Guild Wars 2

Hopefully this comes off as more of constructive feedback then a rant but I’d like to know what other players think and how they feel about the " official " forums here. To me they have failed in every sense of the way to be anything which is better then some of the elite fan sites such as Guild Wars guru or others where flaming and just plain old crap is simply posted. In-order to gain any sort of useful knowledge from them a player is still forced to endure flaming, child like comments, and shift through a wall of nonsense to find anything useful. So the mission of actually creating a site which brought the GW community at large together where ideas, questions and experiences could be shared has really failed. I see no difference here compared to the larger fan sites which in reality are only marginally worse then they are here.

The old fan site program Anet had for GW 1 was I think a better tool for them as was the blog compared to this " Your official forums ". One it allowed community managers the ability to still see the rants and dislikes of the loudest voices and those complaining the hardest without actually being the ones to have to put out the fires and actually constantly baby sit players who act like spoiled children or simply run rampant if no one reins them in. Running a forum is a full time job as is moderating it and only a few times have I seen it done successfully. Unfortunately this isn’t one of them. The scope and idea behind these forums was great and even before GW 2 was released I was one who hoped I would finally have a place to go to ask questions, get respectful answers, and share ideas with players in an envirnoment which was different then the sites most MMO’s call the place to go for ideas and checking things out. This has been no different and at times has actually been worse in my opinion.

1.) The number of players, size and scope of what was intended here is something that can not be controled without a constant presence from Anet and I’m not seeing that. I’m not seeing the banning of accounts which would be a step in the right direction for many players that simply want to push the line and just see how far they can push to get away with it.

2.) I also know the admin / moderators I see posting here have much more to do than make a post here on these forums or reply to a fans concerns. I look for and appreciate those when I see them but the fact is it’s something that with everything else they do that they can’t keep track of what happens here. That would require a full time presence from people who’s job was just that.

In my opinion a site where " official news " was posted and dev’s and folks from Arena.net spoke or blogged about things was better then this wild west free for all which we have now. I know part of the reason to have a place such as this is to gain insight and feedback into the likes and dislikes of fans but that could easily have been done with having community managers or those whose duty it is to do so to monitor those other fan sites. Wouldn’t that have created a better atmosphere and something cleaner and more professional then what is here ? It’s not hard for fans to see where to go and find folks or players of a similiar nature and what message do you honestly think this site sends most of the time ?

I’ve been a player of GW 1 since it was launched and a player of GW 2 since I was able to get my hands on the beta. I’m expressing these opinions so perhaps some can see how the site is actually viewed and that in the end I think it detracts from the game in a negative manner. When something becomes a thing you need to ignore or much worse have to tolerate and not really get anything from, most people who have any sense simply move on or stop interacting with it. In my opinion it would have been far better to have stayed with monitoring fan sites for feedback and having a site for " official news and blogs " where information could have easily been shared without creating this wild west show we have here where anything constructive is just so easily lost in the non sense and simple crap which runs rampant here. From a players stand point I think something like that would have been way more professional, more easily monitored and freed up valuable time which could be spent doing much better things. You’ll never control gamers as a whole and this isn’t the envirnoment that many of your die hard fans were hoping to see.

Well official forums server multiple roles,

one one hand they are a place for players to share builds, discuss game mechanics find solution to problems or challenges they face and provide bug reports about ingame issues.

That part of the forums is generally ok in most games, including GW2.

But then you get the other part of the forum, which is about providing feedback about the game. This is where most people post on a regular basis.

The issue is, everyone who does so has an agenda. You only post feedback when you want something changed. This can range from getting a profession nerfed to having a game-mechanic changed.

And since this is the internet, a lot of people are very shallow and narrow-minded when it comes to their agenda, fail to see the big picture or simply refuse to see how their agenda impacts others. And with relative anonymity the language used in these exchanges can very quickly drop to nonconstructive levels.

I cringe every time I see a well-worded 500 word post about a complex issue with a reasoned argument only to see the first post be “lol, you just want XYZ nerfed. L2Dodge/L2Play”.

The thing is then, more often than not the following poster with latch on such a comment and the thread will focus on debating that instead of the actual issue the OP wanted to debate.

But that is unfortunately mostly due to human lazyness and stupidity. It might help if each OP could moderate their own thread, but that would cause other issues.

They would be better if we had a downvote button, like reddit

Official forums are normally a good thing. However these forums do not fall under that !

Forums are a place where players should be able to voice their concerns without fear of reprisal. Im not saying racism, sexism or bullying should be allowed, hell anything like that should be severely stamped on. BUT people should be able to freely express their views, opinions and ideas regarding the game.

This particular ‘official forum’ does nothing to help the player in this respect

:(

To be honest I read the official forums but I am very intimidated to post for two reasons. 1) As stated above there is no point to put up a well explained thought out point for discussion on important topics because if people don’t agree with you you get flamed into submission and 2) it is too heavily moderated. The CoC is in place and for the most part makes sense. I don’t feel I have ever violated the CoC yet I have had 3 posts deleted and 1 “friendly” warning issued by mods. Not going to get a 3 day ban for posting my opinion on a forum… it isn’t worth it!

^Same here, it is not making sense at all. There is player who doing CoC bait when they considering breaking CoC those post stand so long even being reported. kitten at best here.

Eh, I find official forum the most up to date although I agree the majority of the discussions which go on here have been beaten to death over and over again eg. trinity, gw2 is nothing compared to its predecessor, thieves are OP and etc. I do keep up with other unofficial forums but it’s just as unconstructive there but they’re more easy on you and you don’t risk a temp ban if you’re being inconsiderate or a troll. Personally, if you be a well behaved player and no post dedicated to attack a player then the official forums are fine. Unfortunately, most players who post on this forum are not that type of people.

Official forums for a game like this should exist. Good, bad or whatever else.

No worse than Guru, imo.

But yeah, the forums aren’t exactly constructive. Partly because a lot of attention is given (by white knights and moderators) to the tantrum-like complaints, and partly because too little attention is given to the well-constructed, thoughtful, idea-provoking criticism threads.

I prefer the GW2 official forums because here I can at least be sure the poster own the game.

Lafiel.9372:

Personally, if you be a well behaved player and no post dedicated to attack a player then the official forums are fine. Unfortunately, most players who post on this forum are not that type of people.

Sorry but I have to disagree. The warning I got was for my post not being long enough. Kind of silly to me!

Fuz.5621:

Gord.8654:

To be honest I read the official forums but I am very intimidated to post for two reasons. 1) As stated above there is no point to put up a well explained thought out point for discussion on important topics because if people don’t agree with you you get flamed into submission and 2) it is too heavily moderated. The CoC is in place and for the most part makes sense. I don’t feel I have ever violated the CoC yet I have had 3 posts deleted and 1 “friendly” warning issued by mods. Not going to get a 3 day ban for posting my opinion on a forum… it isn’t worth it!

This.

Moderation is a joke. You get infracted for no reasons. Your posts get deleted for no reason.
Thank god I can express my disappointment in other forums.

Exactly. Whats more, this forum actually has bugs. Probably as much as the game itself. This is 2012/13, people, especially AAA game companies, should not be housing teams that can’t get a +1 button to work. I made +1 buttons for my university project in my second year. They worked.

As someone who also got posts deleted, I actually made a thread trying to discuss the “blurred lines when it comes to rules”.
The mods mods were happy to discuss before they abruptly closed it… but it boiled down to; – CoC is down to whether mods are having a good or bad day, and ,it doesn’t matter how many players that claim they’re confused…they shouldn’t be…because the CoC is there.

CoC is half solid, and half free-form. So unless you post a pre-warning “Please don’t close this thread straight away” you’re more likely to get some discussion out of the community and mods before they decide to close it.

Reddit is better only because these forums are not very fair in it’s terms. Even posting in THIS thread may get me another infraction, because i’m stating an opinion that is indifferent to them. Tbh, I also think this thread will soon be unfortunately closed.

Gord.8654:

To be honest I read the official forums but I am very intimidated to post for two reasons. 1) As stated above there is no point to put up a well explained thought out point for discussion on important topics because if people don’t agree with you you get flamed into submission and 2) it is too heavily moderated. The CoC is in place and for the most part makes sense. I don’t feel I have ever violated the CoC yet I have had 3 posts deleted and 1 “friendly” warning issued by mods. Not going to get a 3 day ban for posting my opinion on a forum… it isn’t worth it!

This user nails it on the head.

The mods do not apply infractions fairly or equally. I’ve observed that complaint posts tend to get away with more inappropriate tone than posts by those defending the game, as well, which is probably not the best way to do business.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of these forums is the lack of communication, however. You can’t protest any warning or infraction without emailing the official mod email and hoping that they get around to looking at your email. I sent them an email addressing my concerns about the forums back on the 6th, and still have not gotten a reply. And still haven’t gotten a reply to questions I raised about an infraction I received on the same day. The impression that sends to us as customers is that we’re not worth their time, and considering that moderators are the most direct face of Public Relations in a company, that’s a bad message to be sending to your fans.

Why can’t we just PM the moderator directly? I work in a game-related forum elsewhere on the internet, and our users can appeal directly to the moderator who issued the warning via PM. That little touch of personal attention is meaningful and shows that you care enough to dedicate a fraction of your time to helping explain what they did wrong. This is something these forums severely lack.

When you make your own players to have fear to even post because they dont even know if it will be deleted/warned/banned theres something very wrong…especially when you see threads opened with tittles such ‘’omg this game rocks is the best i love you all’’ and the moderators answering with ‘’thank you so much we love you too’’ theres something wrong something so wrong…very biased indeed.

However one of the main purposes in official forums should be the release of the patch notes mainly, that is the only thing what many people come to check most of the time, atleast thats their intention if they get their answers or not is another story.

I see ups and downs to these forums. On the plus side, they serve nicely a a communication point between Anet and its customers. Also, I like the design and layout very much…easy on the eyes.

Many of you are too young to appreciate that but trust me, when you hit forty, it hits back.

The only thing that irritates me is the automated message you get from “Forum Moderator” in certain circumstances. I know the CM’s are too busy to respond individually to each and every message they get, but I’m sure I recieved an infraction in error and have no way to elevate it apart from the email (which did nothing). I have no idea who I’m supposed to talk to.

But since I can’t actually see the infraction, maybe it doesn’t matter. Still, it’s puzzling.

Talking about the moderation staff, that’s a CoC paddlin.
Complaining about the forums, that’s a CoC paddlin.
Expressing an opinion on the forums about the forums? OH you better BELIEVE that’s a CoC paddlin.
etc etc

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/238/219/71f.png

When they close down threads they deem for the purpose of complaining, that seems too heavy-handed to me. Where else could we gripe where we have a chance, however minimal, of being heard by those who manage the game?

With no regular subscription, which would provide a monetary voice at least, how do we express our displeasure? Does a boycott of the gem store do anything? Do they note who does and does not spend real money, or just look at aggregate numbers?

That said, I still glean considerable useful information from some of the official forums, but the rare official posts are often more confusing than informative.

Hi everyone,

I see people complain a lot about how “heavy handed” the moderation of these forums is. All we can say is that “moderation happens for a reason”. Of course, no one is happy when infracted. I really believe that no one or almost no one posts with the intention of being infracted yet it happens, because some way or another that post or thread was against the forum CoC. Errors happen, that is for sure. The moderator team is, after all, a human crew – despite the belief that we are some kind of cruel automatic machine that infracts at will.

It is also said that we close complain threads and only leave positive threads open and answer in those. Allow me to tell you, that is false. The crude truth is that complain threads usually are not properly composed (meaning, non-constructive, bad words, attacks (You name it). We understand the frustration behind those posts, but that doesn’t mean we can leave them be. A complain thread can show frustration, but it also can be well composed with evidence, with data, with something we can forward to the team rather than “OMG Anet you sux game bugged” (dramatization, please don’t be offended). And anyway, and unluckily, those threads tend to derail very fast.

Let’s put an example, Halloween had some very serious disconnection problems – amongst others. Those of us who were on shift and had to deal with them tried our best to gather all complains under one thread, keeping those posts that were worth it and removing those that werent. Another closer case, yesterday we had a disconnection problem that fixed fast. Again we tried to gather all related posts in a thread while cleaning those who didn’t really add much. As said above, we can sometimes be wrong, and we are sorry. That is why we forward you to a direction, so you can write an appeal.

To sum up, we have to live by the CoC code – which let me remind you, you can find in the main page – does this mean we enjoy bashing on the players? Not at all, but if we happened to not be strict, this would become the Wild West. We enjoy constructive discussion; we even encourage constructive discussion, but understand that some requirements are in order.

Thanks for your understanding.

Moderator.1462:

I see people complain a lot about how “heavy handed” the moderation of these forums is. All we can say is that “moderation happens for a reason”. Of course, no one is happy when infracted. I really believe that no one or almost no one posts with the intention of being infracted yet it happens, because some way or another that post or thread was against the forum CoC. Errors happen, that is for sure. The moderator team is, after all, a human crew – despite the belief that we are some kind of cruel automatic machine that infracts at will.

If a lot of people complain for something, then there’s surely got to be a reason. People don’t start complaining out of the blue about heavy-handed action before that heavy-handedness begins. Of course, I agree, no-ones happy when infracted, but at least giving people that structured information on where they crossed the line would help, especially if the line didn’t move per thread, that’d be helpful too.
I also agree, that errors happen, and while it may seem fair to shrug off a it happening a few times, you’ve still got people in here telling you point-blank giving you feedback on the forum’s mis-understood CoC and Moderation but it doesn’t look like you’re taking much of it in as many posts have been made all saying it’s quite heavy handed, that the CoC could be confusing for some, that infractions are confusing as well, but the only response we’re getting is that it’s simply not.

It is also said that we close complain threads and only leave positive threads open and answer in those. Allow me to tell you, that is false. The crude truth is that complain threads usually are not properly composed (meaning, non-constructive, bad words, attacks (You name it). We understand the frustration behind those posts, but that doesn’t mean we can leave them be. A complain thread can show frustration, but it also can be well composed with evidence, with data, with something we can forward to the team rather than “OMG Anet you sux game bugged” (dramatization, please don’t be offended). And anyway, and unluckily, those threads tend to derail very fast.

Understood, but for example, under this CoC rule:
“Do not engage in staff call-outs. Using the words “ArenaNet” or any staff member’s name will not expedite the answer to your query.”

Would all elements of Calling out Anet, on both positive, negative or otherwise count as breaking the CoC? (….but then if a mod decides that the positive one contributes to nothing besides praising them, they can leave 1000 variations of “thanks Anet” threads on the forums, though? – this is where it gets confusing.)

Even with all this back and forth, this thread will be closed, without a doubt. No-one will know for what reason it’ll cross the CoC.
Negative feedback on the way these forums are run?
Because people questioned moderators? (but never directly called them out)
Because there are duplicate threads like this one? (which there aren’t)

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

I see people complain a lot about how “heavy handed” the moderation of these forums is. All we can say is that “moderation happens for a reason”. Of course, no one is happy when infracted. I really believe that no one or almost no one posts with the intention of being infracted yet it happens, because some way or another that post or thread was against the forum CoC. Errors happen, that is for sure. The moderator team is, after all, a human crew – despite the belief that we are some kind of cruel automatic machine that infracts at will.

It is also said that we close complain threads and only leave positive threads open and answer in those. Allow me to tell you, that is false. The crude truth is that complain threads usually are not properly composed (meaning, non-constructive, bad words, attacks (You name it). We understand the frustration behind those posts, but that doesn’t mean we can leave them be. A complain thread can show frustration, but it also can be well composed with evidence, with data, with something we can forward to the team rather than “OMG Anet you sux game bugged” (dramatization, please don’t be offended). And anyway, and unluckily, those threads tend to derail very fast.

Let’s put an example, Halloween had some very serious disconnection problems – amongst others. Those of us who were on shift and had to deal with them tried our best to gather all complains under one thread, keeping those posts that were worth it and removing those that werent. Another closer case, yesterday we had a disconnection problem that fixed fast. Again we tried to gather all related posts in a thread while cleaning those who didn’t really add much. As said above, we can sometimes be wrong, and we are sorry. That is why we forward you to a direction, so you can write an appeal.

To sum up, we have to live by the CoC code – which let me remind you, you can find in the main page – does this mean we enjoy bashing on the players? Not at all, but if we happened to not be strict, this would become the Wild West. We enjoy constructive discussion; we even encourage constructive discussion, but understand that some requirements are in order.

Thanks for your understanding.

I could go to my PM list and point out 3 things there you have said which I can show to be false ! But frankly whats the point, Id just get infracted for the fact you have been inaccurate ! ! !

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

I see people complain a lot about how “heavy handed” the moderation of these forums is. All we can say is that “moderation happens for a reason”. Of course, no one is happy when infracted. I really believe that no one or almost no one posts with the intention of being infracted yet it happens, because some way or another that post or thread was against the forum CoC. Errors happen, that is for sure. The moderator team is, after all, a human crew – despite the belief that we are some kind of cruel automatic machine that infracts at will.

It is also said that we close complain threads and only leave positive threads open and answer in those. Allow me to tell you, that is false. The crude truth is that complain threads usually are not properly composed (meaning, non-constructive, bad words, attacks (You name it). We understand the frustration behind those posts, but that doesn’t mean we can leave them be. A complain thread can show frustration, but it also can be well composed with evidence, with data, with something we can forward to the team rather than “OMG Anet you sux game bugged” (dramatization, please don’t be offended). And anyway, and unluckily, those threads tend to derail very fast.

Let’s put an example, Halloween had some very serious disconnection problems – amongst others. Those of us who were on shift and had to deal with them tried our best to gather all complains under one thread, keeping those posts that were worth it and removing those that werent. Another closer case, yesterday we had a disconnection problem that fixed fast. Again we tried to gather all related posts in a thread while cleaning those who didn’t really add much. As said above, we can sometimes be wrong, and we are sorry. That is why we forward you to a direction, so you can write an appeal.

To sum up, we have to live by the CoC code – which let me remind you, you can find in the main page – does this mean we enjoy bashing on the players? Not at all, but if we happened to not be strict, this would become the Wild West. We enjoy constructive discussion; we even encourage constructive discussion, but understand that some requirements are in order.

Thanks for your understanding.

Can you please explain to me why my thread asking about adjusting the Vote kicking procedures was in any violation of what you have stated above?

I made sure to check and re-check my post before i hit save, there was NO VIOLATION.

If you guys feel the need to close threads, please give a better reason for it, unless you like the reputaion that it brings making us think you are exactly what you said you are not in the above quote.

Hi everyone,

Let me suggest you some points when you are about to post. Of course they won’t cover each and every possible infraciton because otherwise that would make for a pretty extense post but they cover the most important ones.

You are about to post, please review that your message has the following marks:

- It brings something constructive or contributing to the discussion. Meaning no posts like “+1” “this” “agree” or simple quoting. Be it something new or additional data that reinfroces what is said, please be sure it is there. That way your provide us with something to give to the team.

- Does not attack or is agressive to anyone. That includes trolling, personal attacks or insults of any kind. Needless to say that calling “noob” someone or “seems you are too stupid to understand this” are not acceptable behaviour.

- The post stays on topic. If we are discussing the ebb and flow of the TP, please dont come here to discuss dyes.

- Does not attack the staff or contest their actions. You think something done was wrong, please write to the given emails.

More or less, these are the main points. Of course there are a lot more, but the most common are these.

Thanks for your understanding everyone. We will have in account your proposals and believe us when we say that we do want a good forum enviroment.

This thread is closed.