Guild Wars 2

xbutcherx.3861:

You know you are the only one defending Anet’s position right now, if 1 person is happy with the game’s direction and 99 more are not; there is something wrong about it, keep defending all you want and argue all you want, at the end the numbers and the reviews says everything.

How do you get one person happy and 99 not, when there are less than 100 posters in this thread?

I’m sorry some of these people are delusional and while I am not happy with the way things are I wont let those reviews push me farther from what I already feel from first hand experience but 3.5 Really!?

Any place I have ever worked a 3.5 is NOT acceptable.

Yes, I know it is not the job of ArenaNet to cater to 3rd party rating systems. I’m sure however if things…weren’t that bad you would not have a 3.5 with your CEO having a 50% acceptance rate as well as a would you recommend to a friend…that’s failing by most standards in America. School, reviews, polls, you name it. 3.5 @50%. Where on earth in any place is 50%…good?

Yes 3.5 comes out to an even letter grade of C but the other two F’s do not help that lonesome C out there.

Please. “You have to question the validity of those reviews”.
Right you do have to question them…why were they made in the first place?

However, cynicism aside…it’s interesting but not surprising.

God it reminds me of my old manager……when someone who clearly isn’t a leader get’s stuck in a leadership role. ugh! It’s the worst.
If this catches wind on the forums…the level of irrational people saying all sorts of ish will be outrageous.

Pre-secondhand embarrassment already.

Palador.2170:

Vayne.8563:

I wouldn’t worry about it. For one thing, the person making these assumptions leaves out royalties, which includes China’s profit, they’re not reported with Guild Wars 2’s earnings, since Guild Wars 2 in China had to be released by a different company.

That looks a lot better for them, thanks for the info.

While part of me does want ANet smacked down for bad choices, financially if that’s what it takes, it’s so that they’ll learn and improve the game. Not because I hate them or want them fired or the game shut down. In general, I don’t really want the game to do badly.

I think 90% of the backlash comes from people that actually like the game and don’t want to see it fall because of stupid decisions.

“If you’re looking for an honest Dev answer”

Is that not an Oxymoron?

Ayrilana.1396:

Companies can post fake positive reviews just as the same employee can post multiple fake ones. I stated somewhere in this thread that neither can be necessarily relied on. Or at least not as your sole source without anything more concrete, credible to back it up. Some negative reviews can be a distortion of the facts are similly a misunderstanding on the reviewers part.

I don’t buy this. You can easily spot a fake review from the same person by how they type. Penmanship, or typing patterns, is a lot like finger prints. There are just certain words, syntax lay out, and punctuation that people subconsciously fall back on without even realizing it, and you can easily notice these patterns if you know what you’re looking for. A few of those positive reviews scream “The same person wrote this.”, but not one of those negative reviews remotely stands out as one person writing them.

Furthermore, all the negative reviews are focusing on the exact same things, and they’re not bashing the company like your typical smear campaign would. In fact, every single negative review also has very positive things to say about the company in general. Its just those key points that keep repeatedly coming up. What gives these negative reviews even more credibility is how they talk about Mike. You can tell the man is rather clueless about his own game just by the blog posts and public posts hes made. If that isn’t enough, its hit home even further by just looking at the state the game is currently in.

GW2 is an utter mess. Its a game that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It had all this great content that was slashed, smashed, and gutted, leaving it all a hollow, barely working mess. We have developers actively disincentivizing already existing content to push an agenda from some clueless upper management type. Exactly what the negative reviews say is happening.

Kravick.4906:

Furthermore, all the negative reviews are focusing on the exact same things, and they’re not bashing the company like your typical smear campaign would. In fact, every single negative review also has very positive things to say about the company in general. Its just those key points that keep repeatedly coming up.

This part stood out to me.

Smear campaigns, or former employees out for revenge generally do not make positive comments.

Kravick.4906:

I don’t buy this. You can easily spot a fake review from the same person by how they type. Penmanship, or typing patterns, is a lot like finger prints. There are just certain words, syntax lay out, and punctuation that people subconsciously fall back on without even realizing it, and you can easily notice these patterns if you know what you’re looking for. A few of those positive reviews scream “The same person wrote this.”, but not one of those negative reviews remotely stands out as one person writing them.

It depends on the person and whether they actively try to differentiate one of the fake reviews with another. I do find it odd that you claim that some of the positive reviews on that site are likely fake yet see no issue with any of the negative ones. Perhaps you’re letting your personal bias/opinion cloud your judgement and seeing only what supports your own predetermined belief. For all we know, every review on that website could be written by a unique person who may have worked for that company. This isn’t something you can readily determine by just reading what someone writes.

Kravick.4906:

Furthermore, all the negative reviews are focusing on the exact same things, and they’re not bashing the company like your typical smear campaign would. In fact, every single negative review also has very positive things to say about the company in general. Its just those key points that keep repeatedly coming up. What gives these negative reviews even more credibility is how they talk about Mike. You can tell the man is rather clueless about his own game just by the blog posts and public posts hes made. If that isn’t enough, its hit home even further by just looking at the state the game is currently in.

There’s only so many things that can be written about. Going back to what you said earlier, if every negative review is about the same thing, wouldn’t the chance of some of them being from the same person be greater? You’re also make presumptions about Mike based on your own personal opinion on how the game should be run. This really has no bearing and you’re just trying to make a connection because it just “fits” regardless as to whether there is any correlation or not.

Kravick.4906:

GW2 is an utter mess. Its a game that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It had all this great content that was slashed, smashed, and gutted, leaving it all a hollow, barely working mess. We have developers actively disincentivizing already existing content to push an agenda from some clueless upper management type. Exactly what the negative reviews say is happening.

An utter mess? Really? I can still do the vast majority of the content just like I could when the game was released. The only major overhaul that they did since then was the trait system but everything else is fundamentally still the same more or less.

Agree with Kravick.

GangNamTwo.9780:

Agree with Kravick.

Yep. After playing this game for so long and keeping an eye on the forums it doesn’t take too much to figure out there’s management problems without even looking at glass door reviews. And the points kravick makes are true, they definitely seem to be legitimate reviews.

Ayrilana.1396:

—all of this—

No. I pretty much have to disagree with all of this. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen the stupid twisted things people do. The Glassdoor thing doesn’t reek of any of it. I also only said a “few” of the positive reviews struck me as same person. I didn’t say all. Its a very common thing among HR departments to keep track of this kind of stuff within a company and fill out fake positive reviews and ask their employees to fill out a positive review to counterbalance the negative ones. These aren’t really genuine as they feel “too good” when you read them. Its very easy to spot a PRed positive review just by the tone and way its written. Its also easy to spot a rant designed to discredit a product or company done out of malice. None of the negative reviews felt malicious, and even praised aspects of the company.

Dunno if you’ve seen this, but read it. Don’t just read the headline, I mean read it. The “even the negative ones” doesn’t really apply here since rival corporations only smear products, not workplace employment. Besides, the complaints here for ANet are just to accurate and reflecting of whats going on in the game itself for it to be just random negativity.

http://business.time.com/2012/08/28/why-you-shouldnt-trust-positive-online-reviews-or-negative-ones-for-that-matter/

Well… since this is still going…

While it’s possible that many of the negative could have been faked, and even have been faked with both positive and negative stuff to say (imagine a devoted fan who is annoyed and you get the mixture of positive and negative you’re looking for).

It’s also really hard to fake the details, as I stated before. A fake reviewer (player) might target the CEO, or he might target the Game Director, or any other leadership position that he perceives to be at fault for the state of the game.

Let’s look at the motivations real quick for writing a fake, overall negative review:

• Player – to hurt the company’s reputation (this doesn’t really fit with “mixture of negative and positive,” since someone who wants to hurt the company would likely go full negative) or to send a message (but that’s assuming the reviewer believes that faking some glassdoor reviews will get the company to change)

• Employee – to grind an axe (seems unlikely, considering the risk of being recognized by writing style or time of departure relative to review date)

• Competitor – to hurt the game’s reputation and scare talent away (possible, but again, we run into the difficulty of forging details and this assumes that game companies try to undermine each other at the employer/employee level, which is not proven)

It is important to recognize that correlation is not the same as causation. Seeing that some of the reviews create a picture that jives with one’s view of the game and its history can easily be confirmation bias or begging the question (in non-nerdy terms, assuming that you’re right about what you already thought because the evidence points in that direction – you are, in this instance, biased by your prior conclusions… see Sherlock Holmes stance on creating theories before having evidence).

(This is a pretty cool lesson in critical thinking, tbh.)

That said, the main thing to keep in mind from what I’ve said (aside from the general stuff about critical thinking) is that even if all of the negative reviews are true, that isn’t necessarily why you are unhappy with certain parts of the game, or feel that it is messy and/or going downhill.

That’s another layer of analysis you’d have to go into.

We can certainly make some “common sense” assumptions and feel quite happy about how perceptive we are, but that’s doesn’t get us closer to truth or teach us anything about how to find truth. You could be 100% on the money this time, but be horribly off another time because you were relying on instinct, irrespective of analysis, both times and you got lucky the first time.

We tend to do this all the time without stopping to think about it because we can blank out the times we got it wrong and forget about them. I’m not trying to give anyone an existential migraine. Just a friendly reminder of common pitfalls.

Kravick.4906:

No. I pretty much have to disagree with all of this.

Which you are more welcome to do so.

Kravick.4906:

I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen the stupid twisted things people do. The Glassdoor thing doesn’t reek of any of it. I also only said a “few” of the positive reviews struck me as same person. I didn’t say all. Its a very common thing among HR departments to keep track of this kind of stuff within a company and fill out fake positive reviews and ask their employees to fill out a positive review to counterbalance the negative ones. These aren’t really genuine as they feel “too good” when you read them. Its very easy to spot a PRed positive review just by the tone and way its written. Its also easy to spot a rant designed to discredit a product or company done out of malice. None of the negative reviews felt malicious, and even praised aspects of the company.

So people do not post negative reviews about anything with malicious intent? You’re treating the negative reviews as if they’re more credible than the positive ones simply because they are negative. It’s as if you believe people could not lie when making a negative review.

If it’s such a common thing for HR departments to do that, as if everyone does it, provide a source. It just seems like you’re making it up to back your argument.

So if a review is “too good” then it is likely fake? Well then, if a review is “too bad” then it is likely fake as well. I mean, let’s be fair now and apply your reasoning to both sides.

It’s as I’ve said before, you can’t readily determine what is legit and what isn’t when it comes to reviews. Both sides can be false. Disgruntled employees and players can make false reviews. Ever see the rants some players make about how they were wrongly banned for this or that while it is later revealed that they were in fact justly banned? People have a tendency to paint themselves in a light to gain support and people quite often fall for it.

Don’t trust everything you read on the internet and don’t assume that there is correlation between two things because it fits with your belief. People are also more likely to review a negative experience rather than anything else with the exception of those who routinely do reviews for everything.

Kravick.4906:

Dunno if you’ve seen this, but read it. Don’t just read the headline, I mean read it. The “even the negative ones” doesn’t really apply here since rival corporations only smear products, not workplace employment. Besides, the complaints here for ANet are just to accurate and reflecting of whats going on in the game itself for it to be just random negativity.

http://business.time.com/2012/08/28/why-you-shouldnt-trust-positive-online-reviews-or-negative-ones-for-that-matter/

So corporation wouldn’t smear companies to increase their chances of getting valuable employees over their rivals? Sorry but you’re wrong. The complaints are too accurate to be wrong? Exactly how are you gauging that they’re accurate or is it simply because you agree with them? You know, like how everything that fits your narrative appears more correct over those that do not regardless as to whether there is any credible source behind them.

Well giving the GW2 History of bad decision making on several things plus lack of communication with community on important issues unlike with GW1 Anet was on
top of every issue. I have no doubt that these review are from legit current/former employees. The new Quarterly earnings report backups what reviewers are saying and the game is headed in the wrong direction which we already know from how H.OT was done.

Even comments from former employees have said some of the same things on their own personal Twitter/Facebook etc accounts.

JediYoda.1275:

Well giving the GW2 History of bad decision making on several things plus lack of communication with community on important issues unlike with GW1 Anet was on
top of every issue. I have no doubt that these review are from legit current/former employees. The new Quarterly earnings report backups what reviewers are saying and the game is headed in the wrong direction which we already know from how H.OT was done.

Anet’s alleged lack of communixation on the forums has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit (whether negative or positive).

What earnings report are you even reading? The one that was recently released gave no indication about what you seem to be implying.

Ayrilana.1396:

Anet’s alleged lack of communixation on the forums has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit (whether negative or positive).

I never claimed it did as I’m just making an obvious observation of how things have changed within Anet over the years.

Ayrilana.1396:

What earnings report are you even reading? The one that was recently released gave no indication about what you seem to be implying.

If you read my post you would clearly see that I said the new one. If you look at the larger picture instead being just looking at the reviews or earnings report you would see the same thing as I am. (comprehension goes a long way in life)

Also read my edited post: Even comments from former employees have said some of the same things on their own personal Twitter/Facebook etc accounts.

JediYoda.1275:

Ayrilana.1396:

Anet’s alleged lack of communixation on the forums has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit (whether negative or positive).

I’m just making an obvious observation of how things have changed within Anet over the years.

Ayrilana.1396:

What earnings report are you even reading? The one that was recently released gave no indication about what you seem to be implying.

Yes the recent ones and if you look at the larger picture instead being just looking at the reviews or earnings report you would see the same thing as I am.

The communication Anet has given in the past may or may not have changed. Regardless as to whether it has or hasn’t, this has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit or not. There’s zero correlation.

Recent earnings report gave no indication of what you seem to be saying. What bigger picture? Where’s your source to the bigger picture? I can use exactly what you said against you and tell you that you need to look at the bigger picture to see the same thing as me.

Ayrilana.1396:

The communication Anet has given in the past may or may not have changed. Regardless as to whether it has or hasn’t, this has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit or not. There’s zero correlation.

Recent earnings report gave no indication of what you seem to be saying. What bigger picture? Where’s your source to the bigger picture? I can use exactly what you said against you and tell you that you need to look at the bigger picture to see the same thing as me.

I never claimed Anets communication past or current had relevance to the reviews you are twisting and trying to put words in my mouth. Like I said I’m just making an obvious observation of how things have changed within Anet on communication over the years which is fact.

When someone says see the Bigger Picture they mean: a broad, overall view or perspective of an issue or problem.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/big-picture

Either you truly don’t know this or you are clearly being a troll/white knight as clearly you can’t see the big picture here regarding the discussion and hostile complaints on the forums which all relevant to the reviews. Since you just want to argue with me, I’m done so have a nice day/evening

You can rarely change people’s perspective through an Internet forum but it can be a fun challenge to try. And it’s nice when it actually works. But yeah…

JediYoda.1275:

Ayrilana.1396:

The communication Anet has given in the past may or may not have changed. Regardless as to whether it has or hasn’t, this has no relevance as to whether the reviews are legit or not. There’s zero correlation.

Recent earnings report gave no indication of what you seem to be saying. What bigger picture? Where’s your source to the bigger picture? I can use exactly what you said against you and tell you that you need to look at the bigger picture to see the same thing as me.

I never claimed Anets communication past or current had relevance to the reviews you are twisting and trying to put words in my mouth. Like I said I’m just making an obvious observation of how things have changed within Anet on communication over the years which is fact.

When someone says see the Bigger Picture they mean: a broad, overall view or perspective of an issue or problem.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/big-picture

Either you truly don’t know this or you are clearly being a troll/white knight as clearly you can’t see the big picture here regarding the discussion and hostile complaints on the forums which all relevant to the reviews. Since you just want to argue with me, I’m done so have a nice day/evening

So only your opinion is correct and anyone that dissents from it is a troll or white knight? You are more than welcome to disagree with me but insults are a little uncalled for.

You’ve shown little to no evidence to back up what you’re claiming. You referenced the earnings report which did not indicate anything that you were claiming. If I remember correctly, it didn’t include HoT and the reduction in sales (I think it was referring to the gem store) was from a change they did that had nothing to do with employees. Sales also tend to decline over time from release as people tend to buy games/expansions once.

You referenced the review website which has very little to do with what you’re claiming. There will always be negative reviews on those sites, unless you’re someone like Google, and none of them are evidence to how a game is performing.

You had brought up that Anet’s poor decision making and lack of communication (again, opinion) led you to believe without doubt that the reviews on that website were legit. I’m arguing that there’s no connection between them as they’re unrelated.

If I were to find a survey conducted by some gaming website that showed a 90% favor ability among it’s users for the game, would you agree or disagree with it? What if the same site showed a 90% disfavor with the game? Would you hold it any different than if it was in favor?

The review stating that you have to be a “yes man” is pretty telling and confirms my suspicions. Anet is a gaggle of idiots that cant handle criticism. Why else would they post that they dont listen to any “negative” criticisms on their own forums?

I’ve had two software jobs where HR pressured people to submit glassdoor reviews, so that is a thing that can happen (and reviews solicited that way will probably be artificially positive for several reasons). But, I’ve always found (when I have personal knowledge of a company), that the negative and mixed reviews are surprisingly accurate, for something that’s on the internet. Whatever silent verification they have seems pretty good.

So while y’all argue about the nature of knowledge, I just want to throw in a practical vote that if you are reading this and looking for a job, you should really check out glassdoor on the places you interview – it doesn’t have to be a divinely ordained oracle of perfect information to point you at things to ask about or to be useful to you :P

noraia.8570:

I’ve had two software jobs where HR pressured people to submit glassdoor reviews, so that is a thing that can happen (and reviews solicited that way will probably be artificially positive for several reasons). But, I’ve always found (when I have personal knowledge of a company), that the negative and mixed reviews are surprisingly accurate, for something that’s on the internet. Whatever silent verification they have seems pretty good.

So while y’all argue about the nature of knowledge, I just want to throw in a practical vote that if you are reading this and looking for a job, you should really check out glassdoor on the places you interview – it doesn’t have to be a divinely ordained oracle of perfect information to point you at things to ask about or to be useful to you :P

^This has been my experience as well.

One doesn’t have to look at employee reviews. They can simply look at the product.

No one is happy with fractals changes.
Very few are happy with PvP/MMR and leagues.
Dungeons have been reduced to nothing.
The overall gaming review of HoT was that is wasn’t enough quality content to sway players already existing opinion of gw2.
Many universal statements have been flip flopped on.
Balance patches are irregular, and rarely well thought out.

The in game evidence all suggests what employee reviews have stated. A lot of very talented people, but the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. The overall mission statement regarding the long term seem murky and changes too frequently and management has become detached from what the players wants and pursues what it deems most important, when at times this is exactly the opposite of what the players is looking for.

It is fair and reasonable to understand anet is business and ultimately looks, and needs to turn a profit to remain sustainable, but the overall opinion seems to suggest that reducing costs to extend profit margin is only going to go so far before investment in a long term vision, clearly articulated roles and teams with their own project managers and dead lines is needed.

I wish them all the best. Running a large organisation that retails and runs their product on a global scale is never going to be an easy task, but ultimately a company needs results and a satisfied customer base if it hopes to continue into the future. Eventually tough decisions will need to be made that is the current product what the original vision was?..and has a reasonable time frame been given to achieve this?..if it has been, and the product is not what was hoped for, then it is a classic case of the best person for job was not the right person for the job and it is time to have new leadership and vision established.

I like gw2 and both games anet have made, but with each year passing with gw2 I find myself having to grind through content that is not fun. It defies what a game should be at its core, a fun recreational passing of time. For players it has just got to the place where higher fractals are not fun. PvP match making is not fun. New content is burned through at astronomical speeds and goes dead, and no matter what content you play the rewards aren’t enough to enable you to now start on the next level of what was meant to challenging, but enjoyable content.

One thing I was happy to read on the glassdoor forum was the failure of GW2 in China. Exactly as I had felt. GW2 began changing big time with mega server, NPE, for the China launch, and unfortunately brought on detrimental effects to me and my bud’s enjoyment of this game. My bud is Chinese! Hahaha. Anyway…. Foolish moves that I feel were likely instigated by NCSoft.

The other night I logged into the game just to check for mail from another bud, and happened to see a witty conversation on map chat in Divinity Reach. Man that reminded me of old time fun before ANet killed the big RP community… Sadly for me there isn’t anything as fun as hanging out in Queensdale semi playing the champ train and listening to the witty RP players on map chat any more. Once the game removed the best game content which was created by players, the game remained was just mechanical steps. No wonder it is so boring now.

Oh, well. China launch. Done by a company that knows little about China. Lol. Sad.

First time I’ve seen this one. Using glassdoor to determine the state of the company to determine the state of the game.

I kid.

If people here think that miscommunication especially with upper management is not a problem in Anet, I beginning to wonder how many different places you have worked at…

Blasino.3128:

First time I’ve seen this one. Using glassdoor to determine the state of the company to determine the state of the game.

I kid.

Oops, sorry forgot to say I already deduced China launch was a failure. Glassdoor just confirmed it. :p.

GangNamTwo.9780:

Blasino.3128:

First time I’ve seen this one. Using glassdoor to determine the state of the company to determine the state of the game.

I kid.

Oops, sorry forgot to say I already deduced China launch was a failure. Glassdoor just confirmed it. :p.

This is the article that showed me that China launch was a spectacular failure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/20f1gk/ongoing_riots_in_chinese_gw2_community/

The thing people need to understand about Chinese gaming. First impressions are everything. There are literally HUNDREDS if not thousands of MMO/online games in China, and more are being made every day. They have SO much competition there in this market that first impressions will make or break you as a company in that country. The Chinese publisher for GW2 kittened up royally, and absolutely ruined the franchise there.

For those of you who do not know how the Chinese run things over there, its like this. A foreign company is forbidden from directly selling merchandise or services there. In order to sell your product in the Chinese market, you must either have been a company that was formed in China, or you rent/lease your product to a Chinese company who then resells/redistributes it under their logo. This means that NCSoft and ANet are forbidden from publishing and/or administering the game in China. Once a product is leased to a Chinese company, they are given full freedom and control to monetize it as they see fit. This is especially risky for non-Chinese companies as they really have absolutely no way of telling how that company is going to represent their product in that market. Its really a crapshoot as far as that goes. Even Blizzard has had issues with their Chinese partner for WoW.

xbutcherx.3861:

Ayrilana.1396:

xbutcherx.3861:

Ayrilana.1396:

Labjax.2465:

Ayrilana.1396:

Fine, since you seem to still have issues. Read it as needs not met vs otherwise. I don’t see the need to argue over something that has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.

What sources? I have posted sources in a recent post if you would scroll up. The vonvept of people most likely to review or comment about a negative experience is not solely about employee reviews. You need to understand that there are concepts that can be applied to a vast range of subjects.

It does have to do with what you’re talking about though. It seems the only reason you see it as irrelevant is because you believe so firmly that negatives are remembered far more than anything else.

Ok, I see you posted some in response to somebody else. Let’s see, source one:

The researchers found that there was “relatively more positive manipulation than negative manipulation, even though the order of magnitude of the two is similar.” The big takeaway is that the system is being manipulated with fake positive and fake negative reviews—and that’s all negative for consumers who are using them to try and make smart choices.

Ok, so this is just about fake reviews and even says that positive manipulation happens more than negative manipulation.

Second source: Talks entirely about customers. Yes, it references a bias to remember negative more than positive, but it doesn’t talk about employees and the resistance they would face compared to a customer. For instance (as I have stated) an employee might be reluctant to say something negative, for fear of it coming back to them. A customer generally has no such reason to fear repercussions.

Third source:

Take the work of Teresa M. Amabile, a professor of business administration and director of research at the Harvard Business School. She asked 238 professionals working on 26 different creative projects from different companies and industries to fill out confidential daily diaries over a number of months. The participants were asked to answer questions based on a numeric scale and briefly describe one thing that stood out that day.

“We found that of all the events that could make for a great day at work, the most important was making progress on meaningful work — even a small step forward,” said Professor Amabile, a co-author of “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011). “A setback, on the other hand, meant the employee felt blocked in some way from making such progress. Setbacks stood out on the worst days at work.”

After analyzing some 12,000 diary entries, Professor Amabile said she found that the negative effect of a setback at work on happiness was more than twice as strong as the positive effect of an event that signaled progress. And the power of a setback to increase frustration is over three times as strong as the power of progress to decrease frustration.

As Professor Baumeister noted in his study, “Many good events can overcome the psychological effects of a bad one.” In fact, the authors quote a ratio of five goods for every one bad.

This looks to be the closest to what we’re talking about, in relevance. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t mean much. It says nothing about how likely employees are to report bad events (beyond a confidential journal), if they perceive there may be consequences.

It indicates that conceptually, there is some imbalance, but that if enough positive happens to a particular person, it can outweigh the bad. So I’ll give you that you’re right about the general concept, but there is no reason to believe that you are right about how it applies to the current situation.

You need to understand that you can’t just apply concepts to a wide range of subjects wily nilly, without taking into account the quirks of that particular environment.

Focus on the concepts and not the examples please. You’re not going to find a source that specifically addresses reviews on company review websites.

Why bother anymore with this? she/he is obviously a fan boy and thinks everything is perfect and doesn’t need changes.
HoT forever, peace

And we’re back to insults. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything. Thanks. See ad hominem.

In what way am I insulting you? by calling you fanboy? and since when is that an insult? or should I call you fangirl?

Fanboy is used as an insult quite frequently on this forum. Particularly because it’s often occompanied by the world mindless. It’s implying that you like the game, so you can’t be critical of it.

I’m critical of quite a few things even though I’m beyond a fan boy and often get called a white knight. If I don’t have the same problems someone else does, I’m obviously a fan boy.

The term is used for only one reason. To discredit someone’s opinion. A fan boy is going to like everything so you can ignore what they say.

It doesn’t work that way.

Rauderi.8706:

That might be going a bit far.
Some people just need, crave, must have an argument, even if it’s baseless, in order to seem right about something. :P

Personal flaw vs ANet wasting $$$ on ineffective paid shills in a place where you’re not going to change anyone’s opinion?
Ockham’s razor, my friend.

I get what you’re saying, but you’d be surprised how far companies are willing to go these days. Also something to consider, companies typically do not hire people specifically to do this, but rather ask/coerce their existing employees to do this on the side. EA was caught doing this some years ago when a former employee blew the whistle by coming forward and showing documents given to him to do just this on 4chan. Said he had been made to do it for years on various games, “hyping” them up while effectively being a shill for EA, praising them for everything they’ve done, etc.

Vayne.8563:

—Vayne—

Speak of the devil…

Do not think I have seen another thread with so many “experts” on psychology, market, advertise, sociology, public relation, internet dynamic, business practice. Most people in this thread talking about not what they know but pretend to. So many “expert” because they read wikipedia page. Funny.

JediYoda.1275:

I have to ask how much is Anet paying you to do damage control for their PR/HR department?

It wouldn’t be the first time a company paid people to defend X company on forums or post positive reviews of X company on review sites.

If this is actually the case, they should really think about hiring somebody who is better at making a convincing argument. It would have been cheaper and more effective to just lock the thread.

Qugi.2653:

Do not think I have seen another thread with so many “experts” on psychology, market, advertise, sociology, public relation, internet dynamic, business practice. Most people in this thread talking about not what they know but pretend to. So many “expert” because they read wikipedia page. Funny.

Well to be honest its all not that hard from vast different life experiences we all have and knowing history of a Anet if you followed them since GW1 like many have. You get a pretty good sense of a company from all various interviews they give, interactions with community etc. Then you have the OP review site and former employee social media post on their personal accounts affirming what we already suspected/knew. Martin Kirstein a former community even said that people don’t listen so its right on par with the review site.

paintpixie.7398:

JediYoda.1275:

I have to ask how much is Anet paying you to do damage control for their PR/HR department?

It wouldn’t be the first time a company paid people to defend X company on forums or post positive reviews of X company on review sites.

If this is actually the case, they should really think about hiring somebody who is better at making a convincing argument. It would have been cheaper and more effective to just lock the thread.

Anet already locks/deletes allot of threads, some disappeared in the WvW section just few days ago.

[Thank you for the feedback and discussion, this thread is now closed.]