Guild Wars 2

What groundbreaking content?

If we look at PVE, most of the content is repetitive achievements that are rendered differently when in reality they are the same as half the content in the starting zones. We also get a constant temporary content and constant bugs with anything released while existing bugs take months for Anet to admit exist, let along fix. Some content has been great- though most of said content disappears after a couple of weeks so what difference does it make.

You know, you could have skipped this living story entirely and added new permanent content, every month that was meaningful and required skill. You know, like completing some chain to get a rare skin. Or working on world bosses after it was initially obvious the old system didn’t work. Or you know, precusor quests? Since the precusor system is obviously the epitome of your groundbreaking content.

For PVP, you released a major balance patch which messed up the meta totally creating a number of completely over the top builds. Not only do you not admit it, even when you admit the meta is bad, but it has taken nearly 4 months for a balence patch… which from the look of it, won’t help with the current situation. The entire concept of balance is based around which classes are require pointless spamming and passive functions to be casual friendly. Who needs a skill cap right.

Let’s not even talk about your amazing game mode and after a year how the competitive scene is flourishing with talent and has so many fans.

As for WVW, you have done nearly the opposite of what people have been requesting since the game mode was released. Instead of making things more balenced, you add more and more passive bonuses which benefit the winning side more. Then you add leagues, which will fracture the server balence and populations even more. You still haven’t fixed the exploits, and didn’t even admit to some of them until people had video recordings of your own developers exploiting into towers. Class balence doesn’t exist, server balence doesn’t exist outside of T1, worse you treat your ‘vision’ of how things are meant to be perfect, regardless if things are not that way nor will be with the decisions you make.

I won’t even get started on ascended gear.

So I welcome you to continue to praise your efforts and how well you think you are doing. You have delivered a good platform with a lot of potential. But the constant group think and obsession with living story and esports is showing in the way you progress.

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

You make it sound like no one at all likes the changes. People don’t hate these things, some people do, at least in regards to temporary content and ascended gear. Some things you call mistakes, other people quite like. The balance stuff, well yeah, that needs a whole lot of work…but if you keep using the world people as if everyone things the same, you completely lose any kind of credibility.

Nage.1520:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People…

You make it sound like no one at all likes the changes. People don’t hate these things, some people do…

The word “people” can be applied to any group larger than one. “People” and “some people” can be used interchangeably. It’s only when you mean to say everyone that you have to apply a qualifier, like saying “All people.”

If you really care for the game you need to check 3 things asap:

1) “vertical progression” got out of hand…..it became a grinding like the worst korean mmorpg….
Fully equipping single character to be optimal for PvE and WWW requires not less than lineage 2 probably….and considering the lack of trinity and the need to change equip often this game can t follow the vertical progression road.

With armor you risk to give the final blow to this game for many players…..tie ascended armors to story missions and such…not to gold farming that is making a HUGE disparity between players.

If you force people to rush 10 dungeons daily to farm money they get old quickly…
If you let people play for fun, the game is better for MOST player…leave the few grinders following legendary stuff etc….

2) PvE and WWW are the most popular gamemodes…..yet they are suffering from PvP balancing….PvP is ruining PvE.

3) Some decisions you made pushed the friendly community we had at launch to what we have now…..consider that also please.
People start measuring time with gold profit rather than fun…..

Nage.1520:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

You make it sound like no one at all likes the changes. People don’t hate these things, some people do, at least in regards to temporary content and ascended gear. Some things you call mistakes, other people quite like. The balance stuff, well yeah, that needs a whole lot of work…but if you keep using the world people as if everyone things the same, you completely lose any kind of credibility.

Agreed, some people do like them. Also some people like exploiting and some people like hacking. When we refer to large groups of people their is always going to be variation about opinions on a subject, particularly if it involves change. My post did not state that every player or forum reader shared a collective opinion or my own. I did use plural terms, however given the nature of these terms and the amount of evidence that these points are shared by a considerable number of people on the forums, I believe said usage is justified.

The points I am referring to are the ones which are constantly brought up in the forums and attract a lot of negative feedback – again for a reason. If people like said content, I am also sure they have a reason for liking it. If people are angry, and are angry for a reason, maybe that reason should be considered instead of just making condescending threads about how you want people to agree with your approach.

If there were polls on these subjects, on the forums, I think we would find an overwhelming majority of people don’t like many of these points. We could say that this is only representative of the people posting in the forums not the game altogether, however this thread is only targeted towards the people in this forum.

tldr; Semantics aside, people are angry for a reason. Said changes have affected a lot of people in negative ways and they respond with negativity. If Anet doesn’t expect that or think it’s warranted giving the nature of some of these changes, they need to spend more time trying to understand their forum community and less time enforcing group think. This tldr is far too long.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Nage.1520:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

You make it sound like no one at all likes the changes. People don’t hate these things, some people do, at least in regards to temporary content and ascended gear. Some things you call mistakes, other people quite like. The balance stuff, well yeah, that needs a whole lot of work…but if you keep using the world people as if everyone things the same, you completely lose any kind of credibility.

Agreed, some people do like them. Also some people like exploiting and some people like hacking. When we refer to large groups of people their is always going to be variation about opinions on a subject, particularly if it involves change. My post did not state that every player or forum reader shared a collective opinion or my own. I did use plural terms, however given the nature of these terms and the amount of evidence that these points are shared by a considerable number of people on the forums, I believe said usage is justified.

The points I am referring to are the ones which are constantly brought up in the forums and attract a lot of negative feedback – again for a reason. If people like said content, I am also sure they have a reason for liking it. If people are angry, and are angry for a reason, maybe that reason should be considered instead of just making condescending threads about how you want people to agree with your approach.

If there were polls on these subjects, on the forums, I think we would find an overwhelming majority of people don’t like many of these points. We could say that this is only representative of the people posting in the forums not the game altogether, however this thread is only targeted towards the people in this forum.

tldr; Semantics aside, people are angry for a reason. Said changes have affected a lot of people in negative ways and they respond with negativity. If Anet doesn’t expect that or think it’s warranted giving the nature of some of these changes, they need to spend more time trying to understand their forum community and less time enforcing group think. This tldr is far too long.

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

I hate to say it but the hostile community can be blamed on other big name companies. Example EA being voted twice for most hated. From what I have noticed over the years “screwed” by dev’s/publishers has basically caused a revolution of gamers tired of having bugs that are a huge problem based on what that game is based on. Example Mass Effect 3 had a bad ending, people went nuts about it, Total War 2 had terrible AI in an RTS game.. people went nuts over it, Guild Wars 2 having cosmetic bugs and refusing/unable to fix them.

These types of glaring flaws have caused gamers to just say “screw it I have had it and I will let everyone know it”. Has anyone seen the Battlefield 4 Beta forums? It is literally a warzone because dev’s/publishers keep making the same mistake and ignore something that is “rude” when it is at its core a real issue that needs to be looked at.

Now that the community’s have just gotten so “hostile” dev’s are just afraid to say anything so they don’t.. making it worse, it is a spiraling issue and it will most likely just keep getting out of control. They bring this on themselves and then try to tell us to calm down and be respectful when basing community likes and dislikes by how many people log on that day of content doesn’t give great data.

Asking players to calm down will do almost nothing because the damage has been done. When you mess up something and then get told to fix…. then pushed to fix it….then yelled at about it and slapped in the face… going and saying hey thats not nice don’t do that.

People have paid real money for this game and when the people who take that money and then put it into content nobody/select few people like is not how you do it. Being biased about content in the game that plays a major role is a bad way to do things and it will only get worse sorry to say. You brought it on yourself and you need to fix your priorities because at the moment they are pretty messed up.

LordByron.8369:

If you really care for the game you need to check 3 things asap:

1) “vertical progression” got out of hand…..it became a grinding like the worst korean mmorpg….
Fully equipping single character to be optimal for PvE and WWW requires not less than lineage 2 probably….and considering the lack of trinity and the need to change equip often this game can t follow the vertical progression road.

With armor you risk to give the final blow to this game for many players…..tie ascended armors to story missions and such…not to gold farming that is making a HUGE disparity between players.

If you force people to rush 10 dungeons daily to farm money they get old quickly…
If you let people play for fun, the game is better for MOST player…leave the few grinders following legendary stuff etc….

2) PvE and WWW are the most popular gamemodes…..yet they are suffering from PvP balancing….PvP is ruining PvE.

3) Some decisions you made pushed the friendly community we had at launch to what we have now…..consider that also please.
People start measuring time with gold profit rather than fun…..

I would like to add to this:
The base game is a good foundation- build on that with the Living Word

At the moment the game feels very disjointed because there is no connection between your character, the world, the personal story and the Living World

For the Living World to be truly living instead of barely coherent you need to use what you have in place i.e the main plot- the orders – the personal story, the DE’s etc and use that to drive the Living World forward.

Temporary content should drive permanent content.

The game could also benefit from having emotional roots-
if you are interested in how communities interact in the game you need to give them anchors.
Some things like decent guild tools, guild halls, personal housing etc
A zerg is not a community

Another thing is communication- sure you see the lack of it but we are where we are as a community because we are left in a vacuum by you guys.
You do not communicate enough, you know this.
It is all good to ask that we step on for the ride/ or not.
But what is the ride?
State where you want the game to go- do it honestly and decisively but do it.
The reason the forums are such a cesspit is because we are all at sea here.
You cannot have a one sided collaboration

Oh and please- not sure how you collect data via metrics or actually from in-game but please take a look in game- just because a million people are running up and down does not mean they are enjoying themselves- it means they are farming because they are afraid of being left behind.
Sometimes I feel that there is a disconnect between what is happening and your interpretation of what is happening

I love this game and I have been here from the betas- so far I am along for the ride but sometimes I feel like you guys- as awesome as you are- need a bit of tough love.
Less PR, more honesty and transparency.

as a complete aside
Recently Kirsten Perry did a podcast about her work process- that was amazing and incredibly appreciated

Dseaver.8740:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I ask that you remain respectful to your fellow man/woman, and be constructive in your approach to the development of the game, and understand Tyria is made up of communities and not individuals.

Chris W

It is such a simple concept, yet its always ridiculed by folks consumed by anger, bordom and frustration.

You guys at ArenaNet have done hell of a job dealing with endless negativity.
Keep up the good work.

Let’s face it … the guys at ANet CREATED a lot of the negativity that shows up on these forums. I’ve played this game since launch, and along with many others posted lots of constructive requests and suggestions that were (and still are) ignored. It isn’t even necessary to read the posts to figure out which issues are considered the most significant by the player base in general … all that is necessary is to scan the thread titles to see the ones that show up over and over again.

After a while the patient voice calling at the customer service desk gets pretty negative after seeing nothing but empty chairs on the other side month after month.

morrolan.9608:

Shockwave.1230:

Most importantly of note here, is that ANet measures feedback against the pillars of Guild Wars 2 and the direction they want to move. This is crucial. This means that regardless of player feedback, ultimately ANet is in control and driving this game. This is possibly one of the most important things to keep in mind when understanding how/why the game is going in the direction that it is.

But what are the pillars NOW? Because they have definitely changed over the life of the game and one of the big issues is that anet haven’t communicated enough about why and what they are doing.

I would love to know what their pillars are as well, I note that I wonder what they actually are later in that post. It’d be great to have the pillars documented, because then a lot of players can make an easy decision about whether they want to support the game based on its overarching ideals. I figured what they followed in Guild Wars would be done in this game as well, specifically no vertical progression related to player power, a focus on build diversity, zero to minimal grind for rewards, and the like.

Shadow Blade.1324:

Shockwave.1230:

It’s incredibly exciting that ANet does listen to forum goers. It’s important to understand as well that ANet will not act on some feedback, because it is in conflict with the game’s direction or because they simply don’t have the time/money/resources to have acted already on some feedback.

ascended gear says hello

i dont think Anet really cares about feedback at this point, its all about what will benefit game/ gem sales the most positively, and damage control/ spin, the Anet brand is already severely compromised at this point.

if they did care they would give us something like 3 months notice of major game changes rather than 3 days, you know enough time for feedback to be given, considered and acted upon.

but if you want collaborative development consider implementing some of the following

Test servers -since you seem to having problems fully testing releases also faster feedback
Non ascended servers – at least half the population would probably move to these
Fix Jewel crafting – its currently obsolete (will probably craft infusions in a year)
remove DR and diminish RNG – reward players for effort not luck
Less gold based content – end game is basically farm gold to bypass RNG
Better communication- actually communicating without PR spin and pointless embellishments

Servers without vertical progression would be extremely interesting. Clearly ANet has a fractured community. Perhaps having separate servers that meet a lot of the expectations of these conflicting game ideologies is a viable solution. The challenge would be with WvW. PvE would be taken care of by each respective server type, and PvP is separate from many of issues people are expressing.

Chris, I am concerned. Rage is the emotion of unmet expectations. I am really concerned that ArenaNet may not be able to distinguish between a rude noisemaker, and a customer, or more importantly whole community of customers, whose expectations were set, but then not met.

There’s a huge difference between the two.

And that inability to distinguish could be the difference between a vibrant game and a ghost town, as soon as there is a competing game.

Your letter has made me more concerned, not less concerned, that ArenaNet does not intend to continue to provide a game I want to play. I am also more concerned that my feedback, and that of people like me, is being dismissed by ArenaNet executives as “disrespectful”.

Respectfully, I’d like to play an MMO. I hope ArenaNet chooses to continue to provide one.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

(snip)

Chris W

Hello Chris and the other ArenaNet developers

I get it that you want us to have some patience while you progress this game to a higher level, but some of the changes we have seen were lower quality content than the original game. I’m willing to wait off a few months and come back after that to see if the game got better, by making these added features better or adding more.
At the moment however I don’t see that happening with ascended (because everyone who doesn’t get them will be at a disadvantage) and living story (so much missed temporary content).

I hope you read this, because I really am a fan of Guild Wars 2, but so many parts of the game lack motivation to play. WvW doesn’t define personal skill or group skill, but instead selects victory based on the number of WvW players you have on your server.
PvE is generally a mass experience on end-game… 80 people fighting 1 boss… I really feel like I meant something killing him using auto-attack and standing in one spot (not). Spvp is just meaningless overall, because it doesn’t connect to the other parts of the game.

BUT – and that’s important – most of the other content is absolutely genius (jumping puzzles are awesome, the landscapes are magnificent, the combat itself is rich, easy to handle and certainly not static… and so forth and so forth.

Yours sincerely,

A (once) devoted GW2 player

Vayne.8563:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Nage.1520:

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

You make it sound like no one at all likes the changes. People don’t hate these things, some people do, at least in regards to temporary content and ascended gear. Some things you call mistakes, other people quite like. The balance stuff, well yeah, that needs a whole lot of work…but if you keep using the world people as if everyone things the same, you completely lose any kind of credibility.

Agreed, some people do like them. Also some people like exploiting and some people like hacking. When we refer to large groups of people their is always going to be variation about opinions on a subject, particularly if it involves change. My post did not state that every player or forum reader shared a collective opinion or my own. I did use plural terms, however given the nature of these terms and the amount of evidence that these points are shared by a considerable number of people on the forums, I believe said usage is justified.

The points I am referring to are the ones which are constantly brought up in the forums and attract a lot of negative feedback – again for a reason. If people like said content, I am also sure they have a reason for liking it. If people are angry, and are angry for a reason, maybe that reason should be considered instead of just making condescending threads about how you want people to agree with your approach.

If there were polls on these subjects, on the forums, I think we would find an overwhelming majority of people don’t like many of these points. We could say that this is only representative of the people posting in the forums not the game altogether, however this thread is only targeted towards the people in this forum.

tldr; Semantics aside, people are angry for a reason. Said changes have affected a lot of people in negative ways and they respond with negativity. If Anet doesn’t expect that or think it’s warranted giving the nature of some of these changes, they need to spend more time trying to understand their forum community and less time enforcing group think. This tldr is far too long.

I think you’re wrong about the usage being justified. Because you don’t really know how many people like something.

Assuming that people come to the forums to complain, you’re naturally going to see more complaints on the forum. It’s not an accurate indication of the entire player base…only a very vocal percentage of the playerbase.

Saying people are mad and that gives them the right to act badly is wrong anyway.

The whole thing rings from a flaw in reasoning known as the argument from ignorance. The argument from ignorance is essentially the practice of saying something is true or false because there isn’t evidence to the contrary. This shows up in debates about approval and content a lot, and in forums it always follows the same pattern:

Person 1: A is true because you see it here.
Person 2: A is not true because you see opposite here.
Person 1: Exceptions that are dwarfed by the rest
Person 2: Forums aren’t representative so it isn’t an exception.
Person 1: I have a poll that says it is.
Person 2: That poll is posted on the forum…
Person 1: There’s no proof that forums aren’t representative.
Person 2: But there’s no proof that they are.
Person 1: But there was a rise/fall of players when this happened.
Person 2: Correlation isn’t causation. A hundred things could’ve caused that.

So on and so fourth. The issue being that we don’t know jack about the population distribution and popular opinion. It is possible that the forum is either an accurate representation, or an inaccurate representation, but we have no way to prove either.

Originally I would suggest that, instead of going off of popular opinion, you would go off of the logic inherent within each argument, but this poses another problem: ultimately what the community desires isn’t always logical. From a marketing standpoint, there’s always a strong force in decision making that is “what the customer wants”. I’ll be darned if I can figure out a method of getting popular opinion from the game other than a mandatory survey of every active player, since asking for volunteers results in skewed… results.

The whole thing is just a bad situation. To end it, I would just like to mirror the paranoia that Anet might choose to listen only to positive feedback, since it is very easy to invoke the argument from ignorance to dismiss the negative.

There’s a relevant joke to all this, too:

Q: How many forumer’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 100. 51 to vote to get it changed, and 49 to complain about it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There’s a relevant joke to all this, too:

Q: How many forumer’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 100. 51 to vote to get it changed, and 49 to complain about it.

Complaining about it needing to be changed, and then complaining about how?

-Dimwit

Seriously though, it’s not what is said, it’s how. That holds true for everything related to communication in life. It’s possible to disagree on everything from values to details and still be respectful. We’ve seen a lot of good examples on this forum as well.

-Mrs. Obvious

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

To end it, I would just like to mirror the paranoia that Anet might choose to listen only to positive feedback, since it is very easy to invoke the argument from ignorance to dismiss the negative.

There’s something to be said about this. If it happens to be true that ANet would only listen to positive feedback, that means they are constantly getting reinforcement that what they are doing is viewed as overall good. Even if 99% of the feedback they get was negative, if they only listen to the positive feedback they are going to keep doing what they are doing, even though in that situation most of the player base is screaming for them to stop.

I don’t know what the actual numbers are, but even if that number is 15% though, that’s a large chunk of your player base. Why not figure out a way to make that 15% happy, so that their feedback is positive too? Is ANet able to categorize what parts of the player base are putting money into the gemstore? Are they only making their decisions to keeps those people paying? Are they putting thought into turn the unhappy players into happy players, and implementing things they want to pay for?

I would like to bring it all back to something other than the bottom line, but everyone knows that’s one of the most important driving forces for business decisions.

goldenwing.8473:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There’s a relevant joke to all this, too:

Q: How many forumer’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: 100. 51 to vote to get it changed, and 49 to complain about it.

Complaining about it needing to be changed, and then complaining about how?

-Dimwit

Seriously though, it’s not what is said, it’s how. That holds true for everything related to communication in life. It’s possible to disagree on everything from values to details and still be respectful. We’ve seen a lot of good examples on this forum as well.

-Mrs. Obvious

It’s more about how, seemingly no matter what is done, there’s always an angry mob on the forums over something.

Hi Cris,

Here is what you and the community needs

P.S. Next time “NO COPY PASTERINO DONGERINI PLS” Cris.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Regarding our process in terms of forum usage as a development tool:

The reality is we do read our forums, and others, every single day. If you look over the last year, and cross reference with community feedback you will see many ideas actioned and many more not.

The communication pipeline in most part lacks one very important component. Specifically, ArenaNet having more time to feedback on your ideas, concerns and our own plans.

All of this said, I wanted to make it clear that whilst we avidly read our forums, we pay little, to no, attention to posts that are disrespectful to other members of our community or our development team. Our developers work very hard to listen to the community, and work tirelessly to create content and features that they hope the community will love. Likewise, the constructive members of our community work hard to provide our development team with feedback that abides with our collaborative standards and overall community philosophy of having a productive, welcoming, and friendly culture. This is a true partnership.

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to drive the creation of online worlds forward, thereby creating original, ‘stand-out’ content that pushes the boundaries of what it means to journey through a Living World. Any endeavor on this scale is going to have its challenges, and therefore as a team, we are fully prepared to make mistakes, learn from them, and make even better experiences as we move forward. We see problems not as failures but as opportunities, essentially a necessary part of Tyria’s and our Team’s evolution. It is with this understanding that we work with our community to move forward in the space and truly realize great things.

One key to understanding our philosophy to building worlds is that we don’t give more attention to feedback simply because it is the noisiest, most aggressive, or delivered in the most inflammatory way. We take on board all constructive feedback and actively discuss it, and then make a decision to backlog the item or move forward with it (the development of which can sometimes take longer than some give it credit for). Therefore do not expect feedback to be implemented just because it is something you feel very strongly about. We just don’t develop like that. We instead work with our community to help us navigate these uncharted waters, taking on board all advice and measuring them against the pillars of the Guild Wars 2 and the direction we ultimately want to move in as a whole.

Therefore you have to ask yourself: Is this a journey you want to take? Are you comfortable with expecting the unexpected, and ultimately working together in a positive and productive manner through thick and thin, to pioneer in a space that the team at ArenaNet feel is of huge importance? Many of you are not only comfortable with this paradigm but embrace it, and your contribution, as you know has already shaped Tyria immensely, for which we are extremely grateful and excited about.

Chris W

Why are you asking us this now?? Where was this request for “collaborative development” many months ago when players were FAR more constructive in their comments and FAR more willing to cut you some slack?? You wait until long time players get so frustrated with your silence and misdirection (working on things we didn’t ask for or want instead of the things that need fixing) that they either leave or turn the forums into the angry mess it is now … and THEN you show up to ask for our help and understanding?? Sorry, but your message sounds remarkably disingenuous to me. So far we’ve been mostly ignored and told we are merely a “vocal minority” … where’s the mutual respect in that??

The ground breaking content is a nice idea but the way I see it being ‘used’ is also a slippery slope.

It’s when they say “we want that in a GW2 sort of way”. It’s the idea where it must me different because it must be different and that imo in not a good reason and already causes some traps.

If you want to implement something don’t make it different just for the sake of it like is now happening. Dare to be not different as well. Have a look at other games and if something is bad there then indeed try to do it better but if it’s good do it the same way maybe only adding something.

Anet wants raids but in a GW2 way. They are looking for mounts but in a GW2 way and by now multiple people are already weary about the GW2 way. I remember very good when they said they where working on raids but in a GW2 way. It was not overwhelming positive.

The whole no traditional quest for the sake of it did also not worked out as planned. They had to implement hearths (and later PoI) to fix part of the problem (alpha) but still people miss a connection with the world that quest give.

So it’s fine if Anet wants to make ground breaking content but please stop doing things different for the sake of doing it different.

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

You want collaboration, than the ball is your court. Ask yourself why has the forum turned hostile? Might it have anything to do with constantly dodging questions? By going in directions players don’t want you to go IE Ascended Gear, WvW leagues, Bloodlust? Lackluster Living Story that is far from living to begin with? Massive temporary content?

Start talking and fully open up, you might be surprised to learn that the playerbase is a lot more intelligent than you’ve as a whole has given them credit for. If you leave it with this one statement than you are feeding the problem instead of trying to better it.

I think the most important part of what Chris said is that the game is made up of communities not individuals. I honestly thing a lot of people just ignore that fact.

The central issue of that can be seen in feedback people give about ascended gear.

I would say thats probably the single biggest item why people accuse the company of no listening.

But please consider ascended gear came into being based on player feedback. Most of us were there at launch and we all know the flood of posts we had about there being nothing to do at 80 and how cosmetic gear was not a reward worth of effort for some players. However its not like Arenanet completely dismissed the other community that just doesnt want Vertical Progression, they made it less powerful gap wise then all the other tiers, they made it take a long time to acquire so it would last a very very long time and thus have no need to introduce a new tier, they made sure its totally optional and for the most part they made it easy to get (just play and finish dailies (excl ascended weapons) )

Its a compromise. Yet a lot of people will refuse to believe Arenanet listen until such a time as they do the change they desire. Which brings us back to the game being made up of communities not individuals. When people ask please remove ascended gear or make it really quick to acquire etc… they’re not being acted upon in my opinion not because their feedback is ignored but because Arenanet really cant. Acting on that would mean acting against the community who wants those rewards just like if that community were to ask for a new tier they’d be refused because acting on that would go against us who dont want any vertical progression.

Whats probably even more sad is this same community feels hurt and lashes out with statements such as not only does GW2 refuse to take out Vertical progression but it does it much worst then other MMOs… thats really sad in my opinion because to me it seems that clearly they’re doing it much worst specifically to defend that same community thats attacking them. They released new weapon skins nearly every month, they’d have no problem making those skins into a new tier and create a vertical progression in line with those other MMOs but then that would be counter to what the community running those accusations really needs.

Basically what I am trying to say is an MMO is made of different groups of players who like different things. Listening to the community doesnt mean giving what each an every playing in the game wants. Listening to the community means keeping in mind what each group likes / dislikes and try to fit your choices in that paradigm as best as possible. Not getting exactly what you want does not mean you’re not being listened too. Its important to look at the big picture and not at specifics.

Cactus.2710:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

… Chris wall of text …

Chris W

Why are you asking us this now?? Where was this request for “collaborative development” many months ago when players were FAR more constructive in their comments and FAR more willing to cut you some slack?? You wait until long time players get so frustrated with your silence and misdirection (working on things we didn’t ask for or want instead of the things that need fixing) that they either leave or turn the forums into the angry mess it is now … and THEN you show up to ask for our help and understanding?? Sorry, but your message sounds remarkably disingenuous to me. So far we’ve been mostly ignored and told we are merely a “vocal minority” … where’s the mutual respect in that??

^ Quoted for truth, specially the underlined part!

And what regards that partnership OP said, it’s a kitten blatant lie!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We see problems not as failures but as opportunities

Maybe one of the biggest problems in your development, is not acknowledging your mistakes and working towards fixing them. It’s a big part of growing, specially when being pioneer. One can’t simply walk on the unknown road and drill every brick wall you get in your way. Sometimes, that brick wall is thicker than you think and it’s best to find another solution! But failure still exists!

But one thing you nailed it right. Or we are willing to accept this or we can move on! The latter is a growing option for me!

Galen Grey.4709:

I think the most important part of what Chris said is that the game is made up of communities not individuals. I honestly thing a lot of people just ignore that fact.

I would personally ignore that “fact” because a community cannot exist without individuals. How active would the GW2 community be with zero members ?

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

Guys seriously, I dont get what the big issue is… He replied in a thread felt like this was an important issue that had global implication beyond the specific thread he replied to so he decided to create a new thread on the subject and copy and pasted part of the response and added like 3x the volume of new stuff.

It would be disrespectful if he copy and pasted that response in different threads because then yet it would possible mean they dont really care and are just issuing template responses but copy and pasting a response from a single thread to a new thread and writing 3x the volume to it means exactly the opposite ie they care enough about the subject that they felt that the exposure of a single threat wasnt enough that it needed the attention of the entire forum.

I would like to see some feedback on special topics, popping up every few days, for example Conditiondamage cap or range pets,….

There are nice suggestions and a few official words would be nice.

Galen Grey.4709:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

Guys seriously, I dont get what the big issue is… He replied in a thread felt like this was an important issue that had global implication beyond the specific thread he replied to so he decided to create a new thread on the subject and copy and pasted part of the response and added like 3x the volume of new stuff.

It would be disrespectful if he copy and pasted that response in different threads because then yet it would possible mean they dont really care and are just issuing template responses but copy and pasting a response from a single thread to a new thread and writing 3x the volume to it means exactly the opposite ie they care enough about the subject that they felt that the exposure of a single threat wasnt enough that it needed the attention of the entire forum.

If it really was something important that the whole forum needed to see, then why did it take them a couple weeks to make this thread here with the same response from an old thread? If it really need the attention of the entire forum, it would of been here two weeks ago when that response was first made, not two weeks later.

I’m sorry, but if they really wanted to address this issue, they would of made a new post about it instead of bringing up an old post from two weeks ago. It just looks lazy. And here they are telling us to respect them and don’t be negative to them, and they talk about communicating more and listening to us, and they give us a copy/paste response from a couple weeks ago? Yeah that is just wrong.

Galen Grey.4709:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

Guys seriously, I dont get what the big issue is… He replied in a thread felt like this was an important issue that had global implication beyond the specific thread he replied to so he decided to create a new thread on the subject and copy and pasted part of the response and added like 3x the volume of new stuff.

It would be disrespectful if he copy and pasted that response in different threads because then yet it would possible mean they dont really care and are just issuing template responses but copy and pasting a response from a single thread to a new thread and writing 3x the volume to it means exactly the opposite ie they care enough about the subject that they felt that the exposure of a single threat wasnt enough that it needed the attention of the entire forum.

Are you being serious right now? I can’t tell if you’re being serious.

If the OP was being legit about listening to us, he would’ve taken the time to type out a thread that conveyed to us how they were actually reading our threads and post and taking things we say into consideration. This is a copy and paste thread from 3 weeks ago.

He’s talking about respect and how we should cut out the negativity, but what is this? A copy and paste. Is that respectful towards us? Their customers, playerbase, and supporters? Talking about communicating with us, and we get this? It’s insulting to us. And morally it’s wrong that the OP even did it in the first place.

Really? You still see no problem?

Go and reevaluate your priorities. Don’t be one of those guys who sees nothing wrong whenever something you like is concerned. This is what you’re doing here. You’re blinding yourself to the problem in your fanatical phase.

Ashen.2907:

Galen Grey.4709:

I think the most important part of what Chris said is that the game is made up of communities not individuals. I honestly thing a lot of people just ignore that fact.

I would personally ignore that “fact” because a community cannot exist without individuals. How active would the GW2 community be with zero members ?

Focusing on communities doesnt mean you ignore individuals. It means you’re looking at the greater good rather then individual wants.

Thing is individuals have a lot of different needs and likes. Some players will tell you Ascended gear is not enough vertical progression
some will tell you its a step in the right direction but its too slow to be acquired
some will tell you its great but not powerful enough to justify the effort
some will tell you its great but there is no content that requires it and thus useless
some will tell you no vp is bad we should not have any
some will tell you vp is bad but since its not required i am okey with it
some will tell you vp is bad required or not i have to have bis so as long as it exists I am forced to get it
some will tell you vp is bad, I want it but i dont enjoy what I need to do to get it so i’d rather not have it
some will say no vp, we want just cosmetic stuff
some dont want vp but they dont care about cosmetic stuff either
some dont like vp but they dont care about hp either they just want cosmetic stuff
some will say no cosmetics, thats childish/girlish/(other offensive terms i’ve seen used) the only thing worth to have is more powerful gear
and I could go on with a many more variations..

if you were a developer how can you address each and every concern about individually? You cannot because everything you look it you can bet there is some other player playing in your game who thinks exactly in the opposite way. Thus its impossible for any developer to address individual needs without at the same time ignoring individual needs. Its only a question of who gets to be listened to and who gets to be ignored for this update. You cannot act like that you need to keep everyone’s tastes in mind. You can do that at a high level but you can never do that at a low level. Ascended gear is a good example, its there for those who want it but optional and easy to get for those who dont want it. of course individually there is no way to give 100% what they want. Some of those who dont want it are happy by it being optional, for others optional or not doesnt really make a difference to them.

You cannot make everyone 100% happy no matter what you do but you can make something that gives a little to both groups and doesnt cut out any of the groups either.

There is nothing inherently wrong with reposting a message that the devs wanted us to see. The disrespectful part is choosing to not make clear that it was a copy/paste.

Anyone else getting sick of we must bow down and kiss peoples feet in order to be heard or be ignored if we don’t comments? (from a company that shall not be named)

Galen Grey.4709:

Ashen.2907:

Galen Grey.4709:

I think the most important part of what Chris said is that the game is made up of communities not individuals. I honestly thing a lot of people just ignore that fact.

I would personally ignore that “fact” because a community cannot exist without individuals. How active would the GW2 community be with zero members ?

Focusing on communities doesnt mean you ignore individuals. It means you’re looking at the greater good rather then individual wants.

Thing is individuals have a lot of different needs and likes. Some players will tell you Ascended gear is not enough vertical progression
some will tell you its a step in the right direction but its too slow to be acquired
some will tell you its great but not powerful enough to justify the effort
some will tell you its great but there is no content that requires it and thus useless
some will tell you no vp is bad we should not have any
some will tell you vp is bad but since its not required i am okey with it
some will tell you vp is bad required or not i have to have bis so as long as it exists I am forced to get it
some will tell you vp is bad, I want it but i dont enjoy what I need to do to get it so i’d rather not have it
some will say no vp, we want just cosmetic stuff
some dont want vp but they dont care about cosmetic stuff either
some dont like vp but they dont care about hp either they just want cosmetic stuff
some will say no cosmetics, thats childish/girlish/(other offensive terms i’ve seen used) the only thing worth to have is more powerful gear
and I could go on with a many more variations..

if you were a developer how can you address each and every concern about individually? You cannot because everything you look it you can bet there is some other player playing in your game who thinks exactly in the opposite way. Thus its impossible for any developer to address individual needs without at the same time ignoring individual needs. Its only a question of who gets to be listened to and who gets to be ignored for this update. You cannot act like that you need to keep everyone’s tastes in mind. You can do that at a high level but you can never do that at a low level. Ascended gear is a good example, its there for those who want it but optional and easy to get for those who dont want it. of course individually there is no way to give 100% what they want. Some of those who dont want it are happy by it being optional, for others optional or not doesnt really make a difference to them.

You cannot make everyone 100% happy no matter what you do but you can make something that gives a little to both groups and doesnt cut out any of the groups either.

Requoting the below because it is what I responded to, not the subsequent comments.

Galen Grey.4709:

I think the most important part of what Chris said is that the game is made up of communities not individuals. I honestly thing a lot of people just ignore that fact.

There is a huge difference between saying that you cannot address every concern of every individual and saying that the individual customer does not exist.

Galen Grey.4709:

But please consider ascended gear came into being based on player feedback. Most of us were there at launch and we all know the flood of posts we had about there being nothing to do at 80 and how cosmetic gear was not a reward worth of effort for some players.

If you really were there at launch, then you’d know that people asking for new tier of gear were a tiny minority among the complainers, and that the “no end game” posters were a minority themselves on the forum. Of course, according to almost every ascended gear defender, forum posters are also only a tiny minority of all players.
If the devs were really listening to the feedback, instead of picking only things they were going to do anyway, they would never have went ascended way.

And back to the Chris’ post – is it bad, that the main thing i have got from it is “No, we’re not going to tell you the direction the game is going now. You should expect the unexpected.”?

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Galen Grey.4709:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

Guys seriously, I dont get what the big issue is… He replied in a thread felt like this was an important issue that had global implication beyond the specific thread he replied to so he decided to create a new thread on the subject and copy and pasted part of the response and added like 3x the volume of new stuff.

It would be disrespectful if he copy and pasted that response in different threads because then yet it would possible mean they dont really care and are just issuing template responses but copy and pasting a response from a single thread to a new thread and writing 3x the volume to it means exactly the opposite ie they care enough about the subject that they felt that the exposure of a single threat wasnt enough that it needed the attention of the entire forum.

If it really was something important that the whole forum needed to see, then why did it take them a couple weeks to make this thread here with the same response from an old thread? If it really need the attention of the entire forum, it would of been here two weeks ago when that response was first made, not two weeks later.

I’m sorry, but if they really wanted to address this issue, they would of made a new post about it instead of bringing up an old post from two weeks ago. It just looks lazy. And here they are telling us to respect them and don’t be negative to them, and they talk about communicating more and listening to us, and they give us a copy/paste response from a couple weeks ago? Yeah that is just wrong.

They didnt do the a new threat with the same response as the old thread. it just includes part of it.. the original post was 280 words long. this one is 777 words long. only part of it is copy and pasted. As for the time in between who knows, busy, he wanted to think more about it, he saw a second post that warranted the same answer so he decided to do a gobal one instead. There can be many reasons but one thing is for sure. If he didnt care why write a new post that’s over 3x as long as the other one?

Also the stuff thats copy and pasted has minor changes like

“we will achieve this” -> “We will work harder to achieves this.”

so its not like he copy and pasted without even giving a second look to it… and he didnt even do it to proof read it specifically considering there is even a little mistake in there

If I may add after all of these posts, I’m totally against rewards on the Living Story that are not purely aesthetic (achievement reward chests), that, or don’t make it temporary content anymore.

You had this manifesto you might have forgotten.

Now we have vertical progression and I don’t see any horizontal progression at all (new skills, traits, whatever, all just a promise for the future after one year).

Now we have grinds on every corner, be it dailies and monthlies (which before laures have been optional but now will give you the best gear) or farming for crafting materials (seeing the ridiculous amount of stuff you need for ascended items). Grinding dungeons for gold or whatever, grinding achievements, the game and therefore the Devs don’t even try to hide it anymore.

We have to press one, one and one again, as auto attack still has the most damage potential. Play as you want as long as you are running around in Berzerker in PvE or you are not needed in a group.

I could go on, but you probably see the picture. People getting mad over things you made them expect is just a logical reaction.

Skan.5301:

Are you being serious right now? I can’t tell if you’re being serious.

If the OP was being legit about listening to us, he would’ve taken the time to type out a thread that conveyed to us how they were actually reading our threads and post and taking things we say into consideration. This is a copy and paste thread from 3 weeks ago.

He’s talking about respect and how we should cut out the negativity, but what is this? A copy and paste. Is that respectful towards us? Their customers, playerbase, and supporters? Talking about communicating with us, and we get this? It’s insulting to us. And morally it’s wrong that the OP even did it in the first place.

Really? You still see no problem?

Go and reevaluate your priorities. Don’t be one of those guys who sees nothing wrong whenever something you like is concerned. This is what you’re doing here. You’re blinding yourself to the problem in your fanatical phase.

Yes I am being serious and like I said above its not a mere copy and paste, only part of it is. the new post is 3x longer then the original from 3 weeks ago.

No I dont see the problem. its a post about the same exact subject, even if he had to type it all from scratch he’d still need to say exactly the same things. People are busy they’ll try to save time if they can and there is nothing wrong with re-using what you already typed.

If like you said he isnt being legit and he doesnt care why would he post the new thread and add nearly 500 words to it (original post was 280 words this is 777 words long) If he didnt really care why reply to that post 3 weeks ago at all?

Galen Grey.4709:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Galen Grey.4709:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Knote.2904:

Lol I thought I read this somewhere.

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums/2845309

The thread is gone now though.

http://www.mistleague.com/what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

Wow. After seeing this and reading the OP of this thread, I just lost all respect. Seriously? Copy/Paste response? I’m sorry but that is extremely disrespectful. You couldn’t even take the time to address your players with a proper response, so instead you just threw up a copy/paste response. And you want us to show you respect and treat you with kindness when you pull stuff like this?

Just… just wow. Is all. Seriously you should just delete this thread now….

Guys seriously, I dont get what the big issue is… He replied in a thread felt like this was an important issue that had global implication beyond the specific thread he replied to so he decided to create a new thread on the subject and copy and pasted part of the response and added like 3x the volume of new stuff.

It would be disrespectful if he copy and pasted that response in different threads because then yet it would possible mean they dont really care and are just issuing template responses but copy and pasting a response from a single thread to a new thread and writing 3x the volume to it means exactly the opposite ie they care enough about the subject that they felt that the exposure of a single threat wasnt enough that it needed the attention of the entire forum.

If it really was something important that the whole forum needed to see, then why did it take them a couple weeks to make this thread here with the same response from an old thread? If it really need the attention of the entire forum, it would of been here two weeks ago when that response was first made, not two weeks later.

I’m sorry, but if they really wanted to address this issue, they would of made a new post about it instead of bringing up an old post from two weeks ago. It just looks lazy. And here they are telling us to respect them and don’t be negative to them, and they talk about communicating more and listening to us, and they give us a copy/paste response from a couple weeks ago? Yeah that is just wrong.

They didnt do the a new threat with the same response as the old thread. it just includes part of it.. the original post was 280 words long. this one is 777 words long. only part of it is copy and pasted. As for the time in between who knows, busy, he wanted to think more about it, he saw a second post that warranted the same answer so he decided to do a gobal one instead. There can be many reasons but one thing is for sure. If he didnt care why write a new post that’s over 3x as long as the other one?

Also the stuff thats copy and pasted has minor changes like

“we will achieve this” -> “We will work harder to achieves this.”

so its not like he copy and pasted without even giving a second look to it… and he didnt even do it to proof read it specifically considering there is even a little mistake in there

The fact that they copy/pasted the response to begin with, whether they added to it or not, is wrong. They didn’t even say “Hey we said this already in another thread several weeks ago, but we are rehashing it.”. They just posted it up as if it was something new.

The way I see it is like this.

“Hey the forums are getting rowdy again. Should we say something to them and calm things down?”.

“Nah, just copy/paste that response from a few weeks ago and it should take care of everything.”.

“Okay sounds good. I’ll add some little things here and there as well to make it seem like something new.”.

Because that is exactly what this post feels like. They didn’t bother to give us a proper response, and instead just threw us a copy/paste response to try to calm the storm, hoping we wouldn’t notice cause they added a few extra lines.

Ashen.2907:

There is a huge difference between saying that you cannot address every concern of every individual and saying that the individual customer does not exist.

You said it yourselfs, communities are made of individuals so how is saying tyria is made up of communities saying individual customers dont exist?

This is what he said “understand Tyria is made up of communities and not individuals.”

To me understand implies he is talking about how to look at things

made up of communities means there are different groups of people

and not individuals is because they cannot look at what individuals personally like but they can and do look at what the different groups of people like

what he is saying there is they cannot build a game for every individual and thats true I explained why in detail in my previous game. but they can try and make a game that is for those different groups of people.

Galen Grey.4709:

Skan.5301:

Are you being serious right now? I can’t tell if you’re being serious.

If the OP was being legit about listening to us, he would’ve taken the time to type out a thread that conveyed to us how they were actually reading our threads and post and taking things we say into consideration. This is a copy and paste thread from 3 weeks ago.

He’s talking about respect and how we should cut out the negativity, but what is this? A copy and paste. Is that respectful towards us? Their customers, playerbase, and supporters? Talking about communicating with us, and we get this? It’s insulting to us. And morally it’s wrong that the OP even did it in the first place.

Really? You still see no problem?

Go and reevaluate your priorities. Don’t be one of those guys who sees nothing wrong whenever something you like is concerned. This is what you’re doing here. You’re blinding yourself to the problem in your fanatical phase.

Yes I am being serious and like I said above its not a mere copy and paste, only part of it is. the new post is 3x longer then the original from 3 weeks ago.

No I dont see the problem. its a post about the same exact subject, even if he had to type it all from scratch he’d still need to say exactly the same things. People are busy they’ll try to save time if they can and there is nothing wrong with re-using what you already typed.

If like you said he isnt being legit and he doesnt care why would he post the new thread and add nearly 500 words to it (original post was 280 words this is 777 words long) If he didnt really care why reply to that post 3 weeks ago at all?

It doesn’t matter if it’s lengthened or not. It’s still copy and paste. It’s unprofessional. And it was thrown at us like it was brand new.

The original post didn’t have the parts about the negativity and respect in it. That stemmed from the past few weeks having an influx of negative criticism. That’s why it’s longer, nothing else.

It is essentially the same bullkitten about listening and reading post. I highly doubt, as busy as they are, that they read through the forum post like they say. If they did, we’d have red post all over the place and not a few sprinkles here and there like ice cream from some cheap vendor.

And also, if they’re so busy, I, and maybe a few others, noticed that they policed this thread for a good hour, handing out infractions and deleting post.

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

But please consider ascended gear came into being based on player feedback. Most of us were there at launch and we all know the flood of posts we had about there being nothing to do at 80 and how cosmetic gear was not a reward worth of effort for some players.

If you really were there at launch, then you’d know that people asking for new tier of gear were a tiny minority among the complainers, and that the “no end game” posters were a minority themselves on the forum. Of course, according to almost every ascended gear defender, forum posters are also only a tiny minority of all players.
If the devs were really listening to the feedback, instead of picking only things they were going to do anyway, they would never have went ascended way.

And back to the Chris’ post – is it bad, that the main thing i have got from it is “No, we’re not going to tell you the direction the game is going now. You should expect the unexpected.”?

I was there and they werent a tiny minority its like the only complaint you could see at the time! they’re a tiny minority now perhaps and who knows if thats because they’re happy with what they got or no longer playing. But its not even just about the complaints. What happened in game at max level? people ended up farming Orr. Were cosmetic rewards to be had in those farms? nope, it was just the most efficient way to make money in game so do you think that metric told Arenanet that the complaints of the forums were unfounded that people were absolutely happy with cosmetic rewards?

Then re-read it again cause thats not what it said.

Galen, i undestand your point, and obviously we can’t expect everyone to be pleased with every choice they make. However, the general development should be made towards the enjoyment of a large chunk of the community instead of a single individual desire.

But, how do we know what the community wants? The lack of a feedback tool to provide the feedback into the development tool, makes this forum the only tool for that purpose.

We cannot say for certain that the problems issued here and the solutions presented represent the overall consensus on those subjects. We can’t know, and neither can the ANet. So why are we the minority? Because we are the only ones that voice the oppinions in the forums?

I agree that some posts are indeed Rude, but so is ANet’s behavior towards the individual player that constitutes the community. It’s a two way road!

Shockwave.1230:

Servers without vertical progression would be extremely interesting. Clearly ANet has a fractured community. Perhaps having separate servers that meet a lot of the expectations of these conflicting game ideologies is a viable solution. The challenge would be with WvW. PvE would be taken care of by each respective server type, and PvP is separate from many of issues people are expressing.

I can think of a couple ways to do this without going completely insane from a programming perspective.

1) Remove WvW access completely for those servers (reuse the last tier rank for this). They could then also mark them as RP servers as well. Dealing with the Mist War portals in LA could be interesting, but not insurmountable.

2) Use the League system to advantage. Lowest League is setup in this new format, these servers can only climb back and forth within them (basically there would be an ‘extra’ T1/2/3 in this format).

In both cases, though, we have the problem of transfers. Will someone with VP items be able to cross to/from these new servers, and if so what happens? Will those extra tiers of items in the player’s account go away, or be unusable for the duration, or just downgraded? These are all tough decisions to consider.

Quick edit – these are if they want to re-tool existing servers. If building brand new servers I’d say take option 2 and only allow new accounts on them. Transfers would still be an issue, but not as much as before. Maybe.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

The fact that they copy/pasted the response to begin with, whether they added to it or not, is wrong. They didn’t even say “Hey we said this already in another thread several weeks ago, but we are rehashing it.”. They just posted it up as if it was something new.

The way I see it is like this.

“Hey the forums are getting rowdy again. Should we say something to them and calm things down?”.

“Nah, just copy/paste that response from a few weeks ago and it should take care of everything.”.

“Okay sounds good. I’ll add some little things here and there as well to make it seem like something new.”.

Because that is exactly what this post feels like. They didn’t bother to give us a proper response, and instead just threw us a copy/paste response to try to calm the storm, hoping we wouldn’t notice cause they added a few extra lines.

yeah only the adding some little things here and there part is 2x the size of the original. So if like you’re saying they just wanted to save time and shut the forum up by posting something why not rewrite what was sad and add nothing new to it. it would appear new giving the impression they cared more then adding a little thing here and there would and it would have taken less then 1/2 the time since he’d only need to write 280 words of something he already knew exactly what to say and saved himself 500+ words of something he had to think about from scratch.

It feels like that cause you want it to feel like that, the facts dont support the theory at all.

If he didnt care he didnt have to post anything, its not like the forums will stop being rowday because of a post… example look no further then this post.

if he didnt care and just copy and pasted for no other reason but to save time cause he didnt feel the subject was worth spending time on, he wouldnt have added 200% extra content

Chris Whiteside.6102:

One key to understanding our philosophy to building worlds is that we don’t give more attention to feedback simply because it is the noisiest, most aggressive, or delivered in the most inflammatory way. We take on board all constructive feedback and actively discuss it, and then make a decision to backlog the item or move forward with it (the development of which can sometimes take longer than some give it credit for). Therefore do not expect feedback to be implemented just because it is something you feel very strongly about. We just don’t develop like that. We instead work with our community to help us navigate these uncharted waters, taking on board all advice and measuring them against the pillars of the Guild Wars 2 and the direction we ultimately want to move in as a whole.

Well first of all avoid censorship. Evryones is free to express their opinions even if you don’ t like their content. You love too much removing the posts you don’ t like.
Another point I want to underline :
Go reading ranger forum and look what rangers think about their class. Instead of adding new stupid content ,work on the balance of classes and try to fix this kitten class. You write that you don’t care of any posts of complains..Well when you nerfed ranger pets and renger spirits…I’ m totally sure you cared of people ^^complains ^^ without realising that in that way you have killed ranger class.
You could have directly deleted Ranger class…

Just stop the LS already.

It’s nice to have it, but
-not at this rate (biweekly = rushed, poorly thought out and tested)
-not as main PvE content drive (stop the temporary LS crap already, get again a DG team and start adding – not replacing – and fixing stuff)

That’s all.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

People are angry for a reason.
People hate temporary content for a reason.
People hate ascended gear for a reason.
People hate class imbalance for a reason.
People hate server imbalance for a reason.
People hate constant buggy content for a reason.
People hate watching you making the same mistakes over and over for a reason.

Why don’t you understand that?

Read this and learn Arenanet

LHound.8964:

Galen, i undestand your point, and obviously we can’t expect everyone to be pleased with every choice they make. However, the general development should be made towards the enjoyment of a large chunk of the community instead of a single individual desire.

But, how do we know what the community wants? The lack of a feedback tool to provide the feedback into the development tool, makes this forum the only tool for that purpose.

We cannot say for certain that the problems issued here and the solutions presented represent the overall consensus on those subjects. We can’t know, and neither can the ANet. So why are we the minority? Because we are the only ones that voice the oppinions in the forums?

I agree that some posts are indeed Rude, but so is ANet’s behavior towards the individual player that constitutes the community. It’s a two way road!

I believe its not even designed towards a large chunk but rather in a direction meant to satisfy everyone. Not that there could be the problem, satisfying everyone is obviously not easy.

Again looking at ascended gear there is a lot of bad about it if you look at it from a vertical progression point of view. Why would that be if not because that same bad is necessary so that people who dont care about VP can just ignore it?

We dont but Arenanet do using a combination of things, one being the feedback on the forum but two and perhaps more important depending how they behave in game. Now thats a double edged sword in that often I see people behave the very opposite way of what they say they want. Ascended gear is another good example. A lot of people state they dont want ascended gear but then each time a new piece is released they go farm and dont stop until they acquire it which again sends what message to arenanet?

We aren’t the minority, that’s precisely the thing, there is no minority there is just different groups that like different things. Minority or not no group should be sacrificed because they’re small. design decisions should keep in mind the needs of all groups.

How is Arenanet being rude to anyone? I never saw Arenanet being rude to anyone honestly.

Anet does indeed pay attention to the community and their players. I have an ss of 1 ANET employee actually running with us for a couple of hours in a champ chase zerg. They listen and watch the conversations and comment as well, I’m sure, gleaming info first hand about the players wants and likes etc.
How many other games have you played that the company actually gets out and interacts with the players on their level for hours or even minutes? They also indeed read the forums and follow the content regularly. Yes, I am a fangirl since 2005 but point is ANET cares where other gaming companies don’t. GAME ON