Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I thought it might be time to get my thoughts out. Be warned, this may get long, and because I don’t believe in tl;dr, you’ll just have to choose whether you feel like taking the time to read it.

The question I have is:

Would it be beneficial for ANet to start treating us like friends instead of customers?

As the game continues more and more players are becoming emotionally and financially invested. They have formed social relationships, websites, and videos geared to nothing but this game.

It’s no wonder that so many people become agitated and concerned whenever ANet forces a design choice on the community. I have been around since day one of this game and it is very interesting to me how the feedback from the community has been evolving. As people become more invested, the level of frustration seems to have increased with every update.

Of course, this is my subjective observation, but what I’m really interested in is how ANet can continue to create a long lasting, and amazing MMO, that the community continues to enjoy and support? What can be done to ensure that the design choices made by ANet are in the best interest of the community, and not another potential problem that tests the patience of the players?

I believe that ANet needs to make the shift away from acting like a company, and acting more like our friends.

If ANet was to start communicating with the community as though we were friends, it would seem logical to me that the conversation would start to become a lot more productive. Endless forum post after forum post reacting to the changes (and anticipating others) is really doing nothing but wasting time. So many resources undoubtably go into dealing with frustrated players, or game mechanics that simply don’t work in practice and need to be redone, seems to me like a risky game to play for ANet.

We all understand the ANet is here to make money. We, as players have no problem giving them our money and time if we week they will continue to produce a game that most of us feel is worthy. The problem is that ANet seems to be disconnected from the community, or as my business calls is, “working in a bubble.”

So what can be done?

I personally think that ANet needs to take a more personal approach to dealing with e community and the game. They need to become much more transparent with what they’re planning, and put systems in place that allow the community to give feedback.

About 5 months ago or something I suggested an in-game system that would allow players to cast votes on proposed changes, and the future of the game. Relying in third party outlets such as reddit, twitter, or these forums will never give ANet a proper representation of the community as a whole. Creating an open and honest in-game voting system would allow everyone to have a say, and give ANet some solid feedback before wasting resources on this.

I also feel that ANet should start spending more time talking to us like friends and not as support tickets. There are a few devs on these forums that talk in plain, open English and when they do, the community seems to love it. This type of communication makes all of us feel as though our opinions matter, and that we are working with ANet, not just reacting to whatever they decide to do next.

I think it’s time that all of us start talking like friends. You have a very dedicated player base that would love the opportunity to work with ANet to create the best MMO ever. The question is ANet, have we earned the right for you to start treating us like friends?

Thoughts anyone?

you do know ArenaNet IS a company right? I’d rather be treated like a customer. A friend doesn’t always treat you nicely but a company will always try to make a customer happy so they get repeat business .

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Would it be beneficial for ANet to start treating us like friends instead of customers?

No, because:

A: the players would still treat them like a service provider, not a friend.
B: the players would try to take advantage of said “friendly” behavior.

Adine.2184:

you do know ArenaNet IS a company right? I’d rather be treated like a customer. A friend doesn’t always treat you nicely but a company will always try to make a customer happy so they get repeat business .

Adine.2184:

you do know ArenaNet IS a company right? I’d rather be treated like a customer. A friend doesn’t always treat you nicely but a company will always try to make a customer happy so they get repeat business .

The problem with always acting like a business is that you’re more often than not concerned only with what makes money. It would be great if the company in question was intuitive enough to know exactly what the customers want, but as we see in most companies, many times they’re making informed guesses, or simply testing the waters and hoping for the best.

A friend however, takes the time to know your needs and desires, and then does what they can to make your life more enjoyable. In the world of MMOs, ore enjoyable translates into more people, which means more money.

When you approach problems from a business perspective you often focus so much on how something will translate into revenue, that you miss the fun part.

Now I’m not saying ANet hasn’t developed some good content, but they seem to be working on a bit of a, “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” mentality. They often make design and game choices that puzzle the community, and neglect Inge that the community has outright told them will make them money.

But they do need more people like Gaile Grey to be community liasons. Right now it’s atrocious.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Would it be beneficial for ANet to start treating us like friends instead of customers?

No, because:

A: the players would still treat them like a service provider, not a friend.
B: the players would try to take advantage of said “friendly” behavior.

You think so?

Do you think a mutual respect between players and ANet wouldn’t develop? Do you think developing in-game voting systems and being transparent about the changes would not provide values lie feedback that would weed out those seeking to take advantage?

Here is an example.

Remember a few months ago there were really no change logs? Remember how the community basically complained until ANet started to release detailed ones?

This struggle seems unnecessary to me. Why would ANet, by default not release detailed patch notes? Why did there have to be a power struggle between us to get that information?

Being open and transparent should be the default I feel. We should be treated as partners with equally vested interest in seeing the game succeed. Including the community and treating us like friends, can only improve the game in my opinion.

To be clear, not everyone’s opinions are valid. I’m not an expert in databases, so I can’t really speak intelligently about what ANet does in that department. I do think that while ANet should ultimately do what they feel is best based on their knowledge and experience, there are a lot of players that are equally knowledgable when it comes to MMOs. We all should at lease have the opportunity to give our suggestions woot feeling like they’re just going into a void never to be viewed again.