I just wanted a place where we could chat about the Collaborative Development topics proposal thread without cluttering up that thread itself.
While I fret that there could end up being a little internal strife as the player base tries to push their individual agendas via popularity contest, on the whole I’m really impressed with the subjects being brought up.
Even if my personal top 3 picks don’t make the cut/catch the Devs’ eye, I’m at least a little hopeful that if almost anything mentioned gets addressed and improved in the live game, my play experience will benefit.
Keep it up guys!
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
Fingers crossed something actually does come out of this. This is, what, second stage in a four stage project? So we are a bit far off, but still. Seems like all the threads have gotten pretty solid responses so far.
How many people are reading them? I’m wondering whether someone might pick out a point that’s not too strenuous, start a thread, and hash it out right there and then.
I’m actually very appreciative they initiated this and very optimistic on how it all will play out. And as you mentioned, if even one topic gets addressed and improved, we all benefit. It will be very interesting to see how much different the forums could be a couple of months from now.
“If you can’t beat them, get a bigger stick.”
- Some random quote -
The Walkers and the Whispers, ANVIL ROCK
Me to, I am hesitantly optimistic, mostly because I really love the game, Ive just become frustrated recently…and it doesn’t seem like I am alone on that aspect….so I am hopeful that many of the ideas (or at least some of them) brought up in the collaborative threads get addressed (and quickly…that will be the key…if it takes a year to address something that they say they will take out of the thread…then what was the point.)
Fingers crossed something actually does come out of this.
If this new collaborative process is earnest and the developers truly strive to communicate with their customers (PR speak isn’t communication) then they’ll do a lot to diffuse much of the growing hostilities among their customer base. They don’t have to enact the suggestions the community offers, but just listening to the community’s concerns and informing us why they do or don’t implement various changes will go a long way toward rebuilding some of the goodwill they’ve burned over the last year. However, if this is all just lip service given to placate the frustrated masses…the blowback will be fierce.
I’m actually very appreciative they initiated this and very optimistic on how it all will play out. And as you mentioned, if even one topic gets addressed and improved, we all benefit. It will be very interesting to see how much different the forums could be a couple of months from now.
I’m also appreciative, but pessimistic about the outcome. For some time now, I’ve had to face the idea that the aspects of the advertised game direction that appealed most to me were contrary to the desires of enough players that that direction has changed. I don’t see that changing without the extremely unlikely chance that there are vastly more people in my shoes than I think is the case. I’m holding on with the hope that enough change will occur due to this process to make the game fun again.
As to the forums being a different (perhaps more respectful) place in time, I hope that the initiative to root out disrespect also targets those who disrespect other players, not just the company.
As I’ve said before, if they follow through with this, it will calm the forumers down a good bit. Most of the outrage stems from 13 months of no responses from the company. If this is just a show, these forums will become a battleground.
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
– Euripides
If this is just a show, these forums will become a battleground.
A graveyard, more likely, IMO.
Thinking about it a bit more, it would be all rainbows and unicorns and fluffy clouds with smiles on them because the only people left would be the guys who post threads praising the game about everything in pure fanboyish elation.
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
– Euripides
Also remember, these are the first 3 topics. Not the only 3. More discussions on a wider variety will no doubt occur if this proves a successful venture.
Its been interesting to draw some connections between topics raised, partially for grouping different request descriptions under a common header and partially to look how one issue flows into the next.
For example my personal #1 is about events scaling, but the are (I’m pleased to see) a fair number of people who see the preponderance of zerging through content as an issue – and these two items are closely related. Its hard to feel skillful when you know the real question is did 25 people come, or did 60?
You also start seeing a recurring spectrum of topics:
Progress is too grindy flows into
Ascended implementation is an issue flows into
The game is alt unfriendly.
But yes, what we’re all holding our breath over is can they acknowledge even some of our concerns and make progress on any of them in a way that makes it look like we the player’s had a hand in things?
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
I don’t believe anything will actually come from the discussions. It’s like having a chat with a politician. You’ll get all sorts of responses, than they’re elected and suddenly none of those things are fiesable goals anymore.
You have gotten what you paid for, all that remains is biweekly gemshop pushing.
Most of the outrage stems from 13 months of no responses from the company. If this is just a show, these forums will become a battleground.
I wouldn’t say no responses, just few responses and most of those being “we see you’re talking about it” or “we haven’t decided how to handle that yet.” It gives, to me at least, the feeling like the game has been moving forward without any sort of actual plan. Or, perhaps, that there is a plan but that it’s not being made public simply for fear of backlash and loss of players (which, if you really believe in your plan in the first place, should be something you’re willing to risk).
Personally, I’m just hoping to see what ANet really does have in the cards with this more open communication. I’m hoping for less a battleground and more of a harmonious existence because those who aren’t happy with the plan ANet lays out can move on to other games knowing full well that GW2 is not and won’t be for them. That’s not a bad thing, for either the players who stay or the ones who leave for good.
As for the topics that have been brought up so far, I’m generally happy with them. The only one I’ve seen that really doesn’t impact me much at all is the desire for more Guild options and functionality, but I can understand why that’s so important to the people that it’s important to.
Most of the outrage stems from 13 months of no responses from the company. If this is just a show, these forums will become a battleground.
I wouldn’t say no responses, just few responses and most of those being “we see you’re talking about it” or “we haven’t decided how to handle that yet.” It gives, to me at least, the feeling like the game has been moving forward without any sort of actual plan. Or, perhaps, that there is a plan but that it’s not being made public simply for fear of backlash and loss of players (which, if you really believe in your plan in the first place, should be something you’re willing to risk).
Personally, I’m just hoping to see what ANet really does have in the cards with this more open communication. I’m hoping for less a battleground and more of a harmonious existence because those who aren’t happy with the plan ANet lays out can move on to other games knowing full well that GW2 is not and won’t be for them. That’s not a bad thing, for either the players who stay or the ones who leave for good.
As for the topics that have been brought up so far, I’m generally happy with them. The only one I’ve seen that really doesn’t impact me much at all is the desire for more Guild options and functionality, but I can understand why that’s so important to the people that it’s important to.
They’ve been mostly “soon”, “we’re working on it”, and “nothing’s off the table”. For pretty much everything that’s the answer that’s given. It gets old after 13 months.
I’m not so sure. I’m skeptical about all of it. I still feel it’s just here to quell the masses that are speaking up. You know when a forum’s filled with numerous threads on the same topic, there might very well be something wrong with it. Not saying there is, but there’s a good chance of there being one. And that doesn’t look good for new players who just purchased the game and look through.
It might be legit, in which case I’d be one of the happier people that finally something’s happening that we can talk about.
It might all be a clever plan to filter out all the people on the forums who are part of the negative criticism squad and via obscure forum rules and word play are removed one by one to have the forums make the game look like a lush oasis on the top when in fact it’s just a induced mirage with nothing but grains of sand that do you no good after you jump head first into it.
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
– Euripides
The developers know already the main problem topics of the community at large. The future weeks will be a test whether they’ll be ready to address those, or would they rather use a “player vote” system as an excuse to concentrate on more superficial and less violatile ones.
Which will tell us how serious they really are about the whole “player – developer communication” improvement.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
I am confused. Are you saying that what the playerbase (who votes) deem as most important is, in fact, not important? Does that mean that those that use the forums, and express their concerns are not those that should determine what is important? Who should deem what is important? If the forum-users don’t represent the community-at-large, who does? And where should the developers communicate, then?
I am confused. Are you saying that what the playerbase (who votes) deem as most important is, in fact, not important?
I didn’t say “the most important”. I said “most problematic”. That is not the same. There are a lot of things that people would like to have discussed, and consider them important, that, however, are nowhere close to being core problems of GW2 current design.
Just by looking at what people propose, we see things like Housing/guild halls, charr armor glitches, more armor skins (or just skins in general), minigames. Those repeat quite often, so it is a good guess that they are important for at least a part of community. Can they be called core problems? I don’t think so.
Of course, you may disagree.
Edit. doh. I indeed said “less important”. My mistake, that was uncalled for. Corrected the original message for (hopefully) better understanding.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
A lot of people are making very specific suggestions of things to fix rather than over-arching topics, as requested. Hopefully the people who go through the thread will be able to distill an idea down to a more basic idea in order to count everyone’s suggestions. I’m also noticing that a lot of people are making entire outlines of ways to implement these specific suggestions. I’m under the impression that the call was for some wide-ranging discussion on major aspects of the three areas of the game (PvE, PvP and WvW), which would then become a more focused topic.
“Be angry about legendary weapons, sure, but what about the recent drought of content?”
-Mike O’Brien
Because we can’t be angry about both?
We are currently over 1,200 individually highlighted concerns (much more if you count the items numbered ‘4’ and up by some of our more enthusiastic peers ).
You can probably represent over 50% of all of them with a list of just 10 broad topics, closer to 90% with a list of 15. I wouldn’t want to have to be the guy trying to give an exact count or to curtail the process by trying to extract something as limited as a “top 3” but general themes are emerging LOUD AND CLEAR.
ANet asked, and I really do think we’ve done a good collective job of answering, putting the ball squarely in their court.
Now the waiting begins.
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
Fingers crossed something actually does come out of this.
If this new collaborative process is earnest and the developers truly strive to communicate with their customers (PR speak isn’t communication) then they’ll do a lot to diffuse much of the growing hostilities among their customer base. They don’t have to enact the suggestions the community offers, but just listening to the community’s concerns and informing us why they do or don’t implement various changes will go a long way toward rebuilding some of the goodwill they’ve burned over the last year. However, if this is all just lip service given to placate the frustrated masses…the blowback will be fierce.
Sure they claim to want topics but where will it go from there.
There’s a repeat of history happening here again in these forums. I fear that the collaboration will just be something to keep us occupied longer in a title that doesn’t update well or test much before posting a live patch. And I believe that what’s really going on is that the collaboration is also a misdirect away from the greater problem of the new draconian rule coming around the bend, this happened btw in another title and they lost tons of players all at once when it occurred.
I don’t think anything will really come from the collab as history with this title for 1 yr + has shown us and I really don’t see a positive future coming from anything this new rule will provide.
I personally even thought of logging back into two of my older haunts due to this happening here in these forums, history repeats itself it seems.
Fingers crossed something actually does come out of this.
If this new collaborative process is earnest and the developers truly strive to communicate with their customers (PR speak isn’t communication) then they’ll do a lot to diffuse much of the growing hostilities among their customer base. They don’t have to enact the suggestions the community offers, but just listening to the community’s concerns and informing us why they do or don’t implement various changes will go a long way toward rebuilding some of the goodwill they’ve burned over the last year. However, if this is all just lip service given to placate the frustrated masses…the blowback will be fierce.
Sure they claim to want topics but where will it go from there.
There’s a repeat of history happening here again in these forums. I fear that the collaboration will just be something to keep us occupied longer in a title that doesn’t update well or test much before posting a live patch. And I believe that what’s really going on is that the collaboration is also a misdirect away from the greater problem of the new draconian rule coming around the bend, this happened btw in another title and they lost tons of players all at once when it occurred.
I don’t think anything will really come from the collab as history with this title for 1 yr + has shown us and I really don’t see a positive future coming from anything this new rule will provide.
I personally even thought of logging back into two of my older haunts due to this happening here in these forums, history repeats itself it seems.
Absolutely guys. Something will definitely backfire either good or bad. Let’s hope for the best. And let’s hope it will be soon. I don’t want to see a major issue to be addressed after 3 or so months. Remember the loot discussion where we had to write thousands of replies and personal observations. Let’s not forget how many times the thread itself was deleted and every time re-posted until something did change after the 10th thousand+ reply. Hope for the best.
Fingers crossed.
I’d be interested to know how these responses will be processed and down-selected for discussion. If it’s a pure count of topics and the highest count wins then that may not reflect the real issues that need to be addressed. So we end up with a list of symptoms that are part of a wider issue that did not come up so often.
So in effect we end up talking about sticking plasters rather stitches.
The cynical part of me says that we will get 3 simple ‘fluff’ issues to satisfy the ‘we are listening’ accusations and the real core issues will get left out. My hope, as a customer is please don’t dodge the real issues.
TLDR: In short the game is the tin man. It has a brain what it lacks and needs is a heart
They should start these types of discussions for each profession, too. Obviously a big task (maybe tackle three at a time or something?), but there REALLY needs to be clearer communication in terms of profession balance / direction of development. A lot of players (including me) really don’t understand ArenaNet’s intentions or choices when it comes to certain professions, and it can be EXTREMELY frustrating to feel like we aren’t heard and long-standing issues aren’t addressed.
They should start these types of discussions for each profession, too. Obviously a big task (maybe tackle three at a time or something?), but there REALLY needs to be clearer communication in terms of profession balance / direction of development. A lot of players (including me) really don’t understand ArenaNet’s intentions or choices when it comes to certain professions, and it can be EXTREMELY frustrating to feel like we aren’t heard and long-standing issues aren’t addressed.
Here is a problem. Every adherent of any class think that he is unfairly hurted, over-nerfed and weak. Believes that all but he able to go dungeons solo and capture castles alone, but only HE should.
It’s a waste of time. There will be very few constructive suggestions.
The cynical part of me says that we will get 3 simple ‘fluff’ issues to satisfy the ‘we are listening’ accusations and the real core issues will get left out.
That’s my fear as well. That’s why i said before that the way they will handle that will tell us a lot about how serious they are.
I’m just afraid that forum warriors will massively vote for “class balance” and turn the topic into the next ridiculous holywar with tug of blankets.
While there are other topics i’d personally like to discuss first, before class balance, if they chose that topic as the first one, i’d be quite happy. It’s definitely both one of the most explosive topics, and a very difficult problem to discuss. If they chose it (and really went on with discussion, instead of just letting people scream at each other before locking the thread) it would mean they are deadly serious.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
For some reason… I can see them making a word cloud… and just looking at the few words (seeing the phrases that those words came from) – and that’s going to be their 3 issues.
I hope people are not getting hyped up or getting their hopes up either.
I’m hoping they take the people asking for class balances seriously, and start fixing the core parts of each particular class that need to be fixed. Ranger pets in general really need to be looked at and re-evaluated.
[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald
Here is a problem. Every adherent of any class think that he is unfairly hurted, over-nerfed and weak. Believes that all but he able to go dungeons solo and capture castles alone, but only HE should.
It’s a waste of time. There will be very few constructive suggestions.
I most definitely agree that some of that goes on in each profession subforum. I find most of them fairly hard to read for those reasons. You’re quite right.
BUT… I also play all eight professions, I’m level 80 and fully geared on all of them and have spent significant time with each one working on builds and playing the game. I can tell you that there are definitely disparities between professions in terms of viability in certain game types, and in terms of builds. Some professions are in much better shape than others. On top of that, ALL professions have numerous bugs that can and should be fixed…and hopefully a more constructive dialogue could help prioritize those fixes so that players feel more satisfied that things are moving forward.
If nothing else, constructive and open communication with the devs in terms of their philosophy and direction with each profession would probably go a long way to alleviating some of the complaining and frustration that we see from players right now.
Here is a problem. Every adherent of any class think that he is unfairly hurted, over-nerfed and weak. Believes that all but he able to go dungeons solo and capture castles alone, but only HE should.
It’s a waste of time. There will be very few constructive suggestions.
I most definitely agree that some of that goes on in each profession subforum. I find most of them fairly hard to read for those reasons. You’re quite right.
BUT… I also play all eight professions, I’m level 80 and fully geared on all of them and have spent significant time with each one working on builds and playing the game. I can tell you that there are definitely disparities between professions in terms of viability in certain game types, and in terms of builds. Some professions are in much better shape than others. On top of that, ALL professions have numerous bugs that can and should be fixed…and hopefully a more constructive dialogue could help prioritize those fixes so that players feel more satisfied that things are moving forward.
If nothing else, constructive and open communication with the devs in terms of their philosophy and direction with each profession would probably go a long way to alleviating some of the complaining and frustration that we see from players right now.
I agree with this. The main problem with this forum right now is a total lack of actual interaction between Anet and players other than the occasional response to a simple question or an obviously contrived PR piece (which rightfully does little to assuage the community’s ire).
There are numerous bugs and conceptual design problems littered through the classes/skills/traits in addition to the larger scope issues like the direction of the Living World and Ascended gear that players need more down-to-earth communication about. Personally, I think they don’t have their staff resources allocated well. They probably have too few people on class balance and polish and too many people working on temporary content, for example, when people are much more concerned about the former than the latter.
The future weeks will be a test whether they’ll be ready to address those, or would they rather use a “player vote” system as an excuse to concentrate on more superficial and less volatile ones.
It’s certainly a possibility that the developers could use this as an opportunity to cherry-pick a few low hanging fruits, polish them up, and show them to the community while saying “See? We do listen to you guys.” Hopefully they won’t take that easy route; hopefully they’ll tackle the tougher issues for the good of the game.
I just wanted a place where we could chat about the Collaborative Development topics proposal thread without cluttering up that thread itself.
While I fret that there could end up being a little internal strife as the player base tries to push their individual agendas via popularity contest, on the whole I’m really impressed with the subjects being brought up.
Even if my personal top 3 picks don’t make the cut/catch the Devs’ eye, I’m at least a little hopeful that if almost anything mentioned gets addressed and improved in the live game, my play experience will benefit.
Keep it up guys!
I have made a lengthy post in the suggestions forum that addresses this issue. It’s an in-depth suggestion of how they could Optimize their new effort of communicating with us.
).