Guild Wars 2

Instead of merging BLTC and Crafting into General, would it be possible to merge `BLTC` into `Living World` and `Crafting` into `Players Helping Players`.

Crafting is described as “Find crafting help, suggestions and discussion” which is basically players helping players on a specific topic. It would also keep useful threads from vanishing in a vast moving forum.

`Living World` could change into a forum that discusses updates in general, rather than just discussing a specific type of update. e.g. Living World, Feature Packs and BLTC.

e.g.

Living World Discussion > Tyria lives! Discuss living world content here.
… becomes …
Regular Updates Discussion > Tyria lives! Discuss living world, feature packs and bltc.

Also, the Players Helping Players forum needs a more concise description as the current one is shortened by the forum software.

The big useful economy thread could go to CDI.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Lynne.8416:

I wouldn’t have any issue with the “reorgansation” if the Search feature actually worked. Are you going to fix the Search feature? It’s one of the reasons why there are multiple threads created about the same exact topic over and over again.
If I only want to search about Dungeons, I’m certainly not going to want to look through page after page of data.

Lynne, I would give just about anything to get that Search feature working. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for us to do. Believe me, I dislike that we’re missing “search” as much as you do!

…

This should be a great help to you or any of the others who have trouble with the search feature:

http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/players/Forum-s-search-feature-doesn-t-work-A-tip

Can we please have real smilies to select when posting comments? I only know the text equivalent for a few of them.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’re listening!

See this

Or for those of you who are link impared:

Edited:

• Adding Fractals & Dungeons
• Moving Players Helping Players to Game Discussion

;)

Most of the forum reorgnizations make sense. But BLTC really, really should not be moved to General Discussion. There’s a big gap between people who have fun following the economy and people who don’t. Moving BLTC to General Discussion is like forcing PvP players into PvE to get traits – people wind up needing to deal with things they don’t want in their entertainment, and everyone becomes unhappy. Economy threads will drown in ‘More mounts!’!, ‘Flippers are evilz’ and generally be unproductive. Non-economy threads will have increased competition for space and attention. The whole thing will be a mess.

A merge between BLTC and crafting seems logical. People who craft often follow the economy, even just to manage ingredient costs. Even those just picking a craft ask which is most profitable. But lumping threads examining the cost/benefit of various karma uses with https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end seems like simply mashing up forums based on numbers without thinking about how it will impact players.

Kaz.5430:

Instead of merging BLTC and Crafting into General, would it be possible to merge `BLTC` into `Living World` and `Crafting` into `Players Helping Players`.

Merge crafting and BLTC into one unique forum is also a good idea in my eyes, since
a lot of the economy in GW2 is based basically on crafting mats.

However .. please don’t merge BLTC with general.

Merging the BLTC Forum with General Discussions would never have happened with Evon Gnashblade on the Council.

Please merge it with crafting and keep it seperate.

Veydar.5017:

The problem: developers spend too much time scrolling through forums and they’re never sure where to put the information.

The solution: merge the forums – with no functioning search box – so developers can now scroll through a mess of threads that are updating and moving by the minute.

Seems legit.

THIS – im Dyslexic, it has its down sides but one of the good things is that we tend to be really good at seeing things as a holistic whole and seeing patterns – I cant decide if Gaile and co are genuinally unable to see how completely unworkable this is – or they are deliberately making it unworkable – you know how you find information quickly??

By having clearly defined areas for each type of information, that the ‘reason’ given is ‘to make it easier to find things’ is actually beyond my comprehension – how do you find all the new BLT threads if the front page changes every few minutes and you have to wade through pages and pages HOPING that they have managed to write a clearly signposted thread title?

You have NO SEARCH FUNCTION

Utter insanity

One might say this is Megaserver — forum style!

Tinkering with the forums without bothering to upgrade to more useful and user-friendly forum software first is, at this point, so typically anet.

Constructive suggestion, already suggested constructively, but here we go again: get better forum software first, then tinker with it. Otherwise, you’re just wasting time and effort for naught.

Another area that seems it will just waste time of those trying to help….Devs and posters alike…is merging Mac and PC Tech Support (in with Account Issues). ArenaNet not too long ago appointed a Dev specifically to address Mac issues, now that person has to wade through PC Tech Support and Account Issues to find the relevant posts? Seems counter-productive.

There must be some plan we are not privy to. Otherwise, it seems to make little sense.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Katz.5143:

I too would like to ask that the BLTC forum be kept in some form. I read it more than any other.

Yes, I think it’s a popular forum.

Question: Where will we discuss crafting? Not that it gets much activity or discussion but just in case something comes to mind.

Crafting = General Discussion/Guild Wars 2 Discussion. Unless you’d have a different suggestion?

No other suggestion. I don’t think crafting was a very active forum.

To be honest, this just worries me. First the in-game servers (both megaserver and the quality); and now the forums are being downsized? I know that this is a business and costs have to be kept down, I’m just getting a feeling that the game’s dying. We’re getting some “reasons” for these changes, but they are flimsy: it’s not difficult to find feedback on these forums as they are – I can manage to navigate, surely the devs can too?

I’m not trying to spread doom and gloom here, but I genuinely don’t see a point to this and I’m feeling a bit worried. Any chance of a more detailed reasoning for this consolidation?

Hi Gaile,

I think this forum is great first of all, thank you for engaging in feedback with us! I have two things that I wanted to pass along:

First: I have read the comments about the search feature, and frankly, I think you should pass along to the team that its better to get a new system than to go without this feature. Topics that aren’t searchable are topics that die on the vine eventually. It would be far more useful to have this feature than implement changes without it as that is quite possibly the single most important improvement you can make.

Second, it would be nice to see a few new features for posting, like player polls so we can get opinion feedback from other players. I am all for changing the forum here and I think its great your getting feedback. For me though, nothing can be more important than avoiding duplication of threads and effort by having a good search tool.

I hope you maintain the current style and simplicity as it is, in my opinion, one of the best forums I have seen for a game (:

Hold on to your kittens. Reorganization tomorrow. Whee.

Why are Leaderboards hidden in community tab ?
They should be in the open, so people can find them easily.

It looks so messy and kittened up right now.

Charrbeque.8729:

munkiman.3068:

spoj.9672:

Charrbeque.8729:

Can we please be allowed to have forum avatar pics next to our usernames like every other forum out there?

It would make it easing when quickly scrolling down a long list of posts when you’re trying to find posts made by a particular player, for example. All you see is red text. If we had avatars you could easily and quickly spot your friend or someone you like based on an image. Lots of other MMO forums do this. I don’t understand why ArenaNet is so restrictive.

It would also give us a sense of individuality and expression. Of course avatars would be subject to the rules against anything obscene or offensive.

ctrl + f

Avatars require extra moderation and would probably effect forum load times slightly.

They could give us a rather large set of pre-made avatars to choose from. Or even better our in-game avatars

I don’t know about in-game avatars, but I would settle for premade avatars created by Anet that are based on logos and/or artwork of the GW franchise. At least this way we could select from at least a few images to be displayed with our names without anyone worrying about having to report nasty pics some people think are funny. To be honest the forums are rather bland. Not much imagery or artwork when looking at threads. All I see is black and white and read all over (seriously I didn’t get that joke until I was 30).

munkiman.3068:

dlonie.6547:

I have a feeling that if avatars were possible with this forum software, we’d have them.

Just sayin’.

You could say the same thing about the search function :P

LoL so true! We do have a search function but it doesn’t work worth a [redacted]. xD

enlightened.5396:

Avatars not needed – let’s get our kitten priorities right!!!

You could say the same thing about the new endless tonics and minis from the Silverwastes. Nobody needs them but Anet made them when they could have given us more content instead. But some of us find them fun, and I believe some of us would find avatars on the forums fun. And all of us would enjoy a working search feature, with advanced options to search by thread title, keywords, searching in specific subforums, search by player name, etc. Just my 2 copper anyway.

You could. And I would agree.

Sorry if someone has already asked this, but I haven’t read the reply on one of the moderator’s post. What about topics that are in the archive section? We can’t post there, how do we do? Thank you.

You could start a new thread with a link to the archived discussion for reference, or find a similar topic already going in the current forums and link the archives there before continuing your thoughts.

enlightened.5396:

An open letter from a long-time GW supporter.

This thread is just bizarre and a perfect illustration of why GW2 is losing it’s appeal for me.

1) I can’t see any benefit in reorganising the forums in this way
2) So many people have come up with suggestions to improve the way the forums are proposed to be reorganised that you have to wonder whether any real thought went into this at all
3) The current forum software appears inadequate (and therefore presumably has been for 2 years) but new software is only just being “examined”

It seems to me that you tinker with things that don’t need changing, without any clarity of thought and whilst avoiding the obvious elephants in the room with vague comments of “we’re looking at this”.

I loved GW1 and have a lot of time invested in GW2. I suppose I love GW2 as well but it could be so much better and that is what disappoints me. The refusal to answer important and straight-forward questions about the road-map for the game is, quite frankly, insulting to those that have supported GW in both guises for many years.

I am one of those players that longs for an expansion – I miss the ability to explore large areas of the game world and am frustrated by the “bite-size” releases that fail to satisfy – especially the last two which were painfully short. Confirmation / or otherwise that an expansion is being worked on would soothe the frustrations of myself and many players that I know. I don’t purport to be speaking for the majority as clearly I can’t but based upon a reasonable sample size there must be many players that feel like I do.

Something needs to change if I am to continue to play, enjoy and support this game with the enthusiasm that I have done so far.

Please – improve the way you engage us in the development of the game – and don’t waste time re-organising flawed forum software in a way which, in my view, will reduce the focus on some very valid points of view about specific areas of the game.

+ 10 if I could

This forum reorganization is breaking the recruitment style! Looking for should have at least 2 categories, look for guild, and looking for members. Now it will take forever to weed through the posts.

Lol. Guess I’ll go foruming elsewhere depending on how bad it gets.

Whoever called the shots on this is probably the same guy who calls the shots about everything else; it’s disorganized, rushed, unnecessary, and seemingly illogical decision-making with no interaction with the community to alter the course of development.

If this change was actually about ANet wanting better readability on their end, they’d be modifying their own back end view and only that. To say it’s out of the scope of possibility due to software limitations is a lie by the web systems admin/web developers. That is, unless they’re truly inadequate at their jobs and don’t know how to work with raw data and coding alternative systems.

This is being done to make the forums look more active and hopefully bury the massive threads like the Trait thread which put a glaring spotlight on massive problems which have been blatantly ignored by the past 8-9 months.

And of course, it’ll let employees blame the fact that there are too many threads being moved around too quickly in a given section to allow them to reply to the really important topics, as those will be buried rather quickly before being re-raised.

I’m impressed by the fact that the company dynamic is currently utilizing lazy design as and policies a vessel to further allow for more laziness and enforcement of lazy policies.

What’s with the Ranger CDI?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession

It’s missing in the CDI subforum.

Why have the races forums been moved to “Archive”? They were fine the way they were, grouped together, and they were fairly visited. Did the races suddenly become archived?

Forums were just fine the way they were, they had a logical organization. Now it’s a chaotic mess for at least half of it.

I am so tired of online companies always “re-organizing” and “fixing” what is not broken just for the sake of doing something. I stopped visiting several stores in my area that are doing this, just because I got tired of always having to look for things.