We can's say anything at this time...
Maybe they never got to see the questions before the interview.
Where’s Barbara Walters when you really need her?
The table is a fable.
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Reporter: “What about the precursor system?”
Anet: “No comment… but LOOK AT THE SHINY NEW THINGS ON THE GEM STORE”
Reporter: “Have you considered complaints of nerfs/buffs?”
Anet: “Yes. Have you tried our new Living Story season though?!”
Reporter: “What are you working on for end game content”
Anet: “We are going to make people play through a long commentary of the Living Story twice just to get achievements. …. errrr… I mean…. No comment”
(edited by Lodius.5392)
I miss the old team Rift had, I doubt I will ever miss any team member of Anet or NCsoft, these people are forgettable robots
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Reporter: “What about the precursor system?”
Anet: “No comment… but LOOK AT THE SHINY NEW THINGS ON THE GEM STORE”Reporter: “Have you considered complaints of nerfs/buffs?”
Anet: “Yes. Have you tried our new Living Story season though?!”Reporter: “What are you working on for end game content”
Anet: “We are going to make people play through a long commentary of the Living Story twice just to get achievements. …. errrr… I mean…. No comment”
See that’s the problem. You assume that what most people want is what most people on the forums want. I’m can pretty much guarantee to you that those are two completely different things.
It’s been shown over and over again,. year after year. The loudest most vested gamers want very specific things…that most players never use or don’t care about.
Raids are the perfect example. A lot of people in most games on forums are always talking about and asking for raids, when in reality very few people who play MMOs, by percentage, actually raid.
I’m not so sure that we’re more qualified to say what people want that game developers. We can only talk about what we want personally.
And from your post, I’m pretty much positive I want different things than you.
I really don’t think the problem with developer interaction is a lack of interaction. Guild Wars 2 actually has quite a lot of interaction, there are a lot of interviews, threre are blog posts, there are the CDI threads. Most games that I have played dont have anywhere near this level of interaction. It is more the quality of the interaction. All of the interaction has to have this caveat that specifics can not be addressed. Almost every interaction almost always comes down to “We are looking at this, we want to address this, but we have nothing to say at this time.”
This interview with guildmag was absolutely shameful. Why agree to an interview if you know you cannot say anything?
I am not saying I have an answer to address this, but this is what is frustrating.
You obviously want to have a lot of interaction with the community but you cant have it both ways. If you want interaction you have to be willing to discuss things in a real way and you have to accept that sometimes you are going to say or suggest things that don’t work out.
Like yeah you mentioned precursor crafting and then you never actually implemented it and people are skewering you for it, but if you would discuss why it hasn’t been implemented people might be a lot more receptive.
Have you ever seen a TV interview where they agreed on topics and than the interviewer purposefully asked questions of the interviewee? Think the Frost/Nixon interviews. that is what happened there. This is a common problem.
I wouldn’t necessarily blame A.Net for being Obfuscating. We don’t know what was agreed upon beforehand.
I really don’t think the problem with developer interaction is a lack of interaction. Guild Wars 2 actually has quite a lot of interaction, there are a lot of interviews, threre are blog posts, there are the CDI threads. Most games that I have played dont have anywhere near this level of interaction. It is more the quality of the interaction. All of the interaction has to have this caveat that specifics can not be addressed. Almost every interaction almost always comes down to “We are looking at this, we want to address this, but we have nothing to say at this time.”
This interview with guildmag was absolutely shameful. Why agree to an interview if you know you cannot say anything?
I am not saying I have an answer to address this, but this is what is frustrating.
You obviously want to have a lot of interaction with the community but you cant have it both ways. If you want interaction you have to be willing to discuss things in a real way and you have to accept that sometimes you are going to say or suggest things that don’t work out.
Like yeah you mentioned precursor crafting and then you never actually implemented it and people are skewering you for it, but if you would discuss why it hasn’t been implemented people might be a lot more receptive.
Have you ever seen a TV interview where they agreed on topics and than the interviewer purposefully asked questions of the interviewee? Think the Frost/Nixon interviews. that is what happened there. This is a common problem.
I wouldn’t necessarily blame A.Net for being Obfuscating. We don’t know what was agreed upon beforehand.
It may not have even been anything done intentionally. Anet might have thought that the interview would be about the feature pack and didnt’ expect random questions due to some sort of miscommunication. Happens all the time.
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Reporter: “What about the precursor system?”
Anet: “No comment… but LOOK AT THE SHINY NEW THINGS ON THE GEM STORE”Reporter: “Have you considered complaints of nerfs/buffs?”
Anet: “Yes. Have you tried our new Living Story season though?!”Reporter: “What are you working on for end game content”
Anet: “We are going to make people play through a long commentary of the Living Story twice just to get achievements. …. errrr… I mean…. No comment”See that’s the problem. You assume that what most people want is what most people on the forums want. I’m can pretty much guarantee to you that those are two completely different things.
It’s been shown over and over again,. year after year. The loudest most vested gamers want very specific things…that most players never use or don’t care about.
Raids are the perfect example. A lot of people in most games on forums are always talking about and asking for raids, when in reality very few people who play MMOs, by percentage, actually raid.
I’m not so sure that we’re more qualified to say what people want that game developers. We can only talk about what we want personally.
And from your post, I’m pretty much positive I want different things than you.
My post was intended to be taking a whimsical jab at the response of how Anet answers questions for reporters. It was not a reflection of what I want in game, etc. (although a better precursor system would be nice).
That aside, it was all for fun to express their dodgy responses in whimsy format.
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
You state this despite the fact that this very week they changed how the new commander tag system would work based apparently on negative feedback.
I understand people get frustrated when it seems no one is listening. They have stated repeatedly they listen but either can’t respond or choose not too. Hell if I worked at anet, given the high toxicity of these forums and the burning desire to destroy the developers on any topic the posters here don’t agree on, I sure as hell wouldn’t be responding on these forums either.
Hey dude you are walking into a wall.
smack..Wut?…smack…smack…
smack..Wut?…smack…smack…
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Reporter: “What about the precursor system?”
Anet: “No comment… but LOOK AT THE SHINY NEW THINGS ON THE GEM STORE”Reporter: “Have you considered complaints of nerfs/buffs?”
Anet: “Yes. Have you tried our new Living Story season though?!”Reporter: “What are you working on for end game content”
Anet: “We are going to make people play through a long commentary of the Living Story twice just to get achievements. …. errrr… I mean…. No comment”See that’s the problem. You assume that what most people want is what most people on the forums want. I’m can pretty much guarantee to you that those are two completely different things.
It’s been shown over and over again,. year after year. The loudest most vested gamers want very specific things…that most players never use or don’t care about.
Raids are the perfect example. A lot of people in most games on forums are always talking about and asking for raids, when in reality very few people who play MMOs, by percentage, actually raid.
I’m not so sure that we’re more qualified to say what people want that game developers. We can only talk about what we want personally.
And from your post, I’m pretty much positive I want different things than you.
My post was intended to be taking a whimsical jab at the response of how Anet answers questions for reporters. It was not a reflection of what I want in game, etc. (although a better precursor system would be nice).
That aside, it was all for fun to express their dodgy responses in whimsy format.
That’s what happens when you ask questions that people aren’t prepared to respond to.
Just because you want an answer to a question doesn’t mean Anet is ready to talk about it. They’ve explained why this is on numerous ocassions.
Kids: Are we going to Disneyworld this year.
Dad: I’m not sure we can afford it, so I won’t say. We’ll eventually go when we can afford it.
Kids: But can we go this year. I mean like how likely is it.
Dad: I’m not going to make any promises. I don’t want to disappoint you.
Kids: But just tell us.
Dad: We’ll try to go this year.
Six months later.
Kids: But you promised!
I miss the old team Rift had, I doubt I will ever miss any team member of Anet or NCsoft, these people are forgettable robots
That’s kinda harsh. Also I’m not exactly sure based on what you’re making such a comment (from the Points of Interest they all seem rather non-robotic to me).
….
This interview with guildmag was absolutely shameful. Why agree to an interview if you know you cannot say anything?
….
- Despite what you state, there was information provided about a number of topics. The people being interviewed don’t (usually) have a list of the questions ahead of time, so they have no idea what is going to be asked. They DO know what they can and cannot (or will not) discuss.
- Interviews are NOT only about answering questions (that’s usually called a PRESS RELEASE / CONFERENCE). Interviews are more about the interaction between the parties and the reaction of the party being interviewed. To be honest, I think the reactions to the questions in that interview are 10 times more telling than what they did (or did not) say. If you only read the transcript and did not WATCH the whole interview, you shouldn’t be criticizing (or defending) the interview as you did not get the entire nuances of what was “revealed”.
- With all the hype around here about the LACK of communications, how would it look to NOT have any interviews at GAMESCON?
You are being far too harsh on these 2 employees and Anet as a whole. No company reveals big future plans they are holding for future marketing purposes (no matter how whiny and childish their customer base may become).
We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
(edited by Brother Grimm.5176)
In that Kid scenario you just say “no we dont” and if you get the money after all you can make it a birthday suprise or something.
But if so say “I’m not going to make any promises.” the kid will annoy you all year long until it is so annoyed itself that it just gives up on you. It is not going to ask you anything again, and instead goes on to annoy the grandparents.
(edited by GreenAlien.5623)
Kids: Are we going to Disneyworld this year.
Dad: I’m not sure we can afford it, so I won’t say. We’ll eventually go when we can afford it.
Kids: But can we go this year. I mean like how likely is it.
Dad: I’m not going to make any promises. I don’t want to disappoint you.
Kids: But just tell us.
Dad: We’ll try to go this year.Six months later.
Kids: This doesn’t look like Disneyworld.
Dad: They’ve done some renovating. Look, the whole thing is edible!
Kids: Ooh! Gingerbread welcome mat!
Dad: What’s that over there? An X-Station Playbox made of pizza?
Kids: We don’t see anything. Dad? Dad? Hey, where’d he go?
Stereotypical Evil Witch Who is Also Hungry: Well, well, well, what have we here.
The table is a fable.
In that Kid scenario you just say “no we dont” and if you get the money after all you can make it a birthday suprise or something.
But if so say “I’m not going to make any promises.” the kid will annoy you all year long until it is so annoyed itself that it just gives up on you. It is not going to ask you anything again, and instead goes on to annoy the grandparents.
And yet some would say saying no when the answer isn’t no is lying. There’s some benefit to teaching your kids the understanding the goes along with being mature. Maybe you can do something and maybe you can’t is how life works. I’m not sure telling then kid no to stop them from whining is the best thing for the kid.
Anet’s not in the same position of course. People want this precusor thing so bad, and Anet has to look at it from every which way, because it WILL affect the games economy.
A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in precusors. It has to be handled carefully.
Anet has made it a policy of generally not talking about anything until it’s ready to ship. They should probably just stick to it.
Its’ not the lack of interaction.
It’s that all of complaint have never been address (yet).
If you haven’t notice, all the complaint on the forum are always the same. They really dont’ need more interaction or CDI since all the complaint on the forum are always the same.
People are making fun on the forum with complaint bingo. GW2 have far more developer interaction than most game I’ve seen.
Seriously? If they are not allowed to talk about a subject, then what do you want them to say? Do you just want them to stare blankly at the person asking the question?
This topic is just sad.
No, we want management to overthink their policy. The are not forbidden to speak of it by the laws of nature or something…
(edited by GreenAlien.5623)
@GreenAlien That doesn’t address the issue of what you think people during interviews should say if they are not allowed to talk about something.
Until things are different, “We can’t say anything about that” is the only thing they CAN say. Is this a hard thing to understand?
Problem is that 1 year after the getting-stuck-in-the-kitten-landscape bug have been acknowledged in CDI thread by a developer nothing has been done.
Discuss it or dont discuss it, it doesn’t matter: It is a huge gameplay breaking bug in WvW and it should just be fixed faster.
“They won’t tell us what they are working on!”
Hmmm, I wonder why….
“2013 is over, did they keep their promises”
“2014 is now half gone”
“sn endgame being developed or what”
“Broken Intentions…”
“Anti-Hype Thread”
And that’s just to name the first few threads that pop to mind where we rip the devs apart like they kitten in our Cherrios, when all they tried to do was give us some insight into things that might be coming or where they’d like to go with the game. There are many, many more.
They give some insight on a project and a soft projection as to when they might have it done, and we tear them a new one if something changes. “You lied” “You broke your promise”
They give us so much a teaser for upcoming content and we tear them apart for “over hyping” it.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
Like yeah you mentioned precursor crafting and then you never actually implemented it and people are skewering you for it, but if you would discuss why it hasn’t been implemented people might be a lot more receptive.
More like definitely. “We might say something we don’t deliver on” is such a pathetic excuse. So what if you have to change something? Just tell the players what and why and it should go a lot smoother than the precursor thing.
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Yeah how did that guy ever get elected.. wait what? By popular vote? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE stop watching Fox News etc.
“You’ll PAY to know what you really think.” ~ J. R. “Bob” Dobbs
“They won’t tell us what they are working on!”
Hmmm, I wonder why….
“2013 is over, did they keep their promises”
“2014 is now half gone”
“sn endgame being developed or what”
“Broken Intentions…”
“Anti-Hype Thread”And that’s just to name the first few threads that pop to mind where we rip the devs apart like they kitten in our Cherrios, when all they tried to do was give us some insight into things that might be coming or where they’d like to go with the game. There are many, many more.
They give some insight on a project and a soft projection as to when they might have it done, and we tear them a new one if something changes. “You lied” “You broke your promise”
They give us so much a teaser for upcoming content and we tear them apart for “over hyping” it.
^This. No matter what they say they get ripped apart for it. As I said elsewhere, if I was a dev and someone asked me a question about the game my permanent answer woudl be, “We can’t say anything about this right now.”
“They won’t tell us what they are working on!”
Hmmm, I wonder why….
“2013 is over, did they keep their promises”
“2014 is now half gone”
“sn endgame being developed or what”
“Broken Intentions…”
“Anti-Hype Thread”And that’s just to name the first few threads that pop to mind where we rip the devs apart like they kitten in our Cherrios, when all they tried to do was give us some insight into things that might be coming or where they’d like to go with the game. There are many, many more.
They give some insight on a project and a soft projection as to when they might have it done, and we tear them a new one if something changes. “You lied” “You broke your promise”
They give us so much a teaser for upcoming content and we tear them apart for “over hyping” it.
^This. No matter what they say they get ripped apart for it. As I said elsewhere, if I was a dev and someone asked me a question about the game my permanent answer woudl be, “We can’t say anything about this right now.”
And then they would be kittened because you aren’t saying anything, and we’re right back here. “We can’t say anything about this right now” is stupid. I’m not saying they should reveal all their plans to the players, but they should be communicating more, and they should not be afraid to talk about features they may ultimately scrap. The mistake they made with precursor hunt/crafting was not saying they would and then not doing it, but saying they would and then not talking about it for months, answering questions about it vaguely, and not just coming out and saying “it’s not going to happen” or at least “it’s not going to happen the way you think it is.”
There is a fundamental lack of understanding at ANet about how to maintain effective and beneficial communication with the customer base. Of course they aren’t going to please everyone, but that’s not an excuse for not trying harder to please more people.
“You’ll PAY to know what you really think.” ~ J. R. “Bob” Dobbs
^This. No matter what they say they get ripped apart for it. As I said elsewhere, if I was a dev and someone asked me a question about the game my permanent answer woudl be, “We can’t say anything about this right now.”
And then they would be kittened because you aren’t saying anything, and we’re right back here. “We can’t say anything about this right now” is stupid. I’m not saying they should reveal all their plans to the players, but they should be communicating more, and they should not be afraid to talk about features they may ultimately scrap. The mistake they made with precursor hunt/crafting was not saying they would and then not doing it, but saying they would and then not talking about it for months, answering questions about it vaguely, and not just coming out and saying “it’s not going to happen” or at least “it’s not going to happen the way you think it is.”
There is a fundamental lack of understanding at ANet about how to maintain effective and beneficial communication with the customer base. Of course they aren’t going to please everyone, but that’s not an excuse for not trying harder to please more people.
Thank you for proving my point. No matter what they say they get ripped for it.
As for what they “SHOULD” or “SHOULDN’T” do, who are you to determine what that is? The only thing they “SHOULD” say about anything is whatever they are willing to say. No more.
As for their “fundamental lack of understanding at ANet about how to maintain effective and beneficial communication with the customer base” that is purely your opinion. You have no idea what they do and don’t understand. It may seem that way from your perspective, but claiming that as fact is a pretty good indication of your level of understanding of proper communication.
they should not be afraid to talk about features they may ultimately scrap.
See here’s the issue – they’ve been down this path and we (the forum base) have ripped them a new one almost every time. It’s not like they don’t put a disclaimer on everything: “this may change due to unforeseen development or testing issues.” They say it all the time and yet we still spout off like they made a hard promise (which they didn’t) and intentionally broke it just to screw us over (which they also didn’t).
The mistake they made with precursor hunt/crafting was not saying they would and then not doing it, but saying they would and then not talking about it for months, answering questions about it vaguely, and not just coming out and saying “it’s not going to happen” or at least “it’s not going to happen the way you think it is.”
We did have an update on this in April. The update prior to that was either October or November. The update in April (as I have said in several threads) was that due to how other systems in the game had changed, the original implementation for the precursor crafting no longer worked. So they had to re-evaluate it. Is six months potentially too long of a gap between updates? Possibly, but its also not unrealistic either.
There is a fundamental lack of understanding at ANet about how to maintain effective and beneficial communication with the customer base. Of course they aren’t going to please everyone, but that’s not an excuse for not trying harder to please more people.
The only way they could maintain “effective and beneficial” communication with us would be to have some PR person managing the responses to us. Not the devs themselves, and as Mike O’s post proves, we aren’t happy with PR speak.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
Anet is the Barack Obama of the gaming world…
They push their own thoughts of what people want instead of actually listening to what people want.
Reporter: “What about the precursor system?”
Anet: “No comment… but LOOK AT THE SHINY NEW THINGS ON THE GEM STORE”Reporter: “Have you considered complaints of nerfs/buffs?”
Anet: “Yes. Have you tried our new Living Story season though?!”Reporter: “What are you working on for end game content”
Anet: “We are going to make people play through a long commentary of the Living Story twice just to get achievements. …. errrr… I mean…. No comment”
Um, with all due respect, isn’t like.. Every game exactly like that to some degree?
Here’s an example. WoW isn’t putting flying in their newest expansion (It was said for the first patch, then for not at all. Then first patch if they feel like it). Modt people want them implemented for a variety of reasons, however.
Then look at LoL. Riot likes their games face paced and aggressive; action jam packed with interaction and skirmishing instead of build up. Hence, a lot of the stuff they implement facilitates that (Though I don’t play LoL much now compared to before GW2, so I can’t really give any recent examples).
The same is the case here. GW2 wants a certain game. They’re going to chase after that foremost, don’t you think?
I ? Karkas.