Guild Wars 2

A while back, there was a thread going on discussing what options for Mail Carriers that people wanted/were willing to buy. One suggestion was a Quaggan hanging from a balloon flying in a dropping your mail. 5 months after that post, we were blessed with the most amazing mail carrier in game. Being the person who made that suggestion, I stared at the animation and enjoyed it enough to go and buy it from the gem store.

I think it would be a good PR move to give players who suggest things such as these a free version of it and give them some recognition. While I suggested the Quaggan Mail Carrier, I am not saying I want fame or anything… its more that if something is used that was suggested by a player, if that player gets recognition, it feels more that ArenaNet is actually listening to suggestions from the community and may actually encourage others who may have some fantastic ideas out there.

While I like the idea of recognizing important contributions, there is really no way to tell who was “first” or if the idea was one person’s or a collaboration. For example, I sometimes post a suggestion made in /guild chat that results after some back and forth, because the rest of the guild isn’t likely to post in the forums at all. Should I get a free skin for that? What about if there was a lot of back & forth among folks about what would be fun to see, which sparked the idea. Is the person who typed it (or said it aloud in mumble) really the first? Should everyone present that moment get a free skin?

And what about suggestions that aren’t monetized, like changes to the dailies or time gating or so many other ideas that get implemented. Don’t those people deserve “credit”?

I think the only way to be ‘fair’ about such things is what ANet is already doing: make note of intriguing ideas and implement them as appropriate — making a better/“funner” game is in everyone’s interests.

That said, I do wish ANet would bring back some of the design contests they had in GW1 days, when anyone who wanted could submit an idea for a skin (or whatever) and the community might (or might not) have some influence on what got chosen. The winner usually got something special, including (most importantly imo) their idea rendered into the game.

tl;dr recognition is a great idea; alas, the actual process of recognizing isn’t as easy as it sounds.

One problem is that ideas may be bounced back and forth in a thread and refined, then the thread dies. It may be brought back up later in another thread, possibly by someone who doesn’t remember reading the first thread, or it could even be the same general idea twice by two different people, thought up independently. If Anet sees the second thread then that’s who they will give credit and a free item to. If the first person finds out and makes the claim and the second person contests it, it could turn into a real argument. In addition, if other people helped refine the idea with suggestions do they get credit too?

On a public forum, it’s not always easy to determine the originator of an idea. Too many make suggestions to the final version and it might pop up more than once before ANet sees it.

It should be enough of a reward that something you wanted added to the game was indeed added.

fritanga.1623:

A while back, there was a thread going on discussing what options for Mail Carriers that people wanted/were willing to buy. One suggestion was a Quaggan hanging from a balloon flying in a dropping your mail. 5 months after that post, we were blessed with the most amazing mail carrier in game. Being the person who made that suggestion, I stared at the animation and enjoyed it enough to go and buy it from the gem store.

I think it would be a good PR move to give players who suggest things such as these a free version of it and give them some recognition. While I suggested the Quaggan Mail Carrier, I am not saying I want fame or anything… its more that if something is used that was suggested by a player, if that player gets recognition, it feels more that ArenaNet is actually listening to suggestions from the community and may actually encourage others who may have some fantastic ideas out there.

My recognition to you will be pushing you off a cliff or something, since the only good quaggan related things are dead ones.

fritanga.1623:

A while back, there was a thread going on discussing what options for Mail Carriers that people wanted/were willing to buy. One suggestion was a Quaggan hanging from a balloon flying in a dropping your mail. 5 months after that post, we were blessed with the most amazing mail carrier in game. Being the person who made that suggestion, I stared at the animation and enjoyed it enough to go and buy it from the gem store.

I think it would be a good PR move to give players who suggest things such as these a free version of it and give them some recognition. While I suggested the Quaggan Mail Carrier, I am not saying I want fame or anything… its more that if something is used that was suggested by a player, if that player gets recognition, it feels more that ArenaNet is actually listening to suggestions from the community and may actually encourage others who may have some fantastic ideas out there.

a long time ago, when there wasn’t GW2, and there wasn’t an official forum. The fans of GW gathered on the GW1 guru website. When asked why arenanet never reacted to suggestions, someone from Arenanet explained the reasons. It has to do with legal issues and copyright. By reacting to a suggestion in any form, Arenanet aknowledge that it was not their invention.

Take the example of your balloon quaggan. I do think that arenanet would like to do exactly as you propose. But what if another game copy’s this, and puts a quaggan like character in and make a mail carrier doing exactly the same. Arenanet will likely sue this company for a copyright case. The defense will look in all hooks and corners and then argue that it wasn’t Arenanet’s idea and so it isn’t a copyright case.

So unfortunally it is not wise from a legal point of view, and sadly, laywers have a lot of power in this world.

I’m going to go with no. If you suggested it, you can be proud of it and know that you contributed, if not flat out gave them the idea. ANet doesn’t need to do anything, and probably shouldn’t for a variety of reasons, especially legal ones.

That slope is far too slippery.

fritanga: Many, many, many of us have made suggestions in the past which may have in one way or another been or will be implemented into the game.

Take the CDI’s for example. Some of the CDIs had thousands of posts, who’s to say who came up with something first and frankly, IMO, it is not really important. We are all making suggestions to make the game better. It is a collaborative team effort in which we are all striving toward a superior gaming experience.

So instead of a pat on the back for your contribution, I instead would like to shake your hand and say “Way To Go Team!”