Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I mean, I can illustrate it right now:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

We had to make our point clear with a 1000+ post and countless locked threads and negative PR on various gaming websites that would scare away any potential consumers in the feature while damaging the image of the company.

It’s go loud or go home I guess. If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes.

. . . any major changes your developers make to the game from now on? Expect to do it under siege.

But you say it as if it’s the players fault rather than ANet’s astounding lack of communication during the spring and summer of 2014.

It’s a little of column A, a little of column B, and a little of column C. It’s the astounding lack of good communication, sure, we can both agree that didn’t help much. But you think the players don’t have some fault at all? That they don’t hold any responsibility for their behavior? I don’t agree with that – there is nothing to totally absolve people of the behavior where they shoot the messengers rather than raging over the message. (Which has happened . . .)

And then there’s column C – which is basic psychology. Reinforcing a behavior by responding to it. This is why I am just thinking it’s a smarter idea to just walk away from the game before it becomes more common . . . “SAB or Riot” wasn’t all that long ago, and I really don’t feel it’s all that out of the question to expect similar things now that players here have been conditioned.

Basically? I’ve said it before, and I continue to say it. Just because you:

- Don’t like a policy.
- Don’t care for what you heard.
- Want something different than what was offered.

None of that gives you a right to get nasty. Not just protesting . . . which isn’t so much the issue . . . but being abusive, dismissive, and treating staff like garbage. They’re people, so you talk to them as people. Calm, reasonable, and trying to curb your passions before you hit “post”. Do all the threads and posts you like. But do them with some minimal respect for the other person . . . even if you don’t respect what they have to say.

The forum will be so much nicer for it.

We’re in agreement there. There is never a reason to treat the devs in such a horrible manner. Or anyone for that matter. And it is the players forum raging last year that created the lack of communication in the first place.

MMO forums: forever a place for people to gather to hate against something they love.

The difference between critiquing or complaining, and ranting and raging is one many people have a hard time with for some reason.

whiteflower.9425:

I agree that the launch of the items you mention would make the market go up but go up to 20g? I think its too much and, just like you, I was surprised to see this drastic increase.

Like Tulki said before:

“Immediately before this patch: 10g = 70 gems.
Immediately after this patch: 10g = 57 gems (going off the 400 gem exchange rate)”

The key word here is “Immediately”.

Like i said to chemiclord.
How is it possible you log in and out of the game to download the patch and, suddenly, theres an increase of 5g+?

Even if you and many other players have an SDD and the best internet ever i think its impossible to change the market that much right after the patch goes live.
Right after
I found it hard to believe that in under 1 min after patch is launch the price goes up by this much.

How is it possible? People cant buy stuff when they are downloading the patch.

Sticking to the facts though, when was the actual time that it went up in relation to the patch? (Or can anyone even confirm when?) Keep in mind that some people have better download speeds and such.

Labjax.2465:

whiteflower.9425:

I agree that the launch of the items you mention would make the market go up but go up to 20g? I think its too much and, just like you, I was surprised to see this drastic increase.

Like Tulki said before:

“Immediately before this patch: 10g = 70 gems.
Immediately after this patch: 10g = 57 gems (going off the 400 gem exchange rate)”

The key word here is “Immediately”.

Like i said to chemiclord.
How is it possible you log in and out of the game to download the patch and, suddenly, theres an increase of 5g+?

Even if you and many other players have an SDD and the best internet ever i think its impossible to change the market that much right after the patch goes live.
Right after
I found it hard to believe that in under 1 min after patch is launch the price goes up by this much.

How is it possible? People cant buy stuff when they are downloading the patch.

Sticking to the facts though, when was the actual time that it went up in relation to the patch? (Or can anyone even confirm when?) Keep in mind that some people have better download speeds and such.

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

So this to make it less confusing for ’new’players?
Were we all not new players once?
Did we struggle with the old system method when we started first playing 2 years ago?
To me this just a way of just getting the fans to actually buy Gems with real money. When we see an item that we must have, if we don’t have enough Gold for new exchange method, then this would be the only way we can get what we want OR it will be grind, grind, grind to get the Gold and then exchange for the Gems
Not all of us can afford to keep spending real money on a game that is suppose to be free-to-play OR do we have the time available in our busy lives to play constantly to get Gold and then exchange them for the Gems.
Sorry Anet but you have lost the plot and no doubt some of the players as well. If you start to lose players then it would be your loss and other game developers gain.
Back to GW1, the original and best!!!!

FACEPALM.

I got a few gemms left after last trade (before the patch) and now there’s no way to spend them. Thank you Arena Net – this is the biggest fail of yours ever.

I dont think ANet will remove their new exchange system neither will decrease the gemm price.

Happy Halloween everyone

Exo.2965:

FACEPALM.

I got a few gemms left after last trade (before the patch) and now there’s no way to spend them. Thank you Arena Net – this is the biggest fail of yours ever.

I dont think ANet will remove their new exchange system neither will decrease the gemm price.

Happy Halloween everyone

Check Dev Tracker – it’s getting a “custom” amount option sometime as soon as they can get it out.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Exo.2965:

FACEPALM.

I got a few gemms left after last trade (before the patch) and now there’s no way to spend them. Thank you Arena Net – this is the biggest fail of yours ever.

I dont think ANet will remove their new exchange system neither will decrease the gemm price.

Happy Halloween everyone

Check Dev Tracker – it’s getting a “custom” amount option sometime as soon as they can get it out.

Could you link it ?

whiteflower.9425:

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

Well it certainly sounds like an unbelievable spike, but I don’t think it’s at all impossible. Considering the number of people who play, all it would take is for a significant chunk with higher download speeds to have logged in before anyone else and made large exchanges. Or even a small handful making gigantic exchanges.

Without the data of who makes what exchanges and for how much (something that Anet happens to have) it’s hard to see the specifics of how it could have played out.

Labjax.2465:

whiteflower.9425:

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

Well it certainly sounds like an unbelievable spike, but I don’t think it’s at all impossible. Considering the number of people who play, all it would take is for a significant chunk with higher download speeds to have logged in before anyone else and made large exchanges. Or even a small handful making gigantic exchanges.

Without the data of who makes what exchanges and for how much (something that Anet happens to have) it’s hard to see the specifics of how it could have played out.

But history says that in the past, holidays have not had such a dramatic effect. So why this time?

The real interesting thing this all tells us (whether or not the gem exchange was fiddled with) is that players no longer trust Anet at all. Anet should really think hard about how they got into this situation.

Price Spike, your missing a some information I think.

In the rush to get the “new build” and play the festive content available staved for content (for long term players) they’ll jump on anything, however when a new build comes out you can go get the new build or wait around for an hour before being forced off and into the new build, goodness knows what people might have been doing from Personal Story to WvW, the list is long a large chunk of the population may have decided at that moment before logging to the new build to buy some gems, that’s a whole hour you’re missing not just 3 minutes between build adoptions.

Not to mention those buying gems on the old system would have been unaware that the new build changed how the gem shop worked, people on TS may have communicated to those in the old build what was going on and people on impulse and fear decided to buy now and wait out the storm as it where.

Labjax.2465:

whiteflower.9425:

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

Well it certainly sounds like an unbelievable spike, but I don’t think it’s at all impossible. Considering the number of people who play, all it would take is for a significant chunk with higher download speeds to have logged in before anyone else and made large exchanges. Or even a small handful making gigantic exchanges.

Without the data of who makes what exchanges and for how much (something that Anet happens to have) it’s hard to see the specifics of how it could have played out.

Like i said before, its not just me thinking this way.
Its not like a conspiracy theory against Anet.

Me (and I assume the other ones) play this game for a long time and, for our experienced and for what we witness among this few years, everytime a build comes up the prices go up. No doubt in that.

When we see that a build comes up we know that the conversion will suffer an increase and that’s fine (well i dont like it but its a player base system right?)
But by this much? I, as a “veteran player” or whatever, never seen the prices go up this high and that got me suspicious.

From what we can have seen in this thread and in blogs of fellow mates of Tyria, we can see that im not alone in this.

You had many other events that had this amount of items in gem store. The previous Halloween you had phantom hood, grenth hood, witch outfit and so on.

I think the raffle stuff would not affect the game so quickly cause people will need to go to the skrit, read all the stuff and understand that it was indeed a raffle.

I will talk for me now. When i enter the game i visit all the merchants to see what was new and i only knew the collector after i got the Shiny and that took me a few hours xD

So i do not think the first thing people would go after the launch would be going to a rat xD But hey, cant talk for all the people.

About the data you are asking for, you can have it.
Go here: https://www.gw2tp.com/gems select All

You cant see the 2012 stuff and most of the 2013 but you can compare this year to last here and whatever you want within a year i guess.

wow didn’t even notice they made this change, this will the the final nail in the coffin for the majority of my guild members who are still angry about the limitations placed on new characters… why are you devs removing the freedom to play the game the way the players want to

Lord Kuru.3685:

The real interesting thing this all tells us (whether or not the gem exchange was fiddled with) is that players no longer trust Anet at all.

Absolutely this. I am pleased that they are listening to us in relation to how we want to buy gems, but the price spike has me giving them the side-eye.

So now that we’re at least going to get the custom exchange button back (but I bet the artificial spike to prices will remain) – can whoever is making these absolutely ridiculous decisions lately please be removed from responsibility?

Surely this latest outrage is more than enough evidence that whoever it is has absolutely no idea what the player base wants, no idea how to treat veteran players and no idea how to keep the player base on the good side of a relationship.

I mean, is this Mike O’Brien coming up with these things? Is it someone else? Have you hired someone and given them the title of “Head of making sure the game can be played by people with an IQ under 50” and given them carte blanche to change anything they want?

Or did someone, somewhere decide that blaming every unpopular change on “new players” was a better strategy than being transparent with your customers?

aerial.7021:

Price Spike, your missing a some information I think.

In the rush to get the “new build” and play the festive content available staved for content (for long term players) they’ll jump on anything, however when a new build comes out you can go get the new build or wait around for an hour before being forced off and into the new build, goodness knows what people might have been doing from Personal Story to WvW, the list is long a large chunk of the population may have decided at that moment before logging to the new build to buy some gems, that’s a whole hour you’re missing not just 3 minutes between build adoptions.

Not to mention those buying gems on the old system would have been unaware that the new build changed how the gem shop worked, people on TS may have communicated to those in the old build what was going on and people on impulse and fear decided to buy now and wait out the storm as it where.

Thats a thing I did not though of actually.
Dunno if it would increase this much but that is the most reasonable answer i’ve seen so far so thanks

Still unsure if that would justify this drastic increase but, like i said, thats the thing that makes more sense.

But i have a question. If the build is up, when you wp to another city you get disconnected to do the build right?
Well, if it was an update to the Black Lion, shouldn’t the Black Lion “disconnect” too after the build is available?

Like couldn’t load properly or something like that?

This seems like a dumb question but I dont remind using the TP after it says a build is available.
I might have used it but cant remember.

Seeing the system come back will be nice. I will now go ahead and play the game again. Once that custom system comes back, I may begin spending money. (After all I do want to transfer to a common server with friends so we can WvW)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Here’s an update for you:

It’s clear that quite a lot of you would like to have greater flexibility in using the Currency Exchange. Our intention when we designed the new interface was to streamline large volume purchases, which make up the majority of transactions.

In light of your feedback, we will update the Currency Exchange so that you can decide how you want to use it. We will keep the new streamlined system and also offer a new “Custom” button on the panel that you can use to exchange any increment of gems or gold.

We anticipate rolling this out soon. Stay tuned!

~~~~~

Sorry for the delay in posting this, but out of respect to our international community, we wanted to be able to post in several forums at once.

Thanks for the reply Gaile, this should solve the problem now.

I see why you designed it now, but hopefully this has been an informative situation on balancing metrics against forseeing what players want in the game.

Thanks again for the update!

Lord Kuru.3685:

Labjax.2465:

whiteflower.9425:

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

Well it certainly sounds like an unbelievable spike, but I don’t think it’s at all impossible. Considering the number of people who play, all it would take is for a significant chunk with higher download speeds to have logged in before anyone else and made large exchanges. Or even a small handful making gigantic exchanges.

Without the data of who makes what exchanges and for how much (something that Anet happens to have) it’s hard to see the specifics of how it could have played out.

But history says that in the past, holidays have not had such a dramatic effect. So why this time?

The real interesting thing this all tells us (whether or not the gem exchange was fiddled with) is that players no longer trust Anet at all. Anet should really think hard about how they got into this situation.

Anet never did any harm to me. The support was always awesome (sometimes i had to repeat several times what i wanted but they would give me what i wanted at the end).

I dunno how to feel about Anet.
Sometimes I feel they do the stuff on purpose to see how we react and then change it so players will think they are “listening to us”.

In the 2nd year of anniversary it was that mistake about the pack prices, the Transmutation Stones Original price error and the way they did the calculations to sell the pack of TC was different from the pack of Dyes, and this is still not answer cause, well, it just passed.

The thing they put in the gem store recently (not counting the halloween) it sound like a rip off to me and several other players including Dulfy. Items like the Zephyrite Dyes, the Silver o Matic and that thing that puts logs and ores in your home instance.

And now this?

Im not mad im sad. I like this game, several stuff happen here and it makes me sad this things are happening.

I want to play a game and trust the company thats doing the game. Better, I want to feel like the company that makes the game listen to the player and its happy making the game for ALL the players, not just “New players”.

I feel, and i bet many of us feel left out, kinda insulted that Anet says they want our opinion and then they not listening to us (most of the times).

Even with this post. It had to be this bunch of people complaining so we could call their attention and it actually made a difference.

We are customers, we have the right to complain. I agree some, don’t complain the right way but saying we are “ranting” its not the best way to calm an “angry mob”.

We always have that person that says “we need to go out sometime” and then you never do go out with that person and I feel this is the best comparison to Anet. It’s like “Say in this post what you think about x or what you want in the future and we will listen to you” but they dont (most time).

People that are running the forum may listen, like Gaile and other, but thats a long way to Anet, the company, ear us out.

So the people running the forum might listen but the company doesnt.

Shaaba.5672:

Lord Kuru.3685:

The real interesting thing this all tells us (whether or not the gem exchange was fiddled with) is that players no longer trust Anet at all.

Absolutely this. I am pleased that they are listening to us in relation to how we want to buy gems, but the price spike has me giving them the side-eye.

This! The trust is gone Anet, and your track record made darn sure that it will not be returning!

All i have left to say to you is this:

Liar liar pants on fire!

“Liar liar pants on fire!”

Hahahahaha xD Never heard that before xD

@ Gayle Grey and dev team,

I thank you for your “willingness” to change the Conversion Page. I doubt the staff and or dev team had expected this amount of resistance, but I want to say this:

Can you blame your players for acting against change after change to “The Quality Of Life (QoL)” While most players QoL is mainly based on gaming (read PLAYING) experience? We have gotten a lot from the dev team,… And I love the game,…. But I’m interested only in new area’s, new bosses, new dungeons, new ARMORS, new Guild missions, new proffesions, new races, new, New, NEW, NEW!!!

I did the beta’s, I loved it, I played the 1st season, I have 4 characters with yr2 birthdays now, 6 or 7?with 100% map, 15 lvl 80’s, I’ve been there an done that so often I can pour a glass of drink and kill the spiderqueen in ac without watching…. I’m guild leader in 2 guilds, officer in another and I can say for sure that with my guilds, counting almost 1000 different players in total, mostly want more of tyria, maybe elona, or cantha to explore. QoL is important, but 3.5 million players been here and most done that by now…

I have 15k AP and I start to notice I am in runs where I have 5 times as much AP then the whole rest of my party COMBINED now when doing AC, going from player to mentor. I can choose zerk meta or noob slugfest. Yes, that seems to be my freedom with slight QoL updates and outfits.. Not expansions and Armors and Weapons…. Why Not? Is the dev team “not” working on an update. We will get the Maguuma Jungle. I expect a dungeon probably something like “Vekk’s Lair”, The return of the white mantle and their inquisitors, A lot of “mutated” sylvari, tribal “people” and Mordem. Bloodstones, Druid Ents… And A small extremely powerfull undead dragon lich (LVL 82 OR 83? MAYBE HIGHER?) guarding a chest called Rot(t)Wing. A race of bird people and an city.

Of course there will be Mordemoth, but to forget rotwing would be a mistake. They are both part of the Lore and Rotwing was admired and hated, and everybody knew him in gw1.

These are things I expect from a patch inline with a Maguuma update.
This is LORE or in touch with it. This WOULD BE QUALITY OF LIFE. This would boost interest and buff sales, It would restore faith. And It would be good for you as a team to see happy posts again. It would be good for players, me included as it would bring back the veterans and respark the life in a withering and crumbling construction which started out as a glorious game, but which has been gutted by change and destruction, to provide change for 3.5 Million players who understood everything, and who seem to have gone numb by now. Numbed down and dumbed down…

But I like the fact you’re changing the conversion page to be as functional as the old one. That’s a start.

And therefore,

Thank you

It’s good to see that Anet have backtracked on this ridiculous change, but it really shouldn’t take a 37 page long rage thread to fix something like this. ArenaNet are a professional development company, it’s very disturbing that something so obviously flawed could get through to their release build without anyone even batting an eyelid.

Any player of this game would tell you that the update had big problems. Why is their quality assurance department not able to spot such obvious problems?

Either no QA on this was done at all, or their QA department is extremely inadequate. I don’t know which scenario is scarier.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

@ Gayle Grey and dev team,

I thank you for your “willingness” to change the Conversion Page. I doubt the staff and or dev team had expected this amount of resistance, but I want to say this:

Can you blame your players for acting against change after change to “The Quality Of Life (QoL)” While most players QoL is mainly based on gaming (read PLAYING) experience? We have gotten a lot from the dev team,… And I love the game,…. But I’m interested only in new area’s, new bosses, new dungeons, new ARMORS, new Guild missions, new proffesions, new races, new, New, NEW, NEW!!!

I did the beta’s, I loved it, I played the 1st season, I have 4 characters with yr2 birthdays now, 6 or 7?with 100% map, 15 lvl 80’s, I’ve been there an done that so often I can pour a glass of drink and kill the spiderqueen in ac without watching…. I’m guild leader in 2 guilds, officer in another and I can say for sure that with my guilds, counting almost 1000 different players in total, mostly want more of tyria, maybe elona, or cantha to explore. QoL is important, but 3.5 million players been here and most done that by now…

I have 15k AP and I start to notice I am in runs where I have 5 times as much AP then the whole rest of my party COMBINED now when doing AC, going from player to mentor. I can choose zerk meta or noob slugfest. Yes, that seems to be my freedom with slight QoL updates and outfits.. Not expansions and Armors and Weapons…. Why Not? Is the dev team “not” working on an update. We will get the Maguuma Jungle. I expect a dungeon probably something like “Vekk’s Lair”, The return of the white mantle and their inquisitors, A lot of “mutated” sylvari, tribal “people” and Mordem. Bloodstones, Druid Ents… And A small extremely powerfull undead dragon lich (LVL 82 OR 83? MAYBE HIGHER?) guarding a chest called Rot(t)Wing. A race of bird people and an city.

These are things I expect from a patch inline with a Maguuma update.
This is LORE or in touch with it. This WOULD BE QUALITY OF LIFE. This would boost interest and buff sales, It would restore faith. And It would be good for you as a team to see happy posts again. It would be good for players, me included as it would bring back the veterans and respark the life in a withering and crumbling construction which started out as a glorious game, but which has been gutted by change and destruction, to provide change for 3.5 Million players who understood everything, and who seem to have gone numb by now. Numbed down and dumbed down…

But I like the fact you’re changing the conversion page. That’s a start.

And therefore,

Thank you

Why are you thanking them for breaking something that should never have been broken in the first place! The Gem to gold thing was fine to begin with!

It is like you are thanking them for kicking you in the crotch with the excuse there was a piece of fuzz on your pants.

I am continuously bewildered that Anet thinks most new players are lacking the intelligence to figure out new systems and such. Maybe true, I don’t know. Thats kinda sad to think about, I’d like to think humans were more adaptable and able to learn then that.

I didn’t think the gem exchange was that hard to figure out at the early days of the game. This new change is disappointing to me. All its gonna do is make me not buy gems as often. I used to put about 2g per day worth of gems, accumulating a little bit each day and eventually spend it on something I wanted. Oh well, i’m not gonna rant cause its not gonna change anything and I’m only one voice lost amongst an ocean of other voices anyway.

Possible suggestion:
I don’t see why they can’t just incorporate two tabs, one for small increments and one for bulk purchases?

Hello Gaile,

Thanks to you and the whole team for the update and for listening to our feedback (not that I ever doubted that contrarily to many here).

Despite what many say here and on reddit, I appreciate a lot Anet ability to listen to feedback and take steps accordingly. I can’t say so of most other studio.

I hope the reworked UI will also include one currency exchange rate graph for the sake of giving all players an equal chance at understanding the market, and not just power users who will get the data from external websites anyway (the graph may either have no Y axis, simply showing the rate variations, or two Y axis, one on left for gems → gold and one on right for gold → gems with a little icon to ensure all players understand the meaning of each axis).

Regards

Chalky.8540:

It’s good to see that Anet have backtracked on this ridiculous change, but it really shouldn’t take a 37 page long rage thread to fix something like this. ArenaNet are a professional development company, it’s very disturbing that something so obviously flawed could get through to their release build without anyone even batting an eyelid.

Any player of this game would tell you that the update had big problems. Why is their quality assurance department not able to spot such obvious problems?

Either no QA on this was done at all, or their QA department is extremely inadequate. I don’t know which scenario is scarier.

Posts like this are so utterly useless. You don’t have any idea of the data they are looking at and that govern such changes. I am sure many players actually enjoyed the change, but these players are not the ones who come ranting here.

I actually think the new UI is nicely done and looks a lot like what can be found on other games (i.e. new players coming for example from the mobile market will feel at ease). It just lacks some important convenience options like setting custom amounts and the exchange rate graph.

I think we could get much more from Anet if we could discuss and explain our points of view politely instead of producing dozens of pages of useless rants full of conspiration theory. By doing so, you are just proving them right to think that the playerbase needs dumbed down content as one can establish a correlation between the ability to correctly discuss an issue and to understand “complex” content.

Chalky.8540:

Any player of this game would tell you that the update had big problems. Why is their quality assurance department not able to spot such obvious problems?

Either no QA on this was done at all, or their QA department is extremely inadequate. I don’t know which scenario is scarier.

I wouldn’t blame QA. Arenanet is not stupid, the company has talent. These are calculated decisions, not mistakes that slipped by QA.

They wanted to change something in a specific way, we didn’t like it, people like Gaile (whilst doing her job) dug the hole further and aided in presenting Arenanet in a negative light, something that they themselves are doing to themselves. We didn’t have to do that, they did that to themselves.

While I like, for the most part, their products (loved NF and EoTN most personally) I do not have faith in their integrity, honesty or what they say to us, this includes Gaile as we’ve all seen in early posts.

kins.3294:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

@ Gayle Grey and dev team,

I thank you for your “willingness” to change the Conversion Page. I doubt the staff and or dev team had expected this amount of resistance, but I want to say this:

Can you blame your players for acting against change after change to “The Quality Of Life (QoL)” While most players QoL is mainly based on gaming (read PLAYING) experience? We have gotten a lot from the dev team,… And I love the game,…. But I’m interested only in new area’s, new bosses, new dungeons, new ARMORS, new Guild missions, new proffesions, new races, new, New, NEW, NEW!!!

I did the beta’s, I loved it, I played the 1st season, I have 4 characters with yr2 birthdays now, 6 or 7?with 100% map, 15 lvl 80’s, I’ve been there an done that so often I can pour a glass of drink and kill the spiderqueen in ac without watching…. I’m guild leader in 2 guilds, officer in another and I can say for sure that with my guilds, counting almost 1000 different players in total, mostly want more of tyria, maybe elona, or cantha to explore. QoL is important, but 3.5 million players been here and most done that by now…

I have 15k AP and I start to notice I am in runs where I have 5 times as much AP then the whole rest of my party COMBINED now when doing AC, going from player to mentor. I can choose zerk meta or noob slugfest. Yes, that seems to be my freedom with slight QoL updates and outfits.. Not expansions and Armors and Weapons…. Why Not? Is the dev team “not” working on an update. We will get the Maguuma Jungle. I expect a dungeon probably something like “Vekk’s Lair”, The return of the white mantle and their inquisitors, A lot of “mutated” sylvari, tribal “people” and Mordem. Bloodstones, Druid Ents… And A small extremely powerfull undead dragon lich (LVL 82 OR 83? MAYBE HIGHER?) guarding a chest called Rot(t)Wing. A race of bird people and an city.

These are things I expect from a patch inline with a Maguuma update.
This is LORE or in touch with it. This WOULD BE QUALITY OF LIFE. This would boost interest and buff sales, It would restore faith. And It would be good for you as a team to see happy posts again. It would be good for players, me included as it would bring back the veterans and respark the life in a withering and crumbling construction which started out as a glorious game, but which has been gutted by change and destruction, to provide change for 3.5 Million players who understood everything, and who seem to have gone numb by now. Numbed down and dumbed down…

But I like the fact you’re changing the conversion page. That’s a start.

And therefore,

Thank you

Why are you thanking them for breaking something that should never have been broken in the first place! The Gem to gold thing was fine to begin with!

It is like you are thanking them for kicking you in the crotch with the excuse there was a piece of fuzz on your pants.

I had hoped my sarcasm was blatant enough to notice… Guess this post is still way to subtle…. I hope it will cause certain people to think, and maybe it can be shown to superiors, advisors or CEO’s of funding companies.

@ Kins

And as a response to your response… ‘Well my balls are still flying… Which is something I’m definately not happy with, let alone thankfull or gratefull…’

To people offended by my reaction: My apologies, It was not my intention to be mean, or upsetting, just to voice my feelings in a clear understandable fashion.

Gilgalas.7860:

Hello Gaile,

Thanks to you and the whole team for the update and for listening to our feedback (not that I ever doubted that contrarily to many here).

Despite what many say here and on reddit, I appreciate a lot Anet ability to listen to feedback and take steps accordingly. I can’t say so of most other studio.

Regards

They (Arenanet) did NOT listen to our feedback. They where dismanteled by the critics of major gaming sites and had to make a move not to be totally crushed!

http://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-players-angry-over-currency-exchange-chang-1649519173

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-gemgate

The critic of tentonhammer regarding the handling of this incident is devasting, and rightfully so!

Arenanet only learns the hard way!
Cheers!

SmilingBandit.8079:

Gilgalas.7860:

Hello Gaile,

Thanks to you and the whole team for the update and for listening to our feedback (not that I ever doubted that contrarily to many here).

Despite what many say here and on reddit, I appreciate a lot Anet ability to listen to feedback and take steps accordingly. I can’t say so of most other studio.

Regards

They (Arenanet) did NOT listen to our feedback. They where dismanteled by the critics of major gaming sites and had to make a move not to be totally crushed!

http://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-players-angry-over-currency-exchange-chang-1649519173

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-gemgate

The critic of tentonhammer regarding the handling of this incident is devasting, and rightfully so!

Arenanet only learns the hard way!
Cheers!

I agree, this is more damage control than actually listening to the players.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2k0cda/gem_conversion_changes_discussion/

With even Dulfy posting against the change!

I’ve refrained from posting during all of this and have just kept up reading, but I think there’s one major lesson to be had here: ArenaNet has made several changes to the game without either A. thinking through the ramifications properly or B. asking for community feedback prior to making a game-changing alteration. There has been an abundance of good changes and community involvement lately, but I think that really does need to extend to some sort of testing arena.

Similar to the PTR (public test realm) in WoW, GW2 could use (and I dare say, NEEDS) a public (or invited) testing realm. That would allow us to discover bugs and problems, make suggestions, and find exploits PRIOR to release to the wider community. The improvement something like that could provide for the game is ginormous, alleviating the workload on the team, and providing for a more streamlined release of content.

The issue arises here of having a PTR about Living World and frequent releases: some players will test them on the PTR and then not want to play as much when the release actually hits. In this case I want to suggest only releasing system-based and profession changes to this realm in order to iron out bugs. Actual story pieces would be fine to leave out of this process and could be tested internally as they are now.

I just believe that there is a major fluctuation back and forth from quality to mediocrity in the changes this game has gone through since launch. And sincerely, out of love for the game, the lore, the franchise, characters, and the team at ArenaNet, I implore you guys to take a look at the above option.

-Juxt

Gaile Gray.6029:

Azhure.1857:

Thank you, Gaile, for an official response here on the forums.

Absolutely!

I’m sorry we weren’t able to answer earlier, but it took a bit of time to research how best to address player concerns. I’m glad that this is going to be resolved in a way that will give players a great deal of flexibility, customization, personalization, the whole lot.

I was just thrilled when the devs said the custom option could be done. I think my “Yaaaay!” was heard in downtown Seattle.

Next step will be bringing the Frog back? ;D

@redux

Shouldnt this allready be clear as crystal.

The US-Cash-Cow disagrees with every of your suggestions!

well in all truth its possible they bugged the exchange the first time, it appears to have started trending back down, pretty close to after that last patch.

its also possible it is still a natural result of increased gem buying, and the drop down is because people never really wanted that many gems to begin with.

well, we ll never know, they tend to be very secretive when it comes to gems/gold exchange

Could you, please, put the gem echange to how it was before the patch? I am a new player and when I started playing (which is roughly a month ago) that was like the best thing I could wish for in a game and you just went and ruined it! Like why? There was nothing wrong with the exchange system! Why do you even want any suggestions how to fix it?? Just put it back to the original system! Really, nobody asked for this….

Gaile Gray.6029:

Here’s an update for you:

It’s clear that quite a lot of you would like to have greater flexibility in using the Currency Exchange. Our intention when we designed the new interface was to streamline large volume purchases, which make up the majority of transactions.

In light of your feedback, we will update the Currency Exchange so that you can decide how you want to use it. We will keep the new streamlined system and also offer a new “Custom” button on the panel that you can use to exchange any increment of gems or gold.

We anticipate rolling this out soon. Stay tuned!

~~~~~

Sorry for the delay in posting this, but out of respect to our international community, we wanted to be able to post in several forums at once.

Being in touch with your community, done right.
I absolutely love the way communication is ramping up. People come at you with torches and pitchforks, and instead of just letting the thread fester, you stay here, calmly giving out news, indicating you’re listening and rewarding constructive feedback and suggestions.
This is what i wanted to see a few months ago, and this is what i’m seeing, and i just wanted to say thanks <3

Indeed, good to see that it will be changed based on feedback (did anyone actually think otherwise?)

Not so good to see that this will basically mean that people will start raging everytime they don’t like something, since it is shown to work twice in a row now.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, good to see that it will be changed based on feedback (did anyone actually think otherwise?)

Not so good to see that this will basically mean that people will start raging everytime they don’t like something, since it is shown to work twice in a row now.

While the original change didn’t affect me at all, it’s nice to see that there’ll be options for custom orders.

That said, if raging works to get our way, should we start another thread about Mounts?

In before patch notes: “we’ve added custom option to convert gems to gold. In order to do this, our streamlined shopping interface had to be tweaked and the option to convert gold to gems was removed.”

you see how they wasting their time? why don’t spend time on other bugs fix instead of changing something unnecessary to change. when the people complained then they have to do the double work to change it back.

Please do the surveys or discussions on the forum before the dev team got some new idea.

SmilingBandit.8079:

Gilgalas.7860:

Hello Gaile,

Thanks to you and the whole team for the update and for listening to our feedback (not that I ever doubted that contrarily to many here).

Despite what many say here and on reddit, I appreciate a lot Anet ability to listen to feedback and take steps accordingly. I can’t say so of most other studio.

Regards

They (Arenanet) did NOT listen to our feedback. They where dismanteled by the critics of major gaming sites and had to make a move not to be totally crushed!

http://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-players-angry-over-currency-exchange-chang-1649519173

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-gemgate

The critic of tentonhammer regarding the handling of this incident is devasting, and rightfully so!

Arenanet only learns the hard way!
Cheers!

Agreed.
If your puppy does its business outside only because you consistently shoo it out whenever it tries to kitten on your carpet, it’s not a well-behaved puppy.
Same thing applies here.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, good to see that it will be changed based on feedback (did anyone actually think otherwise?)

Not so good to see that this will basically mean that people will start raging everytime they don’t like something, since it is shown to work twice in a row now.

it is fairly rare that the community vastly agrees with something, the fact that you can get 1000s of people mostly at peoples throats to agree to something wont happen very often, and when it does, you should probably at the very least listen.

would be better if they got some feedback first though

It is good Anet are seeing reason with regards to the custom value issue (fingers crossed for the graph one now as well). But it should never have come to this. If the Anet bosses had bothered to talk about upcoming features like this before live, it would have avoided this whole sorry state, provided Anet would have been open to adapt based on that feedback. Waiting for feedback after the release just seems lile paying the appropriate lip service to players without having to do anything.

That it took such a long thread and ultimately involvement from the gaming sites to even come close to sorting this out is wrong. So much of the fallout could have been avoided.

Also, it shows where Anet’s priorities are that they address the gaming sites before us. Kotaku had the update a fair while before we did. We found out about this “reverse-ferret” from a third party. That is still a little disrespectful to the people who actually have the concerns, and I hope if anything like this happens again in the future, we might be respected enough to actually be told first hand first.

To Gaile: Thanks for the update and your King Cnut act with us the last day or so. And thanks for passing on the graph question.

Good that the vast majority of my concerns are going to be fixed. Thanks Gaile for being there.
Too bad the mongels with mangy bones won’t give them up.

Good that the vast majority of my concerns are going to be fixed. Thanks Gaile for being there.
Too bad the mongels with mangy bones won’t give them up.

Thanks for the update Gaile. It’s relieving to see you guys do listen to reason and player opinions.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, good to see that it will be changed based on feedback (did anyone actually think otherwise?)

Not so good to see that this will basically mean that people will start raging everytime they don’t like something, since it is shown to work twice in a row now.

While I didn’t join the “angry mob” this time around, they have valid points. Whether or not Anet listens is almost secondary to the fact that the impression that many have is that they don’t, hence the rage. Had Anet dug their heels in in an attempt to forestall any future demands, which they could have, it would have further damaged the relationship between themselves and the player base and it would not have solved the problem merely exacerbated it. Open lines of communication and a happy player base is good for them and its good for us, if players feel they are being heard and their concerns are being taken seriously they won’t feel the need to resort to raging.

I have no idea if ANet are intentionally seeing how far they can get before they’re called out for going too far, or if they’re just collectively so detached from the playerbase that they just don’t register any of this as “Not worth the effort to check for any issues that may arise”

I mean, you’ve got this. The commander tag issue at the moment, but in the past there have been a few suspect cases that this has just added to.

Gaile – A genuine question here:
It’s great that you can fix things but really, REALLY Gaile, do you think it should get to this stage before someone notices that “streamlining/modifying” something that’s going to make it better on the dev’s end, isn’t going to so much for the players?

chemiclord.3978:

Acinonyx Rex.8609:

xarallei.4279:

To be honest I don’t get the rage against Gaile. She didn’t say anything to justify rants against her. Most of what she said was just relaying info behind the decisions…which we may not have liked, but that certainly isn’t her fault. And she was right in that a lot of people were just raging and not being constructive at all.

Gaile is certainly a nice person, but as a community mannager she did 2 big mistake the same day.

1. She didn’t realize how many players were upset, and she didn’t accept the ranting. Yes it was ranting, and it was her job to listen to it and deal with it. In the same post she said she did not have to apologize, but actually that’s exactly her job. When her company does something wrong she has to apologize for it and hope customer will understand.

2. She said to Kotaki that they will do domething, but didn’t tell us first. I think that’s a second big mistake, and it’s a lot for the same day.

Against, I have nothing personnaly against her, we all do mistakes everyday, and Gaile did such a great work back in GW1. We really love her, and maybe that’s why we are so angry. We are angry against Anet decision because we love GW2, and a little angry about Gaile reaction, because we love her.

Edit : OK, second mistake is now irrelevant. And as I said mistakes can happend.

1) No. She really DOESN’T have to accept ranting, to be perfectly honest. If you’re being rude and belligerent, a company has every right to throw you out. Being a customer does NOT give you carte blanche to behave as terrible of a little kitten as you want.

2) She’s a kitten community manager, not a developer. There’s absolutely nothing she can promise without the nod from someone higher up the chain. If all they say is “we’re working on something”, that’s all SHE can say.

1/ If ONE of your consummer is ranting you can ignore him, if thousands are, maybe there is something wrong on your side, and you should think twice before throw them out. Because many more could follow…

2/ But Kotaku was aware of the change before the consumers, so she had to keep us informed. But as i already said, she apologize with a good explanation for this, so there is no point to disscuss about it.