Guild Wars 2

So for nostalgia’s sake, I went back to the original Guild Wars site. I remembered that several years ago, ArenaNet’s employees that played the game along with us would sometimes take note of random acts of kindness displayed by the player base. They would sometimes be featured in articles on the site written by ‘The Scribe’. I was humbled by being featured in one such article many years ago.

I was thinking, it would be nice if ArenaNet’s current employees who play the game could do something like this again. I realize that the majority of ArenaNet’s current employees are not the same people who made GW1 (and are probably thinking “What the Skritt is The Scribe?”), but if you did something like this, maybe this could be just one more way for you guys to relate to your player base?

Anyway, this is one of my proud moments from GW1. I, Zera, better known as Zera Serenade from GW1, was immortalized in this fashion. One day, GW1’s servers will be shut down forever, but for now I have a screenshot of this for me to keep for the rest of my life. Thank you, old ArenaNet, wherever you are.

Zera was here.

http://www.guildwars.com/community/thescribe/scribe-070215.php

Spearmarshal Eve commends you, Zera Serenade, for your noble deed of helping a warrior in Kaineng.

Those were the good ol days of community <3.

I think that’s brilliant really.

I also think they could do with an in game suggestion box, and a 1 time per patch 500 character limit ui interface in game that allows players to report on a new patch feature or balance problem once per patch.

Is it truly a random act of kindness if there’s the motivation of having your name plastered for all to see?

rapthorne.7345:

Is it truly a random act of kindness if there’s the motivation of having your name plastered for all to see?

I see where you’re coming from with this, but people who are inclined to perform random acts of kindness will do so no matter what. People were being helpful before the Scribe was a thing, and kept doing so after it stopped. Look in GW2 now. People are kind in-game anyway (maybe not always, but they are there). Even if ArenaNet never brought back The Scribe or something like it, helpful players will be helpful.

Truly helpful players don’t care if they are commended for their kindness. Being kind is a thankless job of sorts. I didn’t even know I was mentioned in The Scribe until a friend of mine mentioned it to me. He messaged me in-game saying “Go read The Scribe for this date.” It was a few months after it was published that I finally saw it. That warm fuzzy feeling I got when I read it was nice. That was enough to know that “Hey, I did something good back then and someone took notice. Neat.” That in itself is a reward

I was that Warrior, Zera! I thank you for your service, but it pains me to tell you that Guardsman Linro turned out to be quite the unscrupulous character. He waylaid me, and I woke up on a ship bound for Elona where I was pressed into the service of the evil Warmarshal Varesh Ossa. I spent many grueling years there before I managed to go AWOL and return to Cantha.

I managed to locate and capture our old friend Linro. I put him on a transport bound for the undead-beseiged city of Lion’s Arch in Kryta, and that’s the last I ever saw of him. Years later, I heard from a traveler that he had changed his name to Markis, and joined a religious Order. I’m glad he finally appears to have changed his ways and won’t go around deceiving people anymore.

While there are a few remaining members from the original GW1 staff, they are few. It seems to be a different dynamic altogether now.

I feel that they feel as though it was a young company back in the day, and they have matured and do things differently now. Walling out the community that play and support your game isn’t a good business model.

Point at hand, look at Wildstar. Knuckling down and delivering the developer’s “Vision” of what the game should be, in the face of the gamer’s feedback, has not helped that game to grow. It seems to have brought it down faster than otherwise might have been.

rapthorne.7345:

Is it truly a random act of kindness if there’s the motivation of having your name plastered for all to see?

I had no idea that such thing as the Scribe exists, and I’ve shown multiple people how to get to Linro, the armorcrafters, and the skill trainer in Kaineng.

Yeah +1 to this OP!

huh had no idea that existed thanks for sharing

Here’s my story of random act of kindness.
Few weeks ago, I was extremely bored and I went to Queensdale.
In map chat, I asked if anyone has just started playing the game, few people replied and after checking their AP (just to make sure they’re not lying), I mailed then each 5G. Only 1 person said thanks. Perhaps others were not familiar with the mailing system.

Hamfast.8719:

I managed to locate and capture our old friend Linro. I put him on a transport bound for the undead-beseiged city of Lion’s Arch in Kryta, and that’s the last I ever saw of him. Years later, I heard from a traveler that he had changed his name to Markis, and joined a religious Order. I’m glad he finally appears to have changed his ways and won’t go around deceiving people anymore.

Hate to break it to you man, but Markis is dead. I killed him. He was a traitor that got Saidra the hotness killed. After I killed him I hunted down and destroyed his religious sect. It was glorious.

Nick.6972:

Here’s my story of random act of kindness.
Few weeks ago, I was extremely bored and I went to Queensdale.
In map chat, I asked if anyone has just started playing the game, few people replied and after checking their AP (just to make sure they’re not lying), I mailed then each 5G. Only 1 person said thanks. Perhaps others were not familiar with the mailing system.

They probably didn’t have mail unlocked yet. I think that’s gated until lvl 80 now. :P

Zera Allimatti.2541:

Markis is dead. I killed him. After I killed him I hunted down and destroyed his religious sect. It was glorious.

What are you… a Klingon?

rapthorne.7345:

Is it truly a random act of kindness if there’s the motivation of having your name plastered for all to see?

Plastering it for all to see actually helps the community. You see the opposite in RL, where the news carries predominantly negative stories like murders, death, and destruction. Consequently people feel society is in the pits and the world is hopeless, and give up trying to change it for the better. Which in turn makes them act in their self interest rather than their community’s, which just adds more negative stories for the news to carry.

I don’t know if you noticed, but the forums tend to be pretty negative. That contributes to the cycle of devaluing the sense of community. A regular series reporting random acts of kindness would be great way to counterbalance that, and get people to value the community more and encourage them to contribute to its improvement.

I think it’s a cool idea.

@solandri

I agree. I posteda thread, well before the patch, of such random acts of kindness, and it was well recieved. Sadly, due to the patch it was buried. Here is the link. Maybe if we continue to post there, people who read the forums can still see the greatness and generosity of the community and be encouraged.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Faith-in-humanity-restored/page/2#post4371842

Hamfast.8719:

Zera Allimatti.2541:

Markis is dead. I killed him. After I killed him I hunted down and destroyed his religious sect. It was glorious.

What are you… a Klingon?

No, I’m Zera, far superior.

GOSU.9574:

While there are a few remaining members from the original GW1 staff, they are few. It seems to be a different dynamic altogether now.

I feel that they feel as though it was a young company back in the day, and they have matured and do things differently now. Walling out the community that play and support your game isn’t a good business model.

Point at hand, look at Wildstar. Knuckling down and delivering the developer’s “Vision” of what the game should be, in the face of the gamer’s feedback, has not helped that game to grow. It seems to have brought it down faster than otherwise might have been.

1) Stop being a kitten white knight that wants to kitten anet’s kitten so much, 90% of you forum comments are not constructive and just serve to play the “devil’s advocate”

2) Yes, if you dont have a vision and only listen to your playerbase its bad (gamers are not designers). But, also thinking that you know what is best and just implementing something without considering stakeholders is a horrible thing to do. That is y anet should have their vision which generates an “intent” which they can communicate as being their vision, where players can simply discuss and theory craft on what would be the best way to attain that objective. Then anet can take that feedback and know what the player-base would absolutely hate to see happen to the game.