Guild Wars 2

Zoso.8279:

I dont understand why anyone would be upset about the current loot system sound like some people are thinking about easy personal gains rather then the longevity of the game. Diablo 3 was destroyed by these types of people please A-Net don’t change the loot system with scaled events and dungeon runs it is possible to get MANY champ bags and plenty of exotics. 85 luck atm and banners+food+buffs I am getting plenty of exotic weapons and armors I can only imagine how much MORE I will have when i max MF to 300. Legend and ascended weapons are not impossible to get. Dedicate time.

Well you must have one of the luck accounts then, I’m at about 160MF and still am not getting that much better loot. I think I’ve gotten 1 exotic in the past few months (and I play at least 3-4hrs every night).

Carighan.6758:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Precursor scavenger hunt…

Tell me again how you don’t talk speculatively?

I would wager that this was a major part of why they stopped talking about things in development, actually.

See that’s not the problem though… The problem is they never came back and said a month or two later something along the lines of… “Hey guys I know we said this but currently logistically it just is not possible so it is going to have to go back burner for a bit. Please know we are going to continue to work on something of this nature but as of now we cannot put a timetable to it…”

Had they JUST DONE THAT… it would have been find and I think satiated the masses… but they didn’t… they dropped a bomb then never talked about it again…

The issue is a lack of accountability. The good people in this world tell of their successes, the great own up to their failures…

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Gele.2048:

seriously people some of u you happy whit that info from mike ? he doesn’t say anything its basically the same thing we are getting it over and over it me as mmo player need to know how much to invest in the game and for that i need to know the future of the game and the road is taking but this , here is not good for me and not good for many of my friends whit respect give us what u working on expansions new content stuffs SOMETHING pls whit respect

Some of us who have jobs in a similar industry understand that communication is a tricky thing with clients. This little bit is pretty nice, especially since we now know when CDIs are starting.

CDI’s, while great for getting the communities message across to the devs, have been an utter disappointment… Just look at the disaster from the Ranger CDI. Pets were the #1 issue and literally the least amount of work was put into this issue…

Judging by their past and IMO…anet will always take the route of "Ok what takes the least amount of effort/resources to make this group of ppl happy

I mean , seriously, months of waiting and all WvW gets is 1 new trap and 1 new mastery and some new colors on a tag…. are you serious? Guaranteed we won’t see any changes until next april now for WvW….

It’s an abysmal lack of respect WvW/sPvP has gotten in this game..

I can tell you from experience that I get a lot more exotics then you in a week then you get in a month. I love to farm and just yesterday I was able to get around 4 exotics in just a few hours… and I was not running blix but was running another scaled event,

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Serophous.9085:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Darmikau.9413:

I don’t want to want to derail the thread, but yes absolutely we have discussed player feedback about these areas of the game.

This right here is the start players have been asking for. I’m not going to say something like this is a perfect answer, because it still leaves the who, the when, and the how completely ambiguous, but it’s at least a confirmation that ‘yes, we’ve seen it’.

As a roleplayer you have no idea what an absolute sigh of relief it is to hear it’s been discussed. For that area, and many others, it would be a much greater relief if someone came in an talked explicitly about the discussions, but as a start, just being acknowledged is so much a step beyond the silence.

Hi,

We read many forums all the time, we just need to do a better job of communicating that and working to discuss topics.

In retrospect the CDI break has probably been to long as well (That’s my fault).

Chris

First new CDI topic, how to improve communication between devs and community :p

That is a good topic.

Chris

First, thanks for actually posting, always nice to see devs communicating.

Just thought I’d throw this out there as I saw it in one of my old games and I have to say it was a very nice system. Basically it was a Community Council. More or less members of the community from all different areas (dungeon types, PVP types, crafters, levelers, lore, etc) all give NDA’s to sign and brought into a special forum/chat with the devs.

These people filled 2 main roles. A sounding board of players for the devs to bounce ideas off of. Example being “hey we’re going to make commander tags account bound and with that increase the price to 300g, then we’ll also add extra options for different colors for purchase” Where they’d probably have been able to head you off saying 300g per color was a bit much. This way you get player feedback on things without having to deal with the typical overreaction and what not.

The other role was feedback collection. These players being pretty passionate about the game were all avid forums readers and what not, so they’d simply pass along the concerns they came across, this way the devs weren’t ever really caught up trying to figure out what the players wanted, it was just displayed for them by this subgroup of players.

Of course the NDA being there so these players can’t talk about new things. And they aren’t official sources of information, just players who are a little more “in the know” who had time to answer questions the devs didn’t about why things did or didn’t happen. In the end it was basically a bunch of volunteer chronies to do your dirty work for ya, and no, they didn’t get anything for it other than grief from other players who were haters.

Just thought I’d throw that out there as I thought it was beneficial to both the players and the devs.

SkiTz.4590:

Just look at the disaster from the Ranger CDI. Pets were the #1 issue and literally the least amount of work was put into this issue…

Pets aren’t the worst thing about the Ranger class, everyone just thinks they are. More critical to Ranger is how they just don’t have a particular “purpose” to exist. Anything which they can do . . . isn’t as useful as another class, and therefore there’s “not much reason” to bring one along.

Pets are just the perennial scapegoat for any class which has them. Anywhere.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SkiTz.4590:

Just look at the disaster from the Ranger CDI. Pets were the #1 issue and literally the least amount of work was put into this issue…

Pets aren’t the worst thing about the Ranger class, everyone just thinks they are. More critical to Ranger is how they just don’t have a particular “purpose” to exist. Anything which they can do . . . isn’t as useful as another class, and therefore there’s “not much reason” to bring one along.

Pets are just the perennial scapegoat for any class which has them. Anywhere.

Their unique feature is pets, and of course, this is by far , the worst class mechanic… it brings very little to the table in a group setting. 100% useless in WvW.

Only time is good for soaking up damage and aggroing trash in solo PvE or doing 1v1 duels… outside of that, worthless class mechanic. Anet can give rangers a “purpose” if they actually gave pets a “purpose” but I agree, theres plenty of things wrong other than just pets

Heck, even the massive list of Mesmer bugs that’s been compiled for years has barely been touched.

Point is, CDI’s are just a grab and thinking anet is actually doing something… they listen, but don’t want to do anything because it requires too much effort/time… that’s on the suits @ NCsoft/anet imo… not the actual anet devs though. Devs can only do so much and it all comes down the chain of command…

Announce an expansion and no further communication will be necessary. Seriously, I was really hoping for a big announcement on 1st anniversary… and then on the 2nd. And I thought “Oh well, at least I can play SAB again I didn’t get through it all last time.” Locking out existing content people actually like (especially when there is so little for veteran players to do), I really can’t understand it. The guildmag interview was brutal.

I love this game. It’s so sad I will have to quit because the content release is SO slow and there is just simply nothing left for me to do (and I am almost done my daily points or whatever). All my GW2 friends have gone to other games such as FFXIV which is an inferior game by pretty much every score, but they have content release (including things like classes and dungeons) every three months.

All this talk about communication is really secondary. If we were getting an expansion, or regular large content updates, silence wouldn’t really matter because we would have something to anticipate; i.e. the silence would feel like it was building anticipation for new content. This silence is bad because a lot of people suspect that essentially nothing is coming other than these small LS updates til the end of time. I mean these updates have their moments, but they are simply not enough.

For example, the title “Big changes are coming for WvW” is on the main site, but those changes are a seige golem trait line and coloured commander tags??? This is a communication failure in and of itself, but because of lack of content not because of a lack of blog post. If a player who quit checked in on the website and thought – “oh sweet, maybe I’ll get back in to WvW” and then actually read the post, I can only imagine they would be mortified. At best the blog post should have been titled “minor QoL changes coming to WvW.” The siege golem trait line is something that should have been out ages ago anyway…

SkiTz.4590:

Point is, CDI’s are just a grab and thinking anet is actually doing something… they listen, but don’t want to do anything because it requires too much effort/time… that’s on the suits @ NCsoft/anet imo… not the actual anet devs though. Devs can only do so much and it all comes down the chain of command…

I doubt it’s a matter of “don’t want to do anything”, but a matter of having only so much time to do stuff and trying to find things which can fit the spaces they can cram that work into.

If I have an hour window of time I can do something in, but something everyone wants me to do is going to take two hours, then of course I’m going to fish for something I can actually finish in the time rather than start something I don’t know if I can finish in a timely fashion.

And that’s assuming whatever I do choose is going to be able to get finished, and things don’t crop up which slows it down. The phrase “unintended side effects” should be stuck in awareness for this sort of thing. No single part of the game really isn’t interconnected with other things . . .

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SkiTz.4590:

Point is, CDI’s are just a grab and thinking anet is actually doing something… they listen, but don’t want to do anything because it requires too much effort/time… that’s on the suits @ NCsoft/anet imo… not the actual anet devs though. Devs can only do so much and it all comes down the chain of command…

I doubt it’s a matter of “don’t want to do anything”, but a matter of having only so much time to do stuff and trying to find things which can fit the spaces they can cram that work into.

If I have an hour window of time I can do something in, but something everyone wants me to do is going to take two hours, then of course I’m going to fish for something I can actually finish in the time rather than start something I don’t know if I can finish in a timely fashion.

And that’s assuming whatever I do choose is going to be able to get finished, and things don’t crop up which slows it down. The phrase “unintended side effects” should be stuck in awareness for this sort of thing. No single part of the game really isn’t interconnected with other things . . .

I have my doubts about that as well.. but that’s the thing.. they don’t communicate about it lol , so how do I know? I can only make assumptions.

What on earth are they possibly working on that takes soo much time that they don’t want to spend much of an effort on content for WvW/sPvP?

Some of Anet staff post here but without tagging up. Is that a good or bad thing?

SkiTz.4590:

I have my doubts about that as well.. but that’s the thing.. they don’t communicate about it lol , so how do I know? I can only make assumptions.

What on earth are they possibly working on that takes soo much time that they don’t want to spend much of an effort on content for WvW/sPvP?

Speculation on that requires information I don’t have, like how they have their employees divided up. But I suspect they have as many people devoted to upcoming changes/content (LS or otherwise) as they do the technical . . . physical . . . maintenance of their systems.

That’s just based on two things: having more than a few friends who work in IT fields who tell me what their day is like as “internal tech support”; and my own experiences trying to work on tabletop RPGs.

Knighthonor.4061:

Some of Anet staff post here but without tagging up. Is that a good or bad thing?

No they don’t. If you can prove otherwise do so.

SkiTz.4590:

I have my doubts about that as well.. but that’s the thing.. they don’t communicate about it lol , so how do I know? I can only make assumptions.

What on earth are they possibly working on that takes soo much time that they don’t want to spend much of an effort on content for WvW/sPvP?

Probably another outfit instead of armor set, for the gemstore, or anything gemstore related. Be sure to BUY BUY BUY so we can add more stuff to the gemstore.

Speaking of communication gaps, what happened to the Dolyak Express? Some of the topics started getting a bit too fluffy to be considered meaningful discussions about GW2 (IMO), but I thought it was a good move towards opening things up a bit.

Whiteside lives ;o

Daaaaayum son! To summon Mike O’Brien himself to the forums… this GW2 community is crazy! It’s so good to hear from the president himself. This vindicates the entire community (including the whiners, the QQers, the White Knights, everyone!)

Very happy to see posts from ANET across different threads and hope things stay open like this for the foreseeable future!

Hey Chris, nice to see you again (and in-game)!

I, too, enjoyed the Dolyak Express. Maybe you all could bring that back, as it seemed to be a way to possibly (if you were very fortunate) get an answer to a question on the topic offered.

I’m sure all those little things help the community. Inquiring minds, and all that…lol.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Keep putting in the effort, and you’ll end up with a fine bridge thumbs up :-)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We knew that we needed to do more for communication. This has only been even more obvious this week. This has nothing to do with PR and everything to do with doing a better job with the connection with the community.

Regarding CDI there shouldn’t have been such a long break and honestly I saw it very much as a development tool and I didn’t realize how much members of the initiative enjoyed it just from a pure communication perspective. I won’t make that mistake again.

Sorry to hear it is to little to late for you.

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Chris

While the CDI process is a valuable tool for both sides, its rather long winded and regards too specific an area of the game.

If you want a better bridge, schedule 1 hour a day for someone from each department to reply in their respective sub forums on whatever threads are there. Some of those sub forums need love.

I remember when the game released, the shear amount of dev communication on the forums was a huge plus for Guildwars2 as a game, it surpassed what had been seen for other mmos, you guys were seen as the devs that cared enough to talk to your players.

Not so much the last year or so.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We knew that we needed to do more for communication. This has only been even more obvious this week. This has nothing to do with PR and everything to do with doing a better job with the connection with the community.

Not to continually jump on you, or anything, but, again; this isn’t the first time you’ve said such things.

So in order to do more than just jump up and down and proclaim “you already said that!” a million times, I’d like to ask a serious question of you, if I might, Chris;

You’ve now stated that you know that better communication is needed, and that it’s even more obvious as of this passing week. So my question is this:

What are you guys going to actually do about it? What is going to occur in order to foster this discourse?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Before one can build a bridge, they must build a solid foundation for said bridge.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gene Archer.8560:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We knew that we needed to do more for communication. This has only been even more obvious this week. This has nothing to do with PR and everything to do with doing a better job with the connection with the community.

Not to continually jump on you, or anything, but, again; this isn’t the first time you’ve said such things.

So in order to do more than just jump up and down and proclaim “you already said that!” a million times, I’d like to ask a serious question of you, if I might, Chris;

You’ve now stated that you know that better communication is needed, and that it’s even more obvious as of this passing week. So my question is this:

What are you guys going to actually do about it? What is going to occur in order to foster this discourse?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Before one can build a bridge, they must build a solid foundation for said bridge.

We are going to streamline our methods of communication and put more manpower toward communication.

I know I have said that I have wanted a better bridge in the past but I am a developer and I just cannot absolutely commit to 100% CDI/Communication problem solving due to responsibilities elsewhere. Therefore we are as Mo has stated focusing on this from a company perspective now.

Thanks for your feedback.

Chris

This is good to hear.
We have all missed hearing from the dev’s. It’s very important for us to know/see we’ve been heard, even if you can’t discuss much or have little time, to say “we are looking into it”. Is really important for us, to know our feedback is appreciated and under consideration.
or it;s not under consideration. That’s important to know too. To know that “sorry that’s not something we’re looking into at this moment, or that’s not something that can be done.”

Just to hear from ye. And we (who love this game.) appreciate the communication and your efforts.

*points at megaserver feedback thread*

Atherakhia.4086:

So we going to get a real Ranger CDI thread this time?

Engineers haven’t even gotten one yet and we’ve been the most nerfed and broken class out of the whole list. Edit: in PVE.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gene Archer.8560:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We knew that we needed to do more for communication. This has only been even more obvious this week. This has nothing to do with PR and everything to do with doing a better job with the connection with the community.

Not to continually jump on you, or anything, but, again; this isn’t the first time you’ve said such things.

So in order to do more than just jump up and down and proclaim “you already said that!” a million times, I’d like to ask a serious question of you, if I might, Chris;

You’ve now stated that you know that better communication is needed, and that it’s even more obvious as of this passing week. So my question is this:

What are you guys going to actually do about it? What is going to occur in order to foster this discourse?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Before one can build a bridge, they must build a solid foundation for said bridge.

We are going to streamline our methods of communication and put more manpower toward communication.

I know I have said that I have wanted a better bridge in the past but I am a developer and I just cannot absolutely commit to 100% CDI/Communication problem solving due to responsibilities elsewhere. Therefore we are as Mo has stated focusing on this from a company perspective now.

Thanks for your feedback.

Chris

Not sure if you noticed this just now but there was a great suggestion by one of the people who replied to this thread, to have an in game short form (500 characters probably max) method of giving you feedback on features. You could use a popdown menu to allow people to choose a category and you could make it a limit to a certain number a week. It would streamline the system give you numbers on the categories people are most asking about and keep the forums for the CDIs where you discuss things with people directly about their class.

Just a thought, my company has used this to get customer feedback on our software products and prioritize which issues to resolve first:

http://www.uservoice.com/

The mechanism used there is a fantastic way to let clients know you’re listening and takes a lot of the pressure off of the development team for prioritizing issues.

Good to hear and see Anet staff responding posts,communicating with us.I feel like GW2 players and Anet at Andrew’s Tavern at Divinity’s Reach :P
To celebrate ,I think it worths, here some of my GW2 screenshots

Mike O Brien.4613:

See you in-game,

I play WvW, so you probably won’t. :P

tigirius.9014:

Atherakhia.4086:

So we going to get a real Ranger CDI thread this time?

Engineers haven’t even gotten one yet and we’ve been the most nerfed and broken class out of the whole list. Edit: in PVE.

Careful what you wish for or you too could get a CDI that was nothing more than a cleverly disguised waste bin with a piece of paper that read “Suggestion Box” taped to the front…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gene Archer.8560:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We knew that we needed to do more for communication. This has only been even more obvious this week. This has nothing to do with PR and everything to do with doing a better job with the connection with the community.

Not to continually jump on you, or anything, but, again; this isn’t the first time you’ve said such things.

So in order to do more than just jump up and down and proclaim “you already said that!” a million times, I’d like to ask a serious question of you, if I might, Chris;

You’ve now stated that you know that better communication is needed, and that it’s even more obvious as of this passing week. So my question is this:

What are you guys going to actually do about it? What is going to occur in order to foster this discourse?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I am looking forward to building a better bridge.

Before one can build a bridge, they must build a solid foundation for said bridge.

We are going to streamline our methods of communication and put more manpower toward communication.

I know I have said that I have wanted a better bridge in the past but I am a developer and I just cannot absolutely commit to 100% CDI/Communication problem solving due to responsibilities elsewhere. Therefore we are as Mo has stated focusing on this from a company perspective now.

Thanks for your feedback.

Chris

I know you’re busy – probably far more than most forum users realize, and that sucks; you shouldn’t have to shoulder the entire burden of communicating with players gratis on your free time. It should really be sponsored more by the company itself rather than merely condoned.

The one piece of advice I’d give is don’t streamline too much. A lot of people are looking for much less formal interaction – off the cuff stuff.

I realize this might not be kosher to link another mmo’s discussion forums, but seriously take a look at http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/333249-elemental-consolidated-feedback/ – and yeah, that’s just one thread, but entirely typical of Blizzard communication.

You get something like that.. even if you as a player don’t agree, you can at least say “Yeah, okay, I’ll go with it cuz they got a bit of a reason”. You become a lot more willing to give changes a shot, and more able to provide feedback vis a vis the intended effects of the change versus the reality.

Lheimroo.2947:

I know you’re busy – probably far more than most forum users realize, and that sucks; you shouldn’t have to shoulder the entire burden of communicating with players gratis on your free time. It should really be sponsored more by the company itself rather than merely condoned.

The one piece of advice I’d give is don’t streamline too much. A lot of people are looking for much less formal interaction – off the cuff stuff.

I realize this might not be kosher to link another mmo’s discussion forums, but seriously take a look at (link removed, just in case…) – and yeah, that’s just one thread, but entirely typical of Blizzard communication.

You get something like that.. even if you as a player don’t agree, you can at least say “Yeah, okay, I’ll go with it cuz they got a bit of a reason”. You become a lot more willing to give changes a shot, and more able to provide feedback vis a vis the intended effects of the change versus the reality.

Oh wow. That’s the sort of discussion I’d like to see for this game. If you asked me “What one thing would restore enough of your confidence in GW2’s future that you’d start buying gems again?”, this would be my answer. Players and the company sitting down and discussing things, human to human, no bullkitten.

Everything else in the post above is spot on, too. Very true.

One thing that’s really surprised me about the silence on the forums is the business aspect of it. For a game with a F2P business model, you really need to let your players know that you’re listening and care about the things that matter to them. We don’t want to buy gems to support a company that appears to be ignoring whatever part of the game we love. You can tempt us with items in the store, but the money will flow more easily when there’s a layer of trust that the money is really going into making the game more fun. At the end of the day, every armor set in the store is just shiner pixels. I’d rather invest in the game’s future, but I need to know that they’re interested in providing the sorts of experiences I come here for.

I suspect that a lot of the fixes and features we’ve been asking for are in the works. I suspect some of them were in development and were discovered to be impractical to finish. I suspect some are just not at all a priority in light of more pressing issues. But I can’t understand why this information isn’t shared? What’s the harm in letting us know “We can’t handle this”, “This isn’t going to happen”, or “This is on the way, but we’re still designing how it will all work”?

These sorts of posts used to happen. Skim through former employee Robert Hrouda’s posting history; he was our “contact” from the dungeon forum and provides quite a few wonderful example of the sorts of interactions that show the company cares. Those need to return in order to restore my confidence in the company, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

tl;dr We will buy more gems if you talk to us, because we’ll know we’re supporting a company we can trust.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We just want to build a better connection. Gems really isn’t the goal.

Thanks for your feedback though.

Chris

Didn’t mean to imply that that’s the reason you guys are focusing on this — just wanted to point out that it’d be icing on the cake! :-D

And I’d be happy, because then I’d get to buy enough bag space to keep up with 150% MF in my dungeon tours O.o

I have to buy Gems. My loot table drops are absolute crud. I have never had anything better than a crappy shaman exotic drop and I am approaching 7000 APs (not great, but nothing to sneeze at). I mean, a precursor? What’s that? Finish the LS part 2 – what do I get for saving the Summit leaders: 18 goops, and I think a few Unidentified objects…maybe a yellow item. Yay. I feel engaged. I have learned if I need/want something I have to shell out real world $$ – or farm like a robot. Neither is appealing.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We just want to build a better connection. Gems really isn’t the goal.

Thanks for your feedback though.

Chris

I’m not trying to compare devs or imply one is better than the other, but I think what John is doing in the economy thread is kind of what people are asking more of. A loose Q&A with their respective area devs where they get a chance to ask questions, get answers and make jokes at each others expense. I’ve seen other devs here do it in other threads but the economy thread seems to be the longest lasting one of it’s kind. Its not a perfect thread and not every question is answered, but it is a fun thread and it’s provided some great interaction. Personally, I think economics is a pain and uninteresting, but I’m enjoying the thread and reading what he’s saying.

So maybe if some of the senior devs are so inclined they could start similar threads for their own areas?

Edit: Also, this thread where you’re giving us a back and forth discussion is also a good example.

Torsailr.8456:

I’m not trying to compare devs or imply one is better than the other, but I think what John is doing in the economy thread is kind of what people are asking more of. A loose Q&A with their respective area devs where they get a chance to ask questions, get answers and make jokes at each others expense. I’ve seen other devs here do it in other threads but the economy thread seems to be the longest lasting one of it’s kind. Its not a perfect thread and not every question is answered, but it is a fun thread and it’s provided some great interaction. Personally, I think economics is a pain and uninteresting, but I’m enjoying the thread and reading what he’s saying.

So maybe if some of the senior devs are so inclined they could start similar threads for their own areas?

Edit: Also, this thread where you’re giving us a back and forth discussion is also a good example.

Respectfully disagree. The BLTC forum from what I’ve seen is just one big, self-congratulatory conversation, where people who have differing views from the majority are shot down with snarky, condescending remarks from the economist, which are then fervently echoed by his cronies. What follows then is comments such as “John for PRESIDENT” and “I love it when he does that!”. Very productive? I think not.

Please do not emulate that style tyvm.

havellian.4073:

Respectfully disagree. The BLTC forum from what I’ve seen is just one big, self-congratulatory conversation, where people who have differing views from the majority are shot down with snarky, condescending remarks from the economist, which are then fervently echoed by his cronies. What follows then is comments such as “John for PRESIDENT” and “I love it when he does that!”. Very productive? I think not.

Please do not emulate that style tyvm.

This x1000, I’ve stopped even going to that portion of the forums because I know anything I say(either constructive criticism or agreeing with someone criticism) will be shot down and be attacked with half baked economic ideas, and finally a red post will come in and basically make it seem like anything negative said is a joke. It makes me sad whenever I see a post in because I know it will be some snarky comment that totally demeans the poster, and it makes me realize again that the economy portion of the game will never be any better than it currently is. The forums should NEVER be like that, and I have a feeling the devs actually creating the content in game don’t want it like that either.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

Sorry, to clarify in regard to ‘Streamline’ I mean consolidate the number of channels of communication so we are able parse the flow of information better and in so doing connect more easily.

Chris

Could you kindly elucidate? What does this mean in practical terms? Without meaning to sound rude, your post seems like business jargon.

Please don’t infract this: It is a genuine enquiry.

Svarty.8019:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

Sorry, to clarify in regard to ‘Streamline’ I mean consolidate the number of channels of communication so we are able parse the flow of information better and in so doing connect more easily.

Chris

Could you kindly elucidate? What does this mean in practical terms? Without meaning to sound rude, your post seems like business jargon.

Please don’t infract this: It is a genuine enquiry.

Translated, they chat in a lot of different forums and media. The players never get the full sense of what’s being communicated and the developers have trouble keeping track of what’s being said where. They’d like to focus their efforts more.

DriV.6203:

What the hell?

My post has been deleted? I guess true hurts right? I will not be scared.
Chris, do you want to know why there is such a toxic environment towards a-net?

I don’t think it was done to scare you. I think it’s because it’s a mesmer-specific complaint, with a heavy bias towards PvP balancing, phrased with a very inflammatory tone in a general discussion post about ArenaNet’s communication with its players. It’s better off elsewhere and frankly has nothing constructive in it.

Just my guess though. ¯\(?)/¯ Edit: wtb utf-8

dlonie.6547:

I don’t think it was done to scare you. I think it’s because it’s a mesmer-specific complaint, with a heavy bias towards PvP balancing, phrased with a very inflammatory tone in a general discussion post about ArenaNet’s communication with its players. It’s better off elsewhere and frankly has nothing constructive in it.

Just my guess though. ¯\(?)/¯ Edit: wtb utf-8

Unfortunately it is not first time they blow it up like that. Do you remember:
Dhuumfire?
Automated response?
Diamont skin?
Healing signet?
…
Community warned them it will be op (and without counter-play) against certain builds but it was too late as they announce things after they are already implemented…

Those problems would not be in the game if a-net were more open and transparent.

havellian.4073:

Torsailr.8456:

I’m not trying to compare devs or imply one is better than the other, but I think what John is doing in the economy thread is kind of what people are asking more of. A loose Q&A with their respective area devs where they get a chance to ask questions, get answers and make jokes at each others expense. I’ve seen other devs here do it in other threads but the economy thread seems to be the longest lasting one of it’s kind. Its not a perfect thread and not every question is answered, but it is a fun thread and it’s provided some great interaction. Personally, I think economics is a pain and uninteresting, but I’m enjoying the thread and reading what he’s saying.

So maybe if some of the senior devs are so inclined they could start similar threads for their own areas?

Edit: Also, this thread where you’re giving us a back and forth discussion is also a good example.

Respectfully disagree. The BLTC forum from what I’ve seen is just one big, self-congratulatory conversation, where people who have differing views from the majority are shot down with snarky, condescending remarks from the economist, which are then fervently echoed by his cronies. What follows then is comments such as “John for PRESIDENT” and “I love it when he does that!”. Very productive? I think not.

Please do not emulate that style tyvm.

While I agree that does happen from time to time, much of that times that it does happen is when people who have differing views from the majority are coming in and basically telling all of us, and JS, that we have no idea what we are talking about. There are some very active people in those threads that have a very good grasp of whats going on, and JS acknowledges that and lets the community answer instead of repeating himself.
The “condescending” remarks come after we’ve tried to reason with the person as to why the economy is not hyper inflated, or whatever, but that person refuses to try to learn, and continues to insist that they are right and everyone else is a sheep.

0There was a thread awhile back about precurser prices and how the drop rate needed to be vastly increased. It started out well, with the pros and cons, with it being sjown that the cons outweight the pros in the end. But the OP continually insisted that his way was the only way, despite JS carefully explaining why it wouldn’t be a good idea. The OP was becoming combative and snarky, and insulting to both the community and JS. Could it been handled differently? Of course. But over all, that community remains polite and respectful, and thats why JS is far more active. People have questions and get answers. If they are going to be kittens about it and instead just argue to argue, then more than likely they will be treated the same.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So i was thinking maybe we could have a CDI next week about the logistics (Methods, format, etc etc) of better communication on both sides?

thoughts?

Chris

I think that would be great! Just being able to do THIS is a step in the right direction. Maybe setting a specific time 1hr or so would help I don’t know if that is the current format but just like guild events if we can coordinate the timing maybe that will help get everyone on the same page and won’t feel that we are being “left in the dark”. Fellow Tyrians we also have to show respect I agree we don’t have to have the same point of views but we still have to respect each other and the staff working together benefits us ALL.