Guild Wars 2

Its no secret to why Anet is clamp lipped when it comes to content updates or rather any updates for that matter. So whats the issue? I rather tell you or have you read an article written a few days ago. Careful though it’s a bit lengthy but will make sense when you read it.

Hey Anet, change your policies please.

Repost police. You’re under arrest.

@all and ArenaNet: 100% worth reading

Thank you

Already a thread (or more) regarding this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Communication-Issues/first#post4993192

I’m not going to read anything some self important kitten has decided to blog about. In the spirit of communication I thought I’d let you know this.

Most of the drivel on the forums today have been bad enough.

“…but it’s very difficult to be hyped up on something that isn’t being talked about.”

100% true.

“At the same time, the policy actively excludes people who want to know where things stand, warts and all. The silence gets perceived as nothing happening, or community feedback being ignored.”

This is exactly what I know a lot of us want. I won’t chuck a fit because something has been pushed back for circumstances unseen, and the mature sector of the community won’t either. Sure, disappointment would be in the mix, but I’d be happy to wait. Seeing a bar saying “loading” with a percentage or fraction up is better than not even seeing “loading” in the first place, and wondering if one’s computer is on the fritz.

“And the communication policy makes ArenaNet employees functionally powerless to disagree in concrete ways.”

They’re limiting both themselves and disappointing us by not communicating – all in the one policy! We want to listen as much as they want to talk. I don’t even care if it’s a concrete “no”. A definite answer is better than nothing. Hell, anything is better than “it’s not off the table” or “when it’s ready”.

“One quote that I’ve seen twisted a lot recently is this statement by Mike O’Brien after the Heart of Thorns announcement:

“Now, I think the exciting thing, though, is that things are going to happen fast.” – Quoted from MMORPG.com interview, dated January 26, 2015

And they were…up until the first closed beta stress test happened almost a month ago. Since then there’s been recaps and rehashes of features, a Stronghold beta test, and a few pieces on the new hylek tribes. A far cry from the expected “happening fast” pace."

Back to the first statement. We can’t be hyped up on something that’s not being talked about. I don’t care about the hylek tribes anymore. I don’t care about the stronghold anymore. I don’t want a corpse dressed up in the new fashions. I want a decent amount of new information to sink my teeth into. Something BIG that I can pore over for hours. In hindsight even the HoT announcement was more hype than it was information.

“With feature creation and iteration so far separated from actual feedback on the feature, it is far too easy to develop for something the player base doesn’t really want. But the communication policy forbids getting out in front and asking players what they want specifically once a feature gains shape.”

Hell if they haven’t learned this from the NPE they’ll never learn it.

“People keep on talking, hoping that something will be done about things they hate. And hope is all they have, because all that is ever said is “we’re listening.” "

My fridge listens to me too. I’m just hoping that Anet can be better than a fridge.

“The table everything is on is meaningless. Rather than string players along with a hope that their expected thing is next and dooming most of them to disappointment, state what is priority and what isn’t.”

PLEASE!

“When the plan changes, say so and why. This was done when announcing the delay on the camera changes patch, and the community reaction was much more reasonable than the typical hue and cry about ArenaNet screwing everything up.”

We (the mature community) are more reasonable than they think we are. The loudest ones seem to be the ones who can never be placated.

~~~

“The existing communications policy doesn’t work. It hurts everyone involved while failing at its core purpose: communicating clearly what ArenaNet is going to deliver. It needs to be abandoned as it is (and has had) a growing negative effect on the reputation of the company, as well as the trust the community has in ArenaNet’s ability to deliver what they want.”

That’s it. That is the absolute core of it.

~~~

I agree with every single point this has made. Thank you Havoc for posting it. I only hope that a dev actually reads it and – hopefully – changes will be made.

^
Also look, when you have your playerbase’s trust you can show up and say “hey, we think we have still some work to do and we are pushing the release date by 3 months” like CDProjectRed has done with Witcher3. People was happy to hear they cared so much they delayed it to have it perfect…

ANet have received persistent criticism over their absurd “we won’t say anything so people can’t get upset” policy and refuse to understand that all it does it hurt the community way more than a few outlying ragebabies.

It baffles me why they don’t see the damage they are doing to player relations with their silence policy, but hey.

And yet before the silence policy people were raging and claimed that they shouldn’t “promise” stuff unless they are going to deliver it.

It is basically a lose-lose.
Either they tell us stuff and risk having to change stuff along the way or they don’t tell us stuff until it is ready. Both which leads to raging.

Seems a lost case to address ANet about this, since their comm policy apparently prevents them from even signaling reception.
While those trying to receive any kind of reaction repeat themselves over and over and grow increasingly frustrated.

First company I’ve ever encountered that chose passive-aggressive behaviour as communication paradigm.