Guild Wars 2

The Communicating With You thread has been closed, and though I understand as it was a mess, it was also the only thread with regular responses from any member of anet staff. I know people jumped into the thread because we all feel like we’re just talking into space with no response. In that thread we were able to have a conversation, rather than just flinging our thoughts at the wall, and an outpouring of gratitude and relief followed.

In that thread it was suggested there should be a role on the anet team for someone to just interact with players on the forums and I hope that isn’t forgotten. There are so many issues right now with the game (be they bugs or intentional features), and so much unrest among dedicated and long time players that I would hate to see all of Chris’ efforts to reach out to us rendered pointless from a relapse into dev silence. I and others felt hope for being heard- but it could easily be false and wasted hope.

It’s probably too much for one person, and definitely too much for someone who already has a lot on their plate. But right now I don’t think i’m the only one who feels we lack a bridge between anet and players and it is causing continuous tension.

Posts from various devs across mosts forums have increased significantly within the last couple of weeks, not only in that closed topic.
So just open a new topic on whatever concerns you or post in an existing one.
And dont expect a dev response for every issue.

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

Wanze.8410:

Posts from various devs across mosts forums have increased significantly within the last couple of weeks, not only in that closed topic.
So just open a new topic on whatever concerns you or post in an existing one.
And dont expect a dev response for every issue.

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

The thing is, while the number of red posts went up, the two biggest issues that were being asked about at the time of the protest were SAB and traits (there have been bigger issues before and since). Neither of those have been addressed despite Occupy SAB being what raised the communication issue above being ignorable in the first place (or if not, was highly coincidental to that), and the traits system thread now being 50 pages of pretty much unanimous hatred. The appearance of communication has gone up, but actual communication on things that matter has pretty much stayed the same.

Wanze.8410:

Posts from various devs across mosts forums have increased significantly within the last couple of weeks, not only in that closed topic.
So just open a new topic on whatever concerns you or post in an existing one.
And dont expect a dev response for every issue.

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

I’m a hundred percent positive on the fact that no one has ever blamed him for that. Actually many people were supporting him. The thread has been made to answer our questions, so when they are not able to answer for a few days it’s more or less legitimate to tell it so people know what’s up. Just like I’d “sorry I can’t play, I’m in hospital” to my friends if I had health issues, I don’t really feel sorry and I’m not forced to, it’s just more polite to keep them informed especially if they expected me to play with them, and I’m fairly sure Chris is just being polite, I doubt he’d feel sad and sorry about not answering if he has family issues, he probably has better things to think about. The players aren’t “demanding”, it’s just what happen when you show up very little in the forums and then offer them to answer all their questions after two years. The only reason you never see that elsewhere is because it never happens in other compagnies.

Back on the topic, I’m rather sad it was closed. A lot of questions were left unanswered. If the thread was a mess (and it was) then they should just have posted a few rules so players would talk to them and not between themselves. I’m kind of… disappointed, since there’s no other thread to talk about issues that don’t concern guilds where you’re guaranteed to get an answer…

Wanze.8410:

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

I agree but I certainly don’t want to be running anyone into the ground or causing health issues/keeping someone from family life. I don’t want a crucifiction or sacrifice, which is why I say if it’s too big of a job for someone who already has a lot of duties on the team, opening a new position just for interacting with the players would go a long way in relieving a lot of the mounting tension.
I know there is plenty of overly emotional/dramatic tirade spam on the forums. I just want to know that the thoughtful and constructive conversation about game issues isn’t just a fart in the wind that is being ignored and that Anet would rather not interact with the players who are doing their best to meaningfully communicate.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

The thing is, while the number of red posts went up, the two biggest issues that were being asked about at the time of the protest were SAB and traits (there have been bigger issues before and since). Neither of those have been addressed despite Occupy SAB being what raised the communication issue above being ignorable in the first place (or if not, was highly coincidental to that), and the traits system thread now being 50 pages of pretty much unanimous hatred. The appearance of communication has gone up, but actual communication on things that matter has pretty much stayed the same.

I believe it was actually the leak of the commander tag changes that precipitated everything with the communication issue. SAB came up in the wake of that.

I would argue that communication has gone up, not just the appearance of it.
*Guild Halls, one of the more prominent things people talk about have a CDI starting tomorrow.
*The WvW Siege troll and population balance issues, both long time problems, have a dev actively participating in the discussion.
*The commander tag issue saw discussion and was changed before release.
*The Traits discussion got a dev post saying things were being reconsidered.
*The economy forum still has a dev actively talking to players.

This is just what I recall of the top of my head. There is plenty of communication to be had. Whether or not it interests you is a different issue.

SAB only matters to the SAB crew. How big a group that really is anybody’s guess. We’ll learn more about adjustments to the traits thing as they happen, I suppose.

I only come here to discuss things with other players, show off screenies, and throw snide comments into dumb threads. I’m not fussed one or the other over the devs being present of not. Its been nice seeing red tags all over the place, though.

Torsailr.8456:

I believe it was actually the leak of the commander tag changes that precipitated everything with the communication issue. SAB came up in the wake of that.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps, I honestly can’t remember. They came out nearly simultaneously, if not in the same interview.

[QUOTE]

I would argue that communication has gone up, not just the appearance of it.
*Guild Halls, one of the more prominent things people talk about have a CDI starting tomorrow.
*The WvW Siege troll and population balance issues, both long time problems, have a dev actively participating in the discussion.
*The commander tag issue saw discussion and was changed before release.
*The Traits discussion got a dev post saying things were being reconsidered.
*The economy forum still has a dev actively talking to players.

This is just what I recall of the top of my head. There is plenty of communication to be had. Whether or not it interests you is a different issue.

I disagree, for the most part:

1) Guild Halls – yes, discussion of guilds has finally happened. This was actually despite most people saying that it was the wrong time for it, because it was released in the middle of the disaster that was the first week of the NPE. But despite this it was at least an improvement on previous months.
2) There have always been occasional posts in some threads. I don’t follow the WvW forum enough to know if those topics are the ones that needed attention. Maybe someone else can give insight there.
3) Yes, this happened, but we have no idea what would have happened without the “increase”. The original tag system was utterly ridiculous, we can’t say whether it would have made it to release before that.
4) The traits thread got a red post saying “Hi, we haven’t been listening and we aren’t going to make any of the big changes required, but if you compile a list of superficial changes from the last 47 pages (because we can’t be bothered to read everything we’ve ignored thus far) we’ll have a think about it.”
5) The economy forum has always been well engaged with.

So yeah, I do acknowledge that red posting has increased, and I don’t want to be labelled as “one of those players who is never happy no matter what you do”. I love the game, I was really happy when the “communicating” thread opened, and I’m posting because I care about GW2 succeeding. However the topics that were important and ignored before the change are still important and ignored.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Wanze.8410:

Posts from various devs across mosts forums have increased significantly within the last couple of weeks, not only in that closed topic.
So just open a new topic on whatever concerns you or post in an existing one.
And dont expect a dev response for every issue.

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

The thing is, while the number of red posts went up, the two biggest issues that were being asked about at the time of the protest were SAB and traits (there have been bigger issues before and since). Neither of those have been addressed despite Occupy SAB being what raised the communication issue above being ignorable in the first place (or if not, was highly coincidental to that), and the traits system thread now being 50 pages of pretty much unanimous hatred. The appearance of communication has gone up, but actual communication on things that matter has pretty much stayed the same.

What i gathered from the Things to Come Blog post is that SAB is not being released again anytime soon and they dont have a schedule for it now. Evne though it might not be what you have hoped for, but it was adressed.
As you mentioned, the Traits Topic went out of line a long time ago. Either someone is willing to put in an effort and summarize that monster in a new thread or not.
I honestly dont know what a dev could post in there to make the situation a bit better, unless they have definite trait changes on the horizon.
They mentioned many times they read threads but not always comment, so i would assume that the good feedback and suggestions went trough and will be considered next time they overhaul traits.

Wanze.8410:

What i gathered from the Things to Come Blog post is that SAB is not being released again anytime soon and they dont have a schedule for it now. Evne though it might not be what you have hoped for, but it was adressed.
As you mentioned, the Traits Topic went out of line a long time ago. Either someone is willing to put in an effort and summarize that monster in a new thread or not.
I honestly dont know what a dev could post in there to make the situation a bit better, unless they have definite trait changes on the horizon.
They mentioned many times they read threads but not always comment, so i would assume that the good feedback and suggestions went trough and will be considered next time they overhaul traits.

Both issues can be (semi) solved by explaining the reasoning behind them.

With SAB, the best explanation for why they haven’t turned it back on is “because it doesn’t fit with the Living Story”. Do I even need to defend why that hasn’t been accepted as a good explanation? If they have a reason not to turn at least W1 and W2 back on, then the customers who paid real money for infinite continue coins deserve an explanation as to why. It’s been a year now.

With traits, the reasoning we got was to do with encouraging build experimentation and giving a sense of progression. I haven’t seen anyone who didn’t consider the update to do the exact opposite of encouraging build experimentation, and many are frustrated by the way in which the “progression” was implemented. The explanation simply doesn’t make sense, and no one has taken the time to clarify what the reasoning was.

In both instances, the coding for a solution is done. SAB already exists, and the trait system was (much) better in March than it is now. If they don’t have the ability to turn SAB on for some reason, or revert (or at least account bound) the trait unlocks, then a simple explanation as to why would be huge progress.

As it stands, the game was made much worse for many people (and to my knowledge, no better for anyone other than those who don’t want others to play SAB for some reason) and six to twelve months later we have no indication as to why.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Wanze.8410:

What i gathered from the Things to Come Blog post is that SAB is not being released again anytime soon and they dont have a schedule for it now. Evne though it might not be what you have hoped for, but it was adressed.
As you mentioned, the Traits Topic went out of line a long time ago. Either someone is willing to put in an effort and summarize that monster in a new thread or not.
I honestly dont know what a dev could post in there to make the situation a bit better, unless they have definite trait changes on the horizon.
They mentioned many times they read threads but not always comment, so i would assume that the good feedback and suggestions went trough and will be considered next time they overhaul traits.

Both issues can be (semi) solved by explaining the reasoning behind them.

With SAB, the best explanation for why they haven’t turned it back on is “because it doesn’t fit with the Living Story”. Do I even need to defend why that hasn’t been accepted as a good explanation? If they have a reason not to turn at least W1 and W2 back on, then the customers who paid real money for infinite continue coins deserve an explanation as to why. It’s been a year now.

With traits, the reasoning we got was to do with encouraging build experimentation and giving a sense of progression. I haven’t seen anyone who didn’t consider the update to do the exact opposite of encouraging build experimentation, and many are frustrated by the way in which the “progression” was implemented. The explanation simply doesn’t make sense, and no one has taken the time to clarify what the reasoning was.

In both instances, the coding for a solution is done. SAB already exists, and the trait system was (much) better in March than it is now. If they don’t have the ability to turn SAB on for some reason, or revert (or at least account bound) the trait unlocks, then a simple explanation as to why would be huge progress.

As it stands, the game was made much worse for many people (and to my knowledge, no better for anyone other than those who don’t want others to play SAB for some reason) and six to twelve months later we have no indication as to why.

Personally, they aren’t saying anything about not bringing back SAB anymore because I know for a fact that they will given enough time. I’d say this would be used as filler content around the end of Season 2 I would expect.

Malkavian.4516:

Personally, they aren’t saying anything about not bringing back SAB anymore because I know for a fact that they will given enough time. I’d say this would be used as filler content around the end of Season 2 I would expect.

Well, I’m curious as to why you think you know this as fact. Nor why you think you can predict the release period given that we’re currently on an LS break, the original SAB was an April release, the second was a “back to school” September release, and many predicted both of these as times for a return previously.

Even if you were correct though, what’s keeping quiet going to achieve that is positive? You keep things a surprise for a little while if you think it will excite people. Keeping quiet for (at minimum) 15 months isn’t exciting, it’s frustrating and so far has led to actual (in game) rioting. Angering your customers for over a year isn’t good marketing.