce a -1 button to the posts. And make the rating of such post visible.

Not that someone suggest a “pink pony post service”, with little pink ponys delivering the ingame masages instead of the carrier pigeon. resulting in a 3 page long conversation…..

CDI should have its own forum like the Suggestions were.
In this way everyone can find it easily and will know what it is about.
So all topics, no matter if they relate to Pvp or Pve will be in the same foum so people can participate in multiple threads at once
threads will be open only by devs

The idea of a kind of standardised input for ideas is great this wil make ideas better to read and propably to remember.

After reading trough 4 pages of ideas it is hard to remember which are good. Could it be possible to have an option in which you flag ideas and after you are done you get a list with the post you like so you can more easily write your feedback.

An other option to help people stay up to date that was mentioned is having the CDI threads opend for 2 or 3 days and close them for 1. I think this is a great idea but maybe it should also be related to the amount of pages. Like the CDI threads are open for 2 days or till 5 pages of suggestions are made. This gives people nice breaks to summarize things for themselves and extra time to think.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Tyops,

Thanks for posting about your concern. Could you clarify what you mean by insular in this case please? This way I can have a better understanding of how to reply to your concern.

Chris

Certainly,

Sorry I couldnt get back to it until now what with being at work. To be perfectly fair I was probably being overly cynical, but part of the concern remains.

I am a habitual lurker in the CDI threads and routine dev-post stalker, and through natural progression it appears to me that the CDI threads have already become quite clique-y. There is a small group of high-volume high-profile poster who tend to discuss more or less only each other’s posts and also tend to draw most of the interaction from devs.

Although this evolved entirely naturally, unless you’re in it, it can make the community appear insular.

Taking it a step further and codifying how this community interacts with a series of semi-arbitrary rules developed by that community can make it appear markedly less accessible to outsiders, lurkers, and other low volume users.

That is largely where my concern resides.

I appreciate the aims of the CDI. I am really looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I feel GW2 is near a tipping point and that many of the enhancements discussed in the horizontal/vertical development threads really really need to happen quite soon. Then I look at how long it’s taking to get the WvW account wide ranks and I am terrified.

edits to fix typos.

Tyops.5894:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Tyops,

Thanks for posting about your concern. Could you clarify what you mean by insular in this case please? This way I can have a better understanding of how to reply to your concern.

Chris

Certainly,

Sorry I couldnt get back to it until now what with being at work. To be perfectly fair I was probably being overly cynical, but part of the concern remains.

I am a habitual lurker in the CDI threads and routine dev-post stalker, and though natural progression it appears to me that the CDI threads have already become quite clique-y. There is a small group of high-volume high-profile poster who tend to discuss more or less only each other’s posts and also tend to draw most of the interaction from devs.

Although this evolved entirely naturally, unless you’re in it, it can make the community appear insular.

Taking it a step further and codifying how this community interacts with a series of semi-arbitrary rules developed by that community can make it appear markedly less accessible to outsiders, lurkers, and other low volume users.

This is a concern of mine as well. I’ve spoken before how it appears some posters get preference, even if it’s warranted, and that sort of interaction is the sort of thing that makes the uninitiated feel left out.

I can understand the desire to codify post structures in ways that will make reading/understanding/responding easier, but that’s a set of hoops that many people will not feel welcomed by. And, of course, if the intent is to have as many people as possible participating then being welcoming is something that should be a very important consideration. Think of a “secret” handshake as an example. You can hand out step by step instructions to all who arrive on how to do the handshake, but simply the fact that you have one can be intimidating. In short, I suppose you could say that codified posting is easier for the reader but harder for the poster so you really need to decide who it is you want these threads geared mostly towards.

Also, I am worried by the amount of tending that these threads will require should we move towards things like tangential posts being moved to their own threads, having multiple related CDIs running all at the same time, checking/removing posts that do not fit the approved formatting, etc. In reality, do any of the forum staff honestly have the time to pick through a 50+ page topic(s) on a minute by minute basis to deal with this sort of organization and moderation? Perhaps I’m wrong, but that sounds like a near full time job all on it’s own. Note as well that the more things get chopped up, moderated and subdivided, again the entire process will be less welcoming to those who aren’t already dedicated and invested.

Feedback on this issues put forth:

1. No! A limit on the amount of text will just frustrate people that have a detailed thing to say, and will just use multiple posts to say their thing… hopefully the community will learn to bullitpoint/tldr their feedback, besides giving the lengthy insight as to why they pose these points. Learning to write good feedback is just that, a learning process.

2. I would suggest taking on the ‘discussion’ format. Meaning that we should alternate the party that puts forth a CDI topic. So one time Anet, one time the community, and so on.

The community can do an CDI-issue-suggestion thread, followed up by a vote/poll, to then work the first 3 from 1st to 3rd. Then likely we should do another suggestion thread, and vote again. Mainly to give new things a chance as they may pop up.

Letting Anet set the next CDI topic will give us the time to set this up…

3.a. I would prefer not to have another place to discuss these issues, like a whole different forum (like http://gw2CDI.forum.com or w/e). Keeping it here on this forum will mean that the community can easily find these topics and contribute, without having to go elsewhere.

3.b. A different forum section, I would support, as a single topic may well spawn different side topics that, keeping everything to one thread my well make a mess. Splitting these topics off of the main discussion, in a new thread, and keeping that in the same forum section will keep the whole together.

Tyops.5894:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Tyops,

Thanks for posting about your concern. Could you clarify what you mean by insular in this case please? This way I can have a better understanding of how to reply to your concern.

Chris

Certainly,

Sorry I couldnt get back to it until now what with being at work. To be perfectly fair I was probably being overly cynical, but part of the concern remains.

I am a habitual lurker in the CDI threads and routine dev-post stalker, and through natural progression it appears to me that the CDI threads have already become quite clique-y. There is a small group of high-volume high-profile poster who tend to discuss more or less only each other’s posts and also tend to draw most of the interaction from devs.

Although this evolved entirely naturally, unless you’re in it, it can make the community appear insular.

Taking it a step further and codifying how this community interacts with a series of semi-arbitrary rules developed by that community can make it appear markedly less accessible to outsiders, lurkers, and other low volume users.

That is largely where my concern resides.

This. Although I’m not sure I’d term it as insular, more like silently-exclusive. Other people can have a say but not all will be heard, if you get my meaning.

I feel silently excluded
Although it’s more because I see 50+ page thread filled with walls of text. The summary idea is nice but it can be difficult to differentiate a ‘summary thus far’ with just normal discussion (make it visually distinct and providing a standard formatting would be great). Still 50+ pages even with summaries feels to me like to daunting of a task to tackle, ideally I’d want to give new and constructive feedback, and that can be difficult to know if what I’m suggestion has already been suggested.
One idea (although less qualitative) is to include a poll / questionnaire system. You can rapidly get feedback (although ideally you’d keep the questions to a minimum which increases accessibility but might decrees quality of feedback). One idea would be to only have these polls after a CDI has occurred, the main ideas discussed can be put into the poll and by doing so you’d ideally be able to get the larger community’s opinion regarding these topics (thus those who felt excluded in the CDI conversations would atleast be able to have some say, if not in the topics then in how they rate those topics). Bonus points if you could have this poll in-game thus potentially reaching the entire players base and not simple those that come to the forum.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.

• Ability to add comments to a post
• Ability to suggest an edit to a post
• Ability to down vote a post
• Ability to see the vote score of a post
• Ability to upvote a comment to a post

Essentially, I miss the Q&A format employed by StackExchange
Also,

• Mandatory “title” field: maybe unneeded if the idea of a post template works nicely

I thought about how to solve this insular/silently exclusive issue and I came up with the flood gate concept that follows.

When the CDI beings everyone is allocated one post. At any time however the CDI project leader (person overseeing the CDI) can press a button to unleash the next post allocation upon the masses. (You may only have one at a time, no stacking)

The idea is to to give everyone an equal voice while also giving the devs time to read and respond to everything they feel they want to before opening the flood gates for the next wave of discussion.

Think of it as a turn based CDI.

Kind of like a forum-based talking stick method?

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Kind of like a forum-based talking stick method?

I guess, I certainly see the comparison but with an emphasis on everyone having an equal say and the developers being able to set the pace of the conversation.

Alice.8694:

I thought about how to solve this insular/silently exclusive issue and I came up with the flood gate concept that follows.

When the CDI beings everyone is allocated one post. At any time however the CDI project leader (person overseeing the CDI) can press a button to unleash the next post allocation upon the masses. (You may only have one at a time, no stacking)

The idea is to to give everyone an equal voice while also giving the devs time to read and respond to everything they feel they want to before opening the flood gates for the next wave of discussion.

Think of it as a turn based CDI.

I can see a few problems with this:

• If a dev is not constantly pressing that button, the posters would probably end up writing very elaborate posts beforehand. This could lead to a lot of ‘wasted’ double posts.

• Editing. If we wanted to discuss something, ask for clarification or elaborate on an earlier idea, we would probably resort to editing. (Since we can’t just do that in a new post, we many have to wait a day for that, and by then the discussion has moved on.) Then we would be replying to posts that are constantly being edited, changing our replies as well, some of the inbetween posts would not be edited and as a result the CDI wouldn’t read very well.

• People may end up being afraid to post because they don’t know when they’ll be able to post again. Players may not get responses to their ideas because of that. (They have to ‘save’ their posts for their own ideas, not for responses)

I understand that the topics should have been directly about Character Progress. But even if we named sub topic inside of the discussion before, thing such as Fractal Reset deserved to be mentioned since it was a huge part of character progression for many people. And even so that issues has yet to be properly addressed or resolved. At this point it’s unfortunately in “forget about it, it’s too late” dumpster. Simply because it was dragged out for too long, so many just gave up on it or simply do not care anymore, except for that handful of people (including myself) that still hang on to the hope that it would be made right at the end. With that hope diminishing with every day passing.

Back to topic, not everyone has time to read every post and stay up to date so many of us look up the last response from Chris and go from there or just plainly throw some ideas that have been sitting on back of our minds even though they might have been discussed.
Deleting those posts because they’re either a little late or off “current” topic will diminish the participation of many people because they’ll simply think that they’re not being taken seriously at all. Instead of having one broad topic like “Character Progression” which covers pretty much everything in the game, creating CDI Subforum with current topics as Threads would be much more beneficial. Of course locking the ability of making threads would be very helpful with staying on topic.
This way we not only have many topics at once concerning the same broad topic, but also giving everyone ability to include their ideas in parts that they care about.
Everey CDI should have at least 4 subtopics to start with. As we progress, those subtopics should be locked down with proposal and new subtopics should be opened, never passing 3-4 at once to make it easier for everyone, especially devs to keep up with the conversation. Rather than (example) WvW Dev skimming through 4 pages of PvE talk to respond to those 2-3 topics about his own area.

Reading over the summery on this page. I was somewhat struck by the last sentence:
“Bump. Looks like we are close to moving onto the next topics!”

Then when reading over the comments made there after, and realizing I got to posting my comments 2h after this summary, I nearly missed contributing to this CDI again. So what is the thing here, I hardly visit the forums during the week, you know like ‘RL’ stuff getting in the way. And if topics only run for like 5days, you will only get the feedback of the most active, most present people. Basically those that make you wonder if they even have time to actually play GW2 :P (said jokingly, and maybe even a bit jealously, I wish I still had the time to play both GW2 and be on the forums that much) … This then also ties in with the responses made about getting an isolated CDI feedback community. If topics run for a short amount of time, there will only be feedback from those that frequent the forums, hence I would like to suggest:

- Keep the CDI thread running for a period of time that includes at least two weekends

If the topic needs a longer period, than that is just fine, but if the topic seems not to need that much time, closing it early may exclude a lot of people that have a live next to GW2 (not meant as an offence, as you know what I mean). But may well be as emotionally invested in the game as any other player.

Related to this is the ‘conclusion’ reached, that there should be just 1 CDI thread, and ‘no’ CDI sub-forum. I am not too sure if this is a good idea… The CDI process may well need both (ill get the details in a few).

Now I see how one big thread and over 50pages can deter anyone from diving into a topic, and how summaries may give readers somewhat of an overview, yet leave no room for nuance and details. Now I thought about a system like Reddit (I think it is), where people respond ‘to a post’ instead of ‘to a thread’, which in ways can divide a thread into several sub discussions. This is a step forward, but, it will also mean that there may well be whole discussions on the same topics, running side by side. Nothing warrants that each discussion line is just about one aspect of a certain topic. Making the discussion, in essence, even harder to follow…

So what does a CDI thread need? Well it largely depends on the scope of the topic at hand. Yes that is an open door, but it’s not less true… So the broader the topic, the more likely the discussion will be hard to follow, summaries will end up less specific. And even more dangerous, summaries may lead to ‘pre-conclusion’ on issues, where (in my views) these are all feedback threads and conclusions are meant to be drawn in ANet staff meetings. Broad topics will also lead to very long threads, discouraging those that get in late, or those that just do not have the time to keep up with it.

Yet, there is something to say about keeping at least some broadness to topic formulation. If you make a topic to narrow and specific, the discussion will be over very soon, people are less likely to come up with interesting things, or even be ridiculed within the thread for bringing something up that ‘from the scope of the discussion’ is totally ‘out of the box’.

Aka. the feedback as a whole benefits from a broad topic, while the process of discussion (and keeping up) benefits a lot if there is a narrow scope.

Now if this were to be something like an IRL meeting, there would be a clear agenda of what to discuss, these topics would be set by a chairmen, and we would all work off these topics one by one (leaving one person with the daunting task of writing it all down, the poor soul). With the internet though, and the actual process of feedback, where you want a somewhat broad topic and receive responses ‘out of the box’ to determine the discussion, that is somewhat impossible. ‘Or is it?’

This leads me to ‘conclude’ that the process of the CDI should be ‘cut up’, not in time, as we now have the benefit of the internet and a forum structure to discuss all topics ‘basically at the same time’. But ‘cut up’ in a sense that we should have a discussion running on the ‘issues’ within the topic at hand. And a sub-forum that has threads running on these specific topics. The main thread could also ‘house’ a copy of the in-discussion summaries, and would stay open to include specific topic that come up, or that a new person may bring up. This would give the CDI process the following structure:

this post was cut, as it was getting to long, see next post by ‘me’

Tyops.5894:

Certainly,

Sorry I couldnt get back to it until now what with being at work. To be perfectly fair I was probably being overly cynical, but part of the concern remains.

I am a habitual lurker in the CDI threads and routine dev-post stalker, and through natural progression it appears to me that the CDI threads have already become quite clique-y. There is a small group of high-volume high-profile poster who tend to discuss more or less only each other’s posts and also tend to draw most of the interaction from devs.

Although this evolved entirely naturally, unless you’re in it, it can make the community appear insular.

Taking it a step further and codifying how this community interacts with a series of semi-arbitrary rules developed by that community can make it appear markedly less accessible to outsiders, lurkers, and other low volume users.

That is largely where my concern resides.

I appreciate the aims of the CDI. I am really looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I feel GW2 is near a tipping point and that many of the enhancements discussed in the horizontal/vertical development threads really really need to happen quite soon. Then I look at how long it’s taking to get the WvW account wide ranks and I am terrified.

edits to fix typos.

Yep, this is pretty much how I feel about it. There are a few very vocal, quasi-VIPs posting regularly and other comments or suggestions (good or bad) are just ignored. I don’t think that discussions on the direction of the game should be limited only to people who are willing and able to engage in a particular format or style of bureaucracy, particularly on a multi-language forum.

Furthermore, I find the whole idea of ‘Process Evolution’ threads rather…navel-gazing. We have only had four CDIs to date and fully half of them have been devoted to ‘refining the process’ rather than anything constructively to do with the game. This feels unnecessary and frankly, a waste of time. Most people don’t play Guild Wars or read the forums to participate in business meetings, I think, and to me this feels like something to do after a number of CDIs have taken place rather than after each topic, and probably something to be done largely by Anet folks yourselves. Perhaps doing a ‘set’ of CDIs (5-10) and then asking for some brief feedback would be more productive. I do not mean to be rude, but I am not getting paid as a consultant to tell you how to communicate with your customers and vice versa. I want to talk about the game, not talk about how to talk about the game, if you see what I mean.

Laurel and Tyops, I totally get your meaning.

I find that I post and hope and hope for some response, and usually never get one because the same 2-3 posters are basically having a 1 on 1 conversation with our fabulous dev (even going as far to act like friends talking about outside forum contact and such) which makes it feel like nothing we say (especially if it isn’t in concordance with those specific posters) really matters.

I know that this is not Chris’s fault, and it is normal for a conversation to sort of lead in one direction if the same posters are posting every minute, but it does seem to me very cliquey, and that turns me off from posting (especially after the thread has gone on for a couple days).

Main CDI thread (in general forum)
0. starts (1st post) with a description of the topic, and some procedural info. The 2nd post is reserved for an overview of the ‘agenda’ with links to the various threads.
1. A community brainstorm on the issues, within the topic at hand will produce an ‘CDI-issue-Agenda’. It is this agenda that fills the 2nd post, and new input will be updated there.
2. The ‘summary’ every 3 pages can still be done in this thread, a link in the opening post (1st) can link to the latest summary in the thread as a whole, so people can skip the discussion and go straight to the last summary. Although this ‘summary’ is obviously also the 2nd post.
3. If entirely new topic are brought up in this running CDI thread, they should be added to the ‘agenda’ in the 2nd post and get their own thread in the CDI-sub-forum.
4. Once a sub-forum reaches a summary ‘milestone’ the 2nd post should include a link to the summary post of the specific issue thread.

Sub-forum CDI, topic discussions
1. As topics are brought up in the community brainstorm, corresponding threads should be made in the CDI sub-forum. The actual discussion on this specific topic can commence here. Staying on topic is the main focus of these threads.
2. but if issues are brought up that derail the discussion, they may warrant their own discussion. The community should embrace these and forward the poster to the main CDI thread, and post the issue there. So it can be added to the overview agenda, and get it’s own thread in the sub-forum.
3. These ‘issue’ threads in the sub-forum, should have a first post detailing which issue is to be discussed as part of the whole topic at hand in the CDI at the time. This post should also include a link to the latest summary of that thread (when/if reached). Assuming a summary at any given point reflects the whole discussion prior to it, instead of just the 3 pages in between summaries. else links to all summaries may well be a better way.

This would lead to the following ‘tasks’:
For Chris:
- Open up the main CDI thread, post 1 (description of the CDI topic), reserve post 2 for the agenda.
- Open up the sub-forum CDI threads, post 1, and links to summaries if reached.

For the community (including Anet Staff) :
- Bring up issues in the main CDI thread
- Discuss issues within the CDI sub-forum.
- Supply threads with summaries.
- Notify Chris when a summary is reached in a sub-forum discussion, I would suggest doing this through the main CDI thread

! This would mean that Chris, in general, would only have to pay attention to the main CDI thread, and adjust post2 with links to new sub-forums and make corresponding new threads in the sub-forums. And add a link to the 1st post there to last summary page in that thread. Adding links to these summaries in post2 of the main CDI thread may also help the process along.

Archiving the CDI
I am not sure how well links are preserved when issues get archived. But having an archive of CDI topics would be nice. If, in this archive the CDI-topic threads would have a ‘sticky’ status, and it is set up as suggested above, then all the discussion topics could just be archived along side it. The stickies supply the agenda with links to the specific issues, so even if the ‘archive’ becomes a visual mess, it is still easy to navigate.

Perhaps the 1st post in each sub-forum issue thread should have a link back to the CDI-main topic agenda. Warranting even better navigation, also during the CDI process as people may drop into the CDI sub-forum and not realize there is a main-agenda thread in the ‘general GW2 sub-forum’.

This all assuming the links are preserved! when topics are archived

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Laurel and Tyops, I totally get your meaning.

I find that I post and hope and hope for some response, and usually never get one because the same 2-3 posters are basically having a 1 on 1 conversation with our fabulous dev (even going as far to act like friends talking about outside forum contact and such) which makes it feel like nothing we say (especially if it isn’t in concordance with those specific posters) really matters.

I know that this is not Chris’s fault, and it is normal for a conversation to sort of lead in one direction if the same posters are posting every minute, but it does seem to me very cliquey, and that turns me off from posting (especially after the thread has gone on for a couple days).

Seconded about the clique comment along with Laurels (and Cookie!!). It’s also veering off into an overly micro-managed and bureaucratic space now and that will put people like myself off who have to deal with that on a day-by-day basis in their work life and hate seeing it dip into their entertainment time. It’s a feedback/community thread – lets keep the tone appropriate to it

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Laurel and Tyops, I totally get your meaning.

I find that I post and hope and hope for some response, and usually never get one because the same 2-3 posters are basically having a 1 on 1 conversation with our fabulous dev (even going as far to act like friends talking about outside forum contact and such) which makes it feel like nothing we say (especially if it isn’t in concordance with those specific posters) really matters.

I know that this is not Chris’s fault, and it is normal for a conversation to sort of lead in one direction if the same posters are posting every minute, but it does seem to me very cliquey, and that turns me off from posting (especially after the thread has gone on for a couple days).

Just quoting this one but I agree with what is being said. I also feel that instead of seeing results we are just going down a rabbit trail that isn’t getting us closer to our end goals but just leading us further from the main path. It would be nice to hear, “We got green lit for this one guys! We are iterating on this idea, but this thing that you guys wanted will make it into the game in some form or another.” or “This one is off the table for ‘X’ and ‘Y’ reasons, sorry!”

Whoever said that these threads are starting to feel clique-y kinda hit the nail on the head.

I wish that the things that were getting the most exposure were the things we have been promised for months now and haven’t heard hide nor hair of like new permanent zones, new legendaries, new weapons for existing classes etc.

I appreciate the gist of these CDI’s. I just feel like a kid in high school that isn’t welcome at the cool kids table.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I like the idea of the following:

- Include a topic primer (The CDI thread owner will do this)
- Create a template for proposal ideas starting with a ‘User Story’ and then formatted in a similar way to Nike and other’s suggestions I will create this)
- No word limit as the hope is that the new format will help with more concise communication.
- Topics for the next round will be chosen by the Devs and will run concurrently where possible.
- Following the next round of topics we will discuss whether or not we like Devs choosing the topics.
- The CDI will not have its own sub forum currently as the concern is there won’t be enough exposure.
- We will do more to expose new CDI threads to the community when the go live.

I think we need to continue to discuss:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- Anymore ideas or thoughts?

Chris

Updated ^^

In-game email cdi topic check box voting/survey so the exposure and input is more than the same 100 forum people? Then create forum threads based on votes and send reminder in-game emails that encourage participation?

Making the CDI ‘stick out’ :
I would suggest making a ‘special sticky’ status on the forum for the CDI main thread. The colour of the sticky could be ‘gold’ (mid-dark orange) and ‘sticky’ on top of the Main-GW2 forum, but below the line of the sticky reds.

That way it is right there in everybody’s faces, and nobody would be able to miss it. As the first post clearly describes the topic and goal of the thread, that should clear things up, a link in this post to the latest summary in this main thread, would shoot people forward to a place to easily pick up.
Post2 would obviously hold the ‘agenda’ of the CDI and supply links to the sub-forum threads, as well as the latest summary in that thread.

People can clearly see (straight up in post 2) if their issue is already being discussed in the form of a sub-forum, and if not can bring it up in the main CDI thread. If so, they can follow the link(s – either to the last summary if there is one, or to the thread itself).

! Reading some of the posts in between here. The way described here would also ‘split up’ the community in smaller ‘task groups’, warranting less likeliness of the same people dominating the discussion, as they would have to dominate ‘all’ issues.

!! It will also be more likely for a specific comment on a specific issue (currently lost in the violence of ‘One thread to rule them all’) to be noticed and be judged on it’s value. As that specific comment will be ‘on issue’, and add to the discussion on the narrow scope of the running thread.

!!! ANet devs may be more comfortable to discuss a single topic at hand, as opposed to giving their opinion on the CDI as a whole. They would feel less pressured to do everybody justice and reply to each and every thing mentioned in this ‘currently one thread’, as now they can ‘just’ have to do the narrow discussion justice by giving a reply that benefits this narrow topic.

!!!! The same applies to the community members, when there is a clear way to navigate to the issue of interest to this community member, they only have to talk to people that have the same issue on their minds. They don’t have to feel overwhelmed by the whole ‘meta-discussion’, and as these discussions are narrow and on topic, can feel like their post contributes to the CDI making progress, instead of fearing (justifiably) that their post will be lost in the fray.

as it must certainly look, if you are just reading my long contributions, and more then likely skip the short comments made in between, which deal with something that should be addressed (and thus I did , but might be better ‘at home’) in a sub-forum of it’s own hope this illustrates their points and clarifies how my lengthy suggestion to format the CDI process would deal with this…

Iason Evan.3806:

It would be nice to hear, “We got green lit for this one guys! We are iterating on this idea, but this thing that you guys wanted will make it into the game in some form or another.” or “This one is off the table for ‘X’ and ‘Y’ reasons, sorry!”

Bingo.

It’s always nice to be able to look back weeks/months later and say “Hey, that thing there sort of looks like something we talked about in the CDI” but doing so doesn’t really add much to the CDI while it’s happening. If we are to be collaborators, we need more insight into the actual process beyond “We talked about that in a meeting” or “Good idea, now talk about this instead!”

Now addressing these people themselves. While I can see how a discussion on how to discuss may feel like ‘work’, having a good simple and easy procedural way to go about these CDI discussions is one of the ways to deal with the issues you put forth…

You are less likely to join in on an already lengthy discussion, that is addressing all sorts of things (aka chaos), making your own posts feel like they are being ignored, because the discussion of more vocal others is dominating the ‘issue’ at hand (aka. you post a suggestion about story/lore progression, which feels like it’s being ignored, because the current discussion in the thread is largely about skill progression). And you may also feel somewhat ignored by the dev’s (unjustified in my views => ) who may only have some lunch time available and end up talking to people that happen to be on the forum at that particular time, joining in on the discussion at hand (aka. the skill progression one running, see example in () just above here).

I feel your ‘complaints’ to this thread are justified (as they are on topic), but at the same time I feel they are not entirely fair. To address a few in no particular order:

- I don’t want to talk about, how to talk about things. Understandable sure, but if we come to a good simple structure for these discussions, you will be much more likely to find your way ‘to the fun part’.

- I feel discussion is dominated by a few, understandable just critique, but if we don’t find a way to guide the discussion in a more appropriate format, how will we combat this? Being able to bring this up in this discussion clearly shows this discussion is trying to do you justice.

- I feel like being steered away from the main things, very true! But at the same time, this discussion helps us all to come to a format that may well make sure that we stay ‘on issue’ better. It might make the discussion less chaotic, more easily pinpoint and discuss certain things, and thus, supply a more readily suggestion and with that a possibly faster adaptation of the solution and implementation in the game.

- I don’t like discussing procedural stuff, fair enough, but I like it! So why should your preference be leading, aren’t you just saying you don’t like it when other people dictate the discussion for you? So, your solution is to have yourself dominate what is discussed instead?!? (not meant in an offensive way, but merely mirroring how you seem to contradict yourselves)

- Anet should do this, and not the community | we should see Anet do something with our comments: if you hang around this forum long enough you should know how that will pan out. And this discussion in particular lets the community come up with a way to go about these discussions, and thus be accepted as the way to do this more readily. Also, the feedback from this discussion will more then likely be implemented directly for the next CDI, while any suggestions on the game will likely take a 3months (if not more) implementation cycle.

! So yes! Your comments are justifiable and if this thread wouldn’t have been here, you wouldn’t have been able to voice them. This in itself justifies this thread. More over, the whole idea of this thread is to come to the best procedure that will benefit us all in this discussion, it may not be what you like to discuss right now, but it does give you the opportunity to contribute to how you (and all of us) will discuss things in the future. And resolve the issues you also seem to be having with the way things are going now…

While you may not have the answers to these things, or does not like to discuss this sort of ‘workflow’ discussions. There are others that may well do, and giving them the opportunity to solve these issues for you, should be worth it. In this respect I am reminded of the roles in innovation processes, there are those that see the troubles and those that solve them. More then often these are not the same people, but you need both of them. So this was not an attack on the issues you raised, as I think they are justified! But at the same time, if these are issues for you, give others the opportunity to deal with them, so we can all benefit in the end (this last mainly to the unfair comment that this whole thread shouldn’t be here, which I think just isn’t true)

Tech improvements:

I think another huge improvement would be, if you (the guys behind this forum) could make upvote-counts visible, so you don’t have to bump or repeat a suggestion you like but just hitting the upvote-button. Also, you, the devs, could sort the post by reference to the upvotes to see what topic is most requested.

For post structure I highly favor the suggestion Malchior.5042 has made

Hi. I have a suggestion about a new type of CDI topic, hosted by staff artists. In that topic, the players could give a different type of feedback than writing down their concepts. Their collaboration could actually consist in making and posting 3D models that, if accepted, could get a chance to be integrated in the game. The staff artists could show off art for review and inspiration (workarts or blueprints) , and the community, based on the images, could create new content for the game. Nowdays, the 3D content creation applications have become more accessible for the common folk. Anyone could create stunning art, with no financial sacrifices.
What do you think about this? Would such a thread be possible?

Then I think it makes the most sense to have a format for the initial posts. If you’re struggling, that matters, and it should be up to us to help, especially if we want feedback.

1. A word limit could never be effectively enforced and would potentially select for poorly described concepts.

2. If players see a thread that they think should be part of the CDI process they should say so in the thread. If devs see a thread they think should be part of the CDI process that thread should be labelled as a CDI thread.

Sequential threads fall apart under their own weight and an every 3 page summary will not help a thread maintain it’s vector. I think a summary posted directly below the first post would be the most effective place to put said summary. In that summary I would include links to posts that I felt did a good job of describing a subtopic.

More than anything though, I think the CDI needs a tangible success. A bit of content that everyone could point to and say look at us, we are lions not kittens. I would recommend the commander’s badge. Non-instanced world bosses requiring the coordinated efforts of 100+ people beg for more advanced grouping tools. The Com badge as content is small and well defined and directly effects many of GW2’s pillars, especially how we play together.

edit. and fishing

Chris Whiteside.6102:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Iason Evan.3806:

It would be nice to hear, “We got green lit for this one guys! We are iterating on this idea, but this thing that you guys wanted will make it into the game in some form or another.” or “This one is off the table for ‘X’ and ‘Y’ reasons, sorry!”

Bingo.

It’s always nice to be able to look back weeks/months later and say “Hey, that thing there sort of looks like something we talked about in the CDI” but doing so doesn’t really add much to the CDI while it’s happening. If we are to be collaborators, we need more insight into the actual process beyond “We talked about that in a meeting” or “Good idea, now talk about this instead!”

Sorry Strider and thanks for your contribution in many of the CDIs (so please don’t take this personally) but we will not comment on work in progress. This is because we can choose to shelve, rebuild or ‘can’ content or a feature at any point and we don’t share info on features or content until we are happy with the quality.

This mitigates disappointing the community and allows us to develop at the appropriate pace.

Chris

I understand your fear in that regard, and I don’t envy being in the position you’re in here (and I don’t take it personally ). I just feel that having the process on the developer side being as closed as it is is what is keeping this entire CDI process from being what it could possibly be. As I’ve said before, it feels as if the CDI is basically just a series of developer sponsored suggestion topics that, all told, aren’t all that different from the forum activity we’ve had since these forums opened outside of the fact that it’s the developers starting the topic. The discussions here, in all honesty, aren’t really all that different from the hundreds/thousands of topics that players themselves have started in the past. It sounded at first as if the CDI was being started to address a sort of vacuum that the players felt existed when it came to their feedback. It reminds me of the Matrix where the Agents are said to be controlling all of the gates and holding all of the keys. Even if the result ends up being something that we, the playerbase, wants it’s hard not to feel powerless even given a system that was initially put forward as a way to give the players some power.

Maybe one option that could be explored moving forward is having developer discussions opened on work that is already complete. If we are unable to really discuss work that is ongoing or coming in the future, perhaps we can at least talk about things that have already been done. Find out why the developers made certain choices that they made. Find out if there were limitations in place (time, resources, game engine, etc.) that precluded certain options. Find out if there are any regrets that the developers had once they hit that magical “push this content to the players” button. Maybe even see some sketched out concept art that was going to be used but wasn’t for whatever reason. Etc.

Anywho, keep doing what you’re doing and don’t give up on trying to make the CDI better than it is. It, just like GW2, deserves to be something groundbreaking.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the CDI but you are correct, for example the last CDI took up a huge amount of my free time during the holiday period. Whilst that isn’t ideal, it pales in comparison to my concern about not being able to give a discussion the attention it is due.

So far I think i have done an ok job with this, but I know I could do a lot better.

It really does boil down to time. Also it helps that I have a very patient wife!

Chris

While I generally do not like people promoting their own ideas to much, it may be worth it to take a good look at the (somewhat cut up) suggestion I made above here to ‘cut up’ the CDI process in a running ‘agenda’ thread on the CDI-topic and a CDI sub-forum discussing the ‘agenda points’ in separate threads.

Doing so will make the discussions less chaotic, and you can address the actual topic at hand, doing the discussion and everybody in it justice, as opposed to being somewhat forced to pick out one person to quote and reply to, while unintended giving the impression that you ‘ignore’ others that raised the same things, or entirely different things all together (and thus again giving the unintended impression that you favour one topic over the other)… which both I am sure are unintended, because the simple fact that you put so much time into this, and even took upon you to undertake show that you care for any ones input. But simple don’t have the time (nor would anyone for that matter) to respond to every single thing…

Or rather, in the current setup, as with a more divided up discussion you could take it one ‘agenda point’ at a time, and respond to the issue at hand instead of a certain person. Which I think would lead to more people feeling their issue gets the attention it deserves.

It may still turn out to be to much for a single guy to handle, but I think that if the discussion is more structured into issues, that various other Anet employees be more inclined/encouraged to participate as they do not have to address their views on the whole topic, but merely a certain issue. And with doing so, would not give the unintended reaction that picking out a certain issue means they value all others less.

It would also, give you an overview of which issues are not yet being addressed by yourself or others, as they would lack the ‘anet’ sign of activity. Meaning you can actively keep track of where to put some of your effort to make people feel heard.

No confirmation about this is needed at this moment though

And I do hope somebody (hopefully multiple) that are a part of the community will read over this suggestion and give their opinion. It’s hard to be critical about your own thoughts, and having another pair of eyes and minds go over it may well help it improve.

ps. tnx for keeping the thread open so that the less frequent board contributors can have a chance to chip in their 2ct. Ultimately the CDI-thread-duration will need to find the right balance similar to the in game updates, as to catering to the hard-core and the more casual (but equally emotionally invested) players/contributors.

I think a 2 weekend minimum warrants at least enough opportunity to those mainly having the weekends for these kinds of things. Given that the process will crystalize into a clear ‘workflow’ and summaries reducing the time needed to invest in threads.

But also setting some minimum time to run these threads may make it easier for you to plan your time around them, as well as make them part of some in office time to discuss results (even intermediate ones).

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Laurel and Tyops, I totally get your meaning.

I find that I post and hope and hope for some response, and usually never get one because the same 2-3 posters are basically having a 1 on 1 conversation with our fabulous dev (even going as far to act like friends talking about outside forum contact and such) which makes it feel like nothing we say (especially if it isn’t in concordance with those specific posters) really matters.

I know that this is not Chris’s fault, and it is normal for a conversation to sort of lead in one direction if the same posters are posting every minute, but it does seem to me very cliquey, and that turns me off from posting (especially after the thread has gone on for a couple days).

This. I love participating in the CDI, but I don’t have the time to spent so much time on it, like other posters. Of course because of that, I can’t contribute as much as I want, but I always see that I can take some time to post ideas etc. But most of the time it seems that the discussion goes only between a handfull of people and Chris (especially if I read the posts in the Dev Tracker – which I do every day – and see Chris answering always the same people). Of course a lot of the ideas there are great and it is partially my fault for not having more time to be more active, but it is a bit discouraging, since it seems that a lot of post are just ignored (of course I know you guys are reading all the posts). And while I agree that some sort of format for the CDI would be good, I’m afraid that a too strict one, would turn other people away, who are already feeling like they are not seen.

So I think the format should be something simple, like for example just specifying that everyone should add a summary to his/her post in 5 bullet points or five sentences.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Iason Evan.3806:

It would be nice to hear, “We got green lit for this one guys! We are iterating on this idea, but this thing that you guys wanted will make it into the game in some form or another.” or “This one is off the table for ‘X’ and ‘Y’ reasons, sorry!”

Bingo.

It’s always nice to be able to look back weeks/months later and say “Hey, that thing there sort of looks like something we talked about in the CDI” but doing so doesn’t really add much to the CDI while it’s happening. If we are to be collaborators, we need more insight into the actual process beyond “We talked about that in a meeting” or “Good idea, now talk about this instead!”

Sorry Strider and thanks for your contribution in many of the CDIs (so please don’t take this personally) but we will not comment on work in progress. This is because we can choose to shelve, rebuild or ‘can’ content or a feature at any point and we don’t share info on features or content until we are happy with the quality.

This mitigates disappointing the community and allows us to develop at the appropriate pace.

Chris

Fair enough. I get that you don’t want the disappointment and there have been things that have been said in the past that have not come to fruition. The CDI should be different though. If you guys plan on moving into an initial stage of one of these topics, then I would suggest explicitly telling the community, "Hey we are moving into a very infant and precursory stage with this topic of the CDI because we like it as much as you guys, but know this, ‘this could get scrapped, but if it does, we will let you know.’ "

I understand with internal design decisions; we aren’t a part of that and you guys have to make the decision and keep it secret until it’s ready. I get that.

This whole thing doesn’t feel very collaborative though when we don’t get to know what is going on with what is actually getting greenlit as far as the CDI is concerned. I guess what I am trying to say is when is this whole thing not going to feel like smoke and mirrors?

If and when these CDI’s ever make their way into the game will they be announced as CDI releases? Sorry for being so jaded, but it’s hard not to be when certain things that have been discussed by devs as things that are going to be in the game for months now seem to be getting less face time than these things that are still really far off. I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate what’s going on here. I do. It’s almost unique to this game alone that this much time and effort is being poured into by the devs for the community. On that front, I really appreciate this a lot.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

we can choose to shelve, rebuild or ‘can’ content or a feature at any point and we don’t share info on features or content until we are happy with the quality.

This mitigates disappointing the community and allows us to develop at the appropriate pace.

If that is what CDI is about, then GDI (Guided Discussion Initiative) would be a more appropriate and less misleading name. (I’m not being sarcastic here, just writing my honest impression.)

If we picture the development cycle as:

1. Observe: collect information and opinions about the current state of the game
2. Orient: make sense of the observations
3. Decide: converge on the next set of features and fixes
4. Develop: work on them

The current state of CDI involves “just” the Observe and maybe Orient stage. I understand that the Decide stage is up to Anet.

But the Develop stage can also be broken down to smaller Observe – Orient – Decide -Develop cycles. Is there no way for the community to give feedback there? Perhaps something like setting up an “alpha” world and doing alpha-testing there. I’m getting doubtful even as I write this, but posting nevertheless to hear what others think..

ento.4872:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

we can choose to shelve, rebuild or ‘can’ content or a feature at any point and we don’t share info on features or content until we are happy with the quality.

This mitigates disappointing the community and allows us to develop at the appropriate pace.

If that is what CDI is about, then GDI (Guided Discussion Initiative) would be a more appropriate and less misleading name. (I’m not being sarcastic here, just writing my honest impression.)

If we picture the development cycle as:

1. Observe: collect information and opinions about the current state of the game
2. Orient: make sense of the observations
3. Decide: converge on the next set of features and fixes
4. Develop: work on them

The current state of CDI involves “just” the Observe and maybe Orient stage. I understand that the Decide stage is up to Anet.

But the Develop stage can also be broken down to smaller Observe – Orient – Decide -Develop cycles. Is there no way for the community to give feedback there? Perhaps something like setting up an “alpha” world and doing alpha-testing there. I’m getting doubtful even as I write this, but posting nevertheless to hear what others think..

I would also like to see more involvment of the community in development process. I would like it to do more than observing, to be actively a part of development, to gain various roles.( testing, and even more)

Thanks for getting back to me Tyops.

There is no clique but I can see why folks might thank that. I see myself as a fellow contributor and thus folks shouldn’t be excited to see me reply to their post or deflated if I don’t.

I think the way to manage this is for folks to keep posting when they feel value in doing so and I will do my best to drill deeper into the posts. One of the reasons this has been hard is due to the length and volume of posts.

Chris

A possibilty to avoid clique-yness could be to ask more open questions. Chris summarizes the general feeling in the thread and asks a question not directly towards an individual but towards everyone.

e.g. Instead of asking one person to give an example of how to standardize the CDI suggestion posting and this becoming unoffically the future standard (this is a bit how I understood it while reading the suggestion and answers about this suggestion). Ask everyone to think about it and post something.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Then I think it makes the most sense to have a format for the initial posts. If you’re struggling, that matters, and it should be up to us to help, especially if we want feedback.

Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the CDI but you are correct, for example the last CDI took up a huge amount of my free time during the holiday period. Whilst that isn’t ideal, it pales in comparison to my concern about not being able to give a discussion the attention it is due.

So far I think i have done an ok job with this, but I know I could do a lot better.

It really does boil down to time. Also it helps that I have a very patient wife!

Chris

Unfortunately, then, I think this comes down to money, like most things. If Anet are serious about maintaining the CDIs in this fashion, and refining them to this degree, then I think that clearly they will need to dedicate some time to it. If it is not feasible for you to answer all the points yourself, and I can imagine it is not, then they are going to have to allocate some resources to it – ie, hire some dedicated people to liaise with the community and feed back from the devs. It is not workable or appropriate either for existing employees like yourself to take on a full second job in this way, nor for a handful of particularly articulate forum posters with a lot of free time to work as unpaid consultants in this manner.

Basically, if as you say you are keen to do this properly, then, well…do it properly and allocate the time and manpower, rather than nitpicking the formats. Otherwise the whole CDI process becomes destined to fail as a worthless paper exercise, IMO.

Edit: Apologies, this sounds harsher than I intend it, but I am not sure how to soften it, exactly.

Have you ever considered closing the threads for let’s say an hour go through it and start a lifestream with the appropriate developers to the discussed topic.

Maybe read 30minutes through the post, make some notes and then start a lifestream.

It would be interesting, what they think about it, what’s their concern…. I think it would be alot easier for you, to post your reply in a video. Last CDI you “wasted” 30minutes to answere a question, while the discussion went to a completly different topic.

If possible, do it every day or two, after lunch (just a suggestion). But please dont start reading through the threads, at the lifestream, the reading must be done first. The advantage of a video for you as developer is clear I think, your can go more into details and more devs are involved into the answere.

I think that Chris has done a great job thus far, given the limitations of this forum.
But when it comes right down to it, this really isn’t the best format to have these kinds of discussions since it is impossibly hard to weed out good ideas from bad one with every post listed one after another.

Often times I just skip through most of it a just stop to read the Red Dev posts, anything that is being replied to in that post. Maybe I’ll stop to read a post or two from well know posters, who on average seem to know what they are talking about.

But overall, it’s just plain hard to read and becomes very time consuming to keep up with it all.

-

As I’ve said before, we need a way to bring good posts/ideas to the top so people can readily see them and understand what is going on quickly. Perhaps color coding, or indenting replies to posts under the post, like what they do on Massively, or Reddit.

But you seriously need a better format, because what you have just doesn’t cut it.

About point 1):
I think this is discussable. In threads like lore discussion you can’t be straight to the point. Giving lot’s and lot’s of arguements why your theory could be true is a base of a good thread in my opinion (!).
However the other side is that it could be a very well solution in other threads like build discussions to keep your thread straight to the point.

I think messages can also be more manageable by adding more layout options. This gives a better and more clear reading view. By adding enumerations this can be solved very easily I think.

Have a good night, time to go to bed, see you tomorrow
Fvux

PS, sorry for my English.

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

1. A limit in length of a post will lead to multiple posts. Make it so that only the first paragraph or so is visible with a “read more” option button.
2. Votes