Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

Nike.2631:

Guhracie.3419:

I don’t think the issue is that anyone feels like you’re “stealing” or “usurping” ideas, I think it’s more that- agree or disagree, you’re the one getting the direct interaction. EDIT: Which is in no way your doing, I feel compelled to add!

Believe me, I’m aware. While its nice to get direct feedback, I’m a bit edgy that I’m inadvertently hogging the stage.

One strategy that may help my fellow posters is to open with small quotes from the Dev posting you are responding to – structure your thoughts so they are conversational rather than stand-alone essays, and arrange them so that Devs reading it see your comments as a fluid extension of what they just said – it lends context and makes it easier for them to respond as if it were a steady and ongoing discussion.

And be concise. I’ve noticed Chris never trims a post he’s responding to, which means the shorter yours is, the more space he has for answering .

I think it also ties into the feeling of being on a similar wavelength. We all like to communicate with people who are receptive to how we communicate; that’s pretty much just human nature. And once that rapport has been established, it’s comfortable to go back. I don’t believe it’s intentional, and I don’t think it’s anything to feel bad about (especially not you, Nike), but I do think it’s something Chris should be mindful of now that it’s been mentioned.

That’s my thought as well. Nothing at all against Nike, and I appreciate that at least someone is getting a little more direct interaction, but maybe just maybe it should be trimmed back? If nothing else, it’s certainly a perfectly understandable impression for one to have, especially if they are newer to the CDI threads. If you wandered in from elsewhere on the forums, or came here for the first time, It would easily appear that Nike is a dedicated/selected spokesman of some kind and there’s really only one side that can change that impression as it would not be in any way fair to ask Nike to scale back his commentary.

Of course, beyond the impressions issue, there could be a valuable little chicken or the egg style lesson in this for the CDI as well that ties nicely into things several of us have been saying all along. Nike, at first blush, seems to be the sort of person that would post here regardless of developer interaction but I’d imagine they may be posting more because of the link that has been established. If meaningful developer interaction was more common in the CDI process, I would imagine it would beget more meaningful posting from the players as well. If you knew your post was definitely being read and considered, regardless of it being of a positive or negative nature, and was potentially likely to be responded to, wouldn’t you be more likely to became invested in the process?

gidorah.4960:

yeah pretty much this i got responded too alot before i got cranky about how chris and the wvw dev’s completely dropped the ball on the wvw cdi and are continuing to drop the ball on the wvw cdi. Try to understand it is a large group conversation and build upon other people comments or try to make sure people who summarize your idead better than you get the attention they deserve. It is easier for them to respond to directly questions that are easily answerable.

Now I’m thinking I should write a tutorial on “Getting Devs to Answer”, which by the way is very different than “Getting Devs to Listen”. There’s a fair amount of evidence that posting in the right threads (like the CDI ones) greatly enhances your chances of being read – which is really where most of the advantage is to be gained. Being responded to is laden with glory and all, but it may not actually have any more impact on the game than just being read does.

About pointing out the Devs have dropped the ball: There is a very limited amount that you can expect folks to acknowledge, much less apologize for, past mistakes. Saving face is not just for the Japanese. The only real advantage to bringing these things up as a poster is to establish your understanding of the environment – going hunting for a pound of flesh over past grievances is going to be mostly a waste of time and move you into that invisible but slightly inevitable blacklist. People don’t readily chat with unlikeable people, no matter how right the unlikable person is . So stating your (negative) opinion can build your credibility, if you don’t grind it in. Basically, if you have a problem with part of the game, make your case… and then Look Forward.

Case in point, I said some absolutely vicious things about the character Scarlet (which I stand by), but despite that I moved on to having a useful chat with Bobby Stein over pressures in character creation and possibilities for increasing story immersion. But that discussion began with the technique I mentioned above: finding one of his quotes and starting from there. It really does help to show you are listening before you expect to be listened to.

Also changing your name to nike might help.

Depends on the forum. The PvP and WvW Devs have never heard of me, and the story guys and I got of to a rough start. But I’m happy to share my tactics .

Nike.2631:

About pointing out the Devs have dropped the ball: There is a very limited amount that you can expect folks to acknowledge, much less apologize for, past mistakes. Saving face is not just for the Japanese. The only real advantage to bringing these things up as a poster is to establish your understanding of the environment – going hunting for a pound of flesh over past grievances is going to be mostly a waste of time and move you into that invisible but slightly inevitable blacklist. People don’t readily chat with unlikeable people, no matter how right the unlikable person is . So stating your (negative) opinion can build your credibility, if you don’t grind it in. Basically, if you have a problem with part of the game, make your case… and then Look Forward.

While i think you are mostly correct they also can’t fix problems if they don’t acknowledge that the problem exists. So far the wvw thread has been the wvw dev’s doing the bare minimum and just making a mess of the process with a lack of participation and direction and chris sticking his head in the sand about it even being a problem. Unless this is one of those rare problems that can be fixed by ignoring it someone is going to have to do something and a nice start would be an apology for how badly the wvw thread was handled.

Nike.2631:

Case in point, I said some absolutely vicious things about the character Scarlet (which I stand by), but despite that I moved on to having a useful chat with Bobby Stein over pressures in character creation and possibilities for increasing story immersion. But that discussion began with the technique I mentioned above: finding one of his quotes and starting from there. It really does help to show you are listening before you expect to be listened to.

sure i absolutely agree with what you said about scarlet but bobby actually admitted that the scarlet story isn’t being perceived the way he hoped and then you guys had your discussion. Currently the wvw discussion is in the same poor state it was before
and the guy who decided to fix that problem is currently ignoring that the problem exists.

gidorah.4960:

While i think you are mostly correct they also can’t fix problems if they don’t acknowledge that the problem exists.

I’m with you. But realistically the best you’ll typically get is a “We can do better”. In some respects the existence of a CDI thread on a topic may be acknowledging that there is a problem… Maybe that’s something that can be folded into the tone of the initial ‘primer’ post by the Devs? The threads exist to make something better. You don’t typically try to fix what’s not broke.

So far the wvw thread has been the wvw dev’s doing the bare minimum and just making a mess of the process with a lack of participation and direction and chris sticking his head in the sand about it even being a problem. Unless this is one of those rare problems that can be fixed by ignoring it someone is going to have to do something and a nice start would be an apology for how badly the wvw thread was handled.

I wasn’t involved in that one so I don’t have an immediate grasp of how it went (though you’re not the first to mention “poorly” ). Which do you want more? An apology or a better thread next time? I’m not saying they’re mutually exclusive, just asking about the priorities.

Good evening Chris. Great work you’re doing so far!

On behalf of the Ranger forum, we hope for future CDI a more focused discussion on class balance.

As we saw from the December 10th update thread, it strayed offtopic very easily, and spiralled into a mess of unconstructive complaints.

If in the future, we could ever have a more organized thread to discuss balance ideas for our favorite profession, we would appreciate it. Thanks!

- Kain Fracois and his fellow rangers.

Hello, Chris

Here is my imput about the CDI:
I think asking a question helps keep it on topic. I thought the CDI was at its best when a dev asked “What is your favorite/least favorites living world release, and why?”

Asking specific questions like this allows you/a dev to engage us in a discussion about our answers. Then you can ask another question following up that discussion.

Nike.2631:

I’m with you. But realistically the best you’ll typically get is a “We can do better”. In some respects the existence of a CDI thread on a topic may be acknowledging that there is a problem… Maybe that’s something that can be folded into the tone of the initial ‘primer’ post by the Devs? The threads exist to make something better. You don’t typically try to fix what’s not broke.

I wasn’t involved in that one so I don’t have an immediate grasp of how it went (though you’re not the first to mention “poorly” ). Which do you want more? An apology or a better thread next time? I’m not saying they’re mutually exclusive, just asking about the priorities.

thats sort of the problem the initiative was started to fix the problem and it seemed to do that for pvp and pve for wvw it merely confirmed the wvw dev’s do not actually want to participate in discusions with wvw player. The cdi dicusion thread in wvw right now to discuss how to make it better has exactly 0 dev responses and 2/3rds of the player responses are discussing how poorly it went. I get the current method of pretending that the problem doesnt exist is what chris is going with but if you look at the wvw cdi discusion thread you can see that this method isnt exactly helpful for moving the discusion forward.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gidorah,

First of all i was listing the next topics and asking everyone’s thoughts on choosing the original topics. I made no comment on whether or not that discussion was valid.

Secondly there is certainly value to discussing this issue being that any ArenaNet dev is welcome to post.

Third, i am sorry that the WvW thread wasn’t more like the PVE one. This is my fault in that i underestimated how busy the guys were, and also that they feel anxious around posting due to not being a 100% percent sure about what they can discuss and secondly their trepidation in posting which can be a pretty difficult environment for them sometimes.

Fourth, be under no illusion that these guys work very hard, play the hell out of WvW and are excellent at their jobs. Please note that i also (like many others at Arena) play WvW.

Finally my proposal around the next topics for discussion was to hear folks opinions. Please don’t assume what my personal opinion is around those individual topics.

I appreciate your patience and hope that this makes some sense.

Chris

Hi Gidorah,

I would suggest reading this post again, specifically point three. I am at a loss as to how better explain to you that there was an issue with the WvW CDI and the areas we will be concentrating on to fix any issues.

You are starting to waste my time and the time of community members contributing to bettering the process through problem solving and evolving discussion.

Chris

I think the problem is I haven’t seen any real effort to fix it yet. You havent stepped into the wvw thread to talk about how the wvw thread in particular went with the actual wvw community. Instead you stay here and make them come to you and derail this thread because you won’t adresss the concerns they are having in their thread. Which to be honest is pretty similar to how you handled the actual cdi.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris, when you return could you comment on the response and implimentation trnaround for some of the ideas we have put forth? Im not talking about exact timeframes but for things like adjusting the amount of achievement grind, for example…is that something that could happen relatively quickly like a mon or two…or are we looking at many months before we see and result of these discussions.

I know internal discussions need to happen, coding, etc… But on some of the topics we talked about for living story, the amount of my playtime may be determined by how quickly some of thisgetsput in. Thanks

Hi Cesmode,

Generally when we agree on a point it means that we will discuss it with the team and go from there. Reducing the "grind’ in achievements is something we have been working on for a while and the last topic discussion has only furthered our commitment to get the balance right sooner. We can’t give a timing cadence on specific features but we can talk about changes or evolutions to our design philosophy.

In my summary i listed the points we agree with and those that we will look into again. I hope this helps?

Chris

Well i was looking for something like…when you agree on an idea internally does it take months to become reality? My interest has been waning because of the things we have been discussing and i was looking to see if there is light a the end of the tunnel sooner rather than later.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gidorah,

First of all i was listing the next topics and asking everyone’s thoughts on choosing the original topics. I made no comment on whether or not that discussion was valid.

Secondly there is certainly value to discussing this issue being that any ArenaNet dev is welcome to post.

Third, i am sorry that the WvW thread wasn’t more like the PVE one. This is my fault in that i underestimated how busy the guys were, and also that they feel anxious around posting due to not being a 100% percent sure about what they can discuss and secondly their trepidation in posting which can be a pretty difficult environment for them sometimes.

Fourth, be under no illusion that these guys work very hard, play the hell out of WvW and are excellent at their jobs. Please note that i also (like many others at Arena) play WvW.

Finally my proposal around the next topics for discussion was to hear folks opinions. Please don’t assume what my personal opinion is around those individual topics.

I appreciate your patience and hope that this makes some sense.

Chris

Hi Gidorah,

I would suggest reading this post again, specifically point three. I am at a loss as to how better explain to you that there was an issue with the WvW CDI and the areas we will be concentrating on to fix any issues.

You are starting to waste my time and the time of community members contributing to bettering the process through problem solving and evolving discussion.

Chris

I think the problem is I haven’t seen any real effort to fix it yet. You havent stepped into the wvw thread to talk about how the wvw thread in particular went with the actual wvw community. Instead you stay here and make them come to you and derail this thread because you won’t adresss the concerns they are having in their thread. Which to be honest is pretty similar to how you handled the actual cdi.

Hi Gidorah,

I think this section is fair and deserves some more insight:

‘I think the problem is I haven’t seen any real effort to fix it yet. You havent stepped into the wvw thread to talk about how the wvw thread in particular went with the actual wvw community. ’

As you have read in point three i have expressed the issues that i think were core to that CDI not being more successful. Each thread has an owner, I am the owner of the PVE thread. My plan is to work with each of the owners to help them grow to better handle the topics moving forward. I want the individual owners themselves to reply and connect in a meaningful and relevant manner, thus it is disingenuous for me to go in and own another thread (never mind taking into account the time that would eat up for me). However this does not preclude me from working with the guys and girls to build a better path to success in this initiative. Thus i would ask you to remain patient, see how things improve and continue to feedback in a manner that is productive to the evolution of CDI as a whole.

Chris

This is your initiative don’t you think at some point you need to step in when it becomes clear that others aren’t going to? Having participated in both i cannot help but be frustrated by the complete night and day differences between the threads and as amazing of a job as you do in here Devon put in a complete half kitten performance that made it seem like you where imposing this on him and he would only do the bare minimum. In a thread that was supposed to fix the poor communication all the cdi did in wvw was confirm the problems that exist are here to stay. I really have a hard time believing that the pve and pvp dev’s arent busy and hard working as well but they made the time for the initiative because they felt it was important. With the track record of the wvw team and communication since Habib left I don’t understand how you can expect any of the wvw community to come to a different conclusion.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As you have read in point three i have expressed the issues that i think were core to that CDI not being more successful. Each thread has an owner, I am the owner of the PVE thread. My plan is to work with each of the owners to help them grow to better handle the topics moving forward. I want the individual owners themselves to reply and connect in a meaningful and relevant manner, thus it is disingenuous for me to go in and own another thread (never mind taking into account the time that would eat up for me). However this does not preclude me from working with the guys and girls to build a better path to success in this initiative. Thus i would ask you to remain patient, see how things improve and continue to feedback in a manner that is productive to the evolution of CDI as a whole.

Chris

Not to dwell on this too much, but perhaps there’s a case here for setting up rules for yourselves as well as us. We currently have to comply with a few ground-rules before starting the discussion, and we (mostly) adhere to them. Maybe we should have a few set ground rules for the Anet team to make sure it’s not lopsided.
For example a single one to start off with that isn’t going to break the CDI overall would be:
- If an Anet employee “owns/coordinates” the thread, they are expected to participate in it too, or it will be designated to someone better suited.

That way, we and you know where we both stand on this. You don’t contribute to a discussion you start; you’re in the wrong….if we don’t give constructive feedback/put out personal attacks; we’re in the wrong. Simple.

I know, it sounds a little patronising, but I think it’s fair game, if you set up a big initiative, and can’t follow through on one section at the very start, it’s not likely to progress in a positive manner from there on. However, I did notice this:

Third, i am sorry that the WvW thread wasn’t more like the PVE one. This is my fault in that i underestimated how busy the guys were

You honorably take the fall for time mismanagement but, strangely won’t jump into the WvW thread to relay that over to them, and discuss those failings? (I can’t say if you have, i’m only taking yours and gidorah’s word for it)

Not sure if I completely follow that logic, (but hey, I can’t complain I watched and participated in the PvE thread) but it’d be nice to see some of that newly created disdain for a WvW CDI disappear, so you can actually move forward.

Hope that all made sense!

Couple things and suggestions:

- as mentioned by Chris only one CDI overall at a time (if this means more and better participation from Anet)

- for each new CDI Anet should send out an ingame mail announcement, something like “our new CDI is about [topic], we are going to discuss this because of [concerns], if you want to help improve the game come visit [forumsection]”

- the devs from Anet that will take part in the CDI should introduce themselfs in extra posts following the starting one (their thoughts on the topic, what they have to do with it)

- for a better overview as the thread grows i would suggest linking every dev reply in the first post, e.g. http://forum.tibia.com/forum/?action=thread&threadid=4015891 (it think you need to copy&paste the link manually to work)
even if you are late to the party, just by checking the first post you get an easy overview what topics have already been addressed

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

Chris, when you return could you comment on the response and implimentation trnaround for some of the ideas we have put forth? Im not talking about exact timeframes but for things like adjusting the amount of achievement grind, for example…is that something that could happen relatively quickly like a mon or two…or are we looking at many months before we see and result of these discussions.

I know internal discussions need to happen, coding, etc… But on some of the topics we talked about for living story, the amount of my playtime may be determined by how quickly some of thisgetsput in. Thanks

Hi Cesmode,

Generally when we agree on a point it means that we will discuss it with the team and go from there. Reducing the "grind’ in achievements is something we have been working on for a while and the last topic discussion has only furthered our commitment to get the balance right sooner. We can’t give a timing cadence on specific features but we can talk about changes or evolutions to our design philosophy.

In my summary i listed the points we agree with and those that we will look into again. I hope this helps?

Chris

Well i was looking for something like…when you agree on an idea internally does it take months to become reality? My interest has been waning because of the things we have been discussing and i was looking to see if there is light a the end of the tunnel sooner rather than later.

It depends on the particular area, some can be almost immediate and others could take months. In future i will be sure to give more explanation about what goes into the development of features or areas we are discussing.

Chris

Oh yes please, I`d love to know the process of how all this content is considered and added in the game!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

What do you all think of this proposal:

That we only have one thread per area open at one time, for example, the next PVE one then PvP and then WvW?

I have been thinking about this for a few days and believe the major issue would be the overall velocity of the CDI, and the main Pro being that we will have more time to enter into discussions due to only having to focus on one at a time.

Thoughts?

Chris

I like the proposal, although I would switch it to WvW, then PvP, the PvE. The reason is that during the first CDI, PvE was the most successful. There was great dialog. The PvP thread was second and had a lot of good ideas discussed. The WvW thread was mostly players talking to each other. It would be great to see your presence there discussing a particular topic.

Regarding WvW, I’d either like to see a continuation of the “World Population” thread or a discussion around the amount of PvE in the WvW game mode.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nimrod.9240:

Couple things and suggestions:

- as mentioned by Chris only one CDI overall at a time (if this means more and better participation from Anet)

- for each new CDI Anet should send out an ingame mail announcement, something like “our new CDI is about [topic], we are going to discuss this because of [concerns], if you want to help improve the game come visit [forumsection]”

- the devs from Anet that will take part in the CDI should introduce themselfs in extra posts following the starting one (their thoughts on the topic, what they have to do with it)

- for a better overview as the thread grows i would suggest linking every dev reply in the first post, e.g. http://forum.tibia.com/forum/?action=thread&threadid=4015891 (it think you need to copy&paste the link manually to work)
even if you are late to the party, just by checking the first post you get an easy overview what topics have already been addressed

I think we should continue to discuss the CDI cadence for example 1 at a time or a hybrid of this and the original model.

The rest of your points are really good and i think we should probably do them unless anyone has any concerns?

Note i would have to check the logistics around the email idea, but more exposition of the initiative would be great.

Chris

Taking Nike’s suggestions to get posts read, perhaps.

I still do not understand the purpose of having one CDI thread at a time, when you have stated a few times that each thread is ‘manned’ by different Devs. I thought you had stated previously the reason for ‘one at a time’ was to allow more time for Devs to focus their attention on each thread and not be spread too thin over the three. If each thread has its own Devs, why would they be spread over the three threads?

I’m not sure there is a lot of advantage in having to wait 3 to 6 weeks for each topic. (So far, each thread of this type – those created by Devs for feedback – has seemed to stay open longer than originally intended.) The length of some threads also may discourage participation from those ‘coming late to the party’, or even those who haven’t ‘kept up’.

I noticed that at the beginning of this thread when we were discussing which topic would be next, it seemed most replies favored ‘Dev choice’, but ‘next in line’ was chosen (by a Dev). I guess that worked out, in an odd way, but when Devs choose to implement something other than popular-demand, it would be nice to hear the reason why…if possible.

Oh, and for those of us who have missed it, or failed to understand, could you give a synopsis of what we (Devs and players) have learned and/or decided on so far from all the previous and current CDI threads. I, personally, feel a little lost. Thank you for your time.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The next topic for WvW after skill lag is: Commander mechanics and Commander tag functionality.

Then when is WXP cause that is a definite hot button topic and has been for a long time?

Shadow Blade.1324:

while its good that the initiative continues and you hopefully learn things from it, one of the major issues is that you wont talk about future plans, this creates the issue of having you go off and develop things and have no direct feedback on them till they are ready to launch and cannot be changed, do you really want another 200+ page thread of wild speculation and distress because you announce a new feature/ direction days before its patched in?

we need to know about things at a point where our feedback can still make a difference in how its implemented or have it scrapped and reiterated. We also need to have an idea of long term plans ie what are you doing once all the ascended gear is out? should we expect a level cap increase, will achievements ever be meaningful? etc.

So that we can in good time contribute to the development of the systems/ design
otherwise the feedback is meaningless as you will thank us for it say you have taken it on board and we will likely not see any indication of how it has been integrated into the decision making process

for this to be successful the last part is really important, we need to see it making a difference, otherwise whats the point, you may as well continue saying “thanks for feedback we will ignore it and are doing X anyway”

Boy … that comment had WvW written all over it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

I don’t want to derail the thread but i would also like to know how everyone would like the next topics to be chosen. Simply would you like to vote again or would you like us to pick the second topics on the respective lists?

Finally i have said this many times so for those that have seen it repeatedly please forgive me for the repetition, but once again i want to make it clear that the only ‘feedback’ i have asked the team not to spend their time on are those comments which are not productive. Specifically comments with no actionable substance. Whilst it is nice to see positive commentary we spend a lot more time discussing and negative criticism so we can learn more and improve the game.

Again for the feedback on how to improve the CDI,

Chris

Voting is fine for choosing topics, as long as previous ones are off limits for a certain time to prevent the same thing from coming up repeatedly. Which is common sense and I expect you do anyway.

As for how to improve CDI, most of my feedback will be below. However I want to emphasize and agree with what others have said about solid guidelines from the devs- an initial post with your thoughts, vision, goals, what have you. This is important to direct the discussion toward areas that you, the devs, actually feel are actionable.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

What do you all think of this proposal:

That we only have one thread per area open at one time, for example, the next PVE one then PvP and then WvW?

I have been thinking about this for a few days and believe the major issue would be the overall velocity of the CDI, and the main Pro being that we will have more time to enter into discussions due to only having to focus on one at a time.

Thoughts?

Chris

I think that’s fine, and I might even extend it. A 1 month cycle would allow for a massive amount of time and discussion- probably too much. UNLESS!!! On a roughly weekly basis, the devs come in and comment with their own thoughts, responses, and a proposal of changes. This means that any given area will get worked over several times by all parties, and in theory (if everyone behaves!) get more of what we want done, in the way that you need to do it.

Now, actually 1 month is probably too long for a discussion cycle, but some kind of extended discussion should be used. I’m going to steal from CCP and EVE Online for this idea, because I think they have the best player/dev interaction currently in the industry. At least after Monoclegate happened :P (every EVE player reading this just laughed and groaned at the same time, producing a sound not entirely unlike the bleating of a drunken walrus). Now, they don’t interact as directly as you are attmepting to with CDI, but they do seem to have a really good format going and it’s given some amazing results over the last year and a half since they started it. Anyway, format break for the big idea:

Use an iterative development cycle, perhaps 3 months long. That is Discussion > Testing (side note: open tests would be HIGHLY beneficial! get you one) > Delivery > wait 3 months > Review Results and adjust the original changes as needed. If a pass didn’t have the desired results, or has major flaws, this quick re-pass lets you tune it up. It also shows that CDI is for real when you come back and directly revisit things, and that will pay off in a big way after a couple cycles.

This means you ensure that not only are you working on what the community needs via CDI topics, but you are revisiting it at regular intervals to make sure it turned out right. It’s better for the players, because when a big change happens there is recourse to fix the problems, and it’s better for the Devs because you can think big and potentially make major changes without major community meltdowns (guarunteed review = constructive outlet). Obviously details and timelines would need worked out and that’s up to you guys and how you run your studio. Even flexible timelines are fine, as long as you keep everyone up to date so there’s no flipping out.

Keep this process up for a year or two and GW2 could become incredible. You may truly be able to make a living MMO that grows with it’s players. So far, only EVE has even come close, and based on how you’ve handled the CDI discussions so far I think Anet may eventually be able to beat them. I’m not going to derail this into a business discussion, but take a look at EVE’s subscriber history over the past 10 years and it should become clear that none of this is about QQ or marking fire hydrants, but about the kind of benefits there are for both sides. You’ve had a very rocky start in the first year (I myself got a refund in protest when Ascended gear was released, and only re-subbed last month when the game went on sale), but I truly hope you succeed.

I do not understand why you do not use the forum suggestion …

you could cut it into several sub forum …

pvE:
Lore
home / hall
skin weapons
armor skins
compétances
boss / dungeon
etc etc

and as for PvP / WvW ..

how you could quickly sort … more easily find the topics .. and respond to the devs on what interested …

I also not understand why there is the stylist that meets the sylvari racial Cathegory … while others would be happy … that it would also exploitable … it would reassure players.

and so scared that it takes up too much space, put the end of the forum.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Taking Nike’s suggestions to get posts read, perhaps.

That appears to have worked out for you .

((Though, were it me, I would have trimmed the quoted text down considerably. It makes it easier to draw a direct line between what they said and what you’re inquiring about.))

In fact the percentage of Dev posts that start with ‘Nike.2631 quotes’ has plummeted in the last few hours .

No idea how to do that…or that double quote thing, Nike. I just read the ‘summary’ three pages back in that still open thread. Lol. You are very popular. It was also about 10 Dev posts back. It did reference some people’s ideas, but no clue what those ideas were. It also said there would be more summarizing, I hope that gets taken care of.
What I got most out of it, was that ArenaNet were already doing most of the things suggested, and if they were not readily recognizable, they would be in the future.

Sounds cool…all’s well that ends well. =)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

That is because you haven’t been posting (-:

((Snicker)) I made a bunch of posts. They just weren’t directed at you. I will always treasure having a conversation that amounts to Nike talking about Nike talking about Nike talking… For a moment my posts had become the CDI meta-game…

Actually, it was a good thing to talk ‘best practices’ amongst my fellow posters. In long, complicated threads, good quoting is essential so the other person can find your replies when they are specifically directed. There are things we can definitely do as poster-contributors to make your/Dev involvement more agreeable, even when we’re ripping holes in something .

I’m not sure posting links to the summary would be as helpful as, perhaps, summarizing what the ideas you, as Devs, were interested in. I, and probably some other people, don’t have the will to read or re-read that very long thread to find out what those ideas you and the community gave names to are. Just a couple of sentences that explained what those enormously-long posts were about where some people gave you ideas you may, or may not, implement in some fashion. The rest of it, as I said, was about suggestions you said you were already implementing in the game, in one fashion or another, so there is little to discuss about them.

I think this thread is about suggestions to further advance the techniques of Dev/player interaction, and ways to improve the CDI thread, so I think this would be helpful. Maybe you read some of my previous suggestions…maybe not. If we can’t keep up, then some of us may lose interest.

Happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it…and Happy Day Off, if you don’t. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

No idea how to do that…or that double quote thing, Nike.

When you hit any interesting piece of formatting on these boards you can hit ‘reply to’ and look at all the commands that were used without actually replying – its the text in the brackets. That’s generally how I’ve learned my bag of tricks . The first {quote=bignumber;poster’s name:} creates the link to the post being quoted. After that there will be various {Quote} and {/quote} commands that create the individual quotes or nested quotes. I frequently un-nest them and just trim down the text in-between to what’s needed to carry on the conversation. It takes a little practice but it pays off in clarity!

And the ‘preview’ button is your best friend – any sort of tinkering you do can be tested out in the privacy of your own browser as many times as you need to get it right.

((I’ve replaced all the square brackets with { } in the above to keep the board from trying to process the commands I was describing – you’ll see the [] brackets in real commands if you do check it out .))

Um, thanks, Nike. I think we shouldn’t have to resort to ‘formatting schemes’ to have our posts read, but whatever works. I get the feeling it may be all for naught, anyway. The other threads are like ghost-towns. I will leave it in your more capable hands. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Um, thanks, Nike. I think we shouldn’t have to resort to ‘formatting schemes’ to have our posts read, but whatever works.

I get carried away sometimes ((grumble-grumble)). But for any (middle-to-longish) post that included multiple thoughts I just find it easier to break up the quotes and address them one at a time. It helps organize my thinking, which makes it easier in turn for the other person to read and respond to.

I get the feeling it may be all for naught, anyway. The other threads are like ghost-towns. I will leave it in your more capable hands. =)

For the most part I think they’ve just run their course. That’s ok. In my opinion they reach a point where their own length crushes them. They get too big and scary for new posters to approach. I kind of lean towards a 2 week cadence myself. Long enough for people with different work schedules to have at least two good opportunities. But for them to fulfill their potential in just two weeks, they need strong, fast launches. I think it’ll be several more rounds before they have that dialed in. The next round should be better, but imagine where this process could be by round 5… Assuming Chris’ significant other hasn’t strangled him by then .

The summary of the player input by the devs is quite useful, but in fact I found the most helpful sections of the living world thread to be where you gave us insight into what was and wasn’t realistic from your point of view, and asked the guiding questions that you did. So I would ask for more of that.

I hope that tighter times and single topics would help you guys with that. Plus, let’s be honest here .. the longer a thread goes on, the more it tends to loop over the same points, and the more developer replies get lost.

Matter of fact, because of the growing signal to noise ratio and the continual churn over old points and old dev quotes, what would be more helpful than an end summary is if the original post of the thread could be updated with snippets or links to relevant posts, to serve as a kind of master guide and easy way to get caught up on the conversation as a whole.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

One final thing i wanted to mention to the group before heading of to bed is to note that whilst i have been posting relatively frequently over the weekend, this is not something i expect from the team. It is my choice to spend my free time this way and not something i would promote in regard to how the team spend their weekends.

I am mentioning this in order to set expectations around my interaction this weekend (which by the way i have very much enjoyed) in regard to my ability to interact moving forward.

This comment is not intended to diminish the value of the problem solving around the issues we have discussed about team member engagement on threads during work time however.

Chris

I think no one expects people to work weekends and we all appreciate that you are doing so and see how this really is something you are trying hard to make succeed. but you opened these Tuesday and its really a bit much to have no dev responses in a thread open for 6 days. This may not be as big of an issue for the pvp team as their dev’s are very active on the forums and engage in plenty of discusion outside of this. I am sure you get where i am going with this as i am not subtle and have been beating this dead horse for a while.

StriderShinryu.6923:

If you knew your post was definitely being read and considered, regardless of it being of a positive or negative nature, and was potentially likely to be responded to, wouldn’t you be more likely to became invested in the process?

Most definitely, this is why I’m more of a reader and bystander on certain things and not a contributor, because I like to be replied to when I have an idea or feel something could be corrected in some way.

I have lent some very valuable information on how the game can be improved in a lot of topical areas, and in very constructive ways thus far, and I invite the dev’s to please have a look through my posting history, but the less response we get the less we feel like we’re being acknowledged.

To date thus far, not one dev has responded to anything I’ve posted, whether it be something in the Suggestions forum (seems like a big waste of time posting in there), the overly-active Game Discussion forums (where a variety of dev’s like to hang out) or even the Crafting forum, where it’s more than apparent that that forum is completely devoid of developer interaction.

“Do you feel like you’re talking to a brick wall?”

“Yes I do.”

There are a lot of helpful posts on these forums, and it’s more than obvious that a lot of them will go unanswered by those that can do something about them.

Acknowledgement. Recognition. Communication. Dev’s, it’s up to you.

‘For the most part I think they’ve just run their course. That’s ok. In my opinion they reach a point where their own length crushes them.’

Run their course? There are only 33 posts in the PvP thread last time I looked. It’s even dropped down to the 3rd page. Not many more in WvW, 75. Maybe no one is interested in WvW or PvP, I don’t really know. Mostly they are grumbling about a lack of interest on the Devs’ part, I guess.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

‘For the most part I think they’ve just run their course. That’s ok. In my opinion they reach a point where their own length crushes them.’

Run their course? There are only 33 posts in the PvP thread last time I looked. It’s even dropped down to the 3rd page. Not many more in WvW, 75. Maybe no one is interested in WvW or PvP, I don’t really know. Mostly they are grumbling about a lack of interest on the Devs’ part, I guess.

that’s the thing there was plenty of interest in the wvw cdi thread on population balance. Who is going to show up to talk about how the process can be improved if the main complaint is they never showed up for the first conversation and are currently not showing up for the conversation on the improvement. The pvp guys don’t have alot of interest because the dev’s seem very active everywhere else they don’t seem to need much improvement.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Rhyse,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your thoughts.There is a lot to think about in regard to your points, so i will respond tomorrow so i can have more time to think about your proposal.

Chris

Thanks for reading it. I always end up writing essays for some reason when I start out with a sentence or two :/ No worries if you don’t hit all the ideas, it’s enough for me that you read it atm. There’s a lot of ideas in that wall of text and most of it has to do with your own stuff behind the scenes, assuming it even meshes with your own ideas and isn’t way off base in the first place. I’m fine with that. Just hope it helps spark an idea or two.

Hey Chris,

Here is why I am opposed to doing a new call for topics:
1. It eats up time that could be used collaborating.
2. I didn’t vote for the living story in the original call for topics. So by doing another call, it would feel like all the people who did vote for living story get a second vote overwriting mine. Then you call again, and all the people who voted for that topic and the living story have once again overwritten my voice. This isn’t a perfect explanation, but I hope it’s coming across well enough.

I’m not saying you should never do another call for topics, but if you’re going to do a vote-based decision, do the top 3 before starting over, please.

Nike.2631:

For the most part I think they’ve just run their course. That’s ok. In my opinion they reach a point where their own length crushes them. They get too big and scary for new posters to approach. I kind of lean towards a 2 week cadence myself. Long enough for people with different work schedules to have at least two good opportunities. But for them to fulfill their potential in just two weeks, they need strong, fast launches.

i think he meant the cdi discussion threads like this one not the original cdi threads.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

FYI if we go with the next topics from the initial call for topics threads (Global) then they are as follows:

PVE: Ascended Gear
PvP: Rewards and Progression
WvW: Skill Lag

These are all pretty focused topics which means we will be able to enter into the discussions more readily in terms of time. The bigger the topic the more divergent the discussions and this makes it harder for us to give them our full attention.

Chris

Can we see a complete list of the next 3+ topics?