Guild Wars 2

This thread has bugged out. Annoying.

Pifil.5193:

This thread has bugged out. Annoying.

This is something that has been going on for ages, it has looked slightly different sometimes but certain topics at some arbitrary page/post threshold become essentially inaccessible (in part due to the automatic “move to first unread” feature in some cases).

ColinJohanson.2394:

The reality is things like these sort of lists of “what is the team doing” like my old state of the game blogs created expectations. When plans, or implementation details changed, or we threw out whole systems because they weren’t good enough – I left the team looking bad for making them break those expectations. I’ve been asked to no longer do those blogs and instead focus on only doing the type of announcements we’ve done this year of stuff that is guaranteed to ship in a reasonable time-frame after we announce it. Things like the living world journal, structure of content for season two of living world, feature packs one, feature pack two, etc.

Ok, so you set out a laundry list of features and you guys didn’t deliver on them. The real problem there was that you didn’t let us know that you wouldn’t be delivering on them, or give any reasons. So you created those expectations and then “wandered off” the path, if you’d managed and corrected them when it became obvious that a feature or piece of content would slip then the team wouldn’t have looked bad and neither would you.

ColinJohanson.2394:

For everything you’re not hearing about…I can only say don’t assume that means we’re not working on it, most of us who build the game all day play the game constantly all night, and are just regular Gw2 players like a lot of you. We’re looking for a lot of the same things out of the game that you are, and we read the feedback from the community constantly.

Right here you’re again setting up expectations that you cannot control, you’ve mentioned too many features that haven’t shown up yet and are now in some kind of “limbo”. If you cancel or put them on the back burner but don’t communicate that fact then you’re not managing expectations. People assume they’re still being worked on and then find out in some random interview that they’re not and the rage ensues.

I personally am incredibly sceptical whenever I read any statement like this from you guys, there are too many “it’s still being worked on and we’re really excited at the idea of being able to talk more about it later on when it’s ready” posts, posts that are basically just empty soothing noises.

You reading the feedback means little if it’s not a two way street with communication in both directions.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

There’s that “excited to tell you in the future” thing again. Change your policy: a company’s policies are not commandments handed down from heaven. They can be changed when they’re not working or just not working as well as they could. You’ve done it more than once already.

Anyway, thank you for your time, Colin.

Colin, thanks for taking the time to respond.

If you could work out some way to make a blog post about high level things you are working on it would be a big step in the right direction.

I think the problem many players are having right now is that the game feels lost without direction. No one knows where the game is headed or what is happening. It feels to us like the only things being worked on are gem store items and the LS. the feature patches sound big and impressive but have so far only been small changes, or changes in parts of the game people weren’t asking for.

I hope that they are working ( “secretly” ) on a huge permanent addition this game desperately needs, i.e. a gigantic expansion/campaign ( in the style of old GW1 additions ), which would mean 10x more content that we got throughout 2 years of GW2’s existence.

There was one incident, a big one, about legendaries and their acquisition. they have explained that after some research they decided it would not be a good idea to continue on the path they were on and that is completely reasonable. the reactions that followed weren’t reasonable what so ever.

Saying that people would give you equal amount of bs if you’d talk about minor changes is just weird however.

Yoh.8469:

If your goal with this policy was to avoid toxicity, then you have failed, completely and utterly. All you have done with breed wild speculation, confusion, anger and resentment. Because we don’t know WTF is going on because you will not tell us!

this pretty much sums it up.

The other option is not telling us anything and then surprising everybody with lots of great content.

Just reevaluate that kitten policy so it doesn’t apply to everything.

Or just make one, very clear statement that no dev will ever talk about anything. People will stop asking and complain more after a half baked feature releases but since you wouldn’t be communicating you’d also have the freedom to not read the forums and just ignore any feedback.
You better use that additional time to create more content though…

I’ll be shot down for this… But sometimes I just feel like it would be better if we just went back to the GW1 system.

No communication with ANET at all and any changes in game just suddenly happened without warning (unless a seasonal event) and we were just happy with what appeared in game without any warning really.

Only issue there is that GW1 had A LOT of content to play with so no-one really craved for new content, but were grateful when they got it anyway!

Coopziana.1802:

Only issue there is that GW1 had A LOT of content to play with so no-one really craved for new content, but were grateful when they got it anyway!

you mean like expansions?

I wish they would stop trying to make pvp work. Blizzard tried it with arena, as a spectator sport and that failed. The only reason most people seem to do pvp in WoW is because of the gear. That’s all they cared about, once they got honor capped nobody wanted to play, it was only a few that actually did it for fun.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We also have a lot of people at ArenaNet and you’ve only seen what some them are working on this last year or two. Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

I wonder if it is GW2 related work, or they are planning on going for a new title… Time will tell, I suppose.

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

ColinJohanson.2394:

We also have a lot of people at ArenaNet and you’ve only seen what some them are working on this last year or two. Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

I wonder if it is GW2 related work, or they are planning on going for a new title… Time will tell, I suppose.

If it ain’t GW2 news then it ain’t news.

Being a dramatized example of how the devs might let us know what’s going on behind the scenes or whatever:

NO PROMISES!
A look ahead by <Insert Red Name Here>

Sunday, August 24th, 2014

Hey Guys! Looks like those wacky asuras have invented the Tyrian equivalent of network TV and are about to launch the first Tyrian game show, ‘Giddy Up Golem!’
in which awesome asura Golemnaughts vie against each other in a tremendous trivia showdown that somehow or other is going to feature pineapple pie! More astonishingly amazing details as they become available!

Monday, August 25th, 2014

D’oh. We seem to have hit a snag. The TV network is up and running, but the pineapple pies keep exploding prematurely, which for some reason is causing WP outages all across Metrica Province (and also causing one of our code guys to break out in hives). It’s looking like we may have to go with pumpkin pies instead of pineapple. I know a lot of you were really counting on the pineapple. Mere words cannot express our regret, should we be unable to bring the pineapple to you. Gotta go now, we’re out of anti-hive lotion.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Guys – we are so sorry, but we’re going to have to scrap ‘Giddy Up Golem.’ We did our best, but the pie thing… I can’t even talk about it. Not because I’m not allowed to talk about it, but because every time I start trying to type up the details, the pineapple team bursts into tears, because evidently they can tell by the sound what keys I am pressing on my keyboard, and they’ve already shorted out two workstations this morning. There is good news, however. We’ve managed to adapt the code for the asura TV network into a cutscene playback utility you can use while waiting for a boss to spawn, or for your dungeon team to get back from bio breaks, or whatever! We’re calling it the ‘Excelsior Television Network’ – and not only that, but a couple of the guys who helped design it are taking advantage of every precious moment of their sparsely allocated spare time to write, produce, direct, and star in Tyria’s first sitcom, “I Dream of Golems” which will soon be available for you to watch on your very own Excelsior Television Network hand (or paw) -held monitor, available in the gem store NOW! More later on most of these ETN affiliates.

Anyway, that’s how I would do it.

A lot of people have already explained things really well (like ipan). I don’t know if I could do any better, but I have to throw my hat in here too.

Colin & Friends, I appreciate the red posts. But neither thread has had any actual substance, and they boil down to this: “hey guys, I’m here to tell you that I can’t tell you anything ..because the truth is we’re putting out shocking little content for a team of over 300 and what we are working on is almost certainly not what you’ve been wanting the past 2yrs”

I’ve been a fan of you guys ever since you started. I had so much respect for your talent and integrity, your “daring to be different” and determination to be better than the rest. But as it stands now, I do not feel you still have that integrity, talent, or drive to be better/different.

I still log on most days, but usually just to farm my home instance. Maybe grind out the dailies if I feel like it, which is getting to be less and less often. Simply put, I am not enjoying this game as I expected to be 2yrs down the road.

So many very important features did not launch with the game ..but hey, this is Anet, they know what’s up. They know what we want. Just give it a while and all will be well. By now it’s been a whole lot more than a while and we still lack so much and still not even any word about it. We have no reason to think the things we want are actually even on the radar (and somethings, like 1st person view, it sounds like we can just abandon all hope). This policy about silence until release means that we don’t have the opportunity to let you know how we feel about the direction you’re going. Then you release and, much more often than not, it’s not what we wanted. Is it not the job of a business to give customers what they want? Is that not how you get and retain those customers?

Increasingly, I’ve been looking for other games to play instead of GW2. I’ve found some interesting offerings, but I still linger here and login frequently. Maybe it’s not cool to plug other games, and I speak only for myself here, but if EQN continues to develop the way it is so far, and if Anet/GW2 continues this policy of silence and then releasing something hugely disappointing ..then EQN will be the end of GW2 for me and I probably won’t even look back in your direction for any future games.

I know what white knights think about “I’m gonna quit!!” posts, so you can save it. I’m not generally a quitter and I’m very patient. Maybe it’s one of my problems, but I always slow to move on from relationships I’ve invested myself into. It feels like Anet has spent the past 2yrs trying to drive away long-term loyal fans like me and, well that can’t go on forever. I’m still patient. I’m still watching. I still want to see some huge turn around that will amaze me and restore my trust and confidence in the company.

But from what I’ve seen so far of the upcoming Feature Patch (which looks even more disappointing than the last one) and the so-called “communications” from Anet, I’m sorry but things really aren’t looking good. In all this, I know I speak only for myself, but I also know that many other players feel the same. We ARE NOT “haters”. Quite the opposite. What we hate is feeling like we can no longer trust who we used to think so highly of. Feeling like they are NOT on the same page as us and do NOT “consider important” things that we have considered very important since the beginning.

Look, we just want to know if we’re wasting our time or not. Has this relationship changed? Are we no longer as compatible as we used to be? If we are still compatible, then you need to SHOW IT. Likewise, if we are in fact moving away in different philosophical directions, then we need to know that too so we can move on with our lives and quit pining for what will never be. As with any type of relationship, you get the best results when all parties are honest and open about what’s going on ..what they want/need, what challenges they face, etc. Help us help you so we can have minimal drama and max satisfaction. Don’t just shut us out and then pawn something off on us we didn’t want.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romek.4201:

@colin

maby you should than not make a blogpost with things you will give us this year BUT

a blogpost with things you work on

i guess people would be happy to read things like: we work on housing but far from release, we have 3 dungeons in beta status, we had to restart work on precursor crafting and its back to alpha status ………

something like this

That would also break the company policy of what we’re allowed to discuss in regards of what is in development

Though I wonder if we went a little more broad and kept a rolling “top categorical issues” the community team communicated or owned that summarizing high level things the development team is aware of and might or might not be working on, but see’s as core fundamental issues to address, and players just had constant brainstorm threads on those topics – if it’d at least get us halfway there.

Seems like the problem is the company policy is a bit too rigid, then, or perhaps the interpretation of it. If it prevents you from describing or hinting at anything at all in development, then that basically means that there’s no possible way to keep things like the Super Adventure Box disappointment from happening.

I feel like there is a nice medium ground between the older roadmaps and the current policy of denying anything is being worked on until two weeks before launch. Like a statement that just almost categorized things as being in active development, in passive development, slated for future development, or shelved.

Be as vague as possible, you don’t have to say “we’re working on a new fractal that will focus on this and is scheduled for this date”, saying “New fractals are currently being developed”, “New fractals are on the schedule for release soon, stay tuned”, or “New fractals had to be shelved for the moment, but we expect to pick them back up soon”

Such statements can lead to pain and groaning, but way less than not saying anything, having players making assumptions, and then becoming disappointed/angry that they got their hopes up for something that you could have told them was not going to happen. Similarly, a lot of dungeon players are close to giving up on the game because a recent interview seemed to indicate that work on new dungeons has been abandoned completely and probably won’t ever pick back up. If that isn’t the case, you should correct it, if it IS the case, you should explain a little more as to why and what you feel replaces that game mode, be it more open world organized fights or working on new fractals.

TL;DR is that if you leave the status of all game modes completely up in the air for months at a time, then every single player is assured to have their hopes dashed in as brutal a manner as happened this last week over something

I still don’t understand this. If company policy stops you from being able to talk to us, then change the company policy.

The problems of not being to communicate are showing up time and time again. Take the commander tag system, for example. If we had known your plans for the commander system way back when you began, we could have told you ahead of time that your decision to charge 300g per colour was a stupid idea. Then, those poor 2 devs wouldn’t have to rip apart a packaged product to solve the issue on a weekend they could have spent at home.

Yes, you reveal what you’re working on when it’s ready, but at that point, most of the time, IT’S ALREADY TOO LATE. You can change something like the commander colors at extremely late notice, but what if there’s a major system overhaul in Week 2 or Week 3 of this feature pack that receives overwhelmingly negative feedback? Are you going to be able to respond to that feedback within a few weeks to reverse something that’s already totally integral to future clients?

This is clearly not working.

No matter how little or how much you communicate your plans, people are going to complain. We NEED to be able to reciprocate feedback more regularly in the development cycle to create a healthier game and a healthier community between the players and the development team.

Staying completely silent is actually ten times worse than a plan of action falling through. Even being vague in your plans is fine, the important thing is that you TALK. Stop shutting us out.

JoluMarti.9165:

What are devs working on ?

Bro… isn’t it obvious?

Gemstore Sale??? Helloooooo

“We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background,”

Have we seen this project (dry top… etc) or we gonna see them in future?

My hope is that we gonna see some really good expansion or standalone game like GW1.

Edit:
Before GW2 was out we had bloog almost everyday about some info now we have to wait few months to see something new.
POI is great, why don’t use that to talk more about what we can see in future, players are not asking that you tell us everything. Everything what we get is “we can’t talk”

Trust me I LOVE ANET SINCE GW1 and still for me ANET is the best game developer studio ever! <3
Give us BK our hopes in ANET! PLEASE <3

@Colin the company police is extreme stupid whit respect people are playing outer games ,thinking this is all they will ever get from gw 2 not telling them new content is coming like expansion new zones dungeons etc bla bla is coming like what blizzard does is just making the player base smaller and smaller pls reconsider the police on arena net i wanna know what im investing into if i cant see the content that will come then i will stop play and this is not just my opinion its MMO content is KEY for keeping players active and living story is extreme short 1 hour tops whit all achievements ,
sorry whit the bad English i love this game but me and my friends got that feeling that is sinking whit no bright future .

ColinJohanson.2394:

The simple answer is: unless it’s nearing completion, we cannot talk about it. You can read Mo’s post titled “communicating with you” which covers in detail how we’ve been asked to message as of about a year ago in relation to what is in development.

What we can talk about is what we think tough problems are for the game to solve, what questions we think about regularly development wise about the game, or amazing ideas for what aspects of Gw2 can be – CDI’s are a great place for that discussion in particular. But we can’t answer what exactly we’re working on, what we might work on next, or what progress we’re making on stuff we are working on.

The reality is things like these sort of lists of “what is the team doing” like my old state of the game blogs created expectations. When plans, or implementation details changed, or we threw out whole systems because they weren’t good enough – I left the team looking bad for making them break those expectations. I’ve been asked to no longer do those blogs and instead focus on only doing the type of announcements we’ve done this year of stuff that is guaranteed to ship in a reasonable time-frame after we announce it. Things like the living world journal, structure of content for season two of living world, feature packs one, feature pack two, etc.

For everything you’re not hearing about…I can only say don’t assume that means we’re not working on it, most of us who build the game all day play the game constantly all night, and are just regular Gw2 players like a lot of you. We’re looking for a lot of the same things out of the game that you are, and we read the feedback from the community constantly. Heck I just flew in from being out of town for a couple weeks and I’m reading your thread at 10:30pm on a saturday, there ya go real proof!

Now that China has launched we’ve freed up a lot of development resources back to get to those things. We also have a lot of people at ArenaNet and you’ve only seen what some them are working on this last year or two. Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

I’m sorry, but acknowledging the existance of topics in your forum is not Communication.
People have no idea what’s being worked on, what you want to implement or even if our feedback has any relevance what so ever (ofc you will say: “We read everything, everything is important!”, but I’m sorry, that’s straight up BS). I myself (and everybody that played with me) don’t log in into the game anymore due to your dubious decisions of not saying anything and a serious lack of real content.

I even feel that the only reason you guys are posting again is because of that big fiasco interview and in order to “pretend” that there is some real content being developed and to avoid people going ape kitten, and I’m pretty sure that with some time it will all revert to that “limbo-state” of not saying anything.

I’m sorry, but this is the way I (and a lot of other people, I would guess) feel.

This may sound horrible and snarky but I don’t mean it to. If this is the policy and that’s going to stay, I think the best thing to do might actually be to shut down the forums. Let your developers get on with their jobs without worrying about how the forums are going to react, abolish any pretence of two-way communication or forum threads having much feedback value, and stop giving the people who are just malcontent whingers a paid-for platform to whinge. Anything constructive from the forums – build-sharing, fan art and so on – can certainly be shared on external sites like reddit, Pinterest and so on.

A lot of GW2 information is already spread out across various social media sites, so new releases can be disseminated via twitter and the game launcher. If we can’t and won’t get any substantive communication from Anet on the forums – and that is obviously not my or any other customer’s decision to make – then what of value would be lost by just closing them down?

Again, this is not me bashing or being angry, it’s just asking the question in all sincerity. Bandwidth and hassle saved, and people know from the outset not to expect a response to their thoughts, no matter how constructive or hostile they may be.

You know, I totally agree that it looks bad when a company says they’re going to do a thing, and then don’t do it.

You know how you prevent that? You do what you say you’re going to do.

Now I know what you’re thinking “But what if we change our mind??” That’s what planning is for. You need to be spending a lot of time planning so you can have a definitive roadmap. Then you can give a high-level plan, and actually follow through on it.

If you’re constantly changing what you’re doing, you’re expending a ton of effort on half-finished plans then changing course. That’s bad. As the saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine.

At least tell us what you are NOT working on or is that against company policy too?

I don’t want to log in until you have something I want to do essentially.

“But we can’t answer what exactly we’re working on, what we might work on next, or what progress we’re making on stuff we are working on.”

So….why have anything up at all?

Why do blog posts?
Why do interviews?
Why do Q+A’s or panels at events?
Why have CDI’s at all if it’s just going to be an echo chamber instead of a discussion?

I’m just wondering if Anet’s NDA policy is having a detrimental effect on the devs opportunity to communicate as well as the community’s impression of the devs.

Between a rock and a hard place I guess.

I have a new idea that I think will really shake things up. You can’t give us specifics, so I propose a smilie based status report. It would look something like this:

Balance Updates:
Map Updates:
Fractals: :P
Dungeons:
Super Adventure Box:

I think knowing that new world bosses were smiley face + winkie face would make us all feel a lot better.

ColinJohanson.2394:

all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

Someday in the future? some of us have been waiting 2 years to get some real content into this game, like new zones, and I’m not talking about small zones like southsun or dry top, I mean REAL zones, like the ones you shipped with, and where are the new classes, races? I will be honest with you Colin, it seems to me to much time goes into making new gem shop items and not enough time goes into giving us the content we really want. I just hope that this feature pack reveals something to get excited about because I feel this game is just treading water right now.

wwwes.1398:

I have a new idea that I think will really shake things up. You can’t give us specifics, so I propose a smilie based status report. It would look something like this:

Balance Updates:
Map Updates:
Fractals: :P
Dungeons:
Super Adventure Box:

I think knowing that new world bosses were smiley face + winkie face would make us all feel a lot better.

Maybe they should give a little more information without revealing to much both sides make good points BUT THAT SMILEY FACE!!! LMFAO!!!!!

Maybe this ‘nudge nudge wink wink say no more’ policy extends to the devs themselves, and not only can they not talk to us about what they’re working on (or not working on) but they also can’t talk to EACH OTHER about what they’re working on (or not working on) – and that’s what’s causing all the problems!

Laurelinde.4395:

This may sound horrible and snarky but I don’t mean it to. If this is the policy and that’s going to stay, I think the best thing to do might actually be to shut down the forums. Let your developers get on with their jobs without worrying about how the forums are going to react, abolish any pretence of two-way communication or forum threads having much feedback value, and stop giving the people who are just malcontent whingers a paid-for platform to whinge. Anything constructive from the forums – build-sharing, fan art and so on – can certainly be shared on external sites like reddit, Pinterest and so on.

A lot of GW2 information is already spread out across various social media sites, so new releases can be disseminated via twitter and the game launcher. If we can’t and won’t get any substantive communication from Anet on the forums – and that is obviously not my or any other customer’s decision to make – then what of value would be lost by just closing them down?

Again, this is not me bashing or being angry, it’s just asking the question in all sincerity. Bandwidth and hassle saved, and people know from the outset not to expect a response to their thoughts, no matter how constructive or hostile they may be.

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

Oh btw b4 I forget who will be/has replacing/replaced Martin and Kate?

JoluMarti.9165:

snip…

Actually I do not want any of that OP, I just want some more SAB and a Living Story that actually have decent characters in it.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

I’m just going based on what the proportion of threads seems to be aimed at. I guess it’s around 50/50 talking to other players and asking for official info? Dunno.

In any case, I think my point stands; Anet certainly don’t owe us a platform to communicate with each other, particularly if that platform is deemed to have become so toxic. What would be silly about closing them and leaving build discussions for build sites, fanart discussion for fan sites, story discussion for other gaming sites and so on?

JoluMarti.9165:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

What are we working on right now? Feature Pack 2 (in ~two more weeks), Season 2 of the Living World (coming back this fall), the WvW Fall Tournament, and the World Tournament Series PvP global tournament are just some of the things we are currently working on that we can tell you about right now.

After the end of the tournaments, the game will be the same since it was released!
Players really want:

• New Dungeons/Fractals
• New Dungeon/Fractal Rewards
• PvP modes/maps
• Guild Halls (GvG)
• New Legendaries
• New Weapon and Armor skins (No RNG)
• Precursor Crafting

Please, stop tournaments and living story, We want more permanent content!
We’ve spent years asking and you don’t listen us!

Thanks for reading and responding.

With the exception of the new weapons and armor skins that keep coming now and then, what Anet should do is to stop thinking that this is simply a “minority but vocal” community that’s asking for this.

The reason why people asked for a new permanent map on the LS S2 is because they were looking for some sort of content that is going to stay no matter what. It’s not because we were all that excited for LS S2, it’s that we knew that it was going to come no matter what, and if it’d come, we’d rather it come in that format (new permanent map).

But I don’t think the overall community is pleased that we have a new map vs new dungeon/fractal contents for instance.

ColinJohanson.2394:

all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

I’m sorry but this kind of response just reinforces to me that the devs just don’t quite understand why the playerbase is upset.

You have stuff in development and you cant talk about it? okay. But there’s nothing for us to be “excited about” (if I see that phrase a few more times I might actually be sick) if we don’t know what we’re supposed to be excited for.

Would you say to predicate our excitement on trust in the devs? If so, then that’s unfortunate for you. that ship has sailed. For 2 years large and vocal sections of the community have been going on about some set of changes or another. Most of this is ignored, and fair enough, you can’t be expected to cater to every demand or whim. But every now and then the devs step up and say “yes, this is a good idea” and run with it. The bad part is that we have always gotten the most cynical interpretation possible of the changes asked for. If I could pick 3 examples;

1. The wardrobe system.
Players thought it was a great move that you did this. however you also simultaneously ruined the town clothes system and removed the cheaper sub lvl80 gear transmutations. perhaps an effort to push more gem sales?

2. SAB
I loved SAB. A lot of other people did too. World 1 was a fantastic bit of content out of nowhere. But it was only around for a short while, but it was at least expected to return at some point. Then World 2 came out. And people were happy about that too. But you had upped the difficulty curve massively and monetized a convenience item for it (the continue coin). The worst part is that it now appears we either wont see SAB again, or wont see it for quite a long time, which makes having monetized it in the first place that much more insulting.

3. Commander Tags
I’m aware this one isn’t implemented yet, but I’ll be going off the blogpost located here. The WvWvW community has wanted changes to the commander tags pretty well since the game went live. Colouring the tags was the most basic thing asked for. It’s taken 2 years to get you around to coloured tags (and no other functionality whatsoever) which is fine. That’s a step in the right direction. But then you had to go and button it by upping to cost to 300g. Which is hilarious considering that WvWvW rewards are not good, and most hardcore wvwers would be unable to afford it. Again, it feels like another attempt to push people into buying gems. Especially when a number of recent blog posts on the site have been going on about converting your gems to gold. (examples here here here and here)

People understand that it’s a business and that Anet is a profit making entity. But it seems to be the only objective now. Make as much money for as little genuine effort as possible.

How can you realistically expect your players to stick around to see those changes you want us to be so thrilled about when we don’t know what they are or even have the tiniest hint of what they might possibly be? And even if we did there’s very little faith remaining about your capacity to deliver something or anything at all without it being barricaded behind a giant wall of gems.

I’m sure some people will disagree, and that’s fair enough. But people are abandoning the game because it’s become stale, and increasingly greedy. I’ll keep playing for now, because I enjoy playing with my guild. But it’s the people I play for, not the game.

I imagine losing a few players probably doesn’t bother you much, but you’re losing the battle to keep people interested, and once apathy sets in it’s pretty much the death knell for any MMO.

(incidentally, I’m not saying you should change your approach or offering any thoughts on how to do so. just my 2 cents. I’d say something about getting a response but I know I wont bother coming back to check)

Behellagh.1468:

Colin, I suggest that the upper management watch this old Twilight Zone episode and realize keeping people in the dark due to lack of communication is only making things much worse than backtracking on statements when an idea doesn’t pan out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_Street

Without communication, those who are unhappy start spinning the most fantastic stories about your priorities with no way for those who enjoy the game’s more relaxed pace a way to disprove them. You are isolating your supporters while letting your critics run open loop.

And just like that episode, your policy of silence about development is rapidly becoming your own worse enemy.

We don’t mind disappointment if you are straightforward, honest and timely with us. We simply don’t like being strung along only to be surprised that the features we were hoping for were long since canceled early in the development stage and we are just finding out about it now. That causes genuine player rage, even among the so called “white knights” on the forum.

Nobody likes to be treated like mushrooms.

bellegah basically hit the nail on the head, the only way not saying anything would work is if you constantly releasing great new content before anyone could even want it. Which watching this year that doesnt seem to be the case. Their are some cool stuff, but not enough to have people mostly worryless.

not being able to say anything about anything is really bad marketing, and i also think it doesnt lead to a responsive iterative development.

To be honest, as far as i have seen last years development, and last years communication felt more satisfying than what we are seeing this year so far.

Now i know that the decsion has come down from high up BUT that doesnt mean its a good decsion, and part of feedback of the players is telling you when you arent making a good decsion, and media black out, as far as i have seen is not helping anything. Whatever you come up with, I just cant see knowing nothing about what the future plans of your service are going to be can work well for this type of product.

you are essentially looking at having to constantly win back your customers rather than maintain them. Because when you know nothing, the best option when you arent happy is to dissappear and come back when you hear something better is happening. But many times, by the time that happens, one is no longer that engaged in things, also by that time whatever is supposed to bring you back probably has to be bigger and more attractive than what would have kept people.

Short version, as many have said, its not really a great strategy no matter who wants it to be that way, and you will likely have many of the same problems as long as that strategy is the standard operating procedure

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

its natural for some people.
Its also in general a really bad policy for keeping people engaged with long breaks in things delivered of value.

Its also a really bad policy if you dont have a visionary style of development. If your main method of refining products is about gathering feedback and reworking things, anything that lowers your feedback is a really bad idea.

basically there is two ways to keep people engaged, constantly deliver winners often, or make big plans and talk about them and deliver on them. Whats good for some situations, is really bad in others, close to the vest communication is like this as well

Laurelinde.4395:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

I’m just going based on what the proportion of threads seems to be aimed at. I guess it’s around 50/50 talking to other players and asking for official info? Dunno.

In any case, I think my point stands; Anet certainly don’t owe us a platform to communicate with each other, particularly if that platform is deemed to have become so toxic. What would be silly about closing them and leaving build discussions for build sites, fanart discussion for fan sites, story discussion for other gaming sites and so on?

Because this would be viewed as a sign that the game is ‘withering on the vine’.

It’s a terrible idea. It would be better for them to abandon the forums themselves (though this is not good either).

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romek.4201:

@colin

maby you should than not make a blogpost with things you will give us this year BUT

a blogpost with things you work on

i guess people would be happy to read things like: we work on housing but far from release, we have 3 dungeons in beta status, we had to restart work on precursor crafting and its back to alpha status ………

something like this

That would also break the company policy of what we’re allowed to discuss in regards of what is in development

Though I wonder if we went a little more broad and kept a rolling “top categorical issues” the community team communicated or owned that summarizing high level things the development team is aware of and might or might not be working on, but see’s as core fundamental issues to address, and players just had constant brainstorm threads on those topics – if it’d at least get us halfway there.

I don’t know how that policy fairs in the rest of the game, but for WvW, it created a HUGE disconnect between the reality (and I’m talking about those that are in there every day) and the perception of your team.
- Score system broken
- LA is now megaserver and we cant find people from our server easily to rally them in WvW
- Population Disparities

Yet we get these 2 new things
- Buff golems (which were already ok)
- Siege disabler (op through gate & useless if requires LoS)

If this is not enough, look @ the UPROAR the commander tag colours generated and how you guys had to adapt last second (making people look terrible in an interview in the process – AND thank god for that interview, it would’ve been horrible if it went live)

I really think that NEW “company policy” who’s purpose is to avoid the rage of some players that feel entitled (who still find another reason to rage), you (the company) have made things a lot worse than they were before.

Necro-posting? It only happened because people had enough of that silence + nothing to see or expect (or any sort of feedback) and then get some stuff that are really not the priority for the mode.

“We are looking into this” … [radio silence for months] … “We created someting else totally gimicky that we think will change how the mode is played, but we did not fix any of the major issues it has, hope you enjoy”

Also, I’m sorry, but I have not see a single dev play WvW and when they were doing the live streams in WvW with them playing, the disconnect was obvious. No skill, no idea of how it’s played, never followed an organized group to know and even less jumped on teamspeak to see how something plays out.

Edit: Players had to create their own [player managed] WvW forums to get away from the excessive moderation.

JoluMarti.9165:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

What are we working on right now? Feature Pack 2 (in ~two more weeks), Season 2 of the Living World (coming back this fall), the WvW Fall Tournament, and the World Tournament Series PvP global tournament are just some of the things we are currently working on that we can tell you about right now.

After the end of the tournaments, the game will be the same since it was released!
Players really want:

• New Dungeons/Fractals
• New Dungeon/Fractal Rewards
• PvP modes/maps
• Guild Halls (GvG)
• New Legendaries
• New Weapon and Armor skins (No RNG)
• Precursor Crafting

Please, stop tournaments and living story, We want more permanent content!
We’ve spent years asking and you don’t listen us!

Thanks for reading and responding.

Hmm, none of those things are what I want…

Like many others have stated we definitely need more high risk/high reward content.
Aetherblade path is, in my opinion the only real dungeon that caters to this idea. I loved the variety of dungeons in GW1 and that is what kept me playing for 10k hours over all those years. I just can’t see myself playing the same world events and dungeons in GW2 if they remain not only the same but rather easy.
Theme park MMO’s need content injections but the LS just isn’t enough.
I hope that there will be an expansion soon since I am finding there is little reason to login.

Foolio.4013:

there’s very little faith remaining about your capacity to deliver something or anything at all without it being barricaded behind a giant wall of gems
)

I feel that some sense of what is coming is important. The gag-order policy seems counterproductive to a good customer-service provider relationship (IMO).

But (regarding the quoted part of your post),

Should there be faith that anet can deliver desirable features and content without charging for it (putting it behind a wall of gems) ? Should that be an expectation or a standard to which a company or individual is held ?

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

nope…you got it.
the policy they adopted a year in was smart. features/intended completion dates they talked about over a year ago, are still called “false promises” by forum goers to this day. a whiny/entitled portion of the forum(s) posters ruined it for everyone.

State of the Game thus ended………so they tried CDIs….some were constructive/successful (how to improve living story)…others were disastrously combative (Ranger CDI / WWW CDI)……….now we don’t have those either.

with respect to how this has gone down historically, how should they communicate with this specific angry/cynical community (i’m admittedly a guilty party when it comes to bug-fixing/balance)?

Ashen.2907:

Should there be faith that anet can deliver desirable features and content without charging for it (putting it behind a wall of gems) ? Should that be an expectation or a standard to which a company or individual is held ?

the heart of the matter.
i think the content they provide is exceptional for it being free (supported only by a non-P2W gemstore)………..but it’s certainly not that of a proper expansion, and shouldn’t be judged by that standard.

i’m fine with the current model….i don’t really want to pay for “an expansion-worth of content” since i enjoy the game for what it is. many others disagree, and would gladly pay for an expansion and the content upgrade it should provide. only Anet knows what is more cost-effective for them as a business. if it ends up that an expansion is necessary to keep the game alive (profitably), so be it. if not, so be it.

ipan.4356:

Can you see why there’s a conflict in that?

What you say you cannot do, is the only thing we actually want you to do.

We want to know what’s being developed, so we can decide whether it’s worth investing our time further in this game.

If new content is at least being planned (even without knowing how long it will take, exactly what form it will take – though a general idea would be nice, like “dungeons”, or “open world zones”, or “fractals” would at least give us a heads up as to what kind of material to expect eventually) then we can say to ourselves,

‘Hey, I don’t know when I’m going to get it – but I know they are on the same page and are working on it’

Right now, it seems like the answer to, ‘Is there going to be new content or not’, is simply ‘no’ (*unless you love Living Story and e-sports).

That IS the communication problem – you’re not communicating anything.

So you’re saying they should leave the forums and stop talking to us unless they plan on violating a policy they have little power to change? Likely, that policy was suggested from up the line (coughNCSofdspfhcough) so how do you suggest they get around something like that?

There is the fact that the devs are also players too. The reason, IMO, these threads feel so awkward is because there’s only that ‘demand’ and ‘deny’ mentality between us and the devs. I think this could change with time.

Relshdan.6854:

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

nope…you got it.
the policy they adopted a year in was smart. features/intended completion dates they talked about over a year ago, are still called “promises” by forum goers to this day. a whiny/entitled portion of the forum(s) posters ruined it for everyone.

State of the Game thus ended………so they tried CDIs….some were constructive/successful (how to improve living story)…others were disastrously combative (Ranger CDI / WWW CDI)……….now we don’t have those either.

with respect to how this has gone down historically, how should they communicate with this specific angry/cynical community?

By adding huge caveats to everything they announce. If they could add flashing lights that said “SUBJECT TO CHANGE”, that’d do it. Throw on caveats to every statement, “We want to add X, but it may not happen because Y”

The fact is you’ll always have unreasonable people, they never go away. But you can’t cater to them and can’t assume that they are the foundation of the player base. Far more people were likely upset by the lack of direction than by precursor crafting still not being done. And even that would have been even LESS of an uproar if they’d just said every so often, “we have tested several ways of implementing, but none of them seem like they would work without wrecking the economy, we still want to do this when we can”.

Leo G.4501:

ipan.4356:

Can you see why there’s a conflict in that?

What you say you cannot do, is the only thing we actually want you to do.

We want to know what’s being developed, so we can decide whether it’s worth investing our time further in this game.

If new content is at least being planned (even without knowing how long it will take, exactly what form it will take – though a general idea would be nice, like “dungeons”, or “open world zones”, or “fractals” would at least give us a heads up as to what kind of material to expect eventually) then we can say to ourselves,

‘Hey, I don’t know when I’m going to get it – but I know they are on the same page and are working on it’

Right now, it seems like the answer to, ‘Is there going to be new content or not’, is simply ‘no’ (*unless you love Living Story and e-sports).

That IS the communication problem – you’re not communicating anything.

So you’re saying they should leave the forums and stop talking to us unless they plan on violating a policy they have little power to change? Likely, that policy was suggested from up the line (coughNCSofdspfhcough) so how do you suggest they get around something like that?

There is the fact that the devs are also players too. The reason, IMO, these threads feel so awkward is because there’s only that ‘demand’ and ‘deny’ mentality between us and the devs. I think this could change with time.

No matter where the policy came from – it’s a bad idea.

If it’s an NCSoft thing, then I truly feel sorry for the dev’s.

Do you every read blogs by game developers who left big companies to strike out on their own?

People like Tim Shcafer or Chris Roberts or ex-Blizzard employees, or Richard Garriot?

Have you read the things they say about the time they spent with their respective company?

It often reads like a horror story.

I can empathize with creative people being stuck with a stiffling corporate overlord.

But it doesn’t change the ground facts – this policy, no matter where it comes from will destroy all player trust.

They need to do the opposite – communicate more of their intentions (while leaving juicy details – i.e. spoilers – out). They need to give us an idea of the direction the game is going in (for example, do they plan on adding new open world content – and what kind, new maps? new dungeons? just more Livid Story?)

That way, people at least know whether the game is going North, West, East…or South. A lot of people want to know if the game is heading South for them…because if it is, we are wasting our time.

We don’t need to know so much that is heading North by Northwest….or whether it’s going to take a detour, or a go through a tunnel.

We just want to know the cardinal direction (translation: what kind of content is definitely being developed).

How can Chris say they want to communicate more, and then Colin comes and says they can’t talk about anything? There’s an obvious disconnect there – a cognitive dissonance.

And it appears to have kittened people off even more – understandably.

So, Anet – change your policy post haste.

You need to have an emergency meeting with whomever this policy comes from and remove it.

It’s better to communicate often – and clearly – including revising what you’ve already told people.

Players don’t mind switching horses midstream as much as you think they do – but they want constant updates and clear reasons why it’s happening.

ipan.4356:

Laurelinde.4395:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

I’m just going based on what the proportion of threads seems to be aimed at. I guess it’s around 50/50 talking to other players and asking for official info? Dunno.

In any case, I think my point stands; Anet certainly don’t owe us a platform to communicate with each other, particularly if that platform is deemed to have become so toxic. What would be silly about closing them and leaving build discussions for build sites, fanart discussion for fan sites, story discussion for other gaming sites and so on?

Because this would be viewed as a sign that the game is ‘withering on the vine’.

It’s a terrible idea. It would be better for them to abandon the forums themselves (though this is not good either).

Fair enough. Though I don’t think complete silence on future development speaks to a thriving game any more than not bothering with a stupid forum. We’re just the rabble, we don’t need a voice; and Anet aren’t talking. But consider me duly chastened.

wwwes.1398:

Relshdan.6854:

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

nope…you got it.
the policy they adopted a year in was smart. features/intended completion dates they talked about over a year ago, are still called “promises” by forum goers to this day. a whiny/entitled portion of the forum(s) posters ruined it for everyone.

State of the Game thus ended………so they tried CDIs….some were constructive/successful (how to improve living story)…others were disastrously combative (Ranger CDI / WWW CDI)……….now we don’t have those either.

with respect to how this has gone down historically, how should they communicate with this specific angry/cynical community?

By adding huge caveats to everything they announce. If they could add flashing lights that said “SUBJECT TO CHANGE”, that’d do it. Throw on caveats to every statement, “We want to add X, but it may not happen because Y”

The fact is you’ll always have unreasonable people, they never go away. But you can’t cater to them and can’t assume that they are the foundation of the player base. Far more people were likely upset by the lack of direction than by precursor crafting still not being done. And even that would have been even LESS of an uproar if they’d just said every so often, “we have tested several ways of implementing, but none of them seem like they would work without wrecking the economy, we still want to do this when we can”.

totally get where you’re coming from…but they tried that already with the CDIs with mixed results. most posters ignored the qualification that it may not happen and even that it was just a discussion….and jumped right to it being a “directive from the players to be implemented by the devs”.

if it was just a few, i’d agree with you, but its the majority of the forum community, and that makes it a pointless and unpleasant job for any Anet employee.

ColinJohanson.2394:

The simple answer is: unless it’s nearing completion, we cannot talk about it. You can read Mo’s post titled “communicating with you” which covers in detail how we’ve been asked to message as of about a year ago in relation to what is in development.

Since we can’t share a road map of what they’re doing per our company policy, all I can answer is I hope when we’re able to show you what all we’ve been doing in total someday in the future – you’re as excited as we are about it.

right now with the current policy, I just plain feel strung along, like an Apple customer, never told about what the next, latest and greatest phone or thing is going to be. Apple will reveal the phone to the world and tell me (some of) the new features half a month before release date, then expect me to get excited for something I know almost nothing about. Some of the features seem a bit sketchy, but our feedback isn’t going to matter because a month isn’t enough time to change anything in the software/hardware world. No one’s feedback it going to agree with each other either.

If this was always the company policy, Would we have instead heard about the game getting announced at the beginning of 2012, get blasted all at once what features it has, then somehow we’re expected to get excited for an April beta weekend event for a game we heard and know almost nothing about? I can’t get excited about that, not unless I want to turn my brain off and set my expectations to zero, which I’m not going to do. It definitely wouldn’t have been the same.

ipan.4356:

No matter where the policy came from – it’s a bad idea.

If it’s an NCSoft thing, then I truly feel sorry for the dev’s.

Do you every read blogs by game developers who left big companies to strike out on their own?

People like Tim Shcafer or Chris Roberts or ex-Blizzard employees, or Richard Garriot?

Have you read the things they say about the time they spent with their respective company?

It often reads like a horror story.

Nope, can’t say that I have but it seems to share similarities with many large companies with underlings making all the cogs turn.

ipan.4356:

I can empathize with creative people being stuck with a stiffling corporate overlord.

Ah, so you understand that the devs are just cogs in the machine.

ipan.4356:

But it doesn’t change the ground facts – this policy, no matter where it comes from will destroy all player trust.

They need to do the opposite – communicate more of their intentions (while leaving juicy details – i.e. spoilers – out). They need to give us an idea of the direction the game is going in (for example, do they plan on adding new open world content – and what kind, new maps? new dungeons? just more Livid Story?)

That way, people at least know whether the game is going North, West, East…or South. A lot of people want to know if the game is heading South for them…because if it is, we are wasting our time.

We don’t need to know so much that is heading North by Northwest….or whether it’s going to take a detour, or a go through a tunnel.

We just want to know the cardinal direction (translation: what kind of content is definitely being developed).

…so you DON’T understand that the devs are just cogs in the machine.

Thinking about the perspective here, you want the devs to tell you where they are to be taking their game to tell if you’ll still be interested which will decide if you continue to spend money on the product or not….and the company they work for wants you to spend money on their product. Obviously, that company overheading that worker wouldn’t want their worker saying the wrong thing. They want you to keep spending money with them…but if their worker told you something about what their product line will become, that changed your mind from spending money….

…yeah, you get the picture.

ipan.4356:

But it doesn’t change the ground facts – this policy, no matter where it comes from will destroy all player trust.

…

How can Chris say they want to communicate more, and then Colin comes and says they can’t talk about anything? There’s an obvious disconnect there – a cognitive dissonance.

And it appears to have kittened people off even more – understandably.

So, Anet – change your policy post haste.

You need to have an emergency meeting with whomever this policy comes from and remove it.

It’s better to communicate often – and clearly – including revising what you’ve already told people.

Players don’t mind switching horses midstream as much as you think they do – but they want constant updates and clear reasons why it’s happening.

I see where you’re coming from.

To me: it is what it is. I’m more of a realist despite showing more outward optimism. What you describe is likely something that won’t happen, but if you keep communicating with the devs, form a stronger relationship besides just the consumer<>producer one, perhaps they’ll be willing to stretch the policies more, work around them and/or look into getting them revised for our benefit.

None of this will happen overnight though, and threatening with trust we can change like a light switch isn’t going to help things along.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romek.4201:

@colin

maby you should than not make a blogpost with things you will give us this year BUT

a blogpost with things you work on

i guess people would be happy to read things like: we work on housing but far from release, we have 3 dungeons in beta status, we had to restart work on precursor crafting and its back to alpha status ………

something like this

That would also break the company policy of what we’re allowed to discuss in regards of what is in development

Though I wonder if we went a little more broad and kept a rolling “top categorical issues” the community team communicated or owned that summarizing high level things the development team is aware of and might or might not be working on, but see’s as core fundamental issues to address, and players just had constant brainstorm threads on those topics – if it’d at least get us halfway there.

Although it isn’t my place to comment directly on company policy, I will say that in the other MMO games – including certain Funcom and Turbine games, I can state what they are working on in a broad sense and they even email out forthcoming news, even if it’s not ready or near to release, in the form of a newsletter. Details gets released as and when, but broadly, I know what is coming and the community in a generalised sense keeps its expectations for timelines in check. Because they feel communicated with. I have no idea whatsoever what is on the horizon in GW2. At all.

At the end of the day, you can’t stop disgruntlement or moaning. It’ll happen even if you tell us 100% of what is coming. You know that. I know that, most of us know that. But, the majority of the community are invested in your game and want an idea of where we are going, perhaps more out of enthusiasm and excitement than anything else. Some relaxation of your policy can only be beneficial.

Although I’ll still play the game even if you don’t, since I enjoy it and that’s the main thing