Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

Due to the recent controversy around the lack of communication and out of touch attitude of Anet, I thought that it would be a good idea for them to send in-game mails with surveys to the players, so that they could know what their player base think about certain aspects of the game and what are the more urgent ones in need of a revamp.

I think this is a good idea because forum posters get bashed all the time with the argument that they are a minority and that what they want is not what everyone wants. Very well. Send surveys about subjects discussed in the forums to the whole player base and let’s see what they think. This would give the game a better sense of direction, instead of working on things that probably people don’t really care much about.

Example:

What you think of NPE? (scale 1 to 5)
What should be next focus of work? ( guilds, dungeons, ui revamp, etc)

This are very simple and only for demonstration purposes, but could be created some very specific ones. I remember these surveys existing in the beta days so I would like to see them back. So what you think?

This should definitely be done.

Jagex do something very similar to this with Runescape, where a selection of Polls is frequently updated with current features in development, and players can choose their favourites. They literally have a list of possible features – going into some fair detail – and people choose what Jagex work on. Each feature even has an ETA for if it gets voted in. Other polls can be the activities available for certain events – like whether christmas should have snowball fights or skiing, etc. Anet should definitely try to become more like this.

I made this argument in another post earlier today. They could at least have in-game surveys rather than totally rely on faceless metrics for decision making. At least take the players into more consideration. We’re the ones already here and should be a priority.

The problem with this (not that it’s a poor idea, it’s a good one) is that companies usually toss up a Loaded Poll.

I recently had some tech issues with another game company, and after two weeks of them telling me it was on my end; and having my ISP get involved and proving them wrong, they finally corrected the issue through deleting my account, recreating a new one and unlocking ALL my purchases on the new one.

A Poll came in via email and the questions were rigged to how well the customer service reps did. No where did it accept blame for crappy coding on their flawed DRM application (which was finally admitted as the problem).

The end result of my answering the poll has no effect on fixing or even addressing the real issue. The customer service hands were tied, they couldn’t do anything cause it’s not a service issue; it was a coding issue. A Corporate choice to use that DRM which harms the customer.
In no way did the poll accept that the DRM was an issue.

A Poll here would likely be the same. They could easily pick out several quips within the NPE and let us rate them, but in all; the NPE is staying… so it would have limited to no result.

Now as for future polls; unless the results are made public, there’s still no accountability. Anet could pick and choose from hidden results on things that already fit their pre-set destination ignoring the rest; or even simply add things that already fit their goals and list those as what people want to see – thus giving an illusion of input towards what the players really want to see.

The above is just my opinion and past experiences with gaming companies. Anet may or may not follow that type of behavior. My overall impression with the NPE is a negative one; but not for what was done or added, it is more on what hasn’t.

WasAGuest.4973:

A Poll here would likely be the same. They could easily pick out several quips within the NPE and let us rate them, but in all; the NPE is staying… so it would have limited to no result.

The intention is not to be about NPE only (far from it), it is supposed to help improve various aspects of the game, and decide what should be a priority. It’s not supposed to be only about technical issues, but content, features ones too. As I said the main intention is supposed to be subjects discussed and proposed by people in the forums because, even though they are the said minority, they are the ones that propose things.
If they are concerned about people not responding to the surveys, it can very much be fixed by giving them a reward by doing it. Not something useless nor something over the top. More like a typical chest with stuff we already goet in bosses and stuff.

WasAGuest.4973:

Now as for future polls; unless the results are made public, there’s still no accountability. Anet could pick and choose from hidden results on things that already fit their pre-set destination ignoring the rest; or even simply add things that already fit their goals and list those as what people want to see – thus giving an illusion of input towards what the players really want to see.

The above is just my opinion and past experiences with gaming companies. Anet may or may not follow that type of behavior. My overall impression with the NPE is a negative one; but not for what was done or added, it is more on what hasn’t.

They can also do surveys according to their goals and even though I am used to be very skeptical about intentions, I don’t want to believe that they would dismiss and lie about the results just because it would better suit their goals.

Still I wholeheartedly agree that the results have to be shown to the public, since it wouldn’t take much of an effort and would be very important to us.

I understood the purpose of the suggestion: Accountability, or at least understanding a reason for the things they (Anet) is doing.

I’ve just seen this type of thing before, and it’s always loaded in favor of what’s already being planned to give an illusion of player input.

Another very recent example is EQN. Last year they opened up the forums and told the public they would be getting information on what players wanted.
In this example: Players wanted to make sure the game didn’t fall into another “Zerg” and they wanted combat with depth, death penalties with a harsh and unforgiving slap (so players learned to play and be careful).
Instead a poll popped up about whether or not Dwarf Females should have beards…

Yeah…

The devs there already had their plans and were simply using the forums and the illusion of input to keep some hype up.

So I understand what you want from the suggestion; and I 100% agree with it. I just don’t see it working towards the player base favor and instead see it being used as just another tool to push what the devs already want to do.

I don’t recommend it for any “new” updates because quite a few people do not like change and will automatically give a negative critique on that basis alone. But I’d say on a quarterly basis they could have a week of in game pop up surveys (similar to what they did during beta) on specifics aspects of the game. ie first quarter is on TP and UI’s, second quarter on events like DE’s and world bosses and hearts..etc etc.

I think I have not made myself clear and it is my fault, I propose that the polls are created by the players inputed subjects and not by random choice of an Anet employee that lurks in the forums and thinks what is best in his opinion for the poll. We make the polls and discuss them with Anet. They already did that with the CDI where they asked if players wanted to propose subjects to discuss or if they wanted to choose from subjects proposed by Anet.

Now player created polls that show in game (launcher) with results made public would be a massive win IMO.

Something like that would indeed be “groundbreaking”.

Zalif.2810:

I think I have not made myself clear and it is my fault, I propose that the polls are created by the players inputed subjects and not by random choice of an Anet employee that lurks in the forums and thinks what is best in his opinion for the poll. We make the polls and discuss them with Anet. They already did that with the CDI where they asked if players wanted to propose subjects to discuss or if they wanted to choose from subjects proposed by Anet.

So you are proposing that players create a poll and send them via in game email to their friends/guilds/random players on the map and then these people are going to submit the results of these polls to Anet?
If this is what you want to do, I have a few concerns.
First, I do not need anymore spam emails. (since one or a thousand emails could be going around more than once)
Second, any “results” could be easily manipulated as I don’t see Arenanet taking time out of their busy schedules to go through players mail to see if each actually responded to said “poll”.
Third. I don’t see any incentive for Arenanet to agree to this since they already have suggestions area in the forums.

Lynne.8416:

I don’t recommend it for any “new” updates because quite a few people do not like change and will automatically give a negative critique on that basis alone. But I’d say on a quarterly basis they could have a week of in game pop up surveys (similar to what they did during beta) on specifics aspects of the game. ie first quarter is on TP and UI’s, second quarter on events like DE’s and world bosses and hearts..etc etc.

Change is not always good and we instinctively know that because it can cause chaos and suffering where there was no chaos and suffering. It also can destroy familiarity, and we like what is familiar to us, naturally. One only needs to have a grasp of politics or to understand culture to see how the force of change can negatively impact a civilization. When things are already down the tubes, then change is demanded for something to survive; when they aren’t down the tubes, then change is abhorred.

It is no different for anything else man does or makes, including games.

It’s not right to assume a lot of people dislike change for the sake of disliking change, or that they will automatically rate something negatively just because it’s different. Often there is good reason to dislike a change: the change may threaten something they love dearly.

You’ll notice that change that is good is praised, while change that is bad is condemned. There are more negative changes imposed upon us in life because some people are constantly trying to reconstruct and fix what isn’t broken. What they should be focusing on is actually building up what is there and making it better, rather than throwing out what works and experimenting with something completely new in its stead. Additions can be fine, but when you supplant what works with something that doesn’t, you get a chaotic situation, and people suffer because of it.

Most humans understand this intuitively to one degree or another and don’t really realize it until they are faced with a new situation that they loath to be in. To be forced into that situation by something external makes it all the much worse because you then feel powerless to stop it, and we are geared to avoid situations like that at all costs. It appears like most people just “don’t like change” but they only don’t like it when they don’t want to lose what they have. Remember, not all change improves upon something, and in some cases it can be the loss of everything.

I dread a lot of the changes in this update and I do so because it took away things that I loved, but I don’t dread all of the changes.

Lynne.8416:

Zalif.2810:

I think I have not made myself clear and it is my fault, I propose that the polls are created by the players inputed subjects and not by random choice of an Anet employee that lurks in the forums and thinks what is best in his opinion for the poll. We make the polls and discuss them with Anet. They already did that with the CDI where they asked if players wanted to propose subjects to discuss or if they wanted to choose from subjects proposed by Anet.

So you are proposing that players create a poll and send them via in game email to their friends/guilds/random players on the map and then these people are going to submit the results of these polls to Anet?
If this is what you want to do, I have a few concerns.
First, I do not need anymore spam emails. (since one or a thousand emails could be going around more than once)
Second, any “results” could be easily manipulated as I don’t see Arenanet taking time out of their busy schedules to go through players mail to see if each actually responded to said “poll”.
Third. I don’t see any incentive for Arenanet to agree to this since they already have suggestions area in the forums.

No, no that’s it not what I am proposing.

I propose that we players create the polls here in the forums and discuss the better ones with Anet. After this Anet sends the surveys to everyone in-game, not us.
This is because people always say forums are a minority and not the majority, and what we ask is not what everyone wants. With the surveys you bring the info to the people that don’t roam the forums and for once we can know not only if people agree moreover with the forums or not, but we can help give the game a better sense of direction on what needs to be changed.

Unless I’m mistaken, Zalif is suggesting a alternate form of the CDI – a “player driven” one via a poll.
The poll would then be linked or added to the launcher so all players could then add their “vote” (after being discussed with Anet – edit)

This would remove the issue I first listed as a “loaded” or “pre-conceived” illusion of valued input from the players (again, not accusing Anet of this; only I have seen it done many times even recently by several other corporate businesses).

I assume it would make GW2 a bit more like Eve in that it’s more heavily player driven; which explains the extreme levels of loyalty the game has.

Correct me if I am still misreading the suggestion though.

WasAGuest.4973:

Unless I’m mistaken, Zalif is suggesting a alternate form of the CDI – a “player driven” one via a poll.
The poll would then be linked or added to the launcher so all players could then add their “vote” (after being discussed with Anet – edit)

This would remove the issue I first listed as a “loaded” or “pre-conceived” illusion of valued input from the players (again, not accusing Anet of this; only I have seen it done many times even recently by several other corporate businesses).

I assume it would make GW2 a bit more like Eve in that it’s more heavily player driven; which explains the extreme levels of loyalty the game has.

Correct me if I am still misreading the suggestion though.

That’s exactly it. Although I said via in-game mail, but the launcher idea is not bad either, depends on how they would like to handle the rewards for completing the survey. A morale boost to answer them .

It’s really cute that you think they care what you think.

While they may “listen” my opinion is they do not act on what they hear/read, for the most part. There are extremely rare circumstances, such as the outrage over T3 Human Light armor being sold in the gem store for any race.

GOSU.9574:

It’s really cute that you think they care what you think.

While they may “listen” my opinion is they do not act on what they hear/read, for the most part. There are extremely rare circumstances, such as the outrage over T3 Human Light armor being sold in the gem store for any race.

Ascendant gear , was the choice of 300-400 ppl that wanted gear progression and cried on the forums about it at the start of game .

100-200 ppl on the forums wanted them to revamp-redesign high lvl istances(it was Twilight Arbor?) and only a pitiful amount of ppl did them (and later on ppl whined , why the company doesnt improve old dungeons or they dont waste more resources into dungeons… ).

They shouldnt listen to 1-200 ppl at the forums , regadles of how much ‘’attarctive’ the idea is , because they will waste money and the rest of the population will ’’bite’’ them

Killthehealersffs.8940:

GOSU.9574:

It’s really cute that you think they care what you think.

While they may “listen” my opinion is they do not act on what they hear/read, for the most part. There are extremely rare circumstances, such as the outrage over T3 Human Light armor being sold in the gem store for any race.

Ascendant gear , was the choice of 300-400 ppl that wanted gear progression and cried on the forums about it at the start of game .

100-200 ppl on the forums wanted them to revamp-redesign high lvl istances(it was Twilight Arbor?) and only a pitiful amount of ppl did them (and later on ppl whined , why the company doesnt improve old dungeons or they dont waste more resources into dungeons… ).

They shouldnt listen to 1-200 ppl at the forums , regadles of how much ‘’attarctive’ the idea is , because they will waste money and the rest of the population will ’’bite’’ them

If you think for a moment the changes made weren’t something Anet wanted internally, that is cute as well.

Oh yeah , the company wanted to introduce ’’mounts’’ (the Dry flying carpet) ….
not in order to ’’please’’ the ppl that wanted mounts ….
….mount megathread …. I never seen it …

:P

Please don’t derail the thread talking about if they care or not about our opinion since it is not the thread intention. Focus in trying to give reasons if this is a good idea or not, and why.