Guild Wars 2

Navi.7142:

They just don’t want to.
If they would, they would do it.
Simple.

(not jumping on the communication and respect issue, but as you said it is a two way thing and, hell, have they been presumptuous towards the community as well)

I think it’s fair to say SOMEONE at Anet doesn’t want their future plans laid out for community scrutiny. Lumping every employee into that decision role is quite unfair. Whether you (as an Anet employee) like the decision or not you follow it or are no longer an Anet employee.

BTW, they ARE releasing info on their plans and what they have been doing…..just not in these forums. As I’ve stated before, who WOULD want to dive into a mob of pitchforks and torches?

After a day or two of cooling off, I realized that ANet is communicating with the players, it just isn’t in the manner that we’d like. As others have pointed out, there are other avenues they are using. However, people are getting angry because they stopped using the forums for that communication.

I was guilty of being swayed by the toxicity. For that, I apologize. I guess Sony just kind of spoiled me in terms of how much they communicated on their forums. Would it be nice if ANet came back to the forums to talk about issues, concerns, ideas, etc? Absolutely. The mob mentality would need to dissipate first though. A person is not really open to communication when he/she is upset. Add in a bunch of people, and no one’s really listening. That’s why people generally cool off before talking through an issue.

Why doesn’t Anet tell us their plans

All in good time, petal.

I think it has to do with their iteration process. Ideas change so much as they are being worked on I bet they don’t even know what it’s going to look like when it’s released. The video above has it in their own words.

Sethren.8472:

I was guilty of being swayed by the toxicity. I guess Sony just kind of spoiled me in terms of how much they communicated on their forums. Would it be nice if ANet came back to the forums to talk about issues, concerns, ideas, etc? Absolutely. The mob mentality would need to dissipate first though. A person is not really open to communication when he/she is upset. Add in a bunch of people, and no one’s really listening. That’s why people generally cool off before talking through an issue.

At issue here though, is that the mob mentality ISN’T going to dissipate. The trolls have been allowed to set the tone for FAR too long for it to dispel on its own. This pool is already poisoned, and it will NEVER be clean unless Arena.net really imposes their will on these forums.

There are one of two ways they can do this.

1) Accept that the Internet is the Wild West, and let the posters rough each other up a little. You can certainly set a line (racial slurs, excessive vulgarities, physical and emotional threats), but that interaction such as “You’re stupid, your idea is stupid. Shut your stupid mouth before you look even more stupid” would require far too much effort to police effectively.

The concept of “every poster should respect the opinion of other posters” is a nice idea and all… but to use a real world example, if someone tries to tell me to respect the opinion of an anti-vaccination disciple as valid and worthy of my time my response will be, “Uhhh… NO. Because their opinion is stupid and not supported by any real scientific evidence.”

Very similarly, if someone says, “I haven’t played in a year, but this is what’s wrong…” I’m going to tell them, “Then your opinion is not valid, because things have changed. Shut up.” Disrespectful? Perhaps. But it’s also true.

The forums will be rough and tumble to be sure… but managing the extremes is a LOT easier and doable than trying to enforce “respect.”

(Personally, I think this is the most viable option, because…)

2) Get the manpower to be able to police the thin line Arena.net’s policies have already drawn evenly AND fairly. You CANNOT rely on forum goers to police themselves with the report button, because what happens is you get trolls (on both sides of an argument) who post solely to incite, then hide behind the report button knowing there is no way the limited moderation on the forums can hope to follow the context of every dispute.

You can see how it doesn’t work on these forums… with long hateful back and forth screeds going on for pages, while one snarky comment in an otherwise genial thread will get infracted. The moderators have to pick their battles because they simply can’t keep up with all the mud being slung back and forth.

(There’s simply no way Arena.net or NCSoft would be willing to invest the resources to clean up their forums in this fashion. It would take far too much manpower and thus money.)

Anet needs to communicate more, point blank, period.

Doesn’t matter if the forum is filled with vile negativity.

You guys ever see how horrible Diablo 3 forums were ?(and still are to an extent)
There wasn’t a single positive thread for over a year and still very rarely a positive thread over on those forums. Granted it’s a very large community but I’ve never seen much negativity as I have in D3 forums.. but you know what? Blizzard could care less, they still communicated and often. They still do their “State of the game” blogs, constant player → community liason → dev → back to player communication.
You need thick skin to be a gaming company, especially a big one.

Regardless, you need to communicate because there are still PLENTY of ppl who care about what anet has to say. Doesn’t matter if ppl whine and cry about it, every gaming community has their trolls, but that shouldn’t deter you from communication.

chemiclord.3978:

Sethren.8472:

I was guilty of being swayed by the toxicity. I guess Sony just kind of spoiled me in terms of how much they communicated on their forums. Would it be nice if ANet came back to the forums to talk about issues, concerns, ideas, etc? Absolutely. The mob mentality would need to dissipate first though. A person is not really open to communication when he/she is upset. Add in a bunch of people, and no one’s really listening. That’s why people generally cool off before talking through an issue.

At issue here though, is that the mob mentality ISN’T going to dissipate. The trolls have been allowed to set the tone for FAR too long for it to dispel on its own. This pool is already poisoned, and it will NEVER be clean unless Arena.net really imposes their will on these forums.

There are one of two ways they can do this.

1) Accept that the Internet is the Wild West, and let the posters rough each other up a little. You can certainly set a line (racial slurs, excessive vulgarities, physical and emotional threats), but that interaction such as “You’re stupid, your idea is stupid. Shut your stupid mouth before you look even more stupid” would require far too much effort to police effectively.

(Personally, I think this is the most viable option, because…)

2) Get the manpower to be able to police the thin line Arena.net’s policies have already drawn evenly AND fairly. You CANNOT rely on forum goers to police themselves with the report button, because what happens is you get trolls (on both sides of an argument) who post solely to incite, then hide behind the report button knowing there is no way the limited moderation on the forums can hope to follow the context of every dispute.

You can see how it doesn’t work on these forums… with long hateful back and forth screeds going on for pages, while one snarky comment in an otherwise genial thread will get infracted. The moderators have to pick their battles because they simply can’t keep up with all the mud being slung back and forth.

(There’s simply no way Arena.net or NCSoft would be willing to invest the resources to clean up their forums in this fashion. It would take far too much manpower and thus money.)

There is a possible silver lining to how it currently is. You give the trolls enough rope, and they’ll eventually hang themselves (figuratively speaking). They will get flustered/incited to the point of rage quitting, and viola! Problem solved. Granted, that is a long, drawn out process, but it works – just very, very slowly. Or they cool off. That may be a heavy dose of wishful thinking on my part, but something will eventually focus their attention elsewhere. That just leaves the matter of how much damage is caused in the interim.

Yeah, it’s a sticky situation. Solution #1 won’t work either because the trolled would just become the trolls (trolling the trolls). It would incite more mud wars, not stop them. Solution #2 would require substantial manpower, OR a more heavy-handed approach by the current mods.

Maybe it’s because I rarely visit more than a few days at a time, but is the forum really all that bad? You guys make it sound like it’s an unmoderated image board.

I’ve seen good posts, awesome posts, and bad terrible horrible “why did you post I’m not even going to finish reading this” posts.

But, that’s true of most forums. You get those types. And a lot of those posts tend to vanish.

Honestly, I see more of the former rather than the later, but I do pick my posts.

Maybe it’s a bias and I’m drawn to pay attention to people who don’t fit the later type mentioned. I imagine that’s true for most people. Natural even.

If you make an angry confrontational and inflammatory post, even with the best of intentions, don’t be mad if Anet doesn’t listen.

Work on your social skills. If your posts tend to disappear, they’re bad. Try harder.

And while the would be toxic community element is learning to be a better communicator/less obvious disgruntled forum dweller…

Anet will continue to work on their game and communicate with the community as they always have in spite of such people.

For the genuine, sincere, and awesome players who vastly outnumber the forum flunkies.

For the awesome game that is Guild Wars 2.
“It just keeps getting better and better!”

ProtoGunner.4953:

This game is really the only MMO I know that doesn’t release substantial content for the more dedicated player, i. e. no additional dungeons or raids. Yes, we got fractals – that was a good start, but then? Nothing. Almost every other MMO releases a lot of new dungeons and raids. We just get nothing, and I feel the urge to change the game just be cause of that: there is just simply nothing to do after world completion and the dungeon title which I got after a couple of months after release.

Other MMOs let you know months before what they will implement and then release it. GW2 won’t tell you months ahead what they want do and if they did it, they haven’t delivered it. Something is just completely wrong with this company. I am a bit sad, since GW2 (and GW) is/was my most played MMO franchise so far and I wish this will remain for the future.

I could swear this was marketed as a casual game, that you could just put it down or pick it up whenever you want, no?

They will not release details of their plans because then people will treat it as gospel and then get upset when they deviate from that plan. The behavior of some players on the forums and in game over the last few days just gives them even more reason to not do this.

CETheLucid.3964:

Maybe it’s because I rarely visit more than a few days at a time, but is the forum really all that bad? You guys make it sound like it’s an unmoderated image board.

If you had logged in last night to see the front page literally spammed with “SAB OR RIOT!” threads, and redundant threads demanding “Arena.net is out of touch” or “GW2 is now officially dead”, you’d see how bad it can get… and it can take hours for moderators to clean up the repeated droppings left behind by the rabid dogs.

So yeah, it really can be all that bad.

To correct my earlier status, To give insight in features which are still being developed(Precursor Crafting), but aren’t finished (or close to finishing) and could be changed later down the line.

The costs of saying something and then changing direction / delaying it / cancelling it are very, very high compared to the minimal benefits you gain from communication. People freak out over ‘broken promises’ to an extent that makes any communication rather dangerous.

They really are better off not saying anything until they are 100% sure.

1) Anet announces their plans.

2) Players give negative feedback, because the ideas are genuinely bad.

3) They implement them anyways.

4) Players rage.

Obviously, to reduce player negativity, the correct step is to go to the root of things and remove step 1). Right?

Players generally think only about themselves and not what’s best for the game. Not meant as an insult but it’s just that people tend to not think on a macro level. Players are going to complain regardless.

Sooo basically you’re saying that we as a community of customers should be ashamed for making a group of developers feel bad because a major aspect of the game was not only not like what they said it would be but it took a very long time for them to change it?

Is that basically the premise? Because if so then you’re missing the point of the honest business relationship and the company/customer relationship. Basically, business 101, don’t lie to your customer base. If you are honest (and yes it can be done we’ve seen it) then you’ll have no backlash. If it wasn’t a lie then apologize and offer something because of the time you wasted, if it wasn’t something you were authorized to say, don’t say it. It’s really not that difficult.

The other problem I’m seeing other than the blind adoration thing is that instead of coming out and apologizing for things like this they get people like the OP to fight their battles for them.

I suppose he would tell us that if we bought a lemon car (and no I don’t mean the color) that required not only the cost of gas to run but also the purchase of currency through conversion every month to maintain on top of the repair bills, that was a total drag to drive because of all of the loud noises and smoke, that we should feel bad for the seller of the car because we shouldn’t complain about the products we purchased. That’s essentially what I just read.

Yes, but anyone and everyone who bought the infinite continue coin is owed a refund and ANET kitten well knows it! It doesn’t matter whether or not they bought it with cash or converted gold to gems; the bait and switch tactic in any company is frowned upon. As far as anything you buy goes, once its bought and paid for, it’s to use at your convenience; not whom you bought it from.

You don’t pay off a car with title in hand only to have it repoed do you? Why should a digital item be any different? Get with the program and learn some ethics Anet!

For the record I don’t play nor do I like SAB, but I’m standing up for those who spent cash on an unuseable item that needs to get refunded!

They do sometimes listen.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Commander-Tag-Changes-Feedback-merged/page/10#post4313965

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Commander-Tag-Changes-Feedback-merged/page/10#post4314033

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Commander-Tag-Changes-Feedback-merged/page/10#post4314087

tigirius.9014:

Sooo basically you’re saying that we as a community of customers should be ashamed for making a group of developers feel bad because a major aspect of the game was not only not like what they said it would be but it took a very long time for them to change it?

Is that basically the premise? Because if so then you’re missing the point of the honest business relationship and the company/customer relationship. Basically, business 101, don’t lie to your customer base. If you are honest (and yes it can be done we’ve seen it) then you’ll have no backlash. If it wasn’t a lie then apologize and offer something because of the time you wasted, if it wasn’t something you were authorized to say, don’t say it. It’s really not that difficult.

The other problem I’m seeing other than the blind adoration thing is that instead of coming out and apologizing for things like this they get people like the OP to fight their battles for them.

I suppose he would tell us that if we bought a lemon car (and no I don’t mean the color) that required not only the cost of gas to run but also the purchase of currency through conversion every month to maintain on top of the repair bills, that was a total drag to drive because of all of the loud noises and smoke, that we should feel bad for the seller of the car because we shouldn’t complain about the products we purchased. That’s essentially what I just read.

No. My point was not about anyone being ashamed. It’s just that players normally focus on what they want only and tend to not see the bigger picture. Whether it’s one player or an aggregate number of players doesn’t matter.

Nowhere is it implied that Anet has to be open with the players with their decisions. What gets released to us is entirely up to them. Be grateful that you receive what they currently provide as you will likely not with other companies.

No matter what they do, people will be upset and complain because the decisions do not fit what they feel should have been done. This opinion is based on their personal belief and tends to be influenced on what they personally want. No kidding, right? It’s in Anet’s best interests to release as little information as possible until they’re for sure ready for it. I believe that was stated in the video or article that have been floating around in the forums as of late.

Your post is the same overreaction that would occur to any of Anet’s released decisions. For example, nowhere did they ever give a timeline on when to expect SAB to be released again. They provided an update in an interview that they still currently do not have plans and people flipped out about it as evident in game as well as in the forums.

The same is with precursor scavenger hunt or crafting. It was stated it could be available by the end of 2013 but issues came up and it was postponed to a later, undetermined time. Earlier this year they responded to a post that it was still on hold because of the impact of the new wardrobe system.

They’re being open and honest but people are still flipping out about it because they don’t agree with those decisions. You then have people who verbally assault the company which really doesn’t help. This was mentioned in the WvW forum that stating that there is no WvW team doesn’t really help their cause. The spamming of SAB threads, saying Anet has lost touch with the players, and so on are exactly the same.

I think the point the op is making is the feedback from players to devs and vice versa is currently one way. The commander tag mess up is the obvious example here.

How they could take the requests for account bound and color choice and turn it into what they presented in Germany without running it by someone in the WvW community first is ridiculous. It would have saved them from the uproar and two guys their weekend “fixing” the whole color thing if they simply asked their WvW beta group of players “is this what you wanted?”

To be that tone deaf to your community is as frightening as the likely reason they didn’t was to orchestrate a three week PR campaign about the changes. By dragging it out every MMO blog will post every day about each change as they are announced. The ultimate in cheap marketing, social media.

Lampshade.7569:

1) Anet announces their plans.

2) Armchair devs who have no idea what they’re talking about kitten like entitled brats.

3) They implement them anyways, adjusted to take REASONABLE criticism into account.

4) Armchair devs rage, then are forgotten about two weeks later.

Obviously, to reduce player negativity, the correct step is to go to the root of things and remove step 1). Right?

Fixed your BS for ya. You’re welcome.

chemiclord.3978:

Armchair devs

I felt like I was the only one thinking about the programming involved, but I’ve only gotten the barest of tastes of programming. So I figured maybe some of these people have an idea of what they’re talking about and are just impatient.
Feels good to be validated.

Behellagh.1468:

I think the point the op is making is the feedback from players to devs and vice versa is currently one way. The commander tag mess up is the obvious example here.

How they could take the requests for account bound and color choice and turn it into what they presented in Germany without running it by someone in the WvW community first is ridiculous. It would have saved them from the uproar and two guys their weekend “fixing” the whole color thing if they simply asked their WvW beta group of players “is this what you wanted?”

To be that tone deaf to your community is as frightening as the likely reason they didn’t was to orchestrate a three week PR campaign about the changes. By dragging it out every MMO blog will post every day about each change as they are announced. The ultimate in cheap marketing, social media.

It is time-consuming to do that about every change. If not every change, then they’d have to pick and choose what they want to get feedback about and could still be in the same situation as what recently occurred. Even then, you’d likely still see the same reaction from the people complaining including the posts with insults such as “armchair devs”.

Boneheart.3561:

chemiclord.3978:

Armchair devs

I felt like I was the only one thinking about the programming involved, but I’ve only gotten the barest of tastes of programming. So I figured maybe some of these people have an idea of what they’re talking about and are just impatient.
Feels good to be validated.

Well, I’m sure there are a lot of people on this forum who have a pretty good idea of how games are made (I have some experience on the creative side, not so much the programming side). I’m sure there are a lot of experienced developers who bounce around here too.

But as a general rule, when someone on the forums says, “This is terrible! Do [x] instead!”, I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to the guys with the code in front of them as to what they think is the best decision.

Another thing is when a player says “This is terrible” what he’s really saying is “I don’t like this.” Which is fine, but to pretend that he/she represents some sort of majority opinion rubs me the wrong way.

And yes, to be fair, Arena.net makes some really head-shaking decisions… but I have also found that they DO correct them (and quite quickly) when they decide it actually IS a bad decision (the Flamekissed armor and the Commander Rainbow are two examples now).

CETheLucid.3964:

Why doesn’t Anet tell us their plans

All in good time, petal.

…we keep hearing for 2 years now.

CETheLucid.3964:

Maybe it’s because I rarely visit more than a few days at a time, but is the forum really all that bad?

Nope. I have seen game forums where even the most calm people couldn’t write two sentences without a snide remark at the game or developers. Even if they were defending them from others. Where most innocent statements from devs were met by suspicion or outright hate because people lost any hope that anything can be done right long ago.
This forum, even at the worst times, is still one of the better ones i have seen. It’s not, hovewer, going to last, if something won’t change from Anet’s side.
Communication (honest communication) is really important in setting the tone of the community. Players can even forgive the worst dev mistakes if they think they are respected. Consequently, if they think they are ignored or slighted, they might turn against even the most brilliant ideas.

Ayrilana.1396:

Behellagh.1468:

I think the point the op is making is the feedback from players to devs and vice versa is currently one way. The commander tag mess up is the obvious example here.

How they could take the requests for account bound and color choice and turn it into what they presented in Germany without running it by someone in the WvW community first is ridiculous. It would have saved them from the uproar and two guys their weekend “fixing” the whole color thing if they simply asked their WvW beta group of players “is this what you wanted?”

To be that tone deaf to your community is as frightening as the likely reason they didn’t was to orchestrate a three week PR campaign about the changes. By dragging it out every MMO blog will post every day about each change as they are announced. The ultimate in cheap marketing, social media.

It is time-consuming to do that about every change. If not every change, then they’d have to pick and choose what they want to get feedback about and could still be in the same situation as what recently occurred. Even then, you’d likely still see the same reaction from the people complaining including the posts with insults such as “armchair devs”.

If it was important enough to both announce it at a con in Europe and devote a day on it for building the hype about this feature patch, it should have been important enough to sanity check it with their beta testers before the design was coded up. Not asking for every bug fix but since this is a bullet point for the feature pack, it’s important enough to make sure you are delivering what was being asked.

Behellagh.1468:

To be that tone deaf to your community

<snip>

it’s important enough to make sure you are delivery what was being asked.

Going to play devil’s advocate for a moment, and I know I’m probably going to regret the ragestorm that might ensue.

What happened to the fact that developers reserve the right to make the game they want, and how they see fit? I know that’s not a popular statement, but customer/player requests are just that… requests. ArenaNet has the right to either grant the request or ignore it. Just because a request is made, that does not automatically obligate ArenaNet to fulfill said request. It is their game, after all. We’ve just paid to be able to play it. The sole ownership of the game still belongs to ArenaNet and NCsoft.

I understand bugs and such; that’s an entirely different issue. I’m referring to changes that are requested by the playerbase. If ArenaNet agrees with the suggestion, great. However, if they don’t, that is not a violation. Players do not get to dictate how the game is run/developed/etc. That isn’t a right granted to players when they purchase a game.

Nothing. However if they are willing to act upon input from their customers, shouldn’t they at least get it close to what was being asked for rather than a crazy gold sink they first created?

“Hi, we at ArenaNet has listen to you WvW players and are providing you this QoL feature your requested, at only 300g per color! Isn’t that great! Ah … what’s with all the torches and pitchforks?”

take for example new legendary weapon, precursor hunting, legendary amulet…. etc etc

when they make roadmap, and it kept getting pushed back, people complain even more.

tigirius.9014:

Sooo basically you’re saying that we as a community of customers should be ashamed for making a group of developers feel bad because a major aspect of the game was not only not like what they said it would be but it took a very long time for them to change it?

Is that basically the premise? Because if so then you’re missing the point of the honest business relationship and the company/customer relationship. Basically, business 101, don’t lie to your customer base. If you are honest (and yes it can be done we’ve seen it) then you’ll have no backlash. If it wasn’t a lie then apologize and offer something because of the time you wasted, if it wasn’t something you were authorized to say, don’t say it. It’s really not that difficult.

The other problem I’m seeing other than the blind adoration thing is that instead of coming out and apologizing for things like this they get people like the OP to fight their battles for them.

I suppose he would tell us that if we bought a lemon car (and no I don’t mean the color) that required not only the cost of gas to run but also the purchase of currency through conversion every month to maintain on top of the repair bills, that was a total drag to drive because of all of the loud noises and smoke, that we should feel bad for the seller of the car because we shouldn’t complain about the products we purchased. That’s essentially what I just read.

Here’s the thing, if the devs communicate all the details to the fanbase, no matter what there would always be outrage from either the majority or a very vocal minority which could lead them to give in to peer pressure and do what they say. It’s one thing to give what the players ask for but if it ruins the vision behind the game, then that’s another story. The more logical thing to do is to keep the fanbase up to date but at the same not revealing to them the specifics.

Behellagh.1468:

Nothing. However if they are willing to act upon input from their customers, shouldn’t they at least get it close to what was being asked for rather than a crazy gold sink they first created?

“Hi, we at ArenaNet has listen to you WvW players and are providing you this QoL feature your requested, at only 300g per color! Isn’t that great! Ah … what’s with all the torches and pitchforks?”

LoL! Valid point. That does seem a bit off. I’d definitely agree with you on that one. ANet does have the right to tweak the suggestion, but I still don’t understand the 300g per color. That seems a bit… excessive.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not, hovewer, going to last, if something won’t change from Anet’s side.

The average forum hero would be a forum hero even if the game were shut down and the forums left up. Some people are just wonky like that.

Astralporing.1957:

Players can even forgive the worst dev mistakes if they think they are respected. Consequently, if they think they are ignored or slighted, they might turn against even the most brilliant ideas.

Following this logic, if the worst dev mistake is a lack of communication with a certain subset (jaded forum warriors) I imagine many gamers (especially those who don’t use the forums regularly) can forgive them.

Forum warriors are a loud minority. They don’t speak for the majority and a lot of what they have to say is BS.

The charge that Anet doesn’t communicate with it’s players doesn’t stand up to honest scrutiny. It’s always been BS, despite how the forum heroes emote about it. QQ

Anet has never ignored, let alone made efforts to “slight” it’s players. These are the same people who leave events going longer than intended due to natural disasters.

They respect and care for their gamers. There is a precedent to prove this. All jaded forum heroes got is hyperbolic BS, half-truths, tin hats, and a lynch the creators mentality.

You try dealing with folks like that for any extended period of time. If you’re good at it, I hear Ferguson, Missouri is looking for a few good cops.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Pifil.5193:

Smokey.7652:

Dev Player communication is a two way street of respect, the community dropped the ball early on and now we have to deal with the consequences of that.

The community didn’t drop the ball. Some people in the community may have but they are not the community.

I hope you can see the difference and I sure expect that ArenaNet can.

Well, if you look AT THIS FORUM, which is what A.Net could judge by, There are more NEGATIVE and nasty threads than there are constructive or complimentary. What do you expect then?

This forum is the vocal minority. Whats said on here really isnt a big deal to them when the majority of people are silent/don’t care and still throwing $$ at the cash shop. One trip to some where like the dungeon section and you can see the same complaints that have been going on for years and no one cares to address them.

CETheLucid.3964:

Why doesn’t Anet tell us their plans

All in good time, petal.

Actually, you have to have a plan before you can share it.

Blude.6812:

CETheLucid.3964:

Why doesn’t Anet tell us their plans

All in good time, petal.

Actually, you have to have a plan before you can share it.

Hm?

Dusty Moon.4382:

Well, if you look AT THIS FORUM, which is what A.Net could judge by, There are more NEGATIVE and nasty threads than there are constructive or complimentary. What do you expect then?

There WERE a lot of negative threads. Where did they all go?

Thobek.1730:

There WERE a lot of negative threads. Where did they all go?

Gone into the world of light and happyness.

Merged into a few or locked for not being constructive.

CETheLucid.3964:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not, hovewer, going to last, if something won’t change from Anet’s side.

The average forum hero would be a forum hero even if the game were shut down and the forums left up. Some people are just wonky like that.

I’d like to point out, that one of the threads asking for better communication had been started by Vayne. Which can hardly be called an Anet basher.

While indeed the forums are not that bad yet, it is also true that they are getting worse as time passes. And lack of communication is one of the primary reasons for that. It feeds the trolls, magnifies anger, and can even cause irritation in otherwise calm and reasonable posters.

CETheLucid.3964:

Astralporing.1957:

Players can even forgive the worst dev mistakes if they think they are respected. Consequently, if they think they are ignored or slighted, they might turn against even the most brilliant ideas.

Following this logic, if the worst dev mistake is a lack of communication with a certain subset (jaded forum warriors) I imagine many gamers (especially those who don’t use the forums regularly) can forgive them.

If they feel they are respected and treated seriously. It’s hard to feel that way if there’s growing disconnect between devs and the community. And yes, people that do not frequent the forums can get annoyed at lack of communications too. The difference is that when they do, it’s usually too late for any last second damage control.

CETheLucid.3964:

Forum warriors are a loud minority. They don’t speak for the majority and a lot of what they have to say is BS.

I have heard that argument many times already, in many different games. Barring some special cases, it usually turns out that forums in fact were representing the rest of the community. Yes, not everything that forum posters write is sensible, but then noone asks Anet to follow every poster’s wishes. And most posters are not “forum warriors”. You are seriously misrepresenting the situation here.

CETheLucid.3964:

The charge that Anet doesn’t communicate with it’s players doesn’t stand up to honest scrutiny.

Okay, i will give you that. They do communicate (…sometimes). They are just very, very bad at it.

CETheLucid.3964:

Anet has never ignored, let alone made efforts to “slight” it’s players.

You… haven’t been reading a lot of their “communications”, have you?

CETheLucid.3964:

They respect and care for their gamers.

Oh, i can believe that at least some of them indeed do. Perhaps even all of them. If their PR won’t get better, however, they will keep being taken at face value. Which at the moment is quite low.

CETheLucid.3964:

You try dealing with folks like that for any extended period of time.

Is over 10 years long enough for you?

I am mixed about ANet needing to communicate their plans.

Sure, they need to tell the community what they are working on (a balance of classes, new skills, more story), BUT not in details (“precursor craft before 2014”). Being too detailled about their work will often transform into a flaming community about “promises not kept”.

At the moment they are giving us some explanations regarding their feature pack, which is much appreciated: I’m keeping an eye on the website not to miss the blogpost. This is communication, and it has an impact on the development, for example 4 commander tags now cost 100g (since they will be updated) instead on the previously stated 1200g.

This is pleasing the community: “we want to add x and y” “but y breaks x” “then we will remove y”. Awesome, this is communication! And the community has finally the impression to really change the world they play in.

I think that the next step they should take is not only to develop their ideas the way they see fit, but also to check the community to know if what they are going to do will please us or not (with a poll or something, since most people on the forum do complain for every fixed pixel).

CETheLucid.3964:

Anet has never ignored, let alone made efforts to “slight” it’s players.

Astralporing.1957:

You… haven’t been reading a lot of their “communications”, have you?

I have. That’s how I know most people are full of… nonsense when they make the claim Anet doesn’t make effort to communicate with or else listen to it’s players.

It’s not hard to find.

Where have they outright cheated their players? This is what you insinuate with this. Show me the money. Or do you mean in regards to their communications?

Because being bad at communicating with an equally bad (if not worse) audience isn’t much of an issue for me.

Frankly, I don’t even see that they’re ‘bad’ at it so much as the official forum is openly hostile.

Whereas other community outlets are far more fair and intelligent in regards to their arguments and criticisms.

But maybe I’m weird like that.

Maybe I just don’t have this ‘normal’ level of communication expectation from the devs that the average gamer should have? I dunno. That wouldn’t surprise me.

Either I’m the odd duck or people like you are the odd ones. I’m open to both possibilities. (… but it’s probably you lot, I’m neeever wrong. Ever. )

As far as the game in it’s own right and even the community (as a whole, exceptions withstanding), I’m not feeling cheated out of anything.

So far I keep getting amazing free stuff.

I appreciate it immensely and I am thankful to the Anet team and staff for the wonderful game. For their awesome, unique, if not somewhat crazy business module.

I appreciate the community who for the most part are approachable, fun, interesting, diverse, decent people.

When I see certain folks complain about trivial things, that’s one thing. They can be pedants. I’m pedant about some things.

But when you have those special ones who outright lie and smear a game they’re probably still playing (or not, ergo forum warrior), they’re thankless hypocrites.

There is a negligible amount of these types overall, but they’re tangible. You tend to find them in concentrations on the official forum.

Honestly, the universe owes them a hindquarters punt.

Astralporing.1957:

Is over 10 years long enough for you?

Noted. If you ever go devil from perfect paragon of endurance, you have my sympathy. You’re a lot more patient then I am.

I guess WP is right in this video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGEGK7Sr4g

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

I guess WP is right in this video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGEGK7Sr4g

More or less. That’s how you do constructive criticism. It was very well done.

I don’t agree with everything he had to say, but he was engaging enough that I sat through the whole thing and he presents his issues well. He makes several valid points.

Thanks for the link.

this is probably one reason why they dont want to do that

you give people ideas, previews, like a year ahead of time
people are happy
people get bored waiting
people rage at waiting
people quit
people forget about the changes
people sometimes dont come back

that could be one reason (at least what i think) of why they dont want to do it, that’s how i feel, just not as extreme as the text might imply

would you want to hear about a new game A YEAR before it gets released
get bored waiting for said new game
waste money trying to occupy yourself waiting for game
eventually lose interest
forget
find out game releases in a week
(possibly) repeat

Ayrilana.1396:

tigirius.9014:

snip

No. My point was not about anyone being ashamed. It’s just that players normally focus on what they want only and tend to not see the bigger picture. Whether it’s one player or an aggregate number of players doesn’t matter.

Nowhere is it implied that Anet has to be open with the players with their decisions. What gets released to us is entirely up to them. Be grateful that you receive what they currently provide as you will likely not with other companies.

No matter what they do, people will be upset and complain because the decisions do not fit what they feel should have been done. This opinion is based on their personal belief and tends to be influenced on what they personally want. No kidding, right? It’s in Anet’s best interests to release as little information as possible until they’re for sure ready for it. I believe that was stated in the video or article that have been floating around in the forums as of late.

Your post is the same overreaction that would occur to any of Anet’s released decisions. For example, nowhere did they ever give a timeline on when to expect SAB to be released again. They provided an update in an interview that they still currently do not have plans and people flipped out about it as evident in game as well as in the forums.

The same is with precursor scavenger hunt or crafting. It was stated it could be available by the end of 2013 but issues came up and it was postponed to a later, undetermined time. Earlier this year they responded to a post that it was still on hold because of the impact of the new wardrobe system.

They’re being open and honest but people are still flipping out about it because they don’t agree with those decisions. You then have people who verbally assault the company which really doesn’t help. This was mentioned in the WvW forum that stating that there is no WvW team doesn’t really help their cause. The spamming of SAB threads, saying Anet has lost touch with the players, and so on are exactly the same.

You’re wrong there about it being implied. It’s a well known fact that companies need to be open with their playerbase if they wish to prevent disasters. It’s also well known that companies in every industry that are secretive to the extreme about their products generally do so because they A: know they aren’t delivering what they should and/or B: are up to no good.

You can claim all you want that there’s no legal letter that requires companies to be more open and honest about what they are doing especially in the mmo market where communication is essential however you cannot claim that this need of the customers to know what’s coming next in this industry is not an essential part of the supply/demand system of economics we have going here. It’s not implied it’s part of the demand of the product.

It doesn’t matter if they didn’t give a time frame my point is how long should people wait? At this point, it takes less time for Blizzard to come out with a WoW expansion pack than it does for this development team’s long list of “experiments” to finally take this game out of beta and get it updated! At this point in time, with as long as it’s taking for even something as simple as a toggle to turn off Hobosacks, it’s so not an overreaction at all, it’s on the verge of becoming mmo development history in which people will be sitting around in their next game going “remember that title called GW2 that wasn’t about guild wars at all and had a really terrible time delivering what they said they’d do?”

I don’t know. I see the legal reasons argument. I see the “can’t promise something and not deliver it” (not sure how saying you are working on trying to get something done is a promise, but I digress).

I guess I might buy some of that in the face of no other environment that is contrary to that, but I play a little game called Marvel Heroes (besides this game, I still very much like this, and they are different games), and those folks at Gazillion are down in the trenches with us. They are all players. They are constantly out there asking out opinion. They are constantly telling us what they are working on, and sometimes (rarely; because they are awesome) what they say they hope to do, they can’t quite get done, and it’s OK, and we move on (shared legendary quests, I’m looking at you).

But because they are in the trenches with us, all the time, talking with us, joking around, not worrying about keeping up some weird “4th wall”, it’s just a completely different vibe. Because we feel like we’re being listened to and feel like we’re contributing and can get in and test things every week with them, it’s not a big deal. You don’t see page after page of screeds about being lied to or being promised something and road maps and all that.

So, it can be done. I’ve seen it in action.

Cognitive Dissonance was a nice idea, but then there were so many guide lines, complete with a sticky on what language you were allowed to use when posting in one, complete with bizarre, almost Orwellian phrases to use. And then it just went away.

I think it’s the difference between the big and the little companies, and why you see a lot of good developers leaving to go make beer, or go start a smaller shop.

But, whatever. I still enjoy the game for the most part. I’m just sad they keep taking away my nice looking clothes and perfectly fine running animation to make it safe for Jeebus and children. It’s not even that, it’s not having the respect for me to say, “Hey, this is ‘really’ why it was done. We want a Jeebus and children to learn and be good and feel safe. We know it wasn’t like that before, but we respect you enough to tell you the truth, and with that information, you can stay or go. We’d love for you to stay.” But no, it’s about ‘scary layers’ and misdirection, or in the case of the running animation, not a peep.

So from my small, little grumbly place where I’m not so happy about a few little things, I ‘totally’ get why people are angry, and how it has everything to do with communication and how they treat us. They weren’t designed for it from the ground up. They don’t like us. I bet many of them (compared to Gazillion and Marvel Heroes) don’t even care much for their own product, in much the same many of us slog off to cubicles every day to evil places we hate. It’s a bummer, but if that’s the environment, that’s the environment, and there’s sadly not much we can do about it.

But I get some fun shorts AA, so I’m going to add that to my kitten nal, at least for a little while. I’m sure I’ll hit a wall early with it (not like this game), but there are enough different things to do and see, looking how I want to look, farming how I want to farm, for a little while, and pine away that those things aren’t here…then stop and spend more time here. Will be here a few hours a day for the foreseeable future still.

Aetheldrake.6395:

this is probably one reason why they dont want to do that

you give people ideas, previews, like a year ahead of time
people are happy
people get bored waiting
people rage at waiting
people quit
people forget about the changes
people sometimes dont come back

that could be one reason (at least what i think) of why they dont want to do it, that’s how i feel, just not as extreme as the text might imply

would you want to hear about a new game A YEAR before it gets released
get bored waiting for said new game
waste money trying to occupy yourself waiting for game
eventually lose interest
forget
find out game releases in a week
(possibly) repeat

Most of us don’t forget we’re just plain tired of waiting. What goes on over there? Like really? Do they just like hang out and talk about things that have nothing to do with the game? Do they sip their lattes while saying “hey you know that thing in the game that no player has ever had and issue with ever that we could totally break or make exceedingly expensive or make a grind out of? Yeah let’s do that instead of anything at all in the forums!”

tigirius.9014:

Ayrilana.1396:

tigirius.9014:

snip

No. My point was not about anyone being ashamed. It’s just that players normally focus on what they want only and tend to not see the bigger picture. Whether it’s one player or an aggregate number of players doesn’t matter.

Nowhere is it implied that Anet has to be open with the players with their decisions. What gets released to us is entirely up to them. Be grateful that you receive what they currently provide as you will likely not with other companies.

No matter what they do, people will be upset and complain because the decisions do not fit what they feel should have been done. This opinion is based on their personal belief and tends to be influenced on what they personally want. No kidding, right? It’s in Anet’s best interests to release as little information as possible until they’re for sure ready for it. I believe that was stated in the video or article that have been floating around in the forums as of late.

Your post is the same overreaction that would occur to any of Anet’s released decisions. For example, nowhere did they ever give a timeline on when to expect SAB to be released again. They provided an update in an interview that they still currently do not have plans and people flipped out about it as evident in game as well as in the forums.

The same is with precursor scavenger hunt or crafting. It was stated it could be available by the end of 2013 but issues came up and it was postponed to a later, undetermined time. Earlier this year they responded to a post that it was still on hold because of the impact of the new wardrobe system.

They’re being open and honest but people are still flipping out about it because they don’t agree with those decisions. You then have people who verbally assault the company which really doesn’t help. This was mentioned in the WvW forum that stating that there is no WvW team doesn’t really help their cause. The spamming of SAB threads, saying Anet has lost touch with the players, and so on are exactly the same.

You’re wrong there about it being implied. It’s a well known fact that companies need to be open with their playerbase if they wish to prevent disasters. It’s also well known that companies in every industry that are secretive to the extreme about their products generally do so because they A: know they aren’t delivering what they should and/or B: are up to no good.

You can claim all you want that there’s no legal letter that requires companies to be more open and honest about what they are doing especially in the mmo market where communication is essential however you cannot claim that this need of the customers to know what’s coming next in this industry is not an essential part of the supply/demand system of economics we have going here. It’s not implied it’s part of the demand of the product.

It doesn’t matter if they didn’t give a time frame my point is how long should people wait? At this point, it takes less time for Blizzard to come out with a WoW expansion pack than it does for this development team’s long list of “experiments” to finally take this game out of beta and get it updated! At this point in time, with as long as it’s taking for even something as simple as a toggle to turn off Hobosacks, it’s so not an overreaction at all, it’s on the verge of becoming mmo development history in which people will be sitting around in their next game going “remember that title called GW2 that wasn’t about guild wars at all and had a really terrible time delivering what they said they’d do?”

Nope. Try again.

How many other games do players have this much interaction with developers and released information regarding upcoming changes?

Ayrilana.1396:

tigirius.9014:

Ayrilana.1396:

tigirius.9014:

snip

No. My point was not about anyone being ashamed. It’s just that players normally focus on what they want only and tend to not see the bigger picture. Whether it’s one player or an aggregate number of players doesn’t matter.

Nowhere is it implied that Anet has to be open with the players with their decisions. What gets released to us is entirely up to them. Be grateful that you receive what they currently provide as you will likely not with other companies.

No matter what they do, people will be upset and complain because the decisions do not fit what they feel should have been done. This opinion is based on their personal belief and tends to be influenced on what they personally want. No kidding, right? It’s in Anet’s best interests to release as little information as possible until they’re for sure ready for it. I believe that was stated in the video or article that have been floating around in the forums as of late.

Your post is the same overreaction that would occur to any of Anet’s released decisions. For example, nowhere did they ever give a timeline on when to expect SAB to be released again. They provided an update in an interview that they still currently do not have plans and people flipped out about it as evident in game as well as in the forums.

The same is with precursor scavenger hunt or crafting. It was stated it could be available by the end of 2013 but issues came up and it was postponed to a later, undetermined time. Earlier this year they responded to a post that it was still on hold because of the impact of the new wardrobe system.

They’re being open and honest but people are still flipping out about it because they don’t agree with those decisions. You then have people who verbally assault the company which really doesn’t help. This was mentioned in the WvW forum that stating that there is no WvW team doesn’t really help their cause. The spamming of SAB threads, saying Anet has lost touch with the players, and so on are exactly the same.

You’re wrong there about it being implied. It’s a well known fact that companies need to be open with their playerbase if they wish to prevent disasters. It’s also well known that companies in every industry that are secretive to the extreme about their products generally do so because they A: know they aren’t delivering what they should and/or B: are up to no good.

You can claim all you want that there’s no legal letter that requires companies to be more open and honest about what they are doing especially in the mmo market where communication is essential however you cannot claim that this need of the customers to know what’s coming next in this industry is not an essential part of the supply/demand system of economics we have going here. It’s not implied it’s part of the demand of the product.

It doesn’t matter if they didn’t give a time frame my point is how long should people wait? At this point, it takes less time for Blizzard to come out with a WoW expansion pack than it does for this development team’s long list of “experiments” to finally take this game out of beta and get it updated! At this point in time, with as long as it’s taking for even something as simple as a toggle to turn off Hobosacks, it’s so not an overreaction at all, it’s on the verge of becoming mmo development history in which people will be sitting around in their next game going “remember that title called GW2 that wasn’t about guild wars at all and had a really terrible time delivering what they said they’d do?”

Nope. Try again.

How many other games do players have this much interaction with developers and released information regarding upcoming changes?

idk…it seems all the same more or less

tigirius.9014:

Aetheldrake.6395:

this is probably one reason why they dont want to do that

you give people ideas, previews, like a year ahead of time
people are happy
people get bored waiting
people rage at waiting
people quit
people forget about the changes
people sometimes dont come back

that could be one reason (at least what i think) of why they dont want to do it, that’s how i feel, just not as extreme as the text might imply

would you want to hear about a new game A YEAR before it gets released
get bored waiting for said new game
waste money trying to occupy yourself waiting for game
eventually lose interest
forget
find out game releases in a week
(possibly) repeat

Most of us don’t forget we’re just plain tired of waiting. What goes on over there? Like really? Do they just like hang out and talk about things that have nothing to do with the game? Do they sip their lattes while saying “hey you know that thing in the game that no player has ever had and issue with ever that we could totally break or make exceedingly expensive or make a grind out of? Yeah let’s do that instead of anything at all in the forums!”

haha ikr, like how exactly did they break that ghost even in Diessa Plateau, even after a new ls comes out that requires you to partake in the event

i heart that event has always been broken (and yet i never saw it until after part 2 of dragons reach, and ive participated in it a few times)

sometimes it’s just amazing how things decide to break themselves, but in all seriousness, in reality they dont really have any breaks or time to rest, game companies are wicked, and theres no rest for the wicked, as the saying goes