Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet,

I’d like to thoughtfully share my feelings regarding not only the weekend, but in how the community is addressed. Take for instance, the recent thread conglomerate regarding Ascended. As of now, it contains over 10,000 posts, many of which are negative and speak of players – your customers – leaving the game. In those 10,000 posts, I’ve counted very few feedback posts from the developers or community managers.

I understand that community manager’s posts should be well thought out and aligned with the goals of your organization and the vision you have for the game. While I agree with the vision of the game and the update, I feel it is absolutely necessary to clarify the points that are in fact driving players away. Using the blog to communicate your ideas is fine, but in times like these it’s far more effectual to engage the community in the forum and tackle the highly critical and analytic posts from customers.

In summary, avoid the PR speak and engage us as gamers and customers. Most of your organization plays games and this game as well. We all want direct answers, irrespective if we like them or not, and the PR speak adds to speculation and lost customers. I don’t feel this means revealing all future plans or having us involved in the road map of the game. However, I do feel it’s imperative that when such a huge firestorm from the community erupts, that those sources of frustration are addressed directly and clearly. I feel it’s the in the interest of the community and the profitability of this game to do so.

I hope this post isn’t ignored or merged, nor met with a simple “Thank you for your feedback.” type reply.

Thank you.