Guild Wars 2

My question stems from the last paragraph:

So, the forum expert(s) see a topic they like and join in on the discussion. The discussion goes great, but the forum expert makes no promise to relay this to the devs. So is there a standard or something that must be met for the topic to be relayed? If so, how high is it set?

Next, does this mean less Dev time in talking? I understand they get busy, they have a game to run, and I’m glad both you and Chris and others have even spent some weekend time chatting on here, I’m grateful for that. But I’m scared we are going to go back to when an actual discussion or meaningful (content, features, etc) thread would be visited by a Dev once in a blue moon (I know support posts a lot XD). I think the community is still hung up over that, and have been spoiled a bit with interaction at present.

As for Dev posts, if the thread IS relayed, would a Dev pop in as well to view or communicate? Or is it just the volunteers?

The final thing I see being an issue is these people will be basically on the front lines now, taking much of the heat an anger from people, all while doing it for free. Its going to require a very thick skin requirement, as I said before, these people will probably be labeled as “white knights”.

I’m not saying this is a bad idea, but a few details are still missing.

I’m so sad …
What else to say, except that beens europe will return to silence. Anyway, it was a pleasure to try to talk to the Americans devs and the community.
We will try to send you fan mail by the postal way … Good luck for the future. = (

Personally, I’d like to apply; however, I don’t really think I specialize in anything. Of course, some people would have fits if I did.

shrug

Also please make sure these specialist posts don’t show up in the dev tracker forum.

“I think and hope it will mean devs will be able to participate more, since they’ll be able to focus on the topics in a distilled form.”

This is, I would argue, an exact description of why CDI threads were created, and it’s not worked out that way for the most part. Other devs post a few times, with Yourself and Chris doing most of the legwork – even when you’re not in the position to answer any of it.

Basically, Gaile, I’m more concerned at this being yet another attempt at “Better communication”, that won’t see many/if any results. After all, your policy of ‘No Discussion’ remains, and no amount of Initiatives/Specialists will solve that.

nethykins.7986:

Gaile Gray.6029:

No, that’s not how we see this at all. If there are 100 threads about a topic you’re working on, but a trusted forum specialist, backed by the FCT, suggests you review a few of the topmost threads on the subject, you’re more likely to engage. And if all goes as planned, forum specialists won’t be submitting progress reports on the forums, the devs themslves will be doing that, when there’s something to say and when they have the opportunity to post.

Then the question becomes – How will that change what we’re seeing now with highly commented, mega threads that are rarely answered even thought there’s already knowledge of it existing?
Considering those new specialists can not discuss whether or not they’ve relayed information to the proper Community Team, the idea and execution of this starts to come apart at the seams.

I doubt this is going to stop things like You/Other devs commenting on things of minor importance and glossing over ones if greater importance (“Traits” Thread is giving you dagger eyes from across the forum room)

This.

Gaile Gray.6029:

snip

Hm, OK. So basically, they are the first filtration, finding threads that look good and passing them onto the devs. They may even participate, asking unbiased questions such as a Dev sometimes asks (as the question in the raid cdi o. Obtaining armor outside raid, etc). If the thread continues on a good note, it gets passed to the anet team, who take it from there. Sound about right?

And I didn’t want to come off sounding crude about attacking, I just feel, as someone who has worked in more public relations jobs, that while it makes no sense TO attack a specialist, they are there atm, despite it really not being their fault. I just speak from experience that there has been some of that in the forums, and of course the reason matchup threads were removed from wvw.

I saw the announcement, got super excited, and was all ready to put my hand up (as a General PvE specialist) when I saw the “must be a US citizen” requirement.

-sigh-

I wish you guys luck with this initiative though. It does sound like it could help a lot with getting our issues of concern to your attention.

Thanks Gaile, I needed a good laugh and this is it.

“As for Dev posts, if the thread IS relayed, would a Dev pop in as well to view or communicate? Or is it just the volunteers?[/quote]Yes, ideally the devs will pop in and respond. Forum specialists will be amassing information to allow just that!

The final thing I see being an issue is these people will be basically on the front lines now, taking much of the heat an anger from people, all while doing it for free. Its going to require a very thick skin requirement, as I said before, these people will probably be labeled as “white knights”.

I’m not saying this is a bad idea, but a few details are still missing.

I appreciate what you’re saying, but it would be illogical for anyone to attack a forum specialist. They are not in a position to give an answer, they are in a position to help a dev give an answer, and that’s an entirely positive thing for which I hope they will be appreciated."

While thats true, people around here tend to be VERY illogical. There are still those who insist the game is basically on life support, and no amount of evidence to the contrary while sway them. There are countless threads of people who are adamant that the games economy is utterly broken and hyper inflated, no one works at anet, the is the most grindy game of all time, if mounts and dueling are not added to the game the devs might as well start looking for new jobs, etc.

These people most certainly be attacked and labeled white knights. The best way to avoid this would be to not have specialists tagged in anyway. But then theres no way to tell that our thoughts are being heard unless we see a red post, much like it is now.
just something to consider.

(Quotes are being weird)

So how does this program address the lack of developer communication from Arena Net? The program may have good intentions but effectively does the opposite of what people have been clamoring for, with an elite few feeding Arena Net information there is less reason for developer feedback on the forum.

To be honest, I have no desire to see this program come to fruition, the possibility of white knights feeding Arena Net information they only want to hear or members trying to subtly push an agenda is too great a risk. The specialist program is a job Arena Net employees should be taking on directly, this program only puts yet another layer between the developers and the actual public.

Malicious tongues may say that this is yet another step to fob forumeers but I for one am happy to see this implemented. Can’t wait to spam the new Ranger Specialist. *evil grin *

Gaile Gray.6029:

As you will see in the News and Announcements Sub-Forum, we are introducing a new program for the forums. Please review the announcement and post any question you may have here.

Thank you.

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains “substantial development” starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

edit-additionally, i don’t know why a program like this would be necessary considering we have been told that the developers read the forums despite lack of comments.

Swagger.1459:

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains substantial development starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

1. Up to personal interpretation.
2. Highly debatable benefit, keeping the costs in mind.
3. Up to personal interpretation.

What you’re asking for sounds good on paper but is not achievable.

Swagger.1459:

Gaile Gray.6029:

As you will see in the News and Announcements Sub-Forum, we are introducing a new program for the forums. Please review the announcement and post any question you may have here.

Thank you.

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains substantial development starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

No 1. THIS is the one thing holding any kind of progress forward in terms of better communication.

No 2. I personally don’t think is really necessary in relation to this.

I don’t think No.3 Is needed per se. Though, glaring faults in the game DO need to be highlighted, acknowledged (preferably by someone relative to the problem) and rectified. The only thing is, you don’t need a taskforce to do this. That’s partially what the CDI was trying to tackle, and what Community Coordinators are supposed to handle anyhow.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Swagger.1459:

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains substantial development starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

1. Up to personal interpretation.
2. Highly debatable benefit, keeping the costs in mind.
3. Up to personal interpretation.

What you’re asking for sounds good on paper but is not achievable.

1 – Achievable by having a roadmap like many, many other game devs working on MMOs.

2 – Agreed on this.

3 – Fixing stuff that’s forever broken is probably something they should have fixed a long while ago – and even looking at the traits thread, it’s only getting bigger, with lots of good suggestions but with little response from devs on if or when it will be fixed. Also this links back to number 1.

It’s not as farfetched as you think.

nethykins.7986:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Swagger.1459:

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains substantial development starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

1. Up to personal interpretation.
2. Highly debatable benefit, keeping the costs in mind.
3. Up to personal interpretation.

What you’re asking for sounds good on paper but is not achievable.

1 – Achievable by having a roadmap like many, many other game devs working on MMOs.

2 – Agreed on this.

3 – Fixing stuff that’s forever broken is probably something they should have fixed a long while ago – and even looking at the traits thread, it’s only getting bigger, with lots of good suggestions but with little response from devs on if or when it will be fixed. Also this links back to number 1.

It’s not as farfetched as you think.

Fixing stuff is something different than creating an AAA game. I agree with you on fixing flaws, even if “flaws” are occasionally debatable. However creating an AAA game everyone will be happy about is impossible.

…….As specialists, these volunteers will answer questions in a player-to-player (unofficial) sense, flag posts in breach of the Forum Code of Conduct, and coalesce and transmit player feedback to the ArenaNet Forum Communications Team.

In other words, volunteer forum moderators. I get the impression what Anet means is these “specialists” will be required to keep an eye out for any posts that may be deemed a violation of the rules and flag them. Will “specialists” have the power to edit and/or delete posts themselves they find in violation of the rules?

Whatever the case may be, more flagged posts means the forums will end up being moderated a whole lot more then it already is.

Edit: I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. In fact it might actually be a good thing. We keep getting threads with stupid ideas once in a while such as “this game needs to go to a subscription model” and " we need an expansion badly". And the ever so lovely “Anet doesn’t care” and “Anet will never fix it” kinda posts all over the place.

In fact, give the “specialists” moderator powers. Honestly I get kinda sick of seeing kitten like this all the time. The forums really do need more moderation.

The take-away that I’m getting is:

“We don’t have time to listen to the community, so maybe if we can get someone to do it for free it will keep people happy, even though the volunteer won’t be able to communicate anything official to the community”.

Yeah, because that will be addressing the problem? I really have no clue what you guys are trying to do anymore, other than anything possible to not answer basic questions like:
expansion planned? new weapons? new profession? race? pvp mode? dealing with zerg and stacking issues?

I do not get why you guys refuse to answer any of this simple stuff, it makes zero sense, and this role will do no better, since they are in no way official and cannot speak officially on anything that the community wants to know.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Swagger.1459:

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains substantial development starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

1. Up to personal interpretation.
2. Highly debatable benefit, keeping the costs in mind.
3. Up to personal interpretation.

What you’re asking for sounds good on paper but is not achievable.

there are other game companies (that earn more yearly) who communicate better and are way more transparent.

there is already a testing realm in existence.

there are other game companies (that earn less yearly) that are more aggressive with development and pump out more meaningful content and qol features.

not only do my comments sound good on paper, they would be really good if implemented.

I still think that the system that allows posting suggestions in the game is far more valuable as a metrics system than a player council and the reason why isn’t just the concerns over the possible abuse of the situation, It’s also about the current situation of the suggestions. You see we’ve tried all kinds of things to talk to the devs. QA’s CDI threads, contacting them on Reddit, the Suggestions folder, youtube.

Exactly how will this improve the process of the suggestions that are in fact vital to the function of the game (ie feature updates to modern standards like multi-spec, outfitter, spec switching, auto-spec switching for things like underwater combat when swimming status is detected) when we’ve tried for years to get their attention about these missing items that have become essential to every themepark mmo out there free or sub? Can we expect a faster paced feature update with this new process in place? can we expect a new line of communication to be formed with the playerbase with the onset of this new project when they begin gathering data from the community? Or will this turn out to be another delay in the processes of both updating the game and improving relations with the community?

Only thing a PTR will bring is more bored players who already ran the content on the PTR and are hoarding the exploits to themselves until a day or two after the content goes live.

A PTR would be good for testing UI and QoL changes but actual content will just produced more threads complaining about a lack of new content.

Swagger.1459:

Gaile Gray.6029:

As you will see in the News and Announcements Sub-Forum, we are introducing a new program for the forums. Please review the announcement and post any question you may have here.

Thank you.

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains “substantial development” starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

edit-additionally, i don’t know why a program like this would be necessary considering we have been told that the developers read the forums despite lack of comments.

I have agree with these points. Forum Specialists seem redundant and made to add another defensive layer to an impregnable fortress that is the development of GW2. Shouldn’t whatever resources Anet has left be devoted to digging themselves out of this content hole? We’re approaching 2 1/2 years without an expansion, and don’t tell me the Living Story is the answer because its not. It’s like living off potato chips.

As previous posters mentioned, these so-called Specialists will be just as bound and gagged as the communication reps we have now. How is this going to make things better?

JustTrogdor.7892:

The only benefit to those participating is this will just create a bunch of star-bellied Sneetches. Guess how those reports are going to read when a star-bellied Sneetche sees a popular suggestion they don’t agree with? Oh, wait what suggestion? LOL

Reverence.6915:

Extremely short sighted.

couldn’t agree more.

Dark Jericho.8609:

JustTrogdor.7892:

The only benefit to those participating is this will just create a bunch of star-bellied Sneetches. Guess how those reports are going to read when a star-bellied Sneetche sees a popular suggestion they don’t agree with? Oh, wait what suggestion? LOL

Reverence.6915:

Extremely short sighted.

couldn’t agree more.

I don’t think it’s fair to judge the initiative or the people involved before something gets implemented. While it’s entirely impossible to not be biased to some extent, i do think they can choose people that would function very professionally as a conduit of consolidated feedback.

There are a couple things that seem to make sense here, including improvements to the forum system in general, that i think we could all agree needs improvement. I also feel it’s positive for a team to be in place to relay the pulse of players in many areas. It would be quite impossible to cover enough ground, given the amount of feedback flowing through here for only a few and we do know the devs simply don’t have time to do it.

Unfortunately, i think most of you are correct. Unless a change in policy to at least loosen up the flow of communications happens, these liaisons could just end up being caught in the cross fire without much benefit from the players perspective. Lets face it, this role, no matter how good the person is, is a job, one with limited rewards and almost endless waves of negative tones to wade through.

Nah, as already being said, the CDI/Suggestion iniciatives are enough. I think this program just gonna pitch players againts players while Anet removes itself from the heat and continue to ignore suggestions for new content.

ANet, really why do you keep digging a bigger hole for yourselves? this program solves NONE of the issues the community has had with devs of late and it will only exacerbate already tentative relations between you and us the players. we need real communication from you and for you not to hide behind proxies and a policy that first of all is the leading cause of the rift and second, other more successful companies have proven that it is the antithesis to getting the results you actually want; a thriving, happy and supportive playerbase.

it saddens me to see the Anet team stoop to such low and obvious ploys of misdirection and redundancy. i guess crisis-mode is the only thing that motivates you as a company now, i just hope you actually realise before it’s too late that YOU are the ones actually bringing the player angst and discontent on yourselves.

Some questions:
-Are gathered infraction points a deciding factor in your application?
-Do we get XP for the amount of forum bans we accumulated.
-Is Anet to implement a collection tab for the two things mentioned above?
-Can spamming dev’s mailboxes ingame be added to the communicative experience section in the application?
-Does using – to make a point in a post help? (people love -’s)

If so i’ll apply!
;)

Good initiative to be fair, and the results are unknown until you try.

Serophous.9085:

these people will probably be labeled as “white knights”.

More like those appointed to these positions will actually be the white knights. That’s my concern anyway. We’ll end up with severe over-moderation is my guess.

In any case, the money saved by shifting to volunteer mods should save some money that can maybe be put into game development? So perhaps that’s one positive?

I just want to provide some insight on how this program worked for Star Wars Galaxies when they did the same thing.

Senators (as they were called) were voted on by the community and then the SWG team had the final say. They were Senators for a year and had to go through the process again.

No special powers were given to us and we were by no means above any of the forum rules. We were given a forum title and a different color forum tag to denote that we were forum helpers more than anything else.

What I did for my class forum was put together a list of issues and ranked them accordingly, with the help of the forum goers. We had our own Senator forum that we could talk amongst other Senators and official MODERATORS. We had no special access to the de elopers.

The list that we put together would then get looked at by the development team but we didn’t know what was going,to be fixed or enhanced.

I thoroughly enjoyed being a Senator and was by no means a white knight for SWG. Sure there were a few who were but they still had to abide by the rules or they were removed from the program.

This was a good program because it streamlines a process of communication which was much needed.

There’s a lot of strange concerns here that I’ve read which seems to be people,just grasping at anything to put this New program down.

At the end of the day, whoever gets picked will/should be someone who genuinely cares about this game and their respected field. Just don’t get the idea in your head that they can change anything.

Where will the racial matters go?

I can think of one particular regular forum poster who is now salivating, rubbing his hands together and saying, “Excellent….”

Don’t want, don’t need, No thank you.

phokus.8934:

I just want to provide some insight on how this program worked for Star Wars Galaxies when they did the same thing.

Senators (as they were called) were voted on by the community and then the SWG team had the final say. They were Senators for a year and had to go through the process again.

No special powers were given to us and we were by no means above any of the forum rules. We were given a forum title and a different color forum tag to denote that we were forum helpers more than anything else.

What I did for my class forum was put together a list of issues and ranked them accordingly, with the help of the forum goers. We had our own Senator forum that we could talk amongst other Senators and official MODERATORS. We had no special access to the de elopers.

The list that we put together would then get looked at by the development team but we didn’t know what was going,to be fixed or enhanced.

I thoroughly enjoyed being a Senator and was by no means a white knight for SWG. Sure there were a few who were but they still had to abide by the rules or they were removed from the program.

This was a good program because it streamlines a process of communication which was much needed.

There’s a lot of strange concerns here that I’ve read which seems to be people,just grasping at anything to put this New program down.

At the end of the day, whoever gets picked will/should be someone who genuinely cares about this game and their respected field. Just don’t get the idea in your head that they can change anything.

I’m curious as to the overall tone of the forums at the point when they implemented the senators.

How much developer communication was going on at the time?

Did players get regular early info about thing being added/changed/removed from the game?

The overall concern is founded on a communication policy Arena has adopted, where SWG may have had an entirely different policy in place, that included informing players of progress in certain areas they felt needed improving. This doesn’t really happen all too often here, which is where player frustration/concern comes in.

dlonie.6547:

Forum Specialists may make no promises—expressed or implied—about the relaying of information, neither that it will be relayed nor that it has been relayed in the past. Forum Specialists may not divulge information that they may learn about unreleased components of the game, such as upcoming changes or new content.

I appreciate the idea, but what we need is a policy change. Not more people saying “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell you.”

What would the role of these specialists be? Just to point newcomers to existing posts that answer their questions? To serve as a liason between the player and developer communities? To be a friendly face associated with a particular subforum?

If they’re still bound by the “don’t talk about what’s in development” policy, I don’t see this improving anything.

Gaile:

“Forum Specialists may make no promises—expressed or implied—about the relaying of information, neither that it will be relayed nor that it has been relayed in the past. Forum Specialists may not divulge information that they may learn about unreleased components of the game, such as upcoming changes or new content.”

I agree with you, Dlonie. What is the point in having more people repeat the party line.

All this is going to do is further inflate certain ego’s of the whiteknight contingent here. Because, as per this line:

Gail:

“..flag posts in breach of the Forum Code of Conduct..”

..they will be given the powers to police. I can think of at least 4 people that frequent these forums that will be over-joyed and clambering over each other to get their applications in to finally have power to shut down the people that criticize ANet.

I think this is a terrible idea, in a long list of poorly thought out ideas.

Illysharia.7286:

Gaile:

“Forum Specialists may make no promises—expressed or implied—about the relaying of information, neither that it will be relayed nor that it has been relayed in the past. Forum Specialists may not divulge information that they may learn about unreleased components of the game, such as upcoming changes or new content.”

I agree with you, Dlonie. What is the point in having more people repeat the party line.

All this is going to do is further inflate certain ego’s of the whiteknight contingent here. Because, as per this line:

Gail:

“..flag posts in breach of the Forum Code of Conduct..”

..they will be given the powers to police. I can think of at least 4 people that frequent these forums that will be over-joyed and clambering over each other to get their applications in to finally have power to shut down the people that criticize ANet.

I think this is a terrible idea, in a long list of poorly thought out ideas.

Just to be fair, anyone can “flag” a post currently. It might hold more weight if one of these volunteers does it, but it’s hardly power to police.

While the policy is an issue, unless i’m misunderstanding the purpose, this is to get clear, consolidated player feedback to the devs. More than something to change or improve Arenas communication with players, outside of that policy. I think it’s pretty clear this is a data gathering (with the added possibility to report back to players) type position. A sub extension of what Gaile currently does practically alone.

So, if folks are looking at this as a policy changing initiative, they might just be looking at it wrongly?

petespri.6548:

The take-away that I’m getting is:

“We don’t have time to listen to the community, so maybe if we can get someone to do it for free it will keep people happy, even though the volunteer won’t be able to communicate anything official to the community”.

That’s pretty much it. This thread is pointless, because it doesn’t matter what we think about this program, or what a bad idea it is, they’ve already decided they’re going to do it or they wouldn’t have mentioned it (see: policy), and all that’s left for us to do is tolerate yet another silly, pointless mess they’re hellbent on making, or finally just give up on anet and move along.

Tachenon.5270:

petespri.6548:

The take-away that I’m getting is:

“We don’t have time to listen to the community, so maybe if we can get someone to do it for free it will keep people happy, even though the volunteer won’t be able to communicate anything official to the community”.

That’s pretty much it. This thread is pointless, because it doesn’t matter what we think about this program, or what a bad idea it is, they’ve already decided they’re going to do it or they wouldn’t have mentioned it (see: policy), and all that’s left for us to do is tolerate yet another silly, pointless mess they’re hellbent on making, or finally just give up on anet and move along.

True.

Regardless of “Look we changed this – We’re Listening!!” they won’t go so far as to scrap an idea at least for the meantime while they work out the short-sightedness of the idea, because there are some grey areas, for sure.
This is the one thing I wish Anet did more often; stepping back, assessing the situation, being able to say “This isn’t going to work” and starting over before they’d already gotten into the full swing of it.

munkiman.3068:

While the policy is an issue, unless i’m misunderstanding the purpose, this is to get clear, consolidated player feedback to the devs. More than something to change or improve Arenas communication with players, outside of that policy. I think it’s pretty clear this is a data gathering (with the added possibility to report back to players) type position. A sub extension of what Gaile currently does practically alone.

So, if folks are looking at this as a policy changing initiative, they might just be looking at it wrongly?

And to that end, I think it’s a fine idea. Will it work out? I don’t know, but it seems worth a try.

Gaile has mentioned that the idea is that this program will help developers find threads that need addressing. If it works, it sounds worthwhile.

See what I did there? It seems worth a try, and sounds worthwhile.

Because once you remember that any response we get to the threads flagged by FS will still say, at best, “When it’s ready!™” or “Nothing is off the table!™”, I don’t see this as a real improvement in communication.

I hope you’re pushing hard for that policy change, Gaile. This headache isn’t going to go away by any other means.

munkiman.3068:

I’m curious as to the overall tone of the forums at the point when they implemented the senators.

How much developer communication was going on at the time?

Did players get regular early info about thing being added/changed/removed from the game?

The overall concern is founded on a communication policy Arena has adopted, where SWG may have had an entirely different policy in place, that included informing players of progress in certain areas they felt needed improving. This doesn’t really happen all too often here, which is where player frustration/concern comes in.

Overall tone was really positive when they reimplemented the Senator program. It provided forum goers the knowing that most of the class issues would be sent to development in a readable easy format.

We never had an advanced knowledge of bug fixes or new new features. We had the same access to the test server as everyone else.

Just as long as people knew that someone was taking their considerations in they were happy. But I suspect that people here want more out of this system than what it should be.

It turned into a pretty extensive “job” for me as I always responded to many forum PMs and helped answer questions on my sub forum.

I just can’t stress enough that we were in the same position as everyone else. We had no special power to move anything along or push our own agenda. We were under a microscope on things we’ve done by the SWG official moderators who did a great job.

I don’t know how it’s going to work with GW2 (as gw2 has less moderators) but I feel like it’ll be a positive thing.

Swagger.1459:

Gaile Gray.6029:

As you will see in the News and Announcements Sub-Forum, we are introducing a new program for the forums. Please review the announcement and post any question you may have here.

Thank you.

this program is only going to work if you do the following…

1. start being transparent.
2. open a public testing realm.
3. actually start pumping out aaa quality content, updates, fixes, changes… on a regular basis.

anything short of the above three will be seen as another stalling tactic (cdi) while the game remains “substantial development” starved and we are constantly given the “umm, we can’t talk about it again”.

edit-additionally, i don’t know why a program like this would be necessary considering we have been told that the developers read the forums despite lack of comments.

Absolutely agree with you swagger. What exactly are we going to see from the devs when this starts, because so far we’ve had three different programs to communicate with the devs from prelaunch, and all three have been all but ignored.

Contrary to a lot of people I think the stereotypical ‘white knight’ would be absolutely no use to Anet in this position and wouldn’t want to do it either.

According to most people who use that term these are forum members who think the game is currently perfect, any new content or updates are also perfect and absolutely no improvements or fixes need to be made or should even be considered.

What is someone like that going to put in a post summarising feedback? After a week or two of “Nope, my area of expertise got no useful feedback” or only positive feedback Anet are going to realise this is at best a waste of time. More likely they’d look at the forum themselves, see this isn’t an accurate representation and fire that person in favour of someone who can actually do the job they asked them to do.

As for why people would do it that seems obvious to me – because they like the game but think it could be better, think a lot of good ideas come from the forum and want to make sure those ideas get seen.

It’s not that different from asking volunteers to moderate forums. With very few exceptions they get absolutely no payment or direct benefits, the only thing they get out of it is helping to make their forum a better place to spend their time. But the vast majority of forums I’ve seen have volunteer moderators and no shortage of volunteers to do it. (Suitable volunteers are sometimes another matter, but there’s usually at least a few per forum.)

Gaile Gray.6029:

First let me address the “US resident” thing. It breaks my heart when we have to do this — for contests, for this program, for other things — but we really must do it for legal reasons. Different countries have different definitions of volunteer work and we simply do not have the means to have the program reviewed and adjusted to conform to multiple legal requirements that may apply to any given volunteer opportunity.

spoj.9672:

I think a lot of potential good candidates wont be eligible simply because of the USA requirement.

Yes, that is very true and I regret it more than I can say. This is a pilot program and we may be able to extend it in the future, though.

Im in the UK, I thought we where brothers

What’s the point of this program? I know a large number of members will be creaming in their pants at the thought of having a special title next to their display name, but aside from that, what is this supposed to accomplish?

You’ve consistently shown that you have your own metrics you follow and make decisions regarding the game content/design/systems regardless of how unhappy players may be with certain updates.

There are threads hundreds of pages long expressing discontent with the NPE trait/leveling changes. You know they exist, you don’t need a special snowflake forum member to point them out to you. It’s pretty obvious by now that player feedback on most issues is largely meaningless. If we don’t like changes to the game, we can stop playing and stop supporting. You’ll follow the numbers, if there’s no significant change in player activity and/or gem purchases, you’re content to stick to your guns.

Anyone posting a suggestion thread or responding to a feedback thread can use their common sense judgement to realize it’ll be read or it’ll be ignored, it’ll be acted upon or it won’t. It is what it is.

What we don’t need is the illusion of dev – player interaction by giving people special titles on the forums, and what we need even less is certain powers/privileges granted to active players of the game that are sure to have their own biases one way or the other.

I’m a very active player and a pretty active forum browser/poster, and I have no interest in applying for this program. I’m realistic enough to know it’s not going to result in sudden developer interest in what players have to say over what they already feel is the best direction for their own game.

And secondly, I know as an active player I have my own biases, we all do. I play certain classes more than others, I’m more comfortable with certain builds/weapon sets than I am with others, I want or prefer features or mechanics that may differ from what other players would enjoy, I frequent certain areas or instances of the game and ignore others. I have no place administrating or flagging certain posts, I have no place selecting which threads I feel should be reported on or forwarded over another, no player that doesn’t have an official relationship with Arenanet should.

As a player with over 5,000 hours logged who plays pretty much every single day, what I would like to see is more attention devoted to bug fixing. I’m not begging for new content, I’m not asking for expansions, I’m not pleading for certain balance changes in PvP, I’m not asking for mounts or capes. I’m fine with the content we have, I’m fine with repetition and grinding, I’m fine with the end-game, or I wouldn’t still be playing.

What would really please me is more details about the team in charge of fixing bugs. Does one even exist, or is it simply handled on a random case by case basis by any programmer that happens to be available? If there isn’t a dedicated bug team, can one be made? Can we do a better job of communicating which bugs are known and on the docket, can we get insight into why certain bugs are given priority over others? Why are some bugs that seem minor hotfixed with their own build within hours or days, while others that players would feel are major bugs get delayed for weeks or months so they can be rolled into a feature patch/content release? Why do some bugs get fixed without any report or notification whatsoever in release notes?

Fixing what’s already here should be given priority and more resources in my opinion than sifting through thousands of applications for a make-me-feel-special forum icon. Event chains that are consistently stuck and other bugs encountered while I’m actually playing concern me more than the constant barrage of how to change the zerker meta threads, armor clipping threads, capes and mounts threads, we need an expansion threads, is it worth coming back threads, new races threads. Those are always going to be around, and pretending to be doing something about it with some nerd ego stroking program is a waste of time.

You can’t please the people that always want new content, new content, new content forever. You can’t implement every suggestion made, different players want different things. Just do what you do and the players come and go as they may. But very little attention seems to be given to polishing off what people that have been playing since day one are obviously content with. Fixing bugs seems to be the absolute lowest of the low in regards to importance with bi-weekly Living Story releases being the utmost priority.

finkle.9513:

Gaile Gray.6029:

First let me address the “US resident” thing. It breaks my heart when we have to do this — for contests, for this program, for other things — but we really must do it for legal reasons. Different countries have different definitions of volunteer work and we simply do not have the means to have the program reviewed and adjusted to conform to multiple legal requirements that may apply to any given volunteer opportunity.

spoj.9672:

I think a lot of potential good candidates wont be eligible simply because of the USA requirement.

Yes, that is very true and I regret it more than I can say. This is a pilot program and we may be able to extend it in the future, though.

Im in the UK, I thought we where brothers

Imagine how we Canadians feel.

Or us Australians. Not only do we always miss out on these promotions, but we also suffer from the “Australia tax” on video games.

Lord Kuru.3685:

More like those appointed to these positions will actually be the white knights. That’s my concern anyway.

Oh, I hope so.

Nothing like having to take the heat for someone else’s mistakes and failures to turn you into a seething little ball of hate. The corruption of faith amuses me so, and if ANet does throw their white knights under the bus like this I know I’ll enjoy the show.