Guild Wars 2

Before I get out and get me some dinner, I had another thought about communication I wanted to share…

While I said earlier that ‘taking people along for the ride, with arms & legs inside at all times’ was as valuable as an explanation in hind side; That doesn’t negate the fact that sometimes an honest explanation is all that is needed… Seeing I have some clear examples for this I thought idd share that as well:

- The amount of content in LS2 is by some experienced as ‘rather low’. Though when looking at the actual LS2 as a whole, it is hard to see that a decent part of the resources for this episode, have also gone into creating the Story Log. People do not see this, nor are they likely to recognize this as part of ‘the content’. And even less, do they seem to realize it comes as a direct result from a CDI.

So, while I fully understand that the blog posts on the official forum do not provide much room for this, would it have hurt if some ‘dev post’ would have addressed this in the LS forum. Something akin to:
" Based upon the CDI for the LS we identified that people want a chance to replay the story on their Alts, as well as give new players the opportunity to play through these events. We recognized that this could be of greater value for the comprehension of the actual state of the world ‘in the future’ for any new player.

So we have devoted a great deal of our resources to constructing the Living Story Diary, so that now most of the LS content can be replayed. We are still figuring out what impact that has on the kind of content we can offer within the Living Story, and the kind of content we want to provide to you.

As an unfortunate result of the finite nature of resources, as well as a total shift in how to deliver the story, the amount of content for the LS2 start isn’t entirely up to our standards, while we think it is enough to release and have you enjoy it, we hope you realise that once we ourselves get more acquainted with this new approach to delivery of our LS content, we intend to see the amount of content in each release bounce back to the level you experienced in LS1.

We hope you enjoy this new system, with all your characters, and as ever any honest and respectful feedback is welcome, and valuable as we move forward."

- Another example could be a simple response to the ‘mid season break’
" Hello Tyrians, as you may well know, the summer time is also the time of vacation, and while we realise that the internet is around 24/7/52 our staff do need their rest and have earned their vacations.

While we try and plan these as much as possible, to be able to keep development going, we do hope you understand that it will have an impact on our development. As a consequence we are planning a mid-season break for our Living Story… While you might not see any new story content over that period, like I said, it doesn’t mean development on it is halted entirely.

Actually, seeing we had the recent change in our delivery system with the Living Story Dialog, and the consequent realisation that the amount of resources spend to create this feature somewhat diminished the actual content in the previous releases. We plan to also use this small intermezzo to get our content back up to standards with those that are still around, so that part2 of LS2 can be all we expect ".

Hope these two examples show how an explanation after the fact (or even ‘beforehand’) can shed a lot of light on what is going on, while at the same time not really spoiling anything, or promising something you can not deliver on. It basically shows a decent amount of ‘self-awareness’, and I think these kinds of posts can go a long way to at least create some understanding.

dlonie.6547:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Huzzah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjftsPeef_s

For ALS Awareness and fun!

Chris

“Come back, we’re not done — it’s all about iteration!” LMFAO, 10/10. I’d love the opportunity to do that to a couple of my former managers :-D

Back on topic….

Some of the interesting CDI ideas above gave me an idea, especially the point that ranking a la reddit does disrupt linear conversation, which is a big turn off for me as well.

The suggestion of a subforum would be nice, but would quickly grow unwieldy, as we’ve seen in the past.

Some sort of hybrid would be nice, and might be worth the development time to roll your own if there’s nothing off the shelf available. A medium where:

1) Threads are ranked with up/down votes, but not comments. This preserves the discussion on the topics, while allowing more popular concepts to float to the top.

2) Threads may be sorted either by ranking or time posted. “What’s hot” vs. “What’s new”. So we don’t get so fixated on the popular ideas that we miss out on new ones.

3) Ongoing (daily) guaranteed replies/discussion in the top X “hot” threads. Not promises of deliverables, but well thought out, meaningful, insightful discussions.

Less important, but perhaps useful ideas:

• The multiple threads will allow focused discussion to take place with less jumping around, something that killed readability in the other CDIs.

• Comments may still be flagged as unhelpful, and may be hidden if an overwhelming majority of votes identify it as such (this would be helpful on the regular forums, actually. Let the community discourage “toxic” posters without feeding them).

• Heavy moderation would be needed for these discussions. Off topic posts/bickering/long meandering arguments should be removed (not infracted, unless a repeat offender) and the involved parties encouraged to continue the discussion via PMs/regular forums.

• Rank could be by “votes per unique view” to keep a fair entry barrier for newer concepts.

• Alternatively, rank could be a 5-star system, where we can apply some subjective ranking to ideas we like, but find flawed.

• As the discussions grow, there will be similar threads that contain different solutions to the same issues. A way of grouping these (single-word tags, perhaps?) would be useful, especially if we could filter threads by tag.

Like I said, it might take a bit of development effort to build the platform, but it sounds like some new technology needs to be purchased/written to come up with something manageable, anyway.

Oh, and a good search feature would be essential if we’re to have any hope of keeping one thread/topic. The forum’s search functionality is 100% unusable, which makes me sad when I can’t yell at people for making duplicate posts

This is a fantastic idea! I had proposed to Chris once before about performing CDI through a format similar to reddit with the ability to upvote/downvote, but he was worried it would stifle out less popular ideas that might actually have merit to the discussion at hand.

This system of voting only on the OP post and the topic of the thread itself would keep linear discussion, while still promoting the most sought after topics and discussions to the top of the list. This is the best system I’ve heard yet, even extending back to the original CDI brainstorm on the subject. If something isn’t available off the shelf, I definitely feel it’d be valuable for Anet to design their own enhancement to attach to the existing forum that would only be visible in the CDI sub-forums.

Hi devs and forumgoers, since this topic is exactly to talk about how to better the communication between developers and the community, I would like to make a suggestion: Polls.

Sometimes I feel that in the forums the “general opinion” is dominated by a few people with the time and patience to do kilometric forum posts. Those are hard to respond to, and even hard to read (tl;dr).

With polls, the barrier to entry would be reduced and people that just want to give their two cents would be able too, without having to write a full dissertation about it.

For example: the controversy about the new trait system. I thought it was a fun mechanic, but some parts of it were very badly implemented. (100% map completion for trait? How boring.) But most of the forum posts were by people demanding the old system back and complaining that ArenaNet ignores the “voice of the community”. But that people weren’t the voice of the commuity. They were a vocal minority.

Minority, or majority? We may never know. But by consolidating the opinion of the community in polls, we may know better in the future.

Poll options could be collected from the community so the options would be the ones that make the most sense, for example:

What do you think of the new trait system?
(o) I like it, it is a fun mechanic!
( ) I hate it, give my traits back!

Any particular criticism about the system?
[X] 100% map completion for traits? Bad idea.
[X] I think that traits should always be found in maps with level lower than the trait availability (level 36 for adept for example)
[ ] All traits should be attainable by playing only a game mode, the current system forces me to WvW / PvE!
[ ] The events that award traits should be better planned to avoid waiting hours for it!

And so on.

I realize how dangerous it is to overcommunicate or speculate in ways that cause people to make faulty assumptions. For that reason, I agree with most of the communication strategies Anet employs in its marketing and customer communication.

At the same time, you guys have already had some unfortunate messaging “leak” to the community – specifically the quotes from Gamescom about Super Adventure Box and your plans (or lack thereof) regarding dungeon development.

Those quotes speak directly and with clarity (in ways you say you dont want to in this post) about content that alot of people care about. I also think those quotes have probably been taken out of context in ways that hurt Anet’s credibility and messaging.

It is in the company’s best interest (imo) to get ahead of those messages and clarify their intent. You need to make statements about your intentions regarding SAB and 5 player dungeons – because, right now, everyone is forming negative impressions based on off hand, 20 second soundbites from a busy trade show.

Get ahead of the message – quell the panic – and clarify the company’s position regarding those features/content types (because, again, if you dont, people will make assumptions – in most cases, negative). In these kind of situations, silence is its own form of communication (and not a good form).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Huzzah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjftsPeef_s

For ALS Awareness and fun!

Chris

Lmao. “All about iteration.”

lil Question: Can someone translate all these things into german for the german forum?
Last offical german info was on 29 July.. :-/

sry, but my english s very poor
Thanks
Apho

Blaeys.3102:

It is in the company’s best interest (imo) to get ahead of those messages and clarify their intent. You need to make statements about your intentions regarding SAB and 5 player dungeons – because, right now, everyone is forming negative impressions based on off hand, 20 second soundbites from a busy trade show.

Get ahead of the message – quell the panic – and clarify the company’s position regarding those features/content types (because, again, if you dont, people will make assumptions – in most cases, negative). In these kind of situations, silence is its own form of communication (and not a good form).

well they did clarify this already in the mentioned interview to an extent, people don’t read long clarifications though. A few minutes after the interview was live reddit and the forums were full of “SAB is dead, RIP SAB” posts and people who haven’t read the interview would think that the devs have no intent on developing more content for SAB.

What they did say: not in the near future. It’s pretty clear that you need the dev for the new map(s?) imho since the LS leads us westwards.

They could have clarified that bit though… either SAB or new Maps. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Quite the shopping list we have here in the meantime.

(1) Players who want to know ArenaNet’s stance on every feature, game mode and even disabled content (such as adventure box or kite city)
(2) Players who want to know concrete examples which type of content is to be expected medium to long term.
(3) Players who want ArenaNet to change the game according to their suggestion.

Meanwhile in another department, Guild Wars made $93 million in the past 12 months (July13-June14) according to quarterly reports filed by NCSOFT.

It appears more and more as if there was a huge chasm between two types of customers.
(1) People trained in the ways of the old business models, who expect to know details that are relevant for the old business model to work. Because the old model requires a groundswell of better informed people evangelizing future updates.
(2) The players who are monetized. The ladder group hardly ever asking for stuff to buy in any of these threads. Doesn’t anybody find that strange? So many things get asked for, but hardly anything connected to monetization.

Shouldn’t one of the question ArenaNet asking its customers be what they would like to spend their money on? Living World gets torn apart quite a bit, but the most powerful statement you can practically can make in this forum is not just saying that you want something, but that you would even be willing to pay for it.

FourthVariety.5463:

(1) Players who want to know ArenaNet’s stance on every feature, game mode and even disabled content (such as adventure box or kite city)
(2) Players who want to know concrete examples which type of content is to be expected medium to long term.
(3) Players who want ArenaNet to change the game according to their suggestion.

And then….there’s the fourth variety of player. B-)

couldn’t help it

Those megaserver changes.. they read like addressing the individual bullet points from the feedback thread. I have to give kudos.

Seriously, though.. having that on the boil and yet not telling us sooner did the atmosphere here on the forums a lot more harm than good. I understand not giving details or timelines.. but surely the motivation was fixed to address the issues ‘soon’ months ago.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This doesn’t mean that I am against the idea of having a CDI forum though if for example we consolidated the vast number of our other forums.

I strongly believe that this would be a bad idea, and I’m somewhat shocked that you would actually consider it a step forward in communications. Consider my suggestion withdrawn.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We always do our best to listen to the community and read the forums, we just don’t always have the time to reply and engage, and it is our goal as expressed last week and over the weekend to build a better relationship with you all.

Chris

No mention of any changes for Roleplayers in the Megaserver update, despite it being a hot-button issue which you also mentioned in this thread was discussed internally. This thread also remains unanswered four months later:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaservers-and-RP/first

This is a good place to start, because right now part of your most dedicated fanbase has been ignored both in a very important area (the megaserver fixes) and continues to be ignored in a large, consolidated thread on the issue. These are places where listening will make a difference.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We always do our best to listen to the community and read the forums, we just don’t always have the time to reply and engage, and it is our goal as expressed last week and over the weekend to build a better relationship with you all.

Chris

Well, that’s what you need Community Liaison folk for. They see what the users are focused on, they go out and interface with the Design & Development folks, get answers, and bring them back. It’s a very important job, and it’s not an easy one.

It is really nice to see some responses, finally. I sincerely hope it’s a sign of improvement to come. Iterate on this a bit (sorry), and you’ll see that becoming truly involved with your player base gets you customer loyalty and goodwill.

Mike O Brien.4613:

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development.

How about future fixes?
You guys do communicate with us and then simply ignore it. Most CDIs were waste of time: some classes and wvw.
You can’t fix wvw titles for 2 years now. Having no gems from it, means it can’t be changed?

A different reply, because it’s a different concept:

I’m very encouraged to see some movement on the Megaservers. It should come as no surprise that if the changes are hidden to us, we won’t know there’s improvement. If you shared that improvement with us, then we could shape our opinions accordingly.

I wish players were given more options, here. Some people might prefer being in a low population zone with people they could understand, over an active one of people speaking Martian & Ooblek.

And if you have the ability to group by language… then you’re 93% of the way to being able to group people together by playstyle, if they chose to. Give us radio-button flags for RP, PvE, WvW, Dungeons… that’d be great. Choose how you want to play today. What a great advertising tag line that would be.

The subforum doesn’t have to be huge, Chris. It can be inserted right under General, with people only making new threads on topics that have a full life of their own. (Hello mods, yes, I’m suggesting increasing your workload dramatically … sorry …)

As to a downvote feature, I’m against that. I think it’s too hard to police or create intelligent safeguards on a small specialty subforum like that. I wouldn’t mind a Block feature so individuals can choose not to see other individual’s posts. However, I’ve been dabbling in another game’s beta this weekend. In that game’s forums there is an up/down vote feature. Guess what the only two threads were that I saw with indented garbage can icons suggesting they were on the chopping block? The ones setting up to choose unofficial NA/EU RP servers. There was nothing toxic in them, the only toxicity was from the — feline filter will censor me if I use the descriptive phrases I want to — who downvoted RPers out of spite.

I have to say I’m not sure what kind of communication you guys are looking at improving, on the one hand you’ve repeatedly told us you won’t be sharing details about what’s in development because it’s against company policy, while Mike O’Brien talks about sharing “the longer-term roadmap” but then talks about something that is not a roadmap.

I’m confused, what kind of communication are you talking about if not sharing information about what’s in the works? That’s what I’m most interested in.

FourthVariety.5463:

Shouldn’t one of the question ArenaNet asking its customers be what they would like to spend their money on? Living World gets torn apart quite a bit, but the most powerful statement you can practically can make in this forum is not just saying that you want something, but that you would even be willing to pay for it.

The problem with this is you don’t have any guarantee that people who say they will pay for something actually will, for any number of reasons. They could have been lying. They might not like what was delivered. They could have fallen on hard financial times. They might have increased life responsibilities and don’t play anymore. They might have moved to another game.

First off, I think, like many others, Anets current design philosophy of not communicating anything beforehand needs to be completely redone, it just isn´t up to todays time. Take the crowdfunding success of Star Citizen as example, as it has one of the most open developments I´ve ever seen and the people seem to love it: They communicate everything completely open, besides the actual storyline, they even communicated the upcoming release of the first playable version Arena Commander months beforehand, without being afraid that they couldn´t keep what they said. And it happened: they didn´t manage to get it finished in time, it got delayed by two months or something, but people weren´t angry, as they did very frequent updates on the problems they were fighting with. Also they´re doing a complete summary every month what the different teams have been up to and it´s great, the money (indicating their success) just keeps coming in, what clearly shows two things:
- That a communication strategy like that can work
- It´s what the people want.

Another great example is Eve Online: they ask their community what feature they want next and how long it will most likely take to realize it and how big the risk of failure is, and then it´s up to them, or some representitives, to decide. Eve Online has one of the most hardcore fanbases ever.

For GW2, maybe big polls regarding the game and it´s future (with small rewards for answering them?), announced on the front side and on the launcher would help with finding out what the people really want, maybe on a regular basis like once a month?
Fact is, something needs to be changed, drastically, Anets way of communicating with us in the last two years was, in the eyes of many, many people, a complete failure.

It´s okay to announce a feature and then to call it off, as long as you keep us updated and always explain why! I think that´s the lesson Anet, like many other publishers, needs to learn to keep us costumers satisfied.

I think players have to also realize they have to look at what WE are doing WRONG. Many people attack developers “make this change” if it doesn’t happen they say “we are being ignored” maybe its not that your being ignored maybe its that your suggestion can not for whatever reason that YOU can’t see can’t be implemented because it affects OTHER aspects of the game. We have to remember that it is a domino effect one thing changes and many others change because since this is a MMO everything is linked together one way or another. Other issue many times people just don’t like to (((((READ))))) or it might be their reading comprehension skills that are laking. Things have been posted changes have been addressed and people still complain because they did not READ. TRUE developers are laking a bit on this part but if you look at current topics it is something they themselves recognize and are trying to fix. People still complain about communication but don’t try to add into what is being done at the moment with CDI or give the answer “why even bother?” <—- not constructive why even post? I agree with many here that developers have to be the pushing force in changing what a lot of the happening that are currently affecting our community but it is a two way road they feed off of us just like we feed off on them. Last, why I COMPLETELY understand the no future release info policy in play is because soooo many say “we can handle if plans get changed or canceled” just look at all the precursor topics proof right there why we CANT handle.

Noobix.3958:

I will call out Anet on one thing though. Please please please give more insight into your design decisions, especially when you feel they will be initially perceived as unpopular. It will help massively if we as a community can understand your design decisions even if we don’t necessarily agree with them. This is specifically on you Chris being Design Lead and all.

agreed.

precursor crafting,why it isn’t in game yet? answer.

Noobix.3958:

To the people who tell themselves that “GW2 has not changed in the two years it has been out, there is no new content”, may I please direct you to this lovely page? It may take quite some scrolling to fully appreciate it…

Spvp has received new game modes?
WvW has received new maps or new ways to earn PPT?
PvE has received either a mechanics overhaul or a change to the way bosses/mobs behave that breaks the overwhelming dominance of glass cannon builds and makes the idea of building for support or control worthwhile?
The TP is no longer the best way to make money in the game by an extreme margin?
We have new ways to customize our characters and/or more horizontal progression options that don’t include yet more weapon and armor skins such as housing or guild halls?
Pve and Pvp have received a much needed skills behavior split that forever ends the “fixes mode A but breaks mode B” problem we run into with every single balance update?

Better communication is definitely welcomed!

It’s great to see a red tag replying so much.
CDIs are also very welcomed back.

Thanks Chris!

Hi Chris,
To what extent does player feedback drive priorities? For example, if somehow tomorrow a 40 page thread appears about <insert feature here>, does current work get reprioritized to make room for that?

As a software developer myself, I’ve found that the end user of the software drives about 80-90% of the prioritization, with the rest coming from developer knowledge (for example, if something of a less priority is a ‘quick win’, it generally would happen sooner, and also some flexibility on pushing back massive projects if they would take a long time). I would expect similar practices at Anet. Why then, for example, do seemingly ‘quick wins’ like many of the profession bugs or unused traits/skills stay that way for such a long time?

Thanks again for all of your hard work and interaction with the community!

FourthVariety.5463:

Quite the shopping list we have here in the meantime.

(1) Players who want to know ArenaNet’s stance on every feature, game mode and even disabled content (such as adventure box or kite city)
(2) Players who want to know concrete examples which type of content is to be expected medium to long term.
(3) Players who want ArenaNet to change the game according to their suggestion.

Meanwhile in another department, Guild Wars made $93 million in the past 12 months (July13-June14) according to quarterly reports filed by NCSOFT.

It appears more and more as if there was a huge chasm between two types of customers.
(1) People trained in the ways of the old business models, who expect to know details that are relevant for the old business model to work. Because the old model requires a groundswell of better informed people evangelizing future updates.
(2) The players who are monetized. The ladder group hardly ever asking for stuff to buy in any of these threads. Doesn’t anybody find that strange? So many things get asked for, but hardly anything connected to monetization.

Shouldn’t one of the question ArenaNet asking its customers be what they would like to spend their money on? Living World gets torn apart quite a bit, but the most powerful statement you can practically can make in this forum is not just saying that you want something, but that you would even be willing to pay for it.

This is actually a great point. I often times feel I want to support the game but I refuse to do it through the RNG of Black Lion Chest or items that are marked up for the sole purpose of getting people to buy the next tier of gems.

I would HAPPILY give money for an expansion though. New race, new class, new zones to explore, MORE SKILLS, more weapons and more permanent content.

Chris,

GUILD WARS 2 IS FUN & AWESOME!

That is all.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Just wanted to pop in and say I am up to date. Enjoying relaxing with the family.

Just one question there: Catan or not yet?

Ashkael.2859:

if youre reading everything, then where is the content everyone actually wants? where’s precursor crafting/scavenger hunt? that’s the one content everyone is waiting for and 2 years after release, still it’s not ingame. atleast answer that question.

im starting to think that whenever a post contains the word ‘precursor’ the devs programmed a filter into the forums so it will automatically be ignored. like it’s a taboo word or something. if white people are banned to say ‘kitten’, fat people are banned from eating ‘cupcakes’, gw2 devs are banned from reading, saying or even acknowledging the word ‘precursor’.

Listen to what you’re saying. Where is the precursor crafting “everyone” wants. I don’t particularly want it. It wouldn’t bother me if it was there, mind you, but I’m not sitting there waiting for this content.

There are a lot of people who won’t get it, because they simply refuse to WvW, even to just world complete. Or refuse to do dungeons. They probably don’t want it either.

I’m sure it is a popular feature, but I’m not sure what percentage of people really have it on their radar. I do know it’s a hot topic on the forums however.

Ashkael.2859:

where is the content everyone actually wants? where’s precursor crafting/scavenger hunt? that’s the one content everyone is waiting for

I don’t want it. I am not waiting for it. To be honest I would rather resources were not spent on it.

Ashkael.2859:

if youre reading everything, then where is the content everyone actually wants?

That’s right, I still haven’t gotten my catapult for firing asura into . . . I mean . . . over walls. And what about the content of humans pushing the charr out of Ascalon and once more ruling there? How about the content where four races band together and burn down the Grove? Also, what about mounts?

I mean, where is all this content? It’s what everyone wants, right, so why isn’t it out yet?

So, a suggestion: Blue Tags.

A couple people have mentioned corralling some of the more prominent forum members into helping organize future CDIs and you seem to like the idea.

How about “promoting” a few forum posters for each subforum to act as a community liaison to you or the community manager? These wouldn’t be mods, they would be volunteers that would help guide discussions and channel feedback to the devs and they’d be able to post with a blue tag instead of a red tag to denote their volunteer community position.

This would be a voluntary position you could offer to people you’ve noticed that have a passion for the game and the ability to have productive conversations with people. They get a direct line to devs for answers and you get people to help with the community, everyone wins. They’d be doing what they’re already doing, just with a slightly more formal position to do so.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ashkael.2859:

if youre reading everything, then where is the content everyone actually wants?

That’s right, I still haven’t gotten my catapult for firing asura into . . . I mean . . . over walls. And what about the content of humans pushing the charr out of Ascalon and once more ruling there? How about the content where four races band together and burn down the Grove? Also, what about mounts?

I mean, where is all this content? It’s what everyone wants, right, so why isn’t it out yet?

You forgot the Great Quaggan Hunt.

As to precursor crafting, I guess I’m not part of “everyone” either. I’d uninstall before crafting anything beyond Exotic in this game.

DDCarvalho.2071:

Hi devs and forumgoers, since this topic is exactly to talk about how to better the communication between developers and the community, I would like to make a suggestion: Polls.

I think this is a very good idea.

The company seems a little bit disconnected from ist customers wishes and seems not to understand fully what the customers wants, so the best solution would be: ask the costumer.

So, make a good customer survey, inform your customers about the survey (not only on this forum, but also ingame und with email), make an incentive for filling out this survey (i.e. give everyone who completes the survey a precursor… just kidding) and promise (and do it afterwards) to fully show us the results of this survey.

Maybe the results could hurt the “pride” of one or two persons and show that some people have a distorted self-perception, but overall it would be for the better of us all.

And then: Analyze the results and make a plan to become better based on these results and communicate this plan to your customers.

With this kind of transparency a lot of trust could be regained.

Greetings.

P.S: AND then: Do the same survey 6 months later and compare the results.

I’m not especially waiting for Precursor crafting. I’m sure it will be just as long and involved as crafting a Legendary, and that’s just not something I put much effort into.

I understand some portion of the playerbase would like to craft a Precursor, but…I would have been happier with the former Precursor Scavenger Hunt. Either way, I can take it or leave it.

Thus, do try to temper your claims that ‘everyone’ wants this or that. Thanks. =)

I think polls wouldn’t have valuable results because of this:

Q: How important is SAB for you?
A: Very important —> tons of people
B: Neutral
C: I can’t stand it

Anet: Ok, you voted for SAB, our map-designers will now stop working on new maps and focus on SAB only. You’ll get world 3 in 3 months, no new maps in the near future.
Us: O______o noooooo

As long as we have no idea how ressources are managed and what needs to be sacrificed in order to make something else happen, polls would make little sense imho.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I think polls wouldn’t have valuable results because of this:

Q: How important is SAB for you?
A: Very important —> tons of people
B: Neutral
C: I can’t stand it

Anet: Ok, you voted for SAB, our map-designers will now stop working on new maps and focus on SAB only. You’ll get world 3 in 3 months, no new maps in the near future.
Us: O______o noooooo

You are making the assumption to know the poll and the result of a poll before it happend. When you really do know the result of a poll before the poll, then the poll is useless.

But the result of the poll could also be “only 10% liked the SAB, but 80% liked the LS2.0 so far” .. which could lead to some other priorities or some confirmation for A-Net.

A good designed customer survey can be a very informative and powerful instrument for a company. Please do not trivialize it.

Greetings.

No doubt someone will say but you never did idea ‘x’ or idea ‘Y’ !!!!

Well that’s one of the reasons why we are reluctant to talk about the road map and secondarily we don’t always agree with what some want but we always stay informed.

Look. Some people are going to be upset no matter what you do. Promise something and never deliver? People will be upset. Never promise anything, leaving the future a murky Sargasso? People will be upset. So ignore that people will be upset and do what’s right. If you promise things and you have a good reason for not delivering, just explain what that reason is, any sensible players will understand and move on.

“Sorry, we planned to do X, but then we decided that Y would be a better idea, and it made X obsolete/impossible/time consuming, so we abandoned it and moved on to Z instead.”

So long as you’re open and honest with us, the bulk of the players will understand, and maybe suggest ways to make X still work, or improve Z to make it more like X, or who knows what we can accomplish together. You know how tons of bugs are never found until a million players are crawling over the new content? Sometimes design ideas are the same way, and the earlier you can get players crawling over the ideas, the sooner potential directions can become apparent. There have been plenty of features that have gone live, or nearly gone live, only for players to point out why that was a bad idea in the first place and it takes a while to fix it.

In any case, this game needs to do a better job of giving players hope. It needs to present a more distant future, however vague, that is more than two weeks out. We need to know where this game is headed in the long term, rather than just wandering in a fog. I’ve said this before, but it’s like on the West Wing, where the President said that sometimes you have to throw your hat over the wall, to make a declaration of intent, so that people know that you’re actually striving towards something and not just floating in place.

We know that you have a policy to not talk about things until they’re ready to launch, but that policy is toxic, and it needs to go.

I think polls wouldn’t have valuable results because of this:

Q: How important is SAB for you?
A: Very important —> tons of people
B: Neutral
C: I can’t stand it

Anet: Ok, you voted for SAB, our map-designers will now stop working on new maps and focus on SAB only. You’ll get world 3 in 3 months, no new maps in the near future.
Us: O______o noooooo

As long as we have no idea how ressources are managed and what needs to be sacrificed in order to make something else happen, polls would make little sense imho.

A fair point, but maybe they could ask better questions? Maybe they could give us options like they did during the Election, in which they presented two different Fractals. They could say “which would you prefer to be released within six months?”
A. SAB World 3
B. An Aetherblade Retreat style dungeon
C. A Not So Secret-like jumping puzzle in the new zone

Probably give longer and more complex descriptions for each, to let people know vaguely what it would consist of.

Package up three options that would involve the same basic dev team, let players choose between them. The ones that fail could be re-added to new polls for the next series.

Zok.4956:

But the result of the poll could also be “only 10% liked the SAB, but 80% liked the LS2.0 so far” .. which could lead to some other priorities or some confirmation for A-Net.

A good designed customer survey can be a very informative and powerful instrument for a company. Please do not trivialize it.

I think you don’t get what I was trying to say. My point is that the outcome of a survey could make more peope unhappy because of the shift in development which would result. When we don’t have background knowledge about what needs to be sacrificed in order to work on something specific, there’s no point imho.

Ohoni.6057:

snip

And what if the results would look like this?:

A. SAB World 3 —> 32%
B. An Aetherblade Retreat style dungeon --> 40%
C. A Not So Secret-like jumping puzzle in the new zone —>28%

Quite even results. Furthermore, the survey (when holding on to the policy) would more look like this:

A. SAB World 3
B. ?? can’t talk about future projects
C. ?? can’t talk about future projects