Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

What is long to you? Never more than a second for me. Even on the 99 page dungeon forum that was recently locked is only took about 1 second if that.

Going from a post back to the index for this subforum, 20 seconds each time. When you’re trying to read dozens if not hundreds of posts in a day, that’s a long, long time.

Edit: After clicking “submit” for this post, a 5 second wait.

Edit: After clicking “edit” for this post, a 12 second wait.

Edit: Going to the main “Forum” in the breadcrumbs above, instant. Then getting onto the index page for this sub-forum, 20 seconds again.

Edit: Click the edit icon and the window opens instantly. But edit, and then click “edit” and it took 19 seconds to post.

Something is wrong on your end. Way too long of load times. That must be terrible.

For reference, my internet is up to 10 mbs, my phone, my tablet, my desktop all load in under a second.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Dalanor.5387:

You (ANet) shouldn’t punish your playerbase when you (Gaile) had to work on a potato with a bad internet connection. Long loading times in a forum holy kittens … I didn’t knew such things exist.

Am I the only one, then? I experience long load times at work (strong ‘Net service as you can imagine), at home (fast cable), on the road — everywhere. Maybe I’m impatient, but posting and loading to read take me quite a little bit of time.

It’s instantaneous for me, as fast as I can click I can see pages or threads or posts or subforums or w/e.

The only thing that tends to spool up is editing a post.

Why is PvP and WvW being shoehorned into general discussion? Just seems like you guys are intent on killing the WvW community one update at a time.

Reverence.6915:

Why is PvP and WvW being shoehorned into general discussion? Just seems like you guys are intent on killing the WvW community one update at a time.

According to plan Gaile linked PvP and WvW will still have their own sub-forum.

Game Discussion

• Guild Wars 2 Discussion
• Living World Discussion
• PvP Discussion
• WvW Discussion
• Lore
• CDI (Collaborative Development Initiative)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kaz.5430:

I personally think that `Players Helping Players` should be listed under support. Helping players `is` a form of support and I don’t think that people would be confused that it’s not ‘official’ support based on the forum title. Doing that would also place the forum nice and high.

Interesting, Kaz, I was actually thinking the same.

Does anyone else have thoughts about the best place to house “Player Helping Players?”

• Community Corner, since it involves community members
• Game Discussion
• Support

Since this sub-forum was on the approved list I was provided (this project had its inception before I became Forum Communications Team Lead), I believe that the question of where we place the sub-forum is not a major issue. On the other hand, some of the other questions or comments in this thread involve forums that were not on the list, and therefore I’d need to get review and approval for changes.

Thanks for your feedback on the subject of Players Helping Players.

I’d personally put it with general Discussion (Typically the highest traffic area of every MMO forum) so that new players won’t have to wait several hours for answers.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

What is long to you? Never more than a second for me. Even on the 99 page dungeon forum that was recently locked is only took about 1 second if that.

Going from a post back to the index for this subforum, 20 seconds each time. When you’re trying to read dozens if not hundreds of posts in a day, that’s a long, long time.

Edit: After clicking “submit” for this post, a 5 second wait.

Edit: After clicking “edit” for this post, a 12 second wait.

Edit: Going to the main “Forum” in the breadcrumbs above, instant. Then getting onto the index page for this sub-forum, 20 seconds again.

Edit: Click the edit icon and the window opens instantly. But edit, and then click “edit” and it took 19 seconds to post.

that is way too slow. you might want to try how fast the forum loads when you are logged out (maybe some moderator functions your account has are slowing down page loading times massively)

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.

On an unrelated note, keep the dungeon forum.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Dalanor.5387:

You (ANet) shouldn’t punish your playerbase when you (Gaile) had to work on a potato with a bad internet connection. Long loading times in a forum holy kittens … I didn’t knew such things exist.

Am I the only one, then? I experience long load times at work (strong ‘Net service as you can imagine), at home (fast cable), on the road — everywhere. Maybe I’m impatient, but posting and loading to read take me quite a little bit of time.

It’s the way the forum DB is structured. It’s not about connection, it’s about traffic and what the DB can handle based on the code. It’s slow to respond based on that.

General discussion is already filled with posts I have no interest in reading such as “Mounts1/!??!?!?!?!?!1111” and “Expansion! WHERE!?” and other pointless drivel. If i have to look through pages and pages of that junk just to find a few BLTC/Dungeon related posts I probably won’t bother using these forums ever again.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Since this sub-forum was on the approved list I was provided (this project had its inception before I became Forum Communications Team Lead), I believe that the question of where we place the sub-forum is not a major issue. On the other hand, some of the other questions or comments in this thread involve forums that were not on the list, and therefore I’d need to get review and approval for changes.

Two questions:

(1) Does this mean that you’re seeking approval to keep the dungeon/BLTC forums alive?

(2) Are you bound by the same restriction as the Forum Specialists, that you aren’t allowed to mention that a request/suggestion has been escalated beyond Customer Support?

munkiman.3068:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Dalanor.5387:

You (ANet) shouldn’t punish your playerbase when you (Gaile) had to work on a potato with a bad internet connection. Long loading times in a forum holy kittens … I didn’t knew such things exist.

Am I the only one, then? I experience long load times at work (strong ‘Net service as you can imagine), at home (fast cable), on the road — everywhere. Maybe I’m impatient, but posting and loading to read take me quite a little bit of time.

It’s the way the forum DB is structured. It’s not about connection, it’s about traffic and what the DB can handle based on the code. It’s slow to respond based on that.

Uhm… we’re all accessing the SAME database, and most people don’t have the loading issues. That suggests that it is something either on Gaile’s end, or something to do with the fact that she uses a moderator account and we don’t.

Either way, if it was database traffic, we’d all have the same issues.

Gaile Gray.6029:

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!

Is there a way to change the form submit to create a google search query? The forum seems fairly well indexed in that engine. The function site:forum-en.guildwars2.com should help.

I imagine there are some technical obstacles, but the overall effort is likely much lower than to fix the built in search engine,

Will we have a scene or even talk about the lore, and the evolution of the game environment? with real discution with developers?

Gaile, have you tried clearing your cache or using a different browser? Do you get the same loading times while logged into your dev account as when logged off?

Also, I am very against the removal of the Dungeon and BLTC subforums. The general forum goes way too fast as is, and we do not need it moving faster, as ‘controversial’ topics (all those mount/dueling threads we’ve seen 100+ times) push others off the front page, never to be seen again. I would suggest leaving the Dungeon and BLTC subforums, and merging the Asura/Sylvari/Norn/Human/Charr forums into a single ‘Races’ subforum or such. The profession balance forum should stay as well, even though 95% of the posts/suggestions in it are trash anyway, just to keep that kind of stuff off other subforums.

Thank you! I hope you’ll also consider keeping BLTC distinct, but this is a very good change.

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

;)

WAHOO PVF BACK ONLINE BOYZ

Thanks Gaile!

Thank you Gaile for getting the Dungeons/Fractals Subforum back. We didn’t want to make another #neverforget kitten.

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

;)

Now if you would keep the black lion trading post section that would be great

so what will happen to the current professions balance forum?

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

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

Gaile Gray.6029:

rfdarko.4639:

Thank you! I hope you’ll also consider keeping BLTC distinct, but this is a very good change.

I will pass along your thanks to Mike and Colin, who ultimately made the decision. I’m really happy that they supported the change!

As to the BLTC or some forum related to the economy, I see your point and in fact I want to talk about that over the next couple of days. Clearly, we can’t move to reorganize and consolidate our forums and then spin up the exact same number of forums. On the other hand, just as there was a case to be made for retaining Dungeons (and actually expanding it to be more useful by adding Fractals), there may be a case for something economy-ish as well.

I won’t know about this for a few days, so please bear with me.

I also think that the BLTC Forum should remain. Maybe you should merge it with the crafting forum, so you get at least rid of 1 subforum. Most questions asked in the crafting forum are usually answered by those that frequently post in the BLTC forum anyways. And Crafting is closely related to the trading post/economy anyways.

I wouldnt mind though, if gem store related discussion would be moved out of that section and put into general discussions.

Crafting gets zero responses, except as a side line answer from John Smith, from time to time in BLTC. Crafting and BLTC do not belong in General Discussion.

What we really need is a dedicated staff member to address issues in those forums, and so far John Smith is not doing a bad job in BLTC, even though he can’t always give an answer that is terribly satisfying.

Gem store stuff should remain in the BLTC section because that is economy related. No matter what people might like to think, this game economy is not player driven.

As for the Crafting forum? We need a John Smith.

Thank you for reading.

Sins.4782:

I would suggest leaving the Dungeon and BLTC subforums, and merging the Asura/Sylvari/Norn/Human/Charr forums into a single ‘Races’ subforum or such..

Yes, please. The races need at least a subforum, all the stuff that isn’t related to the races of Tyria isn’t necessarly related to the Lore… For exemple the hairstyle thread for the Sylvari, who got some really nice feedback from Kristen Perry, and where people continue to suggest ideas.

I really hope that the CDI subforum will be restricted to only devs being able to create new threads. People like trying to create their own CDI’s already, and it’s best to nip that in the bud.

Gaile Gray.6029:

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

Crafting doesn’t needs its own forum. About a quarter of that forum should be in some sort of new player forum for the ‘what is crafting what am I doing?’ threads, a quarter getting rolled into BLTC for the ‘how do I make money using crafting’ questions, and the remaining half gets rolled into general discussion for the ‘I made a thing’ / ‘crafting is cool’ threads.

Unlike the BLTC and dungeon forums, crafting doesn’t have its own little community as best I can tell, it’s safe to kill off.

I agree that Crafting is slow enough that it doesn’t really need its own forum, but I strongly oppose merging the BLTC forum into General PvE. It has its own… “atmosphere”? It can get a bit heated at times, but overall the regulars posting there engage in much higher level discussions than general game issues. We also greatly appreciate John’s posts in there as they give us insight into macro-level economic issues affecting the game.

Perhaps we could merge the two into a “Crafting and Trading” forum, since the two activities are fairly closely linked to each other.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

so what will happen to the current professions balance forum?

Fair question and I’ve been thinking about that. I would suppose that, as we see how things shake out, general professions feedback (such as those relating to balance — and don’t dare say Ranger are OP, kthnx) would go in the Guild Wars 2 Discussion Forum. I believe that there are several team members who would see it there. On the other hand, balance information specifically for a certain profession would go in that profession’s sub-forum. (Unless it was about Rangers being OP, in which case it would go on the Better Homes and Gardens cooking sub-forum.)

Sorry, I have a really bad cold, and my head is a little spinny, and I took that in odd directions, didn’t I?

Bottom line:

• Profession-specific: That profession’s sub-forum
• General Balance: GW2 Discusssion Forum

ah, i see.
thanks!

Gaile Gray.6029:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Should posts about general profession balance, that are not tied to one specific profession only, go into General Discussion?

Guild Wars 2 Discussion, yes.

So you’re saying that the Profession Balance Subforum is a failure? Not that I would say otherwise but it’s interesting to see this decision being made, keeping in mind that the subforum got created 10 months ago. The issues this subforum has will stay and get carried onto other subforums.
If there is yet another thread about 100b/backstab/rapid fire being over powered, an official response is needed, just scraping the subforum wont help.

Gaile Gray.6029:

spoj.9672:

Where are we supposed to post regarding dungeons, fractals and other non living story related PvE? General discussion already fills with threads at an alarming rate.

Guild Wars 2 Discussion is correct. With many developers involved in multiple projects, it’s helpful for them to have a main forum to check for input, suggestions, and questions.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Should posts about general profession balance, that are not tied to one specific profession only, go into General Discussion?

Guild Wars 2 Discussion, yes.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I maybe reading this wrong, and if I am then ill apologise in advance, but the way im reading it is, you are rolling

•Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

All into the same section like you did with suggestions in general chat, if so, how well did that work out, basically to me this reads as, don’t bother posting your bugs we wont be looking anyway, you seem to be the only Dev/Mod that reads these forums anyway, there are bugs reported in that bugs section months ago that are still ingame today, and you want to consolidate them all into 1 section, just remove the bugs section completely.

I understand what you’ve said, but if you think about it, there are not that many forum or website bugs. So having them in the Bugs Sub-Forum is just a way to consolidate all bugs, since we have someone dedicated to reviewing the Bugs Forum and they can route concerns about the website or the forums to the proper people, while filing bug reports for game issues.

rapthorne.7345:

Are there any plans to update the forum framework, or simply reorganise the forum sections? I hate how bland it is here, and how many features simply do not work.

I agree that our forum framework could use some significant improvements! We are examining our options on that for sure. Today’s reorganization is part of an improvement process that may potentially lead to new software, as well. The change in software is only in the examination stage right now. Unfortunately we don’t have a formal timeframe for making a final decision or for migrating to a new forum base, if we do go down that path.

Hey, you’re right! There aren’t any bugs on the forums. I did a search and came up with nothing.

If you are going to divide the board based on type of activity then crafting, BLTP, fractals and dungeons (yes I know you changed your mind on the last two) are just as important to segments of the community as PvE, PvP and WvW.

Also while I’m at it Mac users present different tech problems than PC users and as long as you are going to say you have beta Mac support, then you should have a dedicated board to them. Not to many of the IT crowd on the tech board are “bilingual”.

The impression I’m getting is you are trying to consolidate/remove boards that don’t get a lot of new posts, probably thinking since few post and start new threads, that there isn’t interest in them. But consolidating them into general discussion is a death sentence because the current speed of posts there would quickly bury any post to page 5 and beyond in a day if not hours. They needed there own board so those interested in that topic can find posts on them easily and with the lack of a functionally useful search you might as well as lock them and stick them into the archive of closed boards then.

And like other recent decisions, this seems to be primarily for your convenience and not your players. You may think this reorg makes it easier and simpler but it’s going to make it more confusing with GW2 Discussion becoming an even bigger mess than it already is.

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.

I am also for keeping the BLTC forum seperate. Call it “In-Game Economy” and let the crafters post there, too.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

munkiman.3068:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Dalanor.5387:

You (ANet) shouldn’t punish your playerbase when you (Gaile) had to work on a potato with a bad internet connection. Long loading times in a forum holy kittens … I didn’t knew such things exist.

Am I the only one, then? I experience long load times at work (strong ‘Net service as you can imagine), at home (fast cable), on the road — everywhere. Maybe I’m impatient, but posting and loading to read take me quite a little bit of time.

It’s the way the forum DB is structured. It’s not about connection, it’s about traffic and what the DB can handle based on the code. It’s slow to respond based on that.

Uhm… we’re all accessing the SAME database, and most people don’t have the loading issues. That suggests that it is something either on Gaile’s end, or something to do with the fact that she uses a moderator account and we don’t.

Either way, if it was database traffic, we’d all have the same issues.

I have the same problem when the site is busy.

Thank you for passing it along.

I think that crafting fits quite well in to BLTC, which – as you and other posters have mentioned -is like the “economics” forum. That sub forum is similar to the dungeon one in that I think it has a community of its own. John Smith’s dialogue in that forum seems targeted at that audience. It would be a shame to see that lumped into GD. But it sounds like from your post you get that, its just up to the PTB.

It was kind of weird for me to see profession balence taken out because…that sub was added pretty recently, and it was in response the fact that we had this conundrum:

JonathanSharp.7094:

The reason I quickly jump into the sPvP forums is because that’s usually the best place to talk overall game balance … it’s literally just easier for me (personally) to check 1 sub forum, rather than 8

And thus one sub forum was created. Nothing really has changed to solve that problem, and if it goes away I suspect we will see the same problem as before. If the devs only go to the sPvP forums for balance changes, they may not be able to make intellegent pvp/pve splits (the few that they do make). We’re sort of left back where we were before that sub forum existed.

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.

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.

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

Just sayin’.

dlonie.6547:

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

Just sayin’.

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

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

spoj.9672:

Avatars require extra moderation

Anet is already one step ahead of you there. Dramatization:

Faster than a trolling hater. More powerful than a knightly straw man. Able to flag nonconstructive posts with a single click.

Forumite 1: Look! There on the forum! It’s a dev…

Forumite 2: It’s a mod…

Forumite 3: It’s FORUM SPECIALIST!

Yes, it’s Forum Specialist, unpaid visitor from the internet who monitors the forums with powers and abilities beyond those of normal forumites. Forum Specialist, who can change the course of mighty rants, bend walls of text with his bare mouse. And who, disguised as him or her self, mild-mannered poster on a game forum with wonky software, fights a never ending battle for stuff, silence, and the ArenaNet way. And now, another exciting episode in the adventures of Forum Specialist!

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.

The questions i have are:

• Where will Racial duscussions and matters go?

• Where will anything that has to do with customization/astetics go (like character ciustomisation, armour, weaponskins, mail Carriers, finishers…. pretty much anything that is aestetic)? Today I feel there is no Place for that topic even if there should be.

• will there finally be a working search function – its badly needed. So many things/topics are being spammed/repeated today because of the lack of it.

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?

General discussion makes sense. Two other options:

All forum posts to be bracketed eg [BTLC] thread title. This puts the onus on players and requires some heavy moderating to keep on top of and “teach” forum users

Or a Trade forum to cover BLTC/Crafting etc