Guild Wars 2

Indeed they have nothing big to announce. Their big project for the last 6 months is a new mini-map for the LS. Arenanet is 350 employees and do the work of a 10 man devs team.

lordkrall.7241:

But that is just the issue.

When they release a road-map and something is changed/delayed the amount of rage and hate here is extreme. Because people see a road-map as a set in stone absolute promise kind of thing.

No, I think its the opposite. Announcing something and then say nothing afterwards, when things change, caused a lot of negative emotions. A-Net can only manage then expectations (and with this reduce intense negative reactions) of its players with regular based communication and information.

Greetings.

phys.7689:

Any poster after me, Tell me what are you sure about regarding the future of this game? future projects? What direction is the game heading?

I think a pretty safe assumption for the rest of the year is the LS being delivered as we’ve seen it so far this year, plus halloween and wintersday. Given the spoiler picture, we also know we are going through Fort Vandal to a new map above dry top. And well, eventually Mordy will be some sort of battle. It also pretty safe to assume we won’t see an xpac this year, at least not in the scope a lot of posts have mentioned they’d like to see. They’ve also said the Tengu is something they’d like to pursue more, but they made it sound like it wasn’t anything in the near future.

I personally think we will see changes in the trait system again, but i actually don’t have any clue as to when. They acted fairly quickly to make adjustments to the NPE based on feedback and fixed a few of the unintended problems with it, not to mention the commander tag fiasco they rushed to change. So there’s that.

Even as “small” as arena is, i don’t see it being possible to just course correct the ship in any meaningful direction in any short time frame, so what they would have to say on the future probably wouldn’t satisfy peoples higher demands, like an xpac. Not that they don’t have a team working on it or something like it. You’re right, they should lock that down and announce it, but they timing does have to be right. We are moving into the holidays, i wouldn’t expect them to announce anything big before the first of the year. Holidays are just too hectic to do something like that.

I would be highly surprised if internally arena is much different than any other company about its size. There are likely a good deal of politics and conflicts, management and resource issues, and probably communication issues. So it’s nice to see them shuffle things a bit to play off various staffs strengths. All of that takes time, resources and planning, all while developing content. I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to see changes and things being added or modified based on feedback we’ve given.

We all know for sure, they’ve never been a company that released the type of info many people are looking for unless it was locked and loaded.

munkiman.3068:

We all know for sure, they’ve never been a company that released the type of info many people are looking for unless it was locked and loaded.

Really? My experience with GW1 shows that were much freer with giving info on both future and past changes once. it’s only since GW2 launch that they have clamped on information hard.

Astralporing.1957:

munkiman.3068:

We all know for sure, they’ve never been a company that released the type of info many people are looking for unless it was locked and loaded.

Really? My experience with GW1 shows that were much freer with giving info on both future and past changes once. it’s only since GW2 launch that they have clamped on information hard.

Maybe slightly more so, but i really don’t remember them being all that open, i mean they didn’t even have official forums. They were also a smaller company with a simpler game, so the timeline on releasing info was much smaller.

If you think about it, they really only went silent during China release. I’m sure they just didn’t have time to get into discussions or post info on state of the game during that period. Sadly, that’s just about the time they dropped some of the most controversial changes on us (traits, megaserver).

Not trying to defend their policy, i think it’s a bad one too, but it wasn’t all that stellar in GW either.

Palador.2170:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Yes, that’s definitely true. As Mike O’Brien said in a recent post, “We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.”

The problem is, you don’t talk about current development either. You only talk about it when it’s complete, bad ideas and all, and ready to be thrown out to the public.

I think we’ve all seen how well that works out, haven’t we? And it’s not just the bad ideas, it’s also the good ideas that could have been great ideas if we’d been able to give feedback on them.

The CDI threads are great for finding a starting place and giving some general ideas and guidelines, but that’s all they can do. As you’ve said yourself, sometimes the plans get scrapped and it’s back to the drawing board. Sometimes, it’s just scrapped and that’s it, we’re not even told. At that point, all the feedback on the CDI is pretty much rendered worthless.

Just as the vet players of GW2 don’t see the problems the game has for brand new players (and thus the NPE), so too are the devs too deep into the game to see things from the players’ point of view.

This. So much. No discussion about anything, even bad design choices, and it’s not just now, that aspect of communication with Anet has been the same throughout the two year time period it’s been out. When Kit Refinement was put out with it’s “new useful replacement abilities like spitting drops of glue” smh no one talked about that either. There was no replacement heal that still removed conditions but only added regen and now as such, there’s a gap in PVE.

This has been a problem since they patched that in PVE but no one’s talking about it. There have been CDI threads in the class forums but much of what we’ve talked about hasn’t been mentioned as even being considered for next patch. Nothings being said about DR and how to this day it’s not stopped a single bot from grinding gold. See my point? Discussion after the fact is necessary as well.

munkiman.3068:

Astralporing.1957:

munkiman.3068:

We all know for sure, they’ve never been a company that released the type of info many people are looking for unless it was locked and loaded.

Really? My experience with GW1 shows that were much freer with giving info on both future and past changes once. it’s only since GW2 launch that they have clamped on information hard.

Maybe slightly more so, but i really don’t remember them being all that open, i mean they didn’t even have official forums. They were also a smaller company with a simpler game, so the timeline on releasing info was much smaller.

If you think about it, they really only went silent during China release. I’m sure they just didn’t have time to get into discussions or post info on state of the game during that period. Sadly, that’s just about the time they dropped some of the most controversial changes on us (traits, megaserver).

Not trying to defend their policy, i think it’s a bad one too, but it wasn’t all that stellar in GW either.

in gw1 i remember them stating even during prophecies they had plans to release expansions periodically. I remember there being a peice of paper promoting gw2 in my eye of the north box. (5 years ahead of time? maybe 4?) in that time period even within the first few years, we heard about wvw, people of all levels playing together, etc. Many things changed, but they told us what their plans were.

This is the type of communication that got them about 3 million of their 3.X millions sales. Long term visions related to the playerbase, subject to change (many things did change)
There really was a lot of difference between gw1 and even gw2 communication back then and within the last 1.2 years.

the idea of not telling people what the long term plan is for an online service is fairly recent.

this may not really be a difference in policy, its possible they are just so far away from commiting to any of the type of content people are clamoring for, that its too early to mention, but that would mean they severely underestimated the time tables/type of content people wanted to see in the last two years of development.

which is sad, but honestly if they told people, hey we want to add X Y Z in 2016 people would be disapointed, but probably less annoyed than they are now.

I’ve been thinkin about this one again and here’s the dealio. In seven pages of TL;DR we have: Begged, Reasoned, Threatened, Whined and Bribed. In return, we have had the ArenaNet policy stated three or four times. In all, we’ve done a very good job of presenting lucid cogent arguments for why we feel better disclosure could be a win/win for everybody. But, it’s not working.

When you can’t raise the bridge, lower the river.

If ya get bogged down on this kinda stuff ya gotta ask yourself “What part of this do WE control?” ‘Cuz we can work on that without getting tied up in a policy knot. Yeah, yeah, No bucks, No Buck Rodgers. I’d suggest putting that on the shelf as we’ve already tried it. Besides, a threat is a crummy way to gain trust and a better working relationship.

I’ve come up with two things we control: Our overarching goal(s) and our backup strategy. For example, talking about improved transparency is kinda vague. Here’s a straw man set of goals or objectives off the top of my head. See what you think and slice and dice ’em:

o Where are we and where are we headed statement from ArenaNet
o What are the current expansion plans
o What can we do to reduce the stress associated with more timely disclosure

In my experience a lot of the stress comes when the Estimated Completion Date becomes a hard date in the users minds. Which I’ve always replied “Ya want it right or ya want it Tuesday?” I’m willing to accept a very broad brush date with no penalties for slipping. ’Cuz life. The point is we can work on this in this thread right now. Can we work out what can be implemented to achieve greater transparency? I suggest we use three bullet points of simple declarative sentences. K, have at it.

As to our backup strategy:
o Smile and be as happy as we can.
o Ask ArenaNet to do a refresh of Cursed Shore and SouthSun events
o Wait until after the next couple months and revisit

Right now may be an incredibility bad time to be asking these questions. It may well be that having gone through a number of staff changes, the Holidays, etc. things are in flux around there. ArenaNet deserves time to go into a huddle and discuss internal matters without our input.

It sounds like we’ve built up a little momentum talking to Gaile yesterday and it’s a good time to ask “What can we do to help?” Sure beats chasing around that barn again.

For what it’s worth I’ve been real proud of us. We’ve got a lot of Smart Cookies on this thread.

lordkrall.7241:

Well, they HAVE told us that the event from last year will repeat.

Later in October, we’ll be bringing back our famous Halloween festivities! Blood and Madness will be returning to Guild Wars 2 on October 21 and remain active until the return of Season 2.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-events-in-guildwars2/

I do wonder why they should bother being more transparent when people quite clearly doesn’t even read what they do tell us.

I wonder how some people get much of anything from what Anet says. In my mind Blood and Madness returning doesn’t necessarily mean a complete replay from last year.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I used to believe that Anet’s lack of transparency was a bad thing, but looking at how quick people are to fly to reddit when something happens that they dont like, in addition to all of the ridiculous suggestions we get and foot-stamping tantrums over the non-inclusion of features that Anet specifically said they’d be steering clear from, I’m actually glad they don’t talk about anything.

It keeps the forums more sane than they would be.

Maybe if 90% of the stuff coming out these days wasn’t crap then maybe people wouldn’t be complaining and talking so much crap. People just want a good product. If they don’t get it, then they will let people know.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I used to believe that Anet’s lack of transparency was a bad thing, but looking at how quick people are to fly to reddit when something happens that they dont like, in addition to all of the ridiculous suggestions we get and foot-stamping tantrums over the non-inclusion of features that Anet specifically said they’d be steering clear from, I’m actually glad they don’t talk about anything.

It keeps the forums more sane than they would be.

Maybe if 90% of the stuff coming out these days wasn’t crap then maybe people wouldn’t be complaining and talking so much crap. People just want a good product. If they don’t get it, then they will let people know.

Perhaps if 90% of the people on the forums all wanted the same thing, Anet wouldn’t have to bend over backwards to please everyone. People just want what they want. If they don’t get it, they will let people know.

#Alt perspective.

nightwulf.1986:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I used to believe that Anet’s lack of transparency was a bad thing, but looking at how quick people are to fly to reddit when something happens that they dont like, in addition to all of the ridiculous suggestions we get and foot-stamping tantrums over the non-inclusion of features that Anet specifically said they’d be steering clear from, I’m actually glad they don’t talk about anything.

It keeps the forums more sane than they would be.

Maybe if 90% of the stuff coming out these days wasn’t crap then maybe people wouldn’t be complaining and talking so much crap. People just want a good product. If they don’t get it, then they will let people know.

Perhaps if 90% of the people on the forums all wanted the same thing, Anet wouldn’t have to bend over backwards to please everyone. People just want what they want. If they don’t get it, they will let people know.

#Alt perspective.

I’m sure 90% of the people would be for the most part happy if we got a new race and a new class added, more weapons and I’m not talking about skins, more dungeons, more than 1 new map per year, more world bosses and events, more DEs, I can go on and on. The amount of this delivered is little or nothing. People have asked for all sorts of things for WvW and we got 2 things that no one asked for. The removal of quagan island for some stupid spvp crap that nobody does and a new map that has actually nothing to do with WvW and is all about zerg farming events. Yes I know EotM gets a lot of play but that’s because how lucrative the rewards are compared to everything else in the game. If they buffed the rewards in the other WvW maps to match EotM there would be a huge decline in EotM. Maybe if they actually worked on stuff that was asked for by anyone then they could start pleasing people.

There are tons of great ideas in these forums that players have asked for. Sure some are bad ideas but if the decision makers actually played the game a lot of those horribly bad ideas would be obvious.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

I’m sure 90% of the people would be for the most part happy if we got a new race and a new class added, more weapons and I’m not talking about skins, more dungeons, more than 1 new map per year, more world bosses and events, more DEs, I can go on and on. The amount of this delivered is little or nothing. People have asked for all sorts of things for WvW and we got 2 things that no one asked for. The removal of quagan island for some stupid spvp crap that nobody does and a new map that has actually nothing to do with WvW and is all about zerg farming events. Yes I know EotM gets a lot of play but that’s because how lucrative the rewards are compared to everything else in the game. If they buffed the rewards in the other WvW maps to match EotM there would be a huge decline in EotM. Maybe if they actually worked on stuff that was asked for by anyone then they could start pleasing people.

There are tons of great ideas in these forums that players have asked for. Sure some are bad ideas but if the decision makers actually played the game a lot of those horribly bad ideas would be obvious.

Your previous argument was that most of the content/“stuff” coming out was crap and people complained about it. Everything else you said about not delivering new content is a different argument entirely. My point was that with so many different types of players, there will be criticism across a wide spectrum but probably not for the reasons you are citing. We (as in you, me and others) definitely don’t show this unanimous dislike of everything that has been coming out. There have been a lot of suggestions on how they can improve what has been delivered and evidence that they are acting on it (permanent living story content anyone?). I mean, any implementation of content can be better. I’m pretty sure that anything you or I can come up with can be improved on as well.

Finally, what you see as not delivering what people ask for, to me, usually appears to be some sort of compromise. It stands to reason that not everything asked for can be implemented as requested. Concessions have to be made in some cases. I’m not so sure the best idea is to let players decide what those concessions are by popular vote either. Forum suggestions, particularly on contentious issues, are often played out as power struggles between different interest groups who are only really looking out for themselves. Some people handle not getting what they want better than others. And yeah, they’ll let people know when they don’t get it.

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

I’m guessing their were more than the ones in there currently?

The ones still there seem fairly subdued.

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

That would be because threads like those tend to go south really fast. At least we know that all the guesses made in its short life were inaccurate!

Thing is though, you’re going to have a very hard time finding a game company that is transparent with even half the stuff they do. I could name dozens of game companies as examples (especially MMO companies), but its not necessary. Just be lucky that Anet is directly communicating with us at all, because most game companies (even makers of MMO’s) don’t do that either.

Prophet.6257:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

I’m guessing their were more than the ones in there currently?

The ones still there seem fairly subdued.

Yeah, I caught a whiff. Gaile’s post implies she had to bring a hammer down on some others, too. If it’s anything like what I see on Reddit from time to time . . .

Honestly, it shocks me (only a little) how people think they have a right to come on the official forums and backhand developers in absentia to try to score points . . . then complain when they get smacked back. But, this being the internet is why it only shocks me a little.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

I’m guessing their were more than the ones in there currently?

The ones still there seem fairly subdued.

Yeah, I caught a whiff. Gaile’s post implies she had to bring a hammer down on some others, too. If it’s anything like what I see on Reddit from time to time . . .

Honestly, it shocks me (only a little) how people think they have a right to come on the official forums and backhand developers in absentia to try to score points . . . then complain when they get smacked back. But, this being the internet is why it only shocks me a little.

That’s a shame if so.

I would have really liked to know how their studio is split up. Oh well.

Prophet.6257:

That’s a shame if so.

I would have really liked to know how their studio is split up. Oh well.

I’m more interested, truthfully, in what they can talk about as far as future projects. I kinda got off the curiosity over how things are organized watching small indie projects like Terraria and Starbound.

. . . where transparency has proven to be an interesting problem. Especially with the latter.

Prophet.6257:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

I’m guessing their were more than the ones in there currently?

The ones still there seem fairly subdued.

Yeah, I caught a whiff. Gaile’s post implies she had to bring a hammer down on some others, too. If it’s anything like what I see on Reddit from time to time . . .

Honestly, it shocks me (only a little) how people think they have a right to come on the official forums and backhand developers in absentia to try to score points . . . then complain when they get smacked back. But, this being the internet is why it only shocks me a little.

That’s a shame if so.

I would have really liked to know how their studio is split up. Oh well.

Well, one area the Devs have communicated numbers on is the Living Story team. Approximately 20 Devs work on that, more or less – as needed for the release in question.

There are a goodly number of people on the CS Team, as can be gathered from posts, but no clear number has been stated.

Sometimes the Devs talk a bit about how many are on a team working on some part of the game when communicating through PoI, but it seems these teams (and team number and composition) change depending on the project.

As stated above, the only time I’ve heard a relatively hard number was for the LS Team. You could look up Angel’s posts for confirmation, if you so desire.

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

I’m quite sure if Anet decided now to reveal let say an expansion Cantha/Elona/Cow Level coming May 2015 there would be quite a relief amidst fans here in forums.

Giving something to wait 1 year ahead gives many that feeling ‘’oh nice I’m gonna finish doing these collections/achievements/etc.‘’ It gives that waiting excitement. I know I got that feeling always in World of Warcraft and few other games that keep you hooked with content updates and I’m not alone.

That’s my criticism towards Anet. There’s no longterm excitement amongst fans except our endless speculation if and maybe there’s something coming on the road.

I’m late to the party (been away) but regarding spoilers vs. generating buzz…

I would agree that sometimes, especially with films that aren’t great, for example, all the ‘good stuff’ is in the trailer. And sometimes book jackets or film trailers do include fairly significant spoilers which can have a detrimental effect on viewing/reading (I felt the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 2 gave away a too-central plot element, for example.)

However, there is definitely such a thing as not enough spoilers too. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t go see a film where all I knew about it was that it was produced by Paramount and had a plain black poster with no text on it, no director, no stars, no rating, no sense of genre or scope or story. Nor would I buy a book with a blank jacket with only the publisher’s name on it. Would you?

At the moment, GW2 communication is leaning far, far too much towards the ‘blank book jacket’ end of the information scale. Roadmap/state of the game type examples have been given repeatedly in this thread and the others about communication but it is not at all clear that they’ve been taken on board. And while I definitely agree that forum rage and negativity are a problem, I don’t believe that is insurmountable. Like many other people I played WoW for years and their forums were at least as toxic as these, often orders of magnitude worse – but Blizzard, for all their faults, continued to use them to communicate with players and did not adopt a radio silence policy as a result.

I believe it can be done, but it seems it will require a significant change in the business management culture at Anet to do so.

I want to thank John Corpening. He proves to me that a certain degree of transparency in ANET communication is possible.

THIS is a good example of what it should be.

For the first time in many years, we have information on the future of the game and we can react before changes are made.

^this really makes me happy

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

^this really makes me happy

Let’s hope we see more of this in the near future

That’s a good sign if you WvW, but it’s a real shame that more of this communication isn’t allowed about other modes of the game and what’s upcoming for them. In this regard it feels like more of a dictatorship where every response has to be weighted against policy and further vetted before being released.

There’s no freedom of information like in that thread, and I don’t like to say it but the policy is going to be Anet’s noose.

See, that wasn’t so hard Anet, now if you could just give us a forum post like that regarding PvE.

Well, this is interesting. In my last TL;DR post I suggested that “improved transparency” is kinda vague and we’d be well served to refine our thoughts into something more …. tangible. ‘Cuz if you can’t describe it how will you know if someone’s doing it? Thing is, nobody took a shot.

No big. Not a judgement, just an observation. It’s not like anybody is killing baby Quaggan or anything. What I see continue to see is a lot of anecdotal data about good things that happened recently. Agreed. Great posts. However, it reenforces Gaile’s anecdote about cake on page 6. For me at least it puts the Anet “Can’t win, why try?” approach into a more lucid zone. The only thing wrong with hugging our own tree is we can’t shake hands.

Personally, I’m already on to my Fallback plan and back to having fun in-game again. I think I’m gonna table my expectations until after the first of the year. I’m thinkin this may be a non issue by then. Gaile, thanks again for allowing us to speak straight from the shoulder. I know some of my comments were pretty raw but I didn’t even get a Yellow Card.

And I like Spice Cake! Who said I didn’t like Spice Cake <mutter mutter… trailing off>

I just wanted to thank Gaile for contributing and interacting so much in this thread, as well as keeping it open for discussion, rather than shutting it down due to the few unpleasant posts there have been, so…

thanks

I wish Arenanet would be an inexperienced, indie team made of freshly graduated youngsters instead of a 14 year old company filled with veterans so i could forgive this to them. :/

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

I agree with John on this and from what I have seen online in the various forums here and elsewhere GW2 people for different reasons/wants/desires/likes all agree on one thing, among everything else. ALL believe that an expansion in the traditional sense of a content package is the only viable vehicle that can deliver what the majority of the veteran/regular player base wants and needs for the enjoyment of their gaming experience and online leisure time.

This has been communicated in many different ways and forms but we the player base have no real proof that this opinion has been heard and actioned by those that “green light” development proposals…….

I disagree. ‘All’ do not want an expansion. I do not want an expansion, vet from Gw1, with over 4000 hours in GW2. I enjoyed the impermanent content provided during Season 1. It redefined ‘hardcore’ from playing select content to playing everyday and being plugged into the story.

Did I rage over it when they changed this to permanent content. No. It was an unacceptable change to the overall way the game was played, changed the advertised game to something completely different, AND obviously pulled resources from the content production of the game, however, it was not my decision. I still enjoyed the game, the freedom was liberating, but the goal of not missing something was gone.

Would I rage over an expansion? No, but I have reasonable expectations. First it would mean LESS content over a very long period of time going forward OR it means the paucity of current content has been subverted towards something that no one would want if they were not preparing for a ‘super secret’ expansion. These are things I would not be happy about, but I understand the issue. Most, particularly on these forums, do not. They want their cake and want to be able to eat it to. Remember, getting what you ask for has costs. Believe me on this, no matter how big an expansion put forth, there will be plenty of people saying it wasn’t big enough, to little to late, etc.

I am generally unhappy with most of the changes that have been made to this game as it is slowly moving it closer to a ‘cookie cutter’ MMO, something I do not want to play. However, you guys go on trying to remake the game into something else, someday you will have what you want, another vanilla MMO without any way to discern itself from others out there.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I think this post may be a valuable read: Mike O’Brien on Communication.

I take on board some well-expressed comments here. Quite honestly, I’m not sure how it would work to say “Yes, we’re aware of XYZ.” Those who say “We just want to know you’re aware” are terrific. But we all know that there are others for whom that wouldn’t be satisfactory. “We want to know you’re aware and we want to know what you’re going to do about it” can even become "We want to know you’re aware, we want to know what you’re going to do about it or [insert something here, from “I’m taking a break” to “I’ll never buy another gem,” to “I’m encouraging my entire gazillion-member guild to jump to Game Z].”

Please understand I’m not dismissing the desire for the first level of info, not at all! But can you see how the outcome can be unpredictable and how, no matter the question or request, there is no perfect answer? Further, can you see how “We’re aware of this and we plan to [whatever]” can become “Ok, you said you were aware of it three days ago, where’s the fix?”

I’m sort of writing to think, but I’d like to understand what truly reaches the point of “I’d like more info, but I’m satisfied with what you’ve been able to tell us right now.” Can you give me a few examples, where players would really like to know everything, but where there is a level of disclosure that meets the basic info request?

The main reason to put out “patch notes” before actually releasing the content, is so that players can leave feedback on the forums about the up coming changes if they feel they are good or not. That way you guys can make any adjustments before releasing them. Also a test server wouldn’t hurt either, for players to experience these changes before they come to live servers. And this helps find bugs that need to be fixed. Because lets face it.. the “bug team” aren’t very good at their jobs. Take the new Trading Post bugs people found without much effort. This is why we need things like this, and it would help you guys in the long run without releasing content that still has bugs in it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Prophet.6257:

I’m starting to wonder if this may have a point considering a simple thread asking " how many people are working for arena net , and what s their work (positions)" was shut down just because “needs to be closed”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Arena-Net-How-many-people-are-working/first#post4496008

. . . I don’t know, did you catch some of the replies before they got pruned? Yeah.

I’m guessing their were more than the ones in there currently?

The ones still there seem fairly subdued.

Yeah, I caught a whiff. Gaile’s post implies she had to bring a hammer down on some others, too. If it’s anything like what I see on Reddit from time to time . . .

Honestly, it shocks me (only a little) how people think they have a right to come on the official forums and backhand developers in absentia to try to score points . . . then complain when they get smacked back. But, this being the internet is why it only shocks me a little.

She also gave me an infraction for reposting about it. It may be best if we just leave it be. Thanks for the replies though.

vifesprit.3514:

I want to thank John Corpening. He proves to me that a certain degree of transparency in ANET communication is possible.

THIS is a good example of what it should be.

For the first time in many years, we have information on the future of the game and we can react before changes are made.

I do hope everyone remembers that that post is absolutely meaningless except that it says what they’re thinking. And that is a good thing, because if they can say stuff like that with the knowledge that it is meaningless, then they can discuss the future of the game and new ideas without breaking their policy. Tho as mentioned many times, it is still an asinine policy.

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

Well people need to realize you get what you pay for, and this system is set up that anet is not really rewarded for anything but the initial game sales, and bltc.

Hence we get bltc stuff constantly, and a development that tries to focus on new players. There is very little direct profit in speaking to us anymore, (back when they needed to market towards tons of players of existing games, we heard a great deal of details, plans, visions, etc) They no longer get as much direct bang for their buck, speaking so they dont.

vifesprit.3514:

I want to thank John Corpening. He proves to me that a certain degree of transparency in ANET communication is possible.

THIS is a good example of what it should be.

For the first time in many years, we have information on the future of the game and we can react before changes are made.

yeah, i will admit, corpenings method of working with players to build the game better, seems to be really good, and possibly useful. I also think the concept they have for testing something live, and being willing to change them fairly quickly is a winning strategy (as long as they can change them fast).

Still, thats like having a good leader on the battlefield in a war. But most people need the overall what are we fighting this war for, as well as good leadership.

Combine an overall path that people understand and believe in, with Corpenings communication and presentation of strategies, and i think you will have most players incredibly satisfied with player/developer interaction, and willing to invest more time/money/thought in the game, feeling good while doing it.

phys.7689:

Still, thats like having a good leader on the battlefield in a war. But most people need the overall what are we fighting this war for, as well as good leadership.

Combine an overall path that people understand and believe in, with Corpenings communication and presentation of strategies, and i think you will have most players incredibly satisfied with player/developer interaction, and willing to invest more time/money/thought in the game, feeling good while doing it.

I look at this analogy and shake my head when a vision of the ‘roadmap’ comes to mind. The sad irony is that history shows us the worst thing you can do before going onto a battlefield is give an Officer a map. -__-

Based on this the ‘Officer’ in question should probably have a bit more faith in his senior soldiers to lead their troops (people who have been on the ground a while, know what to expect, can advise the Officer of potential hazards, advantages, etc.), and the Officer can keep command and safely oversee the battle. It’s not so dissimilar in laying out the future for this game.

That said, however, I do agree with the rest of the post.

was hanging out in ol hoelbrak today pondering the meaning of norn, when I noticed in map chat people were saying they dont think people even work at ANET anymore. THe convo became so toxic people really believed that theres maybe, 12-20 people that work at ANET just to make sure the server stays up while the load up no gem store items. If people actually believe this (as ridiculous as it sounds) thats a problem. The fact that people could possibly even hold a convo for over 30 minutes over that and sound almost like they knew what they were talking about is down right awful. Im an ANET white knight for the most part but seriously…. seriously… people are saying and feeling a wicked way towards the developers. We all LOVE this game, its why we’re here, and its also why many players ARENT here, because they feel like they like the game more than ANET does

I had a conversation for over thirty minutes over how Evon Gnashblade is to blame for Zhaitan taking over Orr. And if we’d voted for him LA would have been worse off. All in good fun, honestly.

Another time, we began discussing the aerodynamics of asura and skritt strapped to black powder charges and their usefulness against Jormag in case of golem failure.

It’s not that hard to get mindless topics rolling in map chat with enough people playing along.

Roybe.5896:

I am generally unhappy with most of the changes that have been made to this game as it is slowly moving it closer to a ‘cookie cutter’ MMO, something I do not want to play. However, you guys go on trying to remake the game into something else, someday you will have what you want, another vanilla MMO without any way to discern itself from others out there.

You hate perma content and love time gated, temp content that punishes a person for not playing but then say you rue the day that GW2 will become another “vanilla MMO”? You do realize that “vanilla MMO’s” revolve around gear/stat treadmills that punish a person for not playing right? You can’t take time off in a typical mmo. That’s time lost that could have been spent grinding best in stats, and if you wait long enough, you may have an entire new level of gear to ascend to making your life even more miserable because no one will be left to grind your current gear tier.

LS1.0 was no different in a sense. If I took off the month that the Tower of Nightmare was around I was kittened. I’d log off with the zone looking fresh as frebreeze and log in ~30 days later to see everything messed up and a broken tower in the middle of the lake with no way to experience said content at all. Up until recently, I couldn’t even get many of the skins that came as part of the event, never mind the guaranteed gem store plugins that are almost always limited time only.

LS2.0 is a complete xboxone80. Now chapters can be bought if not unlocked and played at the player’s leisure with optional grind ensuring that people are still in dry top to this day. It is far more in line with what GW2 was built on and doesn’t make people feel like they have to log in, the very freedom a semi-casual, B2P game is supposed to be about.

I feel like you decided to just sling “vanilla MMO” as some sort of platitude derogatory term rather than even think about what you were describing…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I had a conversation for over thirty minutes over how Evon Gnashblade is to blame for Zhaitan taking over Orr. And if we’d voted for him LA would have been worse off. All in good fun, honestly.

Another time, we began discussing the aerodynamics of asura and skritt strapped to black powder charges and their usefulness against Jormag in case of golem failure.

It’s not that hard to get mindless topics rolling in map chat with enough people playing along.

I think the point he was making is, based on what anet has said/done in recent history they have as much evidence for those theories as he can have against them. If anet had different policies on communication, what they were talking about would be disproved.
To be honest i dont feel like there has been more change to the game than i experienced while playing champions online for 2 years, which was known to have a fairly small team in comparison at the time.

If I was forced to guess, I’d guess that they intended to announce “something” a month ago or earlier, but they decided to wait until they reached a certain threshold, one that has still not been achieved. So they’re constantly on the precipice of being able to announce whatever vague thing they’re doing.

Of course, I have no more evidence for this than the people do about absolutely nothing coming down the pipeline. So yeah.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m sort of writing to think, but I’d like to understand what truly reaches the point of “I’d like more info, but I’m satisfied with what you’ve been able to tell us right now.” Can you give me a few examples, where players would really like to know everything, but where there is a level of disclosure that meets the basic info request?

Personally, I like looking forward to something. I don’t mind what it is, but if I even had a general feel that something was coming, something was actively being worked on, then I would look forward to that content. But the key word for me is “actively” as in – “We are actively working on some new lands for the future, we are actively making new events for the future, we are actively building new jumping puzzles for the future”.

I don’t need to know WHEN, I don’t need to know WHAT, I just need to know that SOMETHING is being made, and that is an ongoing process. Because at the moment, it feels like NOTHING is being made, except for redoing old level 1-10 content or filming some long cutscenes for a “story” segment.

With other MMOs that produce monthly content and a 6-12 monthly expansion, I know that it is going to happen one day, and I look forward to the eventual announcements and additions to the game. But in GW2 (which I pay more for per month than I did for other MMOs), for the last 2+ years now, I have never had that feeling or “something is coming one day!” except for looking at the world map and seeing the blank areas which, frankly, really hasn’t changed since beta, except for Southsun a month after launch and half of Drytop 2 years later.

Which is pretty poor for a game that claims to be very successful…

I would just like to know if these content breaks become a regular thing. IMO these are horrible and this year isn’t as enjoyable because this is already the third one since december last year.

Last year we visited the norn and charr before going to the beach and partying in LA and divinity, trading with some travelers, fighting of evil plant and snakeguys.

This year LA got destroyed and is in ruines since, we got to party again in divinity and traded with the travelers before they crashed in the sand, where they still are.

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

I’m not sure I understand this line of thought. NCSoft owned ArenaNet during Guild Wars (One) as well. No changes as far as ownership goes. Why are they ‘running the show’ now, and were not then?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

I’m not sure I understand this line of thought. NCSoft owned ArenaNet during Guild Wars (One) as well. No changes as far as ownership goes. Why are they ‘running the show’ now, and were not then?

That’s because back during GW, NCSOFT wasn’t controlled by F2P giant Nexon who are secretly controlled by The Gnomes of Zurich.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

ipan.4356:

Look CIG (Star Citizen) if you want an example of a company ought to communicate with it’s players.

Well that’s because it’s also a continuing sales pitch. I don’t think a week goes by without another “Star Citizen has now raised +1 million more” announcement. More hype equals more donors.

And GW2 doesn’t need money?

CIG communicates regularly because they are crowd funded. In a sense all games are crowd funded — the difference is when.

ANet really isn’t running the show imho — NCSoft is. That’s why I think we’re in this boat. If ANet was the ANet of the GW1 era, you’d see a different product at this point.

I’m not sure I understand this line of thought. NCSoft owned ArenaNet during Guild Wars (One) as well. No changes as far as ownership goes. Why are they ‘running the show’ now, and were not then?

Yeah you are right — so I can’t blame NCSoft via correlation, bummer. That was a nice out. Point on money and communication still valid.