Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

OK, I do have one question. Just one I want to ask while your attention is here!

Can you ask about (doesn’t have to be today) on any word on tribal armor making a comeback to spvp? Just a simple “working on it” or “no”.

It taunts me every day when I look in my wardrobe and hate RNG more :’(

After I heard that Guild Wars 2 was not going to be adding any Dungeons, I uninstalled. I wish they would have told me sooner.

Gaile Gray.6029:

That’s not in the cards.

I’m very sorry to hear that. I really am. Especially since it means that the whole “communication improvement” initiative is useless and was never meant to actually improve anything.

Oh well, i shouldn’t have had my hopes up that maybe something will change. Next time i will know better.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Serophous.9085:

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

OK, I do have one question. Just one I want to ask while your attention is here!

Can you ask about (doesn’t have to be today) on any word on tribal armor making a comeback to spvp? Just a simple “working on it” or “no”.

It taunts me every day when I look in my wardrobe and hate RNG more :’(

I can’t take a request from this thread. Would you please post a separate thread, or better still, post in an existing thread on this subject, so I have detailed context?

Thanks for understanding.

Done. The other threads I believe were just too old by now, and I didn’t want to be accused of necroing.

Sorry again.

Astralporing.1957:

Gaile Gray.6029:

That’s not in the cards.

I’m very sorry to hear that. I really am. Especially since it means that the whole “communication improvement” initiative is useless and was never meant to actually improve anything.

Oh well, i shouldn’t have had my hopes up that maybe something will change. Next time i will know better.

That’s taking what she said out of context, attaching your own meaning to it, and basically coming to the conclusion that because ArenaNet can’t “open the floodgates” and tell us everything that any attempts to improve communication must be worthless. In the very next sentence of her post she said that she would try to see what more can be done, but what’s off the table is a total reversal of the policy they have in place now. There is a wide field of potential improvement between there and what we currently have.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I can’t take a request from this thread.

I guess this thread is on the naughty list?

eekzie.5640:

Gaile Gray.6029:

This is a sweeping statement that is difficult to analyze. Which feature pack. What specific element is broken? How is it broken? Are you certain that whatever was broken remains broken? (IOW, are you tracking bug fixes, etc?)

-sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip-

Whoa, ask and you shall receive O.o Nice!

Gaile Gray.6029:

I fully and completely understand the frustration. I truly comprehend that players would like us — someone, anyone! — to “open the floodgates” on information. That’s not in the cards. However, I have some ideas that I am going to float internally to see if we can say a bit more while honoring the overall communications policy.

Gaile, there’s a number of responses to your post overall. I’ll keep it simple:

A company cannot improve communication with customers when that company specifically has a policy that says it can’t communicate with customers.

Your job and goal to improve communications is completely at odds with that company policy – and that policy is simply wrong for so many reasons that I could spend an hour writing a response about. Don’t work to find some way to work within the policy. Get the policy changed.

Arenanet learned the completely wrong lesson from the precursor crafting thing. It shouldn’t be that you can never ever let anything slip that isn’t 100% confirmed – it should be that when plans and priorities change, that needs to be communicated.

You can never go wrong by being open and honest with your customers. Your customers will support you, even if it is “bad” news, if you are consistently open and honest with them.

Tamasan.6457:

You can never go wrong by being open and honest with your customers. Your customers will support you, even if it is “bad” news, if you are consistently open and honest with them.

I applaud your optimism. And it is well placed… provided everyone’s greatest priority is supporting Anet (Hmm…).
There can be more than one road to the destination… have a little faith. Things can always change. Just don’t hold your breath though coz… u know…

Gaile Gray.6029:

• CJ must be ruing his announcement (last year?) in a vid on youtube, about precursor crafting before the end of 2013. Disregard the fact that it was announced to people looking forward to this particular feature that it wouldn’t make it in the feature patch that it was supposed to be released with — in the interview it shouldn’t have been discussed at all.

Ah, but see what you did there? I think, basically, you said something should not have been discussed until its implementation was absolutely confirmed. And isn’t that what the current policy states? We do not engage in a lot of predictive chatter about things that may not come; we reveal something — a feature, a fix, something new — when it’s assured. Not “this may happen” but “this will happen.”

We discussed this earlier in the thread.

Apparently there was a post about the delay on this idea, but where was it posted? In some thread in the crafting portion of the forums….

Wouldn’t you think something that is an update to previous disclosed intentions should be made more visible? Don’t you think less people would be complaining if they knew that there were complications and a reason that it hadn’t happened yet?

Might I suggest updating THIS area of the forums?

I mean that area of the forums seems to be what this entire thread is about.

If we got updates every now and then about things in the works, and then updates if those things were delayed or simply didn’t pan out. Well… this thread and this feeling of hopeless futility wouldn’t exist.

Either way, GL with your efforts, and thank you for them, I wish something would actually happen but I’m not holding my breath, I really mean those two words “hopeless futility” as I think they sum up the current situation pretty well for many of us.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

The latest feature packs have been broken from the start, and no attempt has been made to either fix them or at the very least communicate with us why there is such a major delay in fixing them+*.

This is a sweeping statement that is difficult to analyze. Which feature pack. What specific element is broken? How is it broken? Are you certain that whatever was broken remains broken? (IOW, are you tracking bug fixes, etc?)

If you’re saying “the whole thing is broken” I’m going to call that hyperbole and move on. If you can detail exact, quantifiable elements that were and remain broken, I’m all ears!

Ask and you shall receive. (A bit of a pity more of this isn’t commonplace within the game and its development)…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Collections

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/About-collections

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Early-Feature-Pack-Speculation/first#post4561082

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collections-Treasure-Hunter-and-salvaging

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Customer-Support-9-9-Feature-Build/page/3#post4451833

For clarity, once more, it was the September feature pack. I’m sure there are other threads which I’ve posted in describing my dissatisfaction with the QA of the last feature pack. I even sent you a PM about this 9 days ago in fact, describing my concern for these collections and their bugged state.

I also applaud the efforts of others who have detailed where other feature pack stuff (ie. April) has gone wrong. For me, right here and right now, it’s the Collections and why 3 of them can’t be activated. Ever since September I’ve been anxiously awaiting the patch notes which tell me the moment I can clear at least 2 of my bank tabs and finish off my Collections.

… now back to regular programming.

EDIT: at your request Gaile, I haven’t posted details about the feature pack bugs here, just links to the posts, which also include feedback which was initiated by a red post in the General Discussion, and a thread in the Bugs forum already.

It seems to me that communication is being stifled, and/or not getting through to the right people.

Ragnarox.9601:

Wait..you can get story done in 10 mins. and whats the point of 4 others doing it because it it easy even for 1 player.
Whats the point of Eotm? Its small WvW.
Whats the point of the new maps?Its just for grinding gold which gets borring after 1hour.

Grow up? Man how many hours did you played? Did you play this game from a start? Do you farm SW or dry top just for fun or the GOLD? This whole game become grindfest. Dont be white knight, ppl hate those.

So that your arguments for a 2yo game is valid? Some other games had 2 expansions in 2 years (eg. 10 maps, 20 levels, 20 dungeons, 4 classes, 4 races…)

I’m no whiteknight, if you follow my posts you’d see that I have enough criticism about some features in the game, but I also have praise when I feel it’s deserved. I also think that the no-talking policy is very bad for the game, the community and it fuels anger and frustration. People need something to look forward to, just like the roadmap we got from Colin “looking ahead”.

I also participate in the CDIs and it’s really a fun and interesting communication between motivated positive players and the devs. It gives us a glimpse in things that might come and it’s not 100% theoretical when I look at earlier CDIs and it’s numerous results (e.g. the reward structure in Drytop, the WvW-like Silverwastes map, the scavenger hunt for Mawdrey,…………..).

That said it would still be nice to hear clear statements that they are working on specific things (here: guild raids, GvG and guild halls) as well as some specifics on it – with the big notice: things are subject to change.

Gaile was talking about ebb and flow and we could take this on content releases as well imho: Season 1 had content for every group of players: jumping puzzles and maps for explorers, (temporary (sigh)) dungeons for the group-veterans, new sPvP maps, EotM for WvW players and players who are PvE and a bit afraid to jump into WvW,… Now in season 2 the focus is a bit more on single-players and challenging content for them, I strongly believe that the new story missions and the achievement-hunt in those is more challenging than other stuff people could do on their own before. Having this focus I assume that focus on other parts of the game WILL come.

The point of the new maps (for me) is to have fun. I don’t play the game to accumulate tons and tons of gold or to “grind” out the best gear. I do activities that will net me a reward, but I choose to do the ones I like to do at the moment and jump to other things too, even if those are less rewarding. I can see little grind (doing the same things over and over) since the variety of events you can do to get rewards is huge. It’s fun (for me) to defend a fort in the Silverwastes with a few randoms, then explore the area a bit and pick up some chests, then see other people in need for help and run up to aid them. It feels natural to me. I do not grind in the sense that I stay in a fort for hours just because it may net me the highest number of bandit crests.

Same with Drytop. I don’t do the same events every time, I go where I see others and leave again when it feels right. There are enough players in each map now (due to Megaservers) that the world feels alive and you don’t need to grind in this game period to get rewards and feel good.

Sorry for the wall of text. Just wanted to make clear that you don’t have to be a white knight to love something about the game and that people can have fun when they don’t strictly play for maximum amount of rewards. I also understand the frustration of having this no-talk policy and I also love each post of our new shining appearance Gaile – top motivated and with the attitude to help us as good as she can do.

Im just happy the game is sub free if the game had a sub price like most aaa mmo’s then i would feel i have a right to kitten ,but for a game thats virtually f2p in all of its glory this game is awesome the content come out nicely especially for a game thats FREE. (I know the game cost money for the product itself you know what i mean.)

Bonefield.9813:

Astralporing.1957:

Gaile Gray.6029:

That’s not in the cards.

I’m very sorry to hear that. I really am. Especially since it means that the whole “communication improvement” initiative is useless and was never meant to actually improve anything.

Oh well, i shouldn’t have had my hopes up that maybe something will change. Next time i will know better.

That’s taking what she said out of context, attaching your own meaning to it, and basically coming to the conclusion that because ArenaNet can’t “open the floodgates” and tell us everything that any attempts to improve communication must be worthless. In the very next sentence of her post she said that she would try to see what more can be done, but what’s off the table is a total reversal of the policy they have in place now. There is a wide field of potential improvement between there and what we currently have.

That policy whose reversal/change is “not in the cards” is the primary reason why the communications are bad. Without that change, any “improvements” can only be superficial. And we have been just told that this change simply won’t happen. No, i don’t think i am jumping to conclusions.

MikeyGrey.2496:

There can be more than one road to the destination… have a little faith. Things can always change.

I had a little faith. Unfortunately it seems to have been misplaced. Also, you know, it’s not the first time Anet “tried” to improv communications. Currently there’s no reason to suspect it’s going to end any better than the previous attempts. And the previous attempts ended in a lot of talk, but no substance.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Serophous.9085:

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

OK, I do have one question. Just one I want to ask while your attention is here!

Can you ask about (doesn’t have to be today) on any word on tribal armor making a comeback to spvp? Just a simple “working on it” or “no”.

It taunts me every day when I look in my wardrobe and hate RNG more :’(

I can’t take a request from this thread. Would you please post a separate thread, or better still, post in an existing thread on this subject, so I have detailed context?

Thanks for understanding.

What? You can’t take a request from this thread? What policy is that? What more context do you want? He wants tribal armor back in PvP.

The whole problem this thread is trying to make clear is that a lot of players lost trust in ArenaNet when it comes to communication. About if ArenaNet has any idea where they want to go. And if that idea is to invest in this game or that ArenaNet is just trying to get the most money out of the current content.

It is this sort of reactions that make me angry. I will probably play this game until someone pushes the shut down button on the servers. I still like the open world PvE and I still walk around happily through Tyria every day. But I don’t believe that the game while be developed further. So I tell my friends on TS that it is unlikely that they want to come back. As they want new development. They left the game.

I can’t remember the last time I spend real life money on this game. I won’t spend any money on GW2 in the future unless I get the feeling that it will be used for development. So I hope you succeed in attracting new players to GW2 to get money. And let that be my (repeated) message to the GW2 veterans on this forum: It looks like ArenaNet makes their money with new sales and that is where their little development is focused on. Don’t expect anything crazy for veteran players.

September 2014 Feature Pack

• Combat log
  Much needed improvements to visibility of what happens during combat.
  There’s still underlying issues of several attacks not being telegraphed at all or very poorly.

• Standard enemy models
  Only available in certain modes. Makes no sense as you want people to prepare for them, yet you take away vital tools that people really want. Aside from that, something that a competitive game should’ve had since release.

• PvP-exclusive armor
  Nice building upon the reward track to give PvP some shinies.
  ‘’The Glorious Hero’s set is a top-tier reward for certain competitive tournaments’’
  What happened to that again exactly? Right, already backtracking on that.
  But I agree an exclusive armor should not be too exclusive or stuck in one place.

• Commander
  Something that should’ve been account bound since release.
  More colors for more distinctive commanders, finally.
  The cost can never be too expensive, so it’s in a decent place right now.
  It gives a nice platform to add more ‘prestige’ colors, if that’s even considered.

• WvW
  Some golem line that doesn’t have too significant of an impact.
  More consumables that I’ll never care about.

• Balance Changes
  There were some decent changes in here, although luckily through up front communication mesmer disasters were prevented. With the commander changes, two typical examples of how communication should go. Give us enough time to give feedback so that you don’t put in fundamentally broken aspects.
  Still several things that are far from perfect and still many skills/traits not in a useful state.

• New Runes and Sigils
  More things to not care about.
  Fix your old stuff before adding more please.

• Guilds
  Should’ve had this from release, but it’s something that’s really good.
  Some megaserver things changed for guild missions. Personally haven’t had issues with that before, but it seems like it could help.

• Crafting
  Some crafting updates to make it easier to craft the final recipe.
  UI is still really messy, especially with regards to items you never want to craft again anyway. Still a very non-userfriendly system, made better.
  Some backpieces added that I don’t care about, but I can’t speak for others on this one.

• New Player Experience
  Where to start?
  Generally on the right track. Several things still in weird places. Mostly in regards to traits.
  Level up rewards are mostly advice. Especially if you’ve already gone through it once you just feel like you’re part of a bad joke.
  I’ll keep it short and just say that experience players just feel shafted and that there should have been a clear distinction in game between experienced and new players regarding how content is presented to them.
  Personal story messed up for no reason (level 70 / 80). Aside from it being super easy now cause you are always overleveled.
  Some really wonky scaling issues will hopefully get smoothened.

• Wardrobe
  Some decent UI improvements, always good.
  Previewing finishers we can all be happy about.
  Miniatures following their roots from GW1.
  If it aint broken, don’t fix it. But apparently you wanted to do it differently for no reason and now you’re coming back to it.
  I feel really bad for achievement point hunters who haven’t done this prior to this update. Really poorly handled there.

• Achievements
  Item collections. Or should I say shopping list?
  Pretty much that’s what it is, and I’m disappointed as it’s a nice system that could’ve been so much nicer. Rewards are lackluster for majority of the collections as well.
  Some of the newly added ones (looking at you luminescent) are generally well implemented. Although I have to ask, why change what aint broken again with the story not giving out the glove boxes? Inconsistency for no reason.
  Aside from that some UI overhauling that’s done nicely.

• Trading Post
  Overall in a better place. Although I do feel that the UI is still massively cluttered, it does give more and better information. Finally search functions (light/medium/heavy) that were removed from the TP for no reason, that people have wanted since release.
  Better search function overall, but still not user friendly. Especially when you’re switching between buy/sell/transactions and you were searching for things.
  Also finally added ways to properly search for items that you previously couldn’t search for. Still scratching my head over why this wasn’t in the game before.

• Miscellaneous
  Instance owner. A much needed change. Put on the right track but still far from the destination. I’ve already expressed myself that there should be a better system on top of this to prevent people from abusing the kick function.
  Some back-end updates to increase performance. Always good.
  Loot drops being tweaked. I am sincerely disappointed in how this works. Or why it even exists.
  First off it’s hardly noticable and should not have been an issue if the rewards from leveling up and personal story were in a better place. Second it simply just gives better loot to certain professions.
  Special new rare/exotic items that I personally didn’t care about. Very annoying to have them drop for me on a level 80 when I already have all professions at level 80 and very little desire to start leveling a new character.
  Item’s got their names fixed after transmutation. Yay.

Overall very disappointing as again, so many of these things should not have been an issue in the first place. And this time we have nothing really fancy such as the wardrobe function. I don’t think it had substantial performance, portability, or functionality increases that it justify it being such a big deal PR wise. Which is why so many people feel disappointed. Especially when you’re giving them names that have so much potential that people start speculating crazily. Only to get disappointed when the changes have absolutely no noticable effect for them ever and that the topic names were glorified. Sadly the item collection just has so many things done wrong that I can’t be too happy about it.

Aside from the criticism, there’s still several features simply missing from the game. Thinking of it, maybe a CDI on that would be good for the game.
If I give my perspective on those things I know there will be bias in them so I will refrain myself from doing so at this point.

Ok, I can’t leave this one out. Biggest personal disappointment since launch is the lack of UI custimization (skill bar placement and such) and first person view.

Considering this is an MMO and people expect time consuming stories and events to build up their characters the reason why a roadmap or extra information isn’t given is that when they do players can form their own opinion and can make a decision to spend their time in this game or another..

By keeping players in the dark you keep them hoping for better content hence they will not leave the game immediately but will slowly come to the realization that this is as good as it gets and will slowly trickle out of the game. From a business point of view i totally get that.

From a players point of view it made me look for other time consuming games that have regular updates and content to keep me interested. Since you never know what you are going to get if kept in the dark.

As for content released and whether it’s enough.

No, its not enough. LS is not the base of this game, LS is not the end all be all solution, LS is a great platform to introduce new content for PvE.

Yet this game is not about LS. It is about player interaction and playing together towards a certain goal.

Expand on the possibilities to play together in different ways with different goals and you will create interest in more then one part of the game.

Ignore a part of the game and those players will look around the game for other content, but usually find that content not living up to the experience they had playing the content they want to play.

Iow. Don’t ignore the prime reason 1/3 the player population bought this game.. WvW.

And if players leave the game it’s mostly due to no clear direction on where the game is going, lack of information on which these players can judge for themselves to spend their time and money on or not.

its a hard choice.. tell all and risk losing thousands of players at once,’With a chance of them returning.
Or dont release anything and have the player population bleed to death without chance of return because of past experience and skepticism.

I’d just like to say for the record, its got to be really tough to be the community communications person when the company has a firm policy against open communication. Thanks, Gaile! You’re amazing.

That being said, I feel like ANET treats their customers like children. They don’t want us continually asking, “are we there yet”, so they threw us in the trunk with a blindfold on and keep yelling “just another few minutes” back to us. The problem is, we’re all getting hungry and tired back here!

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

I’m sorry…that is just one person’s opinion of what is right and what is wrong. I don’t really understand why you will be investigating what’s ‘wrong’ with those features or implementations. I’m confused, now, what this thread is about.

GuildWars2 attracted a certain playerbase at launch, the Manifesto Trailer showed that both players who loved previous MMO’s and players who loved GW1 in particular will find what they want in GW2. Those players, the ones who are now complaining, want to know if GW2 still tries to cater to them.

Right now, GuildWars2 doesn’t do that anymore, everything seems to be “casual oriented”, one might get the feeling that it tries to appeal to new players more than it tries to hold its old players.

The majority of players in this thread want to know if ArenaNet will neglect them for another year or if there is sufficient content coming for them too. The past has shown that ArenaNet can’t cater to both completely new players, the one the NPE changes are for, and the “veteran players”, which are waiting for stuff like dungeons, hard, challenging or fun content, well-engineered mechanics and long-time values or goals.

Edit: I hope before this thread gets closed due to derailment we can get a pleasing answer to this question.

I honestly never saw a dev approaching playerbase this close, even when they’re all hanging torches and pitchforks… you’re awesome, Gaile. <3

Valento.9852:

I honestly never saw a dev approaching playerbase this close, even when they’re all hanging torches and pitchforks… you’re awesome, Gaile. <3

you should visit more games forums, Marvel Heroes for example have devs posting almost daily and not just lower staff the head guys and staff.

CS staff job to do what Gaile is doing btw (no offence) if she didn’t post or talk she would be fired :P

Gaile Gray.6029:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

• We respectfully beg to differ. If the game isn’t lacking direction, then why won’t you at least share it with your concerned players? To hell with the policy… we want to know where the game is going. Gaile, put yourself in our shoes for a minute — wouldn’t you want to know too?

I understand and sure, as a player, I’d like that info. But that isn’t what the company is doing right now, and we all know, under it all, that someone saying “to hell with policy” isn’t a professional stance to take. This is where we are right now. Not forever, but right now.

I fully and completely understand the frustration. I truly comprehend that players would like us — someone, anyone! — to “open the floodgates” on information. That’s not in the cards. However, I have some ideas that I am going to float internally to see if we can say a bit more while honoring the overall communications policy. I wouldn’t propose that we answer “the big questions” in a forum post, but I know that forum members are some of our most passionate and connected players and I do wonder if we can offer some information. Outcome of this decision is TBD, naturally.

• CJ must be ruing his announcement (last year?) in a vid on youtube, about precursor crafting before the end of 2013. Disregard the fact that it was announced to people looking forward to this particular feature that it wouldn’t make it in the feature patch that it was supposed to be released with — in the interview it shouldn’t have been discussed at all.

Ah, but see what you did there? I think, basically, you said something should not have been discussed until its implementation was absolutely confirmed. And isn’t that what the current policy states? We do not engage in a lot of predictive chatter about things that may not come; we reveal something — a feature, a fix, something new — when it’s assured. Not “this may happen” but “this will happen.”

The latest feature packs have been broken from the start, and no attempt has been made to either fix them or at the very least communicate with us why there is such a major delay in fixing them+*.

This is a sweeping statement that is difficult to analyze. Which feature pack. What specific element is broken? How is it broken? Are you certain that whatever was broken remains broken? (IOW, are you tracking bug fixes, etc?)

If you’re saying “the whole thing is broken” I’m going to call that hyperbole and move on. If you can detail exact, quantifiable elements that were and remain broken, I’m all ears! Because I can try to track things down if given sufficient details, but I surely can’t go into a room and say “stuff’s broken” and expect to get the information that you’d like to have, and that I’d like to share. (Please don’t post details in this thread. If you’d like to report the issues, would you please do so in the Bugs Forum? I will look for a thread if you care to share it!)

~~~~~

Having read this thread daily, and taking the general comments from everyone on board, I’m not sure that I can provide anything more in this specific thread. I do feel I can provide more — we can provide more — elsewhere. And that’s what I’m going to pursue.

Thank you for a constructive and enlightening discussion and for sharing your thoughts in ways that have been impressively courteous.

Gaile,

I just want to thank you for coming here and making this effort. I know it is not easy and some people are at the point where they are just so frustrated that they have a hard time getting past it, but you are doing a really good thing here that may be bringing the entire company out of a very dark place.

What you are doing really matters. And it is really appreciated. By myself and many others. So thank you Gaile.

Sytherek.7689:

Please don’t talk as if everyone agrees with you. They do not.

The Living Story zone is very busy, plenty of people have said they like the current LS updates, and I (for one) enjoy LS.

I have only limited interest in new races. And the LS updates contain new zones. Given that you don’t play them, I wonder how you can complain about “no new zones” when there are new zones you won’t play.

Perhaps you are in a minority?

Where did I say everyone agrees with me? I never said everyone hated the Living Story but I do see way more people asking for the same thing I asked for.

New Races
News Professions
New Maps

So far 2+ years into the game and we’ve been given nothing new but 3 small gimmick maps and Living Story updates that most really don’t like. We expect good halloween and Wintersday things. I enjoy our April Fools things but that’s not enough. I am bored with the game. I have 16 characters with full world completion and I want new areas, not some story that I’m not interested in. I am in the majority here and it seems you are in the minority simply based on the multitude of posts here that demand new content rather than story. Enjoy your living story, we want something else.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

I’m sorry…that is just one person’s opinion of what is right and what is wrong. I don’t really understand why you will be investigating what’s ‘wrong’ with those features or implementations. I’m confused, now, what this thread is about.

thought it was to kvetch and say ‘look at me!’

Rose Solane.1027:

What? You can’t take a request from this thread? What policy is that? What more context do you want? He wants tribal armor back in PvP.

It’s simple: This thread has nothing to do with PvP armor. She didn’t say “I can’t take that request,” she said “make a new thread about it, and I’ll look into it.” I think you misunderstood that post

I have to admit that this thread uttered my inner voice.
well,I’m a player from China,and an avid fun of GW2,also a MMORPG aficionado.Doubtless,GW2 is an epic artwork(in my eyes).I am gratified by exploring the world,crafting items,combat and so on.Many friends of mine are playing in US server.Why don’t we play in Chinese server?because we all confirm that Chinese GW2 is not the original GW2.it has been more than 2 years since GW2’s release.There is no massive expansion launched,even a trace of news.Now,my friends are griping “yeah,GW2 is the one of the best mmo I ever seen,the features of dynamic events,wvw,explorable world,fascinating combat and skills,and sometimes also truly grabbed my eyes,but the fact is the endgame isn’t interesting.Why not go release massive expansions?we are willing to buy it”.
Anet ,u delved a hollow and lured us in,then u should be responsible for us to the end.So,Anet,what’s ur goal?plz show it to us.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gaile Gray.6029:

eekzie.5640:

~snip~

This is very, very helpful. Thank you so much for this info. I’ll see if I can find out anything about this. (But please know next week has other things on the charts, and there’s a four-day holiday coming up so it may take a bit of time.) Thank you again for these details.

I’m sorry…that is just one person’s opinion of what is right and what is wrong. I don’t really understand why you will be investigating what’s ‘wrong’ with those features or implementations. I’m confused, now, what this thread is about.

Well, you’re always free to share your side of things, too

And you’re right, let’s move that topic to a new thread — it’s gonna be a big, heated discussion, methinks…

something else.

Valento.9852:

I honestly never saw a dev approaching playerbase this close, even when they’re all hanging torches and pitchforks… you’re awesome, Gaile. <3

Just to point out, now that we’ve started talking to each other with a bit of respect/honesty (on both sides!), a lot of the pitchforks are being lowered

Yargesh.4965:

thought it was to kvetch and say ‘look at me!’

Yargesh.4965:

Valdur.2679:

ok, but what did you think of my sugestions? did you find them exciting or not?

Pretty much the defining type of post in this thread.

Yargesh.4965:

We can’t have and angry Dlonie now can we?

Yargesh.4965:

Why?
You are super duper special, great.
It is their policy.

Yargesh.4965:

People seem to have attachment issues. This is a game, not a personal relationship. You may be a wonderful person, you may be a nutbar, all the same thing since you are a name and in some cases several books worth of postings on forums or whatever. Nothing more.
There is no relationship except business to customer.
They owe you nothing but the game.
If they lose people it is not because they don’t love you.

Yargesh.4965:

All you have is strawman and sad? You really need new material.

Yargesh.4965:

guess I did at that, have fun on this…. topic

I’d appreciate it if just one of your posts on this thread was even slightly constructive or contributed to the discussion.

Thanks.

Gaile has pretty much done all she can here, she’s going to see if anyone at the top is willing to release more info, which is really what we have been asking for. As far as I am concerned this thread was a success, our point has been made and involved parties are considering our request.

Time will tell how much they divulge. A state of the game once a month would be nice.

dlonie.6547:

eekzie.5640:

Gaile Gray.6029:

This is a sweeping statement that is difficult to analyze. Which feature pack. What specific element is broken? How is it broken? Are you certain that whatever was broken remains broken? (IOW, are you tracking bug fixes, etc?)

-sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip-

Whoa, ask and you shall receive O.o Nice!

Just hope I didn’t put too much of my personal opinion in the couple posts. Tried to give objective opinionised criticism, if that makes any sense to you. As in, general sentiment I picked up on the forum as well as objective criticism.

And why wouldn’t we (players) be open to questions when we expect the same from anet?

At a glance all I’m seeing is the same old, same old. Maybes won’t cut it. Let’s wait and see? I waited, and I haven’t seen yet. Until there’s a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on, I don’t see any reason to hang around. Waiting. Waiting might work as a game mechanic for browser-based games – for an MMO however, not so much.

SpeedFiend.4521:

At a glance all I’m seeing is the same old, same old. Maybes won’t cut it. Let’s wait and see? I waited, and I haven’t seen yet. Until there’s a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on, I don’t see any reason to hang around. Waiting. Waiting might work as a game mechanic for browser-based games – for an MMO however, not so much.

Seriously, what’s your cut off? If you guys don’t want to continue waiting, when you are going to say enough is enough? What is the absolute deadline for Anet to get back to us? Or are deadlines only applicable to Anet?

nightwulf.1986:

SpeedFiend.4521:

At a glance all I’m seeing is the same old, same old. Maybes won’t cut it. Let’s wait and see? I waited, and I haven’t seen yet. Until there’s a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on, I don’t see any reason to hang around. Waiting. Waiting might work as a game mechanic for browser-based games – for an MMO however, not so much.

Seriously, what’s your cut off? If you guys don’t want to continue waiting, when you are going to say enough is enough? What is the absolute deadline for Anet to get back to us? Or are deadlines only applicable to Anet?

Many have been waiting for 2 years and have reached their limit. I know that I have. I really want to play GW2 but it just isn’t fun anymore.
Anet has the old saying that it is done when it is done™, so really it is pretty much useless to ask for a timeframe.

As a friend just said beside me just now, "Well their policy has been ’ say nothing until it’s ready because it can change ’ but now they said something, and it’s about things that aren’t ready, so they are finally acknowledging that the silence is doing more damage than good.

This thread has some genuine back and forth going on. The game has desperately needed that.

Stormcrow.7513:

nightwulf.1986:

SpeedFiend.4521:

At a glance all I’m seeing is the same old, same old. Maybes won’t cut it. Let’s wait and see? I waited, and I haven’t seen yet. Until there’s a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on, I don’t see any reason to hang around. Waiting. Waiting might work as a game mechanic for browser-based games – for an MMO however, not so much.

Seriously, what’s your cut off? If you guys don’t want to continue waiting, when you are going to say enough is enough? What is the absolute deadline for Anet to get back to us? Or are deadlines only applicable to Anet?

Many have been waiting for 2 years and have reached their limit. I know that I have. I really want to play GW2 but it just isn’t fun anymore.
Anet has the old saying that it is done when it is done™, so really it is pretty much useless to ask for a timeframe.

Maybe it is useless to ask for a timeframe. But still, this entire concept of communicating in a manner that players want revolves around an unspecified interval of communication. Right now, Anet’s stated goal is to tell us what we want to know based on an internal, clandestine schedule. We’ll never know anything until they decide to tell us. What I’ve been hearing is that some of us want, not only direct communication explaining future plans, but we want that information ASAP, not some unspecified later time. Anet plans things out months (as evidenced by stated living story development timelines) and possibly even years in advance. Things can and often do change during development, and some players want to be appraised of almost every change as it happens so we aren’t surprised by anything. Is that reasonable in an “iterative design” environment that Anet touts to use? Do we really want to be informed every time they go back to the drawing board on things we want? Would leaving that sort of communication out be ok? I can guarantee you, no matter how you answer these questions, there will be some sub-faction that always will want more than the last and will be happy to continue the crusade when a compromise is reached. It is still worth fleshing out these details though so they at least have something more concrete to go on than don’t hide anything and tell us everything.

nightwulf.1986:

Stormcrow.7513:

nightwulf.1986:

SpeedFiend.4521:

At a glance all I’m seeing is the same old, same old. Maybes won’t cut it. Let’s wait and see? I waited, and I haven’t seen yet. Until there’s a lot more clarity on what exactly is going on, I don’t see any reason to hang around. Waiting. Waiting might work as a game mechanic for browser-based games – for an MMO however, not so much.

Seriously, what’s your cut off? If you guys don’t want to continue waiting, when you are going to say enough is enough? What is the absolute deadline for Anet to get back to us? Or are deadlines only applicable to Anet?

Many have been waiting for 2 years and have reached their limit. I know that I have. I really want to play GW2 but it just isn’t fun anymore.
Anet has the old saying that it is done when it is done™, so really it is pretty much useless to ask for a timeframe.

Maybe it is useless to ask for a timeframe. But still, this entire concept of communicating in a manner that players want revolves around an unspecified interval of communication. Right now, Anet’s stated goal is to tell us what we want to know based on an internal, clandestine schedule. We’ll never know anything until they decide to tell us. What I’ve been hearing is that some of us want, not only direct communication explaining future plans, but we want that information ASAP, not some unspecified later time. Anet plans things out months (as evidenced by stated living story development timelines) and possibly even years in advance. Things can and often do change during development, and some players want to be appraised of almost every change as it happens so we aren’t surprised by anything. Is that reasonable in an “iterative design” environment that Anet touts to use? Do we really want to be informed every time they go back to the drawing board on things we want? Would leaving that sort of communication out be ok? I can guarantee you, no matter how you answer these questions, there will be some sub-faction that always will want more than the last and will be happy to continue the crusade when a compromise is reached. It is still worth fleshing out these details though so they at least have something more concrete to go on than don’t hide anything and tell us everything.

Not so much that we want to know everything, but some more realistic perspective on what’s to come would be nice. After LS:S2 we have no idea. Which is pretty much a couple more weeks.

As well as a lot of things that have been said that they were working on it, some updates on it would be nice. Those things go back all the way to 2012 on several topics.
Pretty much all of the ’’we’re working on it in the background’’ is unknown. Does this mean we will not see any of it in a short timeline? Should we not expect something then let us know.

One-time access to the MS Project data for GW2 now in the Gem store—only 2000 gems. Includes 1 (one) detailed PERT chart and a certificate redeemable for 1 (one) clear answer to a “yes/no” question. :-)

Shen Slayer.3058:

So Anet wants us to invest more money/gems into the game…but won’t tell us anything about their plans. Yeah, Sure!

literally, perfect.

I understand and sure, as a player, I’d like that info. But that isn’t what the company is doing right now, and we all know, under it all, that someone saying “to hell with policy” isn’t a professional stance to take. This is where we are right now. Not forever, but right now.

There’s nothing wrong with “to hell with the policy” when The Policy is a bad and arbitrary one. To hell with The Policy. I’m not saying that individual devs should just ignore “The Policy” on their own say-so, they would clearly get in trouble for that and nobody’s expecting them to go above and beyond for their customers like that, I’m saying that The Policy itself needs to go. This is not some law imposed by an outside organization, this is someone within ANet deciding to tie everyone’s hands behind their backs for no apparent reason. UNTIE THEM.

Anything else you may do is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s not solving the problem, the problem IS “The Policy.” To hell with The Policy.

I don’t agree with not getting an outline of the general direction of the game. I really don’t. It’s hard to “take it on good faith” when my good faith was squandered after I purchased the game on good faith in the manifesto.

“Hey, get on this boat.”

“Where are we headed?”

— nothing but silence in response —

It’s not my aim to be rude. It’s just how I feel I am being treated. It’d be nice to get a little respect for the money I put into the game by being told whether or not the content that is coming on “my good faith” is content that is actually aimed at me as a player.

Ohoni.6057:

I understand and sure, as a player, I’d like that info. But that isn’t what the company is doing right now, and we all know, under it all, that someone saying “to hell with policy” isn’t a professional stance to take. This is where we are right now. Not forever, but right now.

There’s nothing wrong with “to hell with the policy” when The Policy is a bad and arbitrary one. To hell with The Policy. I’m not saying that individual devs should just ignore “The Policy” on their own say-so, they would clearly get in trouble for that and nobody’s expecting them to go above and beyond for their customers like that, I’m saying that The Policy itself needs to go. This is not some law imposed by an outside organization, this is someone within ANet deciding to tie everyone’s hands behind their backs for no apparent reason. UNTIE THEM.

Anything else you may do is just shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s not solving the problem, the problem IS “The Policy.” To hell with The Policy.

This policy isn’t new, some people don’t seem to remember very well, but it’s been used by A.net before, during GW1 even, not often mind you, but it has been used before. Also, for those that keep mentioning this is an MMO, do you really know the true definition of an MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online…not where in that definition does it state players working together towards common goals, technically, you can make a single player game, host it on a server and let 1 million people play it on that server and it’s an MMO…with everyone doing their own thing. That’s the basic definition(and if you don’t think so…imagine what Fallout Online is going to be like, and it’s an MMO in the works).

As for this being directed at casual players, I have news for you, so was GW1, it was specifically marketed as a game for casual players, just like this one was/is, so that’s nothing new here.

I get it, some of you want an idea of where the game is going, are your preferred game modes being worked on or going to have something new come along, that’s understandable. However, when a company(any company) has a policy of not talking, don’t expect to get an answer right away when a spokesperson says they have some ideas that they want to run by the head honcho(s), it will take a little time to make a decision on whether or not the proposals still fall under the policy but at the same time allow some information to be spread. People are impatient, and yes, I know it’s been two(2) years, but still, glaciers don’t move a mile a minute.

Tamasan.6457:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I fully and completely understand the frustration. I truly comprehend that players would like us — someone, anyone! — to “open the floodgates” on information. That’s not in the cards. However, I have some ideas that I am going to float internally to see if we can say a bit more while honoring the overall communications policy.

Gaile, there’s a number of responses to your post overall. I’ll keep it simple:

A company cannot improve communication with customers when that company specifically has a policy that says it can’t communicate with customers.

Your job and goal to improve communications is completely at odds with that company policy – and that policy is simply wrong for so many reasons that I could spend an hour writing a response about. Don’t work to find some way to work within the policy. Get the policy changed.

Arenanet learned the completely wrong lesson from the precursor crafting thing. It shouldn’t be that you can never ever let anything slip that isn’t 100% confirmed – it should be that when plans and priorities change, that needs to be communicated.

You can never go wrong by being open and honest with your customers. Your customers will support you, even if it is “bad” news, if you are consistently open and honest with them.

QFT

What a joke of a policy ‘no communicating future of the game to its players’

Imagine if Blizzard just stopped communicating all of the sudden… idk why ANet gets away with crap like this.

I guess it’s better to believe the game is dead/dying and will remain to get puny insignificant LS updates and pvp will continue to be ignored with 1 mode. ANet logic.. makes absolutely no sense to me nor does it sound profitable but hey I’m not an expert.

kitten .9460:

Tamasan.6457:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I fully and completely understand the frustration. I truly comprehend that players would like us — someone, anyone! — to “open the floodgates” on information. That’s not in the cards. However, I have some ideas that I am going to float internally to see if we can say a bit more while honoring the overall communications policy.

Gaile, there’s a number of responses to your post overall. I’ll keep it simple:

A company cannot improve communication with customers when that company specifically has a policy that says it can’t communicate with customers.

Your job and goal to improve communications is completely at odds with that company policy – and that policy is simply wrong for so many reasons that I could spend an hour writing a response about. Don’t work to find some way to work within the policy. Get the policy changed.

Arenanet learned the completely wrong lesson from the precursor crafting thing. It shouldn’t be that you can never ever let anything slip that isn’t 100% confirmed – it should be that when plans and priorities change, that needs to be communicated.

You can never go wrong by being open and honest with your customers. Your customers will support you, even if it is “bad” news, if you are consistently open and honest with them.

QFT

What a joke of a policy ‘no communicating future of the game to its players’

Imagine if Blizzard just stopped communicating all of the sudden… idk why ANet gets away with crap like this.

I guess it’s better to believe the game is dead/dying and will remain to get puny insignificant LS updates and pvp will continue to be ignored with 1 mode. ANet logic.. makes absolutely no sense to me nor does it sound profitable but hey I’m not an expert.

Considering all the threads that get started they aint getting away with it.
The sad part is anything we do dont really help in the slightest.