Guild Wars 2

I think it’s offensive to stand there and wag your finger in an attempt to “correct” the “negativity” in the forum. As if you and your positive feedback are more worthy than the people posting negative feedback.

There are plenty of forms of communication I disapprove of personally, but it’s not my job to set guidelines on this forum, nor is it yours.

This patch has been overwhelmingly positive in accordance with the way I play. There are plenty of issues that are very real and quite negative for a number of people. Those people have a right to be heard. Their dissatisfaction is costing ANET money. I don’t think saying “Shame on you” is a tactic that will help ANET.

It’s fine that you like the patch. It’s not fine that you think you’re entitled to dictate how people post. I’m sure there’s a place to apply for a job as a moderator, if you’re interested in making sure the forum guidelines are upheld.

Edit:

Will.6210:

Will.6210:

Players who are satisfied rarely post about how satisfied they are. Forums generally represent a vocal minority.

Actually…. that’s a myth.

The people who post on the forums are the most passionate about the game. Good companies understand how customer feedback works and pay attention. Bad companies believe the myth and wonder why their customer base is shrinking.

Quoted for truth! +1

I post on a policy of stating my opinion and while that might not be posative feedback, the points I make are made because I want this game to get better but right now, it’s dying. They do not listen to us, take conditions.

Afew months ago they said they would fix conditions. They are not fixed, all they did was add a new condition, one which didn’t do anything special.

The very fact they made a april fools joke on Reddit about a expansion annoys me even more, as if they do not need an expansion. The fact is, they do and every day they refuse to announce one is 1-1000 lost players.

This isn’t a fan project or a charity, people paid money for the game and many pay for gems on a regular basis.

Since this is a business, and since the players are customers, they’re going to do what customers do to ALL businesses in ALL industries — complain when they’re not 100% satisfied!

Not everyone is going to like major changes to the game either. It’s expected.

What I personally do not understand is the desire to post here defending the game company. They do not need you to shield them from people’s criticism. While much of the criticism is useless or not constructive, some of it is actually important for the developers to hear so they can continue to improve our gaming experience.

Also, like I said before, they’re running a business. If they were just volunteers then sure, treat them extremely gently and don’t complain. However, since this highly lucrative service they are running actually pays their bills every month, I don’t feel that we owe them anything more than we owe a television company, our utilities, or our local grocery store.

That doesn’t mean people should be rude or insulting, but I don’t personally feel people need to go out of their way to be thankful for people doing their jobs. People tend to act like every patch is the game company going the extra mile for us, like it’s a favor. It’s NOT a favor, it’s something they do to keep us playing and spending money. If they never updated the game, it would die, and they would their jobs.

I hope this post doesn’t come off negative. I’m not hostile towards the makers of this game, or any game for that matter. I just don’t think we need to be particularly grateful for a company making smart business moves to keep us as customers. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, nothing more.

I would speculate that the “Our Community is a Disappointment” to “Our Development is a Disappointment” thread ratio shows that at this moment we have more problems with Development than Community.

People have predicted the problems without even trying them out simply because those were predictable to anyone who played the game long enough. People got exactly these problems, plus more.

People have been promised good things and bugfixes. People got useless and post-PR-nerfed traits and next to no bugfixes, plus more bugs.

And when the patch hits, the feedback gets merged into megathreads with no dev in the main forum to answer any.

Why would people be happy? Why should they be happy?

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

I post on a policy of stating my opinion and while that might not be posative feedback, the points I make are made because I want this game to get better but right now, it’s dying. They do not listen to us, take conditions.

Afew months ago they said they would fix conditions. They are not fixed, all they did was add a new condition, one which didn’t do anything special.

The very fact they made a april fools joke on Reddit about a expansion annoys me even more, as if they do not need an expansion. The fact is, they do and every day they refuse to announce one is 1-1000 lost players.

I’m pretty sure the Reddit thing was not an ANET-sponsored prank, or it would’ve been promoted on their website. Can anyone confirm?

Guhracie.3419:

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

I post on a policy of stating my opinion and while that might not be posative feedback, the points I make are made because I want this game to get better but right now, it’s dying. They do not listen to us, take conditions.

Afew months ago they said they would fix conditions. They are not fixed, all they did was add a new condition, one which didn’t do anything special.

The very fact they made a april fools joke on Reddit about a expansion annoys me even more, as if they do not need an expansion. The fact is, they do and every day they refuse to announce one is 1-1000 lost players.

I’m pretty sure the Reddit thing was not an ANET-sponsored prank, or it would’ve been promoted on their website. Can anyone confirm?

Even if it is not, can you deny my point as being false?

The fact still stands this game is now in a state of steady decline, soon enough it will have less players than RS. Which is dire strait when a website based MMO is beating software MMO. We need SOMETHING, anything even the Tengu release would do it for alot of people.

There is nothing that goes on here that doesn’t occur in kitten near every official forum of a “major” title. When you sell millions of copies, you are GOING to get wide swaths of people that are disappointed with it, and will make that displeasure known… usually very loudly.

But one thing that I WILL promise you is that 100% of the sentiment on these forums reaches developer ears. They DO know what upsets you. They DO know what annoys you. They even know your reasons for it. It’s very easy for players to equate not getting an answer with being ignored. They “ignore” you for:

1) There’s really nothing that can be said on the matter due to non-disclosure agreements. A lot of technical matters fall under this category (like exploits and hacks). No matter how much you demand an answer, it will not and can not be given.

2) They’ve already given their answer, and the only thing they would do is repeat that answer ad nauseam. There is literally no point in saying, “No. We will not change this” and repeat it for days on end each time a new handful of players voices that same complaint.

3) The interaction wouldn’t actually solve anything. As much as players think that it would help so much just to get a, “We’re still looking into [x], but we don’t have a suitable solution yet, and there’s no time frame that we have to address the issue” the simple fact is that it doesn’t help… at all. It doesn’t quell rage, it doesn’t soothe tempers, if anything it tends to make the anger worse (THEY’RE JUST THROWING OUT PR SPEAK! THEY AREN’T LISTENING! THEY DON’T CARE! RAAAAAAAGE! FUUUUUUURY!!!).

Cruril: For the way I play, I don’t feel the need for an expansion. I don’t have enough information to personally judge if the game is dying, and I share your frustration about how conditions don’t work.

And if the reddit prank was not from ANET, then your point that it’s annoying that they made a joke about an expansion is indeed false.

chemiclord.3978:

There is nothing that goes on here that doesn’t occur in kitten near every official forum of a “major” title. When you sell millions of copies, you are GOING to get wide swaths of people that are disappointed with it, and will make that displeasure known… usually very loudly.

But one thing that I WILL promise you is that 100% of the sentiment on these forums reaches developer ears. They DO know what upsets you. They DO know what annoys you. They even know your reasons for it. It’s very easy for players to equate not getting an answer with being ignored. They “ignore” you for:

1) There’s really nothing that can be said on the matter due to non-disclosure agreements. No matter how much you demand an answer, it will not and can not be given.

2) They’ve already given their answer, and the only thing they would do is repeat that answer ad nauseam. There is literally no point in saying, “No. We will not change this” and repeat it for days on end each time a new handful of players voices that same complaint.

3) The answer wouldn’t actually solve anything. As much as players think that it would help so much just to get a, “We’re still looking into [x], but we don’t have a suitable solution yet, and there’s no time frame that we have to address the issue” the simple fact is that it doesn’t help… at all. It doesn’t quell rage, it doesn’t soothe tempers, if anything it tends to make the anger worse (THEY’RE JUST THROWING OUT PR SPEAK! THEY AREN’T LISTENING! THEY DON’T CARE! RAAAAAAAGE! FUUUUUUURY!!!)

Players really don’t want dialogue… they want solutions, and they want them now, NOW, NOW!

Tengu have been requested since before GW2 was a thing. While they were in development they stopped? I am guessing because of the Slyvari replaced them which would explain their relunctance to release Tengu.

Again they have said they will make changes to conditions, yet conditions are still useless. The only use is in the wurms.

Do they listen? Sure.

Do they seem to act upon this feedback… No. Not in the slightest. In fact when they recieved huge negatitve feedback on Slyvari they closed the thread last week.

OP, first you have to tease out which posters are players with legitimate concerns and which ones are those with an agenda.

I read quite a few game forums and it’s pretty clear who that second group of forum posters are, in fact they often copy their rants word for word from one forum to another. They were the ones bashing on the game since before it launched and they are the ones here that post on each and every little bit of negative thread they can find, that will post negative stuff on positive threads, that are all over the ’this game needs mounts" and “no trinity sucks!” and “subscription games are teh betterz!” type threads.

They’ve been predicting death of the game since The Great Butter Crisis of 2012, that MoP would kill it, then when that didn’t happen FFXIV would kill it, then when that didn’t happen that ESO would kill it, etc.

The more successful the game is, the greater their distress grows, they double their efforts with the negative forum marketing posts. There is no appeasing them, they do not want to be satisfied or happy, they are not part of this community in any way, they serve a different master.

chemiclord.3978:

There is nothing that goes on here that doesn’t occur in kitten near every official forum of a “major” title. When you sell millions of copies, you are GOING to get wide swaths of people that are disappointed with it, and will make that displeasure known… usually very loudly.

But one thing that I WILL promise you is that 100% of the sentiment on these forums reaches developer ears. They DO know what upsets you. They DO know what annoys you. They even know your reasons for it. It’s very easy for players to equate not getting an answer with being ignored. They “ignore” you for:

1) There’s really nothing that can be said on the matter due to non-disclosure agreements. A lot of technical matters fall under this category (like exploits and hacks). No matter how much you demand an answer, it will not and can not be given.

2) They’ve already given their answer, and the only thing they would do is repeat that answer ad nauseam. There is literally no point in saying, “No. We will not change this” and repeat it for days on end each time a new handful of players voices that same complaint.

3) The interaction wouldn’t actually solve anything. As much as players think that it would help so much just to get a, “We’re still looking into [x], but we don’t have a suitable solution yet, and there’s no time frame that we have to address the issue” the simple fact is that it doesn’t help… at all. It doesn’t quell rage, it doesn’t soothe tempers, if anything it tends to make the anger worse (THEY’RE JUST THROWING OUT PR SPEAK! THEY AREN’T LISTENING! THEY DON’T CARE! RAAAAAAAGE! FUUUUUUURY!!!).

Its funny, personally I find posters that assume their opinions are that of the Developers —enough to speak for them, are as annoying as posters that deem their opinion as ’everyone".

Everyone should post for themselves. I don’t claim to be the voice of everyone, and no one should claim to post Dev opinions.. unless they have a red name. The “Good Feedback” sticky is the Anet position on feedback.

So, lots of good comments in here so far. Good to see that, at least with a small group, I’m not alone in my feelings. And I am aware that all major titles have forums like we do, and the same issues that we do.

I think the biggest thing I wanted to point out with this thread is that the forum wasn’t always like this. We’ve certainly had our ups and downs – lots of good feedback and fun threads, but also our share of not-so-good responses. As some have pointed out, this time around we just happen to have acquired a lot of “loud” displeased voices. Unfortunately, these seem to be overpowering not only threads with positive/critical feedback (and I’m saying critical, meaning constructive), but also a fair share of simply funny or entertaining threads. It presents an image of overwhelming negativity, and while I understand that those feelings are justified (we don’t need to get into that here – there are other threads for it), I don’t see why the forum needs to become one big downer because of it.

And like I said at the start, I’m not expecting this thread to change anything. People will still post the way they want. But who knows – one can dream, right?

Go get locked out of your dailies for a week and have ArenaNet tell you on Friday (three days after it was reported, btw) that they don’t feel like even looking into it until Monday, and then you can talk about being negative and harsh on the devs.

The toxicity is warranted.

Resk.6412:

So, lots of good comments in here so far. Good to see that, at least with a small group, I’m not alone in my feelings. And I am aware that all major titles have forums like we do, and the same issues that we do.

I think the biggest thing I wanted to point out with this thread is that the forum wasn’t always like this. We’ve certainly had our ups and downs – lots of good feedback and fun threads, but also our share of not-so-good responses. As some have pointed out, this time around we just happen to have acquired a lot of “loud” displeased voices. Unfortunately, these seem to be overpowering not only threads with positive/critical feedback (and I’m saying critical, meaning constructive), but also a fair share of simply funny or entertaining threads. It presents an image of overwhelming negativity, and while I understand that those feelings are justified (we don’t need to get into that here – there are other threads for it), I don’t see why the forum needs to become one big downer because of it.

And like I said at the start, I’m not expecting this thread to change anything. People will still post the way they want. But who knows – one can dream, right?

Let me re-state my previous statement.

Speaking through a flower is not warrented nor desired when the person(s) I am speaking to have in the past made false claims and promises. They do not have my respect therefore, I am neither required or obligated to help them with ‘constructive’ feedback because when the person(s) refuse to deal with issues that in the past have exsisted and today still exsist.

For example, Conditions. Around 6 months ago they claimed they would fix the conditions in a upcoming patch within the next 2-3 months. It’s now been twice that length of time and conditions remain useless.

If you do not understand what I am saying then let me put it simply:

If they do not listen, what is the point in me going through the effort of giving constructive feedback, if they do not go through the effort to come here and simply state: “Hey guys thanks for the feedback, we are working on the issue now!”

All people need is confirmation, and the community will be what you want to be. A bunch of people who don’t care about the game speaking through flowers.

anzenketh.3759:

Phantom.8130:

How many of them have screenshots posted on their official forums of a developer taking advantage of those bugs, where that issue still isn’t resolved 6 months later?

My point is it will take as long as it takes. Rather then assume neglect assume it is a difficult problem to solve that they honestly do not have a best solution to fix it right now without the possibility of it causing more problems.

If you know a lot about the issue and have a idea on how to fix it try emailing the exploits at arena.net email address with your suggestion. Perhaps you thought of something that they have not.

I went back and found the exact situation I was talking about. I was wrong. It was 9 months ago. Here’s the thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/ANET-Fix-Your-Towers/first

Karizee.8076:

OP, first you have to tease out which posters are players with legitimate concerns and which ones are those with an agenda.

I read quite a few game forums and it’s pretty clear who that second group of forum posters are, in fact they often copy their rants word for word from one forum to another. They were the ones bashing on the game since before it launched and they are the ones here that post on each and every little bit of negative thread they can find, that will post negative stuff on positive threads, that are all over the ’this game needs mounts" and “no trinity sucks!” and “subscription games are teh betterz!” type threads.

They’ve been predicting death of the game since The Great Butter Crisis of 2012, that MoP would kill it, then when that didn’t happen FFXIV would kill it, then when that didn’t happen that ESO would kill it, etc.

The more successful the game is, the greater their distress grows, they double their efforts with the negative forum marketing posts. There is no appeasing them, they do not want to be satisfied or happy, they are not part of this community in any way, they serve a different master.

And right in there with your illuminati-ish complainers with an agenda we always have the Loyal Order of Defenders who will go to the same toxic extremes defending whatever the current status quo is, and using the same hackneyed statements they have used in every other forum. “This isnt _” “Forums are a vocal minority” “go back to _________” etc, as well as being, generally, the masters of ad-hominem.

Generally, when there is an extreme, there is also a polar opposite.. and neither are good.

I have always tried to make my feedback constructively, and I feel giving critique is always better than blindly loving everything companies put out (i.e. “if you don’t like it, stop playing” or the “Best update ever” – syndrome). All the feedback topics opened by ANet themselves are full of good feedback and very solid concerns and if the OP simply wishes to dismiss it as baseless complaining, it’s your loss.

Many people are very honestly worried about the direction of the game with the latest changes and want to voice it – surely it’s better that way than nobody caring at all? What you call “overwhelming negativity”, I call simply concern for the game and for the direction it’s moving.

Don’t belittle peoples’ passion, even if you don’t agree with them.

There are so many people complaining because the patch changed a lot things horribly. Those are the root problems that are causing all the negativities here, not the players.

Also there are forum moderators and liaisons who will handle and refrain a community from going extreme. It’s far from your duty to stop all the bad mouthing here and even further from accusing and demeaning all the unhappy people people as negative.

If you cannot be a bridge between the devs and players to address the problems with the megaservers, stop thinking of yourself so righteous and complaining about people complaining. The real truth about this thread is that you started yet another topic grieving people on their wounds.

Phantom.8130:

This is the result of those sort of things. To lay this on the community is to completely ignore what has actually been happening over the past year and a half. This is large scale customer dissatisfaction, with ample reason for it. This one is on Anet, and Anet alone. If they hadn’t completely mismanaged what was the most promising MMO on the market, none of this would be happening. Instead, they caved, tried to turn it into yet another WoW-clone, and neglected their paying customers to do so. If people are angry with Anet, it’s because Anet actually deserves it. No other company on the planet would expect to behave this way and still be in business, let alone continue to neglect and look down upon their customer base.

Truth be told, this community is owed an apology from Anet, at the very least.

First, I want to second what I quoted.

Second, I would like to point out that ANet has done nothing to help to create a good forum community. Pretty much anything that is not directly GW2 is crushed.

The CoH forums had extra sections, and I’ve come to realize that those did a LOT to improve both the forum and server communities. We had a sub forum for each server, where events were organized and even some general silliness took place. We had a RP forum, and one for “Culture” where things like movies, books, and TV shows could be discussed. Yes, there were rules (No religion, no politics, no abuse, no other games, ect…), and yes the mods sometimes needed to enforce them. But these extra areas helped forum posters to become a forum community. Server communities grew stronger, and in general the forums were a nicer place to visit.

Until ANet takes steps to help create an actual community here, I don’t think it’ll ever get better here.

Support and Understanding:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Community-Engagement/first#post3884148

However:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Community-Engagement/first#post3884214

Been feeling alienated for 18 months. Trying to stay with the game for my guild.

Being told over and over by the developers that it is their game and they can do anything they want with it (without listening to their customers explaining their experience) ensures that I will feel that this game definitely is not mine. Statements like that indicate they are not interested in my feedback, nor in generating my support or loyalty. Especially given the following:

Feedback in the precise format the devs require in an inflexible manner does not seem to make a difference. (see: multiple deleted/ignored 15, 20, 25+ page threads/CDI threads, etcetera).

Feedback through other formal channels (invited by the devs) does not seem to make a difference.

Lack of meaningful permanent additional content (the game will be 2 years old this August) in spite of their insistence on calling the game an MMO and then ignoring all customer feedback concerning removal of content.

And in spite of customer feedback to the contrary, what appears to be happening with the game is: a constant churn of already existing content, creating the impression that the game is unstable, the developers appear to be flailing, and that there is no appreciable sign of any vision for the future of the game In other words: in spite of customer feedback, the constant changes (e.g.“refinement” of existing details at a technical level) often have nothing to do with enhancing the customer experience and sometimes actually detract.

Surprises and unpredictability on the part of the developer, coupled with silence and/or mis-setting of expectations do not engender trust.

I realize that individually there are fine folks working at ANet. collectively, as a whole, their company culture and the way it is expressed through lack of meaningful communication, mis-setting expectations, rigid adherence to process and form, and the way the game is being handled, has managed to generate lack of goodwill, lack of trust and an overall distaste (at a business level) for the company, which has washed over into their product.

Community requires respect and courtesy from all parties. ANet has as much (if not more responsibility) here as the customers. That is a business basic. And it’s sadly missing here.

People who complain will come here and do it and people who enjoy the game will do that instead of wasting their time here. Wether you or him is the one complaining is nothing but a cycle because it is an MMO and while an update may disappoint you, it may amaze others.

It is just an illusion that if Anet make better actions, the forum will look better…as it is an MMO community, there will ALWAYS be people kittened about updates and there will always be those who hate on the game wether the updates are good and bad cause you know what: if Anet doesn’t listen to me then they are trash and if they do listen…o wait, they are too late doing so, they should have done it since launch, they are still trash, GW2 is dead, gg.

nGumball.1283:

People who complain will come here and do it and people who enjoy the game will do that instead of wasting their time here. Wether you or him is the one complaining is nothing but a cycle because it is an MMO and while an update may disappoint you, it may amaze others.

It is just an illusion that if Anet make better actions, the forum will look better…as it is an MMO community, there will ALWAYS be people kittened about updates and there will always be those who hate on the game wether the updates are good and bad cause you know what: if Anet doesn’t listen to me then they are trash and if they do listen…o wait, they are too late doing so, they should have done it since launch, they are still trash, GW2 is dead, gg.

Unfortunately, it seems they have taken your flawed theory as fact. No matter how many are negatively impacted by an update or change, no matter the reason, feedback or example.. it is a “cycle” that can just be ignored till it goes away.

Or worse, they react with a “fix” that has nothing to do with the posted issue and actually makes a problem worse. The language filter as a ‘fix" for their megaserver failing badly for EU is a prime example. Fixes like this show they do not understand, at all, the issue players are trying to communicate and apparently aren’t even trying to.

“Ermagawd the game is dead” is a cyclical mmo post and common. There are, however, massive, legitimate complaints from this update concerning RP, Guild Missions, Language, Trait acquisition level vs level required to unlock, Gem Store item integrity post purchase, and others. To dismiss them all as a “cycle” without merit would be disastrous on a grand scale.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

nGumball.1283:

People who complain will come here and do it and people who enjoy the game will do that instead of wasting their time here. Wether you or him is the one complaining is nothing but a cycle because it is an MMO and while an update may disappoint you, it may amaze others.

It is just an illusion that if Anet make better actions, the forum will look better…as it is an MMO community, there will ALWAYS be people kittened about updates and there will always be those who hate on the game wether the updates are good and bad cause you know what: if Anet doesn’t listen to me then they are trash and if they do listen…o wait, they are too late doing so, they should have done it since launch, they are still trash, GW2 is dead, gg.

Unfortunately, it seems they have taken your flawed theory as fact. No matter how many are negatively impacted by an update or change, no matter the reason, feedback or example.. it is a “cycle” that can just be ignored till it goes away.

Or worse, they react with a “fix” that has nothing to do with the posted issue and actually makes a problem worse. The language filter as a ‘fix" for their megaserver failing badly for EU is a prime example. Fixes like this show they do not understand, at all, the issue players are trying to communicate and apparently aren’t even trying to.

“Ermagawd the game is dead” is a cyclical mmo post and common. There are, however, massive, legitimate complaints from this update concerning RP, Guild Missions, Language, Trait acquisition level vs level required to unlock, Gem Store item integrity post purchase, and others. To dismiss them all as a “cycle” without merit would be disastrous on a grand scale.

It is not really as flawed as you may believe it is becasue the theory say at the end of the day that whatever the company does and whatever the solution is the forums will always look the same and there will always be people complaining, I suppose many people have already realized this.

Usually every issue have alot of solutions however most solutions have down-sides and those down-sides differ based on who is rating them, therefore whatever they do, they down-side are gonna be the focus of complaints by this or that group of players.

I think the trait change is just fine and the players are just complaining about it because it make leveling alts harder (which is indeed the case, I won’t buy how many new players complain about it when I check the accs posting as new players here, in-game and I see they +10k AP). Regarding language, megaserver, gemstore and well, many other stuff, it is an MMO and it is bound to be flawed…well, time will only tell how they will react but don’t await the forum attitude to ever change whatever they do.

I see this completely different from the OP. I’m actually surprised that people can still be bothered to provide any feedback here, considering how little of it is ever acted on.

I feel that the community has been disappointed too many times and has changed as a result.

There are numerous issues with the game right now – the problem is that a good part of them have been pointed out on the forums for a long time and have been ignored.

There are bugs in the game that have been here since launch and nobody has bothered giving them a fix yet.

There’s a lot of focus one " new content " or " the next best thing " but for very long we’ve missed a lot of quality of life things that should have been in the game since day one.

Why are people critical of Anet? Because a lot of their own good ideas that they implemented in GW1 – a game that they themselves made – weren’t added in GW2. It’s like they started from scratch trying to reinvent the wheel.

There were a lot of things promised when this game was announced. There were a lot of things that could have been done right ( Legendary crafting and the general handling of legendary weapons come to mind) but sadly for whatever reason they decided to just do it wrong.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I, too, believe the MegaServer implementation just needs time to adjust its algorithms. What comes to mind is ‘teaching’ voice recognition software your vocal nuances. It doesn’t happen within minutes. It takes time.

Sorry, but I seriously doubt any form of ‘teaching’ will help guilds do their Guild Missions anymore. Guild Missions are a nightmare with their Megaserver system, so are Temples in Orr, Tequatl and the Great Jungle Wurm. No amount of tweaking of the Megaserver will ever solve these, more drastic change is needed.

What’s important here is that many people posted concerns over the Megaserver system and how it would affect negatively the encounters I posted above. We got absolutely no dev response on the matter and now we see the results.

The Wardrobe was as expected and worked without any major issues, except for those who thought it would be something different, while there was no evidence to back it up. However, I guess Anet support team is hard at work refunding Town Clothing, loads of people are requesting a refund, me included, that was ALSO mentioned numerous times on the threads before the Feature Patch and was ignored again.

The new boss schedule is just silly, when they first released their timers, there were loads of concerns about it, now we see they were all valid and Anet once again did nothing to adress them.

I like the fact that they nerfed the champion trains (good ridance) or that they made all World Bosses slightly harder (finally) but the schedule is plain wrong.

The new way to acquire traits is awesome, there were much fewer concerns over this, but alas Anet did it again. 100% map completion of Frostgorge Sound to get an ADEPT trait? Really? Who picked the tasks needed to get the traits anyway, whoever it was, he needs to reevaluate the difficulty of getting those traits and make it appropriate for the level you acquire those slots.

So you see, the community might be a disappointment, lots of QQ going on, but Anet has been warned about every single bit of QQ we see now, and simply ignored it.

Resk.6412:

Have there been problems this week? Certainly. Could things have been rolled out differently? Probably. But in no way does that excuse how this community has reacted. We dare say the Anet team can’t have a bloody holiday weekend to themselves? Of course they can! Who are you to say they don’t deserve one? (And there are threads where this exact statement is happening).

Just an Example:
Whenever the companies I have worked with released a major software update that could have a negative impact on customers, the time of the roll out was carefully planned and chosen, because at least in the first week after the update no vacations would be allowed and everyone has to be on “stand by”. Because, when something “bad” after the update happened, every person/ressource has to available to help to fix the errors as fast as possible and to inform the customers.

So, an update, just a few days before Easter would never have happend because no one wants to cancel the easter holidays and because everyone deserves their holidays.

So some people are thinking, why are things not rolled out differently? A-Net is not a “start up company” and does have a long experience with this 24/7 “game-service”.

Greetings.

And how do you intend to fix it? A thread with no solutions is a useless one.

I believe there are some things here:
1st, ArenaNet should really be aware of the foreseeable problems that come with the changes they made on this patch, because we found ourselfs into issues that block our progression or gameplay into several things that are actually minor things that could have been avoided, such minor things cause major issues sadly.

The 2nd is that, the systems they introduced to have potential, but the odd thing is this minor things can cause Players / Guilds to have a complete nightmare to achieve after the 15th, what they easily did before it, we can’t be surprised people are complaining when we on certain “features” only lost and won nothing than new problems to deal with.
Let’s take the Guild Missions as one example:
- We lost capability of put our whole Guild (that is large enouh) into the same map, the system just takes everybody apart just like Overflows and if there are Meta-Events running on the map, oh dear, you just will find yourself into “Join In” button spam due full messages, some of our members were not capable to finish Challenge because they simply could not get in!
- Guild Missions as we learned yesterday the worse way, with the Mega Servers when it’s about starting them you can likely face a brick wall because other guild already started the mission, before we could guest in another server and start it there as alternative, now we just enter the same MegaServer waiting the mission to fail.

When there is this tsunami of feedback on the community and everything is merged into one MASSIVE Thread that seems to be simply ignored, where questions are never replied…. Rage is just a secondary effect.

maddoctor.2738:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I, too, believe the MegaServer implementation just needs time to adjust its algorithms. What comes to mind is ‘teaching’ voice recognition software your vocal nuances. It doesn’t happen within minutes. It takes time.

So you see, the community might be a disappointment, lots of QQ going on, but Anet has been warned about every single bit of QQ we see now, and simply ignored it.

To even do you one better, Anet was warned about potential problems way back in beta (PvP balance issues, WvW population issues, PvP game mode concerns). The response the players got was “If you guys only have negative things to say, then I’m leaving the chat channel”. And lo and behold, the dev did.

First comes the kindness :
It’s a new game, it’s totally normal if there are tons of bugs
Let’s wait and see

Then comes the “good feedback” :
I think this and that might solve this problem…
Let’s open a CDI to discuss about it

If nothing is done, then comes the rage…

Resk.6412:

So, I’ve considered posting this for a couple days now. I tend to lurk rather than posting. I realize this will likely fall on deaf ears, but after this weekend, I feel like it really needs to be said.

The attitude on the forums, and the response from the community over the past week (and even before that) is appalling. Every new thread is created to somehow belittle or bash the Anet dev team, or to negatively criticize every aspect of the game (whether part of the new update or not). And it isn’t just in General – it’s happening in PvP, in WvW, in the Profession forums, all of them. Is this criticism valid? Certainly – there are threads created for the exact purpose of collecting that information (and no, we don’t need to keep making 9 different threads on the same topic). But the tone of that criticism has reached an all-time low, and it’s turned the forum into a toxic mess. We’re no longer in the territory of constructive, positive discussion that a forum like this is here to encourage.

The general consensus of the community appears to be one where we expect the dev team to be chained to their desks 24/7, fixing every mistake and catering to every whim of any player who feels like our gameplay has somehow been diminished. I mean, just look around – you’ll find it in almost every new thread that’s been created this week. How does this kind of feedback – the whining, the complaining, the bashing, the lack of patience, the anger – actually help the game or promote any kind of meaningful discussion? Everyone seems to be shocked at the lack of responses from the dev team about issues – is it really any wonder why? If I were them, I wouldn’t respond to anything either, considering the community won’t be happy with whatever they have to say (or even if its what they want to hear).

Have there been problems this week? Certainly. Could things have been rolled out differently? Probably. But in no way does that excuse how this community has reacted. We dare say the Anet team can’t have a bloody holiday weekend to themselves? Of course they can! Who are you to say they don’t deserve one? (And there are threads where this exact statement is happening).

Lets use the Megaserver as an example. For those complaining about the megaservers, have you even considered that releasing this update this week, in this way, is intended? The Megaserver system is a BIG deal. And the devs have said repeatedly that its an ongoing system. I mean, the update isn’t even a week old! How do you expect the dev team to make any meaningful changes to the system to improve things, when they don’t even have enough data yet to determine what those changes should be? It’s called patience, and this community could use a huge dose of it.

Altogether, I know this thread isn’t going to deter the community’s reaction to the new content. I know it’s not going to correct anything. But I’m hoping that, if you support the dev team, their hard work, and their efforts to give us something great to play, you’ll post in here and let them know.

I love the new updates, and I know that I for one can’t wait to see what’s coming for us next

Sorry OP.

CLEARLY IT’S OUR FAULT for not liking the game, our bad.

When we have trouble or post about the troubles implemented because of patch it clearly toxic to have an opinion.

I completely understand the resentment some people feel towards ANet. As some others here have touched on, many core aspects of the game had/have felt long-term neglect, and there have been quite a few failed promises made. Some bugs and issues have persisted since launch.

The real problem is that some people can be snarky, rude, and sometimes just blatantly have no clue what they’re talking about. Even when venting frustrations, a little civility goes a long way.

Max Lexandre.6279:

I believe there are some things here:
1st, ArenaNet should really be aware of the foreseeable problems that come with the changes they made on this patch, because we found ourselfs into issues that block our progression or gameplay into several things that are actually minor things that could have been avoided, such minor things cause major issues sadly.

The 2nd is that, the systems they introduced to have potential, but the odd thing is this minor things can cause Players / Guilds to have a complete nightmare to achieve after the 15th, what they easily did before it, we can’t be surprised people are complaining when we on certain “features” only lost and won nothing than new problems to deal with.
Let’s take the Guild Missions as one example:
- We lost capability of put our whole Guild (that is large enouh) into the same map, the system just takes everybody apart just like Overflows and if there are Meta-Events running on the map, oh dear, you just will find yourself into “Join In” button spam due full messages, some of our members were not capable to finish Challenge because they simply could not get in!
- Guild Missions as we learned yesterday the worse way, with the Mega Servers when it’s about starting them you can likely face a brick wall because other guild already started the mission, before we could guest in another server and start it there as alternative, now we just enter the same MegaServer waiting the mission to fail.

When there is this tsunami of feedback on the community and everything is merged into one MASSIVE Thread that seems to be simply ignored, where questions are never replied…. Rage is just a secondary effect.

When you grow up and become a fine man/woman you can open a gaming company and pay half of your team to check the forums everyday and answer every single person. When that happens please inform me so I can give your game a try and if doesn’t suit me I will insult you, all the people who work for you and call you trash.

Zok.4956:

Resk.6412:

Have there been problems this week? Certainly. Could things have been rolled out differently? Probably. But in no way does that excuse how this community has reacted. We dare say the Anet team can’t have a bloody holiday weekend to themselves? Of course they can! Who are you to say they don’t deserve one? (And there are threads where this exact statement is happening).

Just an Example:
Whenever the companies I have worked with released a major software update that could have a negative impact on customers, the time of the roll out was carefully planned and chosen, because at least in the first week after the update no vacations would be allowed and everyone has to be on “stand by”. Because, when something “bad” after the update happened, every person/ressource has to available to help to fix the errors as fast as possible and to inform the customers.

So, an update, just a few days before Easter would never have happend because no one wants to cancel the easter holidays and because everyone deserves their holidays.

So some people are thinking, why are things not rolled out differently? A-Net is not a “start up company” and does have a long experience with this 24/7 “game-service”.

Greetings.

^^^ This.

I think that the ideas behind many of the elements of this patch have a lot of merit. I think that, given time, some of those that are negatively impacting players to the degree that inspires the recent outcry on the forums will be resolved.

But changes of this scope, with this capacity for damaging the customer/player experience should be more carefully timed and should be accompanied by significant (overwhelming really) developer presence on the forums and in game.

Perhaps there would be less ‘whining’, as some people call it, if there was better communication from ArenaNet. Nearly a week after the update, I’ve yet to see any reply in some of the feedback topics (the one regarding wardrobe, town clothes, etc. to be specific). I didn’t follow the other topics nearly as much, so I could be wrong about them (though I seriously doubt it).

No one’s asking for miracles, but if you don’t bother even with a ’We’re looking into this./We are working on a solution to this.’, what can we expect?

Ashen.2907:

But changes of this scope, with this capacity for damaging the customer/player experience should be more carefully timed and should be accompanied by significant (overwhelming really) developer presence on the forums and in game.

Like what happened when the game was released and the devs spent sleepless nights over their computers.

I think it was bad timing when they released this update, with a holiday so close. They did something similar with last Wintersday, releasing their patch with a huge exploit (snowflakes) that took them until after the vaccation to “fix” (with massive bans)

Updates should have an appropriate time after they go live for developers to check for any issues and/or bugs that QA missed or was impossible to reproduce back in QA because of how different the live version is compared to their production environment. For example there are by far more people playing on the live servers, so the strain on the Megaserver is way higher.

There are a lot of good points being made here. I think the truth is somewhere between two extremes, honestly.

I personally dislike when criticisms cross over into personally insulting the devs. I cringe a little when I see topics that say “disgusting changes” and whatnot. I feel a little bad criticizing something I know someone has worked on and put effort into, even if it truly frustrates me, and I’m well aware of the politics involved behind any company. Sometimes decisions are made to “cut your losses” for circumstances beyond your control. Therefore personally I always try to give ideas, constructive criticism, and reasons.

That being said, I don’t think it’s right, either, to judge people who have strong opinions about the game just because they have strong opinions about the game. Yes, it’s a game. Yes, it’s a hobby. But how is it any different than being a sports fan? People need things to care about, and just because they care about changes to a game they are playing, doesn’t mean they don’t also have “serious, meaningful” things to care about. As others have said, ArenaNet should be glad to see people care about their game. The biggest problem is when people actually stop bothering to give feedback.

I will say that I am one of the folks who does not post often when I’m happy. I’m sure ANet knows when I’m playing and when I am buying gems. No need to post in here to say that I’m having a good time. I only have limited time after all. I was happily playing throughout all the living story content, while others were complaining. I was happily playing when more dailies were added, when sPvP dailies were added, etc. If I wasn’t on here giving constructive feedback, it is because I liked the game and the changes that were introduced.

I WOULD like to see some honest dev responses, though. I think it’s totally fine for a company to say “we’ve changed direction” or “oops, we thought you would like this change – we will look into it.” You don’t have to promise anything specific, but acknowledging that people are unhappy with some of the changes would really be appreciated at this point. I have been coming on the forums every day hoping to see that some of the major concerns (or even the minor, easy ones! ) would be addressed and I’m starting to give up hope.

I mean really — How hard would it be for someone to acknowledge officially whether the personality feature was removed on purpose? Or whether a wardrobe/bank NPC is planned to be added to the sPvP area? These are easy wins to show you are listening!!!

I really really like this game. I am incredibly grateful for all of the work that has been done since launch. But I am sincerely worried that the silence towards any serious posts about this patch (communities being split, world permanence, major play styles and schedules being destroyed, etc.) aren’t even being met with a “we are still balancing things, try a little bit longer and tell us what you think” type of comment. Please tell us you care about what we think, even if you can’t address all of our concerns. :/

maddoctor.2738:

Ashen.2907:

But changes of this scope, with this capacity for damaging the customer/player experience should be more carefully timed and should be accompanied by significant (overwhelming really) developer presence on the forums and in game.

Like what happened when the game was released and the devs spent sleepless nights over their computers.

I think it was bad timing when they released this update, with a holiday so close. They did something similar with last Wintersday, releasing their patch with a huge exploit (snowflakes) that took them until after the vaccation to “fix” (with massive bans)

Updates should have an appropriate time after they go live for developers to check for any issues and/or bugs that QA missed or was impossible to reproduce back in QA because of how different the live version is compared to their production environment. For example there are by far more people playing on the live servers, so the strain on the Megaserver is way higher.

Precisely.

With changes of this scope it is not a matter of IF there will be problems that make it to live but rather WHEN problems make it to live. Its expected (or should be). So, if the developers want buy in from the player base on the new shiny, they need to be there in the post launch window to provide assurance that the players’ concerns are important and to provide the perception of a sense of urgency regarding the players’ concerns.

I am not suggesting that developers not get a holiday off (so a release of this scope just before a holiday is not necessarily a great idea).

I am not suggesting that the developers need to respond to every individual player.

I am suggesting that if you, as a service/product provider, are going to do something that you KNOW is going to adversely affect your customers you should be a bit more proactive, or even more quickly reactive, in speaking to those customers’ concerns.

If Anet, right from the start, give indications that they actually listens to the community, they would be respected and none of this would have happened.

Ascended gear (nearly all GW1 players hate) is the prime example. Dhuumfire (nearly all necromancers hate, before it was released) is another.

I do agree that the community is now highly toxic. There are generally two types:

1) Anet bashers.
2) Anet die hard fans.

The first type would of course bash Anet none stop, even when it isn’t fair. The second type would defend Anet’s action no matter how little sense they made.

What we need are more people in the middle somewhere.

Palador.2170:

The CoH forums had extra sections, and I’ve come to realize that those did a LOT to improve both the forum and server communities. We had a sub forum for each server, where events were organized and even some general silliness took place. We had a RP forum, and one for “Culture” where things like movies, books, and TV shows could be discussed. Yes, there were rules (No religion, no politics, no abuse, no other games, ect…), and yes the mods sometimes needed to enforce them. But these extra areas helped forum posters to become a forum community. Server communities grew stronger, and in general the forums were a nicer place to visit.

Until ANet takes steps to help create an actual community here, I don’t think it’ll ever get better here.

I get what you’re saying, and having boards like that would go a longer way towards building an actual community. Also remember, though, that CoH was an older and much smaller game, especially towards the end. Don’t discount the effect of being initially subscription based did on weeding out the Forum PvPers, either. There were a good few thousand plus of us at Atlas Park at the end, multiply that by at least ten – and I’m fairly certain I’m underestimating the factor – and tack on all the ‘not playing but still has B2P access’ and, well, here we are.

There’s no community here, the forums and game haven’t quite matured to that point yet. We’re still at ‘open-mic complaint hotline at Cowboys Stadium.’

I couldn’t agree more with the original post. I do believe I’ve found a forumer worth reading posts from. Too bad you don’t post too often!

By the way, check my sig. It’s totally true.

This thread is a dissapointment

MightyMicah.7451:

I couldn’t agree more with the original post. I do believe I’ve found a forumer worth reading posts from. Too bad you don’t post too often!

By the way, check my sig. It’s totally true.

You can create a black character if you want (every possible race) but I’m afraid it won’t effect your DPS capabilities.

nGumball.1283:

When you grow up and become a fine man/woman you can open a gaming company and pay half of your team to check the forums everyday and answer every single person. When that happens please inform me so I can give your game a try and if doesn’t suit me I will insult you, all the people who work for you and call you trash.

I am not asking that, the massive threads around the forum to “collect feedback”, but we get nothing else from ANet than silence, it’s not 1 person asking, it’s many and several times on such threads, they never reply the questions, they end up being 1 more post there doing nothing.

If they are collecting and discussing the feedback they are getting, on the community side we get silence, and that silence is certainly causing people around this community to feel ignored, that the problems at not being addressed and the threads just being merged/blocked. ANet must get community aware “We know there is being problems / issues / annoyances, with some of the new changes we made on patch and we are working on them.”

That would be enough to calm down the community, just signal us that our feedback is being heard and that it’s causing things to happen development side.

Traveller.7496:

MightyMicah.7451:

I couldn’t agree more with the original post. I do believe I’ve found a forumer worth reading posts from. Too bad you don’t post too often!

By the way, check my sig. It’s totally true.

You can create a black character if you want (every possible race) but I’m afraid it won’t effect your DPS capabilities.

Ahaha not that part xD

Chicken and Egg

It’s a two way street.

Anyone that happens to also play Marvel Heroes (no, it’s not a replacement for this game, just a different game, I play both, I know, the horror) and frequents the forums know what I’m talking about.

And that’s about all there is to say about that.

Game forums are where the malcontents hang out. Take everything you read here with a grain of salt and don’t let it affect your game or your enjoyment.

Phantom.8130:

Pandaman.4758:

Phantom.8130:

No other company on the planet would expect to behave this way and still be in business, let alone continue to neglect and look down upon their customer base.

Actually, the grass isn’t greener on the other side, much of your complaints can be applied to most other gaming companies these days. Personally I can say that my experience with Anet’s communication is still leagues above Bioware/EA and Cryptic/Perfect World’s.

Actually, Bioware was pretty good about things in NWN. EA, however, shouldn’t ever be allowed to even touch anything video game related. All they’ve shown that they’re able to do is destroy an IP.

That being said, however, imagine id McDonalds was ignoring thousands of complaints of food poisoning from their customers. Or if Ford was ignoring thousands of complaints about steering wheels falling off. And that those companies exhibited a pattern of ignoring customer complaints for a year and a half. Burger King and Chevy would be delighted.

Please check your sense of moral equivalency. It seems to need adjustment.

As someone who facepalms on a regular basis (ANets patch cycle), I’ve managed to work past the rage I often felt when the devs would push out some nonsensical change to something that didn’t need changing while completely ignoring things that did need changing.

I had very similar feelings about the development of MechWarrior Online (MWO). You see, I’m a huge fan of Battletech. Not just the games, but the novels, the fiction, the sourcebooks, etc. I love it and its my favorite Intellectual Property thats out there. MWO is a game which essentially promotes itself as capturing the feel of the IP and so people who are familiar with Battletech have a certain set of expectations when they hear such promotion. For a while (1+ year) I often felt frustrated and perplexed (if not outright angry) at changes and additions the developers (PGI) would add to the game. For myself, and my level of battletech fandom, there were way more things being added that I disliked than there were things I liked. But I held on to my expectations and continued to be disappointed, frustrated, and angry. And I posted on the forums to express why I felt the way I did. Nothing ever got better, since PGI behaves the same way ANet does: Ignore anything that doesn’t bathe them in praise or hype.

Then one day it occured to me: My problem isn’t with the game, its with the devs. And there’s nothing I can do about it. My problem is that I kept looking at the game for what it could have been, and what I wanted, but not what it was. Once I accepted the game for what it was and that it would never meet my hopes and expectations, a lot of my anger just dissolved rather quickly.

The upside? I’m no longer frustrated or angry over that game. I contribute a lot less anger to their forums and I feel much better.
The downside? I no longer care about the game either. Why should I? Caring about the game isn’t going to make it better for me or make it more enjoyable, so why waste the energy and the effort?

TL;DR: People can stop being angry about GW2, OP, but it probably means they’ll stop caring entirely and I don’t think GW2 can afford that.