Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about the idea that some say that forumers do not receive some attention, because they (we) are in the minority. I’ve decided to share my thoughts on this.

It seems to me that us forumers are definitely in the minority. I don’t get the idea from an actual consensus or anything, however, it makes sense, because millions (just to give a number, not sure how much there actually is) of people play guild wars, but it appears that very little people actually forum.

However, even if this is true, this does not mean developers pay little heed to us. Even if we may be the minority, we still well-represent the popular opinion. Popular opinion would of course be measured much more accurately if ideas and preferences were sampled from all of the players. But put simply, we are just a small-ish portion taken from the bar of players and their ideas and opinions.

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I just thought I’d lay out the idea on the table.
I’d like to hear people’s feedback.

Edit (Also discussed below): Another point. I thought about it and it makes sense to me that it’s the more hardcore players that forum. This is because they want to be involved in any aspect they can get a hold of.
More casual gamers probably on average do not forum, they just play the game and enjoy it, with a few individually based dislikes.
Therefor, the hardcore gamers are the ones that are important to please. These hardcore gamers are probably in the minority (maybe not, just what I think may be true). But out of this minority, a good percentage of them spend time on the forums. I shall make a graph here of what is going through my mind:
All active GW2 players:
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hardcore gamers: —Important to please
|||||||
Forumers: —Makes up a large percentage of Hardcore gamers
|||||
Of course, this is only truth according to me. There is also space in between all active players and hardcore gamers to take into account.

I believe you are fairly accurate in your assumption. Us forum goers are definitely in the minority. Even considering the 113241 views on the thread “Ranger update” which was posted about a month ago, helps reassure this point. Assume any ranger that attends the forums looked at this thread at least once in that month. Then you have 113241 rangers on the forums. As a rough estimate for forum goers, multiple this by 8 (all the professions) and you have 905928 players. Not quite 1 million and the math here is obviously terribly flawed because anyone (not just rangers) could have viewed that thread multiple times. Even if you consider this accurate, this only makes up for about 45% of GW2 owners (assuming GW2 has about 2 million purchases). So yes, those that post on the forums are what is called the outspoken minority.

I think Anet actually does a decent job of listening to the forums and getting feedback from the community through it. Sure, they don’t give us all the information we want, but it is quite clear they spend time reading it (probably laughing a a majority of it).

I really dont think forum users represent the overall playing population well. I am the only one of a group of 7 friends that actively posts on these forums so I feel as if I am the voice of us 7, that being said I don’t post all that often.

My group would like to see a lfd tool, an individual ranking system in wvw and more armor/weapon skins but as to the content already in the game we are very satisfied so there is no reason to post.

MangoMan.3218:

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.

No, not adequate at all.

Plenty of people claim that they speak for the majority. They do not speak for me at all. Really, unless they have signatures from players that stated said player was speaking for them, then they do not speak for them either, regardless of what their bloated ego is telling them.

Forum players tend to know a bit more about the game. They read updates and give their feedback but that does not in any way represent a accurate slice of the game. It is just that one players view. Unless they can prove others have that same opinion, it is just their own personal opinion.

Some players tend to avoid the forums because of how other posters have this self righteous complex and no mater what you try to argue, mister self righteous is going to ignore all reasoning and still declare that they are right and the person that disagrees is a troll.

Then you have the look at me types that think they actually matter to others when they post that they are leaving. Who cares about you really? I sure as hell don’t so they can leave for all I care.

I’ve disagreed with much of what players have complained about. If I remembered to post, I did but usually I’m having fun playing the game. People maybe should just try playing the game.

There is no way in hell do I want ANet to use the forums as a sample. Most of the posters are full of kitten anyway.

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

Good point, forums often bring out the bad in the game. I think that’s because everyone already knows what’s good about it, and there is not much discussion opportunity in it. I’m a bit pained to think of people who might take a glance at the forums and decide not to buy the game because of it.
So whoever sees this post, I encourage you to remember the advantages of the game, and bring those to attention, rather than dwell on the issues

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Mahaedros.7085:

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Haha, kind of what I was thinking. Still, he’s right.

Hm… I don’t even know what to think anymore right now I ’ve never visited other forums.

Well i guess most of people are smart enough to avoid mmo forum. Look at this one .. filled with qq’ing and ’ i im done , i quit ’ type of people complaining about every single breth Anet takes.

Forum goers are a minority.

That however does not mean by any length of reasoning that their expressed opinions are also automatically the opinions of a minority.

Does not require much experience from other MMOs to understand this.

That we are in the minority is an assumption that is sometimes used to discount valid arguments. Whether we are or not is largely immaterial as we usually are relatively representative of the populous as a whole. Whenever I see someone using that philosophy to put down an issue or idea I immediately consider they have lost the argument…you know the old schoolyard debating tactic of discrediting or demeaning the messenger rather than addressing the issue.

Mahaedros.7085:

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Slightly, though there’s a clear difference between my complaint and their complaints. My complaint is on something that has gotten on my nerves for quite some time. I dealt with this crap in EVE for three years and now I have to deal with an even worse case of it. Poisoned communities get really annoying, especially when it’s everywhere you go.

This whole minority debate is silly.

What we are is a decent sample for opinion polling. Discounting the opinions here would be foolish. It’s that simple.

Of course forum users are a minority and they do form a sample that fits in a bigger picture.

People get upset about stuff and they come here. If a company ignores that it’s to their own detriment, but they also know to place this in context, so it’s not the leading or only source of feedback they go by.

All game forums these days get the worst in the general chat and not company has been able to redirect that away from new players that go to the forum.

So, yeah, this is normal, the way it is. Take it with a pinch of salt. The emotions are real and people do feed off each other.

TL;DR: Angry customers will usually not keep it a secret if they are angry enough. Satisfied customers won’t generally utter a word, they speak almost exclusively with their wallets.

There is no reason to believe that the vocal minority on these forums (or the vocal minority offering feedback to any company in the service industry really) is representative of the majority of consumers. There is one hard and fast rule understood by members of the service industry explaining why this is. Example:

Have you ever had a hot delicious Big Mac served along side hot out of the frier, perfectly seasoned, golden fries and an ice cold perfect mixture of soda syrup and carbonated water, served promptly and friendly? I hope so, everyone deserves to know this small pleasure offered in life. I digress. After such a meal did you feel over whelmingly compelled to find the manager and people responsible for this idyllic fast food experience and see them dutifully commended? No? Not once? Never? Me niether. Welcome to the human race.

Conversely have you ever been served a Big Mac that looked like it was the practice sandwich in an experiment to train chimps to work in fast food… using only their feet, accompanied by cold fries that look like they were scraped off the floor under the frier… last week, and a watery beverage which was some how warmer than your fries that barely resembled a soda in appearance and not in all in flavor. One which appears to have taken 20 minutes for a siezuring epileptic to ball up in a paper bag and hurl at you with nothing more than a middle finger before they went back to trying to call their crack dealer? Just out of curiosity, did such a dining experience as this compel you to find the people responsible for it and offer them some tips… on how to end their life and why they owe it to the gene pool and the future of humanity to do so as soon as possible? And again, welcome to the human race.

You see, in part 1 of our example. Eight or so adults (more or less) all pitched in to serve you an appropriately assembled and prepared sandwich, fries which necessitated only the ability to use a timer and a salt shaker with in reason, and place both ice AND the beverage of your choice into their appropriate container. Then to employ basic math to negotiate and transact the exchange and place these items into your hand, WITH the appropriate untensils and accoutrements no less, all in around 5 minutes, give or take. To an acceptable standard, they did, wait for it… THEIR JOB! A feet which (although one could easily argue it is quickly becoming one) is not noteworthy and which you appropriately did not note, because well… it wasn’t worthy of it. Now in part 2 of our example… well I think you get the point.

As the saying goes, they squeaky wheel gets the oil. The Japanese have a similar saying which I find more appropriate though – the nail that sticks out gets hammered first.

Well, I think we all get the point here. When consumers are angry, they express it and call attention to it, publicly if at all possible. When they are satisfied, they generally don’t make a peep.

“Well how does a company know where they stand if the only unprompted feedback they generally recieve is largely negative then Mr. Smarty McSmartface?!?!” You may be wondering. Well there is an equally simplistic barometer of the general consumer body opinion as well. Which is:

… the company still exists, turns profit, and the individual that got caught in your sights when you were wronged by whatever company in your explosive tirade of WTF’ery is still employed therr and putting food in their kid’s mouthes from the check that, in a round about way, was written by you none the less. Now there is one sure fire way to get a complete, accurate, and specifically itemized picture of customer satisfaction. One which is probably most easily practiced by a company providing an MMO – Compulsory Surveys! That’s a discussion for a whole ’nother thread though friends.

So there been this post already i am not sure if this one will last. If you want to get a true sample you must look at what each person posted to get some idea of what there view points are on this. If a person no longer plays the game but comes back to these forms over and over then there view are a great deal less then though who still play but do not come to these forms that often.

Any way major point this has been talked about and they commented on it so i am not sure why your making this over.

Syktek.7912:

Mahaedros.7085:

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Slightly, though there’s a clear difference between my complaint and their complaints. My complaint is on something that has gotten on my nerves for quite some time. I dealt with this crap in EVE for three years and now I have to deal with an even worse case of it. Poisoned communities get really annoying, especially when it’s everywhere you go.

Except you are wrong. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The only thing the vocal minority is a minority in is the fact that they are vocal. You can not in any way state that they do not, speak or speak not for the silent majority. Just because someone isn’t complaining on the forums does not automatically mean they like things as they are, which is exactly the argument always brought up by people that want to counter the complaint. Until someone speaks up you will never know their stance on a subject.

As such it is simply very irresponsible to ignore large complaints and waltz over these people.

As for complaining about complainers. That is just worse as many complaints are genuine complaints. It doesn’t matter if it is presented constructive or not. The less constructive the more passionate the poster usually is.

Ascended gear is here to stay. In fact, they flat out gave a middle finger to their entire forum playerbase and said “obviously everyone loves it”.

That should tell you how they feel about forum input.

The general discussion is only here because if it wasn’t, an unofficial one would pop up. The problem with that is they couldn’t moderate it themselves, so a lot of the more negative and critical posts wouldn’t be able to be deleted like they are here.

I realized when they made the blog post about how much of a “success” fractals were that it was basically a message to the forum posters saying ‘know your place’.

Forums are the minority, fanboys and Arenanet will always use that as an excuse to ignore threads they don’t want to be involved with on the forum (see loot drop thread). People who come to the forum are usually particular types of players, and ones that like to know what is going on in the game before playing, or before an update makes things worse. Alot of people that don’t use the forums might not even know fractals exists, or what vertical progression is/means for example.

They “could” put polling into the game itself, like in the betas, to get a well rounded opinion of the player base. But I am not sure listening to player feedback is Arenanets priority.

Conner.4702:

Syktek.7912:

Mahaedros.7085:

Syktek.7912:

Forums are a minority. They do not represent the majority.

The majority should be considered a tallied consensus of opinions throughout the internet, in real life, and the likes. Forums are always filled to the brim with miserable, poisonous players who almost always have content lacking complaints about anything they can find that didn’t match their standards. So they make threads that decay and poison the views of others in multiple aspects; they usually lack any constructive criticism.

If I’m at all wrong, (as these forums are filled with the biggest bunch of complaining, poetic goons) (It’s worse than the EVE Online forums) I feel bad for the gaming industry, because they’ve begun to cater to a bunch of kittening carebears.

It sounds like you are doing what you complain about others doing

Slightly, though there’s a clear difference between my complaint and their complaints. My complaint is on something that has gotten on my nerves for quite some time. I dealt with this crap in EVE for three years and now I have to deal with an even worse case of it. Poisoned communities get really annoying, especially when it’s everywhere you go.

Except you are wrong. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The only thing the vocal minority is a minority in is the fact that they are vocal. You can not in any way state that they do not, speak or speak not for the silent majority. Just because someone isn’t complaining on the forums does not automatically mean they like things as they are, which is exactly the argument always brought up by people that want to counter the complaint. Until someone speaks up you will never know their stance on a subject.

As such it is simply very irresponsible to ignore large complaints and waltz over these people.

As for complaining about complainers. That is just worse as many complaints are genuine complaints. It doesn’t matter if it is presented constructive or not. The less constructive the more passionate the poster usually is.

Not to be a Negative Nancy or contrary just for the sake of being contrary but, accordingly the best we can infer by the above post is that the coalesced opinion of the “vocal minority” forum goers is that it is factually, well… meaningless. The prevailing opinion of those who frequent the forums, in short, may or may not indicate the prevailing opinion of those who do not post.

In other words, the majority of the consumer population may or may not be pleased with the design, management and direction of GW2. Which is exactly, to the letter, what we can factually conclude if not one single member of the consumer body uttered a word to A-Net about their attitudes and feelings on GW2.

Incidentally though, passionate in the absence of contructive, feedback is generally agreed to be less than an ideal for the purposes of level headed, sober perspectives to base direction and decisions on. Valuable feedback is generally agreed to, first and foremost, come from objective observation, critical thought and the atmosphere of free and open discussion these qualities foster and encourage. Without pointing out any specific examples, lets just say that through out history A LOT of people have been incredibly passionate about some REALLY bad ideas. Just sayin’…

To be fair they have to do something to avoid dealing with how bad D3 is. Sitting back and watching the dough roll in from r kitten fanbois, can be so stressful.

Edge.4180:

This whole minority debate is silly.

What we are is a decent sample for opinion polling. Discounting the opinions here would be foolish. It’s that simple.

No. We are not a decent sample. Forumgoers are heavily biased in favor of those who have issues with the game. Casual players who are happy and enjoying themselves are far less likely to come here than those who have problems or are dissatisfied in any way.

Im sure there are people that view threads just to see whats going on and they never post. That or they are afraid of being policed by mods, i can understand that considering ive once been infracted for simply saying “Welcome to Guild Wars 2” I wouldnt call forum posters a minority since anyone at any time can/do visit the forums especially for things like patch notes (that seem to be getting rarer by the month)

Indoles.1467:

I believe you are fairly accurate in your assumption. Us forum goers are definitely in the minority. Even considering the 113241 views on the thread “Ranger update” which was posted about a month ago, helps reassure this point. Assume any ranger that attends the forums looked at this thread at least once in that month. Then you have 113241 rangers on the forums. As a rough estimate for forum goers, multiple this by 8 (all the professions) and you have 905928 players.

I don’t think that’s how it works.

The ‘views’ is how many thimes the thread is opened, regardless of who opened it. It isn’t 120k indivivduals, it has just been opened that many times.

It could just be 500 guys checking the thread over and over in the space of a month.

OT: yes, every game’s forum is always in the minority in comparison to the player count, even though the forums often shout the loudest.

Jason King says, “As mentioned earlier, when we’re not fixing bugs, we’ll read through the forums and/or play the game and listen to what players are talking about.”
I think he really means this. Forumers are listened to, they are not ignored.
I’m glad to see that some people have my opinion as well.

Edit: Another point. I thought about it and it makes sense to me that it’s the more hardcore players that forum. This is because they want to be involved in any aspect they can get a hold of.
More casual gamers probably on average do not forum, they just play the game and enjoy it, with a few individually based dislikes.
Therefor, the hardcore gamers are the ones that are important to please. These hardcore gamers are probably in the minority (maybe not, just what I think may be true). But out of this minority, a good percentage of them spend time on the forums. I shall make a graph here of what is going through my mind:

All active GW2 players:
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hardcore gamers: —Important to please
|||||||
Forumers: —Makes up a large percentage of Hardcore gamers
|||||

Of course, this is only truth according to me. There is also space in between all active players and hardcore gamers to take into account.

Tolmos.8395:

Ascended gear is here to stay. In fact, they flat out gave a middle finger to their entire forum playerbase and said “obviously everyone loves it”.

That should tell you how they feel about forum input.

The general discussion is only here because if it wasn’t, an unofficial one would pop up. The problem with that is they couldn’t moderate it themselves, so a lot of the more negative and critical posts wouldn’t be able to be deleted like they are here.

I realized when they made the blog post about how much of a “success” fractals were that it was basically a message to the forum posters saying ‘know your place’.

Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, they actually have access to game logs and know what’s happening in there? And that it’d be unfair to change fotm just because 20 people kick and scream on the forums while there are 20 000 people running fotm on daily basic? Unlike you, the devs can actually see those numbers and decide on what the majority thinks without even reading the forums. They don’t need you to tell them if fotm is a fail or success, the playerbase already did that(obviously, the big picture was in favour of the dungeon and it is a success).

Minority only matters if something is put to a true democratic vote, it says nothing about the accuracy of their concerns/statements. A minority believed that the treatment of workers in the beginnings of the industrial revolution was inhumane while the majority either didn’t voice concern/care or thought it was fine… and I think most of us who have some knowledge of history (not necessarily US, but even in their respective countries) know how that shook out. I think even people that like the game can admit GW2 isn’t without some flaws and those that don’t really care so much to voice doesn’t necessarily mean they think the game is fine….

Quaz.4931:

Forums are the minority, fanboys and Arenanet will always use that as an excuse to ignore threads they don’t want to be involved with on the forum (see loot drop thread).

This is an incorrect statement.

Forums are A minority, not THE minority. This is an essential difference. Over the whole game experience there generally more than 2 points of view on each issues. It’s more splintered, it’s just human nature to turn it into a good vs evil or us against them.

On forums we have haters vs fanbois. The funny thing is that who belongs in those extremes and who is somewhere between them changes with each topic. And yet people talk about haters and fanbois as if they are always the same people. This is part of the reason why there are flame wars going on on pretty much any game forum.

This forum is no exception.

We already got an answer for this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Forum-users-ARE-NOT-the-minority/page/4#post931018

The conundrum is this, if the silent majority speaks up – if it’s no longer silent, is it still the majority?

Gehenna.3625:

Quaz.4931:

Forums are the minority, fanboys and Arenanet will always use that as an excuse to ignore threads they don’t want to be involved with on the forum (see loot drop thread).

This is an incorrect statement.

Forums are A minority, not THE minority. This is an essential difference. Over the whole game experience there generally more than 2 points of view on each issues. It’s more splintered, it’s just human nature to turn it into a good vs evil or us against them.

On forums we have haters vs fanbois. The funny thing is that who belongs in those extremes and who is somewhere between them changes with each topic. And yet people talk about haters and fanbois as if they are always the same people. This is part of the reason why there are flame wars going on on pretty much any game forum.

This forum is no exception.

Ok let me rephrase, forum posters are a minority, and arenanet and people who are losing an argument will use it as an excuse either to not reply to the posts or discount anyone else’s opinion.

I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse, most things are opinion-based unless it can be backed with factual evidence. It’s hard to argue against a bug because it can be visually witnessed. It’s not hard to argue against the nature of a mechanic, like + healing is too weak, because the view is ultimately subjective. The strength of the subjective argument comes from the strength and cogency of the argument as well as the number of folks who agree. While I think die hard fans will use the fallacy of lumping everyone who hasn’t stated their opinion on the matter as people against the argument, I think Anet does consider the legitimacy of the claim (granted, they’re not always transparent in what forum issues they’ve looked at and what their stance is) and seldom (if ever) play the “minority” excuse.

This has been asked and said over and over.

Boil it down to this… They know if the game is being played less and by how much. If it’s slanting downward enough, then see what’s up in the forums, since you will get a lot of ideas and what’s wrong there. As for forumer’s and non-forumers, forumers are like voters that really vote, so they do get some credit simply by showing up and the silent majority, losses a little by being on the sideline, that is why I think you look at playing metrics, if the numbers are very healthy, you can shrug off the negatvie.

My gut, they have a boat load of things on their list to do, so our feedback to them is about a incomplete game. There is this large list of things coming, that really finishes out GW’s to them, so feedback right now is from an unfinished game. They have the big picture, they know where the game will be, we do not.

To me this game was rushed out, my guess by an entity that controls the money, surprise! Not saying it was a disastrous decision, the game is very playable and can be a lot of fun, but there were a lot of unfinished/rough edges as well and it sounds like we are approaching spring to get things in, I think they wanted to have at release.

Forum-posters do not accurately represent the views of all players. They do, however, give a good indication as to what may be wrong with the game as the forums tend to attract those unhappy with something rather than those who are content to play the game as-is. So we do a good job at representing what might need fixed, but not so much what Anet is doing well with.

Horrorscope.7632:

This has been asked and said over and over.

Boil it down to this… They know if the game is being played less and by how much. If it’s slanting downward enough, then see what’s up in the forums, since you will get a lot of ideas and what’s wrong there. As for forumer’s and non-forumers, forumers are like voters that really vote, so they do get some credit simply by showing up and the silent majority, losses a little by being on the sideline, that is why I think you look at playing metrics, if the numbers are very healthy, you can shrug off the negatvie.

My gut, they have a boat load of things on their list to do, so our feedback to them is about a incomplete game. There is this large list of things coming, that really finishes out GW’s to them, so feedback right now is from an unfinished game. They have the big picture, they know where the game will be, we do not.

To me this game was rushed out, my guess by an entity that controls the money, surprise! Not saying it was a disastrous decision, the game is very playable and can be a lot of fun, but there were a lot of unfinished/rough edges as well and it sounds like we are approaching spring to get things in, I think they wanted to have at release.

Excellent point. That idea has been lingering at the back of my mind and I’ve neglected to get it out.

Draehl, also a good point. Since they are all we talk about, it’s the problems with the game that need fixing that they look to us for.

I think that when the game started and there were really tons of bugs (disconnecting, not being able to log in, TP not working, events bugged, dungeon bugs, quest bugs etc), a lot of people were more forgiving because there was no sub to pay and the game seemed to be without gear progression.

Now, for one second let’s realise what that can do to people. No sub and no vertical gear progression, means you can feel relaxed and take your time. You will not fall behind and you can take your time reaching your goals WITHOUT feeling any pressure in game. So people are generally more relaxed and more forgiving.

What happens though is that things are changing. And a lot of things really became apparent on the forum. It’s a very visual representation of the issues that do exist.

I am thinking that if vertical progression had been clearly announced beforehand, it would have made for a very different start of the game. It would mean perhaps more disappointment ahead of go live, but also a time to get used to this idea. It would possible also mean that people would be a little less forgiving and this would’ve created the anger there right away beyond the complaints of there not being enough endgame.

So, where do you see the problems start? Well, metrics can tell you something but trends need a timespan and understanding of the circumstances. Activity can change because of what day of the week it is, or bank holidays etc.

The forums are a good place to see an indication of various reactions to the game and the changes. There is more ofcourse. Many more forums over the web, from fan forums to general game platform forums, twitter, facebook, you name it.

The actual numbers behind this in terms of number of upset players and how the react to the product with time played and money spent (cash shop) are not clear from here. But the forum does give an indication about the why.

If they see a change in metrics and want to know why, that’s what forums and other social media can help with. So it does have a value. It just wouldn’t make sense though to attribute changes made in the game simply to the wishes of this forum community.

We all focus on what we find important so we simply miss that some things do change and some things don’t…even if all of them were discussed here.

Vayra.3290:

Edge.4180:

This whole minority debate is silly.

What we are is a decent sample for opinion polling. Discounting the opinions here would be foolish. It’s that simple.

No. We are not a decent sample. Forumgoers are heavily biased in favor of those who have issues with the game. Casual players who are happy and enjoying themselves are far less likely to come here than those who have problems or are dissatisfied in any way.

I disagree. I came to this game with nearly two dozen friends, all of which never bother with the forums. For the most part they all have the same opinions about the game as I do. The only difference between us is that I voice my complaints on the forum, where as they voiced their complaints by simply leaving the game and taking their business elsewhere.

If anything, I’m the optimistic one for still being here. Do not make the mistake of assuming that everyone who doesn’t bother with the forums is playing happily without any complaints. I would argue that the forum is made up of players who are optimistic enough to believe that voicing their concerns might actually result in positive changes. Those that don’t visit either don’t have the time, don’t have the energy, don’t care, or have done this dance long enough to know that it’s pointless to try.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, we’re a decent sampling for polls; it’s as simple as that. You could apply your same flawed argument to political polling by saying only a certain type of person remains on the phone to give their opinions to a pollster. This is how polls are done – through a snapshot of people willing to have their opinion heard.

Per Mark Katzbach – Community special operations rep and employee of Anet:

Okay everybody, this argument is getting a bit circular now. What’s important is the following.

The forum population is not a majority, but does provide valuable feedback which we do take into account, along with feedback from other sources.
The silent majority is not all in-favor or against. Their opinions vary as much as any group of people’s opinions tend to.
They are players just like you. They voice their opinions by either playing or not playing.
Others not on the forums show their opinions on their personal blogs, fansites, twitter and facebook.
Everybody’s opinions are important and valuable.

I hope this clears some things up. I’m going to close this thread now. Please continue to provide us with feedback to help us to continue improving Guild Wars 2.

EDIT: here is the link to the post that had this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Forum-users-ARE-NOT-the-minority/first

Forum posters may be the minority, but they’re also typically much greater in number than a sample size used in real research in the real world.

So do with that what you will.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

MangoMan.3218:

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.

No, not adequate at all..

Absolutely adequate even if not quite totally scientific.

Zeldain.5710:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

MangoMan.3218:

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.

No, not adequate at all..

Absolutely adequate even if not quite totally scientific.

An adequate sample would represent the total playerbase with decent accuracy. This is absolutely not the case with the people who frequent forums.

I agree with the most sound logic here. Anet can tell how many people are playing. If for some odd reason all servers are full, whether it be a bunch of people in fotm or Orr or WvW, etc…it’s good for them. If these numbers drop then they’ll obviously have to do something about it, but as far as it goes; they took a gamble, and since I haven’t seen any reports of totally removing fotm/ascended gear, I believe that Anet thought whatever they released was worth it. That doesn’t mean to say forumers don’t count. Heck, they addressed the topic to us about this change in an AMA and interview. Numbers and forums both matter. But there’s no point to commit to a forum complaint and disregard the numbers; just as is there’s no point to commit to numbers only and disregard forum complaints. I feel like they put both into consideration with each having their own values.

Thus the results I perceive:

Quite a lot of forumers dislike ascended gear and gated content:
- They told us that it was a bad decision on their part about the release time because they believe it was released prematurely and would like to balance a gear tier addition with the convenience of availbility so it’s not as impactful—the gated gear. So it seems like they are going to wait until they are fully prepared to have ascended gear accessible to all types of players when they release other items.

Quite a lot of people still play this game even with ascended gear/fotm:
- They kept it.

Seems like they value both. Which is a good thing.

I don’t know if we’re the minority or not, and frankly I don’t see how it’s relevant to much.

But I do think that as GW2 forumites, we have a lessened degree of freedom to speak our minds than in most forums.

I can’t even use certain words here without someone thinking I’m misguidedly discussing baby felines. It’s maddening.

And the mods are practical Mother Teresas.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I agree with the most sound logic here. Anet can tell how many people are playing. If for some odd reason all servers are full, whether it be a bunch of people in fotm or Orr or WvW, etc…it’s good for them. If these numbers drop then they’ll obviously have to do something about it, but as far as it goes; they took a gamble, and since I haven’t seen any reports of totally removing fotm/ascended gear, I believe that Anet thought whatever they released was worth it. That doesn’t mean to say forumers don’t count. Heck, they addressed the topic to us about this change in an AMA and interview. Numbers and forums both matter. But there’s no point to commit to a forum complaint and disregard the numbers; just as is there’s no point to commit to numbers only and disregard forum complaints. I feel like they put both into consideration with each having their own values.

Thus the results I perceive:

Quite a lot of forumers dislike ascended gear and gated content:
- They told us that it was a bad decision on their part about the release time because they believe it was released prematurely and would like to balance a gear tier addition with the convenience of availbility so it’s not as impactful—the gated gear. So it seems like they are going to wait until they are fully prepared to have ascended gear accessible to all types of players when they release other items.

Quite a lot of people still play this game even with ascended gear/fotm:
- They kept it.

Seems like they value both. Which is a good thing.

From your wording you didn’t read my post.
It is the closing statement to another thread like this by an Anet employee

Vayra.3290:

Zeldain.5710:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

MangoMan.3218:

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.

No, not adequate at all..

Absolutely adequate even if not quite totally scientific.

An adequate sample would represent the total playerbase with decent accuracy. This is absolutely not the case with the people who frequent forums.

The sample size is far beyond what is used it almost every type of user/player/consumer research imaginable.

It’s adequate enough to predict a trend, and that trend is decline.

Zeldain.5710:

It’s adequate enough to predict a trend, and that trend is decline.

Again per Mark Katzbach:

In the strictest of terms, the number of people who post on the forums is a minority of the game population as a whole. The forums do provide a modest, self-selected sampling of the player population, but so do fansite forums, twitter and facebook.

Me:

Stop making assumptions that make you feel like you know what your talk about and read the linked thread where I got the quote from.
“a self-selected sampling of the player population”

does not indicate a decline or increase. It just give them data from people who volunteer info

again read the thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Forum-users-ARE-NOT-the-minority/first

Zeldain.5710:

Vayra.3290:

Zeldain.5710:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

MangoMan.3218:

We are a less accurate sample, but an adequate one.

No, not adequate at all..

Absolutely adequate even if not quite totally scientific.

An adequate sample would represent the total playerbase with decent accuracy. This is absolutely not the case with the people who frequent forums.

The sample size is far beyond what is used it almost every type of user/player/consumer research imaginable.

It’s adequate enough to predict a trend, and that trend is decline.

Having had a year of statistics and quantitative methods, I can tell you the sample represented here is not adequate to predict anything. We are a self-selected group of players. It would need to be a random sample selected across the player base to be valid and have any predictive value as to what players think. That doesn’t mean that the the forums are unimportant. They are the official medium for 2-way communication and as the mod post suggests, they consider the feedback to be important. The only thing certain is that the population of forum users represent the population of forum users 100%. What is in the majority or minority here is the only thing that really matters in this population. Again, it’s an important population, but it shouldn’t be confused with the population of players.

As a MMOer for about 12 years now and a frequenter of many MMO forums I’ve made a few observations. What people should be looking at, in my opinion, is message volume. I believe a good indicator of a games health can be found in the posting frequencies on the forums of that game.

Regardless of the content of the messages, if the front page of a forum such as “General Discussion” is the recipient of enough new threads that at the very least most older threads are pushed off the front page in a reasonable amount of time then the game (to me) appears to be healthy. I’ve found that a fairly trifling topic that usually does not generate many responses will have a lifespan of anywhere from one hour to a day on the front page in a healthy game. Anything over that and you may have indications that the game is in trouble.

For example, if I post a thread titled “Hey guys, where is Lion’s Arch?” it doesn’t matter how many responses this generates or even the content of these responses. What matters is how long it stays on the front page. The results I would expect in a healthy game would be somewhere between 2 and 10 responses and then it quietly slides down off the front page in a short amount of time. If two days later, this message is still on the front page, then I think your game is in trouble.

Basically, if you take population as a whole there will be the players that will post on the forums (minority or majority makes no difference, they will be there). In my opinion, a company should get worried when these players no longer even bother posting on the forums.

Just some observations I’ve had that may or may not be valid.

TWMagimay.9057:

Tolmos.8395:

Ascended gear is here to stay. In fact, they flat out gave a middle finger to their entire forum playerbase and said “obviously everyone loves it”.

That should tell you how they feel about forum input.

The general discussion is only here because if it wasn’t, an unofficial one would pop up. The problem with that is they couldn’t moderate it themselves, so a lot of the more negative and critical posts wouldn’t be able to be deleted like they are here.

I realized when they made the blog post about how much of a “success” fractals were that it was basically a message to the forum posters saying ‘know your place’.

Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, they actually have access to game logs and know what’s happening in there? And that it’d be unfair to change fotm just because 20 people kick and scream on the forums while there are 20 000 people running fotm on daily basic? Unlike you, the devs can actually see those numbers and decide on what the majority thinks without even reading the forums. They don’t need you to tell them if fotm is a fail or success, the playerbase already did that(obviously, the big picture was in favour of the dungeon and it is a success).

That fail logic is exactly why it is here to stay. They add in a new tier of armor that trumps the previous top tier. What do you expect to happen? Of course everyone is going to get it! Regardless of how they feel on the issue, they are going to chase that gear because it is the only way to stay competitive. So now their logs show that it is “wildly successful” regardless of whether the non-wow fanboys are miserable and only going for the gear to keep up with the times.

THEN they put the gear in only one location. Even more epic. So now, not only is everyone chasing the gear to stay competitive, but they are all running the new instance because its the only way! And of course this also helps show how “wildly successful” the instances are when they look in their logs

So yes, I am well aware that they have logs to see how many people run it. And I am well aware of the vast quantity of players on these forums who voices their discontent, only to get the middle finger and basically told that WoW is the future, GW1 is the past, so get over it and prepare to gear grind!