Guild Wars 2

Porterhouse.6304:

chemiclord.3978:

Arena.net decided Town Clothes, as they were before, wasn’t worth the investment.

For virtual items they got people to buy with real life currency, this really shouldn’t be an option.

Oh… so you think the people who designed and coded the items did it for free, do you?

I keep seeing people defend the Anet developer’s inability to fix the town clothing, as if they were in the room working with them. “It’s impossible to program”, “they don’t have the time”, “they don’t have the money”, “the bumpmap/shading/illumination/mask just doesn’t work…”

This thing is, for anyone who works with editing computer models, this is not very believable.

No matter how you look at it, people expected the town cloths to evolve into one of two different directions.

Direction #1 – The town clothes stay the same as the old system

It’s not believable that they couldn’t implement this, since it was already implemented. It would take more effort to remove from the game than to leave it in the game as-is.

As a matter of fact, everyone who has not seen the town-to-tonic converter yet still has their original town cloths in the same equipment window as they’ve always had; they’ve just been locked out of it.

Direction #2 – The town clothes are imported into the new Wardrobe system

It’s not believable that they couldn’t pull this off either as the only thing in the code that separates the light, medium, and heavy is a flag somewhere in the system. This isn’t like trying to smash a Square peg into round hole, it’s akin to changing a field in a spreadsheet. It is EXTREMELY easy.

It would have been more honest of them to say that they didn’t want light, medium, and heavy to all have the same looking Cherry Blossom Shirt. The player base wouldn’t have like that answer either, but it would have been more honest.

Now I know some people are probably thinking, “what do you know? You’re not in the room with the graphics designers, for all you know the developers aren’t allowed electricity and they have to power their computer with bicycle rigged turbines.”

Some food for thought.

Take a look at this website…
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/searchresults/

This is one of the many websites with player created models, this one for the game Skyrim. There are thousands of new character models here. Some are merely a model that’s been retextured, and some are meshes created from the ground up. Many of them requiring much more work and attention to detail than the models that are in Guild Wars 2.

People with the skills to do so created these, for free. In their own free time, with their own 3D editor.
I doubt the tools for the GW2 editing system are anything more complex than 3D Blender. …nothing is more complex than 3D Blender. -_-

chemiclord.3978:

But it wasn’t worth the investment of time and money.

They don’t need multiple developers working on the mesh to try and make it compatible with other pieces.

To say that their programmers (who are paid to work 8+ hours a day to develop and fix content) don’t think it’s worth the investment of time and money, while hobbyist’s can bust out that kind of stuff out in days, is laughable.

To say that is takes ‘multiple developers’ to work on an already existing mesh (and you said mesh, not texture) just to make it compatible with other pieces is equally laughable.

chemiclord.3978:

Arena.net decided Town Clothes, as they were before, wasn’t worth the investment.

chemiclord.3978:

Porterhouse.6304:

For virtual items they got people to buy with real life currency, this really shouldn’t be an option.

Oh… so you think the people who designed and coded the items did it for free, do you?

chemiclord, are you trolling us at this point?

Why would even say something like that? I just mean, wow…

And we still don’t have Town Clothes in combat.

We have Pirates, and Cooks, and Witches in combat.

We have Bunny Ears, and Reading Glasses, and Quaggan Hats in combat.

But we don’t have Town Clothes in combat.

Porterhouse.6304:

chemiclord, are you trolling us at this point?

Why would even say something like that? I just mean, wow…

Because it’s not a matter of “is it possible” (it is), or “is it the right thing to do” (it would be), or “would it be awesome” (it would) or “were they losing money” (they most assuredly weren’t).

You aren’t wrong. Hamfast isn’t wrong. Yes, it is entirely possible that they could have been put together and supported simultaneously.

But it wasn’t particularly practical to do so. You’d be asking them to support a system they had no intention of adding to (and they weren’t going to, they really began pushing the town clothes sets over individual pieces some time before even implementing the wardrobe). Really, the entire “outfit” setup was something they had decided would be their direction several months ago, when you think about it (they sold individual armor skins, yes… but town clothes were being sold as entire sets for quite some time). The wardrobe really only allowed them to make “all or nothing” mandatory.

That is dead cost. They are spending money simply to keep an old system with no future running. That would be a REALLY hard sell to their parent company.

And I firmly believe that is the reason for this change. It’s not just a matter of making money with a feature or a system. It’s about making ENOUGH money. Granted, I personally don’t have much experience with in-game cash shops, but from my experience, you had a revenue (or profit) benchmark you had to reach with a product, and if you didn’t reach that benchmark… guess what? Your budget or your entire division was cut.

I strongly suspect Town Clothes fell well short of what NCSoft was looking for as a return on investment (although granted that’s just an educated guess… I really did not see people in town clothes very often… even on TC, the “unofficial RP server.”

At that point, the memo was sent to cut costs and increase production. I see the new outfit system, and that’s exactly what I see; cheaper and easier to produce that theoretically targets a larger group of players. Turning older, discontinued town clothes sets into tonics rather than putting in the manhours to make them full outfits compatible with all armor weights? Yeah… also cheaper and easier to do.

It completely sucks. I don’t entirely think its right, either. I think it makes business sense, but it still completely sucks to do to your players. It’s very unfortunate… but I really don’t think the alternatives that players were and are asking for would have gotten the green light from the people holding the purse strings.

Realist.5812:

/snipped for brevity

You’re both right… and wrong. Bear with me here.

Arena.net doesn’t communicate well. This is very true. They tend to love the “vague statement, then followed up with a slightly less vague statement, then followed up by a reveal that they should have known wouldn’t match the rampant speculation that the forum community had built up, then picking up their ball and going home with no further comment.”

It’s dumb. Either say what you’re going to do… or don’t (I personally would rather they just stay mum). It really doesn’t matter as long as you deliver.

Now with that said, they really DID try the transparent “this is what we want to do” route in the past. They were frequently raked over the coals by fans who decided that meant a “promise” and were enraged when that “promise” was “broken.”

That’s pretty dumb too. The answer to a company’s silence isn’t to crank up the hyperbole and the petty volume trying to incite an answer. It really… well… doesn’t work.

chemiclord.3978:

…That is dead cost. They are spending money simply to keep an old system with no future running. That would be a REALLY hard sell to their parent company…<massively clipped down to size>

Do you know any of this for fact?

Because, unless Anet is sending you private updates, this looks like 432 words of pure conjecture. Almost a stawman argument.

Why not say that the Anet headquarters were hit by a meteor? Much like the scenario you presented, Anet has neither confirmed nor denied that either.

I’m sure you mean well. But this Scrooge McDuck situation only exists in your head. Asking us all to come along for the ride is too much.

Porterhouse.6304:

Do you know any of this for fact?

Because, unless Anet is sending you private updates, this looks like 432 words of pure conjecture. Almost a stawman argument.

Why not say that the Anet headquarters were hit by a meteor? Much like the scenario you presented, Anet has neither confirmed nor denied that either.

I’m sure you mean well. But this Scrooge McDuck situation only exists in your head. Asking us all to come along for the ride is too much.

Personal experience in game development speaking (thought not for an MMO), as well as knowing people who HAVE worked in the MMO industry. Sure, it’s conjecture. I’d more call it an educated guess. Do I know specifically what’s going on behind closed doors right now? No, nor would I get a straight answer if I tried (but I already know and accept that).

What do you think they’re basing these decisions on then? Spite? You think they’ve decided to run a select group of fans off for… reasons? You think the game is dying and they’re just out to bleed as much money as they can before it all goes under? I really am curious what you think is the issue.

I’m not really arguing because you’ve really offered nothing other than “Arena.net hates us.” It’s raw emotion. I can’t debate with emotion. I can’t reason with emotion. The only thing I offer is educated guesses based on my experience. You think it’s wrong? Please… enlighten me why you think so.

If the people writing at my forums were like the kittens posting in these forums, I wouldn’t pay any attention either.

chemiclord.3978:

What do you think they’re basing these decisions on then? Spite? You think they’ve decided to run a select group of fans off for… reasons? You think the game is dying and they’re just out to bleed as much money as they can before it all goes under? I really am curious what you think is the issue.

Are you aware of the SimCity debacle of 2013?

The EA developers used to say that SimCity would just not work without an online connection. The piddly little microcomputers that the average person possessed could not handle the advanced mathematical calculations that the game required. People would have to connect to their online servers just to offload the incredible amount of processing power.

And how do you like that, they were proven wrong when someone hacked out the online requirement. (Nobody really believed them in the first place.)

That’s what people think of when they are told that Guild Wars 2 suddenly has incompatible the town clothes.

chemiclord.3978:

You think it’s wrong? Please… enlighten me why you think so.

Because you are asking us to prove a negative. It’s called an Argument from Ignorance
Your fallacy being that if we can’t prove without a doubt that you are wrong, then you must be right. It flies in the face of conventional logic.

Right here you specifically claimed that Anet has a system that is a dead cost that can’t support the already existing town clothes. That it’s all about making ENOUGH money, else the budget or entire division would be cut, and town clothes don’t make enough money. That it’s not practical.

Well the burden of proof lies on you. Prove that you are right; don’t ask us to prove that you are wrong.

The very topic of the thread we are on is “Why we hear nothing but Silence from ANet”. So far, Anet has maintained a vow of silence. It is not up to you to make up excuses for them, especially if you know about as much as everyone else here.
Perhaps you would be better off creating a thread of your own titled “Guess’s on why things are the way they are”

Anyways, I’ve fed you more than I should have. I can only hope that others might have read some of these insights and become a little wiser for them.

One thing i really can’t get it, is why the German/French community teams reply community feedback, and such feedback is never reported on the International community, only way people know ANet said that is re-post translation from French/DE forums into this one.

Templar’s post above me – which I assume will quickly be removed as he expresses his desire to physically attack ArenaNet employees – is exactly the kind of post I’m talking about.

Until this community gets rid of this kind of crap, ArenaNet employees will likely limit their posting on these boards.

Totally unacceptable.

After 2 weeks of not playing, you don’t even think about it very much.

@timmyf that kind of post is in the minority. Look around the forum at all the well-reasoned posts ArenaNet flat-out ignores. It’s disgusting, It’s honest-to-God the worst customer support I’ve seen in years. This company deserves 99% of the negative posts on this forum.

ceol.9175:

@timmyf that kind of post is in the minority. Look around the forum at all the well-reasoned posts ArenaNet flat-out ignores. It’s disgusting, It’s honest-to-God the worst customer support I’ve seen in years. This company deserves 99% of the negative posts on this forum.

Which is strange since GW1 had probably the best customer service that I have seen in the gaming industry.
I guess that is because GW1 team is not GW2 team

ceol.9175:

@timmyf that kind of post is in the minority.

Do you think that it’s a possibility it happens more often than you think and the posts are deleted? For example, the one that I referenced which is now gone?

ceol.9175:

Look around the forum at all the well-reasoned posts ArenaNet flat-out ignores. It’s disgusting, It’s honest-to-God the worst customer support I’ve seen in years. This company deserves 99% of the negative posts on this forum.

You say “ignore.” I’d counter “read but not responded to.” To me, those are not the same thing.

Also, customer service is different from community management is different from game development. I see a lot of people attack game developers for things community managers do or do not do. And vice versa.

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

It’s not the silence itself, it’s the numerous times we’ve been told they were going to improve their communication with the community. Even if they came into one of these threads and said “Hey guys, we are reading your concerns and feedback, we are just super busy with our china release and will get on with addressing these issues once we are not working 16 hours a day” would be sufficient for me. That blog post really felt like a band aid attempt to make people feel better about the changes.

I’ll admit to being a bit perplexed myself that Danicia or maybe Martin doesn’t pop in and just say, “Hey, we’re here. We have no official response at this point, but we are reading and collecting feedback. Thanks.”

That said, I bet that would totally backfire and just anger a subset of people even more.

Demanding answers and a response is the surest way to get none based on my experience.

Honestly, I feel that this is one of their biggest issues. Let us compare this to a game with worst community, “League of Legends”. You ever check their forums? Those guys reply to a lot of those important posts the last time I check (several of months ago. I quit that game =b). If there is an issue, give us a nod. Say, “Hey guys! Thanks for the info. We truly appreciate it and are looking into it.” A strong relationship with your customer is key to success. just an FYI.

If you want to kill the silence, create a thread and say you have trouble with the gem store because you can’t buy some. They will rush to you haha

timmyf.1490:

Do you think that it’s a possibility it happens more often than you think and the posts are deleted? For example, the one that I referenced which is now gone?

Absolutely.

timmyf.1490:

You say “ignore.” I’d counter “read but not responded to.” To me, those are not the same thing.

To the customer, it’s the same. We have no idea if they read it, if they don’t respond. How that escapes them is just beyond belief.

timmyf.1490:

Also, customer service is different from community management is different from game development. I see a lot of people attack game developers for things community managers do or do not do. And vice versa.

It’s all handled by the same company. A failure of community management reflects ArenaNet as a whole. The problem is, they have a failure of community management and development. (Maybe not customer service, I misspoke and said that instead of community management.)

timmyf.1490:

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

Then why is nothing being released or fixed? Seriously. There are year-old bugs in the bug report subforum for events new users happen across all the time. One of the eight sPVP maps is bug-ridden and nothing has been done since it was released 6 months ago. It took them a horrendous amount of time to release the current balance changes. Where are these people doing their jobs? If there were consistent releases, we would know. If there was consistent communication, we would know. We have neither, so for all intents and purposes, they don’t exist.

ceol.9175:

timmyf.1490:

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

Then why is nothing being released or fixed? Seriously. There are year-old bugs in the bug report subforum for events new users happen across all the time. One of the eight sPVP maps is bug-ridden and nothing has been done since it was released 6 months ago. It took them a horrendous amount of time to release the current balance changes. Where are these people doing their jobs? If there were consistent releases, we would know. If there was consistent communication, we would know. We have neither, so for all intents and purposes, they don’t exist.

Not that you’ll like this answer, but it’s prioritization. Exploits get fixed first, but after that, it’s a matter of prioritization.

Right now, priorities seem to be on developing new content and dealing with the China release. Other things are still important, they just aren’t as high of a priority.

Simon.3106:

Honestly, I feel that this is one of their biggest issues. Let us compare this to a game with worst community, “League of Legends”. You ever check their forums? Those guys reply to a lot of those important posts the last time I check (several of months ago. I quit that game =b). If there is an issue, give us a nod. Say, “Hey guys! Thanks for the info. We truly appreciate it and are looking into it.” A strong relationship with your customer is key to success. just an FYI.

We do not have access to the memos, emails and staff meetings that take place within Anet, nor do we know how much control NCSoft exerts over the company they own. Everyone answers to someone, the devs cannot release information about the game without the permission of their bosses.

There are many competing games that are active or being developed. Releasing sensitive information about the progress of new systems (or the lack of progress) can harm Anet’s position in the market and provide competitors with ideas to compete against them. Posting too much information about what is happening behind the scenes can get a person disciplined, demoted or even fired.

timmyf.1490:

Not that you’ll like this answer, but it’s prioritization. Exploits get fixed first, but after that, it’s a matter of prioritization.

Right now, priorities seem to be on developing new content and dealing with the China release. Other things are still important, they just aren’t as high of a priority.

I don’t buy that. Even if everyone else is in China, or in jail for tax evasion, or hungover from the Patch after-party, some of the MODs are still here. How hard is it for one of them to simply tell us what is going on instead of letting this fester? Even if their current player base is not their “priority” anymore, it is so easy to type a little something to us. Anything. There is no excuse for not doing so. None.

The total and complete lack of communication is super simple to to remedy. But ZERO response in the Guild Wars 2 Discussion forum for very close to a month now is being downright rude to their customers if nothing else.

The Forum says “Be Heard!” right there at the top when you log in. How do we know we are being heard if nobody replies?

chemiclord.3978:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Porterhouse.6304:

Buttercup.5871:

The only reason the devs and customer support are swamped right now is because they LISTENED to the community and implemented many, complicated far reaching yet awesome changes that take time to handle and properly adjust – based on constructive feedback – satisfactorily, often going customer by customer

Who requested that that all of the town clothes be turned into tonics? O_o

^^^^^^^^^^^^^I’d like to know what was in their minds when that crap was thought up.

Just need to find the thread it was discussed in. Long story short, people wanted a wardrobe and town clothes that were used in combat… something that was incompatible with the old system.

That’s actually not true. What they did say is that they’d have to make a light/medium/heavy variations of all the town clothes for it to work (because each armor weight differs in ways it joins the pieces). It wasn’t impossible, it was just something they weren’t willing to dedicate effort to.
Whether this would have been worth the effort or not is debatable – Anet obviously think it wasn’t, people that bought those think differently. That saying, Anet should have at the very least informed people that those pieces will become unusable when they decided to pull them from the shop. In the retrospect it is clear that they were pulled for exactly that reason – but instead of announcing that they will become obsolete, Anet preferred to just inform that they will soon disappear, which actually encouraged some people to buy them. And now while they do refund gems for them, they are unwilling to refund actual cash. That doesn’t really make them look good.

I don’t think anyone is asking Anet to reveal “trade secrets” or sensitive information about their game. Personally, I would like to see even just a “We are reading your comments (other than the ones they delete) and are examining possible solutions” A platitude such as that would help, rather than just waiting for the “haters” to go away and there is nothing but sunshine & lollipops on the forums. LOL Seriously, Yoshi – producer of FF xiv, despite being in the same position as Anet with their own upcoming release in China as well at the same time as GW2, manages to do just that and more, including interviews with 3rd party websites. 2 weeks after the laughingly QOL feature patch is more than enough time for a Dev, any Dev in house, to say we care about our current player base, we understand your concerns, and are attempting to reach solutions that will satisfy all. Perhaps we are just to assume that they are interested in suggestions, as well as the current player base.

dkspins.4670:

I don’t think anyone is asking Anet to reveal “trade secrets” or sensitive information about their game. Personally, I would like to see even just a “We are reading your comments (other than the ones they delete) and are examining possible solutions” A platitude such as that would help, rather than just waiting for the “haters” to go away and there is nothing but sunshine & lollipops on the forums. LOL Seriously, Yoshi – producer of FF xiv, despite being in the same position as Anet with their own upcoming release in China as well at the same time as GW2, manages to do just that and more, including interviews with 3rd party websites. 2 weeks after the laughingly QOL feature patch is more than enough time for a Dev, any Dev in house, to say we care about our current player base, we understand your concerns, and are attempting to reach solutions that will satisfy all. Perhaps we are just to assume that they are interested in suggestions, as well as the current player base.

Exactly. I love using FFXIV as an example, because Square Enix was the exact opposite a few years ago. It had to be the end of the world for an NA player to get a response to pretty much anything. But now? Holy cow, it’s a complete 180. They’re doing awesome. They’re pushing out interesting, beautiful content all the time (limited by the fact the game is 99% PvE, so things do get boring quickly, but oh man the dungeons are just the best thing I’ve played) and they talk with the community on a regular basis. Their Live Letters are things to look forward to for new information! Not some recap of the info they trickled out in blog posts and on the forums over the past few weeks. If there’s an issue with the NA playerbase, Yoshi himself addresses everyone (albeit translated) saying, “We hear you, and we’re looking into what we can do. Please stay tuned.” If they pushed out a megaserver update and there was a big thread on the forums with concerns, you bet there’d be a response to most of them. Heck, the community was annoyed with the most recent update bringing these things called Atmas, so the devs said they would retune them. And you know what? You can trust they will! There isn’t this underlying, “I guess we’ll see that in a few years, huh?”

I don’t even play very much anymore, but I stay subscribed, because if they continue at this pace, the game is going to be pretty much perfect for a PvE game in a few patches. Can you honestly say the same about GW2? Do we have any idea of what’s coming? Do we even know that they’re looking at the issues we the community bring up constantly?

dkspins.4670:

I don’t think anyone is asking Anet to reveal “trade secrets” or sensitive information about their game. Personally, I would like to see even just a “We are reading your comments (other than the ones they delete) and are examining possible solutions”

There are constant demands for sensitive information. Take the precursors, for example. Well over a year ago someone made an offhand comment about looking into the possibility of an alternate way to obtain a precursor, like some kind of “scavenger hunt.” Months later a plan was announced that was in development, then later it was mentioned that it might not be ready as soon as the devs would like, then it was announced recently that it was postponed because of large-scale changes to the game and its economy in the last patch. But nearly every week since it was first mentioned someone has demanded to know exactly what is happening, people still demand the “scavenger hunt” even though it was never confirmed to be the final version, just an idea, and complain because it’s not here yet.

As a major aspect of the game, competitors would benefit from knowing more about the system as it develops, and how close it is to completion. So it’s in Anet’s best interests to keep details of their plans confidential until they have a firm date for release. It has the potential to take customers from other games, so knowing that it will or will not appear this year would be a benefit to other companies when planning marketing campaigns, sales, bonus XP weekends, etc.

As for listening to feedback and making some kind of response, that’s what the CDI and Dolyak Express were created to address. The devs are taking time away from their other duties to specifically engage players on the forums, but it doesn’t matter because they do it when they choose and not upon demand. You don’t get to give Anet employees orders, no matter how nicely you wrap them up.

Even if they reply with a “Yes we are reading all your comments about the new features but it will take us some time before we can reply about specific problems”, it won’t satisfy 99% of those complaining on the forums.

You are right that wont satisfy anyone, but a “We are aware of the issue and working on possible solutions” will go a long way if a fix appears within half a year..

Of course, if a fix does not appear, people will be rightfully annoyed..

It will satisfy us if they actually follow up with it. That’s the key point. So far, if an issue is lucky enough to get a dev response, there’s a 90% chance “We’re looking into it.” is the last thing ever heard about it! That’s ridiculous.

Basically, only reply if you can give some sort of timeframe or nod that you’re working on it. If you can’t do that, then change whatever the hell your process is, because a dev team that can’t give some sort of timeframe is on the fast track to failure.

GreenAlien.5623:

You are right that wont satisfy anyone, but a “We are aware of the issue and working on possible solutions” will go a long way if a fix appears within half a year..

Of course, if a fix does not appear, people will be rightfully annoyed..

It won’t change a thing. Every few days the same people who are already complaining will be posting “Where’s that fix? You promised that it was coming!”

There is no positive side here, if they keep silent the same people will continue to complain because they are silent. If they post a response people will complain because the dev’s posted to Warriorbob.2424’s thread but not to Wizardtim.5323’s thread. And they’ll complain because the response in February said they were working on a fix and it’s almost May and it hasn’t been fixed yet. And they’ll complain because they shared details about future plans and some players don’t like it, so they start complaining before the plans are even officially announced.

So, either some people complain or a lot more people complain. Either way it won’t stop the complaints. “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

tolunart.2095:

If they post a response people will complain because the dev’s posted to Warriorbob.2424’s thread but not to Wizardtim.5323’s thread. And they’ll complain because the response in February said they were working on a fix and it’s almost May and it hasn’t been fixed yet. And they’ll complain because they shared details about future plans and some players don’t like it, so they start complaining before the plans are even officially announced.

The first one, I don’t think I’ve ever seen. No reasonable player would get upset about that.

The second one… yeah? And? If February’s “We’re working on a fix” was the last thing heard, it’s understandable to wonder what’s happening three months later. We don’t have access to the internal issue tracker. We don’t get updates. However, we’re the ones being affected the most by the bugs. We don’t need real-time updates or anything, but if a thread pops up a couple months later asking what’s going on because there were a handful of patches that didn’t fix that one issue, it’s not outrageous to want some sort of response.

The third will happen, but it’s never as bad as the constant silence. Basically, they’re getting 50 units of Silence Outrage right now, but if they say, “Hey we’re planning on adjusting EotM (you know, the thing we said was a testing bed for WvW? the thing we’ve never updated since release?) <this way>,” then they’ll have 20 units of Change Outrage. They’ll still get some backlash, but it isn’t as bad as a constant, underlying resentment by the fanbase.

ceol.9175:

The first one, I don’t think I’ve ever seen. No reasonable player would get upset about that.

I would find this reassuring if I ever saw reasonable players posting complaints.

timmyf.1490:

Templar’s post above me – which I assume will quickly be removed as he expresses his desire to physically attack ArenaNet employees – is exactly the kind of post I’m talking about.

Until this community gets rid of this kind of crap, ArenaNet employees will likely limit their posting on these boards.

Totally unacceptable.

This is an interesting point of view. In any other industry it would be considered inappropriate, poor service, and just plain bad business, to limit addressing one customer’s concerns because a completely different customer was a jerk.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having your food prepared incorrectly only to have the staff or even management brush your concerns off because a different customer was rude the day before.

GreenAlien.5623:

You are right that wont satisfy anyone, but a “We are aware of the issue and working on possible solutions” will go a long way if a fix appears within half a year..

Of course, if a fix does not appear, people will be rightfully annoyed..

Unless the complaints are about things they have no intention of “fixing”. Loss of upgrade salvaging on unsalvageable items comes to mind. I fully believe that loss was intentional, fixing a workaround that players figured out and was difficult to fix with the previous system. Implementing a pure skinning system fixes that.

Want that upgrade back? Buy and extractor or buy a new one off the TP. Eliminates a source of supply while upping demand at the same time. Superior runes/sigils were too cheap on the TP.

Ashen.2907:

This is an interesting point of view. In any other industry it would be considered inappropriate to limit addressing one customer’s concerns because a completely different customer was a jerk.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having your food prepared incorrectly only to have the staff or even management brush your concerns off because a different customer was rude the day before.

They have a customer service staff dedicated to responding to problems with the game, but this happens privately and issues/solutions are not usually discussed in public.

It’s more like a small group of customers going to the restaurant’s Facebook page and demanding that the waitstaff post recipes, share the planned menu changes for the next year, and make changes such as serving an entirely different kind of food (a classic Italian restaurant offering hot dogs and cheeseburgers, for example), then loudly and constantly complaining when they don’t get their way.

There’s a difference between constructive criticism and noise.

tolunart.2095:

It’s more like a small group of customers going to the restaurant’s Facebook page and demanding that the waitstaff post recipes, share the planned menu changes for the next year, and make changes such as serving an entirely different kind of food (a classic Italian restaurant offering hot dogs and cheeseburgers, for example), then loudly and constantly complaining when they don’t get their way.

Not really.

Customers are having their service, as it has existed for a period measured in years, negatively affected and/or interrupted. Asking for the service to continue to be delivered in a manner consistent with its past delivery is not even close to your analogy. Even if there are people who fit your analogy the simple fact is that people who are merely asking for a continuation of service are not having their concerns addressed.

tolunart.2095:

There’s a difference between constructive criticism and noise.

Unfortunately ANet does not seem to agree with you as they are treating both types of response in exactly the same manner.

Ashen.2907:

tolunart.2095:

It’s more like a small group of customers going to the restaurant’s Facebook page and demanding that the waitstaff post recipes, share the planned menu changes for the next year, and make changes such as serving an entirely different kind of food (a classic Italian restaurant offering hot dogs and cheeseburgers, for example), then loudly and constantly complaining when they don’t get their way.

Not really.

Customers are having their service, as it has existed for a period measured in years, negatively affected and/or interrupted. Asking for the service to continue to be delivered in a manner consistent with its past delivery is not even close to your analogy. Even if there are people who fit your analogy the simple fact is that people who are merely asking for a continuation of service are not having their concerns addressed.

tolunart.2095:

There’s a difference between constructive criticism and noise.

Unfortunately ANet does not seem to agree with you as they are treating both types of response in exactly the same manner.

I completely agree here.

If I treated my clients the way ArenaNet is treating its own, I’d be out of business.

timmyf.1490:

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

What, you mean like a brick through the window?

<Bu-dump kissh!>

Thank you, I’ll be here all night. Try the coleslaw.

In my opinion it is bit a childish behaviour to believe they will answer ‘all the questionts’. Sometimes they just have to read and to expect ‘yes, we read the thread’. What does that change? Also, what does it change to know when what is coming? You can’t do anything until something new is out anyway.

There will be updates, whether they are good or bad. I personally still hope the new ‘season’ (I hate this word related to games) will be a boxed expansion/addon with a new race and/or profession (class), new zones etc.

And meanwhile Gaile is slugging through all the account issues, acknowledging the problems, giving updates and closure every single day.

Pretty much all of Dev Tracker is Gaile. At least someone still knows how it’s done.
…Her big shoes have certainly not been filled, just saying.

Behellagh.1468:

GreenAlien.5623:

You are right that wont satisfy anyone, but a “We are aware of the issue and working on possible solutions” will go a long way if a fix appears within half a year..

Of course, if a fix does not appear, people will be rightfully annoyed..

Unless the complaints are about things they have no intention of “fixing”.

Then that, too, should be clearly communicated. Preferably with the reasoning in case the original reasons for introducing something no longer apply (because situation changed), as in the case of unsalvagable armor you mentioned.

Lucky is the French and German Community that usually gets more replies from ANet staff than us on the main International community.

//Wonders….

Porterhouse.6304:

Buttercup.5871:

The only reason the devs and customer support are swamped right now is because they LISTENED to the community and implemented many, complicated far reaching yet awesome changes that take time to handle and properly adjust – based on constructive feedback – satisfactorily, often going customer by customer

Who requested that that all of the town clothes be turned into tonics? O_o

Wait, what? That example is not even mentioned by the OP. And I didn’t say they implemented everything the community wanted (which btw is impossible as the community is usual split) but many of the things the community wanted. Sure there will be things that they could have handled differently had they had infinite resources and the power of hindsight, but that’s not reasonable to expect from any gaming company that is trying to serve a massive playerbase.

My point was that the “I want answers to questions now (what is the question anyway???)” is not reasonable given the need for them to process massive feedback on massive structural changes to about every part of the game. The server infrastructure, PvP tracks and the resulting influx there of new players, far reaching balance changes + sigil and rune changes, a whole new wardrobe system (and resulting refund requests which are admirably handled one by one), changes to WvW ranks and lots of other stuff.

I therefore think that the timing of this topic is unreasonable and misplaced.

Ashen.2907:

timmyf.1490:

Templar’s post above me – which I assume will quickly be removed as he expresses his desire to physically attack ArenaNet employees – is exactly the kind of post I’m talking about.

Until this community gets rid of this kind of crap, ArenaNet employees will likely limit their posting on these boards.

Totally unacceptable.

This is an interesting point of view. In any other industry it would be considered inappropriate, poor service, and just plain bad business, to limit addressing one customer’s concerns because a completely different customer was a jerk.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having your food prepared incorrectly only to have the staff or even management brush your concerns off because a different customer was rude the day before.

Imagine a restaurant that seats 50 being filled with 200 people. 25 like the food. 150 are complaining about the food. 25 are threatening to punch the chef.

Now the 150 keep complaining that the chef isn’t walking around the restaurant to listen to their complaints.

Edit: forgot to note… the chef is in the back trying to fix the food for the 150 who are complaining…

tolunart.2095:

ceol.9175:

The first one, I don’t think I’ve ever seen. No reasonable player would get upset about that.

I would find this reassuring if I ever saw reasonable players posting complaints.

Truth

I don’t expect all the answers to all the questions, but there’s been a load of bugs introduced with the feature patch (daily achievement chests not being rewarded, triple trouble achieves broken, the wurms golden chest not being rewarded, guild missions not rewarding the commendation), some very concerning ones from before the feature patch(metabolic primer broken for rangers springs to mind, as I’m a victim of this) and I think all people actually want is a “we know, we’re working on it”

The absence of communication, however brief, on these issues breeds uncertainty and thus confidence in Anet and the games direction as a whole is being degraded.